The Lodge, June 15, 1788.
Although I know that you must be very much occupied on the present most affecting occasion, yet, not hearing from you, I began to be very uneasy on your account, and to fear that your health might have suffered by the fatigue both of body and spirits that you must have undergone, till a letter that reached me yesterday from the General[443]set my heart at rest, so far as that cause of anxiety was in question. He speaks of my uncle in the tenderest terms, such as show how truly sensible he was of the amiableness and excellence of his character, and how deeply he regrets his loss. We have indeed lost one who has not left his like in the present generation of our family, and whose equal, in all respects, no future of it will probably produce. My memory retains so perfect an impression of him, that, had I been painter instead of poet, I could from those faithful traces have perpetuated his face and form with the most minute exactness; and this I the rather wonder at, because some with whom I was equally conversant five-and-twenty years ago have almost faded out of all recollection with me. But he made impression not soon to be effaced, and was in figure, in temper, in manner, and in numerous other respects such as I shall never behold again. I often think what a joyful interview there has been between him and some of his contemporaries who went before him. The truth of the matter is, my dear, that they are the happy ones, and that we shall never be such ourselves till we have joined the party. Can there be anything so worthy of our warmest wishes as to enter on an eternal, unchangeable state, in blessed fellowship and communion with those whose society we valued most, and for the best reasons, while they continued with us? A few steps more through a vain, foolish world, and this happiness will be yours. But be not hasty, my dear, to accomplish thy journey! For of all that live thou art one whom I can least spare; for thou also art one, who shalt not leave thy equal behind thee.
W. C.
The contrast between the awful scenes in nature, and those produced by the passions of men, is finely drawn in the following letter.
Weston, June 17, 1788.
My dear Walter,—You think me, no doubt, a tardy correspondent, and such I am, but not willingly. Many hindrances have intervened, and the most difficult to surmount have been those which the east and north-east winds have occasioned, breathing winter upon the roses of June, and inflaming my eyes, ten times more sensible of the inconvenience than they. The vegetables of England seem, like our animals, of a hardier and bolder nature than those of other countries. In France and Italy flowers blow because it is warm, but here in spite of the cold. The season however is somewhat mended at present, and my eyes with it. Finding myself this morning in perfect ease of body, I seize the welcome opportunity to do something at least towards the discharge of my arrears to you.
I am glad that you liked my song, and, if I liked the others myself so well as that I sent you, I would transcribe for you them also. But I sentthat, because I accounted it the best. Slavery, and especially negro slavery, because the cruellest, is an odious and disgusting subject. Twice or thrice I have been assailed with entreaties to write a poem on that theme. But, besides that it would be in some sort treason against Homer to abandon him for any other matter, I felt myself so much hurt in my spirits the moment I entered on the contemplation of it, that I have at last determined absolutely to have nothing more to do with it. There are some scenes of horror on which my imagination can dwell not without some complacence. But, then they are such scenes as God, not man, produces. In earthquakes, high winds, tempestuous seas, there is the grand as well as the terrible. But, when man is active to disturb, there is such meanness in the design and such cruelty in the execution, that I both hate and despise the whole operation, and feel it a degradation of Poetry to employ her in the description of it. I hope also, that the generality of my countrymen have more generosity in their nature than to want the fiddle of verse to go before them in the performance of an act to which they are invited by the loudest calls of humanity.
Breakfast calls, and then Homer.
Ever yours,W. C.
Erratum.—Instead of Mr. Wilberforce as author of "Manners of the Great," read Hannah More.
My paper mourns, and my seal. It is forthe death of a venerable uncle, Ashley Cowper, at the age of eighty-seven.
Cowper's description of the variations of climate, and their influence on the nerves and constitution, is what most of his readers probably know from frequent experience of their effects.
The Lodge, June 19, 1788.
