Note 7 — REMONSTRANCE ADDRESSED TO WILLIAM COWPER, ESQ. IN 1788, ON THE SARCASMS LEVELLED AT NATIONAL GRATITUDE IN THE TASK.[4]

l. 2. Grudging eyes—The use of that word here has been objected to, as too low an expression and unmusical; but surely it had been unwise to have expunged it, because it may be familiar in the dialect of our peasantry, since the English vocabulary has no word which would exactly give its meaning in the two passages where it occurs in this Remonstrance. Learned men have asserted, that grudge has no precise synonime in any language. Its harsh sound, where an harsh feeling is to be expressed, cannot be a just objection. Neither the words envious, or malignant, nor yet unwilling, or reluctant, convey its perfect meaning. The two first are too strong, the second not strong enough. Grudge is a word so peculiar in its signification, that it should not be banished from serious poetry. It stands between unwillingness that our neighbour should possess a certain good, and hating, or envying him its possession. Grudge denotes a feeling stronger than reluctance, yet less bitter than hatred, less vile than envy; and finally, it has been used by our best writers in their serious strains, as the authorities in Johnson’s Dictionary prove. If false refinement has rejected any word, the loss of which cannot with precision be supplied, and which has no indecent meaning, those who wish rather to write nervously than nicely, should endeavour, by using it themselves, to recall the exile. Cowper, in the Task, has the word grudge twice, see book iii. page 119, first edition.