PART THE THIRD.

Having now arrived at that period in the history of Cowper, when he had brought to a close his great and laborious undertaking, his version of Homer, we suspend for a moment the progress of the correspondence, to afford room for a few observations.

We have seen in many of the preceding letters, with what ardour of application and liveliness of hope he devoted himself to this favourite project of enriching the literature of his country with an English Homer, that might justly be esteemed a faithful yet free translation; a genuine and graceful representative of the justly admired original.

After five years of intense labour, from which nothing could withhold him, except the pressure of that unhappy malady which retarded his exertions for several months, he published his complete version in two quarto volumes, on the first of July, 1791, having inscribed the Iliad to his young noble kinsman, Earl Cowper, and the Odyssey to the dowager Countess Spencer—a lady for whose virtues he had long entertained a most cordial and affectionate veneration.

He had exerted no common powers of genius and of industry in this great enterprise, yet, we lament to say, he failed in satisfying the expectations of the public. Hayley assigns a reason for this failure, which we give in his own words. "Homer," he observes, "is so exquisitely beautiful in his own language, and he has been so long an idol in every literary mind, that any copy of him, which the best of modern poets can execute, must probably resemble in its effect the portrait of a graceful woman, painted by an excellent artist for her lover: the lover indeed will acknowledge great merit in the work, and think himself much indebted to the skill of such an artist, but he will never admit, as in truth he never can feel, that the best of resemblances exhibits all the grace that he discerns in the beloved original."

This illustration is ingenious and amusing, but we doubt its justness; because the painter may produce a correct and even a flattering likeness of the lover's mistress, though it is true that the lover himself will think otherwise. But where is the translator that can do justice to the merits of Homer? Who can exhibit his majestic simplicity, his sententious force, the lofty grandeur of his conceptions, and the sweet charm of his imagery, embellished with all the graces of a language never surpassed either in harmony or richness? The two competitors, who are alone entitled to be contrasted with each other, are Pope and Cowper. We pass over Ogilby, Chapman, and others. It is Hector alone that is worthy to contend with Achilles. To the version of Pope must be allowed the praise of melody of numbers, richness of poetic diction, splendour of imagery, and brilliancy of effect; but these merits are acquired at the expense of fidelity and justness of interpretation. The simplicity of the heroic ages is exchanged for the refinement of modern taste, and Homer sinks under the weight of ornaments not his own. Where Pope fails, Cowper succeeds; but, on the other hand, where Pope succeeds, Cowper seems to fail. Cowper is more faithful, but less rich and spirited. He is singularly exempt from the defects attributable to Pope. There is nothing extraneous, no meretricious ornament, no laboured elegance, nothing added, nothing omitted. The integrity of the text is happily preserved. But though it is in the page of Cowper that we must seek for the true interpretation of Homer's meaning—though there are many passages distinguished by much grace and beauty—yet, on the whole, the lofty spirit, the bright glow of feeling, the "thoughts that breathe, the words that burn," are not sufficiently sustained. Each of these distinguished writers, to a certain extent, has failed, not from any want of genius, but because complete success is difficult, if not unattainable. Two causes may perhaps be assigned for this failure; first, no copy can equal the original, if the original be the production of a master artist. The poet who seeks to transfuse into his own page the meaning and spirit of an author, endowed with extraordinary powers, resembles the chemist in his laboratory, who, in endeavouring to condense the properties of different substances, and to extract their essence, has the misfortune to see a great portion of the volatile qualities evaporate in the process, and elude all the efforts of his philosophic art. Secondly, Homer still remains untranslated, because of all poets he is the most untranslateable. He seems to claim the lofty prerogative of standing alone, and of enjoying the solitary grandeur of his own unrivalled genius; allowing neither to rival nor to friend, to imitator nor to translator, the honours of participation; but exercising the exclusive right of interpreting the majestic simplicity of his own conceptions, in all the fervour of his own poetic fancy, and in the sweet melody of his own graceful and flowing numbers. He who wishes to understand and to appreciate Homer, must seek him in the charm and beauty of his own inimitable language.

As Cowper's versions of the Iliad and Odyssey have formed so prominent a feature in his correspondence, for five successive years, we think it may be interesting to subjoin a few specimens from each translator, restricting our quotations to the Iliad, as being the most familiar to the reader.

We extract passages, where poetic skill was most likely to be exerted.

Pope's Version, book vi. line 181.

For as the leaves, so springs the race of man. Chill blasts shake down the leaves, and warm'd anew By vernal airs the grove puts forth again: Age after age, so man is born and dies.

Cowper's Version, book vi. line 164.

The interview between Hector and Andromache—

Pope's Version, book vi. line 570.

Cowper's Version, book vi. line 501.

We add one more specimen, where the beauty of the imagery demands the exercise of poetic talent.

Book viii. line 687.

Book viii. line 637.

We leave the reader to form his own decision as to the relative merits of the two translations. Pope evidently produces effect by expanding the sentiments and imagery of his author; Cowper invariably adheres to the original text. That full justice may be rendered to him, it is necessary not merely to compare him with Pope but with his great original.

After these remarks we once more return to the correspondence of Cowper.

TO THE REV. MR. HURDIS.

Weston, June 13, 1791.

My dear Sir,—I ought to have thanked you for your agreeable and entertaining letter much sooner, but I have many correspondents who will not be said nay; and have been obliged of late to give my last attentions to Homer. The very last indeed, for yesterday I despatched to town, after revising them carefully, the proof sheets of subscribers' names, among which I took special notice of yours, and am much obliged to you for it. We have contrived, or rather my bookseller and printer have contrived (for they have never waited a moment for me) to publish as critically at the wrong time, as if my whole interest and success had depended upon it. March, April, and May, said Johnson to me in a letter that I received from him in February, are the best months for publication. Therefore now it is determined that Homer shall come out on the first of July; that is to say, exactly at the moment when, except a few lawyers, not a creature will be left in town who will ever care one farthing about him. To which of these two friends of mine I am indebted for this management, I know not. It does not please, but I would be a philosopher as well as a poet, and therefore make no complaint, or grumble at all about it. You, I presume, have had dealings with them both—how did they manage for you? And, if as they have for me, how did you behave under it? Some who love me complain that I am too passive; and I should be glad of an opportunity to justify myself by your example. The fact is, should I thunder ever so loud, no efforts of that sort will avail me now; therefore, like a good economist of my bolts, I choose to reserve them for more profitable occasions.

I am glad to find that your amusements have been so similar to mine; for in this instance too I seemed in need of somebody to keep me in countenance, especially in my attention and attachment to animals. All the notice that we lords of the creation vouchsafe to bestow on the creatures is generally to abuse them; it is well, therefore, that here and there a man should be found a little womanish, or perhaps a little childish, in this matter, who will make some amends, by kissing and coaxing and laying them in one's bosom. You remember the little ewe lamb, mentioned by the prophet Nathan; the prophet perhaps invented the tale for the sake of its application to David's conscience; but it is more probable that God inspired him with it for that purpose. If he did, it amounts to a proof, that he does not overlook, but, on the contrary, much notices such little partialities and kindnesses to his dumb creatures, as we, because we articulate, are pleased to call them.

Your sisters are fitter to judge than I, whether assembly-rooms are the places, of all others, in which the ladies may be studied to most advantage. I am an old fellow, but I had once my dancing days, as you have now, yet I could never find that I learned half so much of a woman's real character by dancing with her as by conversing with her at home, where I could observe her behaviour at the table, at the fire-side, and in all the trying circumstances of domestic life. We are all good when we are pleased, but she is the good woman who wants not a fiddle to sweeten her. If I am wrong, the young ladies will set me right; in the meantime I will not tease you with graver arguments on the subject, especially as I have a hope, that years, and the study of the Scripture, and His Spirit whose word it is, will, in due time, bring you to my way of thinking. I am not one of those sages who require that young men should be as old as themselves before they have time to be so.

With my love to your fair sisters, I remain,

Dear Sir, most truly yours, W. C.

TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESQ.

The Lodge, June 15, 1791.