My dear Madam,—You must think me a tardy correspondent, unless you have had charity enough for me to suppose that I have met with other hindrances than those of indolence and inattention. With these I cannot charge myself, for I am never idle by choice; and inattentive to you I certainly have not been, but, on the contrary, can safely affirm that every day I have thought on you. My silence has been occasioned by a malady to which I have all my life been subject—an inflammation of the eyes. The last sudden change of weather from excessive heat to a wintry degree of cold occasioned it, and at the same time gave me a pinch of the rheumatic kind; from both which disorders I have but just recovered. I do not suppose that our climate has been much altered since the days of our forefathers, the Picts;[445]but certainly the human constitution in this country has been altered much. Inured as we are from our cradles to every vicissitude in a climate more various than any other, and in possession of all that modern refinement has been able to contrive for our security, we are yet as subject to blights as the tenderest blossoms of spring; and are so well admonished of every change in the atmosphere by our bodily feelings as hardly to have any need of a weather-glass to mark them. For this we are, no doubt, indebted to the multitude of our accommodations; for it was not possible to retain the hardiness that originally belonged to our race, under the delicate management to which for many years we have now been accustomed. I can hardly doubt that a bull-dog or a game-cock might be made just as susceptible of injuries from weather as myself, were he dieted and in all respects accommodated as I am. Or, if the project did not succeed in the first instance, (for we ourselves did not become what we are at once,) in process of time, however, and in a course of many generations, it would certainly take effect. Let such a dog be fed in his infancy with pap, Naples biscuit, and boiled chicken; let him be wrapt in flannel at night, sleep on a good feather-bed, and ride out in a coach for an airing; and if his posterity do not become slight-limbed, puny, and valetudinarian, it will be a wonder. Thus our parents, and their parents, and the parents of both were managed; and thus ourselves; and the consequence is, that instead of being weather-proof, even without clothing, furs and flannels are not warm enough to defend us. It is observable, however, that though we have by these means lost much of our pristine vigour, our days are not the fewer. We live as long as those whom, on account of the sturdiness of their frame, the poets supposed to have been the progeny of oaks. Perhaps too they had little feeling, and for that reason also might be imagined to be so descended. For a very robust athletic habit seems inconsistent with much sensibility. But sensibility is thesine quâ nonof real happiness. If, therefore, our lives have not been shortened, and if our feelings have been rendered more exquisite as our habit of body has become more delicate, on the whole perhaps we have no cause to complain, but are rather gainers by our degeneracy.
Do you consider what you do, when you ask one poet his opinion of another? Yet I think I can give you an honest answer to your question, and without the least wish to nibble. Thompson was admirable in description: but it always seemed to me that there was somewhat of affectation in his style, and that his numbers are sometimes not well harmonized. I could wish too, with Dr. Johnson, that he had confined himself to this country; for, when he describes what he never saw, one is forced to read him with some allowance for possible misrepresentation. He was, however, a true poet, and his lasting fame has proved it. Believe me, my dear madam, with my best respects to Mr. King, most truly yours,
W. C.
P. S.—I am extremely sorry that you have been so much indisposed, and hope that your next will bring me a more favourable account of your health. I know not why, but I rather suspect that you do not allow yourself sufficient air and exercise. The physicians call them non-naturals, I suppose to deter their patients from the use of them.
The providence of God and the brevity of human life are subjects of profitable remark in the following letter.
Weston, June 23, 1788.
When I tell you that an unanswered letter troubles my conscience in some degree like a crime, you will think me endued with a most heroic patience, who have so long submitted to that trouble on account of yours not answered yet. But the truth is, that I have been muchengaged. Homer (you know) affords me constant employment; besides which, I have rather what may be called, considering the privacy with which I have long lived, a numerous correspondence: to one of my friends, in particular, a near and much loved relation, I write weekly, and sometimes twice in a week; nor are these my only excuses: the sudden changes of the weather have much affected me, and especially with a disorder most unfavourable to letter-writing, an inflammation in my eyes. With all these apologies, I approach you once more, not altogether despairing of forgiveness.
It has pleased God to give us rain, without which this part of the country at least must soon have become a desert. The meadows have been parched to a January brown, and we have foddered our cattle for some time, as in the winter. The goodness and power of God are never (I believe) so universally acknowledged as at the end of a long drought. Man is naturally a self-sufficient animal, and, in all concerns that seem to lie within the sphere of his own ability, thinks little or not at all of the need he always has of protection and furtherance from above. But he is sensible that the clouds will not assemble at his bidding, and that, though the clouds assemble, they will not fall down in showers, because he commands them. When therefore at last the blessing descends, you shall hear even in the streets the most irreligious and thoughtless with one voice exclaim, "Thank God!"—confessing themselves indebted to his favour, and willing, at least so far as words go, to give him the glory. I can hardly doubt, therefore, that the earth is sometimes parched, and the crops endangered, in order that the multitude may not want a memento to whom they owe them, nor absolutely forget the power on which all depend for all things.
