! of those sages, who require that young men should and should not have wanted one so long had not be as old as themselves before they have time to circumstances so fallen out since I received them be so. With my love to your fair sisters, I remain, Dear sir, most truly yours, W. C. TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESQ. MY DEAR FRIEND, The Lodge, June 15, 1791. as to make it impossible for me to write sooner. It is indeed but within this day or two that I have heard how, by the help of my bookseller, I may transmit an answer to you. My title page, as it well might, misled you. It speaks me of the Inner Temple, and so I am, but a member of that society only, not as an inhabitant. I live here almost at the distance of sixty Ir it will afford you any comfort that you have miles from London, which I have not visited these a share in my affections, of that comfort you may eight and twenty years, and probably never shall avail yourself at all times. You have acquired it again. Thus it fell out that Mr. Morewood had by means which, unless I should become worthless sailed again for America before your parcel reached myself, to an uncommon degree, will always se- me, nor should I (it is likely) have received it at cure you from the loss of it. You are learning all, had not a cousin of mine, who lives in the what all learn, though few at so early an age, that Temple, by good fortune, received it first, and man is an ungrateful animal; and that benefits opened your letter; finding for whom it was intoo often, instead of securing a due return, operate tended, he transmitted to me both that and the rather as provocations to ill treatment. This I parcel. Your testimony of approbation of what I take to be the summum malum of the human have published, coming from another quarter of heart. Towards God we are all guilty of it more the globe, could not but be extremely flattering, as or less; but between man and man, we may thank was your obliging notice, that the Task had been God for it, there are some exceptions He leaves reprinted in your city. Both volumes, I hope, have this peccant principle to operate in some degree a tendency to discountenance vice, and promote against himself in all, for our humiliation I sup- the best interests of mankind. But how far they pose; and because the pernicious effects of it in shall be effectual to these invaluable purposes, dereality can not injure him, he can not suffer by pends altogether on his blessing, whose truths I them; but he knows that unless he should restrain have endeavoured to inculcate. In the mean time its influence on the dealings of mankind with each I have sufficient proof that readers may be pleased, other, the bonds of society would be dissolved, and may approve, and yet lay down the book unedified. all charitable intercourse at an end amongst us. It During the last five years I have been occupied was said of Archbishop Cranmer, "Do him an ill with a work of a very different nature, a translaturn, and you make him your friend for ever;" tion of the Iliad and Odyssey into blank verse, of others it may be said, "Do them a good one, and they will be for ever your enemies." It is the Grace of God only that makes the difference. and the work is now ready for publication. I undertook it partly because Pope's is too lax a version, which has lately occasioned the learned The absence of Homer (for we have now shaken of this country to call aloud for a new one, and hands and parted) is well supplied by three rela- partly because I could fall on no better expedient tions of mine from Norfolk. My cousin Johnson, to amuse a mind too much addicted to melanan aunt of his, and his sister. I love them all choly. dearly, and am well contented to resign to them I send you in return for the volumes with which the place in my attentions so lately occupied by the you favoured me, three on religious subjects, popuchiefs of Greece and Troy. His aunt and I have lar productions that have not been long published, spent many a merry day together, when we were some forty years younger; and we make shift to be merry together still. His sister is a sweet young woman, graceful, good-natured, and gentle, just what I had imagined her to be before I had seen her. Farewell. W. C. and that may not therefore yet have reached your country; The Christian Officer's Panoply, by a marine officer-The Importance of the Manners of the Great, and an Estimate of the Religion of the Fashionable World. The two last are said to be written by a lady, Miss Hannah More, and are universally read by people of that rank to which she addresses them. Your manners I suppose may be more pure than ours, yet it is not unlikely that even among you may be found some to whom her strictures are applicable. I return you my thanks, sir, for the volumes you sent me, two of which I have read with pleasure, Mr. Edwards' book, and