My dear Friend,—If it will afford you any comfort that you have a share in my affections, of that comfort you may avail yourself at all times. You have acquired it by means which, unless I should have become worthless myself to an uncommon degree, will always secure you from the loss of it. You are learning what all learn, though few at so early an age, that man is an ungrateful animal; and that benefits, too often, instead of securing a due return, operate rather as provocations to ill-treatment. This I take to be the summum malum of the human heart. Towards God we are all guilty of it more or less; but between man and man, we may thank God for it, there are some exceptions. He leaves this peccant principle to operate, in some degree against himself, in all, for our humiliation, I suppose; and because the pernicious effects of it in reality cannot injure him, he cannot suffer by them; but he knows that, unless he should restrain its influence on the dealings of mankind with each other, the bonds of society would be dissolved, and all charitable intercourse at an end amongst us. It was said of Archbishop Cranmer, "Do him an ill turn, and you make him your friend for ever;" of others it may be said, "Do them a good one, and they will be for ever your enemies." It is the grace of God only that makes the difference.

The absence of Homer (for we have now shaken hands and parted) is well supplied by three relations of mine from Norfolk—my cousin Johnson, an aunt of his,[592] and his sister.[593] I love them all dearly, and am well content to resign to them the place in my attentions so lately occupied by the chiefs of Greece and Troy. His aunt and I have spent many a merry day together, when we were some forty years younger; and we make shift to be merry together still. His sister is a sweet young woman, graceful, good-natured, and gentle, just what I had imagined her to be before I had seen her.[594]

Farewell, W. C.

TO DR. JAMES COGSWELL, NEW YORK.

Weston-Underwood, near Olney, Bucks, June 15, 1791.

Dear Sir,—Your letter and obliging present from so great a distance deserved a speedier acknowledgment, and should not have wanted one so long, had not circumstances so fallen out since I received them as to make it impossible for me to write sooner. It is indeed within this day or two that I have heard how, by the help of my bookseller, I may transmit an answer to you.

My title-page, as it well might, misled you. It speaks me of the Inner Temple; and so I am, but a member of that society only, not as an inhabitant. I live here almost at the distance of sixty miles from London, which I have not visited these eight-and-twenty years, and probably never shall again. Thus it fell out that Mr. Morewood had sailed again for America before your parcel reached me, nor should I (it is likely) have received it at all, had not a cousin of mine, who lives in the Temple, by good fortune received it first, and opened your letter; finding for whom it was intended, he transmitted to me both that and the parcel. Your testimony of approbation of what I have published, coming from another quarter of the globe, could not but be extremely flattering, as was your obliging notice that "The Task" had been reprinted in your city. Both volumes, I hope, have a tendency to discountenance vice, and promote the best interests of mankind. But how far they shall be effectual to these invaluable purposes depends altogether on His blessing, whose truths I have endeavoured to inculcate. In the meantime I have sufficient proof, that readers may be pleased, may approve, and yet lay down the book unedified.

During the last five years I have been occupied with a work of a very different nature, a translation of the Iliad and Odyssey into blank verse, and the work is now ready for publication. I undertook it, partly because Pope's is too lax a version, which has lately occasioned the learned of this country to call aloud for a new one; and partly because I could fall on no better expedient to amuse a mind too much addicted to melancholy.

I send you, in return for the volumes with which you favoured me, three on religious subjects, popular productions that have not been long published, and that may not therefore yet have reached your country: "The Christian Officer's Panoply, by a marine officer"—"The Importance of the Manners of the Great," and "An Estimate of the Religion of the Fashionable World." The two last are said to be written by a lady, Miss Hannah More, and are universally read by people of that rank to which she addresses them. Your manners, I suppose, may be more pure than ours, yet it is not unlikely that even among you may be found some to whom her strictures are applicable. I return you my thanks, sir, for the volumes you sent me, two of which I have read with pleasure, Mr. Edwards's[595] book, and the Conquest of Canaan. The rest I have not had time to read, except Dr. Dwight's Sermon, which pleased me almost more than any that I have either seen or heard.

I shall account a correspondence with you an honour, and remain, dear sir,

Your obliged and obedient servant, W. C.

TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.[596]

Weston, June 24, 1791.

My dear Friend,—Considering the multiplicity of your engagements, and the importance, no doubt, of most of them, I am bound to set the higher value on your letters, and, instead of grumbling that they come seldom, to be thankful to you that they come at all. You are now going into the country, where, I presume, you will have less to do, and I am rid of Homer. Let us try, therefore, if, in the interval between the present hour and the next busy season (for I, too, if I live, shall probably be occupied again), we can continue to exchange letters more frequently than for some time past.

You do justice to me and Mrs. Unwin, when you assure yourself that to hear of your health will give us pleasure: I know not, in truth, whose health and well-being could give us more. The years that we have seen together will never be out of our remembrance; and, so long as we remember them, we must remember you with affection. In the pulpit, and out of the pulpit, you have laboured in every possible way to serve us; and we must have a short memory indeed for the kindness of a friend, could we by any means become forgetful of yours. It would grieve me more than it does to hear you complain of the effects of time, were not I also myself the subject of them. While he is wearing out you and other dear friends of mine he spares not me; for which I ought to account myself obliged to him, since I should otherwise be in danger of surviving all that I have ever loved—the most melancholy lot that can befall a mortal. God knows what will be my doom hereafter; but precious as life necessarily seems to a mind doubtful of its future happiness, I love not the world, I trust, so much as to wish a place in it when all my beloved shall have left it.

You speak of your late loss in a manner that affected me much; and when I read that part of your letter, I mourned with you and for you. But surely, I said to myself, no man had ever less reason to charge his conduct to a wife with any thing blameworthy. Thoughts of that complexion, however, are no doubt extremely natural on the occasion of such a loss; and a man seems not to have valued sufficiently, when he possesses it no longer, what, while he possessed it, he valued more than life. I am mistaken, too, or you can recollect a time when you had fears, and such as became a Christian, of loving too much; and it is likely that you have even prayed to be preserved from doing so. I suggest this to you as a plea against those self-accusations, which I am satisfied that you do not deserve, and as an effectual answer to them all. You may do well too to consider, that had the deceased been the survivor she would have charged herself in the same manner, and, I am sure you will acknowledge, without any sufficient reason. The truth is, that you both loved at least as much as you ought, and, I dare say, had not a friend in the world who did not frequently observe it. To love just enough, and not a bit too much, is not for creatures who can do nothing well. If we fail in duties less arduous, how should we succeed in this, the most arduous of all?

I am glad to learn from yourself that you are about to quit a scene that probably keeps your tender recollections too much alive. Another place and other company may have their uses: and, while your church is undergoing repair, its minister may be repaired also.

As to Homer, I am sensible that, except as an amusement, he was never worth my meddling with; but, as an amusement, he was to me invaluable. As such he served me more than five years; and, in that respect, I know not where I shall find his equal. You oblige me by saying, that you will read him for my sake. I verily think that any person of a spiritual turn may read him to some advantage. He may suggest reflections that may not be unserviceable even in a sermon; for I know not where we can find more striking exemplars of the pride, the arrogance, and the insignificance of man; at the same time that, by ascribing all events to a divine interposition, he inculcates constantly the belief of a providence; insists much on the duty of charity towards the poor and the stranger; on the respect that is due to superiors, and to our seniors in particular; and on the expedience and necessity of prayer and piety toward the gods, a piety mistaken, indeed, in its object, but exemplary for the punctuality of its performance. Thousands, who will not learn from scripture to ask a blessing either on their actions or on their food, may learn it, if they please, from Homer.

My Norfolk cousins are now with us. We are both as well as usual; and with our affectionate remembrances to Miss Catlett,

I remain sincerely yours, W. C.

We are indebted to the kindness of a friend for the following letter:—

TO MRS. BODHAM, SOUTH GREEN, MATTISHALL, NORFOLK.

Weston-Underwood, July 7, 1791.

My dearest Cousin,—Most true it is, however strange, that on the 25th of last month I wrote you a long letter, and verily thought I had sent it: but, opening my desk the day before yesterday, there I found it. Such a memory have I—a good one never, but at present worse than usual, my head being filled with the cares of publication,[597] and the bargain that I am making with my bookseller.

I am sorry that through this forgetfulness of mine you were disappointed, otherwise should not at all regret that my letter never reached you; for it consisted principally of such reasons as I could muster to induce you to consent to a favourite measure to which you have consented without them. Your kindness and self-denying disinterestedness on this occasion have endeared you to us all, if possible, still the more, and are truly worthy of the Rose[598] that used to sit smiling on my knee, I will not say how many years ago.

