Book v.--_Winter Morning's Walk.

I am glad that thou hast sent the General those verses on my mother's picture. They will amuse him--only I hope that he will not miss my mother-in-law, and think that she ought to have made a third. On such an occasion it was not possible to mention her with any propriety. I rejoice at the General's recovery; may it prove a perfect one.

W. C.

TO LADY HESKETH.

Weston, April 30, 1790.

To my old friend, Dr. Madan,[534] thou couldst not have spoken better than thou didst. Tell him, I beseech you, that I have not forgotten him; tell him also, that to my heart and home he will be always welcome; nor he only, but all that are his. His judgment of my translation gave me the highest satisfaction, because I know him to be a rare old Grecian.

[534] The Bishop of Peterborough.

The General's approbation of my picture verses gave me also much pleasure. I wrote them not without tears, therefore I presume it may be that they are felt by others. Should he offer me my father's picture I shall gladly accept it. A melancholy pleasure is better than none, nay, verily, better than most. He had a sad task imposed on him, but no man could acquit himself of such a one with more discretion or with more tenderness. The death of the unfortunate young man reminded me of those lines in Lycidas,

"It was that fatal and perfidious bark, Built in th' eclipse, and rigg'd with curses dark, That sunk so low that sacred head of thine!"

How beautiful!

W. C.

TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.[535]

[535] Private correspondence.

The Lodge, May 2, 1790.

My dear Friend,--I am still at the old sport--Homer all the morning, and Homer all the evening. Thus have I been held in constant employment, I know not exactly how many, but I believe these six years, an interval of eight months excepted. It is now become so familiar to me to take Homer from my shelf at a certain hour, that I shall no doubt continue to take him from my shelf at the same time, even after I have ceased to want him. That period is not far distant. I am now giving the last touches to a work, which, had I foreseen the difficulty of it, I should never have meddled with; but which, having at length nearly finished it to my mind, I shall discontinue with regret.

My very best compliments attend Mrs. Hill, whom I love, "unsight unseen," as they say, but yet truly.

Yours ever, W. C.

TO MRS. THROCKMORTON.

The Lodge, May 10, 1790.

My dear Mrs. Frog,[536]--You have by this time (I presume) heard from the Doctor, whom I desired to present to you our best affections, and to tell you that we are well. He sent an urchin, (I do not mean a hedgehog, commonly called an urchin in old times, but a boy, commonly so called at present,) expecting that he would find you at Buckland's, whither he supposed you gone on Thursday. He sent him charged with divers articles, and among others with letters, or at least with a letter: which I mention, that, if the boy should be lost, together with his despatches, past all possibility of recovery, you may yet know that the Doctor stands acquitted of not writing. That he is utterly lost (that is to say, the boy--for, the Doctor being the last antecedent, as the grammarians say, you might otherwise suppose that he was intended) is the more probable, because he was never four miles from his home before, having only travelled at the side of a plough-team; and, when the Doctor gave him his direction to Buckland's,[537] he asked, very naturally, if that place was in England. So, what has become of him Heaven knows!

[536] The sportive title generally bestowed by Cowper on his amiable friends the Throckmortons.

[537] The residence of the Throckmorton family in Berkshire.

I do not know that any adventures have presented themselves since your departure worth mentioning, except that the rabbit that infested your wilderness has been shot for devouring your carnations; and that I myself have been in some danger of being devoured in like manner by a great dog, viz. Pearson's. But I wrote him a letter on Friday (I mean a letter to Pearson, not to his dog, which I mention to prevent mistakes--for the said last antecedent might occasion them in this place also,) informing him, that, unless he tied up his great mastiff in the day-time, I would send him a worse thing, commonly called and known by the name of an attorney. When I go forth to ramble in the fields, I do not sally (like Don Quixote) with a purpose of encountering monsters, if any such can be found; but am a peaceable, poor gentleman, and a poet, who mean nobody any harm, the fox-hunters and the two universities of this land excepted.

I cannot learn from any creature whether the Turnpike Bill is alive or dead--so ignorant am I, and by such ignoramuses surrounded. But, if I know little else, this at least I know, that I love you, and Mr. Frog; that I long for your return, and that I am, with Mrs. Unwin's best affections,

Ever yours, W. C.

TO LADY HESKETH.

