pleased indeed that he censures some things, than tertaining notices and remarks in the natural way I should have been with unmixed commendation, The hurry in which I write would not suffer me for his censure will (to use the new diplomatic to send you many in return, had I many to send, term) accredit his praises. In his particular re- but only two or three present themselves. Frogs will feed on worms. I saw a frog gather ing into his gullet an earth-worm as long as himself; it cost him time and labour, but at last he succeeded. marks he is for the most part right, and I shall be the better for them; but in his general ones I think he asserts too largely, and more than he could prove. With respect to inversions in particular, I know that they do not abound. Once they Mrs. Unwin and I, crossing a brook, saw from did, and I had Milton's example for it, not dis- the foot-bridge somewhat at the bottom of the waapproved by Addison. But on 's remonter which had the appearance of a flower. Ob strance against them, I expunged the most, and serving it attentively, we found that it consisted in my new edition shall have fewer still. I know of a circular assemblage of minnows; their heads that they give dignity, and am sorry to part with all met in a centre; and their tails diverging at them, but, to parody an old proverb, he who lives equal distances, and being elevated above their in the year ninety-three, must do as in the year heads, gave them the appearance of a flower half ninety-three is done by others. The same remark blown. One was longer than the rest; and as often I have to make on his censure of inharmonious as a straggler came in sight, he quitted his place lines. I know them to be much fewer than he as- to pursue him, and having driven him away, he serts, and not more in number than I accounted returned to it again, no other minnow offering to indispensably necessary to a due variation of ca- take it in his absence. This we saw him do sedence. I have, however, now in conformity with veral times. The object that had attached them modern taste, (overmuch delicate in my mind) all was a dead minnow, which they seemed to be given to a far greater number of them a flow as devouring. smooth as oil. A few I retain, and will, in com W. C. After a very rainy day, I saw on one of the pliment to my own judgment. He thinks me too flower borders what seemed a long hair, but it faithful to compound epithets in the introductory had a waving, twining motion. Considering more lines, and I know his reason. He fears, lest the nearly, I found it alive, and endued with spontaEnglish reader should blame Homer, whom he neity, but could not discover at the ends of it either idolizes, though hardly more than I, for such con- head or tail, or any distinction of parts. I carried stant repetition. But them I shall not alter. They it into the house, when the air of a warm room. are necessary to a just representation of the origi- dried and killed it presently. nal. In the affair of Outis, I shall throw him flat on his back by an unanswerable argument, which I shall give in a note, and with which I am furnished by Mrs. Unwin. So much for hypercriticism, which has run away with all my paper. This critic by the way is - I know him by infallible indications. W. C. TO THE REV. MR. HURDIS. MY DEAR SIR, TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESQ. Feb. 24, 1793. YOUR letter (so full of kindness, and so exactly in unison with my own feelings for you) should have had, as it deserved to have, an earlier answer, had I not been perpetually tormented with inflamed eyes, which are a sad hindrance to me in every thing. But to make amends, if I do not Weston, Feb. 23, 1793. send you an early answer, I send you at least a My eyes, which have long been inflamed, will speedy one, being obliged to write as fast as my hardly serve me for Homer, and oblige me to make pen can trot, that I may shorten the time of poring all my letters short. You have obliged me much upon paper as much as possible. Homer too has by sending me so speedily the remainder of your been another hindrance, for always when I can notes. I have begun with them again, and find see, which is only about two hours every morning, them, as before, very much to the purpose. More and not at all by candlelight, I devote myself to to the purpose they could not have been, had you him, being in haste to send him a second time to been poetry professor already. I rejoice sincerely the press, that nothing may stand in the way of in the prospect you have of that office, which, Milton. By the way, where are my dear Tom's whatever may be your own thoughts of the mat- remarks, which I long to have, and must have ter, I am sure you will fill with great sufficiency. soon, or they will come too late? Would that my interest and power to serve you Oh! you rogue! what would you give to have were greater! One