which you may favor me, and give it a distinguished place in my very small collection, I remain, dear sir, Much and sincerely yours, W. C. TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESQ. This important affair, my dear brother, is at last decided, and we are coming. Wednesday se'nnight, if nothing occur to make a later day necessary, is the day fixed for our ourney. Our rate of travelling must depend on Mary's ability to bear it. Our mode of travelling will occupy three days unavoidably, for we shall come in a coach. Abbot finishes my picture to-morrow; on Wednesday he returns to town, and is commissioned to order one down for us, with four steeds to draw it; "Hollow pamper'd jades of Asia, That cannot go but forty miles a day." Send us our route, for I am as ignorant of it almost as if I were in a strange country. We shall reach St. Alban's, I suppose, the first day; say where we must finish our second day's journey, and at what inn we may best repose? As to the end of the third day, we know where that will find us, viz., in the arms, and under the roof, of our beloved Hayley. General Cowper, having heard a rumor of this intended migration, desires to meet me on the road, that we may once more see each other. He lives at Ham, near Kingston. Shall we go through Kingston or near it? For I would give him as little trouble as possible, though he offers very kindly to come as far as Barnet for that purpose. Nor must I forget Carwardine, who so kindly desired to be informed what way we should go. On what point of the road will it be easiest for him to find us? On all these points you must be my oracle. My friend and brother, we shall overwhelm you with our numbers; this is all the trouble that I have left. My Johnny of Norfolk, happy in the thought of accompanying us, would be broken-hearted to be left behind. In the midst of all these solicitudes, I laugh to think what they are made of, and what an important thing it is for me to travel. Other men steal away from their homes silently, and make no disturbance, but when I move, houses are turned upside down, maids are turned out of their beds, all the counties through which I pass appear to be in an upoar-Surrey greets me by the mouth of the General, and Essex by that of Carwardine. How strange does all this seem to a man who has seen no bustle, and made none for wenty years together! W. C. Adieu! TO THE REV. WILLIAM BULL.* July 25, 1792 My dear Mr. Bull,-Engaged as I have been ever since I saw you, it was not possi ble that I should write sooner; and, busy as I am at present, it is not without difficulty that I can write even now: but I promised you a letter, and must endeavor, at least, to be I have been occupied these last ten days? as good as my word. How do you imagine In sitting, not on cockatrice' eggs, nor yet to too sick to move; but because my cousin gratify a mere idle humor, nor because I was Johnson has an aunt who has a longing desire of my picture, and because he would, draw it. For this purpose I have been sittherefore, bring a painter from London to ting, as I say, these ten days; and am heartly glad that my sitting time is over. You have now, I know, a burning curiosity to learn two things, which I may choose whether I will tell you or not; First, who was the painter; and secondly, how he has succeeded. The painter's name is Abbot. You never heard of him, you say. It is very likely; but there is, nevertheless, such a painter, and an excellent one he is. Multa sunt quæ bonus Bernardus nec vidit, nec audivit. To your second inquiry, I answer, that he has succeeded to admiration. The likeness is so strong, that when my friends enter the room where the picture is, they start, astonished to see me where they know I am not. Miserable man that you are, to be at Brighton instead of being here, to contemplate this prodigy of art, which, therefore, you can never see; for it goes to London next Monday, to be suspended awhile at Abbot's; and then proceeds into Norfolk, where it will be suspended forever. But the picture is not the only prodigy I have to tell you of. A greater belongs to me; and one that you will hardly credit, even on my own testimony. We are on the eve of a journey, and a long one. On this very day se'nnight we set out for Eartham, the seat of my brother bard, Mr. Hayley, on the other side of London, nobody knows where, a hundred and twenty miles off. Pray for us, my friend, that we may have a safe going and return. It is a tremendous exploit, and I feel a thousand anxieties when I think of it. But a promise made to him when he was here, that we would go if we could, and a sort of persuasion that we can if we will, oblige us to it. The journey, and the change of air, together with the novelty to us of the scene to which we are going, may, I hope, be useful to us both; especially to Mrs. Unwin, who has