rious thought, I should think I am paid, for all I to, that the most harmless members of society have said, and all I have done, though I have run, should receive no advantage of its laws, or should many a time, after a rhyme, as far as from hence, be the only persons in the world who should de to the end of my sense, and by hook or crook, rive no benefit from those institutions, without write another book, if I live and am here, another which society can not subsist. Neither of them year. could mean to throw down the pale of property, and to lay the Christian part of the world open, throughout all ages, to the incursions of unlimited violence and wrong. I have heard before, of a room with a floor, laid upon springs, and such like things, with so much art, in every part, that when you went in, you was forced to begin a minuet pace, with an air and a By this time you are sufficiently aware, that I grace, swimming about, now in and now out, with think you have an undisputable right to recover a deal of state, in a figure of eight, without pipe or at law what is so dishonestly withheld from you. string, or any such thing; and now I have writ, in a The fellow, I suppose, has discernment enough rhyming fit, what will make you dance, and as you to see a difference between you and the generality advance, will keep you still, though against your of the clergy; and cunning enough to conceive will, dancing away, alert and gay, till you come the purpose of turning your meekness and forto an end of what I have penn'd; which that you bearance to good account, and of coining them may do, ere Madam and you are quite worn out with jigging about, I take my leave, and here you receive, a bow profound, down to the ground, from your humble meW. C. TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. MY DEAR FRIEND, into hard cash, which he means to put in his pocket. But I would disappoint him, and show him, that though a Christian is not to be quarrelsome, he is not to be crushed-and that though he is but a worm before God, he is not such a worm, as every selfish unprincipled wretch may tread upon at his pleasure. I lately heard a story from a lady, who has spent many years of her life in France, somewhat to the HAVING given the case you laid before me in present purpose. An Abbé, universally esteemed your last all due consideration, I proceed to an- for his piety, and especially for the meekness of swer it; and in order to clear my way, shall, in his manners, had, yet undesignedly, given some the first place, set down my sense of those passages offence to a shabby fellow in his parish. The man, in Scripture which, on a hasty perusal, seem to concluding he might do as he pleased with so forclash with the opinion I am going to give-"if a giving and gentle a character, struck him on one man smite one cheek, turn the other."- "If he cheek, and bade him turn the other. The good take thy cloak, let him take thy coat also."-That man did so, and when he had received the two is, I suppose, rather than on a vindictive principle slaps, which he thought himself obliged to submit avail yourself of that remedy the law allows you, to, turned again, and beat him soundly. I do not in the way of retaliation, for that was the subject wish to see you follow the French gentleman's immediately under the discussion of the speaker. example, but I believe nobody that has heard the Nothing is so contrary to the genius of the Gospel, story condemns him much for the spirit he showed as the gratification of resentment and revenge; upon the occasion. but I can not easily persuade myself to think, that I had the relation from Lady Austen,* sister to the author of that dispensation could possibly ad- Mrs. Jones, wife of the minister at Clifton. She vise his followers to consult their own peace at the is a most agreeable woman, and has fallen in love expense of the peace of society, or inculcate an with your mother and me; insomuch, that I do universal abstinence from the use of lawful reme-not know but she may settle at Olney. Yesterdies, to the encouragement of injury and oppres-day se'ennight we all dined together in the Spinnic-a most delightful retirement, belonging to sion. St Paul again seems to condemn the practice Mrs. Throckmorton of Weston. Lady Austen's of going to law, "Why do ye not rather suffer lackey, and a lad that waits on me in the garden, wrong? &c." But if we look again, we shall find drove a wheelbarrow full of eatables and drinkathat a litigious temper had obtained, and was pre-bles to the scene of our Fête Champêtre. A board valent among the professors of the day. This he laid over the top of the wheelbarrow served us for condemned, and with good reason; it was un- a table; our dining-room was a root-house lined seemly to the last degree, that the disciples of the with moss and ivy. At six o'clock, the servants, Prince of Peace should worry and vex each other who had dined under a great elm upon the ground, with injurious treatment, and unnecessary dis- at a little distance, boiled the kettle, and the said putes, to the scandal of their religion in the eyes of the heathen. But surely he did not mean any Widow of Sir Robert Austen, Bart, and the lady aliuded nore than his Master, in the place above alluded to in the advertisement prefixed to the Task. Yours, with our joint