shall be curious to know the age of the oaks, their curiosity may be
gratified.

  [544] At Chillington, Bucks.

1.

INSCRIPTION.

    Other stones the era tell
    When some feeble mortal fell.
    I stand here to date the birth
    Of these hardy sons of earth.

  Anno 1790.

2.

INSCRIPTION.

    Reader! Behold a monument
      That asks no sigh or tear,
    Though it perpetuate the event
      Of a great burial here.

  Anno 1791.

My works therefore will not all perish, or will not all perish soon,
for he has ordered his lapidary to cut the characters very deep,
and in stone extremely hard. It is not in vain, then, that I have
so long exercised the business of a poet. I shall at last reap the
reward of my labours, and be immortal probably for many years.

  Ever thine,
  W. C.

TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT.

  Weston, June 22, 1790.

My dear Friend,--

.      .       .       .       .      .      .       .

Villoison makes no mention of the serpent, whose skin or bowels,
or perhaps both, were honoured with the Iliad and the Odyssey
inscribed upon them. But I have conversed with a living eye-witness
of an African serpent long enough to have afforded skin and guts
for the purpose. In Africa there are ants also which frequently
destroy these monsters. They are not much larger than ours, but they
travel in a column of immense length, and eat through everything
that opposes them. Their bite is like a spark of fire. When these
serpents have killed their prey, lion or tiger, or any other large
animal, before they swallow him, they take a considerable circuit
round about the carcass, to see if the ants are coming, because,
when they have gorged their prey, they are unable to escape them.
They are nevertheless sometimes surprised by them in their unwieldy
state, and the ants make a passage through them. Now if you thought
your own story of Homer, bound in snake-skin, worthy of three notes
of admiration, you cannot do less than add six to mine, confessing
at the same time, that, if I put you to the expense of a letter, I
do not make you pay your money for nothing. But this account I had
from a person of most unimpeached veracity.

I rejoice with you in the good Bishop's removal to St. Asaph,[545]
and especially because the Norfolk parsons much more resemble the
ants above-mentioned than he the serpent. He is neither of vast
size, nor unwieldy, nor voracious; neither, I dare say, does he
sleep after dinner, according to the practice of the said serpent.
But, harmless as he is, I am mistaken if his mutinous clergy did
not sometimes disturb his rest, and if he did not find their
bite, though they could not actually eat through him, in a degree
resembling fire. Good men like him, and peaceable, should have good
and peaceable folks to deal with; and I heartily wish him such in
his new diocese. But if he will keep the clergy to their business,
he shall have trouble, let him go where he may; and this is boldly
spoken, considering that I speak it to one of that reverend body.
But ye are like Jeremiah's basket of figs: some of you cannot be
better, and some of you are stark naught. Ask the bishop himself if
this be not true!

  W. C.

  [545] Dr. Lewis Bagot, previously Bishop of Norwich.

TO MRS. BODHAM.

  Weston, June 29, 1790.

My dearest Cousin,--It is true that I did sometimes complain to
Mrs. Unwin of your long silence. But it is likewise true that I
made many excuses for you in my own mind, and did not feel myself
at all inclined to be angry, not even much to wonder. There is an
awkwardness and a difficulty in writing to those whom distance and
length of time have made in a manner new to us, that naturally gives
us a check, when you would otherwise be glad to address them. But a
time, I hope, is near at hand when you and I shall be effectually
delivered from all such constraints, and correspond as fluently as
if our intercourse had suffered much less interruption.

You must not suppose, my dear, that though I may be said to have
lived many years with a pen in my hand, I am myself altogether at
my ease on this tremendous occasion. Imagine rather, and you will
come nearer the truth, that when I placed this sheet before me,
I asked myself more than once, "how shall I fill it? One subject
indeed presents itself, the pleasant prospect that opens upon me of
our coming once more together; but, that once exhausted, with what
shall I proceed?" Thus I questioned myself; but finding neither end
nor profit of such questions, I bravely resolved to dismiss them all
at once, and to engage in the great enterprise of a letter to my
quondam Rose at a venture. There is great truth in a rant of Nat.
Lee's, or of Dryden's, I know not which, who makes an enamoured
youth say to his mistress,

  And nonsense shall be eloquence in love.

For certain it is, that they who truly love one another are not very
nice examiners of each other's style or matter; if an epistle comes,
it is always welcome, though it be perhaps neither so wise, nor so
witty, as one might have wished to make it. And now, my cousin,
let me tell thee how much I feel myself obliged to Mr. Bodham for
the readiness he expresses to accept my invitation. Assure him
that, stranger as he is to me at present, and natural as the dread
of strangers has ever been to me, I shall yet receive him with
open arms, because he is your husband, and loves you dearly. That
consideration alone will endear him to me, and I dare say that I
shall not find it his only recommendation to my best affections.
May the health of his relation (his mother, I suppose) be soon
restored, and long continued, and may nothing melancholy, of what
kind soever, interfere to prevent our joyful meeting. Between the
present moment and September our house is clear for your reception,
and you have nothing to do but to give us a day or two's notice of
your coming. In September we expect Lady Hesketh, and I only regret
that our house is not large enough to hold all together, for, were
it possible that you could meet, you would love each other.

Mrs. Unwin bids me offer you her best love. She is never well, but
always patient and always cheerful, and feels beforehand that she
shall be loath to part with you.

My love to all the dear Donnes of every name!--write soon, no matter
about what.

  W. C.

TO LADY HESKETH.

  Weston, July 7, 1790.

Instead of beginning with the saffron-vested morning, to which Homer
invites me, on a morning that has no saffron vest to boast, I shall
begin with you.

It is irksome to us both to wait so long as we must for you, but we
are willing to hope that by a longer stay you will make us amends
for all this tedious procrastination.

Mrs. Unwin has made known her whole case to Mr. Gregson, whose
opinion of it has been very consolatory to me. He says indeed it is
a case perfectly out of the reach of all physical aid, but at the
same time not at all dangerous. Constant pain is a sad grievance,
whatever part is affected, and she is hardly ever free from an
aching head, as well as an uneasy side, but patience is an anodyne
of God's own preparation, and of that he gives her largely.

The French, who like all lively folks are extreme in everything,
are such in their zeal for freedom, and if it were possible to make
so noble a cause ridiculous, their manner of promoting it could not
fail to do so. Princes and peers reduced to plain gentlemanship,
and gentles reduced to a level with their own lacqueys, are
excesses of which they will repent hereafter.[546] Difference of
rank and subordination are, I believe, of God's appointment, and
consequently essential to the well-being of society: but what we
mean by fanaticism in religion is exactly that which animates their
politics, and, unless time should sober them, they will, after
all, be an unhappy people. Perhaps it deserves not much to be
wondered at, that, at their first escape from tyrannical shackles,
they should act extravagantly, and treat their kings as they have
sometimes treated their idols. To these however they are reconciled
in due time again, but their respect for monarchy is at an end. They
want nothing now but a little English sobriety, and that they want
extremely. I heartily wish them some wit in their anger, for it were
great pity that so many millions should be miserable for want of it.

  [546] The distinctions of rank were abolished during the French
  Revolution, and the title of citizen considered to be the only
  legal and honourable appellation.

TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESQ.

  Weston, July 8, 1790.

My dear Johnny,--You do well to perfect yourself on the violin. Only
beware that an amusement so very bewitching as music, especially
when we produce it ourselves, do not steal from you ALL those hours
that should be given to study. I can be well content that it should
serve you as a refreshment after severer exercises, but not that it
should engross you wholly. Your own good sense will most probably
dictate to you this precaution, and I might have spared you the
trouble of it, but I have a degree of zeal for your proficiency in
more important pursuits, that would not suffer me to suppress it.

Having delivered my conscience by giving you this sage admonition,
I will convince you that I am a censor not over and above severe,
by acknowledging in the next place that I have known very good
performers on the violin, very learned also; and my cousin, Dr.
Spencer Madan, is an instance.

I am delighted that you have engaged your sister to visit us; for
I say to myself, if John be amiable what must Catherine be? For we
males, be we angelic as we may, are always surpassed by the ladies.
But know this, that I shall not be in love with either of you, if
you stay with us only a few days, for you talk of a week or so.
Correct this erratum, I beseech you, and convince us, by a much
longer continuance here, that it was one.

  W. C.

Mrs. Unwin has never been well since you saw her. You are not
passionately fond of letter-writing, I perceive, who have dropped
a lady; but you will be a loser by the bargain; for one letter of
hers, in point of real utility and sterling value, is worth twenty
of mine, and you will never have another from her till you have
earned it.

TO MRS KING.[547]

  [547] Private correspondence.

  The Lodge, July 16, 1790.

My dear Madam,--Taking it for granted that this will find you at
Perten-hall, I follow you with an early line and a hasty one, to
tell you how much we rejoice to have seen yourself and Mr. King;
and how much regret you have left behind you. The wish that we
expressed when we were together, Mrs. Unwin and I have more than
once expressed since your departure, and have always felt it--that
it had pleased Providence to appoint our habitations nearer to each
other. This is a life of wishes, and they only are happy who have
arrived where wishes cannot enter. We shall live now in hope of a
second meeting and a longer interview; which, if it please God to
continue to you and to Mr. King your present measure of health, you
will be able, I trust, to contrive hereafter. You did not leave us
without encouragement to expect it; and I know that you do not raise
expectations but with a sincere design to fulfil them.

Nothing shall be wanting, on our part, to accomplish in due time
a journey to Perten-hall. But I am a strange creature, who am
less able than any man living to project anything out of the
common course, with a reasonable prospect of performance. I have
singularities, of which, I believe, at present you know nothing;
and which would fill you with wonder, if you knew them. I will
add, however, in justice to myself, that they would not lower me
in your good opinion; though, perhaps, they might tempt you to
question the soundness of my upper story. Almost twenty years have
I been thus unhappily circumstanced; and the remedy is in the hand
of God only. That I make you this partial communication on the
subject, conscious, at the same time, that you are well worthy to
be entrusted with the whole, is merely because the recital would be
too long for a letter, and painful both to me and to you. But all
this may vanish in a moment; and, if it please God, it shall. In the
meantime, my dear madam, remember me in your prayers, and mention
me at those times, as one whom it has pleased God to afflict with
singular visitations.

How I regret, for poor Mrs. Unwin's sake, your distance! She has no
friend suitable as you to her disposition and character, in all the
neighbourhood. Mr. King, too, is just the friend and companion with
whom I could be happy; but such grow not in this country. Pray tell
him that I remember him with much esteem and regard; and, believe
me, my dear madam, with the sincerest affection,

  Yours entirely,
  W. C.

TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESQ.

  Weston, July 31, 1790.

You have by this time, I presume, answered Lady Hesketh's letter?
if not, answer it without delay, and this injunction I give you,
judging that it may not be entirely unnecessary, for, though I have
seen you but once, and only for two or three days, I have found out
that you are a scatter-brain.[548] I made the discovery perhaps
the sooner, because in this you very much resemble myself, who, in
the course of my life, through mere carelessness and inattention,
lost many advantages; an insuperable shyness has also deprived me
of many. And here again there is a resemblance between us. You will
do well to guard against both, for of both, I believe, you have a
considerable share as well as myself.

  [548] This title was not long merited.

We long to see you again, and are only concerned at the short stay
you propose to make with us. If time should seem to you as short at
Weston, as it seems to us, your visit here will be gone "as a dream
when one awaketh, or as a watch in the night."

It is a life of dreams, but the pleasantest one naturally wishes
longest.

