rant of their respective value; and that the mo- to London. No sooner was he gone, than the ment the eyes are opened, the latter are always Chateau, being left without a garrison, was becheerfully relinquished for the sake of the former." sieged as regularly as the night came on. VilNow I do most certainly remember the time when such a proposition as this would have been at least supportable, and when it would not have spoiled the market of any volume, to which it had been prefixed, ergo-the times are altered for the worse. lains were both heard and seen in the garden, and at the doors and windows. The kitchen window in particular was attempted, from which they took a complete pane of glass, exactly opposite to the iron by which it was fastened; but providentially the window had been nailed to the woodwork, in I have reason to be very much satisfied with my order to keep it close, and that the air might be publisher—he marked such lines as did not please excluded; thus they were disappointed, and being him, and as often as I could, I paid all possible discovered by the maid, withdrew. The ladies respect to his animadversions. You will accord-being worn out with continual watching, and ingly find, at least if you recollect how they stood repeated alarms, were at last prevailed upon to in the MS., that several passages are better for take refuge with us. Men furnished with firehaving undergone his critical notice. Indeed I do arms were put into the house, and the rascals, not know where I could have found a bookseller having intelligence of this circumstance, beat a who could have pointed out to me my defects with retreat. Mr. Jones returned; Mrs. Jones and more discernment; and as I find it is a fashion for Miss Green, her daughter, left us, but Lady Ausmodern bards to publish the names of the literati, ten's spirits having been too much disturbed, to be who have favoured their works with a revisal, able to repose in a place where she had been so would myself most willingly have acknowledged much terrified, she was left behind. She remains my obligations to Johnson, and so I told him. I am to thank you likewise, and ought to have done it in the first place, for having recommended to me the suppression of some lines, which I am now more than ever convinced would at least have done me no honour. W. C. TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. MY DEAR WILLIAM, with us till her lodgings at the vicarage can be made ready for her reception. I have now sent you what has occurred of moment in our history since my last. I say amen, with all my heart, to your obser vation on religious characters. Men who profess themselves adepts in mathematical knowledge, in astronomy, or jurisprudence, are generally as well qualified as they would appear. The reason may be, that they are always liable to detection, should they attempt to impose upon mankind, and thereTHE modest terms in which you express your- fore take care to be what they pretend. In reliself on the subject of lady Austen's commendation gion alone, a profession is often slightly taken up, embolden me to add my suffrage to hers, and to and slovenly carried on, because forsooth candor confirm it by assuring you I think her just and and charity require us to hope the best, and to well founded in her opinion of you. The compli- judge favourably of our neighbour, and because ment indeed glances at myself; for were you less it is easy to deceive the ignorant, who are a great than she accounts you, I ought not to afford you majority, upon this subject. Let a man attach that place in my esteem which you have held so himself to a particular party, contend furiously long. My own sagacity therefore and discern- for what are properly called evangelical doctrines, ment are not a little concerned upon the occasion, and enlist himself under the banner of some pofor either you resemble the picture, or I have pular preacher, and the business is done. Behold strangely mistaken my man, and formed an erro- a Christian! a Saint! a Phoenix!-In the mean neous judgment of his character. With respect to time perhaps his heart, and his temper, and even your face and figure indeed, there I leave the ladies his conduct, are unsanctified; possibly less exemto determine, as being naturally best qualified to plary than those of some avowed infidels. No decide the point; but whether you are perfectly the matter--he can talk-he has the Shibboleth of the man of sense, and the gentleman, is a question in true church-the Bible in his pocket, and a which I am as much interested as they, and which, head well stored with notions. But the quiet, you being my friend, I am of course prepared to humble, modest, and peaceable person, who is in settle in your favour. The lady (whom, when his practice wha' the other is only in his profesyou know her as well, you will love as much as sion, who hates a noise, and therefore makes we do) is, and has been during the last fortnight, none, who knowing the snares that are in the a part of our family. Before she was perfectly world, keeps himself as much out of it as he can, restored to health, she returned to Clifton. Soon and never enters it, but when duty calls, and even