love, W. C. TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. wheelbarrow served us for a tea-table. We then | friend, and your obliging self, having allowed me the took a walk into the wilderness, about half a mile liberty of application, I make it without apology. off, and were at home again a little after eight, The solitude, or rather the duality of our conhaving spent the day together from noon till eve-dition at Olney, seems drawing to a conclusion. ning, without one cross occurrence, or the least You have not forgot, perhaps, that the building weariness of each other. A happiness few parties we inhabit consists of two mansions. And beof pleasure can boast of. cause you have only seen the inside of that part of it which is in our occupation, I therefore inform you, that the other end of it is by far the most superb, as well as the most commodious. Lady Austen has seen it, has set her heart upon it, is going to fit it up and furnish it, and if she can get rid of the remaining two years of the lease WE rejoice with you sincerely in the birth of of her London house, will probably enter upon it in another son, and in the prospect you have of Mrs. a twelve-month. You will be pleased with this Unwin's recovery; may your three children, and intelligence, because I have already told you, that the next three, when they shall make their ap- she is a woman perfectly well-bred, sensible, and pearance, prove so many blessings to their parents, in every respect agreeable; and above all, because and make you wish that you had twice the num- she loves your mother dearly. It has in my eyes ber. But what made you expect daily that you (and I doubt not it will have the same in yours) should hear from me? Letter for letter is the law strong marks of providential interposition. A feof all correspondence whatsoever, and because I male friend, and one who bids fair to prove herwrote last, I have indulged myself for some time self worthy of the appellation, comes, recommended in expectation of a sheet from you.-Not that I by a variety of considerations, to such a place as govern myself entirely by the punctilio of reciprocation, but having been pretty much occupied of late, I was not sorry to find myself at liberty to exercise my discretion, and furnished with a good excuse if I choose to be silent. Olney. Since Mr. Newton went, and till this lady came, there was not in the kingdom a retirement more absolutely such than ours. We did not want company, but when it came, we found it agreeable. A person that has seen much of the I expected, as you remember, to have been pub-world, and understands it well, has high spirits, lished last spring, and was disappointed. The a lively fancy, and great readiness of conversation, delay has afforded me an opportunity to increase introduces a sprightliness into such a scene as this, the quantity of my publication by about a third; which if it was peaceful before, is not the worse and if my muse has not forsaken me, which I for being a little enlivened. In case of illness too, rather suspect to be the case, may possibly yet add to which all are liable, it was rather a gloomy prosto it. I have a subject in hand, which promises pect, if we allowed ourselves to advert to it, that me a great abundance of poetical matter, but there was hardly a woman in the place from whom which, for want of a something I am not able to it would have been reasonable to have expected describe, I can not at present proceed with. The either comfort or assistance. The present curate's name of it is Retirement, and my purpose, to re- wife is a valuable person, but has a family of her commend the proper improvement of it, to set forth own, and though a neighbour, is not a very near the requisites for that end, and to enlarge upon one. But if this plan is effected, we shall be in a the happiness of that state of life, when managed manner one family, and I suppose never pass a as it ought to be. In the course of my journey day without some intercourse with each other. through this ample theme, I should wish to touch upon the characters, the deficiencies, and the mistakes of thousands, who enter on a scene of retirement, unqualified for it in every respect, and with such designs as to have no tendency to promote either their own happiness or that of others. But as I have told you before, there are times when am no more a poet than I am a mathematician; MY DEAR FRIEND, and when such a time occurs, I always think it WHAT a world are you daily conversant with, better to give up the point, than to labour it in which I have not seen these twenty years, and vain. I shall yet again be obliged to trouble you shall never see again! The arts of dissipation (I for franks; the addition of three thousand lines, suppose) are no where practised with more refineor near that number, having occasioned a demand ment or success, than at the place of your present which I did not always foresee; but your obliging residence. By your account of it, it seems to be Your mother sends her warm affections, and welcomes into the world the new-born William. Yours, my dear friend, W. C. TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. October 6, 1781. cock, but knows no more of verse than the cock he imitates. Yours, W. C. Just what it was when I visited it, a scene of idleness and luxury, music, dancing, cards, walking, riding, bathing, eating, drinking, coffee, tea, scan- Whoever