PART THE THIRD. (continued 2)

Lady Hesketh left us yesterday. She intended to have left us four days sooner; but in the evening before the day fixed for her departure, snow enough fell to occasion just so much delay of it.

We have faint hopes that in the month of May we shall see her again. I know that you have had a letter from her, and you will no doubt have the grace not to make her wait long for an answer.

We expect Mr. Rose on Tuesday; but he stays with us only till the Saturday following. With him I shall have some conferences on the subject of Homer, respecting a new edition I mean, and some perhaps on the subject of Milton; on him I have not yet begun to comment, or even fix the time when I shall.

Forget not your promised visit! W. C.

We add the verses composed by Cowper on the extraordinary incident mentioned at the beginning of the preceding letter.

TO THE NIGHTINGALE, WHICH THE AUTHOR HEARD ON NEW-YEAR'S DAY, 1792.

TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.[634]

Weston, March 18, 1792.

My dear Friend,—We are now once more reduced to our dual state, having lost our neighbours at the Hall and our inmate Lady Hesketh. Mr. Rose, indeed, has spent two or three days here, and is still with us, but he leaves us in the afternoon. There are those in the world whom we love, and whom we are happy to see; but we are happy likewise in each other, and so far independent of our fellow mortals as to be able to pass our time comfortably without them:—as comfortably, at least, as Mrs. Unwin's frequent indispositions, and my no less frequent troubles of mind, will permit. When I am much distressed, any company but hers distresses me more, and makes me doubly sensible of my sufferings, though sometimes, I confess, it falls out otherwise; and, by the help of more general conversation, I recover that elasticity of mind which is able to resist the pressure. On the whole, I believe I am situated exactly as I should wish to be, were my situation to be determined by my own election; and am denied no comfort that is compatible with the total absence of the chief of all.

Adieu, my dear friend.

I remain, affectionately yours, W. C.

TO THE REV. MR. HURDIS.

Weston, March 23, 1792.

My dear Sir,—I have read your play carefully, and with great pleasure; it seems now to be a performance that cannot fail to do you much credit. Yet, unless my memory deceives me, the scene between Cecilia and Heron in the garden has lost something that pleased me much when I saw it first; and I am not sure that you have not likewise obliterated an account of Sir Thomas's execution, that I found very pathetic. It would be strange if, in these two particulars, I should seem to miss what never existed; you will presently know whether I am as good at remembering what I never saw as I am at forgetting what I have seen. But, if I am right, I cannot help recommending the omitted passages to your re-consideration. If the play were designed for representation, I should be apt to think Cecilia's first speech rather too long, and should prefer to have it broken into dialogue, by an interposition now and then from one of her sisters. But, since it is designed, as I understand, for the closet only, that objection seems of no importance; at no rate, however, would I expunge it, because it is both prettily imagined and elegantly written.

I have read your cursory remarks, and am much pleased, both with the style and the argument. Whether the latter be new or not I am not competent to judge; if it be, you are entitled to much praise for the invention of it. Where other data are wanting to ascertain the time when an author of many pieces wrote each in particular, there can be no better criterion by which to determine the point than the more or less proficiency manifested in the composition. Of this proficiency, where it appears, and of those plays in which it appears not, you seem to have judged well and truly, and, consequently, I approve of your arrangement.

I attended, as you desired me, in reading the character of Cecilia, to the hint you gave me concerning your sister Sally, and give you joy of such a sister. This, however, not exclusively of the rest, for, though they may not all be Cecilias, I have a strong persuasion that they are all very amiable.

W. C.

TO LADY HESKETH.

The Lodge, March 25, 1792.

My dearest Coz,—Mr. Rose's longer stay than he at first intended was the occasion of the longer delay of my answer to your note, as you may both have perceived by the date thereof, and learned from his information. It was a daily trouble to me to see it lying in the window-seat, while I knew you were in expectation of its arrival. By this time I presume you have seen him, and have seen likewise Mr. Hayley's friendly letter and complimentary sonnet, as well as the letter of the honest Quaker; all of which, at least the two former, I shall be glad to receive again at a fair opportunity. Mr. Hayley's letter slept six weeks in Johnson's custody.[635] It was necessary I should answer it without delay, and accordingly I answered it the very evening on which I received it, giving him to understand, among other things, how much vexation the bookseller's folly had cost me, who had detained it so long: especially on account of the distress that I knew it must have occasioned to him also. From his reply, which the return of the post brought me, I learn that in the long interval of my non-correspondence, he had suffered anxiety and mortification enough; so much, that I dare say he made twenty vows never to hazard again either letter or compliment to an unknown author. What, indeed, could he imagine less than that I meant by such an obstinate silence to tell him that I valued neither him nor his praises, nor his proffered friendship; in short that I considered him as a rival, and therefore, like a true author, hated and despised him? He is now, however, convinced that I love him, as indeed I do, and I account him the chief acquisition that my own verse has ever procured me. Brute should I be if I did not, for he promises me every assistance in his power.

I have likewise a very pleasing letter from Mr. Park, which I wish you were here to read; and a very pleasing poem that came enclosed in it for my revisal, written when he was only twenty years of age, yet wonderfully well written, though wanting some correction.

To Mr. Hurdis I return Sir Thomas More to-morrow, having revised it a second time. He is now a very respectable figure, and will do my friend, who gives him to the public this spring, considerable credit.

W. C.

TO THOMAS PARK, ESQ.

Weston-Underwood, March 30, 1792.

My dear Sir,—If you have indeed so favourable an opinion of my judgment as you profess, which I shall not allow myself to question, you will think highly and honourably of your poem,[636] for so I think of it. The view you give of the place that you describe is clear and distinct, the sentiments are just, the reflections touching, and the numbers uncommonly harmonious. I give you joy of having been able to produce, at twenty years of age, what would not have disgraced you at a much later period; and, if you choose to print it, have no doubt that it will do you great credit.

You will perceive, however, when you receive your copy again, that I have used all the liberty you gave me. I have proposed many alterations; but you will consider them as only proposed. My lines are by no means obtruded on you, but are ready to give place to any that you shall choose to substitute of your own composing. They will serve at least to mark the passages which seem to me susceptible of improvement, and the manner in which I think the change may be made. I have not always, seldom indeed, given my reasons; but without a reason I have altered nothing, and the decision, as I say, is left with you in the last instance. Time failed me to be particular and explicit always, in accounting for my strictures, and I assured myself that you would impute none of them to an arbitrary humour, but all to their true cause—a desire to discharge faithfully the trust committed to me.

I cannot but add, I think it a pity that you, who have evidently such talents for poetry, should be so loudly called another way, and want leisure to cultivate them; for if such was the bud, what might we not have expected to see in the full-blown flower? Perhaps, however, I am not quite prudent in saying all this to you, whose proper function is not that of a poet, but I say it, trusting to your prudence, that you will not suffer it to seduce you.

I have not the edition of Milton's juvenile poems which you mention, but shall be truly glad to see it, and thank you for the offer.

No possible way occurs to me of returning your MS. but by the Wellingborough coach; by that conveyance, therefore, I shall send it on Monday, and my remarks, rough as I made them, shall accompany it.

Believe me, with much sincerity,

Yours, W. C.

TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESQ.

The Lodge, March 30, 1792.

My dear Friend,—My mornings, ever since you went, have been given to my correspondents; this morning I have already written a long letter to Mr. Park, giving my opinion of his poem, which is a favourable one. I forget whether I showed it to you when you were here, and even whether I had then received it. He has genius and delicate taste; and, if he were not an engraver, might be one of our first hands in poetry.

W. C.

TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESQ.

The Lodge, April 5, 1792.