Make no apologies, my dear, that thou dost not write more frequently;—write when thou canst, and I shall be satisfied. I am sensible, as I believe I have already told you, that there is an awkwardness in writing to those with whom we have hardly ever conversed; in consideration of which, I feel myself not at all inclined either to wonder at or to blame your silence. At the same time, be it known to you, that you must not take encouragement from this my great moderation, lest, disuse increasing the labour, you should at last write not at all.

That I should visit Norfolk at present is not possible. I have heretofore pleaded my engagement to Homer as the reason, and a reason it was, while it subsisted, that was absolutely insurmountable. But there are still other impediments, which it would neither be pleasant to me to relate, nor to you to know, and which could not well be comprised in a letter. Let it suffice for me to say that, could they be imparted, you would admit the force of them. It shall be our mutual consolation, that, if we cannot meet at Mattishall, at least we may meet at Weston, and that we shall meet here with double satisfaction, being now so numerous.

Your sister is well; Kitty,[599] I think, better than when she came; and Johnny[600] ails nothing, except that if he eat a little more supper than usual, he is apt to be riotous in his sleep. We have an excellent physician at Northampton, whom our dear Catherine wishes to consult, and I have recommended it to Johnny to consult him at the same time. His nocturnal ailment is, I dare say, within the reach of medical advice; and, because it may happen some time or other to be very hurtful to him, I heartily wish him cured of it. Light suppers and early rising perhaps might alone be effectual—but the latter is a difficulty that threatens not to be easily surmounted.

We are all of one mind respecting you; therefore I send the love of all, though I shall see none of the party till breakfast calls us together. Great preparation is making in the empty house. The spiders have no rest, and hardly a web is to be seen where lately there were thousands.

I am, my dearest cousin, with best respects to Mr. Bodham, most affectionately yours,

W. C.

TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.[601]

Weston, July 22, 1791.

My dear Friend,—I did not foresee, when I challenged you to a brisker correspondence, that a new engagement of all my leisure was at hand: a new and yet an old one. An interleaved copy of my Homer arrived soon after from Johnson, in which he recommended it to me to make any alterations that might yet be expedient, with a view to another impression. The alterations that I make are indeed but few, and they are also short; not more, perhaps, than half a line in two thousand. But the lines are, I suppose, nearly forty thousand in all, and to revise them critically must consequently be a work of labour. I suspend it, however, for your sake, till the present sheet be filled, and that I may not seem to shrink from my own offer.

Mr. Bean has told me that he saw you at Bedford, and gave us your reasons for not coming our way. It is well, so far as your own comfortable lodging and our gratification were concerned, that you did not; for our house is brimful, as it has been all the summer, with my relations from Norfolk. We should all have been mortified, both you and we, had you been obliged, as you must have been, to seek a residence elsewhere.

I am sorry that Mr. Venn's[602] labours below are so near to a conclusion. I have seen few men whom I could have loved more, had opportunity been given me to know him better. So, at least, I have thought as often as I have seen him. But when I saw him last, which is some years since, he appeared then so much broken that I could not have imagined that he would last so long. Were I capable of envying, in the strict sense of the word, a good man, I should envy him, and Mr. Berridge,[603] and yourself, who have spent, and while they last, will continue to spend, your lives in the service of the only Master worth serving; labouring always for the souls of men, and not to tickle their ears, as I do. But this I can say—God knows how much rather I would be the obscure tenant of a lath-and-plaster cottage, with a lively sense of my interest in a Redeemer, than the most admired object of public notice without it. Alas! what is a whole poem, even one of Homer's, compared with a single aspiration that finds its way immediately to God, though clothed in ordinary language, or perhaps not articulated at all! These are my sentiments as much as ever they were, though my days are all running to waste among Greeks and Trojans. The night cometh when no man can work; and, if I am ordained to work to better purpose, that desirable period cannot be very distant. My day is beginning to shut in, as every man's must who is on the verge of sixty.

All the leisure that I have had of late for thinking, has been given to the riots at Birmingham. What a horrid zeal for the church, and what a horrid loyalty to government, have manifested themselves there! How little do they dream that they could not have dishonoured their idol, the Establishment, more, and that the great Bishop of souls himself with abhorrence rejects their service! But I have not time to enlarge; breakfast calls me; and all my post-breakfast time must be given to poetry. Adieu!

Most truly yours, W. C.

TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT.

Weston, August 2, 1791.

My dear Friend,—I was much obliged, and still feel myself much obliged, to Lady Bagot for the visit with which she favoured me. Had it been possible that I could have seen Lord Bagot too, I should have been completely happy. For, as it happened, I was that morning in better spirits than usual, and, though I arrived late, and after a long walk, and extremely hot, which is a circumstance very apt to disconcert me, yet I was not disconcerted half so much as I generally am at the sight of a stranger, especially of a stranger lady, and more especially at the sight of a stranger lady of quality. When the servant told me that Lady Bagot was in the parlour, I felt my spirits sink ten degrees; but, the moment I saw her, at least, when I had been a minute in her company, I felt them rise again, and they soon rose even above their former pitch. I know two ladies of fashion now whose manners have this effect upon me, the lady in question and the Lady Spencer. I am a shy animal, and want much kindness to make me easy. Such I shall be to my dying day.

Here sit I, calling myself shy, yet have just published by the bye, two great volumes of poetry.

This reminds me of Ranger's observation in the "Suspicious Husband," who says to somebody, I forget whom, "There is a degree of assurance in you modest men that we impudent fellows can never arrive at."—Assurance, indeed! Have you seen 'em? What do you think they are? Nothing less, I can tell you, than a translation of Homer, of the sublimest poet in the world. That's all. Can I ever have the impudence to call myself shy again?

You live, I think, in the neighbourhood of Birmingham. What must you not have felt on the late alarming occasion! You, I suppose, could see the fires from your windows. We, who only heard the news of them, have trembled. Never sure was religious zeal more terribly manifested or more to the prejudice of its own cause.[604]

Adieu, my dear friend. I am, with Mrs. Unwin's best compliments,

Ever yours, W. C.

TO MRS. KING.[605]

Weston, Aug. 4, 1791.

My dear Madam,—Your last letter, which gave us so unfavourable an account of your health, and which did not speak much more comfortably of Mr. King's, affected us with much concern. Of Dr. Raitt we may say, in the words of Milton,

for as he foretold to you, so he foretold to Mrs. Unwin, that, though her disorders might not much threaten life, they would yet cleave to her to the last; and she and perfect health must ever be strangers to each other. Such was his prediction, and it has been hitherto accomplished. Either head-ache or pain in the side has been her constant companion ever since we had the pleasure of seeing you. As for myself, I cannot properly say that I enjoy a good state of health, though in general I have it, because I have it accompanied with frequent fits of dejection, to which less health and better spirits would, perhaps, be infinitely preferable. But it pleased God that I should be born in a country where melancholy is the national characteristic. To say the truth, I have often wished myself a Frenchman.

N. B. I write this in very good spirits.

You gave us so little hope in your last, that we should have your company this summer at Weston, that to repeat our invitation seems almost like teasing you. I will only say, therefore, that, my Norfolk friends having left us, of whose expected arrival here I believe I told you in a former letter, we should be happy could you succeed them. We now, indeed, expect Lady Hesketh, but not immediately; she seldom sees Weston till all its summer beauties are fled, and red, brown, and yellow, have supplanted the universal verdure.

My Homer is gone forth, and I can devoutly say, "Joy go with it!" What place it holds in the estimation of the generality I cannot tell, having heard no more about it since its publication than if no such work existed. I must except, however, an anonymous eulogium from some man of letters, which I received about a week ago. It was kind in a perfect stranger, as he avows himself to be, to relieve me, at so early a day, from much of the anxiety that I could not but feel on such an occasion. I should be glad to know who he is, only that I might thank him.

Mrs. Unwin, who is at this moment come down to breakfast, joins me in affectionate compliments to yourself and Mr. King; and I am, my dear madam,

Most sincerely yours, W. C.

TO THE REV. MR. HURDIS.

Weston, August 9, 1791.

My dear Sir,—I never make a correspondent wait for an answer through idleness, or want of proper respect for him; but if I am silent it is because I am busy, or not well, or because I stay till something occur that may make my letter at least a little better than mere blank paper. I therefore write speedily in reply to yours, being at present neither much occupied, nor at all indisposed, nor forbidden by a dearth of materials.