Our solitary part of the year is over. Mrs. Unwin's daughter and son-in-law have lately spent some time with us. We shall shortly receive from London our old friends the Newtons (he was once minister of Olney), and, when they leave us, we expect that Lady Hesketh will succeed them, perhaps to spend the summer here, and possibly the winter also. The summer indeed is leaving us at a rapid rate, as do all the seasons; and, though I have marked their flight so often, I know not which is the swiftest. Man is never so deluded as when he dreams of his own duration. The answer of the old patriarch to Pharaoh may be adopted by every man at the close of the longest life: "Few and evil have been the days of the years of my pilgrimage." Whether we look back from fifty, or from twice fifty, the past appears equally a dream; and we can only be said truly to have lived, while we have been profitably employed. Alas! then, making the necessary deductions, how short is life! Were men in general to save themselves all the steps they take to no purpose, or to a bad one, what numbers, who are now active, would become sedentary!
Thus I have sermonized through my paper. Living where you live, you can bear with me the better. I always follow the leading of my unconstrained thoughts, when I write to a friend, be they grave or otherwise. Homer reminds me of you every day. I am now in the twenty-first Iliad.
Adieu,W. C.
June 24, 1788.
My dear Friend,—I rejoice that my letter found you at all points so well prepared to answer it according to our wishes. I have written to Lady Hesketh to apprise her of your intended journey hither, and she, having as yet made no assignation with us herself, will easily adjust her measures to the occasion.
I have not lately had an opportunity of seeing Mr. Bean. The late rains, which have revived the hopes of the farmers, have intercepted our communication. I hear, however, that he meets with not a little trouble in his progress towards a reformation of Olney manners; and that the Sabbath, which he wishes to have hallowed by a stricter and more general observation of it, is, through the brutality of the lowest order, a day of more turbulence and riot than any other. At the latter end of last week he found himself obliged to make another trip to the justice, in company with two or three of the principal inhabitants. What passed I have not learned; but I understand their errand to have been, partly at least, to efface the evil impressions made on his worship's mind, by a man who had applied a day or two before for a warrant against the constable; which, however, he did not obtain. I rather fear that the constables are not altogether judicious in the exercise either of their justice or their mercy. Some, who may have seemed proper objects of punishment, they have released, on a promise of better behaviour; and others, whose offence has been personal against themselves, though in other respects less guilty, they have set in the stocks. The ladies, however, and of course the ladies of Silver-End in particular, give them most trouble, being always active on these occasions, as well as clamorous, and both with impunity. For the sex are privileged in the free use of their tongues and of their nails, the parliament having never yet laid them under any penal restrictions; and they employ them accordingly.Johnson, the constable, lost much of his skin, and still more of his coat, in one of those Sunday battles; and had not Ashburner hastened to his aid, had probably been completely stripped of both. With such a zeal are these fair ones animated, though, unfortunately for all parties, rather erroneously.
What you tell me of the effect that the limitation of numbers to tonnage is likely to have on the slave trade, gives me the greatest pleasure.[447]Should it amount, in the issue, to an abolition of the traffic, I shall account it indeed an argument of great wisdom in our youthful minister. A silent and indirect way of doing it, is, I suppose the only safe one. At the same time, in how horrid a light does it place the trade itself, when it comes to be proved by consequences that the mere article of a little elbow-room for the poor creatures in their passage to the islands could not be secured by an order of parliament, without the utter annihilation of it! If so it prove, no man deserving to be called a man, can say that it ought to subsist a moment longer. My writing-time is expended, and breakfast is at hand. With our joint love to the trio, and our best wishes for your good journey to Weston, I remain, my dear friend,
Affectionately yours,W. C.
The next letter contains an interesting incident, recorded of his dog Beau, and the verses composed on the occasion.
The Lodge, June 27, 1788.
