and with what purpose? Certainly either to gratify vanity of the silliest kind, or, which is still more criminal, to decoy and inveigle, and carry on more successfully the business of temptation. Here therefore my opinion splits itself into two opposite sides upon the same question. I can suppose a French woman, though painted an inch deep, to be a virtuous, discreet, excellent character, and in no instance should I think the worse of one because she was painted. But an English belle must pardon me if I have not the same charity for her. She is at least an impostor, whether she cheats me or not, because she means to do so; and it is well if that be all the censure she deserves. This brings me to my second class of ideas upon this topic: and here I feel that I should be fearfully puzzled were I called upon to recommend the practice on the score of convenience. If a husband chose that his wife should paint, perhaps it might be her duty as well as her interest to comply; but I think he would not much consult his own for reasons that will follow. In the first place she would admire herself the more, and, in the next, if she managed the matter well, she might be more admired by others; an acquisition that might bring her virtue under trials to which otherwise it might never have been exposed. In no other case, however, can I imagine the practice in this country to be either expedient or convenient. As a general one, it certainly is not expedient, because in general English women have no occasion for it. A swarthy complexion is a rarity here, and the sex, especially since inoculation has been so much in use, have very little cause to complain that nature has not been kind to them in the article of complexion. They may hide and spoil a good one, but they cannot (at least they hardly can) give themselves a better. But, even if they could, there is yet a tragedy in the sequel, which should make them tremble. I understand that in France, though the use of rouge be general, the use of white paint is far from being so. In England, she that uses one commonly uses both. Now all white paints, or lotions, or whatever they be called, are mercurial, consequently poisonous, consequently ruinous in time to the constitution. The Miss B above mentioned, was a miserable witness of this truth, it being certain that her flesh fell from her bones before she died. Lady C was hardly a less melancholy proof of it; and a London physician perhaps, were he at liberty to blab, could publish a bill of female mortality of a length that would astonish us. For these reasons I utterly condemn the practice as it obtains in England; and for a reason superior to all these I must disapprove it. I cannot indeed discover that Scripture forbids it in so many words. But that anxious solicitude about the person which such an artifice evidently betrays is, I am sure, contrary to the tenor and spirit of it throughout. Show me a woman with a painted face, and I will show you a woman whose heart is set on things of the earth, and not on things above. But this observation of mine applies to it only when it is an imitative art: for, in the use of French women, I think it as innocent as in the use of the wild Indian, who draws a circle round her face, and makes two spots, perhaps blue, perhaps white, in the middle of it. Such are my thoughts upon the matter. Vive, valeque. Yours, my dear Friend, W. C. TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. Olney, May 8, 1784. My dear Friend,-You do well to make your letters merry ones, though not very merry yourself, and that both for my sake and your own; for your own sake, because it sometimes happens that, by assuming an air of cheerfulness, we become cheerful in reality; and for mine, because I have always more need of a laugh than a cry, being somewhat disposed to melancholy by natural temperament, as well as by other causes. It was long since, and even in the infancy of John Gilpin, recommended to me by a lady, now at Bristol, to write a sequel. But, having always observed that authors, elated with the success of a first part, have fallen below themselves when they have attempted a second, I had more prudence than to take her counsel. I want you to read the history of that hero published by Bladon, and to tell me what it is made of. But buy it not. For, puffed as it is in the papers, it can be but a bookseiler's job, and must be dear at the price of two shillings. In the last packet but one that I received from Johnson, he asked me if I had any improvements of John Gilpin in hand, or if I designed any; for that to print only the original again would be to publish what has been hackneyed in every magazine, in every newspaper, and in every street. I answered that the copy which I sent him contained two or three small variations from the first, except which I had none to propose; and if he thought him now too trite to make a part of my volume, I should willingly acquiesce in his judgment. I take it for granted therefore that he will not bring up the rear of my Poems according to my first intention, and shall not be sorry for the omission. It may spring from a principle of pride; but spring from what it may, I feel and have long felt a disinclination to a public avowal that he is mine; and since he became so popular, I have felt it more than ever; not that I should ever have expressed a scruple, if Johnson had not. But a fear has suggested itself to me, that I might expose myself to a charge of vanity by admitting him into my book, and that some people would impute it to me as a crime. Consider what the world is made of, and you will not find my suspicions chimerical. Add to this, that when, on correcting the latter part of the fifth book of "The Task," I came to consider the solemnity and sacred nature of the subjects there handled, it seemed to