Book.Line.I.184I cannot reconcile myself to these195expressions, "Ah cloth'd withimpudence," &c., and "Shameless196wolf," and "Face of flint."I.508"Dishonoured foul," is, in my opinion,an uncleanly expression.I.651"Reel'd," I think makes it appearas if Olympus was drunk.I.749"Kindler of the fires of Heaven,"I think makes Jupiter appeartoo much like a lamp-lighter.II.317These lines are, in my opinion, belowto 319the elevated genius of Mr.Cowper.XVIII.300This appears to me to be ratherIrish, since in line 300 you say,"No one sat," and in line 304,"Polydamas rose."
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 withshameless 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 foulI have wiped away, for the reason you give, which is a very just one, and the present reading is this,
Who had dared dishonour thusThe life itself, &c.
Who had dared dishonour thusThe life itself, &c.
Your objection tokindler of the fires of heavenI 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 suspectedhimas 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!Priam, and Priam's sons, with all in Troy—Oh! how will they exult, and in their heartsTriumph, once hearing of this broil betweenThe prime of Greece, in council and in arms!
Alas! great sorrow falls on Greece to-day!Priam, and Priam's sons, with all in Troy—Oh! how will they exult, and in their heartsTriumph, once hearing of this broil betweenThe prime of Greece, in council and in arms!
Where the wordreelsuggests to you the idea of a drunken mountain, it performs the service to which I destined it. It is a bold metaphor; but justified by one of the sublimest passages in scripture, compared with the sublimity of which even that of Homer suffers humiliation.
It is God himself who, speaking, I think, by the prophet Isaiah, says,
"The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard."[693]
With equal boldness in the same scripture, the poetry of which was never equalled, mountains are said to skip, to break out into singing, and the fields to clap their hands. I intend, therefore, that my Olympus shall be still tipsy.
The accuracy of your last remark, in which you convicted me of a bull, delights me. A fig for all critics but you! The blockheads could not find it. It shall stand thus:—
First spake Polydamus——
Homer was more upon his guard than to commit such a blunder, for he says,
ηρχ' αγορευειν.
And now, my dear little censor, once more accept my thanks. I only regret that your strictures are so few, being just and sensible as they are.
Tell your papa that he shall hear from me soon. Accept mine and my dear invalid's affectionate remembrances.
Ever yours,W. C.
Weston, March 19, 1793.
My dear Hayley,—I am so busy every morning before breakfast (my only opportunity), strutting and stalking in Homeric stilts, that you ought to account it an instance of marvellous grace and favour, that I condescend to write even to you. Sometimes I am seriously almost crazed with the multiplicity of the matters before me, and the little or no time that I have for them; and sometimes I repose myself, after the fatigue of that distraction, on the pillow of despair: a pillow which has often served me in the time of need, and is become, by frequent use, if not very comfortable, at least convenient. So reposed, I laugh at the world, and say, "Yes, you may gape and expect both Homer and Milton from me, but I'll be hanged if ever you get them."
In Homer you must know I am advanced as far as the fifteenth book of the Iliad, leaving nothing behind me that can reasonably offend the most fastidious: and I design him for public appearance in his new dress as soon as possible, for a reason which any poet may guess, if he will but thrust his hand into his pocket.
You forbid me to tantalize you with an invitation to Weston, and yet you invite me to Eartham! No! no! there is no such happiness in store for me at present. Had I rambled at all, I was under promise to all my dear mother's kindred to go to Norfolk, and they are dying to see me; but I have told them that die they must, for I cannot go; and ergo, as you will perceive, can go nowhere else.
Thanks for Mazarin's epitaph![694]It is full of witty paradox, and is written with a force and severity which sufficiently bespeak the author. I account it an inestimable curiosity, and shall be happy when time shall serve, with your aid, to make a good translation of it. But that will be a stubborn business. Adieu! The clock striks eight: and now for Homer.
W. C.
The two following letters bear an honourable testimony to his bookseller, Johnson, whom he had commissioned his friend, Mr. Rose, to consult respecting a second and revised edition of his Homeric version.
