prove. that but an ugly symptom;) but if I did not ex- Norwich maiden? To which I reply, it will be press it I meant however to infer it from the per- by no means improper. On the contrary, I am verse judgment that he has formed of our poets in persuaded that she will give her name with a very general; depreciating some of the best, and mak- good will, for she is much an admirer of poesy ing honourable mention of others, in my opinion that is worthy to be admired, and such I think, not undeservedly neglected. I will lay you six- judging by the specimen, the poesy of this maidpence that, had he lived in the days of Milton, and en, Elizabeth Bentley of Norwich, is likely to by any accident had met with his Paradise Lost, he would neither have directed the attention of Not that I am myself inclined to expect in others to it, nor have much admired it himself. general great matters, in the poetical way, from Good sense, in short, and strength of intellect, seem persons whose ill fortuné it has been to want the to me, rather than a fine taste, to have been his common advantages of education; neither do I distinguished characteristics. But should you still account it in general a kindness to such, to enthink otherwise, you have my free permission; for courage them in the indulgence of a propensity so long as you yourself have a taste for the beauties of Cowper, I care not a fig whether Johnson had a taste or not. 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. 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 The fact is, that though strong natural genius them? I am apt to suspect sometimes, that you is always accompanied with strong natural tenimpose them only on a poor man who has but twen-dency to its object, yet it often happens that the ty books in the world, and two of them are your tendency is found where the genius is wanting. brother Chester's. They are however much to the In the present instance, however (the poems of a purpose, be the author of them who he may. certain Mrs. Leapor excepted, who published I was very sorry to learn lately that my friend some forty years ago) I discern, I think, more at Chicheley has been sometimes indisposed, either marks of a true poetical talent than I rememwith gout or rheumatism, (for it seems to be un- ber to have observed in the verses of any certain which) and attended by Dr. Kerr. I am other, male or female, so disadvantageously cirat a loss to conceive how so temperate a man cumstanced. I wish her therefore good speed, should acquire the gout, and am resolved therefore and subscribe to her with all my heart. to conclude that it must be the rheumatism, which, You will rejoice when I tell you that I have bad as it is, is in my judgment the best of the two; some hopes, after all, of a harvest from Oxford and will afford me besides some opportunity to also; Mr. Throckmorton has written to a person sympathize with him, for I am not perfectly ex- of considerable influence there, which he has deempt from it myself. Distant as you are in situa-sired him to exert in my favour; and his request, tion, you are yet perhaps nearer to him in point I should imagine, will hardly prove a vain one. 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 nuch, for I have much to be forgiven. But the quantum need not discourage me, since there is One whose atonement can suffice for all. Adieu. W. C. TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESQ. MY DEAR FRIEND, Weston, March. 24, 1791. You apologize for your silence in a manner which affords me so much pleasure, that I can not but be satisfied. Let business be the cause, That is a cause to which I would even be accessary myself, and would increase yours by any means, except by a lawsuit of my own, at the expense of all your opportunities of writing oftener than thrice in a twelvemonth. Το δε καθ' αιμα μεν, και σοι, και εμοι και αδελφος and I am contented. Accept our joint remembrances, and believe me affectionately yours, W. C. TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESQ. MY DEAREST JOHNNY, You ask if it may not be improper to solicit 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." Lady Hesketh's subscription to the poems of the In this particular therefore I perceive that a poet, and a poet's friend, bear a striking resemblance to Our thanks are due to you for the book you each other. The Doctor will bless himself that sent us. Mrs. Unwin has read me several parts the number of Scotch universities is not larger, of it, which I have much admired. The obser assured that if they equalled those in England, in vations are shrewd and pointed; and there is number of colleges, you would give him no rest much wit in the similes and illustrations. Yet a till he had engaged them all. It is true, as Lady remark struck me, which I could not help making Hesketh told you, that I shall not fear in the vivâ voce on the occasion. If the book has any matter of subscription a comparison even with real value, and does in truth