YOUR letter and obliging present from so great the Conquest of Canaan. The rest I have not a distance de erved a speedier acknowledgment, had time to read, except Dr. Dwight's Sermon, TO DR. JAMES COGSWELL, DEAR SIR, NEW YORK. Weston Underwood, near Olney, Bucks, which pleased me almost more than any that I or not well, or because I stay till something occur, have either seen or heard. that may make my letter at least a little better I shall account a correspondence with you an than mere blank paper. I therefore write speedily honour, and shall remain, dear sir, in reply to yours, being at present neither much occupied, nor at all indisposed, nor forbidden by a dearth of materials. Your obliged and obedient servant, W. C. I wish always when I have a new piece in hand to be as secret as you, and there was a time when TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT. I could be so. Then I lived the life of a solitary, MY DEAR FRIEND, Weston, Aug. 2, 1791. was not visited by a single neighbour, because I I was much obliged, and still feel myself much had none with whom I could associate; nor ever obliged to Lady Bagot, for the visit with which had an inmate. This was when I dwelt at Olshe favoured me. Had it been possible that I ney; but since I have removed to Weston the case could have seen Lord Bagot too, I should have is different. Here I am visited by all around me, been completely happy. For, as it happened, I and study in a room exposed to all manner of inwas that morning in better spirits than usual; and roads. It is on the ground floor, the room in which though I arrived late, and after a long walk, and we dine, and in which I am sure to be found by all extremely hot, which is a circumstance very apt who seek me. They find me generally at my desk, to disconcert me, yet I was not disconcerted half so and with my work, whatever it be, before me, unmuch as I generally am at the sight of a stranger, less perhaps I have conjured it into its hiding especially of a stranger lady, and more especially place before they have had time to enter. This at the sight of a stranger lady of quality. When however is not always the case, and consequently, the servant told me that lady Bagot was in the sooner or later, I can not fail to be detected. Posparlour, I felt my spirits sink ten degrees; but the sibly you, who I suppose have a snug study, would moment I saw her, at least when I had been a find it impracticable to attend to any thing closely minute in her company, I felt them rise again, in an apartment exposed as mine; but use has and they soon rose above their former pitch. I made it familiar to me, and so familiar, that neither know two ladies of fashion now, whose manners servants going and coming disconcert me; nor even have this effect upon me. The lady in question, if a lady, with an oblique glance of her eye, catches and the lady Spencer. I am a shy animal, and want much kindness to make me easy. Such I shall be to my dying day. two or three lines of my MS., do I feel myself inclined to blush, though naturally the shyest of mankind. Here sit I, calling myself shy, yet have just pub- You did well, I believe, to cashier the subject lished by the by, two great volumes of poetry. of which you gave me a recital. It certainly wants This reminds me of Ranger's observation in the those agremens, which are necessary to the sucSuspicious Husband, who says to somebody, I for- cess of any subject in verse. It is a curious story, get whom-"There is a degree of assurance in and so far as the poor young lady was concerned you modest men, that we impudent fellows can a very affecting one; but there is a coarseness in never arrive at !"—Assurance indeed! Have you the character of the hero, that would have spoiled seen 'em? What do you think they are? Nothing all. In fact, I find it myself a much easier matter less I can tell you than a translation of Homer. Of to write, than to get a convenient theme to write on. the sublimest poet in the world. That's all. Can 1 I am obliged to you for comparing me as you go ever have the impudence to call myself shy again? both with Pope and with Homer. It is impossible You live, I think, in the neighbourhood of Bir- in any other way of management to know whether mingham? What must you not have felt on the the Translation be well executed or not, and if late alarming occasion! You I suppose could see well, in what degree. It was in the course of such the fires from your windows. We, who only heard a process, that I first became dissatisfied with the news of them have trembled. Never sure was Pope. More than thirty years since, and when I religious zeal more terribly manifested, or more to the prejudice of its own cause. Adieu, my dear friend. I am, with Mrs. Unwin's best compliments, Ever yours, W C. TO THE REV. MR. HURDIS. MY DEAR SIR, Weston, Aug. 9, 1791. was a young Templar, I