supposes that Lady Austen's fortune dal, dressing, yawning, sleeping, the rooms per- is precarious, is mistaken. I can assure you, upon haps more magnificent, because the proprietors are the ground of the most circumstantial and authengrown richer, but the manners and occupations tic information, that it is both genteel and perof the company just the same. Though my life fectly safe. has long been like that of a recluse, I have not the temper of one, nor am I in the least an enemy to cheerfulness and good humour; but I can not envy you your situation; I even feel myself constrained to prefer the silence of this nook, and the snug fireside in our own diminutive parlour, to all the splendour and gaiety of Brighton. TO MRS. COWPER. MY DEAR COUSIN, Oct. 19, 1781. YOUR fear lest I should think you unworthy of my correspondence, on account of your delay to You ask me, how I feel on the occasion of my answer, may change sides now, and more properly approaching publication? Perfectly at my ease. belongs to me. It is long since I received your If I had not been pretty well assured before hand last, and yet I believe I can say truly, that not a that my tranquillity would be but little endangered post has gone by me since the receipt of it, that by such a measure, I would never have engaged in has not reminded me of the debt I owe you, for it; for I can not bear disturbance. I have had in your obliging and unreserved communications both view two principal objects; first to amuse myself; in prose and verse, especially for the latter, because and secondly, to compass that point in such a man- I consider them as marks of your peculiar confiner, that others might possibly be the better for dence. The truth is, I have been such a versemy amusement. If I have succeeded, it will give maker myself, and so busy in preparing a volume me pleasure; but if I have failed, I shall not be for the press, which I imagine will make its apmortified to the degree that might perhaps be ex-pearance in the course of the winter, that I hardly pected. I remember an old adage (though not had leisure to listen to the calls of any other enwhere it is to be found), bene vixit, qui bene latuit, gagement. It is however finished, and gone to and if I had recollected it at the right time, it the printer's, and I have nothing now to do with should have been the motto to my book. By the it, but to correct the sheets as they are sent to way, it will make an excellent one for Retire- me, and consign it over to the judgment of the pubment, if you can but tell me whom to quote for it. lic. It is a bold undertaking at this time of day, The critics can not deprive me of the pleasure I when so many writers of the greatest abilities have have in reflecting, that so far as my leisure has gone before, who seem to have anticipated every been employed in writing for the public, has valuable subject, as well as all the graces of poetibeen conscientiously employed, and with a view cal embellishment, to step forth into the world in to their advantage. There is nothing agreeable, the character of a bard, especially when it is conto be sure, in being chronicled for a dunce; but I sidered, that luxury, idleness, and vice, have debelieve there lives not a man upon earth, who bauched the public taste, and that nothing hardly would be less affected by it than myself. With is welcome but childish fiction, or what has at least all this indifference to fame, which you know me a tendency to excite a laugh. I thought, however, too well to suppose me capable of affecting, I have that I had stumbled upon some subjects, that had taken the utmost pains to deserve it. This may never before been poetically treated, and upon appear a mystery or a paradox in practice, but it some others, to which I imagined it would not be is true. I considered that the taste of the day is difficult to give an air of novelty by the manner refined, and delicate to excess, and that to disgust of treating them. My sole drift is to be useful; that delicacy of taste, by a slovenly inattention to a point which however I knew I should in vain it, would be to forfeit at once all hope of being aim at, unless I could be likewise entertaining. I useful; and for this reason, though I have written have therefore fixed these two strings upon my more verse this last year, than perhaps any man bow, and by the help of both have done my best in England, I have finished, and polished, and to send my arrow to the mark. My readers will touched, and retouched, with the utmost care. hardly have begun to laugh, before they will be If after all I should be converted into waste paper, called upon to correct that levity and peruse me it may be my misfortune, but it will not be my with a more serious air. As to the effect, I leave fault. I shall bear it with the most perfect se- it alone in His hands, who can alone produce it: renity. neither prose nor verse can reform the manners I do not mean to give a copy: he is a of a dissolute age, much less can they inspire a good-natured little man, and crows exactly like a sense of religious obligation, unless assisted and made efficacious by the power who superintends to turn his affections toward their proper centre. the truth he has vouchsafed to impart. But when I see or hear of a crowd of voluptuaries, You made my heart ache with a