You talk, my dear friend, as John Bunyan says, "like one that has the egg-shell still upon his head." You talk of the mighty favours that you have received from me, and forget entirely those for which I am indebted to you; but though you forget them, I shall not, nor ever think that I have requited you so long as any opportunity presents itself of rendering you the smallest service: small indeed is all that I can ever hope to render.

You now perceive, and sensibly, that not without reason I complained, as I use to do, of those tiresome rogues, the printers. Bless yourself that you have not two thick quartos to bring forth, as I had. My vexation was always much increased by this reflection—they are every day, and all day long, employed in printing for somebody, and why not for me? This was adding mortification to disappointment, so that I often lost all patience.

The suffrage of Dr. Robertson makes more than amends for the scurvy jest passed upon me by the wag unknown. I regard him not; nor, except for about two moments after I first heard of his doings, have I ever regarded him. I have somewhere a secret enemy; I know not for what cause he should be so, but he, I imagine, supposes that he has a cause: it is well, however, to have but one; and I will take all the care I can not to increase the number.

I have begun my notes, and am playing the commentator manfully. The worst of it is that I am anticipated in almost all my opportunities to shine by those who have gone before me.

W. C.

The following letter is the commencement of Cowper's correspondence with Hayley, originating in the circumstances already detailed to the reader.

TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESQ.

Weston, April 6, 1792.

My dear Friend,—God grant that this friendship of ours may be a comfort to us all the rest of our days, in a world where true friendships are rarities, and, especially where suddenly formed, they are apt soon to terminate! But, as I said before, I feel a disposition of heart toward you that I never felt for one whom I had never seen; and that shall prove itself, I trust, in the event, a propitious omen.

Horace says somewhere, though I may quote it amiss, perhaps, for I have a terrible memory,

... Our stars consent, at least have had an influence somewhat similar, in another and more important article....

It gives me the sincerest pleasure that I may hope to see you at Weston; for, as to any migrations of mine, they must, I fear, notwithstanding the joy I should feel in being a guest of yours, be still considered in the light of impossibilities. Come, then, my friend, and be as welcome (as the country people say here) as the flowers in May! I am happy, as I say, in expectation; but the fear, or rather the consciousness, that I shall not answer on a nearer view, makes it a trembling kind of happiness and a doubtful.

After the privacy, which I have mentioned above, I went to Huntingdon; soon after my arrival there, I took up my quarters at the house of the Rev. Mr. Unwin; I lived with him while he lived, and ever since his death have lived with his widow. Her, therefore, you will find mistress of the house; and I judge of you amiss, or you will find her just such as you would wish. To me she has been often a nurse, and invariably the kindest friend, through a thousand adversities that I have had to grapple with in the course of almost thirty years. I thought it better to introduce her to you thus, than to present her to you at your coming, quite a stranger.

Bring with you any books that you think may be useful to my commentatorship, for, with you for an interpreter, I shall be afraid of none of them. And, in truth, if you think that you shall want them, you must bring books for your own use also, for they are an article with which I am heinously unprovided: being much in the condition of the man whose library Pope describes as

You shall know how this has come to pass hereafter.

Tell me, my friend, are your letters in your own hand-writing? If so, I am in pain for your eyes, lest by such frequent demands upon them I should hurt them. I had rather write you three letters for one, much as I prize your letters, than that should happen. And now, for the present, adieu—I am going to accompany Milton into the lake of fire and brimstone, having just begun my annotations.

W. C.

TO THE REV. MR. HURDIS.

Weston, April 8, 1792.

My dear Sir,—Your entertaining and pleasant letter, resembling in that respect all that I receive from you, deserved a more expeditious answer, and should have had what it so well deserved, had it not reached me at a time when, deeply in debt to all my correspondents, I had letters to write without number. Like autumnal leaves that strew the brooks in Vallombrosa, the unanswered farrago lay before me. If I quote at all, you must expect me henceforth to quote none but Milton, since for a long time to come I shall be occupied with him only.

I was much pleased with the extract you gave me from your sister Eliza's letter; she writes very elegantly, and (if I might say it without seeming to flatter you) I should say much in the manner of her brother. It is well for your sister Sally that gloomy Dis is already a married man, else perhaps finding her, as he found Proserpine, studying botany in the fields, he might transport her to his own flowerless abode, where all her hopes of improvement in that science would be at an end for ever.

What letter of the 10th of December is that which you say you have not yet answered? Consider, it is April now, and I never remember any thing that I write half so long. But perhaps it relates to Calchas, for I do remember that you have not yet furnished me with the secret history of him and his family, which I demanded from you.

Adieu! Yours most sincerely, W. C.

I rejoice that you are so well with the learned Bishop of Sarum,[637] and well remember how he ferreted the vermin Lauder[638] out of all his hidings, when I was a boy at Westminster.

I have not yet studied with your last remarks before me, but hope soon to find an opportunity.

TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.[639]

Weston, April 15, 1792.

My dear Friend,—I thank you for your remittance; which, to use the language of a song much in use when we were boys,

What the author of the song had particularly in view when he thus sang, I know not; but probably it was not the sum of fifty pounds: which, as probably, he never had the happiness to possess. It was, most probably, some beautiful nymph,—beautiful in his eyes, at least,—who has long since become an old woman.

I have heard about my wether mutton from various quarters. First, from a sensible little man, curate of a neighbouring village;[640] then from Walter Bagot; then from Henry Cowper; and now from you. It was a blunder hardly pardonable in a man who has lived amid fields and meadows, grazed by sheep, almost these thirty years. I have accordingly satirized myself in two stanzas which I composed last night, when I lay awake, tormented with pain, and well dosed with laudanum. If you find them not very brilliant, therefore, you will know how to account for it.

Having translated all the Latin and Italian Miltonics, I was proceeding merrily with a Commentary on the Paradise Lost, when I was seized, a week since, with a most tormenting disorder; which has qualified me, however, to make some very feeling observations on that passage, when I shall come to it:

"Ill fare our ancestor impure!"

For this we may thank Adam;—and you may thank him, too, that I am not able to fill my sheet, nor endure a writing posture any longer. I conclude abruptly, therefore, but sincerely subscribing myself, with my best compliments to Mrs. Hill,

Your affectionate, W. C.

TO LADY THROCKMORTON.

Weston, April 16, 1792.

My dear Lady Frog,—I thank you for your letter, as sweet as it was short, and as sweet as good news could make it. You encourage a hope that has made me happy ever since I have entertained it. And if my wishes can hasten the event, it will not be long suspended.[641] As to your jealousy, I mind it not, or only to be pleased with it; I shall say no more on the subject at present than this, that of all ladies living, a certain lady, whom I need not name, would be the lady of my choice for a certain gentleman, were the whole sex submitted to my election.

What a delightful anecdote is that which you tell me of a young lady detected in the very act of stealing our Catharina's praises; is it possible that she can survive the shame, the mortification, of such a discovery? Can she ever see the same company again, or any company that she can suppose, by the remotest possibility, may have heard the tidings? If she can, she must have an assurance equal to her vanity. A lady in London stole my song on the broken Rose, or rather would have stolen and have passed it for her own. But she too was unfortunate in her attempt; for there happened to be a female cousin of mine in company, who knew that I had written it. It is very flattering to a poet's pride that the ladies should thus hazard everything for the sake of appropriating his verses. I may say with Milton, that I am fallen on evil tongues, and evil days, being not only plundered of that which belongs to me, but being charged with that which does not. Thus it seems (and I have learned it from more quarters than one) that a report is, and has been some time, current in this and the neighbouring counties, that, though I have given myself the air of declaiming against the Slave Trade in "The Task," I am in reality a friend to it; and last night I received a letter from Joe Rye, to inform me that I have been much traduced and calumniated on this account. Not knowing how I could better or more effectually refute the scandal, I have this morning sent a copy to the Northampton paper, prefaced by a short letter to the printer, specifying the occasion. The verses are in honour of Mr. Wilberforce, and sufficiently expressive of my present sentiments on the subject. You are a wicked fair one for disappointing us of our expected visit, and therefore, out of mere spite, I will not insert them. I have been very ill these ten days, and for the same spite's sake will not tell you what has ailed me. But, lest you should die of a fright, I will have the mercy to tell you that I am recovering.

