me happy to receive you; and in the mean-characteristics. But should you think othertime I remain with much respect, Your most obedient servant, critic, and friend. W. C. P. S.-I wish to know what you mean to do with "Sir Thomas."* For, though I expressed doubts about his theatrical possibilities, I think him a very respectable person, and, with some improvement, well worthy of being introduced to the public. TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ. Weston, March 10, 1791. Give mv affectionate remembrances to rour sisters, and tell them I am impatient to entertain them with my old story new dressed. I have two French prints hanging in my study, both on Iliad subjects; and I have an English one in the parlor, on a subject from the same poem. In one of the former, Agamemnon addresses Achilles exactly in the attitude of a dancing master turning miss in a minuet in the latter, the figures are plain, and the attitudes plain also. This is, in some considerable measure, I believe, the difference between my translation and Pope's; and will serve as an exemplification of what I am going to lay before you and the public. W. C. TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT. My dear Friend,-I give you joy that you are about to receive some more of my ele-| gant prose, and I feel myself in danger of attempting to make it even more elegant than usual, and thereby of spoiling it, under the influence of your commendations. But my old helter-skelter manner has already succeeded so well, that I will not, even for the sake of entitling myself to a still great portion of your praise, abandon it. I did not call in question Johnson's true spirit of poetry, because he was not qualified to relish blank verse, (though, to tell you the truth, I think that but an ugly symptom,) but, if I did not express it, I meant however to infer it. from the perverse judgment that he has formed of our poets in general; depreciating some of the best, and making honorable mention of others, in my opinion, not undeservedly neglected. I will lay you sixpence that, had he lived in the days of Milton, and by any accident had met with his "Paradise Lost," he would neither have directed the atention of others to it, nor have much admired it himself. Good sense, in short, and strength of intellect, seem to me, rather than a fine taste, to have been his distinguishing * "Sir Thomas More," a tragedy. wise, you have my free permission; for so long as you have yourself a taste for the beauties of Cowper, I care not a fig whether Johnson has a taste or not. I wonder where you find all your quotations, pat as they are to the present condition of France. Do you make them yourself, or do you actually find them? I am apt to suspect sometimes that you impose them only ou a poor man who has but twenty books in the world, and two of them are your brother Chester's. They are, however, much to the purpose, be the author of them who he may. I was very sorry to learn lately, that my friend at Chichely has been some time indisposed, either with gout or rheumatism, (for it seems to be uncertain which,) and attended by Dr. Kerr. I am at a loss to conceive how so temperate a man should acquire the gout, and am resolved therefore to conclude that it must be the rheumatism, which, bad as it is, is in my judginent the best of the two, and will afford me, besides, some opportunity to sympathize with him, for I am not perfectly exempt from it myself. Distant as you are in situation, you are yet, perhaps. nearer to him in point of intelligence than I, and it you can send me any particular news of him, pray do it in your next. I love and thank you for your benediction. If God forgive me my sins, surely I shall love him much, for I have much to be forgiven. But the quantum need not discour age me, since there is One, whose atonement can suffice for all. 'Η ιέτεροις, αὐτοῦ σωζωμένους θανάτῳ. Τοὺ δὲ καθ' αἷμα ῥέεν, καὶ σοῖ, καὶ ἐμοῖ, καὶ ἀδέλφοις Accept our joint remembrance, and believe me affectionately yours, W. C. TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESQ. My dearest Johnny,-You ask if it may not be improper to solicit Lady Hesketh's subscription to the poems of the Norwich maiden? To which I reply it will be by no means improper. On the contrary, I am persuaded that she will give her name with a very good will for she is much an admirer of poesy that is worthy to be admired, and such I think, judging by the specimen, the poesy of this maiden, Elizabeth Bently of Norwich, is likely to prove. Not that I am myself inclined to expect in general great matters in the poetical way from persons whose ill-fortune it has been tc want the common advantages of education: neither do I account it in general a kindness to such to encourage them in the indulgence of a propensity more likely to do them harm in the end, than to advance their interest Many such phenomena have arisen within my remembrance, at which all the world has wondered for a season, and has then forgot them.