Note 61 — Chapter I
Reading edition
Nouv. Hél., V. iii. "You remember Rousseau's description of an English morning: such are the mornings I spend with these good people."—Cowper to Joseph Hill, Oct. 25, 1765. Works, iii. 269. In a letter to William Unwin (Sept. 21, 1779), speaking of his being engaged in mending windows, he says, "Rousseau would have been charmed to have seen me so occupied, and would have exclaimed with rapture that he had found the Emilius who, he supposed, had subsisted only in his own idea." For a description illustrative of the likeness between Rousseau and Cowper in their feeling for nature, see letter to Newton (Sept. 18, 1784, v. 78), and compare it with the description of Les Charmettes, making proper allowance for the colour of prose.