after she came back Mr. Jones had occasion to go then with fear and trembling-is the Christian that will always stand highest in the estimation | wrong, were I to omit mentioning the great comof those, who bring all characters to the test of placency with which I read your narrative of Mrs. true wisdom, and judge of the tree by its fruit. Unwin's smiles and tears; persons of much senYou are desirous of visiting the prisoners; you sibility are always persons of taste, and a taste for wish to administer to their necessities, and to give poetry depends indeed upon that very article more them instruction. This task you will undertake, than upon any other. If she had Aristotle by though you expect to encounter many things in heart, I should not esteem her judgment so highly, the performance of it, that will give you pain. were she defective in point of feeling, as I do, and Now this I can understand—you will not listen must esteem it, knowing her to have such feelings to the sensibilities that distress yourself, but to as Aristotle could not communicate, and as half the distresses of others. Therefore, when I meet the readers in the world are destitute of. This it with one of the specious praters above-mentioned, is that makes me set so high a price upon your I will send him to Stock, that by your diflidence mother's opinion. She is a critic by nature, and he may be taught a lesson of modesty; by your not by rule, and has a perception of what is good generosity, a little feeling for others; and by your or bad in composition, that I never knew deceive general conduct, in short, to chatter less, and to her; insomuch, that when two sorts of expression do more. have pleaded equally for the precedence, in my own esteem, and I have referred, as in such cases I always did, the decision of the point to her, I never knew her at a loss for a just one. Yours, my dear friend, W. C. TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. MY DEAR FRIEND, March 18, 1782. Whether I shall receive any answer from his Chancellorship or not, is at present in ambiguo, and will probably continue in the same state of NOTHING has given me so much pleasure, since ambiguity much longer. He is so busy a man, the publication of my volume, as your favourable and at this time, if the papers may be credited, so opinion of it. It may possibly meet with accept- particularly busy, that I am forced to mortify myance from hundreds, whose commendation would self with the thought, that both my book and my afford me no other satisfaction than what I should letter may be thrown into a corner as too insignififind in the hope that it might do them good. I cant for a statesman's notice, and never found till have some neighbours in this place, who say they his executor finds them. This affair however like it-doubtless I had rather they should than is neither at my libitum nor his. I have sent him that they should not-but I know them to be per- the truth. He that put it into the heart of a cersons of no more taste in poetry, than skill in the tain eastern monarch, to amuse himself one sleepmathematics; their applause therefore is a sound less night with listening to the records of his kingthat has no music in it for me. But my vanity dom, is able to give birth to such another occasion, was not so entirely quiescent when I read your and inspire his lordship with a curiosity to know friendly account of the manner it had affected what he has received from a friend he once loved you. It was tickled, and pleased, and told me in and valued. If an answer comes, however, you a pretty loud whisper, that others perhaps of shall not long be a stranger to the contents of it. whose taste and judgment I had a high opinion, I have read your letter to their worships, and would approve it too. As a giver of good coun- much approve of it. May it have the effect it sels, I wish to please all-as an author, I am per- ought! If not, still you have acted a humane and fectly indifferent to the judgment of all, except becoming part, and the poor aching toes and finthe few who are indeed judicious. The circum- gers of the prisoners will not appear in judgment. stance however in your letter which pleased me against you. I have made a slight alteration in most was, that you wrote in high spirits, and the last sentence, which perhaps you will not disthough you said much, suppressed more, lest you approve. should hurt my delicacy—my delicacy is obliged to you-but you observe it is not so squeamish, but that after it has feasted upon praise expressed, it can find a comfortable dessert in the contemplation of praise implied. I now feel as if I should be glad to begin another volume, but from the will to the power is a step too wide for me to take at YOUR letter gave me great pleasure, both as a at present, and the season of the year brings with testimony of your approbation, and of your reit so many avocations into the garden, where gard. I wrote in hopes of pleasing you, and such I am my own fac totum, that I have little or no as you; and though I must confess that, at the leisure for the quill. I should do myself much same time, I cast a side-long glance at the good Yours ever, W. C. TO THE REV. WILLIAM