entered upon and exhausted the labours of his office before my poor volume could possibly become an object of them. By the way, you cannot have a book at the time you mention; I have lived a fortnight or more in expectation of the last sheet, which is not yet arrived.

You have already furnished John's memory with by far the greatest part of what a parent would wish to store it with. If all that is merely trivial, and all that has an immoral tendency, were expunged from our English poets, how would they shrink, and how would some of them completely vanish! I believe there are some of Dryden's Fables which he would find very entertaining; they are for the most part fine compositions, and not above his apprehension; but Dryden has written few things that are not blotted here and there with an unchaste allusion, so that you must pick his way for him, lest he should tread in the dirt. You did not mention Milton's Allegro and Penseroso, which I remember being so charmed with when I was a boy that I was never weary of them. There are even passages in the paradisiacal part of the Paradise Lost, which he might study with advantage. And to teach. him, as you can, to deliver some of the fine orations made in the Pandæmonium, and those between Satan, Ithuriel, and Zephon, with emphasis, dignity, and propriety, might be of great use to him hereafter. The sooner the ear is formed, and the organs of speech are accustomed to the various inflections of the voice, which the rehearsal of those passages demands, the better. I should think too, that Thomson's Seasons might afford him some useful lessons. At least they would have a tendency to give his mind an observing

S. C.-4.

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and a philosophical turn. I do not forget that he is but a child. But I remember that he is a child favoured

with talents superior to his years. We were much pleased with his remarks on your almsgiving, and doubt not but it will be verified with respect to the two guineas you sent us, which have made four Christian people happy. Ships I have none, nor have touched a pencil these three years; if ever I take it up again, which I rather suspect I shall not (the employment requiring stronger eyes than mine), it shall be at John's service. Yours, my dear friend,

W. C.

TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

Feb. 2, 1782. THOUGH I value your correspondence highly on its own account, I certainly value it the more in consideration of the many difficulties under which you carry it on. Having so many other engagements, and engagements so much more worthy of your attention, I ought to esteem it, as I do, a singular proof of your friendship, that you so often make an opportunity to bestow a letter upon me: and this, not only because mine, which I write in a state of mind not very favourable to religious contemplations, are never worth your reading, but especially because, while you consult my gratification and endeavour to amuse my melancholy, your thoughts are forced out of the only channel in which they delight to flow, and constrained into another so different and so little interesting to a mind like yours, that but for me, and for my sake, they

would perhaps never visit it. Though I should be glad therefore to hear from you every week, I do not complain that I enjoy that privilege but once in a fortnight, but am rather happy to be indulged in it so often.

I thank you for the jog you gave Johnson's elbow; communicated from him to the printer it has produced me two more sheets, and two more will bring the business, I suppose, to a conclusion. I sometimes feel such a perfect indifference with respect to the public opinion of my book, that I am ready to flatter myself no censure of reviewers, or other critical readers, would occasion me the smallest disturbance. But not feeling myself constantly possessed of this desirable apathy, I am sometimes apt to suspect, that it is not altogether sincere, or at least that I may lose it just in the moment when I may happen most to want it. Be it however as it may, I am still persuaded that it is not in their power to mortify me much. I have intended well, and performed to the best of my ability; -so far was right, and this is a boast of which they cannot rob me. If they condemn my poetry, I must even say with Cervantes, "Let them do better if they can!"-if my doctrine, they judge that which they do not understand; I shall except to the jurisdiction of the court, and plead, Coram non judice. Even Horace could say, he should neither be the plumper for the praise, nor the leaner for the condemnation of his readers; and it will prove me wanting to myself indeed, if, supported by so many sublimer considerations than he was master of, I cannot sit loose to popularity, which, like the wind, bloweth

where it listeth, and is equally out of our command. If you, and two or three more such as you, say, well done! it ought to give me more contentment than if I could earn Churchill's laurels, and by the same

means.

Mr. Raban has spent an hour with us since he received your last, but did not mention it. We are not of his privy council. He knows our sentiments upon some subjects too well to favour us with a very intimate place in his confidence. He is civil indeed, at least not intentionally otherwise, and this is all we can say of him. Some people in our circumstances would hardly say so much. As soon as he is seated, he stretches out his legs at their full length, crosses his feet, folds his arms, reclines his head upon his shoulder, yawns frequently, seems not unwilling to hear and to be entertained, but never opens a subject himself, or assists the conversation with any remarks. This is not always pleasing.

George Mayne, whom I suppose you remember, a farmer that lived on the beautiful side of a hill in Weston parish, died last week. If you recollect the man, you recollect too that he made it his principal glory to believe that he and his two mastiffs would come to one and the same conclusion, and that no part of either would survive the grave. Mr. Page attended him, preached his funeral sermon, and informed the largest congregation ever seen at Weston that he converted him. I cannot learn however that any competent judge of the matter has given the tale a moment's credit, or that any better proof of this

wonder has been produced, than that poor George desired to be buried in his pew, to make some amends I suppose, for having never visited it while he lived.

They are so

I THANK YOU for Mr. Lowth's verses. good, that had I been present when he spoke them, I should have trembled for the boy, lest the man should disappoint the hopes such early genius had given birth to. It is not common to see so lively a fancy so correctly managed, and so free from irregular exuberances, at so unexperienced an age; fruitful, yet not wanton, and gay without being tawdry. When schoolboys write verse, if they have any fire at all, it generally spends itself in flashes, and transient sparks, which may indeed suggest an expectation of something better hereafter, but deserve not to be much commended for any real merit of their own. Their wit is generally forced and false, and their sublimity, if they affect any, bombast. I remember well when it was thus with me, and when a turgid, noisy, unmeaning speech in a tragedy, which I should now laugh at, afforded me raptures, and filled me with wonder. It is not in general till reading and observation have settled the taste, that we can give the prize to the best writing,