would transcribe it now, but am really so fatigued with writing, that unless I knew you had a quinsy, and that a fit of laughter might possibly save your life, I could not prevail with myself to do it. What could you possibly mean, slender as you are, by sallying out upon your two walking-sticks at two in the morning, in the midst of such a tumult? We admire your prowess, but cannot commend your prudence. Our love attends you all, collectively and individually. Yours, LIV.-TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. MY DEAR FRIEND, W. C. June 22, 1780. A word or two in answer to two or three questions of yours, which I have hitherto taken no notice of. I am not in a scribbling mood, and shall therefore make no excursions to amuse either myself or you. The needful will be as much as I can manage at present― the playful must wait another opportunity. I thank you for your offer of Robertson, but I have more reading upon my hands at this present writing, than I shall get rid of in å twelvemonth, and this moment recollect that I have seen it already. He is an author that I admire much, with one exception, that I think his style is too laboured. Hume, as an historian, pleases me more. I have read just enough of the Biographia Britannica to say that I have tasted it, and have no doubt but I shall like it. I am pretty much in the garden at this season of the year, so read but little. In summer-time I am as giddy-headed as a boy, and can settle to nothing. Winter condenses me, and makes me lumpish and sober; and then I can read all day long. For the same reasons, I have no need of the landscapes at present; when I want them I will renew my application, and repeat the description, but it will hardly be before October. Before I rose this morning, I composed the three following stanzas. I send them because I like them pretty well myself; and if you should not, you must accept this handsome compliment as an amends for their deficiencies. You may print the lines, if you judge them worth it.* I have only time to add love, &c., and my two initials. W. C. LV.-TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. MY DEAR FRIEND, June 23, 1780. Your reflections upon the state of London, the sins and enormities of that great city, while you had a distant view of it from * Verses on the burning of Lord Mansfield's house. Did Greenwich, seem to have been prophetic of the heavy stroke that fell upon it just after. Man often prophesies without knowing it; a spirit speaks by him which is not his own, though he does not at that time suspect that he is under the influence of any other. he foresee, what is always foreseen by him who dictates what he supposes to be his own, he would suffer by anticipation as well as by consequence; and wish perhaps as ardently for the happy ignorance, to which he is at present so much indebted, as some have foolishly and inconsiderately done, for a knowledge that would be but another name for misery. And why have I said all this; especially to you, who have hitherto said it to me ?-not because I had the least desire of informing a wiser man than myself, but because the observation was naturally suggested by the recollection of your letter, and that letter, though not the last, happened to be uppermost in my mind. I can compare this mind of mine to nothing that resembles it more than to a board that is under the carpenter's plane (I mean, while I am writing to you); the shavings are my uppermost thoughts; after a few strokes of the tool, it acquires a new surface; this again upon a repetition of his task he takes off, and a new surface still succeeds-whether the shavings of the present day will be worth your acceptance, I know not. I am unfortunately made neither of cedar nor of mahogany, but Truncus ficulnus, inutile lignum-consequently, though I should be planed till I am as thin as a wafer, it will be but rubbish to the last. It is not strange that you should be the subject of a false report, for the sword of slander, like that of war, devours one as well as another; and a blameless character is particularly delicious to its unsparing appetite. But that you should be the object of such a report, you who meddle less with the designs of government than almost any man that lives under it, this is strange indeed. It is well, however, when they who account it good sport to traduce the reputation of another, invent a story that refutes itself. I wonder they do not always endeavour to accommodate their fiction to the real character of the person: their tale would then, at least, have an air of probability, and it might cost a peaceable good man much more trouble t disprove it. But, perhaps, it would not be easy to discern what part your conduct lies more open to such an attempt than another; or what it is that you either say or do, at any time, that presents a fair opportunity to the most ingenious slanderer to slip in a falsehood between your words or actions that shall seem to be of a piece with either. You hate compliment, I know; but by your leave this is not one-it is a truth-worse and worse-now I have praised you indeed—well, you must thank yourself for it, it was absolutely done without the least intention on my part, and proceeded from a pen that, as far as I can remember, was never guilty of flattery since I knew how to hold it.-He that slanders me, of paints me blacker than I am, and he that flatters me, whiter-they both daub me, and when I look in the glass of conscience, I see myself disguised by both: I had as lief my tailor should sew gingerbread nuts on my coat instead of buttons, as that any man should call my Bristol stone a diamond. The tailor's trick would not at all embellish my suit, nor the flatterer's make me at all the richer. I never make a present to my friend of what I dislike myself: ergo (I have reached the conclusion at last), I did not mean to flatter you. We have sent a petition to Lord Dartmouth, by this post, praying him to interfere in parliament, in behalf of the poor lace-makers. I say we, because I have signed it; Mr. G. drew it up, Mr. did not think it grammatical, therefore would not sign it. Yet I think Priscian himself would have pardoned the manner, for the sake of the matter. I dare say if his lordship does not comply with the prayer of it, it will not be because he thinks it of more consequence to write grammatically than that the poor should eat, but for some better reason. My love to all under your roof. Yours, W. C. LVI.-TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. July, 2, 1780. Carissime, I am glad of your confidence, and have reason to hope I shall never abuse it. If you trust me with a secret, I am hermetically sealed; and if you call for the exercise of my judgment, such as it is, I am never freakish or wanton in the use of it, much less mischievous and malignant. Critics, I believe, do not often stand so clear of these vices as I do. I like your Epitaph, except that I doubt the propriety of the word immaturus; which I think is rather applicable to fruits than flowers: and except the last pentameter, the assertion it contains being rather too obvious a thought to finish with; not that I think an epitaph should be pointed, like an epigram: but still there is a closeness of thought and expression necessary in the conclusion of all these little things, that they may leave an agreeable flavour upon the palate. Whatever is short should be nervous, masculine, and compact. Little men are so; and little poems should be so; because, where the work is short, the author has no right to the plea of weariness, and laziness is never admitted as an available excuse in any thing. Now you know my opinion you will very likely improve upon my improvement, and alter my alterations for the better. To touch, and retouch, is, though some writers boast of negligence, and others would be ashamed to show their foul copies, the secret of almost all good writing, especially in verse. I am never weary of it myself, and if you would take as much pains as I do, you would have no need to ask for my corrections. G Care vale! Sed non æternùm, care, valeto! Having an English translation of it by me, I send it, though it may be of no use. Farewell!" But not for ever," Hope replies, "Trace but his steps, and meet him in the skies!" Thou shalt not wither, nor I weep again. The Stanzas that I sent you are maiden ones, having never been seen by any eye but your mother's and your own. If you send me franks, I shall write longer letters; Valete, sicut et nos valemus! Amate, sicut et nos amamus. The next letter, to Mr. Hill, affords a striking proof of Cowper's compassionate feelings toward the poor around him. LVII. TO JOSEPH HILL, Esq. MON AMI, July 8, 1780. If you ever take the tip of the Chancellor's ear between your finger and thumb, you can hardly improve the opportunity to better purpose, than if you should whisper into it the voice of compassion and lenity to the lace-makers. I am an eye-witness to their poverty, and do know, that hundreds in this little town are upon the point of starving, and that the most unremitting industry is but barely sufficient to keep them from it. I know that the bill, by which they would have been so fatally affected, is thrown out: but Lord Stormont threatens them with another; and if another, like it, should pass, they are undone. We lately sent a petition to Lord Dartmouth; I signed it, and am sure the contents are true. The purport of it was to inform him, that there are very near one thousand two hundred lace-makers in this beggarly town, the most of whom had reason enough, while the bill was in agitation, to look upon every loaf they bought as the last they should ever be able to earn. I can never think it good policy to incur the certain inconvenience of ruining thirty thousand in order to prevent a remote and possible damage, though to a much greater number. The measure is like a scythe, and the poor lace-makers are the sickly crop that trembles before the edge of it. The prospect of peace with America is like the streak of dawn in their horizon, but this bill is like a black cloud behind it, that threatens their hope of a comfortable day with utter extinction. I did not perceive till this moment, that I had tacked two similies together, a practice, which though warranted by the example of Homer, and allowed in an epic poem, is rather luxurious and licentious in a letter; lest I should add another, I conclude. LVIII.-TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. W. C. July 11, 1780. I account myself sufficiently commended for my Latin exercise, by the number of translations it has undergone. That which you distinguished in the margin, by the title of "better," was the production of a friend, and, except that for a modest reason he omitted the third couplet, I think it a good one. To finish the group, I have translated it myself; and though I would not wish you to give it to the world, for more reasons than one, especially lest some French hero should call me to account for it-I add it on the other side. An author ought to be the best judge of his own meaning; and, whether I have succeeded or not, I cannot but wish that where a translator is wanted, the writer was always to be his own. False, cruel, disappointed, stung to the heart, Bids the low street, and lofty palace blaze. Her sons too weak to vanquish us alone, She hires the worst and basest of our own. Kneel, France! a suppliant conquers us with ease, I have often wondered that Dryden's illustrious epigram on Milton (in my mind the second-best that ever was made) has never been translated into Latin for the admiration of the learned in other countries. I have at last presumed to venture upon the task myself. The great closeness of the original, which is equal in that respect to the most compact Latin I ever saw, made it extremely difficult. Tres tria, sed longè distantia, sæcula vates I have not one bright thought upon the Chancellor's recovery; nor can I strike off so much as one sparkling atom from that brilliant subject. It is not when I will, nor upon what I will, but as a thought happens to occur to me; and then I versify, whether I will or not. I never write but for my amusement; and what I write is sure to answer that end, if it answers no other. If, besides this pur |