Weston, March 27, 1793.
My dear Friend,—I must send you a line of congratulation on the event of your transaction with Johnson, since you, I know, partake with me in the pleasure I receive from it. Few of my concerns have been so happily concluded. I am now satisfied with my bookseller, as I have substantial cause to be, and account myself in good hands; a circumstance as pleasant to me as any other part of my business; for I love dearly to be able to confide, with all my heart, in those with whom I am connected, of what kind soever the connexion may be.
The question of printing or not printing the alterations seems difficult to decide. If they are not printed, I shall perhaps disoblige some purchasers of the first edition, and if they are, many others of them, perhaps a great majority will never care about them. As far as I have gone, I have made a fair copy; and when I have finished the whole, will send them to Johnson, together with the interleaved volumes. He will see in a few minutes what it will be best to do, and by his judgment I shall be determined. The opinion to which I most incline is, that they ought to be printed separately, for they are many of them rather long, here and there a whole speech, or a whole simile, and the verbal and lineal variations are so numerous, that altogether, I apprehend, they will give a new air to the work, and I hope a much improved one.
I forgot to say in the proper place, that some notes, although but very few, I have added already;and may perhaps see here and there opportunity for a few more. But, notes being little wanted, especially by people at all conversant with classical literature, as most readers of Homer are, I am persuaded that were they numerous, they would be deemed an incumbrance. I shall write to Johnson soon, perhaps to-morrow, and then shall say the same thing to him.
In point of health, we continue much the same. Our united love, and many thanks for your prosperous negotiations, attend yourself and whole family, and especially my little namesake. Adieu!
W. C.
Weston, March 29, 1793.
My dear Friend,—Your tidings concerning the slender pittance yet to come are, as you observe, of the melancholy cast. Not being gifted by nature with the means of acquiring much, it is well, however, that she has given me a disposition to be contented with little. I have now been so many years habituated to small matters, that I should probably find myself incommoded by greater; and may I but be enabled to shift, as I have been hitherto, unsatisfied wishes will never trouble me much. My pen has helped me somewhat; and, after some years' toil, I begin to reap the benefit. Had I begun sooner, perhaps I should have known fewer pecuniary distresses; or, who can say?—it is possible that I might not have succeeded so well. Fruit ripens only a short time before it rots; and man, in general, arrives not at maturity of mental powers at a much earlier period. I am now busied in preparing Homer for his second appearance. An author should consider himself as bound not to please himself, but the public; and as far as the good pleasure of the public may be learned from the critics, I design to accommodate myself to it. The Latinisms, though employed by Milton, and numbered by Addison among the arts and expedients by which he has given dignity to his style, I shall render into plain English; the rougher lines, though my reason for using them has never been proved a bad one, so far as I know, I shall make perfectly smooth; and shall give body and substance to all that is in any degree feeble and flimsy. And when I have done all this, and more, if the critics still grumble, I shall say the very deuce is in them. Yet, that they will grumble, I make no doubt; for, unreasonable as it is to do so, they all require something better than Homer, and that something they will certainly never get from me.
As to the canal that is to be my neighbour, I hear little about it. The Courtenays of Weston have nothing to do with it, and I have no intercourse with Tyringham. When it is finished, the people of these parts will have to carry their coals seven miles only, which now they bring from Northampton or Bedford, both at the distance of fifteen. But, as Balaam says, who shall live when these things are done? It is not for me, a sexagenarian already, to expect that I shall. The chief objection to canals in general seems to be, that, multiplying as they do, they are likely to swallow the coasting trade.
I cannot tell you the joy I feel at the disappointment of the French: pitiful mimics of Spartan and Roman virtue, without a grain of it in their whole character.
Ever yours,W. C.
Weston, April 11, 1793.