The Lodge, May 28, 1790.

My dearest Coz,--I thank thee for the offer of thy best services on this occasion. But Heaven guard my brows from the wreath you mention, whatever wreath beside may hereafter adorn them! It would be a leaden extinguisher clapped on all the fire of my genius, and I should never more produce a line worth reading. To speak seriously, it would make me miserable, and therefore I am sure that thou, of all my friends, wouldst least wish me to wear it.[538]

Adieu, Ever thine--in Homer-hurry, W. C.

[538] Lady Hesketh suggested the appointment of the office of Poet Laureat to Cowper, which had become vacant by the death of Warton in 1790. The poet declined the offer of her services, and Henry James Pye, Esq. was nominated the successor.

TO LADY HESKETH.

Weston, June 3, 1790.

You will wonder, when I tell you, that I, even I, am considered by people, who live at a great distance, as having interest and influence sufficient to procure a place at court, for those who may happen to want one. I have accordingly been applied to within these few days by a Welchman, with a wife and many children, to get him made Poet Laureat as fast as possible. If thou wouldst wish to make the world merry twice a year, thou canst not do better than procure the office for him. I will promise thee that he shall afford thee a hearty laugh in return every birth-day and every new year. He is an honest man.

Adieu! W. C.

* * * * *

The poet's kinsman, having consulted him on the subject of his future plans and studies, receives the following reply. The letter is striking, but admits of doubt as to the justness of some of its sentiments.

TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESQ.

Weston, June 7, 1790.

My dear John,--You know my engagements, and are consequently able to account for my silence. I will not therefore waste time and paper in mentioning them, but will only say, that, added to those with which you are acquainted, I have had other hindrances, such as business and a disorder of my spirits, to which I have been all my life subject. At present I am, thank God! perfectly well both in mind and body. Of you I am always mindful, whether I write or not, and very desirous to see you. You will remember, I hope, that you are under engagements to us, and, as soon as your Norfolk friends can spare you, will fulfil them. Give us all the time you can, and all that they can spare to us!

You never pleased me more than when you told me you had abandoned your mathematical pursuits. It grieved me to think, that you were wasting your time merely to gain a little Cambridge fame, not worth your having. I cannot be contented, that your renown should thrive nowhere but on the banks of the Cam. Conceive a nobler ambition, and never let your honour be circumscribed by the paltry dimensions of a university! It is well that you have already, as you observe, acquired sufficient information in that science to enable you to pass creditably such examinations as I suppose you must hereafter undergo. Keep what you have gotten, and be content. More is needless.[539]

[539] To Cowper's strictures on the University of Cambridge, and his remark that the fame there acquired is not worth having, we by no means subscribe. We think no youth ought to be insensible to the honourable ambition of obtaining its distinctions, and that they are not unfrequently the precursors of subsequent eminence in the Church, the Senate, and at the Bar. We have been informed that, out of fifteen judges recently on the bench, eleven had obtained honours at our two Universities. Whether the system of education is not susceptible of much improvement is a subject worthy of deep consideration. There seems to be a growing persuasion that, at the University of Cambridge, the mode of study is too exclusively mathematical; and that a more comprehensive plan, embracing the various departments of general knowledge and literature, would be an accession to the cause of learning. We admit that the University fully affords the means of acquiring this general information, but there is a penalty attached to the acquisition which operates as a prohibition, because the prospect of obtaining honours must, in that case, be renounced. By adopting a more comprehensive system, the stimulants to exertion would be multiplied, and the end of education apparently more fully attained.

When we reflect on the singular character of the present times, the instability of governments, and the disorganized state of society, arising from conflicting principles and opinions, the question of education assumes a momentous interest. We are firmly persuaded that, unless the minds of youth be enlarged by useful knowledge, and fortified by right principles of religion, they will not be fitted to sustain the duties and responsibilities that must soon devolve upon them; nor will they be qualified to meet the storms that now threaten the political and moral horizon of Europe.

Dr. Johnson, in enumerating the advantages resulting from a university education, specifies the following as calculated to operate powerfully on the mind of the student.

"There is at least one very powerful incentive to learning; I mean the Genius of the place. It is a sort of inspiring Deity, which every youth of quick sensibility and ingenuous disposition creates to himself, by reflecting that he is placed under those venerable walls, where a Hooker and a Hammond, a Bacon and a Newton, once pursued the same course of science, and from whence they soared to the most elevated heights of literary fame."--_The Idler_, No. 33.

