stone always, and without reference to her taste make you a bouquet of myrtle every day. Sooner and judgment I have printed nothing. With one than the time I mention the country will not be of you at each elbow, I should think myself the in complete beauty. And I will tell you what happiest of all poets. you shall find at your first entrance. Imprimis, The General and I, having broken the ice, are as soon as you have entered the vestibule, if you upon the most comfortable terms of correspondence. cast a look on either side of you, you shall see on He writes very affectionately to me, and I say every the right hand a box of my making. It is the thing to him that comes uppermost. I could not box in which have been lodged all my hares, and write frequently to any creature living, upon any in which lodges Puss at present. But he, poor other terms than those. He tells me of infirmities fellow, is worn out with age, and promises to die that he has, which makes him less active than he before you can see him. On the right hand, was: I am sorry to hear that he has any such. stands a cup-board, the work of the same author; Alas! alas! he was young when I saw him, only it was once a dove-cage, but I transformed it. twenty years ago. I have the most affectionate letter imaginable from Colman, who writes to me like a brother. The Chancellor is yet dumb. May God have you in his keeping, my beloved cousin. Opposite to you stands a table, which I also made. But a merciless servant having scrubbed it until it became paralytic, it serves no purpose now but of ornament; and all my clean shoes stand under it. On the left hand, at the farther end of this superb vestibule, you will find the door of the parlour, into which I will conduct you, and where I will introduce you to Mrs. Unwin, unless we should meet her before, and where we will be as happy as the day is long. Order yourself, my cousin, to the Swan at Newport, and there you shall find me ready to conduct you to Olney. My dear, I have told Homer what you say about casks and urns, and have asked him, whether he is sure that it is a cask, in which Jupiter keeps his wine. He swears that it is a cask, and that it will never be any thing better than a cask to eternity. So if the god is content with it, we must even wonder at his taste, and be so too. Adieu! my dearest, dearest cousin, W. C. TO LADY HESKETH. I HAVE been impatient to tell you that I am impatient to see you again. Mrs. Unwin partakes | with me in all my feelings upon this subject, and longs also to see you. I should have told you so by the last post, but have been so completely occupied by this tormenting specimen, that it was impossible to do it. I sent the General a letter on Monday, that would distress and alarm him; I sent him another yesterday, that will I hope quiet him again. Johnson has apologized very civilly for the multitude of his friend's strictures; and his friend has promised to confine himself in future to a comparison of me with the original, so that (I doubt not) we shall jog on merrily together. And MY DEAREST COUSIN, Olney, Feb. 11, 1786. now, my dear, let me tell you once more, that IT must be (I suppose) a fortnight or thereabout your kindness in promising us a visit has charmed since I wrote last, I feel myself so alert and so us both. I shall see you again. I shall hear your ready to write again. Be that as it may, here I Voice. We shall take walks together. I will come. We talk of nobody but you. What we show you my prospects, the hovel, the alcove, the will do with you when we get you, where you Ouse, and its banks, every thing that I have de- shall walk, where you shall sleep, in short every scribed. I anticipate the pleasure of those days thing that bears the remotest relation to your wellnot very far distant, and feel a part of it at this being at Olney, occupies all our talking time, moment. Talk not of an inn! Mention it not which is all that I do not spend at Troy. for your life! We have never had so many visit- I have every reason for writing to you as often ers, but we could easily accommodate them all; as I can, but I have a particular reason for doing though we have received Unwin, and his wife, it now. I want to tell you that by the Diligence and his sister, and his son, all at once. My dear, on Wednesday next, I mean to send you a quire I will not let you come till the end of May, or of my Homer for Maty's perusal. It will contain beginning of June, because before that time my the first book, and as much of the second as brings greenhouse will not be ready to receive us, and it us to the catalogue of the ships, and is every moris the only pleasant room belonging to us. When sel of the revised copy that I have transcribed. the plants go out, we go in. I line it with mats, and My dearest cousin, read it yourself, let the Genespread the floor with mats; and there you shall sit ral read it, do what you please with it, so that it with a bed of mignonette at your side, and a hedge reach Johnson in due time. But let Maty be of noneysuckles, roses, and jasmine; and I will the only critic that has any thing to do with Adieu, whom I love entirely, W. C. TO LADY