I shall find employment for you, having made already some part of
the fair copy of the Odyssey a foul one. I am revising it for the
last time, and spare nothing that I can mend. The Iliad is finished.

If you have Donne's poems, bring them with you, for I have not seen
them many years, and should like to look them over.[549]

  [549] Dr. Donne, Dean of St. Paul's, and Chaplain to King James
  the First, belonged to that class of writers, whom Johnson,
  in his Life of Cowley, describes as metaphysical poets. Their
  great object seemed to be to display their wit and learning,
  and to astonish by what was brilliant, rather than to please by
  what was natural and simple. Notwithstanding this defect, the
  poetry of Donne, though harsh and unmusical, abounds in powerful
  thoughts, and discovers a considerable share of learning. His
  divinity was drawn from the pure fountain of Revelation, of
  which he drank copiously and freely. Of his fervent zeal and
  piety, many instances are recorded in that inimitable piece of
  biography, Izaak Walton's Lives. We subjoin a specimen of his
  poetry, composed during a severe fit of sickness, and which, on
  his recovery, was set to music, and used to be often sung to the
  organ by the choristers of St. Paul's, in his own hearing.

  HYMN TO GOD THE FATHER.

  1.

    Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun,
    Which was my sin, though it were done before
    Wilt thou forgive that sin through which I run,
    And do run still, though still I do deplore?
    When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
    For I have more.

  2.

    Wilt thou forgive that sin which I have won
    Others to sin, and made my sin their door?
    Wilt thou forgive that sin which I did shun
    A year or two, but wallow'd in a score?
    When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
    For I have more.

  3.

    I have a sin of fear, that when I've spun
    My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;
    But swear by thyself that, at my death, thy Son
    Shall shine, as he shines now, and heretofore.
    And having done that thou hast done,
    I fear no more.

  _Divine Poems._

You may treat us too, if you please, with a little of your music,
for I seldom hear any, and delight much in it. You need not fear
a rival, for we have but two fiddles in the neighbourhood--one a
gardener's, the other a tailor's: terrible performers both!

W. C.

Mrs. Newton was at this time in very declining health. It is to
this subject that Cowper alludes in the following letter.

TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.[550]

  [550] Private correspondence.

  The Lodge, Aug. 11, 1790.

My dear Friend,--That I may not seem unreasonably tardy in answering
your last kind letter, I steal a few minutes from my customary
morning business, (at present the translation of Mr. Van Lier's
Narrative,) to inform you that I received it safe from the hands of
Judith Hughes, whom we met in the middle of Hill-field. Desirous
of gaining the earliest intelligence possible concerning Mrs.
Newton, we were going to call on her, and she was on her way to
us. It grieved us much that her news on that subject corresponded
so little with our earnest wishes of Mrs. Newton's amendment. But
if Dr. Benamer[551] still gives hope of her recovery, it is not,
I trust, without substantial reason for doing so; much less can I
suppose that he would do it contrary to his own persuasions, because
a thousand reasons, that must influence, in such a case, the conduct
of a humane and sensible physician, concur to forbid it. If it shall
please God to restore her, no tidings will give greater joy to us.
In the meantime, it is our comfort to know, that in any event you
will be sure of supports invaluable, and that cannot fail you;
though, at the same time, I know well that, with your feelings, and
especially on so affecting a subject, you will have need of the
full exercise of all your faith and resignation. To a greater trial
no man can be called, than that of being a helpless eye-witness
of the sufferings of one he loves and loves tenderly. This I know
by experience; but it is long since I had any experience of those
communications from above, which alone can enable us to acquit
ourselves, on such an occasion as we ought. But it is otherwise with
you, and I rejoice that it is so.

  [551] Dr. Benamer was a pious and excellent man, whose house was
  the resort of religious persons at that time, who went there for
  the purpose of edification. Mr. Newton was a regular attendant on
  these occasions.

With respect to my own initiation into the secret of animal
magnetism, I have a thousand doubts. Twice, as you know, I have been
overwhelmed with the blackest despair; and at those times every
thing in which I have been at any period of my life concerned has
afforded to the enemy a handle against me. I tremble, therefore,
almost at every step I take, lest on some future similar occasion
it should yield him opportunity, and furnish him with means to
torment me. Decide for me, if you can; and in the meantime, present,
if you please, my respectful compliments and very best thanks to
Mr. Holloway, for his most obliging offer.[552] I am, perhaps, the
only man living who would hesitate a moment, whether, on such easy
terms, he should or should not accept it. But if he finds another
like me, he will make a greater discovery than even that which he
has already made of the principles of this wonderful art. For I take
it for granted, that he is the gentleman whom you once mentioned to
me as indebted only to his own penetration for the knowledge of it.

  [552] Newton had suggested the propriety of Cowper trying the
  effect of animal magnetism, in the hopes of mitigating his
  disorder, but he declined the offer.

I shall proceed, you may depend on it, with all possible despatch
in your business. Had it fallen into my hands a few months later, I
should have made a quicker riddance; for, before the autumn shall
be ended, I hope to have done with Homer. But my first morning hour
or two (now and then a letter which must be written excepted) shall
always be at your service till the whole is finished.

Commending you and Mrs. Newton, with all the little power I have of
that sort, to His fatherly and tender care in whom you have both
believed, in which friendly office I am fervently joined by Mrs.
Unwin, I remain, with our sincere love to you both and to Miss
Catlett, my dear friend, most affectionately yours,

  W. C.

The termination of a laborious literary undertaking is an eventful
period in an author's life. The following letter announces the
termination of Cowper's Homeric version, and its conveyance to the
press.

TO MRS. BODHAM.

  Weston, Sept. 9, 1790.

My dearest Cousin,--I am truly sorry to be forced after all to
resign the hope of seeing you and Mr. Bodham at Weston this year;
the next may possibly be more propitious, and I heartily wish it
may. Poor Catherine's[553] unseasonable indisposition has also
cost us a disappointment which we much regret. And, were it not
that Johnny has made shift to reach us, we should think ourselves
completely unfortunate. But him we have, and him we will hold as
long as we can, so expect not very soon to see him in Norfolk. He
is so harmless, cheerful, gentle, and good-tempered, and I am so
entirely at my ease with him, that I cannot surrender him without
a _needs must_, even to those who have a superior claim upon him.
He left us yesterday morning, and whither do you think he is gone,
and on what errand? Gone, as sure as you are alive, to London, and
to convey my Homer to the bookseller's. But he will return the day
after to-morrow, and I mean to part with him no more till necessity
shall force us asunder. Suspect me not, my cousin, of being such
a monster as to have imposed this task myself on your kind nephew,
or even to have thought of doing it. It happened that one day, as
we chatted by the fire-side, I expressed a wish that I could hear
of some trusty body going to London, to whose care I might consign
my voluminous labours, the work of five years. For I purpose never
to visit that city again myself, and should have been uneasy to
have left a charge, of so much importance to me, altogether to the
care of a stage-coachman. Johnny had no sooner heard my wish than,
offering himself to the service, he fulfilled it; and his offer was
made in such terms, and accompanied with a countenance and manner
expressive of so much alacrity, that, unreasonable as I thought it
at first to give him so much trouble, I soon found that I should
mortify him by a refusal. He is gone therefore with a box full of
poetry, of which I think nobody will plunder him. He has only to say
what it is, and there is no commodity I think a freebooter would
covet less.

  W. C.

  [553] The Rev. J. Johnson's sister.

The marriage of his friend, Mr. Rose, was too interesting an event
not to claim Cowper's warm congratulations.

TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESQ.

  The Lodge, Sept. 13, 1790.

My dear Friend,--Your letter was particularly welcome to me, not
only because it came after a long silence, but because it brought
me good news--news of your marriage, and consequently, I trust, of
your happiness. May that happiness be durable as your lives, and may
you be the _Felices ter et amplius_ of whom Horace sings so sweetly!
This is my sincere wish, and, though expressed in prose, shall serve
as your epithalamium. You comfort me when you say that your marriage
will not deprive us of the sight of you hereafter. If you do not
wish that I should regret your union, you must make that assurance
good as often as you have opportunity.

After perpetual versification during five years, I find myself at
last a vacant man, and reduced to read for my amusement. My Homer
is gone to the press, and you will imagine that I feel a void in
consequence. The proofs however will be coming soon, and I shall
avail myself, with all my force, of this last opportunity to make
my work as perfect as I wish it. I shall not therefore be long
time destitute of employment, but shall have sufficient to keep me
occupied all the winter and part of the ensuing spring, for Johnson
purposes to publish either in March, April, or May--my very preface
is finished. It did not cost me much trouble, being neither long
nor learned. I have spoken my mind as freely as decency would permit
on the subject of Pope's version, allowing him at the same time all
the merit to which I think him entitled. I have given my reasons
for translating in blank verse, and hold some discourse on the
mechanism of it, chiefly with a view to obviate the prejudices of
some people against it. I expatiate a little on the manner in which
I think Homer ought to be rendered, and in which I have endeavoured
to render him myself, and anticipated two or three cavils to which
I foresee that I shall be liable from the ignorant or uncandid, in
order, if possible, to prevent them. These are the chief heads of my
preface, and the whole consists of about twelve pages.

It is possible, when I come to treat with Johnson about the copy,
I may want some person to negotiate for me, and knowing no one so
intelligent as yourself in books, or so well qualified to estimate
their just value, I shall beg leave to resort to and rely on you
as my negotiator. But I will not trouble you unless I should see
occasion. My cousin was the bearer of my MSS. to London. He went
on purpose, and returns to-morrow. Mrs. Unwin's affectionate
felicitations added to my own, conclude me,

  Dear friend,
  Sincerely yours,
  W. C.

The trees of a colonnade will solve my riddle.[554]

  [554] What are they which stand at a distance from each other,
  and meet without ever moving?

TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.[555]

  [555] Private correspondence.

  The Lodge, Sept. 17, 1790.

My dear Friend,--I received last night a copy of my subscribers'
names from Johnson, in which I see how much I have been indebted to
yours and to Mrs. Hill's solicitations. Accept my best thanks, so
justly due to you both. It is an illustrious catalogue, in respect
of rank and title, but methinks I should have liked it as well had
it been more numerous. The sum subscribed, however, will defray the
expense of printing, which is as much as, in these unsubscribing
days, I had any reason to promise myself. I devoutly second your
droll wish, that the booksellers may contend about me. The more the
better: seven times seven, if they please; and let them fight with
the fury of Achilles,

    Till ev'ry rubric-post be crimson'd o'er
    With blood of booksellers, in battle slain
    For me, and not a periwig untorn.

  Most truly yours,
  W. C.

TO MRS. KING.[556]

  [556] Private correspondence.

  Weston, Oct. 5, 1790.

My dear Madam,--I am truly concerned that you have so good an excuse
for your silence. Were it proposed to my choice, whether you should
omit to write through illness or indifference to me, I should be
selfish enough, perhaps, to find decision difficult for a few
moments; but have such an opinion at the same time of my affection
for you, as to be verily persuaded that I should at last make a
right option, and wish you rather to forget me than to be afflicted.
But there is One wiser and more your friend than I can possibly be,
who appoints all your sufferings, and who, by a power altogether his
own, is able to make them good for you.

I wish heartily that my verses had been more worthy of the
counterpane, their subject.[557] The gratitude I felt when you
brought it, and gave it to me, might have inspired better; but a
head full of Homer, I find, by sad experience, is good for little
else. Lady Hesketh, who is here, has seen your gift, and pronounced
it the most beautiful and best executed of the kind she ever saw.