You could not apply to a worse than I am to advise you concerning your studies. I was never a regular student myself, but lost the most valuable years of my life in an attorney's office and in the Temple. I will not therefore give myself airs, and affect to know what I know not. The affair is of great importance to you, and you should be directed in it by a wiser than I. To speak however in very general terms on the subject, it seems to me that your chief concern is with history, natural philosophy, logic, and divinity. As to metaphysics, I know little about them. But the very little that I do know has not taught me to admire them. _Life is too short to afford time even for serious trifles. Pursue what you know to be attainable, make truth your object, and your studies will make you a wise man! Let your divinity, if I may advise, be the divinity of the glorious Reformation: I mean in contradiction to Arminianism, and all the_ isms _that were ever broached in this world of error and ignorance_.

_The divinity of the Reformation is called Calvinism, but injuriously. It has been that of the church of Christ in all ages. It is the divinity of St. Paul, and of St. Paul's Master, who met him in his way to Damascus._

I have written in great haste, that I might finish, if possible, before breakfast. Adieu! Let us see you soon; the sooner the better. Give my love to the silent lady, the Rose, and all my friends around you!

W. C.

* * * * *

There is an impressive grandeur and sublimity in the concluding part of the above letter, which entitles it to be written in characters of gold. May it be engraven on the heart of every minister! The divinity of the glorious Reformation, as illustrated in the works of Cranmer, Jewel, Latimer, and Ridley, are in fact the essential doctrines of the gospel, as distinguished from a mere system of moral ethics. It is in proportion only as these great and fundamental truths are clearly understood, and fully, freely, and faithfully declared, that religion can acquire its holy ascendancy over the heart and practice. Moral preaching may produce an external reformation, but it is the gospel alone that can change the heart. The corruption and lost state of man, the mercy of God in Christ, the necessity of a living faith in the Saviour, the office of the Holy Spirit, in his enlightening, converting, and sanctifying influences;--these are the grand themes of the Christian ministry. Whenever they are urged with the prominence that their incalculable importance demands, and accompanied by a divine influence, signal effects will never fail to follow. The careless will be roused, the lover of pleasure become the lover of God, and the oppressed heart find pardon and peace.

TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESQ.

The Lodge, June 8, 1790.

My dear Friend,--Among the many who love and esteem you, there is none who rejoices more in your felicity than myself. Far from blaming, I commend you much for connecting yourself, young as you are, with a well-chosen companion for life. Entering on the state with uncontaminated morals, you have the best possible prospect of happiness, and will be secure against a thousand and ten thousand temptations to which, at an early period of life, in such a Babylon as you must necessarily inhabit, you would otherwise have been exposed. I see it too in the light you do, as likely to be advantageous to you in your profession. Men of business have a better opinion of a candidate for employment, who is married, because he has given bond to the world, as you observe, and to himself, for diligence, industry, and attention. It is altogether therefore a subject of much congratulation; and mine, to which I add Mrs. Unwin's, is very sincere. Samson, at his marriage, proposed a riddle to the Philistines. I am no Samson, neither are you a Philistine. Yet expound to me the following if you can!

_What are they which stand at a distance from each other, and meet without ever moving!_[540]

[540] This enigma is explained in a subsequent letter.

Should you be so fortunate as to guess it, you may propose it to the company, when you celebrate your nuptials; and, if you can win thirty changes of raiment by it, as Samson did by his, let me tell you, they will be no contemptible acquisition to a young beginner.

You will not, I hope, forget your way to Weston, in consequence of your marriage, where you and yours will always be welcome.

W. C.

TO MRS. KING.[541]

[541] Private correspondence.

The Lodge, June 14, 1790.

My dear Madam,--I have hardly a scrap of paper belonging to me that is not scribbled over with blank verse; and, taking out your letter from a bundle of others, this moment, I find it thus inscribed on the seal side:--

Meantime his steeds Snorted, by Myrmidons detain'd, and loosed From their own master's chariot, foam'd to fly.