BULL. liking of the world at large, I believe I can say | it was more for the sake of their advantage and instruction than their praise. They are children; if we give them physic, we must sweeten the rim of the cup with honey-if my book is so far honoured as to be made the vehicle of true knowledge to any that are ignorant, I shall rejoice; and do already rejoice that it has procured me a proof of your esteem. TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. MY DEAR FRIEND, April 1, 1782. A PART of Lord Harrington's new-raised corps have taken up their quarters at Olney, since you left us. They have the regimental music with them. The men have been drawn up this morning upon the Market-hill, and a concert such as we have not heard these many years, has been performed at no great distance from our window, Your mother and I both thrust our heads into the coldest east-wind that ever blew in April, that we might hear them to greater advantage. The band acquitted themselves with taste and propriety, not blairing, like trumpeters at a fair, but, producing I COULD not have found a better trumpeter. gentle and elegant symphony, such as charmed Your zeal to serve the interest of my volume, to- our cars, and convinced us that no length of time gether with your extensive acquaintance, qualify can wear out a taste for harmony; and that though you perfectly for that most useful office. Me-plays, balls, and masquerades have lost all their thinks I see you with the long tube at your mouth, power to please us, and we should find them n proclaiming to your numerous connexions my only insipid but insupportable, yet sweet music is poetical merits, and at proper intervals levelling it sure to find a corresponding faculty in the soul, a at Olney, and pouring into my ear the welcome sensibility that lives to the last, which even relisound of their approbation. I need not encourage gion itself does not extinguish. you to proceed, your breath will never fail in such When we objected to your coming for a single a cause; and thus encouraged, I myself perhaps night, it was only in the way of argument, and in may proceed also, and when the versifying fit re- hopes to prevail on you to contrive a longer abode turns, produce another volume. Alas! we shall with us. But rather than not see you at all, we never receive such commendations from him on should be glad of you though but for an hour. the woolsack, as your good friend has lavished If the paths should be clean enough, and we are upon us. Whence I learn, that however impor- able to walk (for you know we can not ride), we tant I may be in my own eyes, I am very insig- will endeavour to meet you in Weston-park. But nificant in his. To make me amends however I mention no particular hour, that I may not lay for this mortification, Mr. Newton tells me, that you under a supposed obligation to be punctual, my book is likely to run, spread, and prosper; that which might be difficult at the end of so long a the grave can not help smiling, and the gay are journey. Only if the weather be favourable, you struck with the truth of it; and that it is likely shall find us there in the evening. It is winter in to find its way into his Majesty's hands, being put the south, perhaps therefore it may be spring at into a proper course for that purpose. Now if the least, if not summer, in the north. For I have King should fall in love with my Muse, and with read that it is warmest in Greenland when it is you for her sake, such an event would make us coldest here. Be that as it may, we may hope at ample amends for the Chancellor's indifference, the latter end of such an April that the first change and you might be the first divine that ever reached of wind will improve the season. a mitre from the shoulders of a poet. But (I be-| lieve) we must be content, I with my gains, if I¦ gain any thing, and you with the pleasare of knowing that I am a gainer. The curate's simile Latinized Sors adversa gerit stimulum, sed tendit et alas: Pungit, api similis, sed, velut ista, fugit. What a dignity there is in the Roman language! We laughed heartily at your answer to little and what an idea it gives us of the good sense and John's question; and yet I think you might have masculine mind of the people that spoke it! The given him a direct answer-" There are various same thought which clothed in English seems sorts of cleverness, my dear-1 do not know that childish, and even foolish, assumes a different air mine lies in the poetical way, but I can do ten in Latin, and makes at least as good an epigram times more towards the entertainment of company as some of Martial's. in the way of conversation than our friend at Olney. He can rhyme, and I can rattle. If he had my talent, or I had his, we should be too charming, and the world would almost adore us." Yours, W. C. I remember your making an observation, when here, on the subject of parenthesis, to which I ac led without limitation; but a little attention will convince us both, that they are not to be universally condemned. When they abourd, and when they are long, they both embarrass the sense, and nish yourself with a better taste, if you know are a proof that the writer's head is