accompanied him with his original, line by line, through both poems. A fellow student of mine, a person of fine classic taste, joined himself with me in the labour. We were neither of us, as you may imagine, very diligent in our proper business. I shall be glad if my Reviewers, whosoever they may be, will be at the rains to read me as you do. I NEVER make a correspondent wait for an an- I want no praise that I am not entitled to; but swer through idleness or want of proper respect of that to which I am entitled I should be loth to for him; but if I am silent it is because I am busy, lose a tittle, having worked hard to earn it. W. C. I would heartily second the bishop of Salisbury | Italian poems, and to give a correct text. I shall in recommending to you a close pursuit of your have years allowed me to do it in. Hebrew studies, were it not that I wish you to publish what I may understand. Do both, and I shall be satisfied. Your remarks, if I may but receive them soon enough to serve me in case of a new edition, will be extremely welcome. W. C. TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESQ. TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT. MY DEAR FRIEND, Weston, Sept. 21, 1791. Or all the testimonies in favour of my Homer that I have received, none has given me so sincere a pleasure as that of Lord Bagot. It is an unmixed pleasure and without a drawback: because I know him to be perfectly, and in all respects, whether erudition, or a fine taste be in question, so well qualified to judge me, that I can neither expect nor wish a sentence more valuable than his εις κ' αυτμή Ἐν στήθεσσι μένει, και μοι φίλα γενατ' ερεύγει. MY DEAREST JOHNNY, Weston, Aug. 9, 1791. THE little that I have heard about Homer myself has been equally, or more flattering than Dr. -'s intelligence, so that I have good reason to hope that I have not studied the old Grecian, and how to dress him, so long, and so intensely, to no purpose. At present I am idle, both on account of my eyes, and because I know not to what I hope by this time you have received your vo to attach myself in particular. Many different lumes, and are prepared to second the applauses plans and projects are recommended to me. Some of your brother-else, wo be to you! I wrote to call aloud for original verse, others for more trans-Johnson immediately on the receipt of your last, lation, and others for other things. Providence, I giving him a strict injunction to despatch them to hope, will direct me in my choice; for other guide I have none, nor wish for another. God bless you, my dearest Johnny. W. C.* TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESQ. MY DEAR FRIEND, The Lodge, Sept. 14, 1791. WHOEVER reviews me will in fact have a laborious task of it, in the performance of which he ought to move leisurely, and to exercise much critical discernment. In the mean time my courage is kept up by the arrival of such testimonies in my favour, as give me the greatest pleasure; coming from quarters the most respectable. I have reason therefore to hope that our periodical judges will not be very adverse to me, and that you without delay. He had sold some time since a hundred of the unsubscribed-for copies. I have not a history in the world except Baker's Chronicle, and that I borrowed three years ago from Mr. Throckmorton. Now the case is this; I am translating Milton's third Elegy-his Elegy on the death of the Bishop of Winchester. He begins it with saying that while he was sitting alone, dejected, and musing on many melancholy themes; first, the idea of the plague presented itself to his mind, and of the havoc made by among the great.-Then he proceeds thus; Tum memini clarique ducis, fratrisque verendi Et memini Heroum, quos vidit ad æthera raptos. perhaps they may even favour me. If one man I can not learn from my only oracle, Baker, whe of taste and letters is pleased, another man so qualified can hardly be displeased; and if critics of a different description grumble, they will not however materially hurt me. this famous leader and his reverend brother were. Neither does he at all ascertain for me the event alluded to in the second of these couplets. I am not yet possessed of Warton, who probably exYou, who know how necessary it is to me to be plains it, nor can be for a month to come. Con employed, will be glad to hear that I have been sult him for me if you have him, or if you have called to a new literary engagement, and that I him not consult some other. Or you may find have not refused it, A Milton that is to rival, the intelligence perhaps in your own budget; no and if possible to exceed in splendour Boydell's matter how you come by it, only send it to if Shakspeare, is in contemplation, and I am in the you can, and as soon as you can, for I hate to editor's office. Fuseli is the painter. My busi- leave unsolved difficulties behind me. In the ness will