My dearest Johnny,—The long muster-roll of my great and small ancestors I signed and dated, and sent up to Mr. Blue-mantle, on Monday, according to your desire. Such a pompous affair, drawn out for my sake, reminds me of the old fable of the mountain in parturition, and a mouse the produce. Rest undisturbed, say I, their lordly, ducal, and royal dust! Had they left me something handsome, I should have respected them more. But perhaps they did not know that such a one as I should have the honour to be numbered among their descendants.[696]Well! I have a little bookseller that makes me some amends for their deficiency. He has made me a present; an act of liberality which I take every opportunity to blazon, as it well deserves. But you, I suppose, have learned it already from Mr. Rose.
Fear not, my man. You will acquit yourself very well, I dare say, both in standing for your degree, and when you have gained it. A little tremor and a little shame-facedness in a stripling like you, are recommendations rather than otherwise; and so they ought to be, being symptoms of an ingenuous mind, rather unfrequent in this age of brass.
What you say of your determined purpose, with God's help, to take up the cross and despise the shame, gives us both real pleasure. Inour pedigree is found one, at least, who did it before you.[697]Do you the like; and you will meet him in heaven, as sure as the scripture is the word of God.[698]
The quarrel that the world has with evangelic men and doctrines, they would have with a host of angels in the human form. For it is the quarrel of owls with sunshine; of ignorance with divine illumination.
Adieu, my dear Johnny! We shall expect you with earnest desire of your coming, and receive you with much delight.
W. C.
Western, April 23, 1793.
My dear Friend and Brother,—Better late than never, and better a little than none at all! Had I been at liberty to consult my inclinations, I would have answered your truly kind and affectionate letter immediately. But I am the busiest man alive, and, when this epistle is despatched, you will be the only one of my correspondents to whom I shall not be indebted. While I write this, my poor Mary sits mute; which I cannot well bear, and which, together with want of time to write much, will have a curtailing effect on my epistle.
My only studying time is still given to Homer, not to correction and amendment of him (for that is all over) but to writing notes. Johnson has expressed a wish for some, that the unlearned may be a little illuminated concerning classical story and the mythology of the ancients; and his behaviour to me has been so liberal, that I can refuse him nothing. Poking into the old Greek commentators blinds me. But it is no matter. I am the more like Homer.
Ever yours, my dearest Hayley,W. C.
April 25, 1793.
My dear Friend,—Had it not been stipulated between us that, being both at present pretty much engrossed by business, we should write when opportunity offers, I should be frighted at the date of your last: but you will not judge me, I know, by the unfrequency of my letters; nor suppose that my thoughts about you are equally unfrequent. In truth, they are not. No day passes in which you are excluded from them. I am so busy that I do not expect even now to fill my paper. While I write, my poor invalid, who is still unable to amuse herself either with book or needle, sits silent at my side; which makes me, in all my letters, hasten to a conclusion. My only time for study is now before breakfast; and I lengthen it as much as I can, by rising early.
I know not that, with respect to our health, we are either better or worse than when you saw us. Mrs. Unwin, perhaps, has gained a little strength; and the advancing spring, I hope, will add to it. As to myself, I am, in body, soul, and spirit,semper idem. Prayer, I know, is made for me, and sometimes with great enlargement of heart, by those who offer it: and in this circumstance consists the only evidence I can find, that God is still favourably mindful of me, and has not cast me off for ever.
A long time since, I received a parcel from Dr. Cogshall, of New York; and, looking on the reverse of the packing-paper, saw there an address to you. I conclude, therefore, that you received it first, and at his desire transmitted it to me; consequently you are acquainted with him, and, probably, apprised of the nature of our correspondence. About three years ago I had his first letter to me, which came accompanied by half a dozen American publications. He proposed an exchange of books on religious subjects, as likely to be useful on both sides of the water. Most of those he sent, however, I had seen before. I sent him, in return, such as I could get; but felt myself indifferently qualified for such a negotiation. I am now called upon to contribute my quota again; and shall be obliged to you if, in your next, you will mention the titles of half a dozen that may be procured at little cost, that are likely to be new in that country, and useful.
About two months since, I had a letter from Mr. Jeremiah Waring, of Alton in Hampshire. Do you know such a man? I think I have seen his name in advertisements of mathematical works. He is, however, or seems to be, a very pious man.