For the sake of a longer visit, my dearest Coz, I can be well content to wait. The country, this country at least, is pleasant at all times, and when winter is come, or near at hand, we shall have the better chance for being snug. I know your passion for retirement indeed, or for what we calldeedyretirement, and, the F——s intending to return to Bath with their mother, when her visit at the Hall is over, you will then find here exactly the retirement in question. I have made in the orchard the best winter-walk in all the parish, sheltered from the east and from the north-east, and open to the sun, except at his rising, all the day. Then we will have Homer and Don Quixote; and then we will have saunter and chat and one laugh more before we die. Our orchard is alive with creatures of all kinds; poultry of every denomination swarms in it, and pigs, the drollest in the world!
I rejoice that we have a cousin Charles also, as well as a cousin Henry, who has had the address to win the good likings of the Chancellor. May he fare the better for it. As to myself, I have long since ceased to have any expectations from that quarter. Yet, if he were indeed mortified as you say (and no doubt you have particular reasons for thinking so), and repented to that degree of his hasty exertions in favour of the present occupant, who can tell? He wants neither means nor management, but can easily at some future period redress the evil, if he chooses to do it. But in the mean time life steals away, and shortly neither he will be in circumstances to do me a kindness, nor I to receive one at his hands. Let him make haste, therefore, or he will die a promise in my debt, which he will never be able to perform.[448]Your communications on this subject are as safe as you can wish them. We divulge nothing but what might appear in the magazine, nor that without great consideration.
I must tell you a feat of my dog Beau. Walking by the river side, I observed some water-lilies floating at a little distance from the bank. They are a large white flower, with an orange-coloured eye, very beautiful. I had a desire to gather one, and, having your long cane in my hand, by the help of it endeavoured to bring one of them within my reach. But the attempt proved vain, and I walked forward. Beau had all the while observed me very attentively. Returning soon after toward the same place, I observed him plunge into the river, while I was about forty yards distant from him; and, when I had nearly reached the spot, he swam to land with a lily in his mouth, which he came and laid at my foot.
Mr. Rose, whom I have mentioned to you as a visitor of mine for the first time soon after you left us, writes me word that he has seen my ballads against the slave-mongers, but not in print.[449]Where he met with them I know not. Mr. Bull begged hard for leave to print them at Newport Pagnel, and I refused, thinking that it would be wrong to anticipate the nobility, gentry, and others, at whose pressing instance I composed them, in their designs to print them. But perhaps I need not have been so squeamish: for the opportunity to publish them in London seems now not only ripe, but rotten. I am well content. There is but one of them with which I am myself satisfied, though I have heard them all well spoken of. But there are very few things of my own composition that I can endure to read, when they have been written a month, though at first they seem to me to be all perfection.
Mrs. Unwin, who has been much the happiersince the time of your return hither has been in some sort settled, begs me to make her kindest remembrance.
Yours, my dear, most truly,W. C.
The following verses are so singularly beautiful, and interesting from the incident which gave rise to them, that, though they are inserted in the Poems, we cannot refrain from introducing them, in connexion with the letter which records the occasion of their being written.
No Fable.
The noon was shady, and soft airsSwept Ouse's silent tide,When, 'scaped from literary cares,I wandered on his side.My spaniel, prettiest of his race,And high in pedigree,—Two nymphs[450]adorned with every graceThat spaniel found for me,—Now wantoned, lost in flags and reeds,Now starting into sight,Pursued the swallow o'er the meadsWith scarce a slower flight.It was the time when Ouse displayedHis lilies newly blown;Their beauties I intent surveyed,And one I wished my own.With cane extended far I soughtTo steer it close to land;But still the prize, though nearly caught,Escaped my eager hand.Beau marked my unsuccessful painsWith fixed considerate face,And, puzzling, set his puppy brainsTo comprehend the case.But, with a chirrup clear and strong,Dispersing all his dream,I thence withdrew, and followed longThe windings of the stream.My ramble ended, I returned,Beau, trotting far before,The floating wreath again discerned,And plunging left the shore.I saw him, with that lily cropped,Impatient swim, to meetMy quick approach, and soon he droppedThe treasure at my feet.Charmed with the sight, "The world," I cried,"Shall hear of this thy deed;"My dog shall mortify the prideOf man's superior breed.But chief myself I will enjoin—Awake at duty's call,To show a love as prompt as thineTo Him who gives me all."
The noon was shady, and soft airsSwept Ouse's silent tide,When, 'scaped from literary cares,I wandered on his side.