I wish always, when I have a new piece in hand, to be as secret as you, and there was a time when I could be so. Then I lived the life of a solitary, was not visited by a single neighbour, because I had none with whom I could associate; nor ever had an inmate. This was when I dwelt at Olney; but since I have removed to Weston the case is different. Here I am visited by all around me, and study in a room exposed to all manner of inroads. It is on the ground floor, the room in which we dine, and in which I am sure to be found by all who seek me. They find me generally at my desk, and with my work, whatever it be, before me, unless perhaps I have conjured it into its hiding-place before they have had time to enter. This, however, is not always the case; and, consequently, sooner or later, I cannot fail to be detected. Possibly you, who I suppose have a snug study, would find it impracticable to attend to any thing closely in an apartment exposed as mine, but use has made it familiar to me, and so familiar, that neither servants going and coming disconcert me; nor even if a lady, with an oblique glance of her eye, catches two or three lines of my MSS., do I feel myself inclined to blush, though naturally the shyest of mankind.

You did well, I believe, to cashier the subject of which you gave me a recital. It certainly wants those agrémens which are necessary to the success of any subject in verse. It is a curious story, and so far as the poor young lady was concerned a very affecting one; but there is a coarseness in the character of the hero that would have spoiled all. In fact, I find it myself a much easier matter to write, than to get a convenient theme to write on.

I am obliged to you for comparing me as you go both with Pope and with Homer. It is impossible in any other way of management to know whether the translation be well executed or not, and if well, in what degree. It was in the course of such a process that I first became dissatisfied with Pope. More than thirty years since, and when I was a young Templar, I accompanied him with his original, line by line, through both poems. A fellow student of mine, a person of fine classical taste, joined himself with me in the labour. We were neither of us, as you may imagine, very diligent in our proper business.

I shall be glad if my reviewers, whosoever they may be, will be at the pains to read me as you do. I want no praise that I am not entitled to, but of that to which I am entitled I should be loath to lose a tittle, having worked hard to earn it.

I would heartily second the Bishop of Salisbury[606] in recommending to you a close pursuit of your Hebrew studies, were it not that I wish you to publish what I may understand. Do both, and I shall be satisfied.

Your remarks, if I may but receive them soon enough to serve me in case of a new edition, will be extremely welcome.

W. C.

TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESQ.

Weston, Aug. 9, 1791.

My dearest Johnny,—The little that I have heard about Homer myself has been equally or more flattering than Dr. ——'s intelligence, so that I have good reason to hope that I have not studied the old Grecian, and how to dress him, so long and so intensely, to no purpose. At present I am idle, both on account of my eyes and because I know not to what to attach myself in particular. Many different plans and projects are recommended to me. Some call aloud for original verse, others for more translation, and others for other things. Providence, I hope, will direct me in my choice, for other guide I have none, nor wish for another.

God bless you, my dearest Johnny, W. C.

The active mind of Cowper, and the necessity of mental exertion, in order to arrest the terrible incursions of his depressing malady, soon led him to contract a new literary engagement. A splendid edition of Milton was at that time contemplated, intended to rival the celebrated Shakspeare of Boydell; and to combine all the adventitious aid that editorial talent, the professional skill of a most distinguished artist, and the utmost embellishment of type could command, to ensure success. Johnson, the bookseller, invited the co-operation of Cowper, in the responsible office of Editor. For such an undertaking he was unquestionably qualified, by his refined critical taste and discernment, and by his profound veneration for this first of modern epic poets. Cowper readily entered into this project, and by his admirable translations of the Latin and Italian poems of Milton, justly added to the fame which he had already acquired. But to those who know how to appreciate his poetic powers, and his noble ardour in proclaiming the most important truths, it must ever be a source of unfeigned regret that the hours given to translation, and especially to Homer, were not dedicated to the composition of some original work. Who would not have hailed with delight another poem, rivalling all the beauties and moral excellences of "The Task," and endearing to the mind, with still higher claims, the sweet poet of nature, and the graceful yet sublime teacher of heavenly truth and wisdom?

It was this literary engagement that first laid the foundation of that intercourse, which commenced at this time between Cowper and Hayley; an intercourse which seems to have ripened into subsequent habits of friendship. As their names have been so much associated together, and Hayley eventually became the poet's biographer, we shall record the circumstances of the origin of their intimacy in Hayley's own words.

"As it is to Milton that I am in a great measure indebted for what I must ever regard as a signal blessing, the friendship of Cowper, the reader will pardon me for dwelling a little on the circumstances that produced it; circumstances which often lead me to repeat those sweet verses of my friend, on the casual origin of our most valuable attachments:

These charming verses strike with peculiar force on my heart, when I recollect, that it was an idle endeavour to make us enemies which gave rise to our intimacy, and that I was providentially conducted to Weston at a season when my presence there afforded peculiar comfort to my affectionate friend under the pressure of a domestic affliction, which threatened to overwhelm his very tender spirits.[608]

"The entreaty of many persons, whom I wished to oblige, had engaged me to write a Life of Milton, before I had the slightest suspicion that my work could interfere with the projects of any man; but I was soon surprised and concerned in hearing that I was represented in a newspaper as an antagonist of Cowper.

"I immediately wrote to him on the subject, and our correspondence soon endeared us to each other in no common degree."

We give credit to Hayley for the kind and amiable spirit which he manifested on this delicate occasion; and for the address with which he converted an apparent collision of interests into a magnanimous triumph of literary and courteous feeling.

The succeeding letters will be found to contain frequent allusions both to his past and newly contracted engagement.

TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESQ.

The Lodge, Sept. 14, 1791.

My dear Friend,—Whoever reviews me will in fact have a laborious task of it, in the performance of which he ought to move leisurely, and to exercise much critical discernment. In the meantime, my courage is kept up by the arrival of such testimonies in my favour as give me the greatest pleasure; coming from quarters the most respectable. I have reason, therefore, to hope that our periodical judges will not be very averse to me, and that perhaps they may even favour me. If one man of taste and letters is pleased, another man so qualified can hardly be displeased; and if critics of a different description grumble, they will not however materially hurt me.

You, who know how necessary it is to me to be employed, will be glad to hear that I have been called to a new literary engagement, and that I have not refused it. A Milton, that is to rival, and, if possible, to exceed in splendour, Boydell's Shakspeare, is in contemplation, and I am in the editor's office. Fuseli is the painter. My business will be to select notes from others, and to write original notes; to translate the Latin and Italian poems, and to give a correct text. I shall have years allowed me to do it in.

W. C.

TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT.

Weston, Sept. 21, 1791.

My dear Friend,—Of all the testimonies in favour of my Homer that I have received, none has given me so sincere a pleasure as that of Lord Bagot. It is an unmixed pleasure, and without a drawback; because I know him to be perfectly, and in all respects, whether erudition or a fine taste be in question, so well qualified to judge me, that I can neither expect nor wish a sentence more valuable than his—

... εισοκ αυτμη Εν στηθεσσι μενει, και μοι φιλα γουνατ ορωρει.

I hope by this time you have received your volumes, and are prepared to second the applauses of your brother—else, woe be to you! I wrote to Johnson immediately on the receipt of your last, giving him a strict injunction to despatch them to you without delay. He had sold some time since a hundred of the unsubscribed-for copies.

I have not a history in the world except Baker's Chronicle, and that I borrowed three years ago from Mr. Throckmorton. Now the case is this: I am translating Milton's third Elegy—his Elegy on the death of the Bishop of Winchester.[609] He begins it with saying, that, while he was sitting alone, dejected, and musing on many melancholy themes, first, the idea of the Plague presented itself to his mind, and of the havoc made by it among the great. Then he proceeds thus:

I cannot learn from my only oracle, Baker, who this famous leader, and his reverend brother were. Neither does he at all ascertain for me the event alluded to in the second of these couplets. I am not yet possessed of Warton, who probably explains it, nor can be for a month to come. Consult him for me if you have him, or, if you have him not, consult some other. Or you may find the intelligence perhaps in your own budget; no matter how you come by it, only send it to me if you can, and as soon as you can, for I hate to leave unsolved difficulties behind me.[610] In the first year of Charles the First, Milton was seventeen years of age, and then wrote this elegy. The period therefore to which I would refer you, is the two or three last years of James the First.

Ever yours, W. C.

TO THE REV. MR. KING.[611]

Weston, Sept. 23, 1791.

