indeed the contagion yourself, but a few instances of happy exemption from a general malady are not sufficient warrant to conclude that it is therefore not infectious, or may be encountered without danger. for these acquisitions, are more than sufficient for the purpose, especially with his readiness in learning; for you would hardly wish to have him qualified for the university before fifteen, a period in my mind much too early for it, and when he could hardly be trusted there without the utmost danger to his morals. Upon the whole you will perceive that, in my judgment, the difficulty, as well as the wisdom, consists more in bridling in and keeping back a boy of his parts than in pushing him forward. If therefore at the end of the two years, instead of putting a grammar into his hand, you should allow him to amuse himself with some agreeable writers upon the subject of natural philosophy for another year, I think it would answer well. There is a book called Cosmotheoria Puerilis, there are Derham's Physico and Astro-ed how much it is to their interest as well as theology, together with several others in the same manner, very intelligible even to a child, and full of useful instruction. W. C. TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. My dear Friend,-You desire my further thoughts on the subject of education. I send you such as had for the most part occurred to me when I wrote last, but could not be comprised in a single letter. They are indeed on a different branch of this interesting theme, but not less important than the for mer. I think it your happiness, and wish you to think it so yourself, that you are in every respect qualified for the task of instructing your son, and preparing him for the university, without committing him to the care of a stranger. In my judgment, a domestic education deserves the preference to a public one, on a hundred accounts, which I have neither time nor room to mention. I shall only touch upon two or three, that I cannot but consider as having a right to your most earnest attention. In a public school, or indeed in any school, his morals are sure to be but little attended to, and his religion not at all. If he can catch the love of virtue from the fine things that are spoken of it in the classics, and the love of holiness from the customary attendance upon such preaching as he is likely to hear, it will be well; but I am sure you have had too many opportunities to observe the inefficacy of such means to expect any such advantage from them. In the meantime, the more powerful influence of bad example and perhaps bad company, will continually counterwork these only preservatives he can meet with, and may possibly send him home to you, at the end of five or six years, such as you will be sorry to see him. You escaped You have seen too much of the world, and are a man of too much reflection, not to have observed, that in proportion as the sons of a family approach to years of maturity they lose a sense of obligation to their parents, and seem at last almost divested of that tender affection which the nearest of all relations seems to demand from them. I have often observed it myself, and have always thought I could sufficiently account for it, without laying all the blame upon the children. While they continue in their parents' house, they are every day obliged, and every day remind duty, to be obliging and affectionate in return. But at eight or nine years of age, the boy goes to school. From that moment he becomes a stranger in his father's house. The course of parental kindness is interrupted. The smiles of his mother, those tender admonitions, and the solicitous care of both his parents, are no longer before his eyes-year after year he feels himself more and more detached from them, till at last he is so effectually weaned from the connexion, as to find himself happier anywhere than in their company. I should have been glad of a frank for this letter, for I have said but little of what I could say upon the subject, and perhaps I may not be able to catch it by the end again. If I can, I shall add to it hereafter. Yours, W. C. TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. Olney, Oct. 5, 1780. My dear Friend,-Now for the sequelyou have anticipated one of my arguments in favor of a private education, therefore I need say but little about it. The folly of supposing that the mother-tongue, in some respects the most difficult of all tongues, may be acquired without a teacher, is predominant in all the public schools that I have ever heard of. To pronounce it well, to speak and to write it with fluency and ele gance, are no easy attainments; not one in fifty of those who pass through Westminster and Eton arrives at any remarkable proficiency in these accomplishments; and they that do, are more indebted to their own study and application for it than to any instruction received there. In general, there is nothing so pedantic as the style of a schoolboy, if he aims at any style at all; and if he does not, he is of course inelegant and perhaps ungrammatical—a defect, no doubt, in great measure owing to want of cultivation, for the same lad that is often commended for his Latin frequently would deserve to be whipped for his English, if the fault were not more his master's than his own. I know not where this evil is so likely to be prevented as at home -supposing always, nevertheless, (which is the case in your instance,) that the boy's parents and their acquaintance are persons of elegance and taste themselves. For, to converse with those who converse with propriety, and to be directed to such authors as have refined and improved the language by their productions, are advantages which he cannot elsewhere enjoy in an equal degree. And though it requires some time to regulate the taste and fix the judgment, and these effects must be gradually wrought even upon the best understanding, yet I suppose much less time will be necessary for the purpose than could at first be imagined, because the opportunities of improvement are