Sorrow is like the deaf it; but I confess the difficulty of doing so. adder, "that hears not the voice of the charmer, charm he never so wisely; and I feel so much myself for the death of Austin, that my own chief consolation is, that I had never seen him. Live yourself, I beseech you, for I have seen so much of you, that I can by no means spare you, and I will live as long as it shall please God to permit. I know you set some value on me, therefore let that promise comfort you, and give us not reason to say, like David's servant "We know that it would have pleased thee more if all we had died, than this one, for whom thou art inconsolable." You have still Romney, and Carwardine, and Guy, and me, my poor Mary, and I know not how many beside; as many, I suppose, as ever had an opportunity of spending a day with you. He who has the most friends, must necessarily lose the most, and he whose friends are numerous as yours, may the better spare a part of them. It is a changing, transient scene: yet a little while, and this poor dream of life will be over with all of us. The living, and they who live unhappy, they are indeed subjects of sorrow. Adieu! my beloved friend, ever yours, CCCCXXV.-To SAMUEL ROSE, ESQ. W. C. Weston, Feb. 5, 1793. In this last revisal of my work (the Homer) I have made a number of small improvements, and am now more convinced than ever, having exercised a cooler judgment upon it than before I could, that the translation would make its way. There must be time for the conquest of vehement and long-rooted prejudice; but, without much self-partiality, I believe that the conquest will be made; and am certain that I should be of the same opinion were the work another man's. I shall soon have finished the Odyssey, and when I have, will send the corrected copy of both to Johnson. W. C. Adieu! CCCCXXVI.-To LADY HESKETH. My pens are all split, and my ink-glass is dry; Feb. 10, 1793. In vain it has been that I have made several attempts to write since I came from Sussex; unless more comfortable days arrive than I have confidence to look for, there is an end of all writing with me. I have no spirits-when Rose came, I was obliged to prepare for his coming by a nightly dose of laudanum-twelve drops suffice; but without them I am devoured by melancholy. Apropos of the Rose! His wife in her political notions is the exact counterpart of yourself-loyal in the extreme. Therefore, if you find her thus inclined when you become acquainted with her, you must not place her resemblance of yourself to the account of her admiration of you, for she is your likeness ready made. In fact, we are all of one mind about government matters, and notwithstanding your opinion, the Rose is himself a Whig, and I am a Whig, and you, my dear, are a Tory, and all the Tories now-a-days call all the Whigs Republicans. How the deuce you came to be a Tory is best known to yourself: you have to answer for this novelty to the shades of your ancestors, who were always Whigs ever since we had I have read the critique of my work in the Analytical Review,' and am happy to have fallen into the hands of a critic, rigorous enough indeed, but a scholar, and a man of sense, and who does not deliberately intend me mischief. I am better pleased, indeed, that he censures some things, than I should have been with unmixed commendation, for his censure (to use the new diplomatic term) will accredit his praises. In his particular remarks he is for the most part right, and I shall be the better for them; but in his general ones I think he asserts too largely, and more than he could prove. With respect to inversions in particular, I know that they do not abound. Once they did, and I had Milton's example for it, not disapproved by Addison. But on 's remonstrance against them, I expunged the most, and in my new edition shall have fewer still. I know that they give dignity, and am sorry to part with them; but to parody an old proverb, he who lives in the year Ninety-three, must do as in the year Ninety-three is done by others. The same remark I have to make on his censure of inharmonious lines. I know them to be much fewer than he asserts, and not more in number than I accounted indispensably necessary to a due variation of cadence. I have, however, now in conformity with modern taste (overmuch delicate, in my mind) given to a far greater number of them a flow as smooth as oil. A few I retain, and will, in compliment to my own judgment. He thinks me too faithful to compound epithets in the introductory lines, and I know his reason. He fears lest the English reader should blame Homer, whom he idolizes, though hardly more than I, for such constant repetition. But them I shall not alter; they are necessary to a just representation of the original. In the affair of Outis, I shall throw him flat on his back by an unanswerable argument, which I shall give in a note, and with which I am furnished by Mrs. Unwin. So much for hypercriticism, which has run away with all my paper. This critic by the way is I know him by infallible indications. W. C. CCCCXXVIII.-TO THE REV. MR. HURDIS. MY DEAR SIR, Weston, Feb. 22, 1793. My eyes, which have long been inflamed, will hardly serve for Homer, and oblige me to make all my letters short. You have obliged me much by sending me so speed ly the remainder of your notes. I have begun with them again, and find them, as before, very much to the purpose: more to the purpose they could not have been hal you been poetry professor already. I rejoice sincerely in the prospect you have of that office, which, whatever may be your own thoughts of the matter, I am sure you will fill with great sufficiency. Would that my interest and power to serve you were greater. One string to my bow I have, and one only, which shall not be idle for want of my exertions. I thank you likewise for your very entertaining notices and remarks in the natural way. The hurry in which I write would not suffer me to send you many in return, had many to send, but only two or three present themselves. Frogs will feed on worms. I saw a frog gathering into his gullet an earth-worm as long as himself; it cost him time and labour, but at last he succeeded. Mrs. Unwin and I, crossing a brook, saw from the foot-bridge somewhat at the bottom of the water, which had the appearance of a flower. Observing