HESKETH. The vexation, the perplexity, that attends a mul- four years have passed since the day of the date tiplicity of criticisms by various hands, many of thereof; and to mention it now would be to upwhich are sure to be futile, many of them ill- braid him with inattention to his blighted troth. founded, and some of them contradictory to others, Neither do I suppose he could easily serve such is inconceivable, except by the author, whose ill- a creature as I am, if he would. fated work happens to be the subject of them. This also appears to be self-evident, that if a work have passed under the review of one man of taste and learning, and have had the good fortune to please him, his approbation gives security for that of all others qualified like himself. I MY DEAREST COUSIN, Olney, Feb. 19, 1786 speak thus, my dear, after having just escaped SINCE So it must be, so it shall be. If you will from such a storm of trouble, occasioned by end- not sleep under the roof of a friend, may you less remarks, hints, suggestions, and objections, as never sleep under the roof of an enemy! An enedrove me also to despair, and to the very verge of my however you will not presently find.. Mrs. a resolution to drop my undertaking for ever. Unwin bids me mention her affectionately, and With infinite difficulty I at last sifted the chaff tell you that she willingly gives up a part, for the from the wheat, availed myself of what appeared sake of the rest, willingly, at least as far as wilto me to be just, and rejected the rest, but not till lingly may consist with some reluctance; I feel my the labour and anxiety had nearly undone all that reluctance too. Our design was, that you should Kerr had been doing for me. My beloved cousin, have slept in the room that serves me for a study, trust me for it, as you safely may, that temper, vanity, and self-importance, had nothing to do in all this distress that I suffered. It was merely the effect of an alarm, that I could not help taking, when I compared the great trouble I had with a few lines only, thus handled, with that which I comfortable, we are desirous therefore to accommoforesaw such handling of the whole must neces- date you to your own mind, and not to ours. Mrs. sarily give me. I felt beforehand that my consti- Unwin has already secured for you an apartment, tution would not bear it. I shall send up this or rather two, just such as we could wish. The second specimen in a box, that I have made on house in which you will find them is within thirty purpose; and when Maty has done with the copy, yards of our own, and opposite to it. The whole and you have done with it yourself, then you affair is thus commodiously adjusted; and now I must return it in said box to my translatorship. have nothing to do but to wish for June; and Though Johnson's friend has teased me sadly, I June, my cousin, was never so wished for, since verily believe that I shall have no more such cause June was made. I shall have a thousand things to complain of him. We now understand one to hear, and a thousand to say, and they will all another, and I firmly believe that I might have rush into my mind together, till it will be so gone the world through, before I had found his crowded, with things impatient to be said, that equal in an accurate and familiar acquaintance for some time I shall say nothing. But no matwith the original. and its having been occupied by you would have been an additional recommendation of it to me. But all reluctances are superseded by the thought of seeing you: and because we have nothing so much at heart as the wish to see you happy and ter-sooner or later they will all come out; and A letter to Mr. Urban in the late Gentleman's since we shall have you the longer for not having Magazine, of which I's book is the subject, pleases you under our own roof (a circumstance, that, me more than any thing I have seen in the way more than any thing, reconciles us to that meaof eulogium yet. I have no guess of the author. sure), they will stand the better chance. After I do not wish to remind the Chancellor of his so long a separation, a separation that of late promise. Ask you why, my cousin? Because I seemed likely to last for life, we shall meet each suppose it would be impossible. He has no doubt other as alive from the dead; and for my own part forgotten it entirely, and would be obliged to take I can truly say, that I have not a friend in the my word for the truth of it, which I could not other world, whose resurrection would give me We drank tea together with Mrs. Ce, greater pleasure. and ner sister, in King-street, Bloomsbury, and I am truly happy, my dear, in having pleased there was the promise made. I said-" Thurlow, you with what you have seen of my Homer. I I am nobody, and shall be always nobody, and wish that all English readers had your unsophistiyou will be Chancellor. You shall provide for cated, or rather unadulterated taste, and could me when you are." He smiled, and replied, "I relish simplicity like you. But I am well aware surely will." "These ladies," said I, "are wit- that in this respect I am under a disadvantage, nesses." He still smiled, and said—"Let