I was a little surprised lately, seeing in the last Gentleman's Magazine a letter from somebody at Winchester, in which is a copy of the epitaph of our poor friend Unwin: an English, not a Latin one. It has been pleasant to me sometimes to think, that his dust lay under an inscription of my writing; which I had no reason to doubt, because the Latin one, which I composed at the request of the executors, was, as I understood from Mr. H. Thornton, accepted by them and approved. If they thought, after all, that an English one, as more intelligible, would therefore be preferable, I believe they judged wisely; but, having never heard that they had changed their mind about it, I was at a loss to account for the alteration.
So now, my dear friend, adieu!—When I have thanked you for a barrel of oysters, and added our united kind remembrances to yourselfand Miss Catlett, I shall have exhausted the last moment that I can spare at present.
I remain sincerely yours,W. C.
Weston, May 4, 1793.
My dear Friend,—While your sorrow for our common loss was fresh in your mind, I would not write, lest a letter on so distressing a subject should be too painful both to you and me; and now that I seem to have reached a proper time for doing it, the multiplicity of my literary business will hardly afford me leisure. Both you and I have this comfort when deprived of those we love—at our time of life we have every reason to believe that the deprivation cannot be long. Our sun is setting too, and when the hour of rest arrives we shall rejoin your brother, and many whom we have tenderly loved, our forerunners into a better country.
I will say no more on a theme which it will be better perhaps to treat with brevity; and because the introduction of any other might seem a transition too violent, I will only add that Mrs. Unwin and I are about as well as we at any time have been within the last year.
Truly yours,W. C.
May 5, 1793.
My dear Friend,—My delay to answer your last kind letter, to which likewise you desired a speedy reply, must have seemed rather difficult to explain on any other supposition than that of illness; but illness has not been the cause, although, to say the truth, I cannot boast of having been lately very well. Yet has not this been the cause of my silence, but your own advice, very proper and earnestly given to me, to proceed in the revisal of Homer. To this it is owing, that, instead of giving an hour or two before breakfast to my correspondents, I allot that time entirely to my studies. I have nearly given the last touches to the poetry, and am now busied far more laboriously in writing notes at the request of my honest bookseller, transmitted to me in the first instance by you, and afterward repeated by himself. I am, therefore, deep in the old Scholia, and have advanced to the latter part of Iliad nine, explaining, as I go, such passages as may be difficult to unlearned readers, and such only; for notes of that kind are the notes that Johnson desired. I find it a more laborious task than the translation was, and shall be heartily glad when it is over. In the meantime, all the letters I receive remain unanswered, or, if they receive an answer, it is always a short one. Such this must be. Johnny is here, having flown over London.
Homer, I believe, will make a much more respectable appearance than before. Johnson now thinks it will be right to make a separate impression of the amendments.
W. C.
I breakfast every morning on seven or eight pages of the Greek commentators. For so much I am obliged to read in order to select perhaps three or four short notes for the readers of my translation.
Homer is indeed a tie upon me, that must not on any account be broken, till all his demands are satisfied; though I have fancied, while the revisal of the Odyssey was at a distance, that it would ask less labour in the finishing, it is not unlikely, that, when I take it actually in hand, I may find myself mistaken. Of this at least I am sure, that uneven verse abounds much more in it than it once did in the Iliad; yet to the latter the critics objected on that account, though to the former never; perhaps because they had not read it. Hereafter they shall not quarrel with me on that score. The Iliad is now all smooth turnpike, and I will take equal care, that there shall be no jolts in the Odyssey.
The Lodge, May 7, 1793.
My dearest Coz,—You have thought me long silent, and so have many others. In fact I have not for many months written punctually to any but yourself and Hayley. My time, the little I have, is so engrossed by Homer, that I have at this moment a bundle of unanswered letters by me, and letters likely to be so. Thou knowest, I dare say, what it is to have a head weary with thinking. Mine is so fatigued by breakfast time, three days out of four, I am utterly incapable of sitting down to my desk again for any purpose whatever.