me an incongruity at the least, not to call it by a harsher name, to follow up such premises with such a conclusion. I am well content therefore with having laughed, and made others laugh; and will build my hopes of success as a poet upon more important matter. In our printing business we now jog on merrily enough. The coming week will I hope bring me to an end of " The Task," and the next fortnight to an end of the whole. I am glad to have Paley on my side in the affair of education. He is certainly on all subjects a sensible man, and, on such, a wise But I am mistaken if "Tirocinium" do not make some of my friends angry, and proeure me enemies not a few. There is a sting in verse that prose neither has nor can have; and I do not know that schools in the gross, and especially public schools, have ever been 80 pointedly condemned before. But they are become a nuisance, a pest, an abomination; and it is fit that the eyes and noses of mankind should if possible be opened to perceive it. one. Olney, May 10, 1784. My dear Friend,-We rejoice in the aceount you give us of Dr. Johnson. His conversion will indeed be a singular proof the omnipotence of grace; and the more singular, the more decided. The world will set his age against his wisdom, and comfort itself with the thought that he must be superannuated. Perhaps therefore in order to refute the slander, and do honor to the cause to which be becomes a convert, he could not do better than devote his great abilities, and a considerable part of the remainder of his years, to the production of some important work, not immediately connected with the interests of religion. He would thus give proof that a man of profound learning and the best sense may become a child without being a fool; Private correspondence. and that to embrace the gospel is no evidence either of enthusiasm, infirmity, or insanity. But He who calls him will direct him. On Friday, by particular invitation, we attended an attempt to throw off a balloon at Mr. Throckmorton's, but it did not succeed. We expect however to be summoned again in the course of the ensuing week. Mrs. Unwin and I were the party. We were entertained with the utmost politeness. It is not possible to conceive a more engaging and agreeable character than the gentleman's, or a more consummate assemblage of all that is called good-nature, complaisance, and innocent cheerfulness, than is to be seen in the lady. They have lately received many gross affronts from the people of this place, on account of their religion. We thought it therefore the more necessary to treat them with respect. W. C. Best love and best wishes, We think there must be an error of date in this letter, because the period of time generally ascribed to the fact recorded in the former part of it, occurred in the last illness of Dr. Johnson, which was in December, 1784. A discussion has arisen respecting the circumstances of this case, but not as to the fact itself. As regards this latter point, it is satisfactorily established that Dr. Johnson, throughout a long life, had been peculiarly harassed by fears of death, from which he was at length happily delivered, and enabled to die in peace. This happy change of mind is generally attributed to the Rev. Mr. Latrobe having attended him on his dying bed, and directed him to the only sure ground of acceptance, viz., a reliance upon God's promises of mercy in Christ Jesus. The truth of this statement rests on the testimony of the Rev. Christian Ignatius Latrobe, who received the account from his own father. Some again assign the instrumentality to another pious individual, Mr. Winstanley.* We do not see why the services of both may not have been simultaneously employed, and equally crowned with success. It is the fact itself which most claims our own attention. We here see a man of profound learning and great moral attainments deficient in correct views of the grand fundamental doctrine of the gospel, the doctrine of the atonement; and consequently unable to look forward to eternity without alarm. We believe this state of mind to be peculiar to many who are distinguished by genius and learning. The gospel, clearly understood in its design, as a revelation of mercy to every penitent and believing sinner, and cordially received into the heart, dispels these fears, and by directing the eye of faith to the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world, will in * See "Christian Observer," Jan., 1835. fallibly fill the mind with that blessed hope I was indebted to him for an active interpo which is full of life and immortality. TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. Olney, May 22, 1784. sition in my favor, and consequently that he had a right to thanks. But now I concu: entirely in sentiment with you, and heartily second your vote for the suppression of for. Yet even now, were it possible that I could fall into his company, I should not think a slight acknowledgment misapplied. I was no other way anxious about his opinion, nor could be so, after you and some others had given a favorable one, than it was natural I should be, knowing as I did that his opinion had been consulted. I am affectionately yours, W. C. My dear Friend.