them be and that many, especially many ladies, missing so, for I will certainly do it." But alas! twenty-many turns and prettinesses of expression, that near. they have admired in Pope, will account my trans- not his consolations from you. I know by expelation in those particulars defective. But I com- rience that they are neither few nor small; and fort myself with the thought, that in reality it is though I feel for you as I never felt for man before, no defect; on the contrary, that the want of all yet do I sincerely rejoice in this, that whereas such embellishments as do not belong to the ori- there is but one true comforter in the universe, ginal will be one of its principal merits with per- under afflictions such as yours, you both know him, sons indeed capable of relishing Homer. He is and know where to seek him. I thought you a the best poet that ever lived for many reasons, but man the most happily mated, that I had ever seen, for none more than for that majestic plainness that and had great pleasure in your felicity. Pardon distinguishes him from all others. As an accom- me, if now I feel a wish that, short as my acquaintplished person moves gracefully without thinking ance with her was, I had never seen her. I should of it, in like manner the dignity of Homer seems have mourned with you, but not as I do now. to cost him no labour. It was natural to him to Mrs. Unwin sympathizes with you also most sinsay great things, and to say them well, and little cerely, and you neither are, nor will be soon forornaments were beneath his notice. If Maty, my gotten in such prayers as we can make at Olney. dearest cousin, should return to you my copy with I will not detain you longer now, my poor afflicted any such strictures as may make it necessary for friend, than to commit you to the tender mercy me to see it again, before it goes to Johnson, in of God, and to bid you a sorrowful adieu! that case you shall send it to me, otherwise to Johnson immediately; for he writes me word he wishes his friend to go to work upon it as soon as possible. When you come, my dear, we will! hang all these critics together. For they have worried me without remorse or conscience. At Adieu! ever yours, W. C. TO LADY HESKETH. Olney, March 6, 1786. least one of them has. I had actually murdered MY DEAREST COUSIN, more than a few of the best lines in the specimen, YOUR opinion has more weight with me than in compliance with his requisitions, but plucked that of all the critics in the world; and to give you up my courage at last, and in that very last oppor- a proof of it, I make you a covenant, that I would tunity that I had, recovered them to life again by hardly have made to them all united. I do not restoring the original reading. At the same time indeed absolutely covenant, promise, and agree, I readily confess that the specimen is the better that I will discard all my elisions, but I hereby for all this discipline its author has undergone; bind myself to dismiss as many of them as, withbut then it has been more indebted for its improve-out sacrificing energy to sound, I can. It is inment to that pointed accuracy of examination, to cumbent upon me in the mean time to say somewhich I was myself excited, than to any proposed thing in justification of the few that I shall retain, amendments from Mr. Critic; for as sure as you that I may not seem a poet mounted rather on a are my cousin, whom I long to see at Olney, so mule than on Pegasus. In the first place, The, surely would he have done me irritable mischief, is a barbarism. We are indebted for it to the if I would have given him leave. Celts, or the Goths, or to the Saxons, or perhaps My friend Bagot writes to me in a most friend- to them all. In the two best languages that ever ly strain, and calls loudly upon me for original were spoken, the Greek and the Latin, there is no poetry. When I shall have done with Homer, similar incumbrance of expression to be found. probably he will not call in vain. Having found Secondly, The perpetual use of it in our language the prime feather of a swan on the banks of the is to us miserable poets attended with two great smug and silver Trent, he keeps it for me. Adieu, dear cousin, W. C. I am sorry that the General has such indifferent health. He must not die. I can by no means spare a person so kind to me. inconveniences. Our verse consisting only of ten syllables, it not unfrequently happens that a fifth too, (unless elision prevents it) by this abominable part of a line is to be engrossed, and necessarily intruder; and, which is worse in my account, open vowels are continually the consequence-The element-The air, &c. Thirdly, the French, who are equally with the English chargeable with barTO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT. barism in this particular, dispose of their Le and their La without ceremony, and always take care Olney, Feb. 27, 1786. that they shall be absorbed, both in verse and in ALAS! alas! my dear, dear friend, may God prose, in the vowel that immediately follows them. himself comfort you! I will not be so absurd as to Fourthly, and I believe lastly, (and for your sake attempt it. By the