* TO LADY HESKETH. The fact is, that though strong natural genius is always accompanied with strong natural tendency to its object, yet it often happens that the tendency is found where the genius is wanting. In the present instance, however, (the poems of a certain Mrs. Leapor excepted, who published some Friday night, March 25, 1791. forty years ago,) I discern, I think, more marks of true poetical talent than I remem- that he has repeatedly called on Horace WalMy dear Coz.,-Johnson writes me word, ber to have observed in the verses of any pole, and has never found him at home. He other, male or female, so disadvantageously has also written to him and received no circumstanced. I wish her therefore good speed, and subscribe to her with all my heart. You will rejoice when I tell you, that I have some hopes, after all, of a harvest from Oxford also; Mr. Throckmorton has written to a person of considerable influence there, which he has desired him to exert in my favor, and his request, I should imagine, will hardly prove a vain one. answer. I charge thee therefore on thy allegiance, that thou move not a finger more in this business. My back is up, and I cannot bear the thought of wooing him any farther, nor would do it, though he were as pig a gentleman (look you!) as Lucifer himself. have Welsh blood in me, if the pedigree, of the Donnes say true, and every drop of it says "Let him alone!" I Adieu. W. C. I should have dined at the Hall to-day, having engaged myself to do so. But an untoward occurrence, that happened last night, or rather this morning, prevented me. It was a thundering rap at the door, just after the clock struck three. First, I thought the house was on fire. Then I thought the Hall was on fire. Then I thought it was a house breaker's trick. Then I thought it was an express. In any case I thought, that if it should be repeated, it would awaken and terrify Mrs. Unwin, and kill her with spasms The consequence of all these thoughts was the worst nervous fever I ever had in my life, although it was the shortest. The rap was given but once, though a multifarious one. Had I heard a second, I should have risen myself at all adventures. It was the only minute since you went, in which I have been glad that you were not here. Soon after I came down, I learned that a drunken party had passed through the village at that time, and they were, no doubt, the authors of this witty but troublesome invention. TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESQ. Weston, March 24, 1791. My dear Friend,-You apologize for your silence in a manner which affords me so much pleasure, that I cannot but be satisfied. Let business be the cause, and I am contented. That is the cause to which I would even be accessary myself, and would increase yours by any means, except by a law-suit of my own, at the expense of all your opportunities of writing oftener than twice in a twelvemonth. Your application to Dr. Dunbar reminds me of two lines to be found somewhere in Dr. Young "And now a poet's gratitude you see, In this particular, therefore, I perceive, that a poet and a poet's friend bear a striking resemblance to each other. The Doctor will bless himself that the number of Scotch uni versities is not larger, assured that if they equalled those in England in number of colleges, you would give him no rest till he had engaged them all. It is true, as Lady Hesketh told you, that I shall not fear, in the matter of subscriptions, a comparison even with Pope himself; considered (I mean) that we live in the days of terrible taxation, and when verse, not being a necessary of life, is accounted dear, be it what it may, even at the lowest price. I am no very good arithmetician, yet I calculated the other day in my morning walk, that my two volumes, at the *See a similar instance, recorded in the Memoirs of Mrs. Hannah More, of the Bristol Milk-woman, Mrs. Yearsley. Our thanks are due to you for the book you sent us. Mrs. Unwin has read to me several parts of it, which I have much admired. The observations are shrewd and pointed; and there is much wit in the similes and illustrations. Yet a remark struck me, which I could not help making vivû voce on the occasion. If the book has any real value, and does in truth deserve the notice taken of it by those to whom it is addressed, its claim is founded neither on the expression, nor on the style, nor on the wit of it, but altogether on the truth that it contains. Now the same truths are delivered, to my knowledge, perpetually from the pulpit by ministers, whom the admirers of this writer would disdain to hear. Yet the truth is not the less important for not being accompanied and recommended by brilliant thoughts That you have not the first sight and and expressions; neither is God, from whom sometimes, perhaps, have a late one of what comes