most need of restoratives. She sends her love to you and to Thomas, in which she is sincerely joined by Your affectionate W. C. * Private correspondence. TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESQ. Through floods and flames to your retreat You will wonder at the word desp'rate in he second line, and at the if in the third; but could you have any conception of the fears I have had to bustle with, of the dejection of spirits that I have suffered concerning this journey, you would wonder much more that I still courageously persevere in my resolution to undertake it. Fortunately for my intentions, it happens, that as the day approaches my terrors abate; for had they continued to be what they were a week since, I must, after all, have disappointed you; and was actually once on the verge of doing it. I have told you something of my nocturnal experiences, and assure you now, that they were hardly ever more terrific than on this ocasion. Prayer has however opened my passage at last, and obtained for me a degree of confidence that I trust will prove a comfortable viaticum to me all the way. On Wednesday, therefore, we set forth. The terrors that I have spoken of would appear ridiculous to most, but to you they will not, for you are a reasonable creature, and know well that, to whatever cause it be owing, (whether to constitution, or to God's express appointment) I am hunted by spiritual hounds in the night season. I cannot help it. You will pity me, and wish it were otherwise; and, though you may think there is much of the imaginary in it, will not deem it for that reason an evil less to be lamented-so much for fears and distresses. Soon I hope they shall all have a joyful termination, and I, my Mary, my Johnny, and my dog, be skipping with delight at Eartham! Well! this picture is at last finished, and well finished, I can assure you. Every creature that has seen it has been astonished at the resemblance. Sam's boy bowed to it, and Beau walked up to it, wagging his tail as he went, and evidently showing that he acknowledged its likeness to his master. It is a half-length, as it is technically but absurdly called; that is to say, it gives all but the foot and ankle. To-morrow it goes to town, and will hang some months at Abbot's, when it will be sent to its due destination in Norfolk.* I hope, or rather wish, that at Eartham I may recover that habit of study which, inveterate as it once seemed, I now seem to have lost-lost to such a degree that it is even painful to me to think of what it will cost me to acquire it again. Adieu! my dear, dear Hayley; God give us *To Mrs. Bodham's. a happy meeting. Mary sends her love-she is in pretty good plight this morning, having slept well, and for her part, has no fears at all about the journey. Ever yours, W. C. TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.* July 30, 1792 My dear Friend,-Like you, I am obliged to snatch short opportunities of corresponding with my friends; and to write what can, not what I would. Your kindness in giving me the first letter after your return claims my thanks; and my tardiness to answer it would demand an apology, if, having been here, and witnessed how much my time is occupied in attendance on my poor patient, you could possibly want one. She proceeds, I trust, in her recovery; but at so slow a rate, that the difference made in a week is hardly perceptible to me, who am always with her. This last night has been the worst she has known since her illness-entirely sleepless till seven in the morning. Such ill rest seems but an indifferent preparation for a long journey which we purpose to undertake on Wednesday, when we set out for Eartham, on a visit to Mr. Hayley. The journey itself will, I hope, be useful to her; and the air of the sea, blowing over the South Downs, together with the novelty of the scene to us, will, I hope, be serviceable to us both. You may imagine that we, who have been resident on one spot so many years, do not engage in such an enterprise without some anxiety. Persons accustomed to travel would make themselves merry with mine; it seems so disproportioned to the occasion. Once I have been on the point of determining not to go, and even since we fixed the day; my troubles have been so insupportable. But it has been made a matter of much prayer, and at last it has pleased God to satisfy me, in some measure, that his will corresponds with our purpose, and that He will afford us his protection. You, I know, will not be unmindful of us during our absence from home; but will obtain for us, if your prayers can do it, all that we would ask for ourselves—the presence and favor of God, a salutary effect of our journey, and a safe return. I rejoiced, and had reason to do so, in your coming to Weston, for I think the Lord came with you. Not, indeed, to abide with me; not to restore me