Mrs. Gifford and her little ones are gone, but your brother is still here. He told me that he had some expectations of Sir John at Weston; if he come, I shall most heartily rejoice once more to see him at a table so many years his own.

W. C.

We subjoin the verses addressed to Mr. Wilberforce, intended to vindicate Cowper from the charge of lukewarmness in such a cause.

SONNET. TO WILLIAM WILBERFORCE, ESQ.

In detailing the incidents that occur in the life of Cowper, we have just recorded a malevolent report, highly injurious to his integrity and honour. In order to recall the fact to the memory of the reader, we insert the statement itself, in the words of Cowper: "A report is, and has been some time current, in this and the neighbouring counties, that, though I have given myself the air of declaiming against the slave trade, in 'The Task,' I am in reality a friend to it; and last night I received a letter from Joe Rye, to inform me, that I have been much traduced and calumniated on this account."

That the author of "The Task," a poem distinguished by its tone of pure and elevated morality, and breathing a spirit of most uncompromising hostility against the slave trade—that such a man, at that time in the very zenith of his fame, should be publicly accused of favouring the very cause which he had so eloquently denounced, is one of those circumstances which, for the honour of human nature, we could wish not to have been compelled to record.

With this painful fact before us, we would ask, what is popularity, and what wise man would attach value to so fleeting a possession? It is a gleam of sunshine, which embellishes for a moment the object on which it falls, and then vanishes away. In the course of a life not passed without observation, we have had occasion to remark, in the political, the literary, and even in the religious world, the evanescent character of popular favour. We have seen men alternately caressed and deserted, praised and censured, and made to feel the vanity of human applause and admiration. The idol of to-day is dethroned by the idol of to-morrow, which in its turn yields to the dominion of some more favoured rival.

The wisdom of God evidently designs, by these events, to check the thirst for human praise and distinction, by showing us the precarious tenure by which they are held. We are thus admonished to examine our motives, and to be assured of the integrity of our intentions; neither to despise public favour, nor yet to overvalue it; but to preserve that calm and equable temper of mind, and that full consciousness of the rectitude of our principles, that we may learn to enjoy it without triumph, or to lose it without dejection.

The reader will be amused in finding the origin of the injurious report above mentioned disclosed in the following letter. Mr. Rye was unjustly supposed to have aided in propagating this misconception; but Cowper fully vindicates him from such a charge.

TO THE REV. J. JEKYLL RYE.[642]

Weston, April 16, 1792.

My dear Sir,—I am truly sorry that you should have suffered any apprehensions, such as your letter indicates, to molest you for a moment. I believe you to be as honest a man as lives, and consequently do not believe it possible that you could in your letter to Mr. Pitts, or any otherwise, wilfully misrepresent me. In fact you did not; my opinions on the subject in question were, when I had the pleasure of seeing you, such as in that letter you stated them to be, and such they still continue.

If any man concludes, because I allow myself the use of sugar and rum, that therefore I am a friend to the slave trade, he concludes rashly, and does me great wrong; for the man lives not who abhors it more than I do. My reasons for my own practice are satisfactory to myself, and they whose practice is contrary, are, I suppose, satisfied with theirs. So far is good. Let every man act according to his own judgment and conscience; but if we condemn another for not seeing with our eyes, we are unreasonable; and if we reproach him on that account, we are uncharitable, which is a still greater evil.

I had heard, before I received the favour of yours, that such a report of me as you mention had spread about the country. But my information told me that it was founded thus—The people of Olney petitioned parliament for the abolition—My name was sought among the subscribers, but was not found. A question was asked, how that happened? Answer was made, that I had once indeed been an enemy to the slave trade, but had changed my mind, for that, having lately read a history, or an account of Africa, I had seen it there asserted, that till the commencement of that traffic, the negroes, multiplying at a prodigious rate, were necessitated to devour each other; for which reason I had judged it better that the trade should continue, than that they should be again reduced to so horrid a custom.

Now all this is a fable. I have read no such history; I never in my life read any such assertion; nor, had such an assertion presented itself to me, should I have drawn any such conclusion from it. On the contrary, bad as it were, I think it would be better the negroes should even eat one another, than that we should carry them to market. The single reason why I did not sign the petition was, because I was never asked to do it; and the reason why I was never asked was, because I am not a parishioner of Olney.

Thus stands the matter. You will do me the justice, I dare say, to speak of me as of a man who abhors the commerce, which is now, I hope, in a fair way to be abolished, as often as you shall find occasion. And I beg you henceforth to do yourself the justice to believe it impossible that I should, for a moment, suspect you of duplicity or misrepresentation. I have been grossly slandered, but neither by you, nor in consequence of any thing that you have either said or written. I remain therefore, still, as heretofore, with great respect, much and truly yours,

W. C.

Mrs. Unwin's compliments attend you.

Cowper, on this occasion, addressed the following letter to the editors of the Northampton Mercury, enclosing the verses on Mr. Wilberforce which have just been inserted.

TO THE PRINTERS OF THE NORTHAMPTON MERCURY.

Weston-Underwood, April 16, 1792.

Sirs,—Having lately learned that it is pretty generally reported, both in your county and in this, that my present opinion, concerning the slave trade, differs totally from that which I have heretofore given to the public, and that I am no longer an enemy but a friend to that horrid traffic; I entreat you to take an early opportunity to insert in your paper the following lines,[643] written no longer since than this very morning, expressly for the two purposes of doing just honour to the gentleman with whose name they are inscribed, and of vindicating myself from an aspersion so injurious.

I am, &c. W. Cowper.

The last two lines in the sonnet, addressed to Mr. Wilberforce, were originally thus expressed:—

These were subsequently altered as follow:

Cowper's version of Homer, which has formed so frequent a subject in the preceding pages, led to a public discussion, in which the interests of literature and the success of his own undertaking were deeply concerned. The question agitated was the relative merits of rhyme and blank verse, in undertaking a translation of that great poet. Johnson, the great dictator in the republic of letters, in his predilection for rhyme, had almost proscribed the use of blank verse in poetical composition. "Poetry," he observes, in his life of Milton, "may subsist without rhyme; but English poetry will not please, nor can rhyme ever be safely spared, but where the subject is able to support itself. Blank verse makes some approach to that which is called the lapidary style; has neither the easiness of prose, nor the melody of numbers; and therefore tires by long continuance. Of the Italian writers without rhyme, whom Milton alleges as precedents, not one is popular. What reason could urge in its defence, has been confuted by the ear."

Johnson, however, makes an exception, in the instance of Milton.

"But, whatever be the advantages of rhyme," he adds, "I cannot prevail on myself to wish that Milton had been a rhymer; for I cannot wish his work to be other than it is; yet, like other heroes, he is to be admired rather than imitated. He that thinks himself capable of astonishing, may write blank verse; but those that hope only to please must condescend to rhyme."

In his critique on the "Night Thoughts," he makes a similar concession. "This is one of the few poems in which blank verse could not be changed for rhyme but with disadvantage. The wild diffusion of the sentiments, and the digressive sallies of imagination, would have been compressed and constrained by confinement to rhyme."[644]

Cowper, it will be remembered, questions the correctness of Johnson's taste on this subject, and vindicates the force and majesty of blank verse with much weight of argument. With respect, however, to the important question, how a translation of Homer might be best executed, his sentiments are delivered so much at large in the admirable preface to his version of the Iliad, that we shall lay a few extracts from it before the reader.