My spaniel, prettiest of his race,And high in pedigree,—Two nymphs[450]adorned with every graceThat spaniel found for me,—
Now wantoned, lost in flags and reeds,Now starting into sight,Pursued the swallow o'er the meadsWith scarce a slower flight.
It was the time when Ouse displayedHis lilies newly blown;Their beauties I intent surveyed,And one I wished my own.
With cane extended far I soughtTo steer it close to land;But still the prize, though nearly caught,Escaped my eager hand.
Beau marked my unsuccessful painsWith fixed considerate face,And, puzzling, set his puppy brainsTo comprehend the case.
But, with a chirrup clear and strong,Dispersing all his dream,I thence withdrew, and followed longThe windings of the stream.
My ramble ended, I returned,Beau, trotting far before,The floating wreath again discerned,And plunging left the shore.
I saw him, with that lily cropped,Impatient swim, to meetMy quick approach, and soon he droppedThe treasure at my feet.
Charmed with the sight, "The world," I cried,"Shall hear of this thy deed;"My dog shall mortify the prideOf man's superior breed.
But chief myself I will enjoin—Awake at duty's call,To show a love as prompt as thineTo Him who gives me all."
July 6, 1788.
My dear Friend,—"Bitter constraint and sad occasion dear" have compelled me to draw on you for the sum of twenty pounds, payable to John Higgins, Esq. or order. The draft bears date July 5th. You will excuse my giving you this trouble, in consideration that I am a poet, and can consequently draw for money much easier than I can earn it.
I heard of you a few days since, from Walter Bagot, who called here and told me that you were gone, I think, into Rutlandshire, to settle the accounts of a large estate unliquidated many years. Intricacies that would turn my brains are play to you. But I give you joy of a long vacation at hand, when I suppose that even you will find it pleasant, if not to be idle, at least not to be hemmed around by business.
Yours ever,W. C.
The Lodge, July 28, 1788.
It is in vain that you tell me that you have no talent at description, while in fact you describe better than any body. You have given me a most complete idea of your mansion and its situation; and I doubt not that, with your letter in my hand by way of map, could I be set down on the spot in a moment, I should find myself qualified to take my walks and my pastime in whatever quarter of your paradise it should please me the most to visit. We also, as you know, have scenes at Weston worthy of description; but, because you know them well, I will only say, that one of them has, within these few days, been much improved; I mean the lime-walk. By the help of the axe and the wood-bill, which have of late been constantly employed in cutting out all straggling branches that intercepted the arch, Mr. Throckmorton has now defined it with such exactness, that no cathedral in the world can show one of more magnificence or beauty. I bless myself that I live so near it; for, were it distant several miles, it would be well worth while to visit it, merely as an object of taste; not to mention the refreshment of such a gloom both to the eyes and spirits. And these are the things which our modern improvers of parks and pleasure-grounds havedisplaced without mercy; because, forsooth, they are rectilinear. It is a wonder that they do not quarrel with the sunbeams for the same reason.
Have you seen the account of five hundred celebrated authors now living![452]I am one of them; but stand charged with the high crime and misdemeanour of totally neglecting method; an accusation, which, if the gentleman would take the pains to read me, he would find sufficiently refuted. I am conscious at least myself of having laboured much in the arrangement of my matter, and of having given to the several parts of every book of "The Task," as well as to each poem in the first volume, that sort of slight connexion which poetry demands; for in poetry (except professedly of the didactic kind) a logical precision would be stiff, pedantic, and ridiculous. But there is no pleasing some critics; the comfort is, that I contented whether they be pleased or not. At the same time, to my honour be it spoken, the chronicler of us five hundred prodigies bestows on me, for aught I know, more commendations than on any other of my confraternity. May he live to write the histories of as many thousand poets, and find me the very best among them! Amen!
I join with you, my dearest coz, in wishing that I owned the fee simple of all the beautiful scenes around you, but such emoluments were never designed for poets. Am I not happier than ever poet was in having thee for my cousin, and in the expectation of thy arrival here whenever Strawberry-hill[453]shall lose thee?
Ever thine,W. C.
The Lodge, August 9, 1788.