-I am glad to have re-thanks which do not seem to be much called ceived at last an account of Dr. Johnson's favorable opinion of my book. I thought it wanting, and had long since concluded that, not having the happiness to please him, owed my ignorance of his sentiments to the tenderness of my friends at Hoxton, who would not mortify me with an account of his disapprobation. It occurs to me that I owe him thanks for interposing between me and the resentment of the Reviewers, who seldom show mercy to an advocate for evangelical truth, whether in prose or verse. I therefore enclose a short acknowledgment, which, if you see no impropriety in the measure, you can, I imagine, without much difliculty, convey to him through the hands of Mr. Latrobe. If on any account you judge it an inexpedient step, you can very easily suppress the letter. I pity Mr. Bull. What harder task can any man undertake than the management of those who have reached the age of manhood without having ever felt the force of authority, or passed through any of the preparatory parts of education? I had either forgot, or never adverted to the circumstance, that his disciples were to be men. At present, however, I am not surprised that, being such, they are found disobedient, untractable, insolent, and conceited; qualities that generally prevail in the minds of adults in exact proportion to their ignorance. He dined with us since I received your last. It was on Thursday that he was here. He came dejected, burthened, full of complaints. But we sent him away cheerful. He is very sensible of the prudence, delicacy, and attention to his character, which the Society have discovered in their conduct towards him upon this occasion; and indeed it does them honor; for it were past all enduring, if a charge of insufficiency should obtain a moment's regard, when brought by five such coxcombs against a man of his erudition and ability.* Lady Austen is gone to Bath. Yours, my dear friend, TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. W. C. Olney, June 5, 1784. When you told me that the critique upon my volume was written, though not by Doctor Johnson himself, yet by a friend of his, to whom he recommended the book and the business, I inferred from that expression that * A spirit of insubordination had manifested itself at the Theological Seminary at Newport, under the superintendence of Mr. Bull. TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON,* Olney, June 21, 1784. My dear Friend,-We are much pleased with your designed improvement of the late preposterous celebration, and have no doubt that in good hands the foolish occasion will turn to good account. A religious service, instituted in honor of a musician, and performed in the house of God, is a subject that calls loudly for the animadversion of an enlightened minister; and would be no mean one for a satirist, could a poet of that description be found spiritual enough to feel and to resent the profanation. It is reason. able to suppose that in the next year's almanac we shall find the name of Handel among the red-lettered worthies, for it would surely puzzle the Pope to add anything to his can onization. This unpleasant summer makes me wish for winter. The gloominess of that season is the less felt, both because it is expected, and because the days are short. But such weather, when the days are longest, makes a double winter, and my spirits feel that it does. We have now frosty mornings, and so cold a wind that even at high noon we have been obliged to break off our walk in the southern side of the garden, and seek shelter, I in the greenhouse, and Mrs. Unwin by the fireside. Haymaking begins here tomorrow, and would have begun sooner, had the weather permitted it. Mr. Wright called upon us last Sunday. The old gentleman seems happy in being exempted from the effects of time to such a degree that, though we meet but once in the year, I cannot perceive that the twelve months him. It seems, however, that as much as he that have elapsed have made any change in loves his master, and as easy as I suppose he has always found his service, he now and then heaves a sigh for liberty, and wishes to taste it before he dies. But his wife is not so minded. She cannot leave a family, the * Private correspondence. LIFE OF COWPER. sons and daughters of which seem all to be W. C. TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN.* Olney, July 3, [probably 1784.] My dear Friend,-I am writing in the greenhouse for retirement's sake, where I shiver with cold on this present 3d of July. Summer and winter therefore do not depend on the position of the sun with respect to the earth, but on His appointment who is sovereign in all things. Last Saturday night the cold was so severe that it pinched off many of the young shoots of our peach-trees. The nurseryman we deal with informs me that the wall-trees are almost everywhere eut off; and that a friend of his, near London, has lost all the full-grown fruit-trees of an extensive garden. The very walnuts, which are now no bigger than small hazelnuts, drop to the ground, and the flowers, though they blow, seem to have lost all their odors. I walked with your mother yesterday in the garden, wrapped up in a winter surtout, and found myself not at all incumbered by it; not more indeed than I was in January. Cucumbers contract that spot which is seldom found upon them except late in the autumn; and melons hardly grow. It is a comfort however to reflect that, if we cannot have these fruits in perfection, neither do we want them. Our crops of wheat are said to be very indifferent; the stalks of an unequal height, so that some of the ears are in danger of being smothered by the rest; I and the ears, in general, lean and scanty. never knew a summer in which we had not now and then a cold day to conflict with; but such a wintry fortnight as the last, at this season of the year, I never remember. I fear you have made the discovery of the webs you mention a day too late. The vermin have probably by this time left them, • Private correspondence. and may laugh at all human attempts to de- Yours, TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. W. C. Olney, July 5, 1784. My dear Friend,-A dearth of materials, a consciousness that my subjects are for the most part, and must be, uninteresting and unimportant, but above all, a poverty of animal spirits, that makes writing much a great fatigue to me, have occasioned my