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TO MRS. KING.*

The Lodge, Nov. 29, 1790.

My dear Madam,-I value highly, as I ought and hope that I always shall, the favorable 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 overrated. 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 everybody'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,

TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESQ.

W. C.

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 labors 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 * Private correspondence.

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 judg ment!

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 would 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 ununderstand 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 sucht 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 (1 believe) is as nimble a one as falls to the share of poets in general, though not nimble enough

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As to Mrs. Newton's interest in the best things, none, intimately acquainted with her as we have been, could doubt it. She doubt

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 worked it indeed herself; but though it is not upon it. About a month since we began to our duty to doubt, any more than it is our print, and, at the rate of nine sheets in a fort- privilege, I have always considered the selfnight, have proceeded to about the middle of condemning spirit, to which such doubts are the sixth Iliad. No further?"-you say. principally owing, as one of the most faI answer "No, nor even so far, without vorable symptoms of a nature spiritually remuch scolding on my part, both at the book-newed, and have many a time heard you make seller and the printer." But courage, my the same observation. 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 virum 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 (like you!) and a prating coxcomb.”

I felt no ambition of the laurel.* 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 favors find out me!

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.†

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 effects us with both joy and sorrow with sorrow and sympathy respect ing 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 acquies. cence in the will of God, the prospect of a loss, which even they who know you best apprehended might prove too much for you.

The office of Poet Laureat, mentioned in a former letter. ↑ Private correspondence.

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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 sometimes 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 labor 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."

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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*
assembled. How happy should I find my-
self, were I but one of the party! My ca-
pering 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.

TO MRS. KING.t

The Lodge, Dec. 31, 1790.

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 impres
sion. 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.

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

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 My dear Madam,-Returning from my silence upon our pen. The Catharina, rewalk at half-past three, I found your wel-corded by the muse of Cowper, was Miss come messenger in the kitchen; and, entering the study, found also the beautiful present with which you had charged him. We have all admired it (for Lady Hesketh was here to assist us in doing so ;) and for my own particular, I return your 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.

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. 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.

But, my

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.

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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* has fled like a dream-
(So vanishes pleasure, alas!)
But has left a regret and esteem,
That will not so suddenly pass.

The last ev'ning ramble we made,
Catharina, Maria,† 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.
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 ought that the city can show.

* Miss Stapleton, afterwards Lady Throckmorton, and the person to whom the present undertaking is dedicated. †The wife of Sir John Throckmorton.

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!*

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

tion. 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 move-
ment 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, there-
fore, 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.*

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 better and worse since I wrote last. The friend as Mrs. Newton not to have sympacough was cured, or nearly so, when I re-thised with you very nearly. But you are ceived 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 construc* See mortuary verses composed on this occasion.

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.

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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 ex* Private correspondence.

cuse 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 uncle, or reel as if you were fuddled, or dance in the path before me, all is characteristic of yourself, and therefore to me delightful.* 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.

This allowance at least I give you. Continue to take your walks, if walks they may be called, exactly in their present fashion, til 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 demeanor.

TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESQ.

W. C.

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 honors 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 honor 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

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

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 parlor, where he makes a splendid appearance, and where he shall not long want a neighbor, 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.*

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 RAGOT.
Weston Underwood, Feb. 26, 1791.

My dear Friend,—

It is a maxim of much weight,
Worth cunning 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

* 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.

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