string to my bow I have, and such a dream about Milton, as I had about a week one only, which shall not be idle for want of my since? I dreamed that being in a house in the city, exertions. I thank you likewise for your very en- and with much company, looking towards the Yours sincerely, W. C. TO MR. THOMAS HAYLEY. Weston, March 14, 1793. MY DEAR LITTLE CRITIC, lower end of the room from the upper end of it, I race, and I have a horror both of them and their descried a figure which I immediately knew to be principles. Tacitus is certainly living now, and Milton's. He was very gravely, but very neatly the quotations you sent me can be nothing but exattired in the fashion of his day, and had a coun- tracts from some letter of his to yourself. tenance which filled me with those feelings that an affectionate child has for a beloved father, such, for instance, as Tom has for you. My first thought was wonder, where he could have been concealed so many years; my second, a transport of joy to find him still alive; my third, another transport to find myself in his company; and my fourth, a resolution to accost him. I did so, and he received I THANK you heartily for your observations, on me with a complacence, in which I saw equal which I set an higher value, because they have sweetness and dignity. I spoke of his Paradise instructed me as much, and have entertained me Lost, as every man must, who is worthy to speak more than all the other strictures of our public of it at all, and told him a long story of the man- judges in these matters. Perhaps I am not much ner in which it affected me, when I first discovered more pleased with shameless wolf, &c. than you. it, being at that time a schoolboy. He answered But what is to be done, my little man? Coarse as me by a smile, and a gentle inclination of his head. He then grasped my hand affectionately, and with a smile that charmed me, said, "Well, you for your part will do well also;" at last recollecting his great age (for I understood him to be two hunred years old) I feared that I might fatigue him by much talking, I took my leave, and he took his, with an air of the most perfect good breeding. His person, his features, his manner, were all so perfectly characteristic, that I am persuaded an apparition of him could not represent him more completely. This may be said to have been one of the dreams of Pindus, may it not? the expressions are, they are no more than equivalent to those of Homer. The invective of the ancients was never tempered with good manners, as your papa can tell you: and my business, you know, is, not to be more polite than my author, but to represent him as closely as I can. Dishonour'd foul I have wiped away for the reason you give, which is a very just one, and the present reading is this, Who had dar'd dishonour thus The life itself, &c. Your objection to kindler of the fires of Heaven How truly I rejoice that you have recovered I had the good fortune to anticipate, and expunged Guy; that man won my heart the moment I saw the dirty ambiguity some time since, wondering him; give my love to him, and tell him I am truly not a little that I had ever admitted it. glad he is alive again. There is much sweetness in those lines from the sonneteer of Avon, and not a little in dear Tom's, an earnest, I trust, of good things to come. With Mary's kind love, I must now conclude myself, My dear brother, ever yours, LIPPUS. TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT. MY DEAR FRIEND, Weston, March 4, 1793. SINCE I received your last I have been much indisposed, very blind, and very busy. But I have The fault you find with the two first verses of Nestor's speech discovers such a degree of just discernment, that but for your papa's assurance to the contrary, I must have suspected him as the author of that remark: much as I should have respected it, if it had been so, I value it, I assure you, my little friend, still more as yours. In the new edition the passage will be found thus altered: Alas! great sorrow falls on Greece to-day, Where the word reel suggests to you the idea not suffered all these evils at one and the same of a drunken mountain, it performs the service to time. While the winter lasted I was miserable which I destined it. It is a bold metaphor; but with a fever on my spirits; when the spring began justified by one of the sublimest passages in scripto approach I was seized with an inflammation in ture, compared with the sublimity of which even my eyes; and ever since I have been able to use that of Homer suffers humiliation. them, have been employed in giving more last ouches to Homer, who is on the point of going to the press again. It is God himself, who, speaking, I think, by the prophet Isaiah, says, "The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkThough you are Tory, I believe, and I am ard." With equal boldness, in the same scripture, Whig, our