I am glad I have convinced thee at last that thou art a Tory. Your friend's definition of Whig and Tory must be just, for aught I know, as far as the latter are concerned; but respecting the former, I think him mistaken. There is no TRUE Whig who wishes all power in the hands of his own party. The division of it which the lawyers call tripartite is exactly what he desires; and he would have neither king, lords, nor commons unequally trusted, or in the smallest degree predominant. Such a Whig am I, and such Whigs are the true friends of the constitution.
Adieu! my dear; I am dead with weariness.
W. C.
May 17, 1793.
Dear Sir,—It has not been without frequent self-reproach that I have so long omitted to answer your last very kind and most obliging letter. I am by habit and inclination extremely punctual in the discharge of such arrears, and it is only through necessity, and under constraint of various indispensable engagements of a different kind, that I am become of late much otherwise.
I have never seen Chapman's translation of Homer, and will not refuse your offer of it, unless, by accepting it, I shall deprive you of a curiosity that you cannot easily replace.[700]The line or two which you quote from him, except that the expression "a well-written soul" has the quaintness of his times in it, do him credit. He cannot surely be the same Chapman who wrote a poem, I think, on the battle of Hochstadt, in which, when I was a very young man, I remember to have seen the following lines:
"Think of two thousand gentlemen at least,And each man mounted on his capering beast.Into the Danube they were push'd by shoals," &c.
"Think of two thousand gentlemen at least,And each man mounted on his capering beast.Into the Danube they were push'd by shoals," &c.
These are lines that could not fail to impress the memory, though not altogether in the Homerican style of battle.
I am, as you say, a hermit, and probably an irreclaimable one, having a horror of London that I cannot express, nor indeed very easily account for. Neither am I much less disinclined to migration in general. I did no little violence to my love of home last summer, when I paid Mr. Hayley a visit, and in truth was principally induced to the journey by a hope that it might be useful to Mrs. Unwin; who, however, derived so little benefit from it, that I purpose for the future to avail myself of the privilege my years may reasonably claim, by compelling my younger friends to visitme. But even this is a point which I cannot well compass at present, both because I am too busy, and because poor Mrs. Unwin is not able to bear the fatigue of company. Should better days arrive, days of more leisure to me, and of some health to her, I shall not fail to give you notice of the change, and shall then hope for the pleasure of seeing you at Weston.
The epitaph you saw is on the tomb of the same Mr. Unwin to whom the "Tirocinium" is inscribed; the son of the lady above mentioned. By the desire of his executors I wrote a Latin one, which they approved, but it was not approved by a relation of the deceased, and therefore was not used. He objected to the mention I had made in it of his mother having devoted him to the service of God in his infancy. She did it, however, and not in vain, as I wrote in my epitaph. Who wrote the English one I know not.
The poem called the "Slave" is not mine, nor have I ever seen it. I wrote two on the subject—one entitled "The Negro's Complaint," and the other "The Morning Dream." With thanks for all your kindness, and the patience you have with me,
I remain, dear sir,Sincerely yours,W. C.
Weston, May 21, 1793.
My dear Brother,—You must either think me extremely idle, or extremely busy, that I have made your last very kind letter wait so very long for an answer. The truth however is, that I am neither; but have had time enough to have scribbled to you, had I been able to scribble at all. To explain this riddle I must give you a short account of my proceedings.
I rise at six every morning and fag till near eleven, when I breakfast. The consequence is, that I am so exhausted as not to be able to write, when the opportunity offers. You will say—"Breakfast before you work, and then your work will not fatigue you." I answer—"Perhaps I might, and your counsel would probably prove beneficial; but I cannot spare a moment for eating in the early part of the morning, having no other time for study." This uneasiness of which I complain is a proof that I am somewhat stricken in years; and there is no other cause by which I can account for it, since I go early to bed, always between ten and eleven, and seldom fail to sleep well. Certain it is, ten years ago I could have done as much, and sixteen years ago did actually much more, without suffering fatigue or any inconvenience from my labours. How insensibly old age steals on, and how often is it actually arrived before we suspect it! Accident alone, some occurrence that suggests a comparison of our former with our present selves, affords the discovery. Well! it is always good to be undeceived, especially on an article of such importance.
