thirty years. I thought it better to introduce her to you thus, than to present her to you at your coming, quite a stranger. Bring with you any books that you think may be useful to my commentatorship, for with you for an interpreter I shall be afraid of none of them. And in truth, if you think that you shall want them, you must bring books for your own use also, for they are an article with which I am heinously unprovided: being much in the condition of the man, whose library Pope describes as No mighty store! His own works neatly bound, and little more! You shall know how this has come to pass hereafter. Tell me, my friend, are your letters in your own hand-writing? If so, I am in pain for your eyes, lest by such frequent demands upon them I should hurt them. I had rather write you three letters for one, much as I prize your letters, than that should happen. now, for the present, adieu-I am going to accompany Milton into the lake of fire and brimstone, having just begun my annotations. CCCLXXXIII.-TO THE REV. MR. HURDIS. W. C. And MY DEAR SIR, Weston, April 8, 1792. Your entertaining and pleasant letter, resembling in that respect all that I receive from you, deserved a more expeditious answer; and should have had what it so well deserved, had it not reached me at a time when, deeply in debt to all my correspondents, I had letters to write without number. Like autumnal leaves that strew the brooks in Vallombrosa, the unanswered farrago lay before me. If I quote at all, you must expect me henceforth to quote none but Milton, since for a long time to come I shall be occupied with him only. I was much pleased with the extract you gave me from your sister Eliza's letter; she writes very elegantly, and (if I might say it without seeming to flatter you) I should say much in the manner of her brother. It is well for your sister Sally that gloomy Dis is already a married man, else, perhaps, finding her, as he found Proserpine, studying botany in the fields, he might transport her to his own flowerless abode, where all her hopes of improvement in that science would be at an end for ever. What letter of the tenth of December is that which you say you have not yet answered? Consider it is April now, and I never remember any thing that I write half so long. But perhaps it relates to Calchas, for I do remember that you have not yet furnished me with the secret history of him and his family, which I demanded from you. Adieu. Yours, most sincerely, W. C. I rejoice that you are so well with the learned Bishop of Sarum, and well remember how he ferreted the vermin Lauder out of all his hidings, when I was a boy at Westminster. I have not yet studied with your last remarks before me, but hope soon to find an opportunity. CCCLXXXIV.-To MRS. THROCKMORTON. MY DEAR LADY FROG, Weston, April 16, 1792. I thank you for your letter, as sweet as it was short, and as sweet as good news could make it. You encourage a hope that has made me happy ever since I have entertained it. And if my wishes can hasten the event, it will not be long suspended. As to your jealousy I mind it not, or only to be pleased with it; I shall say no more on the subject at present than this, that, of all ladies living, a certain lady whom I need not name would be the lady of my choice for a certain gentleman, were the whole sex submitted to my election. What a delightful anecdote is that which you tell me of a young lady detected in the very act of stealing our Catharina's praises: is it possible that she can survive the shame, the mortification of such a discovery? Can she ever see the same company again, or any company that she can suppose, by the remotest possibility, may have heard the tidings? If she can, she must have an assurance equal to her vanity. A lady in London stole my song on the broken Rose, or rather would have stolen, and have passed it for her own. But she too was unfortunate in her attempt; for there happened to be a female cousin of mine in company, who knew that I had written it. It is very flattering to a poet's pride, that the ladies should thus hazard every thing for the sake of appropriating his verses. I may say with Milton, that I am fallen on evil tongues, and evil days, being not only plundered of that which belongs to me, but being charged with that which does not. Thus it seems (and I have learned it from more quarters than one) that a report is, and has been some time, current in this and the neighbouring counties, that though I have given myself the air of declaiming against the Slave Trade in the Task,' I am in reality a friend to it, and last night I received a letter from Joe Rye, to inform me that I have been much traduced and calumniated on this account. Not knowing how I could better or more effectually refute the scandal, I have this morning sent a copy to the Northampton paper, prefaced by a short letter to the printer, specifying the occasion. The verses are in honour of Mr. Wilberforce, and sufficiently expressive of my present sentiments on the subject. You are a wicked fair one for disappointing us of our expected visit, and therefore, out of mere spite, I will not insert them. I have been very ill these ten days, and for the same spite's sake will not tell you what has ailed me. But lest you should die of a fright, I will have the mercy to tell you that I am recovering. Mrs. G and her little ones are gone, but your brother is still here. He told me that he had some expectations of Sir John at Weston; if he come, I shall most heartily rejoice once more to see him at a table so many years his own. * W. C. SONNET, TO WILLIAM WILBERFORCE, Esq. Thy country, Wilberforce, with just disdain Hope smiles, joy springs, and though cold caution pause That shall remunerate thy toils severe By peace for Afric, fenced with British laws. Enjoy what thou hast won, esteem and love CCCLXXXV.