to that intercourse with Him which I enjoyed twenty years ago; but to awaken in me, however, more spiritua. feeling than I have experienced, except in two instances, during all that time. The comforts that I had received under your min istry, in better days, all rushed upon my rec * Private correspondence. Eartham, Aug. 6, 1792. My dear Sir,-Having first thanked you for your affectionate and acceptable letter, I will proceed, as well as I can, to answer your equally affectionate request, that I would send you early news of our arrival at Eartham. Here we are in the most elegant mansion that I have ever inhabited, and surrounded by the most delightful pleasure-grounds that I have ever seen; but which, dissipated as my powers of thought are at present, I will not undertake to describe. It shall suffice me to say, that they occupy three sides of a hill, which in Buckinghamshire might well pass for a mountain, and from the summit of which is beheld a most magnificent landscape bounded by the sea, and in one part by the Isle of Wight, which may also be seen plainly from the window of the library, in which I am writing. It pleased God to carry us both through the journey with far less difficulty and inconvenience than I expected. I began it indeed with a thousand fears, and when we arrived the first evening at Barnet, found myself oppressed in spirit to a degree that could hardly be exceeded. I saw Mrs. Unwin weary, as she might well be, and heard such noises, both within the house, and without, that I concluded she would get no rest. But I was mercifully disappointed. She rested, though not well, yet sufficiently; and when we finished our next day's journey at Ripley, we were both in better condition, both of body and mind, than on the day preceding. At Ripley we found a quiet inn that housed, as it happened, that night, no company but ourselves. There we slept well, and rose perfectly refreshed; and, except some terrors that I felt at passing over the Sussex hills by moonlight, met with little to complain of, till we arrived about ten o'clock at Eartham. Here we are as happy as it is in the power of terrestrial good to make us. It is almost a paradise in which we dwell; and our re ception has been the kindest that it was pos sible for friendship and hospitality to contrive. Our host mentions you with great respect, and bids me tell you that he esteems you highly. Mrs. Unwin, who is, I think, in some points, already the better for her excursion, unites with mine her best compliments both to yourself and Mrs. Greatheed. I have much to see and enjoy before I can be perfectly apprized of all the delights of Eartham, and will therefore now subscribe myself Yours, my dear sir, With great sincerity, W. C. TO MRS. COURTENAY. Eartham, August 12, 1792. My dearest Catharina,-Though I have travelled far, nothing did I see in my travels that surprised me half so agreeably as your kind letter; for high as my opinion of your good-nature is, I had no hopes of hearing from you till I should have written first; a pleasure which I intended to allow myself the first opportunity. After three days' confinement in a coach, and suffering as we went all that could be suffered from excessive heat and dust, we found ourselves late in the evening at the door of our friend Hayley. In every other respect the journey was extremely pleasant. At the Mitre, in Barnet, where we lodged the first evening, we found our friend Rose, who had walked thither from his house in Chancery-lane to meet us; and at Kingston, where we dined the second day, I found my old and much-valued friend, General Cowper, whom I had not seen in thirty years, and but for this journey should never have seen again. Mrs. Unwin, on whose account I had a thousand fears, before we set out, suffered as little from fatigue as myself, and begins, I hope, already to feel some beneficial effects from the air of Eartham, and the exercise that she takes in one of the most delightful pleasure-grounds in the world. They occupy three sides of a hill, lofty enough to command a view of the sea, which skirts the horizon to a length of many miles, with the Isle of Wight at the end of it. The inland scene is equally beautiful, consisting of a large and deep valley well cultivated, and enclosed by magnificent hills, all crowned with wood. I had, for my part, no conception that a poet could be the owner of such a paradise; and his house is as elegant as his scenes are charming.