nity of his own, and charitably supposes his hearers destitute of all grace, that he may shine the more in his own eyes by comparison. When he has performed this notable task, he wonders that they are not converted: "he has given it them soundly, and if they do not tremble, and confess that God is in him of a truth, he gives them up as reprobate, incorrigible, and lost for ever." But a man that loves me, if he sees me in an error, will pity me, and endeavour calmly to convince me of it, and persuade me to forsake it. If he has great and good news to tell me, he will not do it angrily, and in much heat and discomposure of spirit. It is not therefore easy to conceive on what ground a minister can justify a conduct which only proves that he does not understand his errand. The absurdity of it would certainly strike him, if he were not himself deluded.

Mr. Raban was ordained a minister to an Independent congregation at Yardley, on Thursday last. Three ministers attended, and three sermons were preached upon the occasion. Mr. Bull was one of them. The church consists at present of only twentyfive members. He is to have no stipend, and was unanimously chosen. There was a large congregation, and vast numbers went from Olney. I have been informed that Mr. Bull's examination of him was very close, and his own account of himself very affecting. All his own family were present, and all dissolved in

tears.

Mr. Hillyard, Mr. Whitford's successor, who came hither from Kimbolton, is very acceptable and much

followed. Though a man of no education, he has taken great pains to inform his mind. He often pronounces a word wrong, but always uses it with propriety. He is never out of temper in the pulpit, but his sermons are experimental, searching, and evangelical. He bids fair consequently for considerable success. A people will always love a minister, if a minister seems to love his people. The old maxim, Simile agit in simile, is in no case more exactly verified: therefore you were beloved at Olney, and if you preached to the Chickesaws, and Chachtaws, would be equally beloved by them.

The summer is passing away, and hitherto has hardly been either seen or felt. Perpetual clouds intercept the influences of the sun, and for the most part there is an autumnal coldness in the weather, though we are almost upon the eve of the longest day. We are glad to find that you still entertain the design of coming, and hope that you will bring sunshine with you.

We are well and always mindful of you; be mindful of us, and assured that we love you. Mrs. Unwin is not the less thankful for the cocoa nuts because they were so naught they could not be eaten. If they were bought, the seller was to blame; for which reason I thought it necessary to tell you what they were. Yours, my dear friend, and Mrs. Newton's

Affectionate

WM. COWPER.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM BULL.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

June 20, 1783.

THIS comes accompanied by a letter Mrs. Unwin received from Mrs. Powley; she thought it would please you. I send you the petite piece I promised, not quite so worthy of your notice; but it is yours by engagement, otherwise, I believe you would never have seen it1.

The ladies are in the greenhouse, and tea waits.

Yours more than I have time to tell

you,

WM. COWPER.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM BULL.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

June 27, 1783.

A FINE morning, though a shady one, has induced me to spend that time in walking which I had devoted to the quill; consequently I send you no letter for Mr. Newton, but am obliged to postpone my answer to his last till the usual opportunity shall arrive. I cannot resist fine weather; and the omission is of no great consequence, both because I have nothing new to communicate, and because I have a frank which will convey that nothing to him gratis. I wish you and yours a pleasant excursion, as pleasant as the season and the scene to which you are going can possibly make it. I shall rejoice to hear from you, and am sufficiently flattered by the recollection, that just after hearing you protest against all letter-writing, I

"The rose had been wash'd (just wash'd in a show'r)."

heard you almost promise to write a letter to me. The journeys of a man like you must all be sentimental journeys, and better worth the recital than Sterne's would have been, had he travelled to this moment.

THE translation of your letters into Dutch was news that pleased me much. I intended plain prose, but a rhyme obtruded itself, and I became poetical when I least expected it. The Boeotian atmosphere I have breathed these six days past, makes such a sally of genius the more surprising,-so long, in a country not subject to fogs, we have been covered with one of the thickest I remember. We never see the sun but shorn of his beams. The trees are scarce discernible at a mile's distance. He sets with the face of a redhot salamander, and rises, (as I learn from report,) with the same complexion. Such a phenomenon at the end of June has occasioned much speculation among the connoscenti at this place. Some fear to go to bed, expecting an earthquake; some declare that he neither rises nor sets where he did, and assert with great confidence that the day of Judgement is

at hand. This is probable, and I believe it myself, but for other reasons. In the meantime I cannot discover in them, however alarmed, the symptoms even of a temporary reformation. This very Sunday morning the pitchers of all have been carried into Silver End as usual, the inhabitants perhaps judging that they have more than ordinary need of that cordial at such a juncture. It is however, seriously, a remarkable appearance, and the only one of the kind that at this season of the year has fallen under my notice. Signs in the heavens are predicted characters of the last times; and in the course of the last fifteen years I have been a witness of many. The present obfuscation, (if I may call it so,) of all nature may be ranked perhaps among the most remarkable; but possibly it may not be universal; in London at least, where a dingy atmosphere is frequent, it may be less observable.

Pardon a digression which I slipped into at unawares, a transition from Holland to a fog was not unnatural. When you wrote those letters you did not dream that you were designed for an apostle to the Dutch. Yet so it proves, and such among many others are the advantages we derive from the art of printing: an art in which indisputably man was instructed by the same great teacher who taught him to embroider for the service of the sanctuary, and to beat out the cummin,-and which amounts almost to as great a blessing as the gift of tongues, diffusing an author's sentiments upon the noblest subjects through a people.

Mrs. Unwin desires me to send her love, and to