"Whether a translation of Homer," he remarks, "may be best executed in blank verse or in rhyme, is a question in the decision of which no man can find difficulty, who has ever duly considered what translation ought to be, or who is in any degree practically acquainted with those very different kinds of versification. I will venture to assert, that a just translation of any ancient poet in rhyme is impossible. No human ingenuity can be equal to the task of closing every couplet with sounds homotonous, expressing at the same time the full sense, and only the full sense, of his original. The translator's ingenuity, indeed, in this case becomes itself a snare; and the readier he is at invention and expedient, the more likely he is to be betrayed into the widest departures from the guide whom he professes to follow."

It was this acknowledged defect in Pope, that led Cowper to engage in his laborious undertaking of producing a new version.

We admire the candour with which he appreciates the merits of Pope's translation, and yet we cannot refuse to admit the justness of his strictures.

"I have no contest," he observes, "with my predecessor. None is supposable between performers on different instruments. Mr. Pope has surmounted all difficulties in his version of Homer that it was possible to surmount in rhyme. But he was fettered, and his fetters were his choice." "He has given us the Tale of Troy divine in smooth verse, generally in correct and elegant language, and in diction often highly poetical. But his deviations are so many, occasioned chiefly by the cause already mentioned, that, much as he has done, and valuable as his work is on some accounts, it was yet in the humble province of a translator, that I thought it possible even for me to follow him with some advantage."

What the reader may expect to discover in the two respective versions is thus described:—"The matter found in me, whether he like it or not, is found also in Homer; and the matter not found in me, how much soever he may admire it, is only found in Mr. Pope. I have omitted nothing; I have invented nothing." "Fidelity is indeed the very essence of translation, and the term itself implies it. For which reason, if we suppress the sense of our original, and force into its place our own, we may call our work an imitation, if we please, or perhaps a paraphrase, but it is no longer the same author only in a different dress, and therefore it is not a translation."

After dwelling upon the merits and defects of the free and the close translation, and observing that the former can hardly be true to the original author's style and manner, and that the latter is apt to be servile, he thus declares his view of the subject:—"On the whole, the translation which partakes equally of fidelity and liberality, that is close, but not so close as to be servile; free, but not so free as to be licentious, promises fairest; and my ambition will be sufficiently gratified, if such of my readers as are able and will take the pains to compare me in this respect with Homer, shall judge that I have in any measure attained a point so difficult."

He concludes his excellent preface with these interesting words:—

"And now I have only to regret that my pleasant work is ended. To the illustrious Greek I owe the smooth and easy flight of many thousand hours. He has been my companion at home and abroad, in the study, in the garden, and in the field; and no measure of success, let my labours succeed as they may, will ever compensate to me the loss of the innocent luxury that I have enjoyed as a translator of Homer."

Having thus endeavoured to do justice to the excellent preface of Cowper, we have reserved an interesting correspondence, which passed between Lord Thurlow and Cowper on this subject, and now introduce it to the notice of the reader. It is without date.

TO THE LORD THURLOW.

My Lord,—A letter reached me yesterday from Henry Cowper, enclosing another from your lordship to himself; of which a passage in my work formed the subject. It gave me the greatest pleasure: your strictures are perfectly just, and here follows the speech of Achilles accommodated to them....

I did not expect to find your lordship on the side of rhyme, remembering well with how much energy and interest I have heard you repeat passages from the "Paradise Lost," which you could not have recited as you did, unless you had been perfectly sensible of their music. It comforts me, therefore, to know that if you have an ear for rhyme, you have an ear for blank verse also.

It seems to me that I may justly complain of rhyme as an inconvenience in translation, even though I assert in the sequel that to me it has been easier to rhyme than to write without, because I always suppose a rhyming translator to ramble, and always obliged to do so. Yet I allow your lordship's version of this speech of Achilles to be very close, and closer much than mine. But I believe that, should either your lordship or I give them burnish or elevation, your lines would be found, in measure as they acquired stateliness, to have lost the merit of fidelity—in which case nothing more would be done than Pope has done already.

I cannot ask your lordship to proceed in your strictures, though I should be happy to receive more of them. Perhaps it is possible that when you retire into the country, you may now and then amuse yourself with my translation. Should your remarks reach me, I promise faithfully that they shall be all most welcome, not only as yours, but because I am sure my work will be the better for them.

With sincere and fervent wishes for your lordship's health and happiness, I remain, my lord, &c.,

W. C.

The following is Lord Thurlow's reply:—

TO WILLIAM COWPER, ESQ.

Dear Cowper,—On coming to town this morning, I was surprised particularly at receiving from you an answer to a scrawl I sent Harry, which I have forgot too much to resume now. But I think I could not mean to patronize rhyme. I have fancied that it was introduced to mark the measure in modern languages, because they are less numerous and metrical than the ancient, and the name seems to import as much. Perhaps there was melody in ancient song without straining it to musical notes, as the common Greek pronunciation is said to have had the compass of five parts of an octave. But surely that word is only figuratively applied to modern poetry. Euphony seems to be the highest term it will bear. I have fancied also, that euphony is an impression derived a good deal from habit, rather than suggested by nature; therefore in some degree accidental, and consequently conventional. Else, why can't we bear a drama with rhyme, or the French, one without it? Suppose the "Rape of the Lock," "Windsor Forest," "L'Allegro," "Il Penseroso," and many other little poems which please, stripped of the rhyme, which might easily be done, would they please us as well? It would be unfair to treat rondeaus, ballads, and odes in the same manner, because rhyme makes in some sort a part of the conceit. It was this way of thinking which made me suppose that habitual prejudice would miss the rhyme; and that neither Dryden nor Pope would have dared to give their great authors in blank verse.

I wondered to hear you say you thought rhyme easier in original compositions; but you explained it, that you could go further a-field if you were pushed for want of a rhyme. An expression preferred for the sake of the rhyme looks as if it were worth more than you allow. But, to be sure, in translation, the necessity of rhyme imposes very heavy fetters upon those who mean translation, not paraphrase. Our common heroic metre is enough; the pure iambic bearing only a sparing introduction of spondees, trochees, &c. to vary the measure.

Mere translation I take to be impossible, if no metre were required. But the difference of the iambic and heroic measure destroys that at once. It is also impossible to obtain the same sense from a dead language and an ancient author, which those of his own time and country conceived; words and phrases contract, from time and use, such strong shades of difference from their original import. In a living language, with the familiarity of a whole life, it is not easy to conceive truly the actual sense of current expressions, much less of older authors. No two languages furnish equipollent words,—their phrases differ, their syntax and their idioms still more widely. But a translation, strictly so called, requires an exact conformity in all those particulars, and also in numbers; therefore it is impossible. I really think at present, notwithstanding the opinion expressed in your preface, that a translator asks himself a good question, How would my author have expressed the sentence I am turning, in English, as literally and fully as the genius, and use, and character of the language will admit of?

In the passage before us, αττα was the fondling expression of childhood to its parent; and to those who first translated the lines, conveyed feelingly that amiable sentiment. Γεραιε expressed the reverence which naturally accrues to age. Διοτρεφης implies an history. Hospitality was an article of religion; strangers were supposed to be sent by God, and honoured accordingly. Jove's altar was placed in ξενοδοχειον. Phœnix had been describing that as his situation in the court of Peleus; and his Διοτρεφες refers to it. But you must not translate that literally—

Old daddy Phœnix, a God-send for us to maintain.

"Precious limbs," was at first an expression of great feeling, till vagabonds, draymen, &c., brought upon it the character of coarseness and ridicule.

It would run to great length, if I were to go through this one speech thus—this is enough for an example of my idea, and to prove the necessity of farther deviation; which still is departing from the author, and justifiable only by strong necessity, such as should not be admitted, till the sense of the original had been laboured to the utmost and been found irreducible.