The Newtons are still here, and continue with us, I believe, until the 15th of the month. Here is also my friend, Mr. Rose, a valuable young man, who, attracted by the effluvia of my genius, found me out in my retirement last January twelvemonth. I have not permitted him to be idle, but have made him transcribe for me the twelfth book of the Iliad. He brings me the compliments of several of the literati, with whom he is acquainted in town, and tells me, that from Dr. Maclain,[454]whom he saw lately, he learns that my book is in the hands of sixty different persons at the Hague, who are all enchanted with it; not forgetting the said Dr. Maclain himself, who tells him that he reads it every day, and is always the better for it. O rare we!
I have been employed this morning in composing a Latin motto for the king's clock, the embellishments of which are by Mr. Bacon. That gentleman breakfasted with us on Wednesday, having come thirty-seven miles out of his way on purpose to see your cousin. At his request I have done it, and have made two, he will choose that which liketh him best. Mr. Bacon is a most excellent man, and a most agreeable companion: I would that he lived not so remote, or that he had more opportunity of travelling.
There is not, so far as I know, a syllable of the rhyming correspondence between me and my poor brother left, save and except the six lines of it quoted in yours. Ihadthe whole of it, but it perished in the wreck of a thousand other things when I left the Temple.
Breakfast calls. Adieu!
W. C.
Weston, Aug. 18, 1788.
My dear Friend,—I left you with a sensible regret, alleviated only by the consideration, that I shall see you again in October. I was under some concern also, lest, not being able to give you any certain directions myself, nor knowing where you might find a guide, you should wander and fatigue yourself, good walker as you are, before you could reach Northampton. Perhaps you heard me whistle just after our separation; it was to call back Beau, who was running after you with all speed to entreat you to return with me. For my part, I took my own time to return, and did not reach home till after one, and then so weary that I was glad of my great chair; to the comforts of which I added a crust, and a glass of rum and water, not without great occasion. Such a foot-traveller am I.
I am writing on Monday, but whether I shall finish my letter this morning depends on Mrs. Unwin's coming sooner or later down to breakfast. Something tells me that you set off to-day for Birmingham; and though it be a sort of Irishism to say here, I beseech you take care of yourself, for the day threatens great heat, I cannot help it; the weather may be cold enough at the time when that good advice shall reach you, but, be it hot or be it cold, to a man who travels as you travel, take care of yourself can never be an unseasonable caution. I am sometimes distressed on this account, for though you are young, and well made for such exploits, those very circumstances are more likely than anything to betray you into danger.
Consule quid valeantPLANTÆ, quid ferre recusent.
The Newtons left us on Friday. We frequently talked about you after your departure, and every thing that was spoken was to your advantage. I know they will be glad to see you in London, and perhaps, when your summer and autumn rambles are over, you will afford them that pleasure. The Throckmortons are equally well disposed to you, and them also I recommend to you as a valuable connexion, the rather because you can only cultivate it at Weston.
I have not been idle since you went, having not only laboured as usual at the Iliad, but composed aspickandspannew piece, called "The Dog and the Water-Lily," which you shall see when we meet again. I believe I related to you the incident which is the subject of it. I have also read most of Lavater's Aphorisms; they appear to me some of them wise, many of them whimsical, a few of them false, and not a few of them extravagant.Nil illi medium.If he finds in a man the feature or quality that he approves, he deifies him; if the contrary, he is a devil. His verdict is in neither case, I suppose, a just one.[455]
W. C.
August 28, 1788.
My dear Madam,—Should you discard me from the number of your correspondents, you would treat me as I seem to deserve, though I do not actually deserve it. I have lately been engaged with company at our house, who resided with us five weeks, and have had much of the rheumatism into the bargain. Not in my fingers, you will say—True. But you know as well as I, that pain, be it where it may, indisposes us to writing.