close of your letter it should I wish it may prove so) the practice of cutting seem, that in this hour of great trial he withholds short a The is warranted by Milton, who of all English poets that ever lived, had certainly the will of course pass into your hands before they finest ear. Dr. Warton indeed has dared to say are sent to Johnson. The quire that I sent is that he had a bad one; for which he deserves, as now in the hands of Johnson's friend. I intended far as critical demerit can deserve it, to lose his to have told you in my last, but forgot it, that Johnown. I thought I had done, but there is still a son behaves very handsomely in the affair of my fifthly behind, and it is this, that the custom of two volumes. He acts with a liberality not often abbreviating The belongs to the style in which, found in persons of his occupation, and to mention in my advertisement annexed to the specimen, I it, when occasion calls me to it, is a justice due to profess to write. The use of that style would have him. warranted me in the practice of much greater li- I am very much pleased with Mr. Stanley's letberty of this sort than I ever intended to take. In ter-several compliments were paid me, on the perfect consistence with that style I might say, subject of that first volume, by my own friends; I' th' tempest, I' th' door-way, &c., which however but I do not recollect that I ever knew the opinion I would not allow myself to do, because I was of a stranger about it before, whether favourable aware that it would be objected to, and with rea- or otherwise; I only heard by a side wind, that son. But it seems to me for the causes above said, it was very much read in Scotland, and more than that when I shorten The, before a vowel, or before wh, as in the line you mention, here. Farewell, my dearest cousin, whom we expect, of whom we talk continually, and whom we con"Than th' whole Broad Hellespont in all its parts," tinually long for. W. C. my license is not equally exceptionable, because Your anxious wishes for my success delight me, W though he rank as a consonant in the word and you may rest assured, my dear, that I have all whole, is not allowed to announce himself to the the ambition on the subject that you can wish me ear; and H is an aspirate. But as I said at the to feel. I more than admire my author. I often beginning, so say I still, I am most willing to con- stand astonished at his beauties. I am for ever form myself to your very sensible observation, that amused with the translation of him, and I have it is necessary, if we would please, to consult the received a thousand encouragements. These are taste of our own day; neither would I have pelted all so many happy omens, that I hope shall be you, my dearest cousin, with any part of this vol- verified by the event. ley of good reasons, had I not designed them as an answer to those objections which you say you have heard from others. But I only mention them. Though satisfactory to myself, I waive them, and will allow to The his whole dimensions, whensoever it can be done. Thou only critic of my verse that is to be found in all the earth, whom I love, what shall I say in answer to your own objection to that passage, "Softly he plac'd his hand On the old man's hand, and push'd it gently away?" TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN I SEEM to be about to write to you, but I foresee that it will not be a letter, but a scrap that I shall send you. I could tell you things that, knowing how much you interest yourself in my suc cess, I am sure would please you, but every moment of my leisure is necessarily spent at Troy. I am revising my translation, and bestowing on it I can say neither more nor less than this, that more labour than at first. At the repeated soliciwhen our dear friend, the General, sent me his tation of General Cowper, who had doubtless irreopinion of the specimen, quoting those very few fragable reason on his side, I have put my book words from it, he added, "With this part I was into the hands of the most extraordinary critic particularly pleased; there is nothing in poetry that I have ever heard of. He is a Swiss; has more descriptive." Such were his very words. an accurate knowledge of English, and for his Taste, my dear, is various: there is nothing so knowledge of Homer has, I verily believe, no felvarious; and even between the persons of the best low. Johnson recommended him to me. I am taste there are diversities of opinion on the same to send him the quires as fast as I finish them off, subject, for which it is not possible to account. So and the first is now in his hands. I have the commuch for these matters. fort to be able to tell you, that he is very much You advise me to consult the General, and to pleased with what he has seen. Johnson wrote confide in him. I follow your advice, and have to me lately on purpose to tell me so. Things done both. By the last post I asked his permis- having taken this turn, I fear that I must beg a sion to send him the books of my Homer, as fast release from my engagement to put the MS. into as I should finish them off. I shall be glad of his your hands. I am bound to