There has been a book lately published, entitled, "Man as he is." I have heard a high character of it, as admirably written, and aminformed, that for that reason, and because it inculcates Whig principles, it is by many imputed to you. I contradict this report, assuring my informant, that had it been yours, I must have known it, for that you have bound yourself to make me your father-confessor on all such wicked occasions, and not to conceal from me even a murder, should you happen to commit one.[701]
I will not trouble you, at present, to send me any more books with a view to my notes on Homer. I am not without hopes that Sir John Throckmorton, who is expected here from Venice in a short time, may bring me Villoison's edition of the Odyssey. He certainly will, if he found it published, and that alone will beinstar omnium.
Adieu, my dearest brother! Give my love to Tom, and thank him for his book, of which I believe I need not have deprived him, intending that my readers shall detect the occult instruction contained in Homer's stories for themselves.
W. C.
Weston, June 1, 1793.
My dearest Cousin,—You will not (you say) come to us now; and you tell us not when you will. These assignations,sine die, are such shadowy things that I can neither grasp nor get any comfort from them. Know you not that hope is the next best thing to enjoyment? Give us then a hope, and a determinate time for that hope to fix on, and we will endeavour to be satisfied.
Johnny is gone to Cambridge, called thither to take his degree, and is much missed by me. He is such an active little fellow in my service, that he cannot be otherwise. In three weeks, however, I shall hope to have him again for a fortnight. I have had a letter from him, containing an incident which has given birth to the following.
ON HIS ARRIVAL AT CAMBRIDGE WET, WHEN NO RAIN HAD FALLEN THERE.
If Gideon's fleece, which drench'd with dew he found,While moisture none refreshed the herbs around,Might fitly represent the Church, endow'dWith heavenly gifts, to heathens not allow'd;In pledge, perhaps, of favours from on high,Thy locks were wet, when other locks were dry.Heav'n grant us half the omen! may we see,Not drought on others, but much dew on thee!
If Gideon's fleece, which drench'd with dew he found,While moisture none refreshed the herbs around,Might fitly represent the Church, endow'dWith heavenly gifts, to heathens not allow'd;In pledge, perhaps, of favours from on high,Thy locks were wet, when other locks were dry.Heav'n grant us half the omen! may we see,Not drought on others, but much dew on thee!
These are spick and span. Johnny himself has not yet seen them. By the way, he has filled your book completely; and I will give thee a guinea if thou wilt search thy old book for a couple of songs and two or three other pieces, of which I know thou madest copies at the vicarage, and which I have lost. The songs I know are pretty good, and I would fain recover them.
W. C.
Weston, June 6, 1793.
My dear Sir,—I seize a passing moment merely to say that I feel for your distresses, and sincerely pity you, and I shall be happy to learn from your next, that your sister's amendment has superseded the necessity you feared of a journey to London. Your candid account of the effect that your afflictions have both on your spirits and temper I can perfectly understand, having laboured much in that fire myself, and perhaps more than any man. It is in such a school, however, that we must learn, if we ever truly learn it, the natural depravity of the human heart, and of our own in particular; together with the consequence that necessarily follows such wretched premises; our indispensable need of the atonement, and our inexpressible obligations to Him who made it. This reflection cannot escape a thinking mind, looking back on those ebullitions of fretfulness and impatience to which it has yielded in a season of great affliction.
Having lately had company, who left us only on the 4th, I have done nothing—nothing indeed, since my return from Sussex, except a trifle or two, which it was incumbent upon me to write. Milton hangs in doubt: neither spirits nor opportunity suffice me for that labour. I regret continually that I ever suffered myself to be persuaded to undertake it. The most that I hope to effect is a complete revisal of my own Homer. Johnson told my friend, who has just left me, that it will begin to be reviewed in the nextAnalytical, and hehopedthe review of it would not offend me. By this I understand, that if I am not offended it will be owing more to my own equanimity than to the mildness of the critic. So be it! He will put an opportunity of victory over myself into my hands, and I will endeavour not to lose it.