all truth, any more a respecter of wit I write, is owing merely to your distant sitthan he is of persons. It will appear soon uation. Some things I have written not whether they applaud the book for the sake worth your perusal; and a few, a very few, of its unanswerable arguments, or only of such length that, engaged as I have been tolerate the argument for the sake of the t. Homer, it has not been possible that I splendid manner in which it is enforced. I should find opportunity to transcribe them. wish as heartily that it may do them good At the same time, Mrs. Unwin's pain in her as if I were myself the author of it. But, side has almost forbidden her the use of the alas! my wishes and hopes are much at vari-pen. She cannot use it long without inance. It will be the talk of the day, as an- creasing that pain; for which reason I am other publication of the same kind has been; more unwilling than herself that sin should and then the noise of vanity-fair will drown ever meddle with it. But, whether what I the voice of the preacher. write be a trifle, or whether it be serious, you would certainly, were you present, see them all. Others get a sight of them by being so, who would never otherwise see them; and I should hardly withhold them from you, whose claim upon me is of so much older a date than theirs. It is not indeed with read. iness and good-will that I give them to anybody; for, if I live, I shall probably print them; and my friends, who are previously well acquainted with them, will have the less reason to value the book in which they shail appear. A trifle can have nothing to recoinend it but its novelty. I have spoken of giving copies; but, in fact, I have given none. They who have them made them; for, till my whole work shall have fairly passed th press, it will not leave me a moment more than is necessarily due to my correspondents. Their number has of late increased upon me, by the addition of many of my maternal relatives, who, having found me out about a year since, have behaved to me in the most affectionate manner, and have been singularly serviceable to me in the article of my subscription. Several of them are coming from Norfolk to visit me in the course of the summer. I am glad to learn that the Chancellor does not forget me, though more for his sake than my own; for I see not how he can ever serve a man like me. dearest coz., W. C. Adieu, my TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. to whom God gives a feeling heart and the faculty of recollection. Weston, March 29, 1791. My dear Friend,-It affords me sincere pleasure that you enjoy serenity of mind after your great loss. It is well in all circumstances, even in the most afflictive, with those who have God for their comforter. You do me justice in giving entire credit to my expressions of friendship for you. No day passes in which I do not look back to the days that are fled; and, consequently, none in which I do not feel myself affectionately reminded of you and of her whom you have lost for a season. I cannot even see Olney spire from any of the fields in the neighborhood, much less can I enter the town, and still less the vicarage, without experiencing the force of those mementoes, and recollecting a multitude of passages to which you and yours were parties. The past would appear a dream were theses. remembrance of it less affecting. It was in the most important respects so unlike my present moments that I am sometimes almost tempted to suppose it a dream. But the difference between dreams and realities long since elapsed seems to consist chiefly in this -that a dream, however painful or pleasant at the time, and perhaps for a few ensuing hours, passes like an arrow through the air, leaving no trace of its passage behind it; but our actual experiences make a lasting impression. We review those which interested us much when they occurred, with hardly less interest than in the first instance; and whether few years or many have intervened, our sensibility makes them still present, such a mere nullity is time to a creature * Private correspondence. I enclose a copy of my last mortuary verThe clerk for whom they were written is since dead; and whether his successor, the late sexton, will choose to be his own dirgemaker, or will employ me, is a piece of important news which has not yet reached me. Our best remembrances attend yourself and Miss Catlett, and we rejoice in the kind Providence that has given you in her so amiable and comfortable a companion. Adieu, my dear friend. I am sincerely yours, W. C. TO MRS. THROCKMORTON. Weston, April 2, 1791. My dear Mrs. Frog,-A word or two be fore breakfast: which is all that I shall have time to send you! You have not, I hope, forgot to tell Mr. Frog how much I am obliged to him for hi kind though unsuc-Certainly I have not deserved much favor at cessful attempt in my favor at xford. It their hands, all things considered. But