You will easily guess to what they belong; and I mention the circumstance merely in proof of my perpetual engagement to Homer, whether at home or abroad; for, when I committed these lines to the back of your letter, I was rambling at a considerable distance from home. I set one foot on a mole-hill, placed my hat, with the crown upward, on my knee, laid your letter upon it, and with a pencil wrote the fragment that I have sent you. In the same posture I have written many and many a passage of a work which I hope soon to have done with. But all this is foreign to what I intended when I first took pen in hand. My purpose then was, to excuse my long silence as well as I could, by telling you that I am, at present, not only a labourer in verse, but in prose also, having been requested by a friend, to whom I could not refuse it, to translate for him a series of Latin letters, received from a Dutch minister of the gospel at the Cape of Good Hope.[542] With this additional occupation you will be sensible that my hands are full; and it is a truth that, except to yourself, I would, just at this time, have written to nobody.

[542] The Dutch minister here mentioned, was Mr. Van Lier, who recorded the remarkable account of the great spiritual change produced in his mind, by reading the works of Mr. Newton. The letters were written in Latin, and translated by Cowper, at the request of his clerical friend.

I felt a true concern for what you told me in your last, respecting the ill state of health of your much-valued friend, Mr. Martyn. You say, if I knew half his worth, I should, with you, wish his longer continuance below. Now you must understand, that, ignorant as I am of Mr. Martyn, except by your report of him, I do nevertheless sincerely wish it--and that, both for your sake and my own; nor less for the sake of the public.[543] For your sake, because you love and esteem him highly; for the sake of the public, because, should it please God to take him before he has completed his great botanical work, I suppose no other person will be able to finish it so well; and for my own sake, because I know he has a kind and favourable opinion beforehand of my translation, and, consequently, should it justify his prejudice when it appears, he will stand my friend against an army of Cambridge critics.--It would have been strange indeed if _self_ had not peeped out on this subject.--I beg you will present my best respects to him, and assure him that, were it possible he could visit Weston, I should be most happy to receive him.

[543] Professor Martyn lived to an advanced old age, endeared to his family, respected and esteemed by the public, and supported in his last momenta by the consolations and hopes of the gospel.

Mrs. Unwin would have been employed in transcribing my rhymes for you, would her health have permitted; but it is very seldom that she can write without being much a sufferer by it. She has almost a constant pain in her side, which forbids it. As soon as it leaves her, or much abates, she will be glad to work for you.

I am, like you and Mr. King, an admirer of clouds, but only when there are blue intervals, and pretty wide ones too, between them. One cloud is too much for me, but a hundred are not too many. So, with this riddle and with my best respects to Mr. King, to which I add Mrs. Unwin's to you both,--I remain, my dear madam,

Truly yours, W. C.

TO LADY HESKETH.

The Lodge, June 17, 1790.

My dear Coz,--Here am I, at eight in the morning, in full dress, going a-visiting to Chicheley. We are a strong party, and fill two chaises; Mrs. F. the elder, and Mrs. G. in one; Mrs. F. the younger, and myself in another. Were it not that I shall find Chesters at the end of my journey, I should be inconsolable. That expectation alone supports my spirits: and, even with this prospect before me, when I saw this moment a poor old woman coming up the lane, opposite my window, I could not help sighing, and saying to myself, "Poor, but happy old woman! Thou art exempted by thy situation in life from riding in chaises, and making thyself fine in a morning: happier therefore in my account than I, who am under the cruel necessity of doing both. Neither dost thou write verses, neither hast thou ever heard of the name of Homer, whom I am miserable to abandon for a whole morning!" This, and more of the same sort, passed in my mind on seeing the old woman abovesaid.

The troublesome business with which I filled my last letter is, I hope, by this time concluded, and Mr. Archdeacon satisfied. I can, to be sure, but ill afford to pay fifty pounds for another man's negligence, but would be happy to pay a hundred rather than be treated as if I were insolvent; threatened with attorneys and bums. One would think that, living where I live, I might be exempted from trouble. But alas! as the philosophers often affirm, there is no nook under heaven in which trouble cannot enter; and perhaps, had there never been one philosopher in the world, this is a truth that would not have been always altogether a secret.

I have made two inscriptions lately, at the request of Thomas Gifford, Esq., who is sowing twenty acres with acorns on one side of his house, and twenty acres with ditto on the other.[544] He erects two memorials of stone on the occasion, that, when posterity 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]