* But think not, my dear Catharina, that amidst all these beauties I shall lose the remembrance of the peaceful, but less splendid, Weston. Your precincts will be as dear to *This residence afterwards became the property of the late William Huskisson, Esq. me as ever, when I return; though when that day will arrive I know not, our host being determined, as I plainly see, to keep us as long as possible. Give my best love to your husband. Thank him most kindly for his attention to the old bard of Greece, and pardon me that I do not now send you an epitaph for Fop. I am not sufficiently recollected to compose even a bagatelle at present; but in due time you shall receive it. Hayley, who will some time or other I hope see you at Weston, is already prepared to love you both, and, being passionately fond of music, longs much to hear you. Adieu. W. C. TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESQ. My dear Friend,-Romney is here: it would add much to my happiness if you were of the party; I have prepared Hayley to think highly, that is, justly, of you, and the time, I hope, will come when you will supersede all need of my recommendation. Mrs. Unwin gathers strength. I have indeed great hopes, from the air and exercise which this fine season affords her opportunity to use, that ere we return she will be herself again. W. C. TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESQ. Eartham, Aug. 18, 1792. Wishes in this world are generally vain, and in the next we shall make none. Every day I wish you were of the party, knowing how happy you would be in a place where we have nothing to do but enjoy beautiful scenery and converse agreeably. Mrs. Unwin's health continues to improve; and even I, who was well when I came, find myself still better. Yours, W. C. TO MRS. COURTENAY. Eartham, Aug. 25, 1792. without waiting for an answer to my last, I send my dear Catharina the epitaph she desired, composed as well as I could compose it in a place where every object, being still new to me, distracts my attention, and makes me as awkward at verse as if I had never dealt in it. Here it is. EPITAPH ON FOP; A DOG, BELONGING TO LADY THROCKMOLTON. Though once a puppy, and though Fop by name, Here moulders one whose bones some honor claim! To sycophant. although of spaniel race! Ye squirrels, rabbits, leverets rejoice! "Yes!" the indignant shade of Fop replies, "And worn with vain pursuit, man also dies!" I am here, as I told you in my last, delightfully situated, and in the enjoyment of all that the most friendly hospitality can impart; yet do I neither forget Weston, nor friends at Weston: on the contrary, I my have at length, though much and kindly pressed to make a longer stay, determined on the day of our departure-on the seventeenth day of September we shall leave Eartham; four days will be necessary to bring us home again, for I am under a promise to General Cowper to dine with him on the way, which cannot be done comfortably, either to him or to ourselves, unless we sleep that night at Kingston. The air of this place has been, I believe, beneficial to us both. I indeed was in tolerable health before I set out, but have ac quired since I came, both a better appetite and a knack of sleeping almost as much in a single night as formerly in two. Whether double quantities of that article will be favor able to me as a poet, time must show. About myself, however, I care little, being made of materials so tough, as not to threaten me even now, at the end of so many lustrums, with anything like a speedy dissolution. My chief concern has been about Mrs. Unwin, and my chief comfort at this moment is, that she likewise has received, I hope, con siderable benefit by the journey. Tell my dear George that I begin to long to behold him again, and, did it not savor of ingratitude to the friend under whose roof I am so happy at present, should be impatient to find myself once more under yours. Adieu ! my dear Catharina. I have nothing to add in the way of news, except that Romney has drawn me in crayons, by the suffrage of all here, extremely like. W. C. TO THE REV. MR. HURDIS.* Eartham, Aug. 26, 1792. My dear Sir,-Your kind but very affect ing letter found me not at Weston, to which place it was directed, but in a bower of my friend Hayley's garden at Eartham, where I was sitting with Mrs. Unwin. We both knew the moment we saw it from whom it came, and, observing a red seal, both com *This amiable and much esteemed character, and en deared as one of the friends of Cowper, was born at Bishopstone in Sussex, in 1763. He was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford in 1793, and died at a prema ture age, in 1801. His claims as an author principally rest on his once popular poem of the Village Curate." He also wrote "A Vindication of the University of Ox ford from the Aspersions of Mr. Gibbon." His work? are published in 3 vols. forted ourselves that all was well at Bur-in a new scene and surrounded with strange wash but we soon felt that we were not objects, I find my powers of thinking dissi called to rejoice, but to mourn with you;*pated to a degree, that makes it difficult to me we do indeed sincerely mourn with you, and, even to write a letter, and even a letter to you; if it