continual. A public education is often recommended as the most effectual remedy for that bashful and awkward restraint, so epidemical among the youth of our country. But I verily believe that, instead of being a cure, it is often the cause of it. For seven or eight years of his life, the boy has hardly seen or conversed with a man, or a woman, except the maids at his boarding-house. A gentleman, or a lady, are consequently such novelties to him that he is perfectly at a loss to know what sort of behavior he should preserve before them. He plays with his buttons or the strings of his hat: he blows his nose, and hangs down his head, is conscious of his own deficiency to a degree that makes him quite unhappy, and trembles lest any one should speak to him, because that would quite overwhelm him. Is not all this miserable shyness the effect of his education? To me it appears to be so. If he saw good company every day, he would never be terrified at the sight of it, and a room full of ladies and gentlemen would aların him no more than the chairs they sit on. Such is the effect of custom. I need add nothing further on this subject, because I believe little John is as likely to be exempted from this weakness as most young gentlemen we shall meet with. He seems to have his father's spirit in this respect, in whom I could never discern the least trace of bashfelness, though I have often heard him complain of it. Under your management and the influence of your example, I think he can hardly fail to escape it. If he does, he escapes that which has made many a man uncomfortable for life, and ruined not a few, by foreing them into mean and dishonorable company, where only they could be free and cheerful. Connexions formed at school are said to te lasting and often beneficial. There are two or three stories of this kind upon record, which would not be so constantly cited as they are, whenever this subject happens to be mentioned, if the chronicle that preserves their remembrance had many besides to boast of. For my own part, I found such friendships, though warm enough in their commencement, surprisingly liable to extinction; and of seven or eight, whom I had selected for intimates, out of about three hundred, in ten years' time not one was left me. The truth is, that there may be, and often is, an attachment of one boy to another that looks very like a friendship, and, while they are in circumstances that enable them mutually to oblige and to assist each other, promises well and bids fair to be lasting. But they are no sooner separated from each other, by entering into the world at large, than other connexions and new employments, in which they no longer share together, efface the remembrance of what passed in earlier days, and they become strangers to each other forever. Add to this, the man frequently dif fers so much from the boy; his principles, manners, temper, and conduct, undergo so great an alteration, that we no longer recog nize in him our old playfellow, but find him utterly unworthy, and unfit for the place he once held in our affections. To close this article, as I did the last, by applying myself immediately to the present concern-little John is happily placed above all occasion for dependence on all such precarious hopes, and need not be sent to school in quest of some great men in embryo, who may possibly make his fortune. Yours, my dear friend, TO MRS. NEWTON. W. C. Olney, Oct. 5, 1780. Dear Madam,-When a lady speaks, it is not civil to make her wait a week for an answer. I received your letter within this hour, and, foreseeing that the garden will engross much of my time for some days to come, have seized the present opportunity to acknowledge it. I congratulate you on Mr. Newton's safe arrival at Ramsgate, making no doubt but that he reached that place without difficulty or danger, the road thither from Canterbury being so good as to afford room for neither. He has now a view of the ele ment with which he was once familiar, but which, I think, he has not seen for many years. The sight of his old acquaintance will revive in his mind a pleasing recollection of past deliverances, and when he looks at him from the beach, he may say "You have formerly given me trouble enough, but I have cast anchor now where your billows can never reach me."-It is happy for him that he can say so. Mrs. Unwin returns you many thanks for your anxiety on her account. Her health is considerably mended upon the whole, so as to afford us a hope that it will be established. Our love attends you. Yours, dear madam, TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. W. C. between my right and the remedy the law gives me, where the right is invaded, much less, I apprehend, shall the man himself, who of his own mere motion gives me that right, be suffered to do it. I never made so long an argument upon a law case before. I ask your pardon for doing it now. You have but little need of such entertainment. Yours affectionately, TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.* W. C. Olney, Dec. 21, 1780. Olney, Nov. 9, 1780. I wrote the following last summer. The tragical occasion of it really happened at the next house to ours. I am glad when I can find a subject to work upon; a lapidary, I suppose, accounts it a laborious part of his business to rub away the roughness of the stone; but it is my amusement, and if, after all the polishing I can give it, it discovers some little lustre, I think myself well re-think the whole Livery of London must have warded for my pains.* I shall charge you a halfpenny a-piece for every copy I send you, the short as well as the long. This is a sort of afterclap you little expected, but I cannot possibly afford them at a cheaper rate. If this method of raising money had occurred to me sooner, I should have made the bargain sooner; but am glad I have hit upon it at last. It will be a considerable encouragement to my Muse, and act as a powerful stimulus to my industry. If the American war should last much longer, I may be obliged to raise my price; but this I shall not do without a real occasion for it-it depends much upon Lord North's conduct in the article of supplies--if he imposes an additional tax on anything that I deal in, the necessity of this measure on my part will be so apparent that I dare say you will not dispute it. W. Č. TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.