  [557] Mrs. King presented the poet with a counterpane, in
  patch-work, of her own making. In acknowledgement, he addressed
  to her the verses beginning,

    "The bard, if e'er he feel at all,
    Must sure be quicken'd by a call," &c. &c.

I have lately received from my bookseller a copy of my
subscribers' names, and do not find among them the name of Mr.
Professor Martyn. I mention it because you informed me, some
time since, of his kind intention to number himself among my
encouragers on this occasion, and because I am unwilling to lose,
for want of speaking in time, the honour that his name will
do me. It is possible, too, that he may have subscribed, and
that his non-appearance may be owing merely to Johnson's having
forgot to enter his name. Perhaps you will have an opportunity
to ascertain the matter. The catalogue will be printed soon,
and published in the "Analytical Review," as the last and most
effectual way of advertising my translation, and the name of the
gentleman in question will be particularly serviceable to me in
this first edition of it.

My whole work is in the bookseller's hands, and ought by this
time to be in the press. The next spring is the time appointed
for the publication. It is a genial season, when people who are
ever good-tempered at all are sure to be so; a circumstance well
worthy of an author's attention, especially of mine, who am just
going to give a thump on the outside of the critics' hive, that
will probably alarm them all.

Mrs. Unwin, I think, is on the whole rather improved in her
health since we had the pleasure of your short visit; I should
say the pleasure of your visit, and the pain of its shortness.

I am, my dearest madam,
Most truly yours,
W. C.

TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.[558]

  [558] Private correspondence.

  The Lodge, Oct. 15, 1790.

My dear Friend,--We were surprised and grieved at Mrs. Scott's[559]
sudden departure; grieved, you may suppose, not for _her_, but for
_him_, whose loss, except that in God he has an all-sufficient good,
is irreparable. The day of separation between those who have loved
long and well is an awful day, inasmuch as it calls the Christian's
faith and submission to the severest trial. Yet I account those
happy, who, if they are severely tried, shall yet be supported,
and carried safely through. What would become of me on a similar
occasion! I have one comfort, and only one: bereft of that, I should
have nothing left to lean on; for my spiritual props have been long
struck from under me.

  [559] The wife of the Rev. Thomas Scott, the author of one of
  the best Commentaries on the Bible ever published. Mr. Scott was
  preacher at the Lock Hospital at this time.

I have no objection at all to being known as the translator of Van
Lier's Letters, when they shall be published. Rather, I am ambitious
of it as an honour. It will serve to prove, that, if I have spent
much time to little purpose in the translation of Homer, some small
portion of my time has, however, been well disposed of.

The honour of your preface prefixed to my poems will be on my side;
for surely to be known as the friend of a much-favoured minister of
God's word is a more illustrious distinction, in reality, than to
have the friendship of any poet in the world to boast of.

We sympathize truly with you under all your tender concern for Mrs.
Newton, and with her in all her sufferings from such various and
discordant maladies. Alas! what a difference have twenty-three years
made in us and in our condition! for just so long is it since Mrs.
Unwin and I came into Buckinghamshire. Yesterday was the anniversary
of that memorable era. Farewell!

  W. C.

TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.[560]

  [560] Private correspondence.

  The Lodge, Oct. 26, 1790.

My dear Friend,--We should have been happy to have received from you
a more favourable account of Mrs. Newton's health. Yours is indeed
a post of observation, and of observation the most interesting. It
is well that you are enabled to bear the stress and intenseness
of it without prejudice to your own health, or impediment to your
ministry.

The last time I wrote to Johnson I made known to him your wishes to
have your preface printed, and affixed, as soon as an opportunity
shall offer; expressing at the same time my own desires to have
it done.[561] Whether I shall have any answer to my proposal is a
matter of much uncertainty; for he is always either too idle or
too busy, I know not which, to write to me. Should you happen to
pass his way, perhaps it would not be amiss to speak to him on the
subject; for it is easier to carry a point by six words spoken, than
by writing as many sheets about it. I have asked him hither, when my
cousin Johnson shall leave us, which will be in about a fortnight;
and should he come, will enforce the measure myself.

  [561] We here subjoin the letter which Cowper addressed to
  Johnson, the bookseller, on this occasion.

  Weston, Oct. 3, 1790.

  Mr. Newton having again requested that the Preface which he
  wrote for my first volume may be prefixed to it, I am desirous
  to gratify him in a particular that so emphatically bespeaks his
  friendship for me; and, should my books see another edition,
  shall be obliged to you if you will add it accordingly.

  W. C.

A yellow shower of leaves is falling continually from all the
trees in the country. A few moments only seem to have passed
since they were buds; and in a few moments more they will have
disappeared. It is one advantage of a rural situation, that it
affords many hints of the rapidity with which life flies, that
do not occur in towns and cities. It is impossible for a man
conversant with such scenes as surround me, not to advert daily
to the shortness of his existence here, admonished of it, as he
must be, by ten thousand objects. There was a time when I could
contemplate my present state, and consider myself as a thing of
a day with pleasure; when I numbered the seasons as they passed
in swift rotation, as a schoolboy numbers the days that interpose
between the next vacation, when he shall see his parents, and
enjoy his home again. But to make so just an estimate of a life
like this is no longer in my power. The consideration of my short
continuance here, which was once grateful to me, now fills me
with regret. I would live and live always, and am become such
another wretch as Mæcenas was, who wished for long life, he cared
not at what expense of sufferings. The only consolation left me
on this subject is, that the voice of the Almighty can in one
moment cure me of this mental infirmity. That he can, I know by
experience; and there are reasons for which I ought to believe
that He will. But from hope to despair is a transition that I
have made so often, that I can only consider the hope that may
come, and that sometimes I believe will, as a short prelude of
joy to a miserable conclusion of sorrow that shall never end.
Thus are my brightest prospects clouded, and thus, to me, is hope
itself become like a withered flower, that has lost both its hue
and its fragrance.

I ought not to have written in this dismal strain to you, in your
present trying situation, nor did I intend it. You have more need
to be cheered than to be saddened; but a dearth of other themes
constrained me to choose myself for a subject, and of myself I
can write no otherwise.

Adieu, my dear friend. We are well; and, notwithstanding all
that I have said, I am myself as cheerful as usual. Lady Hesketh
is here, and in her company even I, except now and then for a
moment, forget my sorrows.

I remain sincerely yours,
W. C.

The purport of this letter is painful, but it is explained
by the peculiarity of Cowper's case. The state of mind which
the Christian _ought to realize_, should be a willingness to
remain or to depart, as may seem best to the supreme Disposer
of events; though the predominating feeling (where there is an
assured and lively hope) will be that of the apostle, viz. that
"to be with Christ is far better." The question is, how is this
lively hope and assurance to be obtained? How is the sense of
guilt, and the fear of death and judgment, to be overcome? The
gospel proclaims the appointed remedy. "Behold the Lamb of God,
which taketh away the sins of the world."[562] "I, even I, am
He, which blotteth out all thy transgressions for mine own sake,
and will not remember thy sins."[563] "If any man sin, we have
an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he
is the propitiation for our sins."[564] The cordial reception
of this great gospel truth into the heart, the humble reliance
upon God's pardoning mercy, through the blood of the cross, will,
by the grace of God, infallibly lead to inward joy and peace.
"Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God,
through our Lord Jesus Christ. By whom also we have access by
faith unto this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of
the glory of God."[565] The same divine grace that assures peace
to the conscience, will also change and renew the heart, and
plant within it those holy principles and affections that will
lead to newness of life. The promise of the blood to pardon,
and the Spirit to teach and to sanctify, are the two great
fundamental doctrines of the gospel.[566]

  [562] John i. 29.

  [563] Isaiah xliii. 25.

  [564] 1 John ii. 1, 2.

  [565] Rom. v. 1, 2.

  [566] 1 John i. 7. Isaiah lxi. 1-3. Luke ii. 9-13. John xiv. 16,
  17.

TO MRS. BODHAM.

  Weston, Nov. 21, 1790.

My dear Coz,--Our kindness to your nephew is no more than he must
entitle himself to wherever he goes. His amiable disposition and
manners will never fail to secure him a warm place in the affection
of all who know him. The advice I gave respecting his poem on Audley
End was dictated by my love of him, and a sincere desire of his
success. It is one thing to write what may please our friends, who,
because they are such, are apt to be a little biassed in our favour;
and another to write what may please every body; because they who
have no connexion or even knowledge of the author will be sure to
find fault if they can. My advice, however, salutary and necessary
as it seemed to me, was such as I dare not have given to a poet of
less diffidence than he. Poets are to a proverb irritable, and he
is the only one I ever knew who seems to have no spark of that fire
about him. He has left us about a fortnight, and sorry we were to
lose him; but had he been my son he must have gone, and I could not
have regretted him more. If his sister be still with you, present
my love to her, and tell her how much I wish to see them at Weston
together.

Mrs. Hewitt probably remembers more of my childhood than I can
recollect either of hers or my own; but this I recollect, that the
days of that period were happy days compared with most I have seen
since. There are few perhaps in the world who have not cause to look
back with regret on the days of infancy; yet, to say the truth, I
suspect some deception in this. For infancy itself has its cares,
and though we cannot now conceive how trifles could affect us much,
it is certain that they did. Trifles they appear now, but such they
were not then.

  W. C.

TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESQ.

(MY BIRTH-DAY.)

  Weston, Friday, Nov. 26, 1790.

My dearest Johnny,--I am happy that you have escaped from the claws
of Euclid into the bosom of Justinian. It is useful, I suppose, to
_every_ man to be well grounded in the principles of jurisprudence,
and I take it to be a branch of science that bids much fairer to
enlarge the mind, and give an accuracy of reasoning, than all the
mathematics in the world. Mind your studies, and you will soon be
wiser than I can hope to be.

We had a visit on Monday from one of the first women in the world;
in point of character, I mean, and accomplishments, the dowager Lady
Spencer![567] I may receive, perhaps, some honours hereafter, should
my translation speed according to my wishes, and the pains I have
taken with it; but shall never receive any that I shall esteem so
highly. She is indeed worthy to whom I should dedicate, and, may but
my Odyssey prove as worthy of her, I shall have nothing to fear from
the critics.

  Yours, my dear Johnny,
  With much affection,
  W. C.

  [567] The mother of the late Earl Spencer, and of the Duchess of
  Devonshire, and the person to whom he dedicated his version of
  the Odyssey.

TO MRS. KING.[568]

  [568] Private correspondence.

  The Lodge, Nov. 29, 1790.

My dear Madam,--I value highly, as I ought and hope that I always
shall, the favourable opinion of such men as Mr. Martyn: though,
to say the truth, their commendations, instead of making me proud,
have rather a tendency to humble me, conscious as I am that I am
over-rated. There is an old piece of advice, given by an ancient
poet and satirist, which it behoves every man who stands well in the
opinion of others to lay up in his bosom:--_Take care to be what you
are reported to be_. By due attention to this wise counsel, it is
possible to turn the praises of our friends to good account, and to
convert that which might prove an incentive to vanity into a lesson
of wisdom. I will keep your good and respectable friend's letter
very safely, and restore it to you the first opportunity. I beg, my
dear madam, that you will present my best compliments to Mr. Martyn,
when you shall either see him next or write to him.

To that gentleman's inquiries I am, doubtless, obliged for the
recovery of no small proportion of my subscription-list: for, in
consequence of his application to Johnson, and very soon after it,
I received from him no fewer than forty-five names, that had been
omitted in the list he sent me, and that would probably never have
been thought of more. No author, I believe, has a more inattentive
or indolent bookseller: but he has every body's good word for
liberality and honesty; therefore I must be content.