You express some degree of wonder that I found you out to be sedentary, at least much a stayer within doors, without any sufficient data for my direction. Now, if I should guess your figure and stature with equal success, you will deem me not only a poet but a conjurer. Yet in fact I have no pretensions of that sort. I have only formed a picture of you in my own imagination, as we ever do of a person of whom we think much, though we have never seen that person. Your height I conceive to be about five feet five inches, which, though it would make a short man, is yet height enough for a woman. If you insist on an inch or two more, I have no objection. You are not very fat, but somewhat inclined to be fat, and unless you allow yourself a little more air and exercise, will incur some danger of exceeding in your dimensions before you die. Let me, therefore, once more recommend to you to walk a little more, at least in your garden, and to amuse yourself occasionally with pulling up here and there a weed, for it will be an inconvenience to you to be much fatter than you are, at a time of life when your strength will be naturally on the decline. I have given you a fair complexion, a slight tinge of the rose in your cheeks, dark brown hair, and, if the fashion would give you leave to show it, an open and well-formed forehead. To all this I add a pair of eyes not quite black, but nearly approaching to that hue, and very animated. I have not absolutely determined on the shape of your nose, or the form of your mouth; but should you tell me that I have in other respects drawn a tolerable likeness, have no doubt but I can describe them too. I assure you that though I have a great desire to read him, I have never seen Lavater, nor have availed myself in the least of any of his rules on this occasion. Ah, madam! if with all that sensibility of yours, which exposes you to so much sorrow, and necessarily must expose you to it, in a world like this, I have had the good fortune to make you smile, I have then painted you, whether with a strong resemblance, or with none at all, to very good purpose.[457]
I had intended to have sent you a little poem, which I have lately finished, but have no room to transcribe it.[458]You shall have it by another opportunity. Breakfast is on the table, and my time also fails, as well as mypaper. I rejoice that a cousin of yours found my volumes agreeable to him, for, being your cousin, I will be answerable for his good taste and judgment.
When I wrote last, I was in mourning for a dear and much-valued uncle, Ashley Cowper. He died at the age of eighty-six. My best respects attend Mr. King; and I am, dear madam,
Most truly yours,W. C.
Weston Lodge, Sept. 2, 1788.
My dear Friend,—I rejoice that you and yours reached London safe, especially when I reflect that you performed the journey on a day so fatal, as I understand, to others travelling the same road. I found those comforts in your visit which have formerly sweetened all our interviews, in part restored. I knew you; knew you for the same shepherd who was sent to lead me out of the wilderness into the pasture where the chief Shepherd feeds his flock, and felt my sentiments of affectionate friendship for you the same as ever.[460]But one thing was still wanting, and that thing the crown of all. I shall find it in God's time, if it be not lost for ever. When I say this, I say it trembling; for at what time soever comfort shall come, it will not come without its attendant evil; and, whatever good thing may occur in the interval, I have sad forebodings of the event, having learned by experience that I was born to be persecuted with peculiar fury, and assuredly believing, that, such as my lot has been, it will be so to the end. This belief is connected in my mind with an observation I have often made, and is perhaps founded in great part upon it: that there is a certainstyleof dispensations maintained by Providence in the dealings of God with every man, which, however the incidents of his life may vary, and though he may be thrown into many different situations, is never exchanged for another. The style of dispensation peculiar to myself has hitherto been that of sudden, violent, unlooked-for change. When I have thought myself falling into the abyss, I have been caught up again; when I have thought myself on the threshold of a happy eternity, I have been thrust down to hell. The rough and the smooth of such a lot, taken together, should perhaps have taught me never to despair; but, through an unhappy propensity in my nature to forebode the worst, they have on the contrary operated as an admonition to me never to hope. A firm persuasion that I can never durably enjoy a comfortable state of mind, but must be depressed in proportion as I have been elevated, withers my joys in the bud, and, in a manner, entombs them before they are born: for I have no expectation but of sad vicissitude, and ever believe that the last shock of all will be fatal.
Mr. Bean has still some trouble with his parishioners. The suppression of five public-houses is the occasion.[461]He called on me yesterday morning for advice; though, discreet as he is himself, he has little need of such counsel as I can give him. ——, who is subtle as a dozen foxes, met him on Sunday, exactly at his descent from the pulpit, and proposed to him a general meeting of the parish in vestry on the subject. Mr. Bean, attacked so suddenly, consented, but afterward repented that he had done so, assured as he was that he should be out-voted. There seemed no remedy but to apprise them beforehand that he would meet them indeed, but not with a view to have the question decided by a majority: that he would take that opportunity to make his allegations against each of the houses in question, which if they could refute, well: if not, they could no longer reasonably oppose his measures. This was what he came to submit to my opinion. I could do no less than approve it; and he left me with a purpose to declare his mind to them immediately.
I beg that you will give my affectionate respects to Mr. Bacon, and assure him of my sincere desire that he should think himself perfectly at liberty respecting the mottoes, to choose one or to reject both, as likes him best. I wish also to be remembered with much affection to Mrs. Cowper, and always rejoice to hear of her well-being.