sentiments concerning the madcaps of the poetry of which was never equalled, mountains France are much the same. They are a terrible are said to skip, to break out into singing, and the fields to clap their hands. I intend, therefore, that | business. Adieu! The clock strikes eight; and my Olympus shall be still tipsy. now for Homer. The accuracy of your last remark, in which you convicted me of a bull, delights me. A fig for all critics but you! The blockheads could not find it. It shall stand thus, First spake Polydamas W. C. TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESQ. Homer was more upon his guard than to commit event of your transaction with Johnson, since you such a blunder, for he says, TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESQ. MY DEAR HAYLEY, I know partake with me in the pleasure I receive from it. Few of my concerns have been so hap pily concluded. I am now satisfied with my bookseller, as I have substantial cause to be, and account myself in good hands; a circumstance as pleasant to me as any other part of my business; for I love dearly to be able to confide with all my heart in those with whom I am connected, of what kind soever the connexion may be. The question of printing or not printing the alterations, seems difficult to decide. If they are not printed, I shall perhaps disoblige some purchasers of the first edition; and if they are, many others Weston, March 19, 1793. of them, perhaps a great majority, will never care I AM SO busy every morning before breakfast about them. As far as I have gone I have made (my only opportunity), strutting and stalking in a fair copy, and when I have finished the whole, Homeric stilts, that you ought to account it an in- will send them to Johnson, together with the instance of marvellous grace and favour, that I con- terleaved volumes. He will see in a few minutes descend to write even to you. Sometimes I am what it will be best to do, and by his judgment I seriously almost crazed with the multiplicity of the shall be determined. The opinion to which I most matters before me, and the little or no time that I incline is, that they ought to be printed separately, have for them; and sometimes I repose myself for they are many of them rather long, here and after the fatigue of that distraction on the pillow there a whole speech, or a whole simile, and the of despair; a pillow which has often served me in verbal and lineal variations are so numerous, that time of need, and is become, by frequent use, if not altogether, I apprehend, they will give a new air very comfortable, at least convenient! So reposed, to the work, and I hope a much improved one. I laugh at the world, and say, "Yes, you may gape and expect both Homer and Milton from me, but I'll be hanged if ever you get them." I forgot to say in the proper place that some notes, although but very few, I have added already, and may perhaps see here and there opportunity In Homer you must know I am advanced as far for a few more. But notes being little wanted, esas the fifteenth book of the Iliad, leaving nothing pecially by people at all conversant with classical behind me that can reasonably offend the most literature, as most readers of Homer are, I am perfastidious: and I design him for public appearance suaded that, were they numerous, they would be in his new dress as soon as possible, for a reason deemed an incumbrance. I shall write to Johnson which any poet may guess, if he will but thrust soon, perhaps to-morrow, and then shall say the his hand into his pocket. same thing to him. You forbid me to tantalize you with an invita- In point of health we continue much the same. tion to Weston, and yet invite me to Eartham!- Our united love, and many thanks for your prosNo! no! there is no such happiness in store for perous negotiations, attend yourself and whole me at present. Had I rambled at all, I was under family, and especially my little namesake. Adieu. promise to all my dear mother's kindred to go to Norfolk, and they are dying to see me; but I have told them, that die they must, for I can not go; and ergo, as you will perceive, can go nowhere else. Thanks for Mazarine's epitaph! it is full of witty parodox, and is written with a force and severity W.C TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESQ. The Lodge, April 11, 1793. which sufficiently bespeak the author. I account MY DEAREST JOHNNY, it an inestimable curiosity, and shall be happy THE long muster-roll of my great and small an. when time shall serve, with your aid, to make a cestors I signed, and dated, and sent up to Mr. good translation of it. But that will be a stubborn Blue-mantle, on Monday, according to your desire. Such a pompous affair, drawn out for my sake, [haviour to me has been so liberal, that I can refuse reminds me of the old fable of the mountain in par-him nothing. Poking into the old