The press proceeds at present as well as I can reasonably wish. A
month has passed since we began, and I revised this morning the
first sheet of the sixth Iliad. Mrs. Unwin begs to add a line from
herself, so that I have only room to subjoin my best respects to Mr.
King, and to say that I am truly,

  My dear madam, yours,
  W. C.

TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESQ.

  The Lodge, Nov. 30, 1790.

My dear Friend,--I will confess that I thought your letter somewhat
tardy, though, at the same time, I made every excuse for you,
except, as it seems, the right. _That_ indeed was out of the reach
of all possible conjecture. I could not guess that your silence
was occasioned by your being occupied with either thieves or
thief-takers. Since, however, the cause was such, I rejoice that
your labours were not in vain, and that the freebooters who had
plundered your friend are safe in limbo. I admire, too, as much as I
rejoice in your success, the indefatigable spirit that prompted you
to pursue, with such unremitting perseverance, an object not to be
reached but at the expense of infinite trouble, and that must have
led you into an acquaintance with scenes and characters the most
horrible to a mind like yours. I see in this conduct the zeal and
firmness of your friendship, to whomsoever professed, and, though
I wanted not a proof of it myself, contemplate so unequivocal an
indication of what you really are, and of what I always believed you
to be, with much pleasure. May you rise from the condition of an
humble prosecutor, or witness, to the bench of judgment!

When your letter arrived, it found me with the worst and most
obstinate cold that I ever caught. This was one reason why it had
not a speedier answer. Another is, that, except Tuesday morning,
there is none in the week in which I am not engaged in the last
revisal of my translation; the revisal I mean of my proof-sheets.
To this business I give myself with an assiduity and attention
truly admirable, and set an example, which, if other poets could
be apprised of, they would do well to follow. Miscarriages in
authorship (I am persuaded) are as often to be ascribed to want of
pains-taking as to want of ability.

Lady Hesketh, Mrs. Unwin, and myself, often mention you, and always
in terms that, though you would blush to hear them, you need not be
ashamed of; at the same time wishing much that you could change our
trio into a quartetto.

  W. C.

TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT.

  Weston, Dec. 1, 1790.

My dear Friend,--It is plain that you understand trap, as we used
to say at school: for you begin with accusing me of long silence,
conscious yourself, at the same time, that you have been half a
year in my debt, or thereabout. But I will answer your accusations
with a boast--with a boast of having intended many a day to write
to you again, notwithstanding your long insolvency. Your brother
and sister of Chicheley can both witness for me, that, weeks since,
I testified such an intention, and, if I did not execute it, it was
not for want of good-will, but for want of leisure. When will you
be able to glory of such designs, so liberal and magnificent, you
who have nothing to do, by your own confession, but to grow fat and
saucy? Add to all this, that I have had a violent cold, such as I
never have but at the first approach of winter, and such as at that
time I seldom escape. A fever accompanied it, and an incessant cough.

You measure the speed of printers, of my printer at least, rather
by your own wishes than by any just standard. Mine (I believe) is
as nimble a one as falls to the share of poets in general, though
not nimble enough to satisfy either the author or his friends. I
told you that my work would go to press in autumn, and so it did.
But it had been six weeks in London ere the press began to work upon
it. About a month since we began to print, and, at the rate of nine
sheets in a fortnight, have proceeded to about the middle of the
sixth Iliad. "No further?"--you say. I answer--"No, nor even so far,
without much scolding on my part, both at the bookseller and the
printer." But courage, my friend! Fair and softly, as we proceed,
we shall find our way through at last; and, in confirmation of this
hope, while I write this, another sheet arrives. I expect to publish
in the spring.

I love and thank you for the ardent desire you express to hear
me bruited abroad, _et per ora virûm volitantem_. For your
encouragement, I will tell you that I read, myself at least, with
wonderful complacence what I have done; and if the world, when it
shall appear, do not like it as well as I, we will both say and
swear with Fluellin, that "it is an ass and a fool (look you!) and a
prating coxcomb."

I felt no ambition of the laurel.[569] Else, though vainly, perhaps,
I had friends who would have made a stir on my behalf on that
occasion. I confess that, when I learned the new condition of the
office, that odes were no longer required, and that the salary was
increased, I felt not the same dislike of it. But I could neither go
to court, nor could I kiss hands, were it for a much more valuable
consideration. Therefore never expect to hear that royal favours
find out me!

  [569] The office of Poet Laureat, mentioned in a former letter.

Adieu, my dear old friend! I will send you a mortuary copy soon, and
in the meantime remain,

  Ever yours,
  W. C.

TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.[570]

  [570] Private correspondence.

  The Lodge, Dec. 5, 1790.

My dear Friend,--Sometimes I am too sad, and sometimes too busy to
write. Both these causes have concurred lately to keep me silent.
But more than by either of these I have been hindered, since I
received your last, by a violent cold, which oppressed me during
almost the whole month of November.

Your letter affects us with both joy and sorrow: with sorrow and
sympathy respecting poor Mrs. Newton, whose feeble and dying state
suggests a wish for her release rather than for her continuance;
and joy on your account, who are enabled to bear, with so much
resignation and cheerful acquiescence in the will of God, the
prospect of a loss, which even they who know you best apprehended
might prove too much for you. As to Mrs. Newton's interest in the
best things, none, intimately acquainted with her as we have been,
could doubt it. She doubted it indeed herself; but though it is
not our duty to doubt, any more than it is our privilege, I have
always considered the self-condemning spirit, to which such doubts
are principally owing, as one of the most favourable symptoms of a
nature spiritually renewed, and have many a time heard you make the
same observation.

  [_Torn off._]

We believe that the best Christian is occasionally subject to doubts
and fears; and that they form a part of the great warfare. That it
is our privilege and duty to cultivate an habitual sense of peace in
the conscience, and that this peace will be enjoyed in proportion
as faith is in exercise, and the soul is in communion with God, we
fully agree. But who that is acquainted with the inward experiences
of the Christian, does not know that there are alternations of
joy and fear, of triumph and of depression? The Psalms of David
furnish many instances of this fact, as well as the history of the
most eminent saints recorded in Scripture. "Though I am sometime
afraid, yet put I my trust in thee." We conceive these words to be
an exemplification of the truth of the case. When, therefore, we
hear persons speak of the entire absence of sin and infirmity, and
exemption from doubts and fears, we are strongly disposed to believe
that they labour under great self-deception, and know little of
their own hearts, in thus arguing against the general testimony of
the Church of Christ in all ages. A plain and pious Christian once
told us of an appropriate remark that he addressed to an individual
who professed to be wholly free from any fears on this subject.
"If," observed this excellent man, "you have no fears for yourself,
you must allow me to entertain some for you."

TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESQ.

  Weston, Dec. 18, 1790.

I perceive myself so flattered by the instances of illustrious
success mentioned in your letter, that I feel all the amiable
modesty, for which I was once so famous, sensibly giving way to a
spirit of vain-glory.

The King's College subscription makes me proud--the effect that my
verses have had on your two young friends, the mathematicians, makes
me proud, and I am, if possible, prouder still of the contents of
the letter that you inclosed.

You complained of being stupid, and sent me one of the cleverest
letters. I have not complained of being stupid, and sent you one of
the dullest. But it is no matter. I never aim at anything above the
pitch of every day's scribble, when I write to those I love.

Homer proceeds, my boy! We shall get through it in time, and (I
hope) by the time appointed. We are now in the tenth Iliad. I expect
the ladies every minute to breakfast. You have their best love. Mine
attends the whole army of Donnes at Mattishall Green[571] assembled.
How happy should I find myself, were I but one of the party! My
capering days are over. But do you caper for me, that you may give
them some idea of the happiness I should feel were I in the midst of
them!

  W. C.

  [571] In Norfolk.

TO MRS. KING.[572]

  [572] Private correspondence.

  The Lodge, Dec. 31, 1790.

My dear Madam,--Returning from my walk at half-past three, I
found your welcome messenger in the kitchen; and, entering the
study, found also the beautiful present with which you had charged
him.[573] We have all admired it (for Lady Hesketh was here to
assist us in doing so;) and for my own particular, I return you my
sincerest thanks, a very inadequate compensation. Mrs. Unwin, not
satisfied to send you thanks only, begs your acceptance likewise of
a turkey, which, though the figure of it might not much embellish a
counterpane, may possibly serve hereafter to swell the dimensions of
a feather-bed.

  [573] This counterpane is mentioned in a previous letter, dated
  Oct. 5th, in this year: so that, unless it was taken back and
  then returned in an improved state, there seems to be some error,
  that we do not profess to explain.

I have lately been visited with an indisposition much more
formidable than that which I mentioned to you in my last--a nervous
fever; a disorder to which I am subject, and which I dread above
all others, because it comes attended by a melancholy perfectly
insupportable. This is the first day of my complete recovery,
the first in which I have perceived no symptoms of my terrible
malady; and the only drawback on this comfort that I feel is the
intelligence contained in yours, that neither Mr. King nor yourself
are well. I dread always, both for my own health and for that of my
friends, the unhappy influences of a year worn out. But, my dear
madam, this is the last day of it; and I resolve to hope that the
new year shall obliterate all the disagreeables of the old one. I
can wish nothing more warmly than that it may prove a propitious
year to you.

My poetical operations, I mean of the occasional kind, have lately
been pretty much at a stand. I told you, I believe, in my last,
that Homer, in the present stage of the process, occupied me more
intensely than ever. He still continues to do so, and threatens,
till he shall be completely finished, to make all other composition
impracticable. I have, however, written the mortuary verses as
usual; but the wicked clerk for whom I write them has not yet sent
me the impression. I transmit to you the long promised Catharina;
and, were it possible that I could transcribe the others, would send
them also. There is a way, however, by which I can procure a frank,
and you shall not want them long.

  I remain, dearest madam,
  Ever yours,
  W. C.

We have now the pleasure of introducing to the reader a lady, of
whom we should say much, if a sense of propriety did not impose
silence upon our pen. The Catharina, recorded by the muse of Cowper,
was Miss Stapleton at that time, subsequently married to Mr. George
Throckmorton Courtney, and finally Lady Throckmorton, by the decease
of the elder brother Sir John. As we cannot impose on the poet
the restraint which we are compelled to practise in our own case,
we shall beg leave to insert the following verses, written on the
occasion of her visit to Weston.

    She came--she is gone--we have met--
    And meet perhaps never again;
    The sun of that moment is set,
    And seems to have risen in vain.
    Catharina[574] has fled like a dream--
    (So vanishes pleasure, alas!)
    But has left a regret and esteem,
    That will not so suddenly pass.

  [574] Miss Stapleton, afterwards Lady Throckmorton, and the person
  to whom the present undertaking is dedicated.

    The last ev'ning ramble we made,
    Catharina, Maria,[575] and I,
    Our progress was often delay'd
    By the nightingale warbling nigh.
    We paus'd under many a tree,
    And much she was charm'd with a tone,
    Less sweet to Maria and me,
    Who so lately had witness'd her own.

  [575] The wife of Sir John Throckmorton.

    My numbers that day she had sung,
    And gave them a grace so divine,
    As only her musical tongue
    Could infuse into numbers of mine.
    The longer I heard, I esteem'd
    The work of my fancy the more,
    And e'en to myself never seem'd
    So tuneful a poet before.

    Though the pleasures of London exceed
    In number the days of the year,
    Catharina, did nothing impede,
    Would feel herself happier here;
    For the close woven arches of limes
    On the banks of our river, I know,
    Are sweeter to her many times
    Than aught that the city can show.