be to select notes from others, and to first year of Charles the First, Milton was sevenwrite original notes; to translate the Latin and teen years of age, and then wrote this Elegy. The period therefore to which I would refer you, is the two or three last years of Jaines tho First. • The translation alluded to in this letter was that of the Latin and Italian poetry of Milton, which Cowper was requested by his bookseller to undertake. me Ever yours, W. C. TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT. MY DEAR FRIEND, Weston, Oct. 25, 1791. TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESQ. MY DEAR JOHNNY, Weston, Oct. 31, 1791. YOUR kind and affectionate letter well deserves YOUR unexpected and transient visit, like every thing else that is past, has now the appearance of my thanks, and should have had them long ago, a dream; but it was a pleasant one, and I heartily had I not been obliged lately to give my attention wish that such dreams could recur more frequent- to a mountain of unanswered letters, which I have ly. Your brother Chester repeated his visit yes- just now reduced to a molehill; yours lay at the terday, and I never saw him in better spirits. At bottom, and I have at last worked my way down such times he has, now and then, the very look to it. that he had when he was a boy; and when I see It gives me great pleasure that you have found it, I seem to be a boy myself, and entirely forget a house to your minds. May you all three be for a short moment the years that have intervened happier in it than the happiest that ever occupied since I was one. The look that I mean is one it before you! But my chief delight of all is to that you, I dare say, have observed.-Then we learn that you and Kitty are so completely cured are at Westminster again. He left with me that of your long and threatening maladies. I always poem of your brother Lord Bagot's, which was thought highly of Dr. Kerr, but his extraordinary mentioned when you were here. It was a treat success in your two instances has even inspired to me, and I read it to my cousin Lady Hesketh me with an affection for him. and to Mrs. Unwin, to whom it was a treat also. It has great sweetness of numbers, and much elegance of expression, and is just such a poem as I should be happy to have composed myself about a year ago, when I was loudly called upon by a certain nobleman, to celebrate the beauties of his villa. But I had two insurmountable difficulties to contend with. One was, that I had never seen his villa; and the other, that I had no eyes at that time for any thing but Homer. Should I at any time hereafter undertake the task, I shall now at least know how to go about it, which, till I had seen Lord Bagot's poem, I verily did not. I was particularly charmed with the parody of those beautiful lines of Milton. "The song was partial, but the harmony- There's a parenthesis for you! The parenthesis it seems is out of fashion, and perhaps the moderns are in the right to proscribe what they can not attain to. I will answer for it that, had we the art at this day of insinuating a sentiment in this graceful manner, no reader of taste would quarrel with the practice. Lord Bagot showed his by selecting the passage for his imitation. My eyes are much better than when I wrote last, though seldom perfectly well many days together. At this season of the year I catch perpetual colds, and shall continue to do so, till I have got the better of that tenderness of habit with which the summer never fails to affect me. I am glad that you have heard well of my work in your country. Sufficient proofs have reached me from various quarters, that I have not ploughed the field of Troy in vain. Were you here I would gratify you with an enumeration of particulars; but since you are not, it must content you to be told, that I have every reason to be satisfied. Mrs. Unwin, I think, in her letter to cousin Balls, made mention of my new engagement. I have just entered on it, and therefore can at present say little about it. It is a very creditable one in itself; and may 1 but acquit myself of it with sufficiency, it will do me honour. The commentator's part however is a new one to me, and one that I little thought to appear in. Remember your promise, that I shall see you in the spring. The Hall has been full of company ever since you went, and at present my Catharina is there singing and playing like an angel. W. C. TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ. Nov. 14, 1791. I would beat Warton if he were living, for supposing that Milton ever repented of his compliment to the memory of Bishop Andrews. I neither do, nor can, nor will believe it. Milton's mind could not be narrowed by any thing; and though he quarrelled with episcopacy in the MY DEAR FRIEND, church of England idea of it, I am persuaded that I HAVE waited and wished for your opinion with a good