Greek comturition, and a mouse the produce. Rest undis-mentators blinds me. But it is no matter. I am turbed, say I, their lordly, ducal, and royal dust! the more like Homer. Had they left me something handsome, I should have respected them more. But perhaps they did not know that such a one as I should have the honour to be numbered among their descendants. Well! I have a little bookseller that makes me some amends for their deficiency. He has made me a present; an act of liberality which I take every opportunity to blazon, as it well deserves. But you I suppose have learned it already from Mr. Rose. Fear not, my man. You will acquit yourself very well I dare say, both in standing for your degree, and when you have gained it. A little tremor, and a little shamefacedness in a stripling, like you, are recommendations rather than otherwise; and so they ought to be, being symptoms of an ingenuous mind rather unfrequent in this age of brass. Ever yours, my dearest Hayley, W. C. TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT. MY DEAR FRIEND, Weston, May 4, 1793. WHILE your sorrow for our common loss was fresh in your mind, I would not write, lest a letter on so distressing a subject should be too painful both to you and me; and now that I seem to have reached a proper time for doing it, the multiplicity of my literary business will hardly afford me leisure. Both you and I have this comfort when deprived of those we love-at our time of life we have every reason to believe that the deprivation can not be long. Our sun is setting too; and when the hour of rest arrives we shall rejoin your brother, and many whom we have tenderly loved, our forerun[ners into a better country. better perhaps to treat with brevity; and because the introduction of any other might seem a transition too violent, I will only add that Mrs. Unwin and I are about as well as we at any time have been within the last year. Truly yours. W. C. What you say of your determined purpose, with God's help, to take up the cross, and despise the I will say no more on a theme which it will be shame, gives us both real pleasure. In our pedigree is found one at least who did it before you. Do you the like: and you will meet him in Heaven, as sure as the Scripture is the word of God, The quarrel that the world has with evangelic men and doctrines, they would have with a host of angels in the human form. For it is the quarrel of owls with sunshine; of ignorance with divine illumination. TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESQ. Adieu, my dear Johnny! We shall expect you MY DEAR FRIEND, with earnest desire of your coming, and receive you with much delight. W. C. TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESQ. Weston, April 23, 1793. MY DEAR FRIEND AND BROTHER, May 5, 1793. My delay to answer your last kind letter, to which likewise you desired a speedy reply, must have seemed rather difficult to explain on any other supposition than that of illness; but illness has not been the cause, although to say the truth I can not boast of having been lately very well. Yet has not this been the cause of my silence, but your own advice, very proper and earnestly given to BETTER late than never, and better a little than me, to proceed in the revisal of Homer. To this none at all! Had I been at liberty to consult my it is owing that instead of giving an hour or two inclinations, I would have answered your truly before breakfast to my correspondence, I allot that kind and affectionate letter immediately. But I time entirely to my studies. I have nearly given am the busiest man alive; and when this epistle is the last touches to the poetry, and am now busied despatched, you will be the only one of my corres- far more laboriously in writing notes at the request pondents to whom I shall not be indebted. While of my honest bookseller, transmitted to me in the I write this, my poor Mary sits mute; which I can first instance by you, and afterwards repeated by not well bear, and which, together with want of himself. I am therefore deep in the old Scholia, time to write much, will have a curtailing effect on and have advanced to the latter part of Iliad nine, my epistle. explaining, as I go, such passages as may be diffiMy only studying time is still given to Homer, cult to unlearned readers, and such only; for notes not to correction and amendment of him (for that of that kind are the notes that Johnson desired. I is all over) but to writing notes. Johnson has ex-find it a more laborious task than the translation pressed a wish for some, that the unlearned may was, and shall be heartily glad when it is over. In be a little illuminated concerning classical story the mean time all the letters I receive remain unand the mythology of the ancients; and his be- answered, or if they receive an answer, it is al ways a short one. Such this must be. Johnny | is here, having