    So it is, when the mind is imbued
    With a well-judging taste from above,
    Then, whether embellish'd or rude,
    'Tis nature alone that we love.
    The achievements of art may amuse,
    May even our wonder excite,
    But groves, hills, and valleys, diffuse
    A lasting, a sacred delight.

    Since then in the rural recess
    Catharina alone can rejoice,
    May it still be her lot to possess
    The scene of her sensible choice!
    To inhabit a mansion remote
    From the clatter of street-pacing steeds,
    And by Philomel's annual note
    To measure the life that she leads.

    With her book, and her voice, and her lyre,
    To wing all her moments at home,
    And with scenes that new rapture inspire,
    As oft as it suits her to roam,
    She will have just the life she prefers,
    With little to hope or to fear,
    And ours would be pleasant as hers,
    Might we view her enjoying it here.

TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT.

  Weston, Jan. 4, 1791.

My dear Friend,--You would long since have received an answer to
your last, had not the wicked clerk of Northampton delayed to send
me the printed copy of my annual dirge, which I waited to enclose.
Here it is at last, and much good may it do the readers![576]

  [576] See mortuary verses composed on this occasion.

I have regretted that I could not write sooner, especially
because it well became me to reply as soon as possible to your
kind inquiries after my health, which has been both better and
worse since I wrote last. The cough was cured, or nearly so, when
I received your letter, but I have lately been afflicted with a
nervous fever, a malady formidable to me above all others, on
account of the terror and dejection of spirits that in my case
always accompany it. I even look forward, for this reason, to the
month now current, with the most miserable apprehensions; for in
this month the distemper has twice seized me. I wish to be thankful,
however, to the sovereign Dispenser both of health and sickness,
that, though I have felt cause enough to tremble, he gives me now
encouragement to hope that I may dismiss my fears, and expect, for
this January at least, to escape it.

The mention of quantity reminds me of a remark that I have seen
somewhere, possibly in Johnson, to this purport, that, the syllables
in our language being neither long nor short, our verse accordingly
is less beautiful than the verse of the Greeks or Romans, because
requiring less artifice in its construction. But I deny the fact,
and am ready to depose on oath, that I find every syllable as
distinguishably and clearly, either long or short, in our language,
as in any other. I know also, that without an attention to the
quantity of our syllables, good verse cannot possibly be written,
and that ignorance of this matter is one reason why we see so
much that is good for nothing. The movement of a verse is always
either shuffling or graceful, according to our management in this
particular, and Milton gives almost as many proofs of it in his
Paradise Lost as there are lines in the poem. Away, therefore, with
all such unfounded observations! I would not give a farthing for
many bushels of them--nor you perhaps for this letter. Yet, upon
recollection, forasmuch as I know you to be a dear lover of literary
gossip, I think it possible you may esteem it highly.

Believe me, my dear friend, most truly yours,

  W. C.

The following letter records the death of Mrs. Newton, the object
of so early and lasting an attachment on the part of the Rev. John
Newton.

TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.[577]

  [577] Private correspondence.

  Weston, Jan. 20, 1791.

My dear Friend,--Had you been a man of this world, I should have
held myself bound by the law of ceremonies to have sent you long
since my tribute of condolence. I have sincerely mourned with you;
and though you have lost a wife, and I only a friend, yet do I
understand too well the value of such a friend as Mrs. Newton not to
have sympathised with you very nearly. But you are not a man of this
world; neither can you, who have both the Scripture and the Giver
of Scripture to console you, have any need of aid from others, or
expect it from such spiritual imbecility as mine. I considered,
likewise, that receiving a letter from Mrs. Unwin, you, in fact,
received one from myself, with this difference only,--that hers
could not fail to be better adapted to the occasion and to your own
frame of mind than any that I could send you.

  [_Torn off._]

TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESQ.

  Weston, Jan. 21, 1791.

I know that you have already been catechised by Lady Hesketh on
the subject of your return hither, before the winter shall be
over, and shall therefore only say, that if you CAN come, we shall
be happy to receive you. Remember also, that nothing can excuse
the non-performance of a promise, but absolute necessity! In the
meantime, my faith in your veracity is such that I am persuaded you
will suffer nothing less than necessity to prevent it. Were you not
extremely pleasant to us, and just the sort of youth that suits us,
we should neither of us have said half so much, or perhaps a word on
the subject.

Yours, my dear Johnny, are vagaries that I shall never see practised
by any other; and whether you slap your ancle, or reel as if you
were fuddled, or dance in the path before me, all is characteristic
of yourself, and therefore to me delightful.[578] I have hinted to
you indeed sometimes, that you should be cautious of indulging antic
habits and singularities of all sorts, and young men in general
have need enough of such admonition. But yours are a sort of fairy
habits, such as might belong to Puck or Robin Goodfellow, and
therefore, good as the advice is, I should be half sorry should you
take it.

  [578] These innocent peculiarities were in a less degree retained
  to the end of life by this truly amiable and interesting man.

This allowance at least I give you. Continue to take your walks, if
walks they may be called, exactly in their present fashion, till you
have taken orders! Then indeed, forasmuch as a skipping, curvetting,
bounding divine might be a spectacle not altogether seemly, I shall
consent to your adoption of a more grave demeanour.

  W. C.

TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESQ.

  The Lodge, Feb. 5, 1791.

My dear Friend,--My letters to you are all either petitionary, or
in the style of acknowledgments and thanks, and such nearly in an
alternate order. In my last, I loaded you with commissions, for the
due discharge of which I am now to say, and say truly, how much I
feel myself obliged to you; neither can I stop there, but must
thank you likewise for new honours from Scotland, which have left
me nothing to wish for from that country; for my list is now, I
believe, graced with the subscription of all its learned bodies. I
regret only that some of them arrived too late to do honour to my
present publication of names. But there are those among them, and
from Scotland too, that may give a useful hint perhaps to our own
universities. Your very handsome present of Pope's Homer has arrived
safe, notwithstanding an accident that befell him by the way. The
Hall-servant brought the parcel from Olney, resting it on the pommel
of the saddle, and his horse fell with him. Pope was in consequence
rolled in the dirt, but being well coated, got no damage. If augurs
and soothsayers were not out of fashion, I should have consulted
one or two of that order, in hope of learning from them that this
fall was ominous. I have found a place for him in the parlour,
where he makes a splendid appearance, and where he shall not long
want a neighbour, one, who if less popular than himself, shall at
least look as big as he. How has it happened that, since Pope did
certainly dedicate both Iliad and Odyssey, no dedication is found in
this first edition of them?

  W.C.

TO LADY HESKETH.

  Weston, Feb. 13, 1791.

I now send you a full and true account of this business. Having
learned that your inn at Woburn was the George, we sent Samuel
thither yesterday. Mr. Martin, master of the George, told him.[579]

  [579] This letter contained the history of a servant's cruelty to
  a post-horse, which a reader of humanity could not wish to see
  in print. But the postscript describes so pleasantly the signal
  influence of a poet's reputation on the spirit of a liberal
  innkeeper, that it surely ought not to be suppressed.--_Hayley._

  W.C.

P.S. I cannot help adding a circumstance that will divert you.
Martin, having learned from Sam whose servant he was, told him that
he had never seen Mr. Cowper, but he had heard him frequently spoken
of by the companies that had called at his house; and therefore,
when Sam would have paid for his breakfast, would take nothing from
him. Who says that fame is only empty breath? On the contrary, it is
good ale, and cold beef into the bargain.

TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT.

  Weston Underwood, Feb. 26, 1791.

My dear Friend,--

    It is a maxim of much weight,
      Worth conning o'er and o'er,
    He who has Homer to translate,
      Had need do nothing more.

But, notwithstanding the truth and importance of this apophthegm, to
which I lay claim as the original author of it, it is not equally
true that my application to Homer, close as it is, has been the sole
cause of my delay to answer you. No. In observing so long a silence
I have been influenced much more by a vindictive purpose, a purpose
to punish you for your suspicion that I could possibly feel myself
hurt or offended by any critical suggestion of yours, that seemed
to reflect on the purity of my nonsense verses. Understand, if you
please, for the future, that whether I disport myself in Greek or
Latin, or in whatsoever other language, you are hereby, henceforth
and for ever, entitled and warranted to take any liberties with it
to which you shall feel yourself inclined, not excepting even the
lines themselves, which stand at the head of this letter!

You delight me when you call _blank_ verse the English _heroic_; for
I have always thought, and often said, that we have no other verse
worthy to be so entitled. When you read my preface, you will be made
acquainted with my sentiments on this subject pretty much at large,
for which reason I will curb my zeal, and say the less about it at
present. That Johnson, who wrote harmoniously in rhyme, should have
had so defective an ear as never to have discovered any music at all
in blank verse, till he heard a particular friend of his reading it,
is a wonder never sufficiently to be wondered at. Yet this is true
on his own acknowledgment, and amounts to a plain confession, (of
which, perhaps, he was not aware when he made it,) that he did not
know how to read blank verse himself. In short, he either suffered
prejudice to lead him in a string whithersoever it would, or his
taste in poetry was worth little. I don't believe he ever read any
thing of that kind with enthusiasm in his life; and as good poetry
cannot be composed without a considerable share of that quality in
the mind of the author, so neither can it be read or tasted as it
ought to be without it.

I have said all this in the morning fasting, but am soon going to my
tea. When, therefore, I shall have told you that we are now, in the
course of our printing, in the second book of the Odyssey, I shall
only have time to add, that I am, my dear friend,

  Most truly yours,
  W. C.

I think your Latin quotations very applicable to the present state
of France. But France is in a situation new and untried before.

TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESQ.

  Weston, Feb. 27, 1791.

Now, my dearest Johnny, I must tell thee in few words, how much I
love and am obliged to thee for thy affectionate services.

My Cambridge honours are all to be ascribed to you, and to you only.
Yet you are but a little man, and a little man, into the bargain,
who have kicked the mathematics, their idol, out of your study. So
important are the endings which Providence frequently connects with
small beginnings. Had you been here, I could have furnished you
with much employment; for I have so dealt with your fair MS. in the
course of my polishing and improving, that I have almost blotted
out the whole. Such, however, as it is, I must now send it to the
printer, and he must be content with it, for there is not time
to make a fresh copy. We are now printing the second book of the
Odyssey.

Should the Oxonians bestow none of their notice on me on this
occasion, it will happen singularly enough, that, as Pope received
all his University honours in the subscription way from Oxford, and
none at all from Cambridge, so I shall have received all mine from
Cambridge, and none from Oxford. This is the more likely to be the
case, because I understand, that on whatsoever occasion either of
those learned bodies thinks fit to move, the other always makes it a
point to sit still, thus proving its superiority.

I shall send up your letter to Lady Hesketh in a day or two, knowing
that the intelligence contained in it will afford her the greatest
pleasure. Know likewise, for your own gratification, that all the
Scotch Universities have subscribed, none excepted.

We are all as well as usual; that is to say, as well as reasonable
folks expect to be on the crazy side of this frail existence.

I rejoice that we shall so soon have you again at our fireside.

  W. C.

TO MRS. KING.[580]

  [580] Private correspondence.

  Weston, March 2, 1791.