the seems not a little extraordinary that persons cause of literature seems to have some weight so nobly patronised themselves on the score with them, and to have superseded the resentof literature should resolve to give no en- ment they might be supposed to entertain on couragement to it in return. Should I find the score of certain censures that you wot uf. a fair opportunity to thank them hereafter, I It is not so at Oxford. W. C. will not neglect it. Could Homer come himself. distress'd and poor, I have read your husband's pamphlet through and through. You may think perhaps, and so may he, that a question so remote from ail concern of mine could not interest me; but if you think so, you are both mistaken. He can write nothing that will not interest me in the first place, for the writer's sake, and in the next place, because he writes better and reasons better than anybody; with more caudor, and with more sufficiency, and, consequently, with more satisfaction to all his readers, save only his nents. They, I think, by this time, wish that oppo they had let him alone. Tom is delighted past measure with his wooden nag, and gallops at a rate that would kill any horse that had a life to lose. Adieu! W. C. TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESQ. My dear Johnny,-A thousand thanks for your splendid assemblage of Cambridge luminaries! If you are not contented with: your collection, it can only be because you are unreasonable; for 1, who may be supposed more covetous on this occasion than anybody, am highly satisfied, and even delighted with it. If indeed you should find it practicable to add still to the number, I have not the least objection. But this charge I give you: *Αλλο δὲ τοι ἐρέω, σὺ δ' ἐνὶ φρεσὶ βάλλεο σῇσι. Stay not an hour beyond the time you have mentioned, even though you should be able to add a thousand names by doing so! For I cannot afford to purchase them at that cost. I long to see you, and so do we both, and will not suffer you to postpone your visit for any such consideration. No, my dear boy! In the affair of subscriptions, we are already illustrious enough, shall be so at least, when you shall have enlisted a college or two more; which, perhaps, you may be able to do in the course of the ensuing week. I feel myself much obliged to your university, and much disposed to admire the liberality of spirit which they have shown on this occasion. TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESQ. My dear Friend,-I forget if I told you that Mr. Throckmorton had applied through the medium of - to the university of Oxford. He did so, but without success. Their answer was, "that they subscribe to nothing." Pope's subscriptions did not amount I think, to six hundred; and mine will not fall very short of five. Noble doings, at a time of day when Homer has no news to tell us, and when, all other comforts of life having risen in price, poetry has of course fallen. I call it a "comfort of life;" it is so to others, but to myself it is become even a necessary. the printer's progress. He and all his demons The holiday times are very unfavorable to are making themselves merry and me sad, for mourn at every hinderance. I W. C. TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT. My dear Friend,-Monday being a day in which Homer has now no demands upon me, I shall give part of the present Monday to you. But it this moment occurs to me that the proposition with which I begin will be obscure You are to understand, therefore, that Monto you, unless followed by an explanation. day being no post-day, I have consequently no proof-sheets to correct, the correction of which is nearly all that I have to do with Homer at present. I say nearly all, because I am likewise occasionally employed in reading over the whole of what is already printed, that I may make a table of errata to each of the poems. How much is already printed? say you I answer-the whole Iliad, and almost seventeen books of the Odyssey. About a fortnight since, perhaps three weeks, I had a visit from your nephew, Mr Bagot, and his tutor, Mr. Hurlock, who came hither under conduct of your niece, Miss Barbara. So were the friends of Ulysses conducted to the palace of Antiphates the Læstrigonian by that monarch's daughter. But mine is no palace, neither am I a giant, neither did I devour one of the party. On the contrary, I gave them chocolate, and permitted them to depart in peace. I was much pleased both with the young man and his tutor. In the countenance of the former I saw much Bagotism, and not less in his man ner. I will leave you to guess what I mean by that expression. Physiognomy is a study of which I have almost as high an opinion as Lavater himself, the professor of it, and for this good reason, because it never yet deceived me. But perhaps I shall speak more truly if I say, that I am somewhat an adept in the art, although I have never studied it; for