-TO THE REV. J. JEKYLL RYE. MY DEAR SIR, Weston, April 16, 1792. I am truly sorry that you should have suffered any apprehensions, such as your letter indicates, to molest you for a moment. I believe you to be as honest a man as lives, and consequently do not believe it possible that you could in your letter to Mr. Pitts, or any otherwise, wilfully misrepresent me. In fact, you did not; my opinions on the subject in question were, when I had the pleasure of seeing you, such as in that letter you stated them to be, and such they still continue. If any man concludes, because I allow myself the use of sugar and rum, that therefore I am a friend to the Slave Trade, he concludes rashly, and does me great wrong; for the man lives not who abhors it more than I do. My reasons for my own practice are satisfactory to myself, and they whose practice is contrary are, I suppose, satisfied with theirs. So far is good. Let every man act according to his own judgment and conscience; but if we condemn another for not seeing with our eyes, we are unreasonable; and if we reproach him on that account, we are uncharitable, which is a still greater evil. I had heard, before I received the favour of yours, that such a report of me as you mention had spread about the country. But my informant told me that it was founded thus: The people of Olney petitioned Parliament for the abolition-my name was sought among the subscribers, but was not found-a question was asked, how that happened? Answer was made, that I had once indeed been an enemy to the Slave Trade but had changed my mind, for * Note by the Editor. The following Sonnet, not printed in the collected works of Cowper, is the poem he alluded to in this letter. that having lately read an history or an account of Africa, I had seen it there asserted, that till the commencement of that traffic the negroes, multiplying at a prodigious rate, were necessitated to devour each other: for which reason I had judged it better that the trade should continue, than that they should be again reduced to so horrid a custom. Now all this is a fable. I have read no such history; I never in my life read any such assertion; nor had such an assertion presented itself to me, should I have drawn any such conclusion from it; on the contrary, bad as it were, I think it would be better the negroes should have eaten one another than that we should carry them to market. The single reason why I did not sign the petition was, because I was never asked to do it; and the reason why I was never asked was, because I am not a parishioner of Olney. Thus stands the matter. You will do me the justice, I dare say, to speak of me as of a man who abhors the commerce, which is now, I hope, in a fair way to be abolished, as often as you shall find occasion. And I beg you henceforth to do yourself the justice to believe it impossible that I should for a moment suspect you of duplicity or misrepresentation. I have been grossly slandered, but neither by you, nor in of any thing that consequence have either said or written. I remain, therefore, still as heretofore, with great respect, Much and truly yours, Mrs. Unwin's compliments attend you. CCCLXXXVI.-To LADY HESKETH. you W. C. MY DEAREST Coz, Weston, May 20, 1792. I rejoice, as thou reasonably supposest me to do, in the matrimonial news communicated in your last. Not that it was altogether news to me, for twice I had received broad hints of it from Lady Frog by letter, and several times vivá voce while she was here. But she enjoined me secrecy as well as you, and you know that all secrets are safe with me; safer far than the winds in the bags of Æolus. I know not in fact the lady whom it would give me more pleasure to call Mrs. Courtenay, than the lady in question; partly because I know her, but especially because I know her to be all that I can wish in a neighbour. I have often observed that there is a regular alternation of good be conand evil in the lot of men, so that a favourable incident may sidered as the harbinger of an unfavourable one, and vice versá. Dr. Madan's experience witnesses to the truth of this observation. One day he gets a broken head, and the next a mitre to heal it. I rejoice that he has met with so effectual a cure, though my joy is not unmingled with concern; for till now I had some hope of seeing him, but since I live in the north, and his episcopal call is in the west, that is a gratification, I suppose, which I must no longer look for. My sonnet, which I sent you, was printed in the Northampton paper last week, and this week it produced me a complimentary one in the same paper, which served to convince me at least, by the matter of it, that my own was not published without occasion, and that it had answered its purpose. My correspondence with Hayley proceeds briskly, and is very affectionate on both sides. I expect him here in about a fortnight; and wish heartily, with Mrs. Unwin, that you would give him a meeting. I have promised him, indeed, that he shall find us alone, but you are one of the family. I wish much to print the following lines in one of the daily papers. Lord S.'s vindication of the poor culprit in the affair of Cheit-Sing has confirmed me in the belief that he has been injuriously treated, and I think it an act merely of justice to take a little notice of him. TO WARREN HASTINGS, Esq. BY AN OLD SCHOOLFELLOW OF HIS AT WESTMINSTER. Hastings! I knew thee young, and of a mind If thou wilt take the pains to send them to thy newsmonger, I hope thou wilt do well. Adieu! W. C. CCCLXXXVII.-To JOHN JOHNSON, Esq. Weston, May 20, 1792. MY DEAREST OF ALL JOHNNIES, I am not sorry that your ordination is postponed. A year's learning and wisdom, added to your present stock, will not be more than enough to satisfy the demands of your function. Neither am I sorry that you find it difficult to fix your thoughts to the serious point at all times: it proves at least that you attempt and wish to do it, and these are good symptoms. Woe to those who enter on the ministry of the gospel without having previously asked at least from God a mind and spirit suited to their occupation, and whose experience never differs from itself, because they are always alike vain, light, and inconsiderate. It is, therefore, matter of great joy to me to hear you complain of levity, and such it is to Mrs. Unwin. She is, I thank God, tolerably well, and loves you. As to the time of your journey hither, the sooner after June the better; till then we shall have company. I forgot not my debts to your dear sister, and your aunt Balls. Greet them both with a brother's kiss, and place it to my account. I will write to them when Milton and a thousand other engagements will give me leave. Mr. Hayley is here on a visit. We have |