Dear Sir,—We are truly concerned at your account of Mrs. King's severe indisposition; and, though you had no better news to tell us, are much obliged to you for writing to inform us of it, and to Mrs. King for desiring you to do it. We take a lively interest in what concerns her. I should never have ascribed her silence to neglect, had she neither written to me herself nor commissioned you to write for her. I had, indeed, for some time expected a letter from her by every post, but accounted for my continual disappointment by supposing her at Edgeware, to which place she intended a visit, as she told me long since, and hoped that she would write immediately on her return.

Her sufferings will be felt here till we learn that they are removed; for which reason we shall be much obliged by the earliest notice of her recovery, which we most sincerely wish, if it please God, and which will not fail to be a constant subject of prayer at Weston.

I beg you, sir, to present Mrs. Unwin's and my affectionate remembrances to Mrs. King, in which you are equally a partaker, and to believe me, with true esteem and much sincerity,

Yours, W. C.

TO MRS. KING.[612]

Weston, Oct. 21, 1791.

My dear Friend,—You could not have sent me more agreeable news than that of your better health, and I am greatly obliged to you for making me the first of your correspondents to whom you have given that welcome intelligence. This is a favour which I should have acknowledged much sooner, had not a disorder in my eyes, to which I have always been extremely subject, required that I should make as little use of my pen as possible. I felt much for you, when I read that part of your letter in which you mention your visitors, and the fatigue which, indisposed as you have been, they could not fail to occasion you. Agreeable as you would have found them at another time, and happy as you would have been in their company, you could not but feel the addition they necessarily made to your domestic attentions as a considerable inconvenience. But I have always said, and shall never say otherwise, that if patience under adversity, and submission to the afflicting hand of God, be true fortitude—which no reasonable person can deny—then your sex have ten times more true fortitude to boast than ours; and I have not the least doubt that you carried yourself with infinitely more equanimity on that occasion than I should have done, or any he of my acquaintance. Why is it, since the first offender on earth was a woman, that the women are nevertheless, in all the most important points, superior to the men? That they are so I will not allow to be disputed, having observed it ever since I was capable of making the observation. I believe, on recollection, that, when I had the happiness to see you here, we agitated this question a little; but I do not remember that we arrived at any decision of it. The Scripture calls you the weaker vessels; and perhaps the best solution of the difficulty, therefore, may be found in those other words of Scripture—My strength is perfected in weakness. Unless you can furnish me with a better key than this, I shall be much inclined to believe that I have found the true one.

I am deep in a new literary engagement, being retained by my bookseller as editor of an intended most magnificent publication of Milton's Poetical Works. This will occupy me as much as Homer did for a year or two to come; and when I have finished it, I shall have run through all the degrees of my profession, as author, translator, and editor. I know not that a fourth could be found; but if a fourth can be found, I dare say I shall find it.

I remain, my dear madam, your affectionate friend and humble servant,

W. C.

TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT.

Weston, Oct. 25, 1791.

My dear Friend,—Your unexpected and transient visit, like every thing else that is past, has now the appearance of a dream, but it was a pleasant one, and I heartily wish that such dreams could recur more frequently. Your brother Chester repeated his visit yesterday, and I never saw him in better spirits. At such times he has, now and then, the very look that he had when he was a boy, and when I see it I seem to be a boy myself, and entirely forget for a short moment the years that have intervened since I was one. The look that I mean is one that you, I dare say, have observed.—Then we are at Westminster again. He left with me that poem of your brother Lord Bagot's which was mentioned when you were here. It was a treat to me, and I read it to my cousin Lady Hesketh and to Mrs. Unwin, to whom it was a treat also. It has great sweetness of numbers and much elegance of expression, and is just such a poem as I should be happy to have composed myself about a year ago, when I was loudly called upon by a certain nobleman[613] to celebrate the beauties of his villa. But I had two insurmountable difficulties to contend with. One was that I had never seen his villa, and the other, that I had no eyes at that time for anything but Homer. Should I at any time hereafter undertake the task, I shall now at least know how to go about it, which, till I had seen Lord Bagot's poem, I verily did not. I was particularly charmed with the parody of those beautiful lines of Milton:

There's a parenthesis for you! The parenthesis it seems is out of fashion, and perhaps the moderns are in the right to proscribe what they cannot attain to. I will answer for it that had we the art at this day of insinuating a sentiment in this graceful manner, no reader of taste would quarrel with the practice. Lord Bagot showed his by selecting the passage for his imitation.

I would beat Warton, if he were living, for supposing that Milton ever repented of his compliment to the memory of Bishop Andrews. I neither do, nor can, nor will believe it. Milton's mind could not be narrowed by anything, and, though he quarrelled with episcopacy in the church of England idea of it, I am persuaded that a good bishop, as well as any other good man, of whatsoever rank or order, had always a share of his veneration.[614]

Yours, my dear friend, Very affectionately, W. C.

TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESQ.

Weston, Oct. 31, 1791.

My dear Johnny,—Your kind and affectionate letter well deserves my thanks, and should have had them long ago, had I not been obliged lately to give my attention to a mountain of unanswered letters, which I have just now reduced to a mole-hill; yours lay at the bottom, and I have at last worked my way down to it.

It gives me great pleasure that you have found a house to your minds. May you all three be happier in it than the happiest that ever occupied it before you! But my chief delight of all is to learn that you and Kitty are so completely cured of your long and threatening maladies. I always thought highly of Dr. Kerr, but his extraordinary success in your two instances has even inspired me with an affection for him.

My eyes are much better than when I wrote last, though seldom perfectly well many days together. At this season of the year I catch perpetual colds, and shall continue to do so till I have got the better of that tenderness of habit with which the summer never fails to affect me.

I am glad that you have heard well of my work in your country. Sufficient proofs have reached me from various quarters that I have not ploughed the field of Troy in vain.

Were you here, I would gratify you with an enumeration of particulars, but since you are not it must content you to be told that I have every reason to be satisfied.

Mrs. Unwin, I think, in her letter to Cousin Balls, made mention of my new engagement. I have just entered on it, and therefore can at present say little about it. It is a very creditable one in itself, and may I but acquit myself of it with sufficiency it will do me honour. The commentator's part however is a new one to me, and one that I little thought to appear in. Remember your promise that I shall see you in the spring.

The Hall has been full of company ever since you went, and at present my Catharina[615] is there, singing and playing like an angel.

W. C.

TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.

Weston, Nov. 14, 1791.

My dear Friend,—I have waited and wished for your opinion with the feelings that belong to the value that I have for it, and am very happy to find it so favourable. In my table-drawer I treasure up a bundle of suffrages sent me by those of whose approbation I was most ambitious, and shall presently insert yours among them.

I know not why we should quarrel with compound epithets; it is certain, at least, they are as agreeable to the genius of our language as to that of the Greek, which is sufficiently proved by their being admitted into our common and colloquial dialect. Black-eyed, nut-brown, crook-shanked, hump-backed, are all compound epithets, and, together with a thousand other such, are used continually, even by those who profess a dislike to such combinations in poetry. Why then do they treat with so much familiarity a thing that they say disgusts them? I doubt if they could give this question a reasonable answer, unless they should answer it by confessing themselves unreasonable.

I have made a considerable progress in the translation of Milton's Latin poems. I give them, as opportunity offers, all the variety of measure that I can. Some I render in heroic rhyme, some in stanzas, some in seven and some in eight syllable measure, and some in blank verse. They will altogether, I hope, make an agreeable miscellany for the English reader. They are certainly good in themselves, and cannot fail to please but by the fault of their translator.

W. C.

TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.[616]

Weston, Nov. 16, 1791.

My dear Friend,—I am weary of making you wait for an answer, and therefore resolve to send you one, though without the lines you ask for. Such as they are, they have been long ready; and could I have found a conveyance for them, should have been with you weeks ago. Mr. Bean's last journey to town might have afforded me an opportunity to send them, but he gave me not sufficient notice. They must, therefore, be still delayed till either he shall go to London again or somebody else shall offer. I thank you for yours, which are as much better than mine as gold is better than feathers.

It seemed necessary that I should account for my apparent tardiness to comply with the obliging request of a lady, and of a lady who employed you as her intermedium. None was wanted, as you well assured her. But had there been occasion for one, she could not possibly have found a better.