My dear Friend,--I am sick and ashamed of myself that I forgot
my promise; but it is actually true that I did forget it. You,
however, I did not forget; nor did I forget to wonder and to be
alarmed at your silence, being perfectly unconscious of my arrears.
All this, together with various other trespasses of mine, must
be set down to the account of Homer; and, wherever he is, he is
bound to make his apology to all my correspondents, but to you in
particular. True it is, that if Mrs. Unwin did not call me from
that pursuit, I should forget, in the ardour with which I persevere
in it, both to eat, and to drink, and to retire to rest. This zeal
has increased in me regularly as I have proceeded, and in an exact
ratio, as a mathematician would say, to the progress I have made
toward the point at which I have been aiming. You will believe this,
when I tell you, that, not contented with my previous labours, I
have actually revised the whole work, and have made a thousand
alterations in it, since it has been in the press. I have now,
however, tolerably well satisfied myself at least, and trust that
the printer and I shall trundle along merrily to the conclusion. I
expect to correct the proof-sheets of the third book of the Odyssey
to-day.

Thus it is, as I believe I have said to you before, that you are
doomed to hear of nothing but Homer from me. There is less of
gallantry than of nature in this proceeding. When I write to you,
I think of nothing but the subject that is uppermost, and that
uppermost is always Homer. Then I consider that though, as a lady,
you have a right to expect other treatment at my hands, you are a
lady who has a husband, and that husband an old schoolfellow of
mine, and who, I know, interests himself in my success.

I am likely, after all, to gather a better harvest of subscribers at
Cambridge than I expected. A little cousin of mine, an undergraduate
of Caius College, suggested to me, when he was here in the summer,
that it might not be amiss to advertise the work at Merril's the
bookseller. I acquiesced in the measure, and at his return he pasted
me on a board, and hung me up in the shop, as it has proved in
the event, much to my emolument. For many, as I understand, have
subscribed in consequence; and, among the rest, several of the
College libraries.

I am glad that you have seen the last Northampton dirge, for the
rogue of a clerk sent me only half the number of printed copies for
which I stipulated with him at first, and they were all expended
immediately. The poor man himself is dead now; and whether his
successor will continue me in my office, or seek another laureat,
has not yet transpired.

  I am, dear madam,
  Affectionately yours,
  W. C.

TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.

  Weston, March 6, 1791.

After all this ploughing and sowing on the plains of Troy, once
fruitful, such at least to my translating predecessor, some harvest,
I hope, will arise for me also. My long work has received its last,
last touches; and I am now giving my preface its final adjustment.
We are in the fourth Odyssey in the course of our printing, and I
expect that I and the swallows shall appear together. They have
slept all the winter, but I, on the contrary, have been extremely
busy. Yet if I can "_virûm volitare per ora_," as swiftly as they
through the air, I shall account myself well requited.

  Adieu!
  W. C.

The Rev. James Hurdis, to whom the next letter is addressed, was
formerly Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford, and
considered to have established his claim to the title of poet, by
his popular work, "The Village Curate." But there is an observation
which has frequently suggested itself to us, in recording the names
of writers in the correspondence of Cowper, how few have acquired
more than an ephemeral celebrity, and been transmitted to the
present day! Authors resemble the waves of the sea, which pass on in
quick succession, and engage the eye, till it is diverted by those
which follow. Each in its turn yields to a superior impelling force.
Some tower above the rest, and yet all, by their collective strength
and energy, form one grand and mighty expanse of ocean.

Such are the vicissitudes of literature, the effects of competition,
and the appetite for novelty, that few productions outlive the
generation in which they are written, unless they bear a certain
impress of immortality, a character of moral or intellectual
superiority. They then survive to every age, and are the property of
every country, so long as taste, genius, or religion preserve their
empire over mankind.

Cowper, having received an obliging letter from Mr. Hurdis, though
not personally acquainted with him, addressed the following reply.

  Weston, March 6, 1791.

Sir,--I have always entertained, and have occasionally avowed, a
great degree of respect for the abilities of the unknown author of
"The Village Curate,"--unknown at that time, but now well known,
and not to me only but to many. For, before I was favoured with
your obliging letter, I knew your name, your place of abode, your
profession, and that you had four sisters; all which I neither
learned from our bookseller, nor from any of his connexions.
You will perceive, therefore, that you are no longer an author
_incognito_. The writer indeed of many passages that have fallen
from your pen could not long continue so. Let genius, true genius,
conceal itself where it may, we may say of it, as the young man in
Terence of his beautiful mistress, "_Diu latere non potest._"

I am obliged to you for your kind offers of service, and will not
say that I shall not be troublesome to you hereafter; but at present
I have no need to be so. I have within these two days given the very
last stroke of my pen to my long translation, and what will be my
next career I know not. At any rate we shall not, I hope, hereafter
be known to each other as poets only, for your writings have made me
ambitious of a nearer approach to you. Your door however will never
be opened to me. My fate and fortune have combined with my natural
disposition to draw a circle round me, which I cannot pass; nor have
I been more than thirteen miles from home these twenty years, and so
far very seldom. But you are a younger man, and therefore may not be
quite so immoveable; in which case should you choose at any time to
move Westonward, you will always find me happy to receive you; and
in the meantime 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."[581]
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.

  [581] "Sir Thomas More," a tragedy.

TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.

  Weston, March 10, 1791.

Give my affectionate remembrances to your 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 parlour, 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.

  Weston, March 18, 1791.

My dear Friend,--I give you joy that you are about to receive some
more of my elegant 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 greater 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 honourable 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 attention 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 characteristics. But should
you think otherwise, 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 had 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 on 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 judgment 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 if 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 discourage me, since there is One whose
atonement can suffice for all.

Του δε καθ' αιμα ῥεεν, και σοι, και εμοι, και αδελφοις Ἡμετεροις,
αυτου σωζομενους θανατω.

Accept our joint remembrance, and believe me affectionately yours,

  W. C.

TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESQ.

  Weston, March 19, 1791.

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 Bentley 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 to
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.[582]

  [582] See a similar instance, recorded in the Memoirs of Mrs.
  Hannah More, of the Bristol Milk-woman, Mrs. Yearsley.

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 forty years ago,) I discern, I think,
more marks of true poetical talent than I remember to have observed
in the verses of any other, male or female, so disadvantageously
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 favour, and _his_ request, I should imagine, will hardly
prove a vain one.

  Adieu,
  W. C.

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,
    Grant him two favours, and he'll ask for three."

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 universities 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 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 price of three guineas, will cost the
purchaser less than the seventh part of a farthing per line. Yet
there are lines among them, that have cost me the labour of hours,
and none that have not cost me some labour.

  W. C.

TO LADY HESKETH.

  Friday night, March 25, 1791.

My dear Coz,--Johnson writes me word, that he has repeatedly called
on Horace Walpole, and has never found him at home. He has also
written to him and received no 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. I have Welsh blood in me, if the pedigree
of the Donnes say true, and every drop of it says--"Let him alone!"

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.

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 _vivâ 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 and expressions; neither is God, from whom comes
all truth, any more a respecter of wit than he is of persons. It
will appear soon whether they applaud the book for the sake of its
unanswerable arguments, or only tolerate the argument for the sake
of the splendid manner in which it is enforced. I wish as heartily
that it may do them good as if I were myself the author of it. But,
alas! my wishes and hopes are much at variance. It will be the talk
of the day, as another publication of the same kind has been; and
then the noise of vanity-fair will drown the voice of the preacher.

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.

  Adieu, my dearest coz,
  W. C.

TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.[583]

  [583] Private correspondence.

  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 neighbourhood, 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 the 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 flight 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 to
whom God gives a feeling heart and the faculty of recollection.

That you have not the first sight and sometimes, perhaps, have a
late one of what I write, is owing merely to your distant situation.
Some things I have written not worth your perusal; and a few, a
very few, of such length that, engaged as I have been to Homer, it
has not been possible that I should find opportunity to transcribe
them. At the same time, Mrs. Unwin's pain in her side has almost
forbidden her the use of the pen. She cannot use it long without
increasing that pain; for which reason I am more unwilling than
herself that she should ever meddle with it. But, whether what I
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 readiness 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 shall appear. A trifle
can have nothing to recommend 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 the
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 enclose a copy of my last mortuary verses. The clerk for whom
they were written is since dead; and whether his successor, the late
sexton, will choose to be his own dirge-maker, 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 1, 1791.

My dear Mrs. Frog,--A word or two before 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 his kind though
unsuccessful attempt in my favour at Oxford. It seems not a little
extraordinary that persons so nobly patronised themselves on the
score of literature should resolve to give no encouragement to it in
return. Should I find a fair opportunity to thank them hereafter, I
will not neglect it.

    Could Homer come himself, distress'd and poor,
    And tune his harp at Rhedicina's door,
    The rich old vixen would exclaim (I fear)
    "Begone! no tramper gets a farthing here."

I have read your husband's pamphlet through and through. You may
think perhaps, and so may he, that a question so remote from all
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
candour, and with more sufficiency, and, consequently, with more
satisfaction to all his readers, save only his opponents. They, I
think, by this time, wish that 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.

  Weston, April 6, 1791.

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 I, 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 δε τοι ερεω, συ δ' ενι φρεσι βαλλεο σησι.

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. Certainly I had not
deserved much favour at their hands, all things considered. But the
cause of literature seems to have some weight with them, and to
have superseded the resentment they might be supposed to entertain,
on the score of certain censures that you wot of. It is not so at
Oxford.

  W. C.

TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESQ.

  Weston, April 29, 1791.

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 holiday times are very unfavourable to the printer's progress.
He and all his demons are making themselves merry and me sad, for I
mourn at every hindrance.

  W. C.

TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT.

  Weston, May 2, 1791.

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 to you, unless followed by an explanation. You
are to understand, therefore, that Monday 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
manner. 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 of 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 yourself, 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.[584] 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 Thursday. Mrs. Unwin however is well,
and joins me in every good wish to yourself and family. I am, my
good friend,

  Most truly yours,
  W. C.

  [584] Johnson's remark on Milton's Latin poems is as follows:
  "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 vigour 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._

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.[585]

  I am much yours,
  W. C.

Your little messenger vanished before I could catch him.

  [585] 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 clergyman in his declining
  years. He was considered to be a man of cultivated mind and taste.

TO LADY HESKETH.

  The Lodge, May 18, 1791.

My dearest Coz,--Has another of my letters fallen short of its
destination; or wherefore 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 or three days since from Mrs. Frog, has not at
all enlightened me on this head. But I wander in a wilderness of
vain conjecture.

I have had a letter lately from New York, from a Dr. Cogswell of
that place, to thank me for my fine verses, and to tell me, which
pleased me particularly, that, after having read "The Task," my
first volume fell into his hands, which he read also, and was
equally pleased with. This is the only instance I can recollect of a
reader doing justice to my first effusions: for I am sure, that in
point of expression they do not fall a jot below my second, and that
in point of subject they are for the most part superior. But enough,
and too much of this. "The Task" he tells me has been reprinted in
that city.

Adieu! my dearest coz.

We have blooming scenes under wintry 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 labour will
soon have an end.[586]

  [586] The labour of transcribing Cowper's version.

You will wonder, perhaps, my Johnny, that Mrs. Unwin, by my desire,
enjoined you to secrecy concerning the translation of the Frogs and
Mice.[587] Wonderful it may well seem to you, that I should wish to
hide for a short time from a few what I am just going to publish to
all. But I had more reasons than one for this mysterious management;
that is to say, I had two. In the first place, I wished to surprise
my readers agreeably; and secondly, I wished to allow none of my
friends an opportunity to object to the measure, who might think it
perhaps a measure more bountiful than prudent. But I have had my
sufficient reward, though not a pecuniary one. It is a poem of much
humour, 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 publish it at all; it would have been so
terribly out of its place in any other volume.

  [587] See his version of Homer.

I long for the time that shall bring you once more to Weston, and
all your _et ceteras_ with you. Oh! what a month of May has this
been! Let never poet, English poet at least, give himself to the
praises of May again.

  W. C.

We add the verses that he composed on this occasion.