I will end this by giving you the strictest translation I can invent, leaving you the double task of bringing it closer, and of polishing it into the style of poetry.

Iliad, Book ix.

I have thought that hero has contracted a different sense than it had in Homer's time, and is better rendered great man: but I am aware that the enclitics and other little words, falsely called expletives, are not introduced even so much as the genius of our language would admit. The euphony I leave entirely to you. Adieu!

TO THE LORD THURLOW.

My Lord,—We are of one mind as to the agreeable effect of rhyme, or euphony, in the lighter kinds of poetry. The pieces which your lordship mentions would certainly be spoiled by the loss of it, and so would all such. The "Alma" would lose all its neatness and smartness, and "Hudibras" all its humour. But in grave poems of extreme length, I apprehend that the case is different. Long before I thought of commencing poet myself, I have complained, and heard others complain, of the wearisomeness of such poems. Not that I suppose that tedium the effect of rhyme itself, but rather of the perpetual recurrence of the same pause and cadence, unavoidable in the English couplet. I hope, I may say truly, it was not in a spirit of presumption that I undertook to do what, in your lordship's opinion, neither Dryden nor Pope would have dared to do. On the contrary, I see not how I could have escaped that imputation, had I followed Pope in his own way. A closer translation was called for. I verily believed that rhyme had betrayed Pope into his deviations. For me, therefore, to have used his mode of versifying, would have been to expose myself to the same miscarriage, at the same time that I had not his talents to atone for it.

I agree with your lordship that a translation perfectly close is impossible, because time has sunk the original strict import of a thousand phrases, and we have no means of recovering it. But if we cannot be unimpeachably faithful, that is no reason why we should not be as faithful as we can; and if blank verse affords the fairest chance, then it claims the preference.

Your lordship, I will venture to say, can command me nothing in which I will not obey with the greatest alacrity.

Ει δυναμαι τελεσαι γε, και ει τετειεσμενον εστι.

But when, having made as close a translation as even you can invent, you enjoin me to make it still closer, and in rhyme too, I can only reply, as Horace to Augustus,

I have not treacherously departed from my pattern that I might seem to give some proof of the justness of my own opinion, but have fairly and honestly adhered as closely to it as I could. Yet your lordship will not have to compliment me on my success, either in respect of the poetical merit of my lines, or of their fidelity. They have just enough of each to make them deficient in the other.

Since I wrote these I have looked at Pope's. I am certainly somewhat closer to the original than he, but farther I say not. I shall wait with impatience for your lordship's conclusions from these premises, and remain, in the meantime, with great truth, my lord, &c.

W. C.

TO WILLIAM COWPER, ESQ.

Dear Cowper,—I have received your letter on my journey through London, and as the chaise waits I shall be short. I did not mean it as a sign of any presumption that you have attempted what neither Dryden nor Pope would have dared; but merely as a proof of their addiction to rhyme; for I am clearly convinced that Homer may be better translated than into rhyme, and that you have succeeded in the places I have looked into. But I have fancied that it might have been still more literal, preserving the ease of genuine English and melody, and some degree of that elevation which Homer derives from simplicity. But I could not do it, or even near enough to form a judgment, or more than a fancy about it. Nor do I fancy it could be done "stans pede in uno." But when the mind has been fully impregnated with the original passage, often revolving it, and waiting for a happy moment, may still be necessary to the best trained mind. Adieu.

Thurlow.

TO THE LORD THURLOW.

My Lord,—I haunt you with letters, but will trouble you now with a short line, only to tell your lordship how happy I am that any part of my work has pleased you. I have a comfortable consciousness that the whole has been executed with equal industry and attention; and am, my lord, with many thanks to you for snatching such a hasty moment to write to me, your lordship's obliged and affectionate humble servant,

W. Cowper.

These letters cannot fail to be read with great interest.

Having in a former part of this work contrasted the two versions of Cowper and Pope, we shall now close the subject, by quoting Cowper's translation of some well-known and admired passages in the original poem. The classical reader will thus be enabled to determine how far the poet has succeeded in the application of his own principle, and retained the bold and lofty spirit of Homer, while he aims at transfusing his noble simplicity, and adhering strictly to his genuine meaning. We have selected the following specimens.

Hector extending his arms to caress his son Astyanax, in his interview with Andromache:

Book vi. line 524.

The fatal conflict between Hector and Achilles:

Hector's prayer to Achilles:

Book xxii. line 354.

The indignant answer of Achilles to the prayer of Hector:

Hector's last dying words:

Ibid. line 396.

The interview between Achilles and Priam, who comes to ransom the body of Hector:

Book xxiv. line 622.

Without entering upon any minute analysis of the above passages, we consider them as exhibiting a happy specimen of poetic talent; and that Cowper has been successful in exemplifying the rules and principles which, in his preface, he declares to be indispensable in a version of Homer.

It may be interesting to literary curiosity to be presented with a summary of facts respecting Cowper's two versions of Homer.

This important undertaking commenced Nov. 21st, 1784, and was completed August 25th, 1790. During eight months of this intervening time, he was hindered by indisposition, so that he was occupied in the work, on the whole, five years and one month. On the 8th of September, 1790, his kinsman, the Rev. John Johnson, conveyed the translation to Johnson, the bookseller in St. Paul's Churchyard, with a view to its consignment to the press. During this period Cowper gave the work a second revisal, which he concluded March 4th, 1791. On July 1st of the same year the publication issued from the press. In 1793 there was a further revision, with the addition of explanatory notes, a second edition having been called for. In 1796 he engaged in a revisal of the whole work, which, owing to his state of mind and declining health, was not finished till March 8th, 1799. In January, 1800, he new-modelled a passage in his translation of the Iliad, where mention is made of the very ancient sculpture, in which Dædalus had represented the Cretan dance for Ariadne. This proved to be the last effort of his pen.[646]

We have thought it due to Cowper's version to enter thus largely into an examination of its merits, from a persuasion that an undertaking of this magnitude, executed by the author of "The Task," claims to be considered as a part of our national literature. It remains only to be observed that the foreigner whom he mentions with so much estimation, as having aided him with his critical taste and erudition, was Fuseli the painter. He gratefully acknowledges his obligations in the following letters to Johnson the bookseller.

Weston, Feb. 11, 1790.

Dear Sir,—I am very sensibly obliged by the remarks of Mr. Fuseli, and beg that you will tell him so; they afford me opportunities of improvement which I shall not neglect. When he shall see the press-copy, he will be convinced of this, and will be convinced likewise, that, smart as he sometimes is, he spares me often, when I have no mercy on myself. He will see almost a new translation.... I assure you faithfully, that whatever my faults may be, to be easily or hastily satisfied with what I have written is not one of them.

Sept. 7, 1790.

It grieves me that, after all, I am obliged to go into public without the whole advantage of Mr. Fuseli's judicious strictures. The only consolation is, that I have not forfeited them by my own impatience. Five years are no small portion of a man's life, especially at the latter end of it, and in those five years, being a man of almost no engagements, I have done more in the way of hard work, than most could have done in twice the number. I beg you to present my compliments to Mr. Fuseli, with many and sincere thanks for the services that his own more important occupations would allow him to render me.

We add one more letter in this place, addressed to his bookseller, to show with what becoming resolution he could defend his poetical opinions when he considered them to be just.

Some accidental reviser of the manuscript had taken the liberty to alter a line in a poem of Cowper's:—this liberty drew from the offended poet the following very just and animated remonstrance, which we are anxious to preserve, because it elucidates with great felicity of expression his deliberate ideas on English versification.

"I did not write the line that has been tampered with, hastily, or without due attention to the construction of it; and what appeared to me its only merit is, in its present state, entirely annihilated.