bishop, as well as any other good man, of the feelings that belong to the value I have for it, whatsoever rank or order, had always a share of and am very happy to find it so favourable. In his veneration. Yours, my dear friend, my table drawer I treasure up a bundle of suffrages, sent me by those of whose approbation I was Very affectionately, W. C. most ambitious, and shall presently insert yours have done in one instance, even a little against the bias of my own opinion. among them. εγω δε κεν αυτός έλωμαι Έλθων συν πλεονεσσι I know not why we should quarrel with compound epithets; it is certam at least they are as agreeable to the genius of our language as to that of the Greek, which is sufficiently proved by their The sense I had given of these words is the sense being admitted into our common and colloquial in which an old scholiast has understood them, as dialect. Black-eyed, nut-brown, crook-shanked, appears in Clarke's note in loco. Clarke indeed hump-backed, are all compound epithets, and, to- prefers the other, but it does not appear plain to gether with a thousand other such, are used con- me that he does it with good reason against the tinually, even by those who profess a dislike to judgment of a very ancient commentator, and a such combinations in poetry. Why then do they Grecian. And I am the rather inclined to this treat with so much familiarity a thing that they persuasion, because Achilles himself seems to have say disgusts them? I doubt if they could give this apprehended that Agamemnon would not content question a reasonable answer; unless they should himself with Briseïs only, when he says, answer it by confessing themselves unreasonable. But I have other precious things on board, I have made a considerable progress in the trans'ation of Milton's Latin poems. I give them, as opportunity offers, all the variety of measure that It is certain that the words are ambiguous, and I can. Some I render in heroic rhyme, some in that the sense of them depends altogether on the stanzas, some in seven, and some in eight syllable punctuation. But I am always under the correcmeasure, and some in blank verse. They will, tion of so able a critic as your neighbour, and altogether, I hope, make an agreeable miscellany have altered, as I say, my version accordingly. for the English reader. They are certainly good in themselves, and can not fail to please, but by the fault of their translator. W. C. TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT. Weston-Underwood, Dec. 5, 1791. MY DEAR FRIEND, Your last brought me two cordials; for what can better deserve that name than the cordial approbation of two such readers as your brother, the bishop, and your good friend and neighbour, the clergyman? The former I have ever esteemed and honoured with the justest cause, and am as ready to honour and esteem the latter as you can wish me to be, and as his virtues and talents deserve. Do I hate a parson? Heaven forbid! I love you all when you are good for any thing; and as to the rest, I would mend them if I could, and that is the worst of my intentions towards them. As to Milton, the die is cast. I am engaged, have bargained with Johnson, and can not recede. I should otherwise have been glad to do as you advise, to make the translation of his Latin and Italian, part of another volume; for, with such an addition, I have nearly as much verse in my budget as would be required for the purpose. This squabble, in the mean time, between Fuseli and Boydell, does not interest me at all; let it terminate as it may, I have only to perform my job, and leave the event to be decided by the comba tants. Suave mari magno turbantibus quora ventis Why should you suppose that I did not admire the poem you showed me? I did admire it, and told you so, but you carried it off in your pocket, and so doing, left me to forget it, and without the means of inquiry. I heard above a month since, that this first edition of my work was at that time nearly sold. It I am thus nimble in answering, merely with a will no. therefore, I presume, be long before I must view to ensure myself the receipt of other rego to press again. This I mention merely from an marks in time for a new impression. earnest desire to avail myself of all other strictures, that either your good neighbour, Lord Bagot, the bishop, or yourself, πάντων εκπαγλότατ' ανδρών, TO THE REV. MR. HURDIS. Weston, Dec. 10, 1791. may happen to have made, and will be so good as I AM much obliged to you for wishing that to favour me with. Those of the good Evander were employed in some original work rather that contained in your last have served me well, and I in translation. To tell you the truth, I am of have already, in the three different places referred your mind; and unless I could find another Hoto, accommodated the text to them. And this I'mer, I shall promise (I believe) and vow, when I |