THE JUDGMENT OF THE POETS.

    Two nymphs,[588] both nearly of an age,
      Of numerous charms possess'd,
    A warm dispute once chanc'd to wage,
      Whose temper was the best.

    The worth of each had been complete,
      Had both alike been mild;
    But one, although her smile was sweet,
      Frown'd oft'ner than she smil'd.

    And in her humour, when she frown'd,
      Would raise her voice and roar;
    And shake with fury to the ground,
      The garland that she wore.

    The other was of gentler cast,
      From all such frenzy clear;
    Her frowns were never known to last,
      And never prov'd severe.

    To poets of renown in song,
      The nymphs referr'd the cause,
    Who, strange to tell! all judg'd it wrong
      And gave misplac'd applause.

    They gentle call'd, and kind, and soft,
      The flippant and the scold;
    And, though she chang'd her mood so oft,
      That failing left untold.

    No judges sure were e'er so mad,
      Or so resolv'd to err;
    In short, the charms her sister had,
      They lavish'd all on her.

    Then thus the god, whom fondly they
      Their great inspirer call,
    Was heard one genial summer's day,
      To reprimand them all:

    "Since thus ye have combin'd," he said,
      "My fav'rite nymph to slight,
    Adorning May, that peevish maid!
      With June's undoubted right;

    "The minx shall, for your folly's sake,
      Still prove herself a shrew;
    Shall make your scribbling fingers ache,
      And pinch your noses blue."

  [588] May and June.

TO LADY HESKETH.

  The Lodge, May 27, 1791.

My dearest Coz,--I, who am neither dead, nor sick, nor idle, should
have no excuse, were I as tardy in answering as you in writing. I
live indeed where leisure abounds, and you where leisure is not; a
difference that accounts sufficiently both for your silence and my
loquacity.

When you told Mrs. ---- that my Homer would come forth in May,
you told her what you believed, and therefore no falsehood. But
you told her at the same time what will not happen, and therefore
not a truth. There is a medium between truth and falsehood; and I
believe the word mistake expresses it exactly. I will therefore say
that you were mistaken. If instead of May you had mentioned June, I
flatter myself that you would have hit the mark. For in June there
is every probability that we shall publish. You will say, "Hang the
printer!--for it is his fault!" But stay, my dear, hang him not just
now! For to execute him and find another will cost us time, and
so much too, that I question if, in that case, we should publish
sooner than in August. To say truth, I am not perfectly sure that
there will be any necessity to hang him at all; though that is a
matter which I desire to leave entirely at your discretion, alleging
only, in the meantime, that the man does not appear to me during
the last half-year to have been at all in fault. His remittance of
sheets in all that time has been punctual, save and except while
the Easter holidays lasted, when I suppose he found it impossible
to keep his devils to their business. I shall however receive the
last sheet of the Odyssey to-morrow, and have already sent up the
Preface, together with all the needful. You see, therefore, that the
publication of this famous work cannot be delayed much longer.

As for politics, I reck not, having no room in my head for any thing
but the Slave bill. That is lost; and all the rest is a trifle. I
have not seen Paine's book,[589] but refused to see it, when it
was offered to me. No man shall convince me that I am improperly
governed while I feel the contrary.

  Adieu,
  W. C.

  [589] The "Rights of Man," a book which created a great ferment
  in the country, by its revolutionary character and statements.

TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESQ.

  Weston, June 1, 1791.

My dearest Johnny,--Now you may rest. Now I can give you joy of the
period, of which I gave you hope in my last; the period of all your
labours in my service.[590] But this I can foretell you also, that,
if you persevere in serving your friends at this rate, your life is
likely to be a life of labour. Yet persevere! Your rest will be the
sweeter hereafter! In the meantime I wish you, if at any time you
should find occasion for him, just such a friend as you have proved
to me!

  W. C.

  [590] As a transcriber.

PART THE THIRD.

Having now arrived at that period in the history of Cowper, when
he had brought to a close his great and laborious undertaking,
his version of Homer, we suspend for a moment the progress of the
correspondence, to afford room for a few observations.

We have seen in many of the preceding letters, with what ardour
of application and liveliness of hope he devoted himself to this
favourite project of enriching the literature of his country with
an English Homer, that might justly be esteemed a faithful yet free
translation; a genuine and graceful representative of the justly
admired original.

After five years of intense labour, from which nothing could
withhold him, except the pressure of that unhappy malady which
retarded his exertions for several months, he published his complete
version in two quarto volumes, on the first of July, 1791, having
inscribed the Iliad to his young noble kinsman, Earl Cowper, and
the Odyssey to the dowager Countess Spencer--a lady for whose
virtues he had long entertained a most cordial and affectionate
veneration.

He had exerted no common powers of genius and of industry in this
great enterprise, yet, we lament to say, he failed in satisfying
the expectations of the public. Hayley assigns a reason for this
failure, which we give in his own words. "Homer," he observes, "is
so exquisitely beautiful in his own language, and he has been so
long an idol in every literary mind, that any copy of him, which
the best of modern poets can execute, must probably resemble in its
effect the portrait of a graceful woman, painted by an excellent
artist for her lover: the lover indeed will acknowledge great merit
in the work, and think himself much indebted to the skill of such an
artist, but he will never admit, as in truth he never can feel, that
the best of resemblances exhibits all the grace that he discerns in
the beloved original."

This illustration is ingenious and amusing, but we doubt its
justness; because the painter may produce a correct and even a
flattering likeness of the lover's mistress, though it is true that
the lover himself will think otherwise. But where is the translator
that can do justice to the merits of Homer? Who can exhibit his
majestic simplicity, his sententious force, the lofty grandeur of
his conceptions, and the sweet charm of his imagery, embellished
with all the graces of a language never surpassed either in harmony
or richness? The two competitors, who are alone entitled to be
contrasted with each other, are Pope and Cowper. We pass over
Ogilby, Chapman, and others. It is Hector alone that is worthy to
contend with Achilles. To the version of Pope must be allowed the
praise of melody of numbers, richness of poetic diction, splendour
of imagery, and brilliancy of effect; but these merits are acquired
at the expense of fidelity and justness of interpretation. The
simplicity of the heroic ages is exchanged for the refinement of
modern taste, and Homer sinks under the weight of ornaments not
his own. Where Pope fails, Cowper succeeds; but, on the other
hand, where Pope succeeds, Cowper seems to fail. Cowper is more
faithful, but less rich and spirited. He is singularly exempt from
the defects attributable to Pope. There is nothing extraneous,
no meretricious ornament, no laboured elegance, nothing added,
nothing omitted. The integrity of the text is happily preserved. But
though it is in the page of Cowper that we must seek for the true
interpretation of Homer's meaning--though there are many passages
distinguished by much grace and beauty--yet, on the whole, the lofty
spirit, the bright glow of feeling, the "thoughts that breathe,
the words that burn," are not sufficiently sustained. Each of these
distinguished writers, to a certain extent, has failed, not from
any want of genius, but because complete success is difficult,
if not unattainable. Two causes may perhaps be assigned for this
failure; first, no copy can equal the original, if the original be
the production of a master artist. The poet who seeks to transfuse
into his own page the meaning and spirit of an author, endowed with
extraordinary powers, resembles the chemist in his laboratory, who,
in endeavouring to condense the properties of different substances,
and to extract their essence, has the misfortune to see a great
portion of the volatile qualities evaporate in the process, and
elude all the efforts of his philosophic art. Secondly, Homer
still remains untranslated, because of all poets he is the most
untranslateable. He seems to claim the lofty prerogative of standing
alone, and of enjoying the solitary grandeur of his own unrivalled
genius; allowing neither to rival nor to friend, to imitator nor
to translator, the honours of participation; but exercising the
exclusive right of interpreting the majestic simplicity of his own
conceptions, in all the fervour of his own poetic fancy, and in the
sweet melody of his own graceful and flowing numbers. He who wishes
to understand and to appreciate Homer, must seek him in the charm
and beauty of his own inimitable language.

As Cowper's versions of the Iliad and Odyssey have formed so
prominent a feature in his correspondence, for five successive
years, we think it may be interesting to subjoin a few specimens
from each translator, restricting our quotations to the Iliad, as
being the most familiar to the reader.

We extract passages, where poetic skill was most likely to be
exerted.

    Like leaves on trees, the race of man is found,
    Now green in youth, now with'ring on the ground;
    Another race the following spring supplies;
    They fall successive, and successive rise:
    So generations in their course decay;
    So flourish these, when those are past away.

  _Pope's Version_, book vi. line 181.

  For as the leaves, so springs the race of man.
  Chill blasts shake down the leaves, and warm'd anew
  By vernal airs the grove puts forth again:
  Age after age, so man is born and dies.

  _Cowper's Version_, book vi. line 164.

The interview between Hector and Andromache--

    Yet come it will, the day decreed by fates;
    (How my heart trembles while my tongue relates!)
    The day when Thou, imperial Troy, must bend,
    And see thy warriors fall, thy glories end.
    And yet no dire presage so wounds my mind,
    My mother's death, the ruin of my kind,
    Not Priam's hoary hairs defil'd with gore,
    Not all my brothers gasping on the shore;
    As thine, Andromache! thy griefs I dread.
    I see thee trembling, weeping, captive led!
    In Argive looms our battles to design
    And woes, of which so large a part was thine!
    To bear the victor's hard commands, or bring
    The weight of waters from Hyperia's spring.
    There, while you groan beneath the load of life,
    They cry, Behold the mighty Hector's wife!
    Some haughty Greek, who lives thy tears to see,
    Embitters all thy woes, by naming me.
    The thoughts of glory past, and present shame,
    A thousand griefs shall waken at the name!
    May I lie cold before that dreadful day,
    Press'd with a load of monumental clay!
    Thy Hector, wrapt in everlasting sleep,
    Shall neither hear thee sigh, nor see thee weep,

  _Pope's Version_, book vi. line 570.

    For my prophetic soul foresees a day
    When Ilium, Ilium's people, and, himself,
    Her warlike king, shall perish. But no grief
    For Ilium, for her people, for the king
    My warlike sire; nor even for the queen;
    Nor for the num'rous and the valiant band,
    My brothers, destin'd all to bite the ground,
    So moves me as my grief for thee alone,
    Doom'd then to follow some imperious Greek,
    A weeping captive, to the distant shores
    Of Argos; there to labour at the loom
    For a task-mistress, and with many a sigh
    But heav'd in vain, to bear the pond'rous urn
    From Hypereia's, or Messeïs' fount.
    Fast flow thy tears the while, and as he eyes
    That silent shower, some passing Greek shall say--
    "This was the wife of Hector, who excell'd
    All Troy in fight, when Ilium was besieg'd."
    While thus he speaks thy tears shall flow afresh;
    The guardian of thy freedom while he liv'd
    For ever lost; but be my bones inhum'd,
    A senseless store, or e'er thy parting cries
    Shall pierce mine ear, and thou be dragg'd away.

  _Cowper's Version_, book vi. line 501.

We add one more specimen, where the beauty of the imagery demands
the exercise of poetic talent.

    As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night,
    O'er heaven's clear azure sheds her sacred light,
    When not a breath disturbs the deep serene,
    And not a cloud o'ercasts the solemn scene;
    Around her throne the vivid planets roll,
    And stars unnumber'd gild the glowing pole;
    O'er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed,
    And tip with silver ev'ry mountain's head,
    Then shine the vales, the rocks in prospect rise,
    A flood of glory bursts from all the skies.[591]

  Book viii. line 687.