Adieu!W. C.
June 12, 1793.
My dear Friend,—You promise to be contented with a short line, and a short one you must have, hurried over in the little interval I have happened to find between the conclusionof my morning task and breakfast. Study has this good effect, at least; it makes me an early riser, who might otherwise, perhaps, be as much given to dozing as my readers.
The scanty opportunity I have, I shall employ in telling you what you principally wish to be told—the present state of mine and Mrs. Unwin's health. In her I cannot perceive any alteration for the better; and must be satisfied, I believe, as indeed I have great reason to be, if she does not alter for the worse. She uses the orchard-walk daily, but always supported between two, and is still unable to employ herself as formerly. But she is cheerful, seldom in much pain, and has always strong confidence in the mercy and faithfulness of God.
As to myself, I have always the same song to sing—Well in body but sick in spirit: sick, nigh unto death.
Seasons return, but not to me returnsGod, or the sweet approach of heavenly day,Or sight of cheering truth, or pardon seal'd,Or joy, or hope, or Jesus' face divine;But cloud, &c.
Seasons return, but not to me returnsGod, or the sweet approach of heavenly day,Or sight of cheering truth, or pardon seal'd,Or joy, or hope, or Jesus' face divine;But cloud, &c.
I could easily set my complaint to Milton's tone, and accompany him through the whole passage,[704]on the subject of a blindness more deplorable than his; but time fails me.
I feel great desire to see your intended publication; a desire which the manner in which Mr. Bull speaks of it, who called here lately, has no tendency to allay. I believe I forgot to thank you for your last poetical present: not because I was not much pleased with it, but I write always in a hurry, and in a hurry must now conclude myself, with our united love,
Yours, my dear friend,Most sincerely,W. C.
Weston, June 29, 1793.
Dear architect of fineCHATEAUXin airWorthier to stand for ever if they could,Than any built of stone, or yet of wood,For back of royal elephant to bear!Oh for permission from the skies to share,Much to my own, though little to thy good,With thee (not subject to the jealous mood!)A partnership of literary ware.But I am bankrupt now; and doom'd henceforthTo drudge, in descant dry,[705]on others' lays;Bards, I acknowledge, of unequall'd worth!But what is commentator's happiest praise?That he has furnish'd lights for other eyes,Which they who need them use, and then despise.
Dear architect of fineCHATEAUXin airWorthier to stand for ever if they could,Than any built of stone, or yet of wood,For back of royal elephant to bear!
Oh for permission from the skies to share,Much to my own, though little to thy good,With thee (not subject to the jealous mood!)A partnership of literary ware.
But I am bankrupt now; and doom'd henceforthTo drudge, in descant dry,[705]on others' lays;Bards, I acknowledge, of unequall'd worth!But what is commentator's happiest praise?
That he has furnish'd lights for other eyes,Which they who need them use, and then despise.
What remains for me to say on this subject, my dear brother bard, I will say in prose. There are other impediments which I could not compromise within the bounds of a sonnet.
My poor Mary's infirm condition makes it impossible for me, at present, to engage in a work such as you propose. My thoughts are not sufficiently free, nor have I, or can I, by any means, find opportunity; added to it comes a difficulty which, though you are not at all aware of it, presents itself to me under a most forbidding appearance. Can you guess it? No, not you; neither perhaps will you be able to imagine that such a difficulty can possibly subsist. If your hair begins to bristle, stroke it down again, for there is no need why it should erect itself. It concerns me, not you. I know myself too well not to know that I am nobody in verse, unless in a corner, and alone, and unconnected in my operations. This is not owing to want of love for you, my brother, or the most consummate confidence in you; for I have both in a degree that has not been exceeded in the experience of any friend you have, or ever had. But I am so made up—I will not enter into a metaphysical analysis of my strange composition, in order to detect the true cause of this evil; but on a general view of the matter, I suspect that it proceeds from that shyness which has been my effectual and almost fatal hindrance on many other important occasions, and which I should feel, I well know, on this, to a degree that would perfectly cripple me. No! I shall neither do, nor attempt any thing of consequence more, unless my poor Mary get better; nor even then, unless it should please God to give me another nature, in concert with any man—I could not, even with my own father or brother, were they now alive. Small game must serve me at present, and, till I have done with Homer and Milton, a sonnet, or some such matter, must content me. The utmost that I aspire to, and Heaven knows with how feeble a hope, is to write at some better opportunity, and when my hands are free, "The Four Ages." Thus I have opened my heart unto thee.[706]