deserve the notice Pope himself; considering (I mean) that we live taken of it by those to whom it is addressed, its in days of terrible taxation, and when verse, not claim is founded neither on the expression, nor on being a necessary of life, is accounted dear, be it the style, nor on the wit of it, but altogether on what it may, even at the lowest price. I am no the truth that it contains. Now the same truths very good arithmetician, yet I calculated the other are delivered, to my knowledge, perpetually from day in my morning walk, that my two volumes, the pulpit by ministers, whom the admirers of this at the price of three guineas, will cost the pur- writer would disdain to hear. Yet the truth is chaser less than the seventh part of a farthing not the less important for not being accompanied 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 DEAREST COZ, 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 ap plaud 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 JOHNSON writes me word that he has repeated-alas! my wishes and hopes are much at variance. ly called on Horace Walpole, and has never It will be the talk of the day, as another publicafound him at home. He has also written to him, tion of the same kind has been; and then the and received no answer. I charge thee therefore noise of Vanity-fair will drown the voice of the on thy allegiance, that thou move not a finger preacher. more in this business. My back is up, and I can I am glad to learn that the Chancellor does not not bear the thought of wooing him any further, forget me, though more for his sake than my own; nor would do it, though he were as pig a gentle- for I see not how he can ever serve a man like man (look you!) as Lucifer himself. I have me. Adieu, my dearest Coz, W. C. Welch 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 oublesome invention. TO MRS. THROCKMORTON. MY DEAR MRS. FROG, April 1, 1791. A WORD or two before breakfast; which is all that I shall have time to send.-You have not, I hope, forgot to tell Mrs. 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 patronized 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, 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 Homer has no news to tell us; and when, all other the writer's sake; and in the next place because comforts of life having risen in price, poetry has he writes better and reasons better than any body, of course fallen. I call it a "comfort of life;" it with more candour, and more sufficiency; and is so to others, but to myself it has become even a consequently with more satisfaction to all his necessary. readers, save only his opponents. They, I think, by this time, wish that they had let him alone. These holiday times are very unfavourable to the printer's progress. He and all his demons are Tom is delighted past measure with his wooden making themselves merry, and me sad, for I mourn nag, and gallops at a rate that would kill any at every hindrance. W. C. TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESQ. MY DEAR JOHNNY, TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT. MY DEAR FRIEND, Weston, May 2, 1791. Weston, April 6, 1791. MONDAY being a day in which Homer has now A THOUSAND thanks for your splendid assem- no demands on me, I shall give part of the present blage of Cambridge luminaries! If you are not Monday to you. But it this moment occurs to contented with your collection it can only be be- me that the proposition with which I begin will be cause you are unreasonable; for I who may be obscure to you, unless followed by an explanation. supposed more covetous on this occasion than any You are to understand therefore that Monday bebody, am highly satisfied, and even delighted with ing no postday, I have consequently no proof-sheets it. If indeed you should find it practicable to add to correct, the correction of which is nearly ali still to the number, I have not the least objection. that I have to do with Homer at present: I say But this charge I give you: nearly all, because I am likewise occasionally em ployed 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. Αλλά δε τοι ερέω συ δ' ενι φρεσι βάλλεο σητίο Stay not an hour beyond the time you have mentioned, even though you should be able to add a thousand names by so doing! For I can not afford to purchase them at that cost. I long to see About a fortnight since, perhaps three weeks, I you, and so do we both, and will not suffer you to had a visit from your nephew, Mr. Bagot, and his postpone your visit for any such consideration. tutor, Mr. Hurlock, who came hither under conNo, my dear boy! in the affair of subscriptions duct of your niece, Miss Barbara. So were the we are already illustrious enough; shall be so at friends of Ulysses conducted to the palace of Anleast, when you shall have enlisted a college or two tiphates, the Læstrigonian, by that monarch's more, which perhaps you may be enabled to do in daughter. But mine is no palace, neither am I the course of the