it attentively, we found that it consisted of a circular assemblage of minnows; their heads all met in a centre, and their tails diverging at equal distances, and being elevated above their heads, gave them the appearance of a flower half blown. One was longer than the rest, and as often as a straggler came in sight, he quitted his place to pursue him, and having driven him away, he returned to it again, no other minnow offering to take it in his absence. This we saw him do several times. The object that had attached them all was a dead minnow, which they seemed to be devouring. After a very rainy day, I saw on one of the flower borders what seemed a long hair, but it had a waving, twining motion. Considering more nearly, I found it alive, and endued with spontaneity, but could not discover at the ends of it either head or tail, or any distinction of parts. I carried it into the house, when the air of a warm room dried and killed it presently. CCCCXXIX.-To WILLIAM HAYLEY, Esq. W. C. Weston, Feb. 24, 1793. Your letter (so full of kindness, and so exactly in unison with my own feelings for you) should have had, as it deserved to have, an earlier answer, had I not been perpetually tormented with inflamed eyes, which are a sad hinderance to me in every thing. But to make amends, if I do not send you an early answer, I send you at least a speedy one, being obliged to write as fast as my pen can trot, that I may shorten the time of poring upon paper as much as possible. Homer, too, has been another hinderance, for always when I can see, which is only about two hours every morning, and not at all by candle-light, I devote myself to him, being in haste to send him a second time to the press, that nothing may stand in the way of Milton. By the way, where are my dear Tom's remarks, which I long to have, and must have soon, or they will come too late? Oh you rogue! what would you give to have such a dream about Milton as I had about a week since? I dreamed that being in a house in the city, and with much company, looking towards the lower end of the room from the upper end of it, I descried a figure, which I immediately knew to be Milton's. He was very gravely, but very neatly attired in the fashion of his day, and had a countenance which filled me with those feelings that an affectionate child has for a beloved father-such, for instance, as Tom has for you. My first thought was wonder where he could have been concealed so many years; my second, a transport of joy to find him still alive; my third, another transport to find myself in his company; and my fourth, a resolution to accost him. I did so, and he received me with a complacence, in which I saw equal sweetness and dignity. I spoke of his Paradise Lost, as every man must who is worthy to speak of it at all, and told him a long story of the manner in which it affected me when I first discovered it, being at that time a schoolboy. He answered me by a smile, and a gentle inclination of his head. He then grasped my hand affectionately, and, with a smile that charmed me, said, "Well, you for your part will do well also; " at last recollecting his great age (for I understood him to be two hundred years old) I feared that I might fatigue him by much talking, I took my leave, and he took his, with an air of the most perfect good breeding. His person, his features, his manner, were all so perfectly characteristic, that I am persuaded an apparition of him could not represent him more completely. This may be said to have been one of the dreams of Pindus, may it not? How truly I rejoice that you have recovered Guy: that man won my heart the moment I saw him: give my love to him, and tell him I am truly glad he is alive again. There is much sweetness in those lines from the sonneteer of Avon, and not a little in dear Tom's; an earnest, I trust, of good things to come. With Mary's kind love, I must now conclude myself, My dear brother, ever yours, LIPPUS. CCCCXXX.-TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT. MY DEAR FRIEND, Weston, March 4, 1793. Since I received your last I have been much indisposed, very blind, and very busy; but I have not suffered all these evils at one and the same time. While the winter lasted I was miserable with a fever on my spirits; when the spring began to approach I was seized with an inflammation in my eyes; and ever since I have been able to use them have been employed in giving more last touches to Homer, who is on the point of going to the press again. Though you are Tory I believe, and I am Whig, our sentiments concerning the madcaps of France are much the same. They are a terrible race, and I have a horror both of them and their principles. Tacitus is certainly living now, and the quotations you sent me can be nothing but extracts from some letters of his to yourself. Yours, most sincerely, CCCCXXXI.-To MR. THOMAS HAYLEY. W. C. Weston, March 14, 1793. MY DEAR LITTLE CRITIC, I thank you heartily for your observations, on which I set a higher value, because they have instructed me as much, and have entertained me more, than all the other strictures of our public judges in these matters. Perhaps I am not much more pleased with shameless wolf, &c. than you. But what is to be done, my little man? Coarse as the expressions are, they are no more than equivalent to those of Homer. The invective of the ancients was never tempered with good manners, as your papa can tell you; and my business, you know, is not to be more polite than my author, but to represent him as closely as I can. Dishonour'd foul I have wiped away, for the reason you give, which is a very just one, and the present reading is this, Who had dared dishonour thus The life itself, &c. Your objection to kindler of the fires of Heaven I had the good fortune to anticipate, and expunged the dirty ambiguity some time since, wondering not a little that I had ever admitted it." The fault you find with the two first verses of Nestor's speech discovers such a degree of just discernment, that but for your papa's assurance to the contrary, I must have suspected him as the author of that remark: much as I should have respected it, if it had been so, I value it, I assure you, my little friend, still more as yours. In the new edition the passage will be found thus altered, Alas ! great sorrow falls on Greece to-day, |