I was much pleased with your account of your visit to Cowslip Green,[617] both for the sake of what you saw there, and because I am sure you must have been as happy in such company as any situation in this world can make you. Miss More has been always employed, since I first heard of her doings, as becomes a Christian. So she was while endeavouring to reform the unreformable great; and so she is, while framing means and opportunities to instruct the more tractable little. Horace's Virginibus, puerisque, may be her motto, but in a sense much nobler than he has annexed to it. I cannot, however, be entirely reconciled to the thought of her being henceforth silent, though even for the sake of her present labours.[618] A pen useful as hers ought not, perhaps, to be laid aside; neither, perhaps, will she altogether renounce it, but, when she has established her schools, and habituated them to the discipline she intends, will find it desirable to resume it. I rejoice that she has a sister like herself, capable of bidding defiance to fatigue and hardship, to dirty roads and wet raiment, in so excellent a cause.[619]

I beg that when you write next to either of those ladies, you will present my best compliments to Miss Martha, and tell her that I can never feel myself flattered more than I was by her application. God knows how unworthy I judge myself, at the same time, to be admitted into a collection[620] of which you are a member. Were there not a crowned head or two to keep me in countenance, I should even blush to think of it.

I would that I could see some of the mountains which you have seen; especially, because Dr. Johnson has pronounced that no man is qualified to be a poet who has never seen a mountain. But mountains I shall never see, unless perhaps in a dream, or unless there are such in heaven. Nor those, unless I receive twice as much mercy as ever yet was shown to any man.

I am now deep in Milton, translating his Latin poems for a pompous edition, of which you have undoubtedly heard. This amuses me for the present, and will for a year or two. So long, I presume, I shall be occupied in the several functions that belong to my present engagement.

Mrs. Unwin and I are about as well as usual; always mindful of you, and always affectionately so. Our united love attends yourself and Miss Catlett.

Believe me, most truly yours, W. C.

TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT.

Weston-Underwood, Dec. 5, 1791.

My dear Friend,—Your last brought me two cordials; for what can better deserve that name than the cordial approbation of two such readers as your brother, the bishop, and your good friend and neighbour, the clergyman? The former I have ever esteemed and honoured with the justest cause, and am as ready to honour and esteem the latter as you can wish me to be, and as his wishes and talents deserve. Do I hate a parson? Heaven forbid! I love you all when you are good for any thing, and, as to the rest, I would mend them if I could, and that is the worst of my intentions towards them.

I heard above a month since that this first edition of my work was at that time nearly sold. It will not therefore, I presume, be long before I must go to press again. This I mention merely from an earnest desire to avail myself of all other strictures that either your good neighbour, Lord Bagot, the bishop, or yourself,

παντων εκπαγλοτατ' ανδρων,

may happen to have made, and will be so good as to favour me with. Those of the good Evander contained in your last have served me well, and I have already, in the three different places referred to, accommodated the text to them. And this I have done in one instance even a little against the bias of my own opinion.

The sense I had given of these words is the sense in which an old scholiast has understood them, as appears in Clarke's note in loco. Clarke indeed prefers the other, but it does not appear plain to me that he does it with good reason against the judgment of a very ancient commentator and a Grecian. And I am the rather inclined to this persuasion, because Achilles himself seems to have apprehended that Agamemnon would not content himself with Briseis only, when he says,

It is certain that the words are ambiguous, and that the sense of them depends altogether on the punctuation. But I am always under the correction of so able a critic as your neighbour, and have altered, as I say, my version accordingly.

As to Milton, the die is cast. I am engaged, have bargained with Johnson, and cannot recede. I should otherwise have been glad to do as you advise, to make the translation of his Latin and Italian part of another volume; for, with such an addition, I have nearly as much verse in my budget as would be required for the purpose. This squabble, in the meantime, between Fuseli and Boydell[621] does not interest me at all; let it terminate as it may, I have only to perform my job, and leave the event to be decided by the combatants.

Adieu, my dear friend, I am most sincerely yours,

W. C.

Why should you suppose that I did not admire the poem you showed me? I did admire it, and told you so, but you carried it off in your pocket, and so doing left me to forget it, and without the means of inquiry.

I am thus nimble in answering, merely with a view to ensure myself the receipt of other remarks in time for a new impression.

TO THE REV. MR. HURDIS.

Weston, Dec. 10, 1791.

Dear Sir,—I am much obliged to you for wishing that I were employed in some original work rather than in translation. To tell the truth, I am of your mind; and, unless I could find another Homer, I shall promise (I believe) and vow, when I have done with Milton, never to translate again. But my veneration for our great countryman is equal to what I feel for the Grecian; and consequently I am happy, and feel myself honourably employed whatever I do for Milton. I am now translating his Epitaphium Damonis, a pastoral in my judgment equal to any of Virgil's Bucolics, but of which Dr. Johnson (so it pleased him) speaks, as I remember, contemptuously. But he who never saw any beauty in a rural scene was not likely to have much taste for a pastoral. In pace quiescat!

I was charmed with your friendly offer to be my advocate with the public; should I want one, I know not where I could find a better. The reviewer in the Gentleman's Magazine grows more and more civil. Should he continue to sweeten at this rate, as he proceeds, I know not what will become of all the little modesty I have left. I have availed myself of some of his strictures, for I wish to learn from every body.

W. C.

TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESQ.

The Lodge, Dec. 21, 1791.

My dear Friend,—It grieves me, after having indulged a little hope that I might see you in the holidays, to be obliged to disappoint myself. The occasion too is such as will ensure me your sympathy.

On Saturday last, while I was at my desk near the window, and Mrs. Unwin at the fireside opposite to it, I heard her suddenly exclaim, "Oh! Mr. Cowper, don't let me fall!" I turned and saw her actually falling, together with her chair, and started to her side just in time to prevent her. She was seized with a violent giddiness, which lasted, though with some abatement, the whole day, and was attended too with some other very, very alarming symptoms. At present, however, she is relieved from the vertigo, and seems in all respects better.

She has been my faithful and affectionate nurse for many years, and consequently has a claim on all my attentions. She has them, and will have them as long as she wants them; which will probably be, at the best, a considerable time to come. I feel the shock, as you may suppose, in every nerve. God grant that there may be no repetition of it. Another such a stroke upon her would, I think, overset me completely; but at present I hold up bravely.

W. C.

Few events could have afflicted the tender and affectionate mind of Cowper more acutely than the distressing incident recorded in the preceding letter. Mrs. Unwin had for some time past experienced frequent returns of headache, sensations of bodily pain, and an increasing incapacity even for the common routine of daily duties. By an intelligent observer these symptoms might have been interpreted as the precursors of some impending dispensation, in the same manner as the gathering clouds and the solemn stillness of nature announce the approaching storm and tempest. But the stroke is not the less felt because it is anticipated. Among the sorrows which inflict a wound on the feeling heart, to see a beloved object, identified in character, in sentiment, and pursuit, endeared to us by the memory of the past, and by the fears and anxieties of the present, sinking under the slow yet consuming incursions of disease; and to be assured, as we contemplate the fading form, that the moment of separation is drawing nigh; this is indeed a trial, where the mind feels its own bitterness, and is awakened to the strongest emotions of tenderness and love.

The cheering prospect of a happy change, founded on an interest in the promises of the gospel, can alone mitigate the mournful anticipation. It is a subject for deep thankfulness when we can cherish the persuasion for ourselves, or, like Cowper, feel its consoling support for others; and when we are enabled to exclaim with the poet,

Waller's Divine Poesie.

The following letter communicates some further details of Mrs. Unwin's severe attack, and of Cowper's feelings on this distressing occasion.

TO MRS. KING.[622]

Weston, Jan. 26, 1792.

My dear Madam,—Silent as I have long been, I have had but too good a reason for being so. About six weeks since, Mrs. Unwin was seized with a sudden and most alarming disorder, a vertigo, which would have thrown her out of her chair to the ground, had I not been quick enough to catch her while she was falling. For some moments her knees and ancles were so entirely disabled that she had no use of them; and it was with the exertion of all my strength that I replaced her in her seat. Many days she kept her bed, and for some weeks her chamber; but, at length, she has joined me again in the study. Her recovery has been extremely slow, and she is still feeble; but, I thank God, not so feeble but that I hope for her perfect restoration as the spring advances. I am persuaded, that with your feelings for your friends, you will know how to imagine what I must have suffered on an occasion so distressing, and to pardon a silence owing to such a cause.