"I know that ears of modern verse-writers are delicate to an excess, and their readers are troubled with the same squeamishness as themselves. So that if a line do not run as smooth as quicksilver, they are offended. A critic of the present day serves a poem as a cook serves a dead turkey, when she fastens the legs of it to a post, and draws out all the sinews. For this we may thank Pope; but unless we could imitate him in the closeness and compactness of his expression, as well as in the smoothness of his numbers, we had better drop the imitation, which serves no other purpose than to emasculate and weaken all we write. Give me a manly rough line, with a deal of meaning in it, rather than a whole poem full of musical periods, that have nothing but their oily smoothness to recommend them!

"I have said thus much, as I hinted in the beginning, because I have just finished a much longer poem than the last, which our common friend will receive by the same messenger that has the charge of this letter. In that poem there are many lines which an ear so nice as the gentleman's who made the above-mentioned alteration would undoubtedly condemn, and yet (if I may be permitted to say it) they cannot be made smoother without being the worse for it. There is a roughness on a plum, which nobody that understands fruit would rub off, though the plum would be much more polished without it. But, lest I tire you, I will only add, that I wish you to guard me from all such meddling, assuring you, that I always write as smoothly as I can, but that I never did, never will, sacrifice the spirit or sense of a passage to the sound of it."

Cowper was much affected at this time by a severe indisposition, to which he alludes in the following letter.

TO THOMAS PARK, ESQ.

Weston Underwood, April 27, 1792.

Dear Sir,—I write now merely to prevent any suspicion in your mind that I neglect you. I have been very ill, and for more than a fortnight unable to use the pen, or you should have heard long ere now of the safe arrival of your packet. I have revised the Elegy on Seduction,[647] but have not as yet been able to proceed farther. The best way of returning these which I have now in hand, will be to return them with those which you propose to send hereafter. I will make no more apologies for any liberties that it may seem necessary to me to take with your copies. Why do you send them, but that I may exercise that freedom, of which the very act of sending them implies your permission? I will only say, therefore, that you must neither be impatient nor even allow yourself to think me tardy, since assuredly I will not be more so than I needs must be. My hands are pretty full. Milton must be forwarded, and is at present hardly begun; and I have beside a numerous correspondence, which engrosses more of my time than I can at present well afford to it. I cannot decide with myself whether the lines in which the reviewers are so smartly noticed had better be expunged or not. Those lines are gracefully introduced and well written; for which reasons I should be loath to part with them. On the other hand, how far it may be prudent to irritate a body of critics, who certainly much influence the public opinion, may deserve consideration. It may be added too, that they are not all equally worthy of the lash: there are among them men of real learning, judgment, and candour. I must leave it, therefore, to your own determination.

I thank you for Thomson's Epitaph, on which I have only to remark (and I am sure that I do it not in a captious spirit) that, since the poet is himself the speaker, I cannot but question a little the propriety of the quotation subjoined. It is a prayer, and when the man is buried, the time of prayer is over. I know it may be answered, that it is placed there merely for the benefit of the reader; but all readers of tombstones are not wise enough to be trusted for such an interpretation.

I was well pleased with your poem on * * and equally well pleased with your intention not to publish it. It proves two points of consequence to an author:—both that you have an exuberant fancy, and discretion enough to know how to deal with it. The man is formidable for his ludicrous talent, as he has made himself contemptible by his use of it. To despise him therefore is natural, but it is wise to do it in secret.

Since the juvenile poems of Milton were edited by Warton, you need not trouble yourself to send them. I have them of his edition already.

I am, dear sir, Affectionately yours, W. C.

The marriage of Miss Stapleton, the Catharina of Cowper, to Sir John Throckmorton's brother (now Mr. Courtenay,) was one of those events which the muse of Cowper had ventured to anticipate; and he had now the happiness of finding his cherished wish fulfilled, and of thereby securing them as neighbours at the Hall.[648]

TO LADY HESKETH

Weston, May 20, 1792.

My dearest Coz,—I rejoice as thou reasonably supposest of me to do, in the matrimonial news communicated in your last. Not that it was altogether news for me, for twice I had received broad hints of it from Lady Frog, by letter, and several times vivâ voce while she was here, But she enjoined me secrecy as well as you, and you know that all secrets are safe with me; safer far than the winds in the bags of Æolus. I know not, in fact, the lady whom it would give me more pleasure to call Mrs. Courtenay, than the lady in question; partly because I know her, but especially because I know her to be all that I can wish in a neighbour.

I have observed that there is a regular alternation of good and evil in the lot of men, so that a favourable incident may be considered as the harbinger of an unfavourable one, and vice versâ. Dr. Madan's experience witnesses to the truth of this observation. One day he gets a broken head, and the next a mitre to heal it. I rejoice that he has met with so effectual a cure, though my joy is not unmingled with concern; for till now I had some hope of seeing him, but since I live in the north, and his episcopal call is in the west, that is a gratification, I suppose, which I must no longer look for.

My sonnet, which I sent you, was printed in the Northampton paper, last week, and this week it produced me a complimentary one in the same paper, which served to convince me, at least by the matter of it, that my own was not published without occasion, and that it had answered its purpose.[649]

My correspondence with Hayley proceeds briskly, and is very affectionate on both sides. I expect him here in about a fortnight, and wish heartily, with Mrs. Unwin, that you would give him a meeting. I have promised him, indeed, that he shall find us alone, but you are one of the family.

I wish much to print the following lines in one of the daily papers. Lord S.'s vindication of the poor culprit[650] in the affair of Cheit Sing, has confirmed me in the belief that he has been injuriously treated, and I think it an act merely of justice to take a little notice of him.

TO WARREN HASTINGS, ESQ.

BY AN OLD SCHOOL-FELLOW OF HIS AT WESTMINSTER.

If thou wilt take the pains to send them to thy news-monger, I hope thou wilt do well.

Adieu! W. C.

TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESQ.

Weston, May 20, 1792.

My dearest of all Johnnies,—I am not sorry that your ordination is postponed. A year's learning and wisdom, added to your present stock, will not be more than enough to satisfy the demands of your function. Neither am I sorry that you find it difficult to fix your thoughts to the serious point at all times. It proves, at least, that you attempt, and wish to do it, and these are good symptoms. Woe to those who enter on the ministry of the gospel without having previously asked, at least from God, a mind and spirit suited to their occupation, and whose experience never differs from itself, because they are always alike vain, light, and inconsiderate. It is, therefore, matter of great joy to me to hear you complain of levity, and such it is to Mrs. Unwin. She is, I thank God, tolerably well, and loves you. As to the time of your journey hither, the sooner after June the better; till then we shall have company.

I forget not my debts to your dear sister, and your aunt Balls. Greet them both with a brother's kiss, and place it to my account. I will write to them when Milton, and a thousand other engagements will give me leave. Mr. Hayley is here on a visit. We have formed a friendship that I trust will last for life, and render us an edifying example to all future poets.

Adieu! Lose no time in coming after the time mentioned.

W. C.

The reader is informed, by the close of the last letter, that Hayley was at this time the guest of Cowper. The meeting, so singularly produced, was a source of reciprocal delight; and each looked cheerfully forward to the unclouded enjoyment of many social and literary hours.

Hayley's account of this visit is too interesting, not to be recorded in his own words.

"My host, though now in his sixty-first year, appeared as happily exempt from all the infirmities of advanced life, as friendship could wish him to be; and his more elderly companion, not materially oppressed by age, discovered a benevolent alertness of character that seemed to promise a continuance of their domestic comfort. Their reception of me was kindness itself:—I was enchanted to find that the manners and conversation of Cowper resembled his poetry, charming by unaffected elegance, and the graces of a benevolent spirit. I looked with affectionate veneration and pleasure on the lady, who, having devoted her life and fortune to the service of this tender and sublime genius, in watching over him with maternal vigilance through many years of the darkest calamity, appeared to be now enjoying a reward justly due to the noblest exertions of friendship, in contemplating the health and the renown of the poet, whom she had the happiness to preserve.