sympathetic who have no ears but for music, no eyes but for sorrow, when you described the state of your mind splendour, and no tongue but for impertinence and on occasion of your late visit into Hertfordshire. folly-I say, or at least I see occasion to sayHad I been previously informed of your journey This is madness-This persisted in must have a before you made it, I should have been able to tragical conclusion-It will condemn you, not only have foretold all your feeling with the most un- as christians unworthy of the name, but as intellierring certainty of prediction. You will never gent creatures-You know by the light of nature, cease to feel upon that subject; but with your prin- if you have not quenched it, that there is a God, ciples of resignation, and acquiescence in the di- and that a life like yours can not be according to vine will, you will always feel as becomes a chris- his will. tian. We are forbidden to murmur, but we are I ask no pardon of you for the gravity and gloominot forbidden to regret; and whom we loved ten-ness of these reflections, which I stumbled on when derly while living, we may still pursue with an af- I least expected it; though, to say the truth, these fectionate remembrance, without having any oc- or others of a like complexion are sure to occur to casion to charge ourselves with rebellion against me when I think of a scene of public diversion the sovereignty that appointed a separation. A like that you have lately left. day is coming, when I am confident you will see and know, that mercy to both parties was the principal agent in a scene, the recollection of which is still painful. W. C. I am inclined to hope that Johnson told you the truth, when he said he should publish me soon after Christmas. His press has been rather more punctual in its remittances, than it used to be; we have now but little more than two of the longest pieces, and the small ones that are to follow, by way of epilogue, to print off, and then the affair is finished. But once more I am obliged to gape for franks; only these, which I hope will be the last I shall want, at yours and Mr. nient leisure. -'s conve TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. MY DEAR FRIEND, Nov. 5, 1781. I GIVE you joy of your safe return from the lips of the great deep. You did not indeed discern many signs of sobriety, or true wisdom, among the We rejoice that you have so much reason to be people of Brighthelmstone, but it is not possible to satisfied with John's proficiency. The more spiobserve the manners of a multitude, of whatever rit he has, the better, if his spirit is but managearank, without learning something; I mean, if a ble, and put under such management as your pruman has a mind like yours, capable of reflection. dence and Mrs. Unwin's will suggest. I need not If he sees nothing to imitate, he is sure to see guard you against severity, of which I conclude something to avoid; if nothing to congratulate his there is no need, and which I am sure you are not fellow creatures upon, at least much to excite his at all inclined to practise without it; but perhaps compassion. There is not, I think, so melancholy if I was to whisper beware of too much in dulgence a sight in the world (an hospital is not to be com--I should only give a hint that the fondness of a pared with it) as that of a thousand persons dis-father for a fine boy might seem to justify. I have tinguished by the name of gentry, who, gentle no particular reason for the caution, at this disperhaps by nature, and made more gentle by edu-tance it is not possible I should, but in a case like cation, have the appearance of being innocent and yours, an admonition of that sort seldom wants inoffensive, yet being destitute of all religion, or propriety. Yours, my dear friend, W. C. not at all governed by the religion they profess, are none of them at any great distance from an eternal state, where self-deception will be impossible, and where amusements can not enter. of them, we inay say, will be reclaimed-it is most MY DEAR FRIEND, probable indeed that some of them will, because I WROTE to you by the last post, supposing you mercy, if one may be allowed the expression, is at Stock; but lest that letter should not follow you fond of distinguishing itself by seeking its objects to Laytonstone, and you should suspect me of unamong the most desperate class; but the Scripture reasonable delay, and lest the frank you have sent gives no encouragement to the warmest charity to me should degenerate into waste paper, and perish hope for deliverance for them all. When I see an upon my hands, I write again. The former leafflicted and an unhappy man, I say to myself, ter, however, containing all my present stock of there is perhaps a man whom the world would intelligence, it is more than possible that this may envy, if they knew the value of his sorrows, which prove a blank, or but little worthy your acceptance. are possibly intended only to soften his heart, and You will do me the justice to suppose, that if I Some TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. Nov. 26, 1781. for nothing indeed when you have got it, but still the best that is to be expected from a crab-tree. You are welcome to them, such as they are, and if you approve my sentiments, tell the philosophers of the day, that I have outshot them all, and have discovered