cloudy, that he where to find it.' has not properly arranged his matter, or is not We are glad that you are safe at home again. well skilled in the graces of expression. But as Could we see at one glance of the eye what is passparenthesis is ranked by grammarians among the ing every day upon all the roads in the kingdom, figures of rhetoric, we may suppose they had a how many are terrified and hurt, how many plunreason for conferring that honour upon it. Ac- dered and abused, we should indeed find reason cordingly we shall find that in the use of some enough to be thankful for journeys performed in of our finest writers, as well as in the hands of the safety, and for deliverance from dangers we are ancient poets and orators, it has a peculiar elegance, and imparts a beauty which the period would want without it. 'Hoc nemus, hunc,' inquit, 'frondoso vertice collem In this instance, the first that occurred, it is graceful. I have not time to seek for more, nor room to insert them. But your own observation I believe will confirm my opinion. MY DEAR FRIEND, Yours ever, W. C. not perhaps even permitted to see. When in some of the high southern latitudes and in a dark tempestuous night, a flash of lightning discovered to Captain Cook a vessel, which glanced along close by his side, and which, but for the lightning he must have run foul of, both the danger, and the transient light that showed it, were undoubtedly designed to convey to him this wholesome instruction, that a particular Providence attended him, and that he was not only preserved from evils, of which he had notice, but from many more of which he had no information, or even the least suspicion. What unlikely contingencies may neverTO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. theless take place! How improbable that two ships should dash against each other, in the midst of the May 27, 1782. vast Pacific Ocean, and that steering contrary RATHER ashamed of having been at all dejected courses, from parts of the world so immensely disby the censure of the Critical Reviewers, who cer- tant from each other, they should yet move so tainly could not read without prejudice a book re- exactly in a line as to clash, fill, and go to the botplete with opinions and doctrines to which they tom, in a sea where all the ships in the world might can not subscribe, I have at present no little occa- be so dispersed as that none should see another! sion to keep a strict guard upon my vanity, lest it Yet this must have happened but for the remarkashould be too much flattered by the following ble interference, which he has recorded. The same eulogium. I send it you for the reasons I gave Providence indeed might as easily have conducted when I imparted to you some other anecdotes of a them so wide of each other, that they should never similar kind, while we were together. Our inter- have met at all, but then this lesson would have ests in the success of this same volume are so been lost; at least, the heroic voyager would have closely united, that you must share with me in the encompassed the globe without having had occapraise or blame that attends it; and sympathizing sion to relate an incident that so naturally sugwith me under the burthen of injurious treatment, gests it. have a right to enjoy with me the cordials I now and then receive, as I happen to meet with more favourable and candid judges. I am no more delighted with the season than you are. The absence of the sun, which has graced the spring with much less of his presence A merchant, a friend of ours, (you will soon than he vouchsafed to the winter, has a very unguess him) sent my Poems to one of the first phi- comfortable effect upon my frame. I feel an inlosophers, one of the most eminent literary charac- vincible aversion to employment, which I am yet ters, as well as one of the most important in the constrained to fly to as my only remedy against political world, that the present age can boast of. something worse. If I do nothing, I am dejected; Now perhaps your conjuring faculties are puzzled, if I do any thing, I am weary; and that weariness and you begin to ask who, where, and what is is best described by the word lassitude, which of he? speak out, for I am all impatience.' I will not all weariness in the world is the most oppressive say a word more, the letter in which he returned But enough of myself and the weather. his thanks for the present shall speak for him.* The blow we have struck in the West Indies We may now treat the critics as the archbishop will, I suppose, be decisive, at least for the present of Toledo treated Gil Blas, when he found fault year, and so far as that part of our possessions is with one of his sermons.