ensuing week. I feel myself a giant, neither did I devour any one of the parmuch obliged to your university, and much dis- ty-on the contrary, I gave them chocolate, and posed to admire the liberality of spirit they have permitted them to depart in peace. I was much shown on this occasion. Certainly I had not de- pleased both with the young man and his tutor. served much favour of their hands, all things con- In the countenance of the former I saw much sidered. But the cause of literature seems to have Bagotism, and not less in manners. I will leave some weight with them, and to have superseded you to guess what I mean by that expression. the resentment they might be supposed to enter- Physiognomy is a study of which I have almost tain on the score of certain censures, that you wot as high an opinion as Lavater himself, the profesof. It is not so at Oxford. TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESQ. W. C. sor 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 studud it; for whether I will or not, I judge of every numan creature by the countenance, and, as I say, have never yet seen reason to repent of my judgment. to Sometimes I feel myself powerfully attracted, as the university of Oxford. He did so, but without I was by your nephew, and sometimes with equal MY DEAR FRIEND, April 29, 1791. I FORGOT if I told you that Mr. Throckmorton had applied through the medium of success. Their answer was, "that they subscribe to nothing." vehemence repulsed, which attraction and repulsion have always been justified in the sequel. I have lately read, and with more attention than Pope's subscriptions did not amount, I think, to six hundred; ard mine will not fall very far short I ever gave them before, Milton's Latin poems, of five Noble doings, at a time of day when 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. 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 you and your family. I am, my good friend, Most truly yours, W. C. TO THE REV. MR. BUCHANAN. MY DEAR SIR, TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESQ. 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. You will wonder perhaps, my Johnny, that Mrs. Unwin, by my desire, enjoined you to secrecy concerning the translation of the Frogs and Mice. 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 a beautiful poem, wanting place, I wished to surprise my readers agreeably would to Heaven that and secondly, I wished to allow none of my friends you would give it that requisite yourself; for he an opportunity to object to the measure, who might who could make the sketch, can not but he well think it perhaps a measure more bountiful than qualified to finish. But if you will not, I will; prudent. But I have had my sufficient reward, provided always nevertheless, that God gives me ability, for it will require no common share to do justice to your conceptions. You have sent me nothing but metre. I I am much yours, W. C. Your little messenger vanished before I could :atch him. TO LADY HESKETH. MY DEAREST COZ, 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. I long for the time that shall bring you once more to Weston, and all your et ceteras with you. O! 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. TO LADY HESKETH. 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 MY DEAREST COZ, The Lodge, May 27, 1791. 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, WHO am neither dead, nor sick, nor idle should have no excuse, were I as tardy in answer ing, as you in writing. I live indeed where leisure I have had a letter lately from New York, from abounds; and you, where leisure is not: a differ a Dr. Cogswell of that place to thank me for my ence that accounts sufficiently both for your silence fine verses, and to tell me, which pleased me par- and my loquacity. ticularly, that after having read the Task, my first When you told Mrs. that my Homer volume fell into his hands, which he read also, and would come forth in May, you told her what you was equally pleased with. This is the only in- believed, and therefore no falsehood. But you told stance I can recollect of a reader, who has done her at the same time what will not happen, and justice to my first effusions: for I am sure, that in therefore not a truth. There is a medium between point of expression they do not fall a jot below my truth and falsehood; and (I believe) the word missecond, and that in point of subject they are for take expresses it exactly. I will therefore say the most part superior. But enough, and too that you were mistaken. If instead of May you much of this The Task, he tells me, has been reprinted in that city. Adieu! my dearest coz. 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 wil We have blooming scenes under wintry skies, say, "hang the printer!—for it is his fault!" But and with icy blasts to fan them. Ever thine, W. C. 