W. C.
Weston, July 7, 1793.
My dearest Hayley,—If the excessive heat of this day, which forbids me to do any thing else, will permit me to scribble to you, I shall rejoice. To do this is a pleasure to me at all times, but to do it now, a double one; because I am in haste to tell you how much I am delighted with your projected quadruple alliance,and to assure you, that if it please God to afford me health, spirits, ability, and leisure, I will not fail to devote them all to the production of my quota of "The Four Ages."[707]
You are very kind to humour me as you do, and had need be a little touched yourself with all my oddities, that you may know how to administer to mine. All whom I love do so, and I believe it to be impossible to love heartily those who do not. People must not do me good intheirway, but in myown, and then they do me good indeed. My pride, my ambition, and my friendship for you, and the interest I take in my own dear self, will all be consulted and gratified by an arm-in-arm appearance with you in public; and I shall work with more zeal and assiduity at Homer, and, when Homer is finished, at Milton, with the prospect of such a coalition before me. But what shall I do with a multitude of small pieces, from which I intended to select the best, and adding them to "The Four Ages," to have made a volume? Will there be room for them upon your plan? I have re-touched them, and will re-touch them again. Some of them will suggest pretty devices to a designer; and in short, I have a desire not to lose them.
I am at this moment, with all the imprudence natural to poets, expending nobody knows what, in embellishing my premises, or rather the premises of my neighbour Courtenay, which is more poetical still. I have built one summer-house already, with the boards of my old study, and am building another, spick and span, as they say. I have also a stone-cutter now at work, setting a bust of my dear old Grecian on a pedestal; and besides all this, I meditate still more that is to be done in the autumn. Your project, therefore, is most opportune, as any project must needs be that has so direct a tendency to put money into the pocket of one so likely to want it.
Ah brother poet! send me of your shade,And bid the zephyrs hasten to my aid!Or, like a worm unearth'd at noon, I go,Despatch'd by sunshine, to the shades below.
Ah brother poet! send me of your shade,And bid the zephyrs hasten to my aid!Or, like a worm unearth'd at noon, I go,Despatch'd by sunshine, to the shades below.
My poor Mary is as well as the heat will allow her to be; and whether it be cold or sultry, is always affectionately mindful of you and yours.
W. C.
It is due to the memory of my revered friend and brother-in-law, the Rev. Dr. Johnson, to state that Cowper was indebted to his ever-watchful and affectionate kindness for what he here calls his "dear old Grecian." With that amiable solicitude which formed so prominent a feature in his character, and which was always seeking how to please and to confer a favour, he had contrived to procure an antique bust of Homer, to gratify Cowper's partiality for his favourite bard. No present could possibly have been more acceptable or appropriate. We cannot avoid remarking, on this occasion, that, to anticipate a want and to supply it, to know how to minister to the gratification of another, and to enhance the gift by the grace of bestowing it, is one of the great arts of social and domestic life. It is not the amount, nor the intrinsic value of the favour, for the power of giving must in that case be restricted to the few. To give royally requires not only an enlarged heart, but ample and enlarged means. It is the appropriateness of the time and the occasion, the grace of the manner, and the unobtrusiveness of its character, that constitutes the value of the gift and endears the giver.
Cowper recorded his gratitude by the following poetical tribute, which has always been justly admired:—