-His grace gave him a concerned in the present conflict. But the newskick, and said, 'Be gone for a jackanapes, and fur- writers, and their correspondents, disgust me and make me sick. One victory, after such a long seHere Cowper transcribed the letter written from Passy, ries of adverse occurrences, has filled them with by the American ambassador Franklin, in praise of his book. self-conceit, and impertinent boasting; and while Rodney is almost accounted a Methodist for as-confess a weakness that I should not confess to all), cribing his success to Providence, men who have I feel myself not a little influenced by a tender rerenounced all dependence upon such a friend, gard to my reputation here, even among my neighwithout whose assistance nothing can be done, bours at Olney. Here are watch-makers, who threaten to drive the French out of the sea, laugh themselves are wits, and who at present perhaps at the Spaniards, sneer at the Dutch, and are to think me one. Here is a carpenter and a baker, carry the world before them. Our enemies are and not to mention others, here is your idol Mr. apt to brag, and we deride them for it; but we can sing as loud as they can, in the same key, and no doubt wherever our papers go, shall be derided in our turn. An Englishman's true glory should be, to do his business well, and say little about it; but he disgraces himself when he puffs his prow-a genius at Olney. ess, as if he had finished his task, when he has but just begun it. Yours, W. C. TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. MY DEAR FRIEND, June 12, 1782. EVERY extraordinary occurrence in our lives affords us an opportunity to learn, if we will, something more of our own hearts and tempers, than we were before aware of. It is easy to promise ourselves beforehand, that our conduct shall be wise, or moderate, or resolute, on any given occasion. But when that occasion occurs, we do not always find it easy to make good the promise: such a difference there is between theory and practice. Perhaps this is no new remark; but it is not a whit the worse for being old, if it be true. whose smile is fame. All these read the Monthly Review, and all these will set me down for a dunce, if those terrible critics should show them the example. But oh! wherever else I am accounted dull, dear Mr. Griffith, let me pass for We are sorry for little William's illness. It is however the privilege of infancy to recover almost immediately what it has lost by sickness. We are sorry too for Mr. -'s dangerous condition. But he that is well prepared for the great journey can not enter on it too soon for himself, though his friends will weep at his departure. Yours, W. C. TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. THOUGH SOMе people pretend to be clever in the way of prophetical forecast, and to have a peculiar talent of sagacity, by which they can divine the meaning of a providential dispensation, while its consequences are yet in embryo-I do not. There Before I had published, I said to myself-you is at this time to be found I suppose in the cabiand I, Mr. Cowper, will not concern ourselves net, and in both houses, a greater assemblage of much about what the critics may say of our book. able men, both as speakers and counsellors, than But having once sent my wits for a venture, I ever were contemporary in the same land. A man soon became anxious about the issue, and found not accustomed to trace the workings of Provithat I could not be satisfied with a warm place dence, as recorded in Scripture, and that has given in my own good graces, unless my friends were no attention to this particular subject, while empleased with me as much as I pleased myself. ployed in the study of profane history, would asMeeting with their approbation, I began to feel sert boldly, that it is a token for good, that much the workings of ambition. It is well, said I, that may be expected from them, and that the country, my friends are pleased, but friends are sometimes though heavily afflicted, is not to be despaired of, partial, and mine, I have reason to think, are not distinguished as she is by so many characters of altogether free from bias. Methinks I should like the highest class. Thus he would say, and I do to hear a stranger or two speak well of me. I was not deny, that the event might justify his skill in presently gratified by the approbation of the Lon-prognostics. God works by means, and in a case don Magazine, and the Gentleman's, particularly of great national perplexity and distress, wisdom by that of the former, and by the plaudit of Dr. and political ability seem to be the only natural Franklin. By the way, magazines are publica- means of deliverance. But a mind more religiously tions we have but little respect for, till we ourselves inclined, and perhaps a little tinctured with meare chronicled in them, and then they assume an lancholy, might, with equal probability of success, importance in our esteem which before we could hazard a conjecture directly opposite -Alas! what not allow them. But the Monthly Review, the is the wisdom of man, especially when he trusts most formidable of all my judges, is still behind. in it as the only God of his confidence?-When I What will that critical Rhadamanthus say, when consider the general contempt that is poured upon my shivering genius shall appear before him? all things sacred, the profusion, the dissipation, Still he keeps me in hot water, and I must wait the knavish cunning of some, the rapacity of another month for his award. Alas! when I wish others, and the impenitence of all; I am rather infor a favourable sentence from that quarter (to clined to fear that God, who honours himself by |