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, to me in a letter that I received from him in Febru we should publish sooner than in August. To ary, are the best months for publication. Theresay truth, I am not perfectly sure that there will fore now it is determined that Homer shall come be any necessity to hang him at all! though that out on the first of July; that is to say, exactly at is a matter which I desire to leave entirely at your the moment when, except a few lawyers, not a discretion, alleging only in the mean time, that creature will be left in town who will ever care the man does not appear to me during the last one farthing about him. To which of these two half-year to have been at all in fault. His re- friends of mine I am indebted for this managemittance of sheets in all that time has been punc-ment, I know not. It does not please; but I would tual, save and except while the Easter holidays be a philosopher as well as a poet, and therefore lasted, when (I suppose) he found it impossible to make no complaint, or grumble at all about it. keep his devils to their business. I shall however You, I presume, have had dealings with them receive the last sheet of the Odyssey to-morrow, and both-how did they manage for you? And if as have already sent up the Preface, together with all the needful. You see therefore that the publication of this famous work can not be delayed much longer. As for politics, I reck not, having no room in my head for any thing but the Slave-bill. That s lost; and all the rest is a trifle. I have not seen Paine's book, 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. TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESQ. MY DEAREST JOHNNY, Weston, June 1, 1791. they have for me, how did you behave under it? Some who love me complain that I am too passive; and I should be glad of an opportunity to justify myself by your example. The fact is, should I thunder ever so loud, no efforts of that sort will avail me now; therefore like a good economist of my bolts, I choose to reserve them for more profitable occasions. I am glad to find that your amusements have been so similar to mine; for in this instance too I seemed to have need of somebody to keep me in countenance, especially in my attention and attachment to animals. All the notice that we lords of the creation vouchsafe to bestow on the creatures, is generally to abuse them; it is well therefore that here and there a man should be found a little womanish, or perhaps a little childish in this Now you may rest-Now I can give you joy matter, who will make some amends, by kissing, of the period, of which I gave you hope in my and coaxing, and laying them in one's bosom. last; the period of all your labours in my service. You remember the little ewe lamb, mentioned by -But this I can foretell you also, that if you per- the prophet Nathan; the prophet perhaps invented severe in serving your friends at this rate, your the tale for the sake of its application to David's life is likely to be a life of labour:-yet persevere! conscience; but it is more probable that God inyour rest will be the sweeter hereafter! In the spired him with it for that purpose. If he did, it mean time I wish you, if at any time you should amounts to a proof that he does not overlook, but find occasion for him, just such a friend as you on the contrary much notices such little partialihave proved to me! ties and kindness to his dumb creatures, as we, because we articulate, are pleased to call them. W. C. TO THE REV. MR. HURDIS. MY DEAR SIR, Weston, June 13, 1791. Your sisters are fitter to judge than I, whether assembly rooms are the places of all others, in which the ladies may be studied to most advantage. I am an old fellow, but I had once my I OUGHT to have thanked you for your agreeable dancing days, as you have now; yet I could never and entertaining letter much sooner, but I have find I learned half so much of a woman's real many correspondents, who will not be said, nay; character by dancing with her, as by conversing and have been obliged of late to give my last atten- with her at home, where I could observe her betions to Homer. The very last indeed; for yes-haviour at the table, at the fireside, and in all the terday I despatched to town, after revising them trying circumstances of domestic life. We are all carefully, the proof sheets of subscribers' names, good when we are pleased; but she is the good among which I took special notice of yours, and woman, who wants not a fiddle to sweeten her. am much obliged to you for it. We have con- If I am wrong, the young ladies will set me right, trived, or rather my bookseller and printer have in the mean time I will not tease you with graver contrived (for they have never waited a moment arguments on the subject, especially as I have a for me,) to publish as critically at the wrong time, hope that years, and the study of the Scripture, as if my whole interest and success had depended and His Spirit, whose word it is, will, in due time, upon it. March, April, and May, said Johnson bring you to my way of thinking. I am not one |