LETTER XC.

To the Revd. WILLIAM UNWIN.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

August 27, 1785.

I was low in spirits yesterday, when your parcel came and raised them. Every proof of attention and regard to a man who lives in a vinegar-bottle, is welcome from his friends on the outside of it—accordingly your books were welcome (you must not forget by the way, that I want the original, of which you have sent me the translation only) and the ruffles from Miss Shuttleworth most welcome. I am covetous, if ever man was, of living in the remembrance of absentees, whom I highly value and esteem, and consequently felt myself much gratified by her very obliging present. I have had more comfort, far more comfort, in the connexions that I have formed within the last twenty years, than in the more numerous ones that I had before.

Memorandum-The latter are almost all Unwins

or Unwinisms.

You are entitled to my thanks also for the facetious engravings of John Gilpin. A serious poem

is like a swan, it flies heavily, and never far, but a jest has the wings of a swallow, that never tire, and that carry it into every nook and corner. I am perfectly a stranger however to the reception, that my volume meets with, and (I believe) in respect of my nonchalance upon that subject, if authors would but copy so fair an example, am a most exemplary character. I must tell you nevertheless, that although the laurels that I gain at Olney will never minister much to my pride, I have acquired some. The Revd. Mr. S is my admirer, and thinks my second volume superior to my first. It ought to be so. If we do not improve by practice, then nothing can mend us; and a man has no more cause to be mortified at being told that he has excelled himself, than the elephant had, whose praise it was, that he was the greatest elephant in the world, himself excepted. If it be fair to judge of a book by an extract, I do not wonder, that you were so little edified by Johnson's Journal It is even more ridiculous than was poor's of flatulent memory. The portion of it, given to us in this day's paper, contains not one sentiment worth one farthing, except the last, in which he resolves to bind himself with no more unbidden obligations. Poor man ! one would think, that to pray for his dead wife, and

to pinch himself with church-fasts, had been almost the whole of his religion. I am sorry, that he, who was so manly an advocate for the cause of virtue in all other places, was so childishly employed, and so superstitiously too, in his closet. Had he studied his Bible more, to which by his own confession, he was in great part a stranger, he had known better what use to make of his retired hours, and had trifled less. His lucubrations of this sort, have rather the appearance of religious dotage, than of any vigorous exertions towards God. It will be well if the publication prove not hurtful in its effects, by exposing the best cause, already too much despised, to ridicule still more profane. On the other side of the same paper, I find a long string of aphorisms, and maxims, and rules, for the conduct of life, which, though they appear not with his name, are so much in his manner, with the above-mentioned, that I suspect them for his. I have not read them all, but several of them I read that were trivial enough for the sake of one however, I forgive him the rest-he advises never to banish hope entirely, because it is the cordial of life, although it be the greatest flatterer in the world. Such a measure of hope as may not endanger my peace by a disappointment I would wish to cherish

upon every subject. in which I am interested. But there lies the difficulty. A cure however, and the only one, for all the irregularities of hope and fear, is found in submission to the will of God. Happy they

that have it!

This last sentence puts me in mind of your reference to Blair in a former Letter, whom you there permitted to be your arbiter to adjust the respective claims of who or that. I do not rashly differ from so great a grammarian, nor do at any rate differ from him altogether-upon solemn occasions, as in prayer or preaching for instance, I would be strictly correct, and upon stately ones; for instance were I writing an epic poem, I would be so likewise, but not upon familiar occasions. God who heareth prayer, is right, Hector, who saw Patroclus, is right. And the man, that dresses me every day, is in my mind right also ;because the contrary would give an air of stiffness and pedantry to an expression that in respect of the matter of it, cannot be too negligently made up.

Adieu, my dear William ! I have scribbled with all my might, which, breakfast-time excepted, has been my employment ever since I rose, and it is now past one.

Yours,

W. C

The second volume of Cowper's Poems, of whose delay in the press he had complained so feelingly, was now (in the summer of 1785) beginning to circulate with extensive rapidity. It not only raised him to the summit of poetical reputation, but obtained for him a blessing infinitely dearer to his af fectionate heart, another female friend, and lively as sociate, now providentially led to contribute to his comfort, when the advanced age and infirmities of Mrs. Unwin made such an acquisition of new, or ra ther revived, friendship, a matter of infinite import ance to the tranquillity and welfare of the sequestered poet.

The lady, to whom I allude, had the advantage of being nearly related to Cowper, and several of his Letters to her have already appeared. Their intercourse had been frequent, and endeared by reciprocal esteem in their early years, but the whirlwinds of life had driven them far from the sight of each other. During the poet's long retirement, his fair Cousin had passed some years with her husband abroad, and others, after her return, in a variety of mournful duties. She was at this time a widow, and her indelible regard for her poetical relation, being agreeably inspirited by the publication of his recent works, she