your good brother, the bishop's Charge as soon as I conveniently could, and the weather having forbidden us to hope for the pleasure of seeing you and Mrs. Bagot with you this morning, I return it now, lest, as you told me, that your stay in this country would be short, you should be gone before it could reach you.

I wish, as you do, that the Charge in question, could find its way into all the parsonages in the nation. It is so generally applicable, and yet so pointedly enforced, that it deserves the most extensive spread. I find in it the happiest mixture of spiritual authority, the meekness of a Christian, and the good

manners of a gentleman. It has convinced me that the poet, who, like myself, shall take the liberty to pay the author of such valuable admonition a compliment, shall do at least as much honour to himself as to his subject.

sooner than the usual time, prevented me. The Odyssey that you sent has but one fault, at least but one that I have discovered, which is, that I cannot read it. The very attempt, if persevered in, would soon make me as blind as Homer was himself.

I am

now in the last book of the Iliad, shall be obliged to

you therefore for a more legible one by the first opportunity.

I wrote to Johnson lately, desiring him to give me advice and information on the subject of proposals for a subscription, and he desired me in his answer, not to use that mode of publication, but to treat with him, adding, that he could make me such offers as (he believed) I should approve. I have replied to his Letter, but abide by my first purpose.

Having occasion to write to Mr., concerning his princely benevolence, extended this year also to the poor of Olney, I put in a good word for my poor self likewise, and have received a very obliging and encouraging answer. He promises me six names in particular, that (he says) will do me no discredit, and expresses a wish to be served with papers as soon as they shall be printed.

I meet with encouragement from all quarters, such as I find need of indeed in an enterprise of such length and moment, but such as at the same time I find effectual. Homer is not a poet to be translated under the disadvantage of doubts and dejection.

Let me sing the praises of the desk, which————— has sent me. In general it is as elegant as possible. In particular it is of cedar, beautifully lacquered. When put together, it assumes the form of a handsome small chest, and contains all sorts of accommodati

ons; it is inlaid with ivory, and serves the

purpose of

gress in my present undertaking, as to put it out of all doubt, that, if I lived, I should proceed in, and finish it, I kept the matter to myself. It would have done me little honour to have told my friends, that I had an arduous enterprize in hand, if afterwards, I must have told, them, that I had dropped it. Knowing it to have been universally the opinion of the literati, ever since they have allowed themselves to consider the matter cooly, that a Translation, properly so called, of Homer, is, notwithstanding what Pope has done, a desideratum in the English language; it struck me that an attempt to supply the

deficiency would be an honourable one, and having 'made myself, in former years, somewhat critically a master of the original, I was by this double consideration induced to make the attempt myself. I am now translating into blank verse the last book of the Iliad, and mean to publish by subscription.

LETTER XCVIII.

To the Revd. WILLIAM UNWIN.

W. C.

Dec. 31, 1785.

MY DEAR WILLIAM,

You have learned from my last that I am now conducting myself upon the plan that you recommended to me in the summer. But since I wrote it, I have made still farther advances in my negociation with Johnson. The proposals are adjusted. The proof-sheet has been printed off, corrected, and returned. They will be sent abroad as soon as I make up a complete list of the personages and persons, to whom I would have them sent; which in a few days, I hope to be able to accomplish. Johnson