    As when around the clear bright moon, the stars
    Shine in full splendour, and the winds are hush'd,
    The groves, the mountain-tops, the headland heights,
    Stand all apparent, not a vapour streaks
    The boundless blue, but ether open'd wide
    All glitters, and the shepherd's heart is cheer'd.

  Book viii. line 637.

  We leave the reader to form his own decision as to the relative
  merits of the two translations. Pope evidently produces effect
  by expanding the sentiments and imagery of his author; Cowper
  invariably adheres to the original text. That full justice may be
  rendered to him, it is necessary not merely to compare him with
  Pope but with his great original.

  After these remarks we once more return to the correspondence of
  Cowper.

  [591] There is a similar passage, in Mickle's "Lusiad," so full
  of beauty, that we cannot refrain from inserting it:--

    The moon, full orb'd, forsakes her watery cave,
    And lifts her lovely head above the wave;
    The snowy splendours of her modest ray
    Stream o'er the liquid wave, and glittering play;
    The masts' tall shadows tremble in the deep;
    The peaceful winds a holy silence keep;
    The watchman's carol, echoed from the prows,
    Alone, at times, disturbs the calm repose

  TO THE REV. MR. HURDIS.

  Weston, June 13, 1791.

  My dear Sir,--I ought to have thanked you for your agreeable and
  entertaining letter much sooner, but I have many correspondents
  who will not be said nay; and have been obliged of late to give
  my last attentions to Homer. The very last indeed, for yesterday
  I despatched to town, after revising them carefully, the proof
  sheets of subscribers' names, among which I took special notice
  of yours, and am much obliged to you for it. We have contrived,
  or rather my bookseller and printer have contrived (for they
  have never waited a moment for me) to publish as critically at
  the wrong time, as if my whole interest and success had depended
  upon it. March, April, and May, said Johnson to me in a letter
  that I received from him in February, are the best months for
  publication. _Therefore_ now it is determined that Homer shall
  come out on the first of July; that is to say, exactly at the
  moment when, except a few lawyers, not a creature will be left in
  town who will ever care one farthing about him. To which of these
  two friends of mine I am indebted for this management, I know
  not. It does not please, but I would be a philosopher as well as
  a poet, and therefore make no complaint, or grumble at all about
  it. You, I presume, have had dealings with them both--how did
  they manage for you? And, if as they have for me, how did you
  behave under it? Some who love me complain that I am too passive;
  and I should be glad of an opportunity to justify myself by your
  example. The fact is, should I thunder ever so loud, no efforts
  of that sort will avail me now; therefore, like a good economist
  of my bolts, I choose to reserve them for more profitable
  occasions.

  I am glad to find that your amusements have been so similar to
  mine; for in this instance too I seemed in need of somebody to
  keep me in countenance, especially in my attention and attachment
  to animals. All the notice that we lords of the creation
  vouchsafe to bestow on the creatures is generally to abuse them;
  it is well, therefore, that here and there a man should be found
  a little womanish, or perhaps a little childish, in this matter,
  who will make some amends, by kissing and coaxing and laying them
  in one's bosom. You remember the little ewe lamb, mentioned by
  the prophet Nathan; the prophet perhaps invented the tale for
  the sake of its application to David's conscience; but it is
  more probable that God inspired him with it for that purpose.
  If he did, it amounts to a proof, that he does not overlook,
  but, on the contrary, much notices such little partialities and
  kindnesses to his _dumb_ creatures, as we, because we articulate,
  are pleased to call them.

  Your sisters are fitter to judge than I, whether assembly-rooms
  are the places, of all others, in which the ladies may be studied
  to most advantage. I am an old fellow, but I had once my dancing
  days, as you have now, yet I could never find that I learned
  half so much of a woman's real character by dancing with her
  as by conversing with her at home, where I could observe her
  behaviour at the table, at the fire-side, and in all the trying
  circumstances of domestic life. We are all good when we are
  pleased, but she is the good woman who wants not a fiddle to
  sweeten her. If I am wrong, the young ladies will set me right;
  in the meantime I will not tease you with graver arguments on the
  subject, especially as I have a hope, that years, and the study
  of the Scripture, and His Spirit whose word it is, will, in due
  time, bring you to my way of thinking. I am not one of those
  sages who require that young men should be as old as themselves
  before they have time to be so.

  With my love to your fair sisters, I remain,

  Dear Sir, most truly yours,
  W. C.

  TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESQ.

  The Lodge, June 15, 1791.

  My dear Friend,--If it will afford you any comfort that you have
  a share in my affections, of that comfort you may avail yourself
  at all times. You have acquired it by means which, unless I
  should have become worthless myself to an uncommon degree, will
  always secure you from the loss of it. You are learning what all
  learn, though few at so early an age, that man is an ungrateful
  animal; and that benefits, too often, instead of securing a due
  return, operate rather as provocations to ill-treatment. This I
  take to be the _summum malum_ of the human heart. Towards God we
  are all guilty of it more or less; but between man and man, we
  may thank God for it, there are some exceptions. He leaves this
  peccant principle to operate, in some degree against himself, in
  all, for our humiliation, I suppose; and because the pernicious
  effects of it in reality cannot injure him, he cannot suffer by
  them; but he knows that, unless he should restrain its influence
  on the dealings of mankind with each other, the bonds of society
  would be dissolved, and all charitable intercourse at an end
  amongst us. It was said of Archbishop Cranmer, "Do him an ill
  turn, and you make him your _friend_ for ever;" of others it may
  be said, "Do them a good one, and they will be for ever your
  _enemies_." It is the grace of God only that makes the difference.

  The absence of Homer (for we have now shaken hands and parted) is
  well supplied by three relations of mine from Norfolk--my cousin
  Johnson, an aunt of his,[592] and his sister.[593] I love them
  all dearly, and am well content to resign to them the place in my
  attentions so lately occupied by the chiefs of Greece and Troy.
  His aunt and I have spent many a merry day together, when we were
  some forty years younger; and we make shift to be merry together
  still. His sister is a sweet young woman, graceful, good-natured,
  and gentle, just what I had imagined her to be before I had seen
  her.[594]

  Farewell,
  W. C.

  [592] Mrs. Bodham.

  [593] Mrs. Hewitt.

  [594] Mrs. Hewitt fully merited this description. She departed a
  few years before her brother, the late Dr. Johnson. Their remains
  lie in the same vault, at Yaxham, near Dereham, Norfolk.

TO DR. JAMES COGSWELL, NEW YORK.

  Weston-Underwood, near Olney, Bucks,
  June 15, 1791.

Dear Sir,--Your letter and obliging present from so great a distance
deserved a speedier acknowledgment, and should not have wanted one
so long, had not circumstances so fallen out since I received them
as to make it impossible for me to write sooner. It is indeed within
this day or two that I have heard how, by the help of my bookseller,
I may transmit an answer to you.

My title-page, as it well might, misled you. It speaks me of the
Inner Temple; and so I am, but a member of that society only, not
as an inhabitant. I live here almost at the distance of sixty miles
from London, which I have not visited these eight-and-twenty
years, and probably never shall again. Thus it fell out that Mr.
Morewood had sailed again for America before your parcel reached
me, nor should I (it is likely) have received it at all, had not a
cousin of mine, who lives in the Temple, by good fortune received
it first, and opened your letter; finding for whom it was intended,
he transmitted to me both that and the parcel. Your testimony of
approbation of what I have published, coming from another quarter
of the globe, could not but be extremely flattering, as was your
obliging notice that "The Task" had been reprinted in your city.
Both volumes, I hope, have a tendency to discountenance vice, and
promote the best interests of mankind. But how far they shall be
effectual to these invaluable purposes depends altogether on His
blessing, whose truths I have endeavoured to inculcate. In the
meantime I have sufficient proof, that readers may be pleased, may
approve, and yet lay down the book unedified.

During the last five years I have been occupied with a work of a
very different nature, a translation of the Iliad and Odyssey into
blank verse, and the work is now ready for publication. I undertook
it, partly because Pope's is too lax a version, which has lately
occasioned the learned of this country to call aloud for a new one;
and partly because I could fall on no better expedient to amuse a
mind too much addicted to melancholy.

I send you, in return for the volumes with which you favoured
me, three on religious subjects, popular productions that have
not been long published, and that may not therefore yet have
reached your country: "The Christian Officer's Panoply, by a
marine officer"--"The Importance of the Manners of the Great," and
"An Estimate of the Religion of the Fashionable World." The two
last are said to be written by a lady, Miss Hannah More, and are
universally read by people of that rank to which she addresses
them. Your manners, I suppose, may be more pure than ours, yet it
is not unlikely that even among you may be found some to whom her
strictures are applicable. I return you my thanks, sir, for the
volumes you sent me, two of which I have read with pleasure, Mr.
Edwards's[595] book, and the Conquest of Canaan. The rest I have
not had time to read, except Dr. Dwight's Sermon, which pleased me
almost more than any that I have either seen or heard.

  [595] The celebrated American Edwards, well known for his two
  great works on "The Freedom of the Human Will," and on "Religious
  Affections." Dr. Dwight's Sermons are a body of sound and
  excellent theology.

I shall account a correspondence with you an honour, and remain,
dear sir,

  Your obliged and obedient servant,
  W. C.

TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.[596]

  [596] Private correspondence.

  Weston, June 24, 1791.

My dear Friend,--Considering the multiplicity of your engagements,
and the importance, no doubt, of most of them, I am bound to set the
higher value on your letters, and, instead of grumbling that they
come seldom, to be thankful to you that they come at all. You are
now going into the country, where, I presume, you will have less
to do, and I am rid of Homer. Let us try, therefore, if, in the
interval between the present hour and the next busy season (for I,
too, if I live, shall probably be occupied again), we can continue
to exchange letters more frequently than for some time past.

You do justice to me and Mrs. Unwin, when you assure yourself that
to hear of your health will give us pleasure: I know not, in truth,
whose health and well-being could give us more. The years that we
have seen together will never be out of our remembrance; and, so
long as we remember them, we must remember you with affection.
In the pulpit, and out of the pulpit, you have laboured in every
possible way to serve us; and we must have a short memory indeed for
the kindness of a friend, could we by any means become forgetful of
yours. It would grieve me more than it does to hear you complain of
the effects of time, were not I also myself the subject of them.
While he is wearing out you and other dear friends of mine he spares
not me; for which I ought to account myself obliged to him, since
I should otherwise be in danger of surviving all that I have ever
loved--the most melancholy lot that can befall a mortal. God knows
what will be my doom hereafter; but precious as life necessarily
seems to a mind doubtful of its future happiness, I love not the
world, I trust, so much as to wish a place in it when all my beloved
shall have left it.

You speak of your late loss in a manner that affected me much; and
when I read that part of your letter, I mourned with you and for
you. But surely, I said to myself, no man had ever less reason to
charge his conduct to a wife with any thing blameworthy. Thoughts
of that complexion, however, are no doubt extremely natural on
the occasion of such a loss; and a man seems not to have valued
sufficiently, when he possesses it no longer, what, while he
possessed it, he valued more than life. I am mistaken, too, or
you can recollect a time when you had fears, and such as became a
Christian, of loving too much; and it is likely that you have even
prayed to be preserved from doing so. I suggest this to you as a
plea against those self-accusations, which I am satisfied that you
do not deserve, and as an effectual answer to them all. You may do
well too to consider, that had the deceased been the survivor she
would have charged herself in the same manner, and, I am sure you
will acknowledge, without any sufficient reason. The truth is, that
you both loved at least as much as you ought, and, I dare say, had
not a friend in the world who did not frequently observe it. To love
just enough, and not a bit too much, is not for creatures who can