The account you give me of the patience with which a lady of your acquaintance has lately endured a terrible operation, is a strong proof that your sex surpasses ours in heroic fortitude. I call it by that name, because I verily believe, that in God's account, there is more true heroism in suffering his will with meek submission than in doing our own, or that of our fellow mortals who may have a right to command us, with the utmost valour that was ever exhibited in a field of battle. Renown and glory are, in general, the incitements to such exertions; but no laurels are to be won by sitting patiently under the knife of a surgeon. The virtue is, therefore, of a less suspicious character; the principle of it more simple, and the practice more difficult;—considerations that seem sufficiently to warrant my opinion, that the infallible Judge of human conduct may possibly behold with more complacency a suffering than an active courage.

I forget if I told you that I am engaged for a new edition of Milton's Poems. In fact, I have still other engagements, and so various, that I hardly know to which of them all to give my first attentions. I have only time, therefore, to condole with you on the double loss you have lately sustained, and to congratulate you on being female; because, as such, you will, I trust, acquit yourself well under so severe a trial.

I remain, my dear madam, Most sincerely yours, W. C.

TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT.

Weston-Underwood, Feb. 14, 1792.

My dear Friend,—It is the only advantage I believe, that they who love each other derive from living at a distance, that the news of such ills as may happen to either seldom reaches the other till the cause of complaint is over. Had I been your next neighbour, I should have suffered with you during the whole indisposition of your two children and your own. As it is, I have nothing to do but to rejoice in your own recovery and theirs, which I do sincerely, and wish only to learn from yourself that it is complete.

I thank you for suggesting the omission of the line due to the helmet of Achilles. How the omission happened I know not, whether by my fault or the printer's; it is certain, however, that I had translated it, and I have now given it its proper place.

I purpose to keep back a second edition till I have had opportunity to avail myself of the remarks of both friends and strangers. The ordeal of criticism still awaits me in the reviews, and probably they will all in their turn mark many things that may be mended. By the Gentleman's Magazine I have already profited in several instances. My reviewer there, though favourable in the main, is a pretty close observer, and, though not always right, is often so.

In the affair of Milton I will have no horrida bella if I can help it.[623] It is at least my present purpose to avoid them, if possible. For which reason, unless I should soon see occasion to alter my plan, I shall confine myself merely to the business of an annotator, which is my proper province, and shall sift out of Warton's notes every tittle that relates to the private character, political or religious principles, of my author. These are properly subjects for a biographer's handling, but by no means, as it seems to me, for a commentator's.

In answer to your question, if I have had a correspondence with the Chancellor, I reply—yes. We exchanged three or four letters on the subject of Homer, or rather on the subject of my Preface. He was doubtful whether or not my preference of blank verse, as affording opportunity for a closer version, was well founded. On this subject he wished to be convinced; defended rhyme with much learning, and much shrewd reasoning; but at last allowed me the honour of the victory, expressing himself in these words:—"I am clearly convinced that Homer may be best rendered in blank verse, and you have succeeded in the passages that I have looked into."

Thus it is when a wise man differs in opinion. Such a man will be candid; and conviction, not triumph, will be his object.

Adieu!——The hard name I gave you I take to myself, and am your

εκπαγλοτατος, W. C.

We are indebted to a friend for the opportunity of inserting nine additional letters, addressed by Cowper to Thomas Park, Esq., known as the author of "Sonnets and Miscellaneous Poems," and subsequently as the editor of that splendid work, "Walpole's Royal and Noble Authors."

TO THOMAS PARK, ESQ.

Weston-Underwood, Feb. 19, 1792.

Dear Sir,—Yesterday evening your parcel came safe to hand, containing the "Cursory Remarks," "Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdesse," and your kind letter, for all which I am much obliged to you.

Everything that relates to Milton must be welcome to an editor of him; and I am so unconnected with the learned world that, unless assistance seeks me, I am not very likely to find it. Fletcher's work was not in my possession; nor, indeed, was I possessed of any other, when I engaged in this undertaking, that could serve me much in the performance of it. The various untoward incidents of a very singular life have deprived me of a valuable collection, partly inherited from my father, partly from my brother,[624] and partly made by myself; so that I have at present fewer books than any man ought to have who writes for the public, especially who assumes the character of an editor. At the present moment, however, I find myself tolerably well provided for this occasion by the kindness of a few friends, who have not been backward to pick from their shelves everything that they thought might be useful to me. I am happy to be able to number you among these friendly contributors.

You will add a considerable obligation to those you have already conferred, if you will be so good as to furnish me with such notices of your own as you offer. Parallel passages, or, at least, a striking similarity of expression, is always worthy of remark; and I shall reprint, I believe, all Mr. Warton's notes of that kind, except such as are rather trivial, and some, perhaps, that are a little whimsical, and except that I shall diminish the number of his references, which are not seldom redundant. Where a word only is in question, and that, perhaps, not an uncommon one in the days of Milton, his use of it proves little or nothing; for it is possible that authors writing on similar subjects may use the same words by mere accident. Borrowing seems to imply poverty, and of poverty I can rather suspect any man than Milton. But I have as yet determined nothing absolutely concerning the mode of my commentary, having hitherto been altogether busied in the translation of his Latin poems. These I have finished, and shall immediately proceed to a version of the Italian. They, being few, will not detain me long; and, when they are done, will leave me at full liberty to deliberate on the main business, and to plan and methodise my operations.

I shall be always happy in, and account myself honoured by, your communications, and hope that our correspondence thus begun will not terminate in limine primo.

I am, my dear sir, with much respect,

Your most obliged and humble servant, W. C.

TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.[625]

Weston, Feb. 20, 1792.

My dear Friend,—When I wrote the lines in question, I was, as I almost always am, so pressed for time, that I was obliged to put them down in a great hurry.[626] Perhaps I printed them wrong. If a full stop be made at the end of the second line, the appearance of inconsistency, perhaps, will vanish; but should you still think them liable to that objection, they may be altered thus:—

Trifling enough I readily confess they are: but I have always allowed myself to trifle occasionally; and on this occasion had not, nor have at present, time to do more. By the way, should you think this amended copy worthy to displace the former, I must wait for some future opportunity to send you them properly transcribed for the purpose.

Your demand of more original composition from me will, if I live, and it please God to afford me health, in all probability be sooner or later gratified. In the mean time, you need not, and, if you turn the matter in your thoughts a little, you will perceive that you need not, think me unworthily employed in preparing a new edition of Milton. His two principal poems are of a kind that call for an editor who believes the gospel and is well grounded in all evangelical doctrine. Such an editor they have never had yet, though only such a one can be qualified for the office.

We mourn for the mismanagement at Botany Bay, and foresee the issue. The Romans were, in their origin, banditti; and if they became in time masters of the world, it was not by drinking grog, and allowing themselves in all sorts of licentiousness. The African colonization, and the manner of conducting it, has long been matter to us of pleasing speculation. God has highly honoured Mr. Thornton; and I doubt not that the subsequent history of the two settlements will strikingly evince the superior wisdom of his proceedings.[628]

Yours, W. C.

P.S. Lady Hesketh made the same objection to my verses as you; but, she being a lady-critic, I did not heed her. As they stand at present, however, they are hers; and I believe you will think them much improved.

My heart bears me witness how glad I shall be to see you at the time you mention; and Mrs. Unwin says the same.

TO THE REV. MR. HURDIS.

Weston, Feb. 21, 1792.

My dear Sir,—My obligations to you on the score of your kind and friendly remarks demanded from me a much more expeditious acknowledgment of the numerous packets that contained them; but I have been hindered by many causes, each of which you would admit as a sufficient apology, but none of which I will mention, lest I should give too much of my paper to the subject. My acknowledgments are likewise due to your fair sister, who has transcribed so many sheets in a neat hand, and with so much accuracy.

At present I have no leisure for Homer, but shall certainly find leisure to examine him with reference to your strictures, before I send him a second time to the printer. This I am at present unwilling to do, choosing rather to wait, if that may be, till I shall have undergone the discipline of all the reviewers; none of which have yet taken me in hand, the Gentleman's Magazine excepted. By several of his remarks I have benefited, and shall no doubt be benefited by the remarks of all.