print as soon as three remarks, and more glad than of any thing, to do hundred shall have subscribed, and consequently that which I hope may be agrecable to him. They have not an hour to spare. People generally love to go where they are admired, yet lady Hesketh complains of not having seen you. Yours, W. C. TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ. April 5, 1786. village called Emberton, and command the whole length of a long bridge, described by a certain poet, together with a view of the road at a distance. Should you wish for books at Olney, you must bring them with you, or you will wish in vain, for I have none but the works of a certain poet, Cowper, of whom perhaps you have heard, and they are as yet but two volumes. They may multiply hereafter, but at present they are no more. I DID, as you suppose, bestow all possible consideration on the subject of an apology for my You are the first person for whom I have heard Homerican undertaking. I turned the matter Mrs. Unwin express such feelings as she does for about in my mind an hundred different ways, and you. She is not profuse in professions, nor forin every way in which it would present itself ward to enter into treaties of friendship with new found it an impracticable business. It is impossi- faces, but when her friendship is once engaged, it ble for me, with what delicacy soever I may man- may be confided in even unto death. She loves age it, to state the objections that lie against Pope's you already, and how much more will she love you translation, without incurring odium, and the im- before this time twelvemonth! I have indeed enputation of arrogance; foreseeing this danger, I deavoured to describe you to her, but perfectly as I choose to say nothing. W. C. have you by heart, I am sensible that my picture can not do you justice. I never saw one that did. P. S.-You may well wonder at my courage, Be you what you may, you are much beloved and who have undertaken a work of such enormous will be so at Olney, and Mrs. U. expects you with length. You would wonder more if you knew the pleasure that one feels at the return of a long that I translated the whole Iliad with no other absent, dear relation; that is to say, with a pleasure help than a Clavis. But I have since equipped such as mine. She sends you her warmest affecmyself better for this immense journey, and am tions. revising the work in company with a good com mentator. TO LADY HESKETH. MY DEAREST COUSIN, Olney, April 17, 1786. On Friday I received a letter from dear Anonymous, apprising me of a parcel that the coach would bring me on Saturday. Who is there in the world that has, or thinks he has reason to love me to the degree that he does? But it is no matter. He chooses to be unknown, and his choice is, and ever shall be so sacred to me, that if his name lay on the table before me reversed, I would IF you will not quote Solomon, my dearest cou- not turn the paper about that I might read it. sin, I will. He says, and as beautifully as truly- Much as it would gratify me to thank him, I would "Hope deferred maketh the heart sick, but when turn my eyes away from the forbidden discovery. the desire cometh, it is a tree of life!" I feel how I long to assure him that those same eyes, conmuch reason he had on his side when he made cerning which he expresses such kind apprehenthis observation, and am myself sick of your fort-sions, lest they should suffer by this laborious unnight's delay. dertaking, are as well as I could expect them to be, if I were never to touch either book or pen, The vicarage was built by Lord Dartmouth, Subject to weakness, and occasional slight inflamand was not finished till some time after we ar- mations, it is probable that they will always be; rived at Olney, consequently it is new. It is a but I can not remember the time when they ensmart stone building well sashed, by much too joyed any thing so like an exemption from those good for the living, but just what I would wish infirmities as at present. One would almost supfor you. It has, as you justly concluded from my pose that reading Homer were the best ophthalmic premises, a garden, but rather calculated for use in the world. I should be happy to remove his than ornament. It is square, and well walled, but solicitude on the subject, but it is a pleasure that has neither arbour, nor alcove, nor other shade, he will not let me enjoy. Well then, I will be except the shadow of the house. But we have content without it; and so content that, though 1 two gardens, which are yours. Between your believe you, my dear, to be in full possession of mansion and ours is interposed nothing but an all this mystery, you shall never know me, while orchard, into which a door opening out of our you live, either directly, or by hints of any sort, garden affords us the easiest communication imag- attempt to extort, or to steal the secret from you. inable, will save the round-about by the town, and I should think myself as justly punishable as the make both houses one. Your chamber-windows Bethshemites, for looking into the ark, which they look over the river, and over the meadows, to a were not allowed to touch. |