"It seemed hardly possible to survey human nature in a more touching and a more satisfactory point of view. Their tender attention to each other, their simple, devout gratitude for the mercies which they had experienced together, and their constant, but unaffected propensity to impress on the mind and heart of a new friend, the deep sense which they incessantly felt, of their mutual obligations to each other, afforded me a very singular gratification; which my reader will conceive the more forcibly, when he has perused the following exquisite sonnet, addressed by Cowper to Mrs. Unwin.

"SONNET.

"The delight that I derived from a perfect view of the virtues, the talents, and the present domestic enjoyments of Cowper, was suddenly overcast by the darkest and most painful anxiety.

"After passing our mornings in social study, we usually walked out together at noon. In returning from one of our rambles around the pleasant village of Weston, we were met by Mr. Greatheed, an accomplished minister of the gospel, who resides at Newport-Pagnel, and whom Cowper described to me in terms of cordial esteem.

"He came forth to meet us as we drew near the house, and it was soon visible, from his countenance and manner, that he had ill news to impart. After the most tender preparation that humanity could devise, he acquainted Cowper that Mrs. Unwin was under the immediate pressure of a paralytic attack.

"My agitated friend rushed to the sight of the sufferer;—he returned to me in a state that alarmed me in the highest degree for his faculties;—his first speech to me was wild in the extreme;—my answer would appear little less so; but it was addressed to the predominant fancy of my unhappy friend, and, with the blessing of Heaven, it produced an instantaneous calm in his troubled mind.

"From that moment he rested on my friendship, with such mild and cheerful confidence, that his affectionate spirit regarded me as sent providentially to support him in a season of the severest affliction."

The kindness of Hayley, at this critical moment, reflects the highest credit on his humanity and presence of mind. By means of an electrical machine, which the village of Weston fortunately supplied, he succeeded in relieving his suffering patient with the happiest effect. With this seasonable aid, seconded by a course of medicine recommended by Dr. Austen, an eminent London physician, and a friend of Hayley's, the violence of the attack was gradually mitigated, and the agitated mind of Cowper greatly relieved.

The progress of her recovery, and its influence on the tender spirit of Cowper, will sufficiently appear in the following letters.

TO LADY HESKETH.

Weston, May 24, 1792.

I wish with all my heart, my dearest Coz, that I had not ill news for the subject of the present letter. My friend, my Mary, has again been attacked by the same disorder that threatened me last year with the loss of her, and of which you were yourself a witness. Gregson would not allow that first stroke to be paralytic, but this he acknowledges to be so; and with respect to the former, I never had myself any doubt that it was, but this has been much the severest. Her speech has been almost unintelligible from the moment that she was struck; it is with difficulty that she opens her eyes, and she cannot keep them open; the muscles necessary to the purpose being contracted; and as to self-moving powers, from place to place, and the use of her right hand and arm, she has entirely lost them.

It has happened well, that of all men living, the man most qualified to assist and comfort me is here; though till within these few days I never saw him, and a few weeks since had no expectation that I ever should. You have already guessed that I mean Hayley—Hayley, who loves me as if he had known me from my cradle. When he returns to town, as he must, alas! too soon, he will pay his respects to you.

I will not conclude without adding, that our poor patient is beginning, I hope, to recover from this stroke also; but her amendment is slow, as must be expected at her time of life and in such a disorder. I am as well myself as you have ever known me in a time of much trouble, and even better.

It was not possible to prevail on Mrs. Unwin to let me send for Dr. Kerr, but Hayley has written to his friend, Dr. Austen, a representation of her case, and we expect his opinion and advice to-morrow. In the meantime, we have borrowed an electrical machine from our neighbour Socket, the effect of which she tried yesterday and the day before, and we think it has been of material service.

She was seized while Hayley and I were walking, and Mr. Greatheed, who called while we were absent, was with her.

I forgot in my last to thank thee for the proposed amendments of thy friend. Whoever he is, make my compliments to him, and thank him. The passages to which he objects have been all altered, and when he shall see them new dressed, I hope he will like them better.[651]

W. C.

TO LADY HESKETH.

The Lodge, May 26, 1792.

My dearest Cousin,—Knowing that you will be anxious to learn how we go on, I write a few lines to inform you that Mrs. Unwin daily recovers a little strength and a little power of utterance; but she seems strongest, and her speech is more distinct, in a morning. Hayley has been all in all to us on this very afflictive occasion. Love him, I charge you, dearly, for my sake. Where could I have found a man, except himself, who could have made himself so necessary to me in so short a time, that I absolutely know not how to live without him?

Adieu, my dear sweet coz. Mrs. Unwin, as plainly as her poor lips can speak, sends her best love, and Hayley threatens in a few days to lay close siege to your affections in person.

W. C.

There is some hope, I find, that the chancellor may continue in office, and I shall be glad if he does, because we have no single man worthy to succeed him.

I open my letter again to thank you, my dearest coz, for yours just received. Though happy, as you well know, to see you at all times, we have no need, and I trust shall have none, to trouble you with a journey made on purpose; yet once again, I am willing and desirous to believe, we shall be a happy trio at Weston; but unless necessity dictates a journey of charity, I wish all yours hither to be made for pleasure. Farewell! thou shalt know how we go on.

The tender and grateful mind of Cowper, sensible of the kind and able services of Dr. Austen, led him to pour out the effusions of his heart in the following verses

TO DR. AUSTEN,

OF CECIL STREET, LONDON.

TO MRS. BODHAM.

Weston, June 4, 1792.

My dearest Rose,—I am not such an ungrateful and insensible animal, as to have neglected you thus long without a reason....

I cannot say that I am sorry that our dear Johnny finds the pulpit-door shut against him at present.[652] He is young, and can afford to wait another year; neither is it to be regretted that his time of preparation for an office of so much importance as that of a minister of God's word should have been a little protracted. It is easier to direct the movements of a great army than to guide a few souls to heaven; the way is narrow and full of snares, and the guide himself has the most difficulties to encounter. But I trust he will do well. He is single in his views, honest-hearted, and desirous, by prayer and study of the scripture, to qualify himself for the service of his great Master, who will suffer no such man to fail for want of his aid and protection.

W. C.

TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESQ.

Weston, June 4, 1792.

ALL'S WELL.

Which words I place as conspicuously as possible, and prefix them to my letter, to save you the pain, my friend and brother, of a moment's anxious speculation. Poor Mary proceeds in her amendment still, and improves, I think, even at a swifter rate than when you left her. The stronger she grows the faster she gathers strength, which is perhaps the natural course of recovery. She walked so well this morning, that she told me at my first visit she had entirely forgot her illness, and she spoke so distinctly, and had so much of her usual countenance, that had it been possible she would have made me forget it too.

Returned from my walk, blown to tatters—found two dear things in the study, your letter and my Mary! She is bravely well, and your beloved epistle does us both good. I found your kind pencil-note in my song-book, as soon as I came down on the morning of your departure, and Mary was vexed to the heart that the simpletons who watched her supposed her asleep when she was not, for she learned, soon after you were gone, that you would have peeped at her, had you known her to have been awake: I perhaps might have had a peep too, and was as vexed as she: but if it please God, we shall make ourselves large amends for all lost peeps by-and-by at Eartham.

W. C.

TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESQ.

Weston, June 5, 1792.

Yesterday was a noble day with us—speech almost perfect—eyes open almost the whole day, without any effort to keep them so; and the step wonderfully improved. But the night has been almost a sleepless one, owing partly I believe to her having had as much sleep again as usual the night before; for even when she is in tolerable health she hardly ever sleeps well two nights together. I found her accordingly a little out of spirits this morning, but still insisting on it that she is better. Indeed she always tells me so, and will probably die with those very words upon her lips. They will be true then at least, for then she will be best of all. She is now (the clock has just struck eleven) endeavouring, I believe, to get a little sleep, for which reason I do not yet let her know that I have received your letter.