Milton at present engrosses me altogether. His Latin pieces I have translated, and have begun with the Italian. These are few, and will not detain me long. I shall then proceed immediately to deliberate upon and to settle the plan of my commentary, which I have hitherto had but little time to consider. I look forward to it, for this reason, with some anxiety. I trust at least that this anxiety will cease when I have once satisfied myself about the best manner of conducting it. But, after all, I seem to fear more about the labour to which it calls me than any great difficulty with which it is likely to be attended. To the labours of versifying I have no objection, but to the labours of criticism I am new, and apprehend that I shall find them wearisome. Should that be the case, I shall be dull, and must be contented to share the censure of being so with almost all the commentators that have ever existed.

I have expected, but not wondered that I have not received, Sir Thomas More and the other MSS. you promised me; because my silence has been such, considering how loudly I was called upon to write, that you must have concluded me either dead or dying, and did not choose perhaps to trust them to executors.

W. C.

TO THE REV. MR. HURDIS.

Weston, March 2, 1792.

My dear Sir,—I have this moment finished a comparison of your remarks with my text, and feel so sensibly my obligations to your great accuracy and kindness, that I cannot deny myself the pleasure of expressing them immediately. I only wish that instead of revising the two first books of the Iliad, you could have found leisure to revise the whole two poems, sensible how much my work would have benefited.

I have not always adopted your lines, though often, perhaps, at least as good as my own; because there will and must be dissimilarity of manner between two so accustomed to the pen as we are. But I have let few passages go unamended which you seemed to think exceptionable; and this not at all from complaisance: for in such a cause I would not sacrifice an iota on that principle, but on clear conviction.

I have as yet heard nothing from Johnson about the two MSS. you announce, but feel ashamed that I should want your letter to remind me of your obliging offer to inscribe Sir Thomas More to me, should you resolve to publish him. Of my consent to such a measure you need not doubt. I am covetous of respect and honour from all such as you.

Tame hare, at present, I have none. But, to make amends, I have a beautiful little spaniel, called Beau, to whom I will give the kiss your sister Sally intended for the former, unless she should command me to bestow it elsewhere; it shall attend on her directions.

I am going to take a last dinner with a most agreeable family, who have been my only neighbours ever since I have lived at Weston. On Monday they go to London, and in the summer to an estate in Oxfordshire, which is to be their home in future. The occasion is not at all a pleasant one to me, nor does it leave me spirits to add more, than that I am, dear sir,

Most truly yours, W. C.

TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.[629]

Weston, March 4, 1792.

My dear Friend,—All our little world is going to London, the gulf that swallows most of our good things, and, like a bad stomach, too often assimilates them to itself. Our neighbours at the Hall go thither to-morrow. Mr. and Mrs. Throckmorton, as we lately called them, but now Sir John and my Lady, are no longer inhabitants here, but henceforth of Bucklands, in Berkshire. I feel the loss of them, and shall feel it, since kinder or more friendly treatment I never can receive at any hands than I have always found at theirs. But it has long been a foreseen change, and was, indeed, almost daily expected long before it happened. The desertion of the Hall, however, will not be total. The second brother, George, now Mr. Courtenay,[630] intends to reside there; and, with him, as with his elder brother, I have always been on terms the most agreeable.

Such is this variable scene: so variable that, had the reflections I sometimes make upon it a permanent influence, I should tremble at the thought of a new connexion, and, to be out of the reach of its mutability, lead almost the life of a hermit. It is well with those who, like you, have God for their companion. Death cannot deprive them of Him, and he changes not the place of his abode. Other changes, therefore, to them are all supportable; and what you say of your own experience is the strongest possible proof of it. Had you lived without God, you could not have endured the loss you mention. May He preserve me from a similar one; at least, till he shall be pleased to draw me to himself again! Then, if ever that day come, it will make me equal to any burden; but at present I can bear nothing well.

I am sincerely yours, W.C.

TO MRS KING.[631]

Weston, March 8, 1792.

My dear Madam,—Having just finished all my Miltonic translations, and not yet begun my comments, I find an interval that cannot be better employed than in discharging arrears due to my correspondents, of whom I begin first a letter to you, though your claim be of less ancient standing than those of all the rest.

I am extremely sorry that you have been so much indisposed, and especially that your indisposition has been attended with such excessive pain. But may I be permitted to observe, that your going to church on Christmas-day, immediately after such a sharp fit of rheumatism, was not according to the wisdom with which I believe you to be endued, nor was it acting so charitably toward yourself as I am persuaded you would have acted toward another. To another you would, I doubt not, have suggested that text—"I will have mercy and not sacrifice," as implying a gracious dispensation, in circumstances like yours, from the practice of so severe and dangerous a service.

Mrs. Unwin, I thank God, is better, but still wants much of complete restoration. We have reached a time of life when heavy blows, if not fatal, are at least long felt.

I have received many testimonies concerning my Homer, which do me much honour, and afford me great satisfaction; but none from which I derive, or have reason to derive, more than that of Mr. Martyn. It is of great use to me, when I write, to suppose some such person at my elbow, witnessing what I do; and I ask myself frequently—Would this please him? If I think it would, it stands: if otherwise, I alter it. My work is thus finished, as it were, under the eye of some of the best judges, and has the better chance to win their approbation when they actually see it.

I am, my dear madam, Affectionately yours, W. C.

TO THOMAS PARK, ESQ.

Weston-Underwood, March 10, 1792.

Dear Sir,—You will have more candour, as I hope and believe, than to impute my delay to answer your kind and friendly letter to inattention or want of a cordial respect for the writer of it. To suppose any such cause of my silence were injustice both to yourself and me. The truth is, I am a very busy man, and cannot gratify myself with writing to my friends so punctually as I wish.

You have not in the least fallen in my esteem on account of your employment,[632] as you seemed to apprehend that you might. It is an elegant one, and, when you speak modestly, as you do, of your proficiency in it, I am far from giving you entire credit for the whole assertion. I had indeed supposed you a person of independent fortune, who had nothing to do but to gratify himself; and whose mind, being happily addicted to literature, was at full leisure to enjoy its innocent amusement. But it seems I was mistaken, and your time is principally due to an art which has a right pretty much to engross your attention, and which gives rather the air of an intrigue to your intercourse and familiarity with the muses than a lawful connexion. No matter: I am not prudish in this respect, but honour you the more for a passion, virtuous and laudable in itself; and which you indulge not, I dare say, without benefit to yourself and your acquaintance. I, for one, am likely to reap the fruit of your amours, and ought, therefore, to be one of the last to quarrel with them.

You are in danger, I perceive, of thinking of me more highly than you ought to think. I am not one of the literati, among whom you seem disposed to place me. Far from it. I told you in my last how heinously I am unprovided with the means of being so, having long since sent all my books to market. My learning accordingly lies in a very narrow compass. It is school-boy learning somewhat improved, and very little more. From the age of twenty to twenty-three, I was occupied, or ought to have been, in the study of the law. From thirty-three to sixty I have spent my time in the country, where my reading has been only an apology for idleness, and where, when I had not either a magazine or a review in my hand, I was sometimes a carpenter, at others a bird-cage maker, or a gardener, or a drawer of landscapes. At fifty years of age I commenced an author. It is a whim that has served me longest and best, and which will probably be my last.

Thus you see I have had very little opportunity to become what is properly called—learned. In truth, having given myself so entirely of late to poetry, I am not sorry for this deficiency, since great learning, I have been sometimes inclined to suspect, is rather a hindrance to the fancy than a furtherance.

You will do me a favour by sending me a copy of Thomson's monumental inscription. He was a poet, for whose memory, as you justly suppose, I have great respect; in common, indeed, with all who have ever read him with taste and attention.

Wishing you heartily success in your present literary undertaking and in all professional ones, I remain,

Dear sir, with great esteem, Sincerely yours, W. C.

P. S. After what I have said, I will not blush to confess, that I am at present perfectly unacquainted with the merits of Drummond,[633] but shall be happy to see him in due time, as I should be to see any author edited by you.

TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESQ.

Weston, March 11, 1792.

My dear Johnny,—You talk of primroses that you pulled on Candlemas-day; but what think you of me that heard a nightingale on new-year's day? Perhaps I am the only man in England who can boast of such good fortune; good indeed, for if it was at all an omen it could not be an unfavourable one. The winter, however, is now making himself amends, and seems the more peevish for having been encroached on at so undue a season. Nothing less than a large slice out of the spring will satisfy him.