Believe me, as I truly am, my dear friend, most affectionately yours,
W. C.
Weston, Sept. 11, 1788.
My dear Friend,—Since your departure I have twice visited the oak, and with an intention to push my inquiries a mile beyond it, where it seems I should have found another oak, much larger and much more respectable than the former; but once I was hindered by the rain, and once by the sultriness of the day.This latter oak has been known by the name of Judith many ages, and is said to have been an oak at the time of the Conquest.[462]If I have not an opportunity to reach it before your arrival here, we will attempt that exploit together, and, even if I should have been able to visit it ere you come, I shall yet be glad to do so, for the pleasure of extraordinary sights, like all other pleasures, is doubled by the participation of a friend.
You wish for a copy of my little dog's eulogium, which I will therefore transcribe, but by so doing I shall leave myself but scanty room for prose.
I shall be sorry if our neighbours at the Hall should have left it, when we have the pleasure of seeing you. I want you to see them soon again, that a littleconsuetudomay wear off restraint; and you may be able to improve the advantage you have already gained in that quarter. I pitied you for the fears which deprived you of your uncle's company, and the more having suffered so much by those fears myself. Fight against that vicious fear, for such it is, as strenuously as you can. It is the worst enemy that can attack a man destined to the forum—it ruined me. To associate as much as possible with the most respectable company, for good sense and good breeding, is, I believe, the only, at least I am sure it is the best remedy. The society of men of pleasure will not cure it, but rather leaves us more exposed to its influence in company of better persons.
Now for the "Dog and the Water Lily."[463]
W. C.
Weston Lodge, Sept. 25, 1788.
My dearest Madam,—How surprised was I this moment to meet a servant at the gate, who told me that he came from you! He could not have been more welcome unless he had announced yourself. I am charmed with your kindness and with all your elegant presents; so is Mrs. Unwin, who begs me in particular to thank you warmly for the housewife, the very thing she had just begun to want. In the firescreen you have sent me an enigma which at present I have not the ingenuity to expound; but some muse will help me, or I shall meet with somebody able to instruct me. In all that I have seen besides, for that I have not yet seen, I admire both the taste and the execution. A toothpick case I had; but one so large, that no modern waistcoat pocket could possibly contain it. It was some years since the Dean of Durham's, for whose sake I valued it, though to me useless. Yours is come opportunely to supply the deficiency, and shall be my constant companion to its last thread. The cakes and apples we will eat, remembering who sent them, and when I say this, I will add also, that when we have neither apples nor cakes to eat, we will still remember you.—What the MS. poem can be, that you suppose to have been written by me, I am not able to guess; and since you will not allow that I have guessed your person well, am become shy of exercising conjecture on any meaner subject. Perhaps they may be some mortuary verses, which I wrote last year, at the request of a certain parish-clerk. If not, and you have never seen them, I will send you them hereafter.
You have been at Bedford. Bedford is but twelve miles from Weston. When you are at home we are but eighteen miles asunder. Is it possible that such a paltry interval can separate us always? I will never believe it. Our house is going to be filled by a cousin of mine and her train, who will, I hope, spend the winter with us. I cannot, therefore, repeat my invitation at present, but expect me to be very troublesome on that theme next summer. I could almost scold you for not making Weston in your way home from Bedford. Though I am neither a relation, nor quite eighty-six years of age,[465]believe me, I should as much rejoice to see you and Mr. King, as if I were both.
I send you, my dear madam, the poem I promised you, and shall be glad to send you any thing and every thing I write, as fast as it flows. Behold my two volumes! which, though your old acquaintance, I thought, might receive an additional recommendation in the shape of a present from myself.
What I have written I know not, for all has been scribbled in haste. I will not tempt your servant's honesty, who seems by his countenance to have a great deal, being equally watchful to preserve uncorrupted the honesty of my own.
I am, my dearest madam, with a thousand thanks for this stroke of friendship, which I feel at my heart, and with Mrs. Unwin's very best respects, most sincerely yours,
W. C.
P.S. My two hares died little more than two years since, one of them aged ten years, the other eleven years and eleven months.[466]
Our compliments attend Mr. King.
Weston, Sept. 25, 1788.
My dear Friend,—