† Olney, Dec. 10, 1780. My dear Friend, I am sorry that the bookseller shuffles off the trouble of package upon anybody that belongs to you. I think I could cast him upon this point in an action upon the case, grounded upon the terms of his own undertaking. He engages to serve country customers. Ergo, as it would be unreasonable to expect that, when a country gentleman wants a book, he should order his chaise, and bid the man drive to Exeter Change; and as it is not probable that the book would find the way to him of itself, though it were the wisest that ever was written, I should suppose the law would compel him. For I recollect it is a maxim of good authority in the courts, that there is no right without a remedy. And if another, or third person, should not be suffered to interpose * Verses on a Goldfinch, starved to death in a cage. ↑ Private correspondence. I thank you for your anecdote of Judge Carpenter. If it really happened, it is one of the best stories I ever heard; and if not, it has at least the merit of being ben trovato. We both very sincerely laughed at it, and done the same; though I have known some persons, whose faces, as if they had been cast in a mould, could never be provoked to the least alteration of a single feature; so that you might as well relate a good story to a barber's block. Non equidem invideo, miror magis. Your sentiments with respect to me are exactly Mrs. Unwin's. She, like you, is perfectly sure of my deliverance, and often tells me so. I make but one answer, and sometimes none at all. That answer gives her no pleasure, and would give you as little; therefore at this time I suppress it. It is better, on every account, that they who interest believe the certainty of it, than that they themselves so deeply in that event should should not. It is a comfort to them at least, if it is none to me; and as I could not if I would, so neither would I if I could, deprive them of it. I annex a long thought in verse for your summer, but I never could prevail with myperusal. It was produced about last midself, till now, to transcribe it.† You have bestowed some commendations on a certain poem now in the press, and they, I suppose. have at least animated me to the task. human nature may be compared to a piece of tapestry, (and why not?) then human nature. as it subsists in me, though it is sadly faded on the right side, retains all its color on the wrong. I am pleased with commendation, and though not passionately desirous of indiscriminate praise, or what is generally called popularity, yet when a judicious friend claps me on the back, I own I find it an encouragement. At this season of the year, and in this gloomy uncomfortable climate, it is no easy matter for the owner of a mind like mine to divert it from sad subjects, and fix it upon such as may administer to its ainusement. Poetry, above all things, is useful to me in this respect. While I am held in pursuit of pretty images, or a pretty way of expressing them, I forget everything that is irksome, and, like a boy that plays truant, determine to avail myself of the present opportunity to be amused, and to put by the disagreeable recollection that I must, after all, go home and be whipped again. It will not be long, perhaps, before you will receive a poem called "The Progress of Error." That will be succeeded by another, in due time, called "Truth." Don't be alarmed, I ride Pegasus with a curb. He will never run away with me again. I have even convinced Mrs. Unwin that I can manage him, and make him stop when I please. Yours, W. C. The following letter, to Mr. Hill, contains poem already printed in the works of Cowper; but the reader will be probably gratified in finding the sportiveness of Cowper's wit presented to him, as it was originally despatched by the author for the amusement of a friend. TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ. Olney, Dec. 25, 1780. My dear Friend,-Weary with rather a long walk in the snow, I am not likely to write a very sprightly letter, or to produce anything that may cheer this gloomy season, unless I have recourse to my pocket-book, where, perhaps, I may find something to transcribe; something that was written before the sun had taken leave of our hemisphere, and when I was less fatigued than I am at present. In behalf of the Nose, it will quickly appear, And your lordship," he said, "will undoubtedly find, That the Nose has had Spectacles always in wear, Which amounts to possession time out of mind.” Then holding the Spectacles up to the court, Your lordship observes, they are made with a As wide as the ridge of the nose is, in short, straddle, Design'd to sit close to it, just like a saddle. (Tis a case that has happened, and may be "Again, would your lordship a moment suppose, again,) Dec., 1780. Happy is the man who knows just so much My dear Friend,-Poetical reports of lawof the law as to make himself a little merry cases are not very common, yet it seems to me now and then with the solemnity of juridical desirable that they should be so. Many adproceedings. I have heard of common law vantages would accrue from such a measure. judgments before now; indeed have been They would, in the first place. be more compresent at the delivery of some, that, accord-monly deposited in the memory, just as linen, ng to my poor apprehension, while they paid grocery, or other such matters, when neatly the utmost respect to the letter of the stat-packed, are known to occupy less room, and ute, have departed widely from the spirit of it, and, being governed entirely by the point of taw, bave left equity, reason, and common sense behind them, at an infinite distance. You will judge whether the following report of a case, drawn up by myself, be not a proof and illustration of this satirical as serion. NOSE, Plaintiff.