the true origin of society, when I least looked for it. could be very entertaining, I would be so, because, | thing more than guts to satisfy; there are the yearnby giving me credit for such a willingness to please, ings of the heart, which, let philosophers say what you only allow me a share of that universal vani- they will, are more importunate than all the necesty, which inclines every man, upon all occasions, sities of the body, that will not suffer a creature, to exhibit himself to the best advantage. To say worthy to be called human, to be contented with the truth, however, when I write, as I do to you, an insulated life, or to look for his friends among not about business, nor on any subject that ap- the beasts of the forest. Yourself, for instance! proaches to that description, I mean much less my It is not because there are no tailors or pastry-cooks correspondent's amusement, which my modesty to be found upon Salisbury plain, that you do not will not always permit me to hope for, than my choose it for your abode, but because you are own. There is a pleasure annexed to the commu- a philanthropist-because you are susceptible nication of one's ideas, whether by word of mouth, of social impressions, and have a pleasure in doing or by letter, which nothing earthly can supply the a kindness when you can. Now upon the word place of, and it is the delight we find in this mu- of a poor creature, I have said all that I have said, tual intercourse, that not only proves us to be crea-without the least intention to say one word of it tures intended for social life, but more than any when I began. But thus it is with my thoughts thing else perhaps fits us for it. I have no patience when you shake a crab-tree the fruit falls; good with philosophers-they, one and all, suppose (at least I understand it to be a prevailing opinion among them) that man's weakness, his necessities, his inability to stand alone, have furnished the prevailing motive, under the influence of which he renounced at first a life of solitude, and became a gregarious creature. It seems to me more reasonable, as well as more honourable to my species, to suppose, that generosity of soul, and a brotherly attachment to our own kind, drew us, as it were, TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. to one common centre, taught us to build cities, and inhabit them, and welcome every stranger, MY DEAR FRIEND, Jan. 5, 1782. that would cast in his lot amongst us, that we DID I allow myself to plead the common excuse might enjoy fellowship with each other, and the of idle correspondents, and esteem it a sufficient luxury of reciprocal endearments, without which reason for not writing, that I have nothing to write a paradise could afford no comfort. There are in- about, I certainly should not write now. But I deed all sorts of characters in the world; there are have so often found, on similar occasions, when a some whose understandings are so sluggish, and great penury of matter has seemed to threaten me whose hearts are such mere clods, that they live in with an utter impossibility of hatching a letter, society without either contributing to the sweets that nothing is necessary but to put pen to paper, of it, or having any relish for them. A man of and go on, in order to conquer all difficulties; that, this stamp passes by our window continually-I availing myself of past experience, I now begin never saw him conversing with a neighbour but with a most assured persuasion, that sooner or later, once in my life, though I have known him by sight one idea naturally suggesting another, I shall come these twelve years; he is of a very sturdy make, to a most prosperous conclusion. and has a round belly, extremely protuberant, In the last Review, I mean in the last but one, which he evidently considers as his best friend, be- I saw Johnson's critique upon Prior and Pope. I cause it is his only companion, and it is the labour am bound to acquiesce in his opinion of the latter, of his life to fill it. I can easily conceive, that it because it has always been my own. I could never is merely the love of good eating and drinking, agree with those who preferred him to Dryden; and now and then the want of a new pair of shoes, nor with others (I have known such, and persons that attaches this man so much to the neighbour-of taste and discernment too) who could not allow hood of his fellow mortals; for suppose these exi- him to be a poet at all. He was certainly a megencies, and others of a like kind, to subsist no chanical maker of verses, and in every line he ever longer, and what is there that could possibly give wrote, we see indubitable marks of most indefatisociety the preference in his esteem? He might gable industry and labour. Writers who find it strut about with his two thumbs upon his hips in necessary to make such strenuous and painful exthe wilderness, he could hardly be more silent than ertions, are generally as phlegmatic as they are he is at Olney, and for any advantage, or comfort, correct; but Pope was, in this respect, exempted or friendship, or brotherly affection, he could not from the common lot of authors of that class. be more destitute of such blessings there, than in With the unwearied application of a plodding Flenis present situation. But other men have some mish painter, who draws a shrimp with the most |