whether I will or not, I judge of every human creature by the countenance, and, as I say, have never yet seen reason to repent of my judgment. Sometimes I feel myself powerfully attracted, as I was by your nephew, and sometimes with equal vehemence repulsed, which attraction and repulsion have always been justified in the sequel. I have lately read, and with more attention than I ever gave to them before, Milton's Latin poems. But these I must make the subject of some future letter, in which it will be ten to one that your friend Samuel Johnson gets another slap or two at the hands of your humble servant. Pray read them your self, and with as much attention as I did; then read the Doctor's remarks if you have them, and then tell me what you think of both. It will be pretty sport for you on such a day as this, which is the fourth that we have had of almost incessant rain. The weather, and a cold, the effect of it, have confined me ever since last Tuesday. Mrs. Unwin however is well, and joins me in every good wish to yourself and family. I am, my good friend, W. C. Most truly yours, TO LADY HESKETH. * Johnson's remark on Milton's Latin poems is as fol lows: "The Latin pieces are lusciously elegant; but the delight which they afford is rather by the exquisite imitation of the ancient writers, by the purity of the diction and the harmony of the numbers, than by any power of invention or vigor of sentiment. They are not all of equal value; the elegies excel the odes; and some of the exercises on gunpowder treason might have been spared." He, however, quotes with approbation the remark of Hampton, the translator of Polybius, that "Milton was the first Englishman who, after the revival of letters, wrote Latin verses with classic elegance."-See Johnson's Life of Milton. We are indebted to Mr. Buchanan for having suggested to Cowper the outline of the poem called "The Four Ages," viz., infancy, youth, middle age, and old age. The writer was acquainted with this respectable clergy The Lodge, May 18, 1791. ters fallen short of its destination; or whereMy dearest Coz.,-Has another of my let. fore is it, that thou writest not? One letter in five weeks is a poor allowance for your friends at Weston. One, that I received two at all enlightened me on this head. But I or three days since from Mrs. Frog, has not wander in a wilderness of vain conjecture. from a Doctor Cogswell of that place, to thank I have had a letter lately from New York, pleased me particularly, that, after having me for my fine verses, and to tell me, which his hands, which he read also, and was equally read "The Task," my first volume fell intc pleased with. This is the only instance I can effusions; for I am sure, that in point of exrecollect of a reader doing justice to my first pression they do not fall a jot below my for the most part superior. But enough, and second, and that in point of subject they are too much of this. The Task," he tells me has been reprinted in that city. 66 Adieu! my dearest Coz. skies. and with icy blasts to fan them. Ever thine, W. C. TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESQ. Weston, May 23, 1791. My dearest Johnny,-Did I not know that you are never more in your element than when you are exerting yourself in my cause, I should congratulate you on the hope there seems to be that your labor will soon have an end.* TO THE REV. MR. BUCHANAN. Weston, May 11, 1791. My dear Sir,-You have sent me a beautiful poem, wanting nothing but metre. I would to heaven that you could give it that requisite yourself; for he who could make the sketch cannot but be well qualified to finish. But if you will not, I will; provided always, nevertheless, that God gives me ability, for it will require no common share to do justice to your conceptions.† You will wonder, perhaps, my Johnny, that Mrs. Unwin, by my desire, enjoined you to secrecy concerning the translation of the Frogs and Mice. Wonderful it may well short time from a few what I am just going seem to you, that I should wish to hide for a than one for this mysterious management; to publish to all. But I had more reasons that is to say, I had two. In the first place, I wished to surprise my readers agreeably; and I am much yours, W. C. Your little messenger vanished before I secondly, I wished to allow none of my friends could catch him. an opportunity to object to the measure, who might think it perhaps a measure more hountiful than prudent. But I have had my sufficient reward, though not a pecuniary one. It is a poem of much humor, and accordingly I found the translation of it very amusing. It struck me, too, that I must either make it part of the present publication, or never pub lish it at all; it would have been so terribly out of its place in any other volume. I long for the time that shall bring you man in his declining years. He was considered to be a * The labor of transcribing Cowper's version. |