-EYES, Defendants. to lie more conveniently in any trunk, chest, or box, to which they may be committed. In the next place, being divested of that infinite circumlocution, and the endless embarrassment in which they are involved by it, they would become surprisingly intelligible, in comparison with their present obscurity. And, lastly, they would by this means be rendered susceptible of musical embellishment; and, instead of being quoted in the country, with that dull monotony which is so wearisome to by-standers, and frequently lulls even the judges themselves to sleep, might be rehearsed in recitation; which save a frank, and as the affair has turned out, that end was very well answered. This is committed to the hands of a less volatile person, and therefore more to be depended on. As to the poem called "Truth," which is already longer than its elder brother, and is yet to be lengthened by the addition of per from the thought of transcribing it at present. But as there is no need to be in any hurry about it, I hope that, in some rainy season, which the next month will probably bring with it, when perhaps I may be glad of employment, the undertaking will appear less formidable. would have an admirable effect, in keeping the attention fixed and lively, and could not fail to disperse that heavy atmosphere of sadness and gravity, which hangs over the jurisprudence of our country. I remember, many years ago, being informed by a relation of mine, who, in his youth, had applied himself to the study of the law, that one of his fel-haps twenty lines, perhaps more, I shrink low-students, a gentleman of sprightly parts, and very respectable talents of the poetical kind, did actually engage in the prosecution of such a design; for reasons, I suppose, somewhat similar to, if not the same, with those I have now suggested. He began with Coke's Institutes; a book so rugged in its style, that an attempt to polish it seemed an You need not withhold from us any intelHerculean labor, and not less arduous and ligence relating to yourselves, upon an apdifficult than it would be to give the smooth-prehension that Mr. R has been beforeness of a rabbit's fur to the prickly back of a hand with you upon those subjects, for we hedgehog. But he succeeded to admiration, could get nothing out of him. I have known as you will perceive by the following speci- such travellers in my time, and Mrs. Newton men, which is all that my said relation could is no stranger to one of them, who keep all recollect of the performance. their observations and discoveries to themselves, till they are extorted from them by mere dint of examination and cross-examination. He told us, indeed, that some invisible agent supplied you every Sunday with a coach, which we were pleased with hearing; and this, I think, was the sum total of his information. Tenant in fee And need neither quake nor quiver, Free from demands, To him and his heirs forever. You have an ear for music, and a taste for verse, which saves me the trouble of pointing out, with a critical nicety, the advantages of such a version. I proceed, therefore, to what I at first intended, and to transcribe the record of an adjudged case thus managed, to which, indeed, what I premised was intended merely as an introduction.* W. C. The following year commences by a letter to his friend Mr. Newton, and alludes to his two poems entitled "The Progress of Error," and "Truth.” Jan. 21, 1781. TO THE REV. JOHIN NEWTON.† My dear Sir, I am glad that the "Progress of Error" did not err in its progress, as I feared it had, and that it has reached you safe; and still more pleased that it has met with your approbation; for, if it had not, I should have wished it had miscarried, and have been sorry that the bearer's memory had served him so well upon the occasion. I knew him to be that sort of genius, which, being much busied in making excursions of the imaginary kind, is not always present to its own immediate concerns, much less to those of others; and, having reposed the trust in him, began to regret that I had done so when it was too late. But I did it to * This letter concluded with the poetical law-case of Nose, plaintiff-Eyes, defendants, already inserted. ↑ Private correspondence. We are much concerned for Mr. Barham's loss; but it is well for that gentleman, that those amiable features in his character, which most ineline one to sympathize with him, are the very graces and virtues that will strengthen him to bear it with equa nimity and patience. People that have neither his light nor experience will wonder that a disaster, which would perhaps have broken their hearts, is not heavy enough to make any abatement in the cheerfulness of his. Your books came yesterday. I shall not repeat to you what I said to Mrs. Unwin, after having read two or three of the letters. I admire the preface, in which you have given an air of novelty to a worn-out topic, and have actually engaged the favor of the reader by saying those things in a delicate and uncommon way, which in general are disgusting. be in town on Tuesday. He is likely to I suppose you know that Mr. Scotty will *The loss of his excellent wife. Mr. Barham was the intimate friend of Newton, and Cowper, and of the pious Lord Dartmouth, whose name is occasionally introduced in these letters in connexion with Olney, where his lurd ship's charity was liberally dispensed. Mr. Barham suggested the subject of many of the hymns that are inentitled "What think ye of Christ ?" He was father of the late Jos. Foster Barham, Esq., many years M.P. for the borough of Stockbridge. The editor is happy in here bearing testimony to the profound piety and endearing virtues of a man, with whose family he became subsequently connected. He afterwards married the widow of Sir Rowland Hill, Bart., and lived at Hawke stone in Shropshire. serted in the Olney collection, and particularly the one The late Rev. Thomas Scott, so well known and dis tinguished by his writings. |