choice of smaller paper. Acquiesce in the justice of these reasons for the present; and, if ever the times should mend with me, I sincerely promise to amend with them. Homer says, on a certain occasion, that Jupiter, when he was wanted at home, was gone to partake of an entertainment provided for him by the Ethiopians. If by Jupiter we understand the weather, or the season, as the ancients frequently did, we may say that our English Jupiter has been absent on account of some such invitation: during the whole month of June he left us to experience almost the rigors of winter. This fine day, however, affords us some hope that the feast is ended, and that we shall enjoy his company without the interference of his Ethiopian friends again. Is it possible that the wise men of antiquity could entertain a real reverence for the We, who have been fabulous rubbish which they dignified with the name of religion? favored from our infancy with so clear a light, are perhaps hardly competent to decide the question, and may strive in vain to imagine the absurdities that even a good understanding may receive as truths, when totally unaided by revelation. It seems, however, that men, whose conceptions upon other subjects were often sublime, whose reasoning powers were undoubtedly equal to our own, and whose management in matters of jurisprudence, that required a very industrious examination of evidence, was as acute and subtle as that of a modern Attorney-general, could not be the dupes of such imposture as a child among us would detect and laugh at. Juvenal, I remember, introduces one of his Satires with an observation that there were some in his day who had the hardiness to laugh at the stories of Tartarus and Styx, and Charon, and of the frogs that croak upon the banks of the Lethe, giving his reader, at the same time, cause to suspect that he was 13 himself one of that profane number. Horace, on the other hand, declares in sober sadness, that he would not for all the world get into a boat with a man who had divulged the Eleusinian mysteries. Yet we know that those mysteries, whatever they might be, were altogether as unworthy to be esteemed divine, as the mythology of the vulgar. How, then, must we determine? If Horace were a good and orthodox heathen, how came Juvenal to be such an ungracious libertine in principle as to ridicule the doctrines which the other held as sacred? Their opportunities of information, and their mental advantages, were equal. I feel myself rather inclined to believe that Juvenal's avowed infidelity was sincere, and that Horace was no better than a canting, hypocritical professor.* nothing but Latin authors to furnish me with Vivite, valete, et mementote nostrum. TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. Olney, July 12, 1784. My dear William,-I think with you that Vinny's* line is not pure. If he knew any authority that would have justified his substitution of a participle for a substantive, he would have done well to have noted it in the margin; but I am much inclined to think that You must grant me a dispensation for say- he did not. Poets are sometimes exposed to ing anything, whether it be sense or nonsense, difficulties insurmountable by lawful means, upon the subject of politics. It is truly a whence I imagine was originally derived that matter in which I am so little interested, that, indulgence that allows them the use of what were it not that it sometimes serves me for a is called the poetica licentia. But that libertheme when I can find no other, I should nev-ty, I believe, contents itself with the abbreer mention it. I would forfeit a large sum, if, after advertising a month in the Gazette, the minister of the day, whoever he may be, could discover a man who cares about him or his measures so little as I do. When I say that I would forfeit a large sum, I mean to have it understood that I would forfeit such a sum if I had it. If Mr. Pitt be indeed a virtuous man, as such I respect him. But, at the best, I fear he will have to say at last with Æneas, Si Pergama dextrâ Be he what he may, I do not like his taxes. I have bought a great dictionary, and want * Some of the learned have been inclined to believe that the Eleusinian mysteries inculcated a rejection of the absurd mythology of those times, and a belief in one Great Supreme Being. viation or protraction of a word, or an alteration in the quantity of a syllable, and never presumes to trespass upon grammatical propriety. I have dared to attempt to correct my master, but am not bold enough to say that I have succeeded. Neither am I sure that my memory serves me correctly with the line that follows; but when I recollect the English, am persuaded that it cannot differ much from the true one. This therefore is my edition of the passage Or, Basia amatori tot tum permissa beato; Basia quæ juveni indulsit Susanna beato Navarcha optaret maximus esse sua. The preceding lines I have utterly forgotten, and am consequently at a loss to know whether the distich, thus managed, will connect itself with them easily, and as it ought. We thank you for the drawing of your house. I never knew my idea of what I had never seen resemble the original so much. At some time or other you have doubtless given me an exact account of it, and I have retained the faithful impression made by your description. It is a comfortable abode, and the time I hope will come when I shall enjoy more than the mere representation of it. I have not yet read the last "Review," but, dipping into it, I accidentally fell upon their account of "Hume's Essay on Suicide." I am glad that they have liberality enough to condemn the licentiousness of an author, whom they so much admire. I say liberality, for there is as much bigotry in the world to that man's errors, as there is in the hearts of some Vincent Bourne. |