flown over London. TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESQ. Homer I believe will make a much more respectable appearance than before. Johnson now MY DEAR BROTHER, Weston, May 21, 1793. thinks it will be right to make a separate impression of the amendments. W. C. I breakfast every morning on seven or eight pages of the Greek commentators. For so much I am obliged to read, in order to select perhaps three or four short notes for the readers of my translation. You must either think me extremely idle, or extremely busy, that I have made your last very kind letter wait so very long for an answer. The truth however is, that I am neither; but have had time enough to have scribbled to you, had I been able to scribble at all. To explain this riddle I must give you a short account of my proceedings I rise at six every morning, and fag till near eleven, when I breakfast. The consequence is, Homer is indeed a tie upon me that must not that I am so exhausted as not to be able to write on any account be broken, till all his demands are when the opportunity offers. You will saysatisfied; though I have fancied while the revisal "breakfast before you work, and then your work of the Odyssey was at a distance, that it would ask will not fatigue you." I answer-"perhaps I less labour in the finishing, it is not unlikely that, might, and your counsel would probably prove when I take it actually in hand, I may find my- beneficial; but I can not spare a moment for eatself mistaken. Of this at least I am sure, that ing in the early part of the morning, having no uneven verse abounds much more in it than it other time for study." This uneasiness of which once did in the Iliad, yet to the latter the critics I complain is a proof that I am somewhat stricken objected on that account, though to the former in years; and there is no other cause by which I never; perhaps because they had not read it. can account for it, since I go early to bed, always Hereafter they shall not quarrel with me on that between ten and eleven, and seldom fail to sleep score. The Iliad is now all smooth turnpike, and I will take equal care that there shall be no jolts in the Odyssey. TO LADY HESKETH. MY DEAREST COZ, well. Certain it is, ten years ago I could have done as much, and sixteen years ago did actually much more, without suffering fatigue, or any inconvenience from my labours. How insensibly old age steals on, and how often is it actually arrived before we suspect it! Accident alone; some occurrence that suggests a comparison of our former with our present selves, affords the discovery. Well! it is always good to be undeceived especially on an article of such importance. The Lodge, May 7, 1793. You have thought me long silent, and so have many others. In fact I have not for many months There has been a book lately published, entiwritten punctually to any but yourself, and Hay- tled, Man as he is. I have heard a high characley. My time, the little I have, is so engrossed ter of it, as admirably written, and am informed by Homer, that I have at this moment a bundle that for that reason, and because it inculcates of unanswered letters by me, and letters likely to Whig principles, it is by many imputed to you. be so. Thou knowest, I dare say, what it is to I contradicted this report, assuring my informant have a head weary with thinking. Mine is so that had it been yours, I must have known it, for fatigued by breakfast time, three days out of four, that you have bound yourself to make me your I am utterly incapable of sitting down to my desk father confessor on all such wicked occasions, and again for any purpose whatever. not to conceal from me even a murder, should you happen to commit one. I am glad I have convinced thee at least, that thou art a Tory. Your friend's definition of I will not trouble you, at present, to send me Whig and Tory may be just for aught I know, any more books with a view to my notes on as far as the latter are concerned; but respecting Homer. I am not without hopes that Sir John the former, I think him mistaken. There is no Throckmorton, who is expected here from Venice true Whig who wishes all power in the hands of in a short time, may bring me Villoison's edition his own party. The division of it which the of the Odyssey. He certainly will, if he found it lawyers call tripartite, is exactly what he desires; and he would have neither kings, lords, nor comInons unequally trusted, or in the smallest degree predominant. Such a Whig am I, and such Whigs are the true friends of the constitution. Adieu! my dear, I am dead with weariness. W. C. published, and that alone will be instar omnium. Adieu, my dearest brother! Give my love to Tom, and thank him for his book, of which I believe I need not have deprived him, intending that my readers shall detect the occult instruction contained in Homer's stories for themselves. W. C. |