CCCXLI.-To JOSEPH HILL, Esq. Weston, March 6, 1791. After all this ploughing and sowing on the plains of Troy, once fruitful, such at least to my translating predecessor, some harvest, I hope, will arise for me also. My long work has received its last, last touches; and I am now giving my preface its final adjustment. We are in the fourth Odyssey in the course of our printing, and I expect that I and the swallows shall appear together. They have slept all the winter, but I, on the contrary, have been extremely busy. Yet if I can "virum volitare per ora" as swiftly as they through the air, I shall account myself well requited. Adieu ! CCCXLII.-To JOSEPH HILL, ESQ. W. C. March 10, 1791. Give my affectionate remembrances to your sisters, and tell them I am impatient to entertain them with my old story new dressed. I have two French prints hanging in my study, both on Iliad subjects; and I have an English one in the parlour, on a subject from the same poem. In one of the former, Agamemnon, addresses Achilles exactly in the attitude of a dancing-master turning miss in a minuet: in the latter, the figures are plain, and the attitudes plain also. This is, in some considerable measure, I believe, the difference between my translation and Pope's; and will serve as an exemplification of what I am going to lay before you and the public. CCCXLIII.-TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT. W. C. MY DEAR FRIEND, Weston, March 18, 1791. I give you joy that you are about to receive some more of my elegant prose, and I feel myself in danger of attempting to make it even more elegant than usual, and thereby of spoiling it, under the influence of your commendations. But my old helter-skelter manner has already succeeded so well, that I will not, even for the sake of entitling myself to a still greater portion of your praise, abandon it. I did not call in question Johnson's true spirit of poetry, because he was not qualified to relish blank verse (though, to tell you the truth, I think that but an ugly symptom); but if I did not express it, I meant, however, to infer it from the perverse judgment that he has formed of our poets in general; depreciating some of the best, and making honourable mention of others, in my opinion, not undeservedly neglected. I will lay you sixpence, that, had he lived in the days of Milton, and by an accident had met with his Paradise Lost, he would neither have directed the attention of others to it, nor have much admired it himself. Good-sense, in short, and strength of intellect, seem to me, rather than a fine taste, to have been his distinguished characteristics. But should you still think otherwise, you have my free permission; for so long as you have yourself a taste for the beauties of Cowper, I care not a fig whether Johnson had a taste or not. 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 them? I am apt to suspect sometimes that you impose them only on a poor man who has but twenty books in the world, and two of them are your brother Chester's. They are, however, much to the purpose, be the author of them who he may. I was very sorry to learn lately, that my friend at Chicheley has been some time indisposed, either with gout or rheumatism (for it seems to be uncertain which), and attended by Dr. Kerr. I am at a loss to conceive how so temperate a man should acquire the gout, and am resolved, therefore, to conclude, that it must be the rheumatism, which, bad as it is, is in my judgment the best of the two; and will afford me besides some opportunity to sympathize with him, for I am not perfectly exempt from it myself. Distant as you are in situation, you are yet perhaps nearer to him in point 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 much, for I have much to be forgiven; but the quantum need not discourage me, since there is One whose atonement can suffice for all. Τοῦ δὲ καθ άιμα ῥέευ, καὶ σοι, καὶ ἐμοῖ και' αδέλφοις Accept our joint remembrances, and believe me, Affectionately yours, CCCXLIV.-To JOHN JOHNSON, Esq. W. C. MY DEAREST JOHNNY, Weston, March 19, 1791. You ask if it may not be improper to solicit Lady Hesketh's subscription to the poems of the Norwich maiden? To which I replied, it will be by no means improper. On the contrary, I am persuaded that she will give her name with a very good will, for she is much an admirer of poesy that is worthy to be admired, and such I think, judging by the specimen, the poesy of this maiden, Elizabeth Bentley of Norwich, is likely to prove. Not that I am myself inclined to expect in general great matters in the poetical way from persons whose ill-fortune it has been to want the common advantages of education; neither do I account it in general a kindness to such to encourage them in the indulgence of a propensity 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. The fact is, that though strong natural genius is always accompanied with strong natural tendency to its object, yet it often happens that the tendency is found where the genius is wanting. In the present instance, however (the poems of a certain Mrs. Leapor excepted, who published some forty years ago), I discern, I think, more marks of true poetical talent than I remember to have observed in the verses of any other, male or female, so disadvantageously circumstanced. I wish her, therefore, good speed, and subscribe to her with all my heart. You will rejoice when I tell you that I have some hopes, after all, of a harvest from Oxford also. Mr. Throckmorton has written to a person of considerable influence there, which he has desired him to exert in my favour, and his request, I should imagine, will hardly prove a vain one. Adieu, W. C. CCCXLV.