Can I ever honour you enough for your zeal to serve me? Truly I think not: I am however so sensible of the love I owe you on this account, that I every day regret the acuteness of your feelings for me, convinced that they expose you to much trouble, mortification, and disappointment. I have in short a poor opinion of my destiny, as I told you when you were here, and, though I believe that if any man living can do me good you will, I cannot yet persuade myself, that even you will be successful in attempting it. But it is no matter; you are yourself a good, which I can never value enough, and, whether rich or poor in other respects, I shall always account myself better provided for than I deserve, with such a friend at my back as you. Let it please God to continue to me my William and Mary, and I will be more reasonable than to grumble.

I rose this morning wrapt round with a cloud of melancholy, and with a heart full of fears, but if I see Mary's amendment a little advanced when she rises, I shall be better.

I have just been with her again. Except that she is fatigued for want of sleep, she seems as well as yesterday. The post brings me a letter from Hurdis, who is broken-hearted for a dying sister. Had we eyes sharp enough, we should see the arrows of death flying in all directions, and account it a wonder that we and our friends escape them but a single day.

W. C.

TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESQ.

Weston, June 7, 1792.

Of what materials can you suppose me made, if after all the rapid proofs that you have given me of your friendship, I do not love you with all my heart, and regret your absence continually? But you must permit me to be melancholy now and then; or if you will not, I must be so without your permission; for that sable thread is so intermixed with the very thread of my existence as to be inseparable from it, at least while I exist in the body. Be content, therefore; let me sigh and groan, but always be sure that I love you! You will be well assured that I should not have indulged myself in this rhapsody about myself and my melancholy, had my present mood been of that complexion, or had not our poor Mary seemed still to advance in her recovery. So in fact she does, and has performed several little feats to-day; such as either she could not perform at all, or very feebly, while you were with us.

I shall be glad if you have seen Johnny as I call him, my Norfolk cousin; he is a sweet lad, but as shy as a bird. It costs him always two or three days to open his mouth before a stranger; but when he does, he is sure to please by the innocent cheerfulness of his conversation. His sister too is one of my idols, for the resemblance she bears to my mother.

Mary and you have all my thoughts; and how should it be otherwise? She looks well, is better, and loves you dearly.

Adieu! My dear brother, W. C.

TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESQ.

Weston, June 10, 1792.

I do indeed anxiously wish that every thing you do may prosper; and should I at last prosper by your means, shall taste double sweetness in prosperity for that reason.

I rose this morning, as I usually do, with a mind all in sables. In this mood I presented myself to Mary's bedside, whom I found, though after many hours lying awake, yet cheerful, and not to be affected with my desponding humour. It is a great blessing to us both, that, poor feeble thing as she is, she has a most invincible courage, and a trust in God's goodness, that nothing shakes. She is now in the study, and is certainly in some degree better than she was yesterday, but how to measure that little I know not, except by saying that it is just perceptible.

I am glad that you have seen my Johnny of Norfolk, because I know it will be a comfort to you to have seen your successor. He arrived to my great joy, yesterday; and, not having bound himself to any particular time of going, will, I hope, stay long with us. You are now once more snug in your retreat, and I give you joy of your return to it, after the bustle in which you have lived since you left Weston. Weston mourns your absence, and will mourn it till she sees you again. What is to become of Milton I know not; I do nothing but scribble to you, and seem to have no relish for any other employment. I have, however, in pursuit of your idea to compliment Darwin, put a few stanzas together, which I shall subjoin; you will easily give them all that you find they want, and match the song with another.

I am now going to walk with Johnny, much cheered since I began writing to you, and by Mary's looks and good spirits.

W. C.

TO DR. DARWIN,

AUTHOR OF THE BOTANIC GARDEN.

TO LADY HESKETH.

Weston, June 11, 1792.

My dearest Coz,—Thou art ever in my thoughts, whether I am writing to thee or not, and my correspondence seems to grow upon me at such a rate that I am not able to address thee so often as I would. In fact, I live only to write letters, Hayley is as you see added to the number, and to him I write almost as duly as I rise in the morning; nor is he only added, but his friend Carwardine also—Carwardine the generous, the disinterested, the friendly. I seem, in short, to have stumbled suddenly on a race of heroes, men who resolve to have no interests of their own till mine are served.

But I will proceed to other matters, and that concern me more intimately, and more immediately, than all that can be done for me either by the great or the small, or by both united. Since I wrote last, Mrs. Unwin has been continually improving in strength, but at so gradual a rate that I can only mark it by saying that she moves about every day with less support than the former. Her recovery is most of all retarded by want of sleep. On the whole, I believe she goes on as well as could be expected, though not quite well enough to satisfy me. And Dr. Austen, speaking from the reports I have made of her, says he has no doubt of her restoration.

During the last two months I seem to myself to have been in a dream. It has been a most eventful period, and fruitful to an uncommon degree, both in good and evil. I have been very ill, and suffered excruciating pain. I recovered, and became quite well again. I received within my doors a man, but lately an entire stranger, and who now loves me as a brother, and forgets himself to serve me. Mrs. Unwin has been seized with an illness that for many days threatened to deprive me of her, and to cast a gloom, an impenetrable one, on all my future prospects. She is now granted to me again. A few days since I should have thought the moon might have descended into my purse as likely as any emolument, and now it seems not impossible. All this has come to pass with such rapidity as events move with in romance indeed, but not often in real life. Events of all sorts creep or fly exactly as God pleases.

To the foregoing I have to add in conclusion, the arrival of my Johnny, just when I wanted him most, and when only a few days before I had no expectation of him. He came to dinner on Saturday, and I hope I shall keep him long. What comes next I know not, but shall endeavour, as you exhort me, to look for good, and I know I shall have your prayer that I may not be disappointed.

Hayley tells me you begin to be jealous of him, lest I should love him more than I love you, and bids me say, "that, should I do so, you in revenge must love him more than I do." Him I know you will love, and me, because you have such a habit of doing it that you cannot help it.

Adieu! My knuckles ache with letter-writing. With my poor patient's affectionate remembrances, and Johnny's,

I am ever thine, W. C.

TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESQ.

Weston, June 19, 1792.

... Thus have I filled a whole page to my dear William of Eartham, and have not said a syllable yet about my Mary. A sure sign that she goes on well. Be it known to you that we have these four days discarded our sedan with two elbows. Here is no more carrying, or being carried, but she walks up stairs boldly, with one hand upon the balustrade, and the other under my arm, and in like manner she comes down in a morning. Still I confess she is feeble, and misses much of her former strength. The weather too is sadly against her: it deprives her of many a good turn in the orchard, and fifty times have I wished this very day, that Dr. Darwin's scheme of giving rudders and sails[654] to the ice islands that spoil all our summers, were actually put into practice. So should we have gentle airs instead of churlish blasts, and those everlasting sources of bad weather being once navigated into the southern hemisphere, my Mary would recover as fast again. We are both of your mind respecting the journey to Eartham, and think that July, if by that time she have strength for the journey, will be better than August. We shall have more long days before us, and them we shall want as much for our return as for our going forth. This, however, must be left to the Giver of all good. If our visit to you be according to his will, he will smooth our way before us, and appoint the time of it; and I thus speak, not because I wish to seem a saint in your eyes, but because my poor Mary actually is one, and would not set her foot over the threshold, unless she had, or thought she had, God's free permission. With that she would go through floods and fire, though without it she would be afraid of everything—afraid even to visit you, dearly as she loves, and much as she longs to see you.