will afford you any consolation to know but such a letter as I can, I will, and have it, you may be assured that every eye here the fairest chance to succeed this morning, has testified what our hearts have suffered Hayley, Romney, Hayley's son, and Beau, for you. Your loss is great, and your dis- being all gone together to the sea for bathing. position I perceive such as exposes you to The sea, you must know, is nine miles off, so feel the whole weight of it: I will not add that, unless stupidity prevent, I shall have to your sorrow by a vain attempt to assuage opportunity to write not only to you, but to it; your own good sense, and the piety of poor Hurdis also, who is broken-hearted for your principles, will, of course, suggest to the loss of his favorite sister, lately dead; you the most powerful motives of acquies- and whose letter, giving an account of it, cence in the will of God. You will be sure which I received yesterday, drew tears from to recollect that the stroke, severe as it is, is the eyes of all our party. My only comfort not the stroke of an enemy, but of a father; respecting even yourself is, that you write and will find I trust, hereafter, that like a father in good spirits, and assure me that you are he has done you good by it. Thousands in a state of recovery; otherwise I should have been able to say, and myself as loud as mourn not only for Hurdis, but for myself, any of them, it has been good for me that I lest a certain event should reduce me, and in was afflicted; but time is necessary to work a short time too, to a situation as distressing us to this persuasion, and in due time it as his; for though nature designed you only shall be yours. Mr. Hayley, who tenderly for my cousin, you have had a sister's place sympathizes with you, has enjoined me to in my affections ever since I knew you. The send you as pressing an invitation as I can reason is, I suppose, that, having no sister, frame, to join me at this place. I have every the daughter of my own mother, I thought it motive to wish your consent; both your proper to have one, the daughter of yours. benefit and my own, which, I believe, would Certain it is, that I can by no means afford be abundantly answered by your coming, to lose you, and that, unless you will be ought to make me eloquent in such a cause. upon honor with me to give me always a Here you will find silence and retirement in true account of yourself, at least when we perfection, when you would seek them; and are not together, I shall always be unhappy, here such company as I have no doubt would because always suspicious that you deceive suit you, all cheerful, but not noisy; and all me. alike disposed to love you: you and I seem to have here a fair opportunity of meeting. It were a pity we should be in the same county and not come together. I am here till the seventeenth of September, an interval that will afford you time to make the necessary arrangements, and to gratify me at last with an interview, which I have long desired. Let me hear from you soon, that I may have double pleasure, the pleasure of expecting as well as that of seeing you. Mrs. Unwin, I thank God, though still a sufferer by her last illness, is much better, and has received considerable benefit by the air of Eartham. She adds to mine her affectionate compliments, and joins me and Hayley in this invitation. Mr. Romney is here, and a young man a cousin of mine. I tell you who we are, that you may not be afraid of us. Adieu! May the Comforter of all the afflicted, who seek him, be yours! God bless you! W. C. TO LADY HESKETH. * Mr Hurdis had just lost a favorite sister. Now for ourselves. I am, without the least dissimulation, in good health; my spirits are about as good as you have ever seen them; and if increase of appetite, and a double portion of sleep, be advantageous, such are the advantages that I have received from this migration. As to that gloominess of mind, which I have had these twenty years, it cleaves to me even here, and, could I be translated to Paradise, unless I left my body behind me, would cleave to me even there also. It is my companion for life, and nothing will ever divorce us. So much for myself. Mrs. Unwin is evidently the better for her jaunt, though by no means as she was before this last attack; still wanting help when she would rise from her seat, and a support in walking; but she is able to use more exercise than she could at home, and moves with rather a less tottering step. God knows what he designs for me, but when I see those who are dearer to me than myself distempered and enfeebled, and myself as strong as in the days of my youth, I tremble for the solitude in which a few years may place me. I wish her and you to die before me, but not till I am more likely to follow immediately. Enough of this! Romney has drawn me in crayons, and, in |