-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 cannot but be satisfied. Let business be the cause and I am contented. This is a cause to which I would even be accessary myself, and would increase yours by any means, except by a law-suit of my own, at the expense of all your opportunities of writing oftener than thrice in a twelvemonth. 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." In this particular, therefore, I perceive that a poet and a poet's friend bear a striking resemblance to each other. The Doctor will bless himself that the number of Scotch universities is not larger, assured that if they equalled those in England in number of colleges, you would give him no rest till he had engaged them all. It is true, as Lady Hesketh told you, that I shall not fear, in the matter of subscription, a comparison even with Pope himself; considering, I mean, that we live in days of terrible taxation, and when verse, not being a necessary of life, is accounted dear, be it what it may, even at the lowest price. I am no very good arithmetician, yet I calculated the other day, in my morning walk, that my two volumes, at the price of three guineas, will cost the purchaser less than the seventh part of a farthing 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. CCCXLVI.-To LADY HESKETH. MY DEAREST Coz, Friday Night, March 25, 1791. Johnson writes me word that he has repeatedly called on Horace Walpole, and has never found him at home. He has also written to him and received no answer. I charge thee, therefore, on thy allegiance, that thou move not a finger more in this business. My back is up, and I cannot bear the thought of wooing him any farther, nor would do it, though he were as pig a gentleman (look you) as Lucifer himself. I have Welsh 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 troublesome invention. Our thanks are due to you for the book you sent us. Mrs. Unwin has read to me several parts of it, which I have much admired. The observations are shrewd and pointed, and there is much wit in the similes and illustrations; yet a remark struck me which I could not help making vivá voce on the occasion. If the book has any real value, and does in truth deserve the notice taken of it by those to whom it is addressed, its claim is founded neither on the expression, nor on the style, nor on the wit of it, but altogether on the truth that it contains. Now the same truths are delivered, to my knowledge, perpetually from the pulpit, by ministers whom the admirers of this writer would disdain to hear. Yet the truth is not the less important for not being accompanied 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 applaud 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, alas! my wishes and hopes are much at variance. It will be the talk of the day, as another publication of the same kind has been; and then the noise of Vanity Fair will drown the voice of the preacher. I am glad to learn that the Chancellor does not forget me, though more for his sake than my own; for I see not how he can ever servé a man like me. Adieu, my dearest Coz, CCCXLVII.-To MRS. THROCKMORTON. MY DEAR MRS. FROG, W. C. April 1, 1791. A word or two before breakfast, which is all that I shall have time to send you. You have not, I hope, forgot to tell Mr. 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, And tune his harp at Rhedicina's door, The rich old vixen would exclaim, I fear, Begone, no tramper gets a farthing here." 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 the writer's sake, and in the next place because he writes better and reasons better than any body, with more candour and more sufficiency, and, consequently, with more satisfaction to all his readers, save only his opponents. They, I think, by this time wish that they had let him alone. Tom is delighted past measure with his wooden nag, and gallops at a rate that would kill any horse that had a life to lose. Adieu, CCCXLVIII.-To JOHN JOHNSON, Esq. MY DEAR JOHNNY, W. C. Weston, April 6, 1791. A thousand thanks for your splendid assemblage of Cambridge luminaries! If you are not contented with your collection, it can only be because you are unreasonable; for I, who may be supposed more covetous on this occasion than any body, am highly satisfied, and even delighted with it. If indeed you should find it practicable to add still to the number, I have not the least objection, But this charge I give you, Αλλο δε τοι ερέω, συ δ' ενι φρεσι βάλλεο σησι. 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 cannot afford to purchase them at that cost. I long to see you, and |