and therefore, when Sam would have paid for his breakfast, would take nothing from him. Who says that Fame is only empty breath? On the contrary, it is good ale and cold beef into the bargain.

LETTER CLII.

To JOHN JOHNSON, Esqr.

Feb. 27, 1791.

Now my dearest Johnny I must tell

thee in few words, how much I love and am obliged to thee for thy affectionate services.

My Cambridge honours are all to be ascribed to you, and to you only. Yet you are but a little man, and a little man into the bargain, who have kicked the Mathematics, their idol, out of your study. So important are the endings which Providence frequently connects with small beginnings-Had you been here, I could have furnished you with much employment, for I have so dealt with your fair мss. in the course of my polishing and improving, that I have almost blotted out the whole; such, however, as it is, I must now send it to the Printer, and he must be content with it, for there is not time to make a fresh copy. We are now printing the second book of the Odyssey.

Should the Oxonians bestow none of their notice on me on this occasion, it will happen singularly enough, that as Pope received all his University honours, in the subscription way from Oxford, and none at all from Cambridge, so I shall have received all mine from Cambridge, and none from Oxford. This is the more likely to be the case, because I understand, that on whatsoever occasion either of those learned bodies thinks fit to move, the other always makes it a point to sit still.-Thus proving its superiority.

I shall send up your Letter to Lady Hesketh in a day or two, knowing that the intelligence contained in it, will afford her the greatest pleasure. Know, likewise, for your own gratification, that all the Scotch Universities have subcribed, none excepted.

We are all as well as usual; that is to say, as well as reasonable folks expect to be on the crazy side of this frail existence. I rejoice that we shall so soon have you again at our fireside.

W. C.

LETTER CLIII.

To JOSEPH HILL, Esqr.

Weston, March 6, 1791.

After all this ploughing and sow

ing on the plains of Troy, once fruitful, such at least to my

translating

translating predecessor, some harvest, I hope, will arrise for me also. My long Work has received its last, last touches; and I am now giving my Preface its final adjustment. We are in the fourth Odyssey in the course of our printing, and I expect that I and the Swallows shall appear together: they have slept all the winter, but

66

I, on the contrary, have been extremely busy; yet if I can “ Virúm volitare per ora," as swiftly as they through the air, I shall account myself well requited.

LETTER CLIV.

W. C.

To JOSEPH HILL, Esqr.

March 10, 1791.

Give my affectionate remembrances

to your Sisters, and tell them I am impatient to entertain them with my old story new dressed.

I have two French prints hanging in my study, both on Iliad subjects; and I have an English one in the parlour, on a subject from the same poem. In one of the former, Agamemnon addresses Achilles exactly in the attitude of a Dancing-master turning Miss in a minuet: in the the latter, the figures are plain, and the attitudes plain also. This is, in some considerable measure, I believe, the difference between my Translation and Pope's; and will serve as

an

an exemplification of what I am going to lay before you, and the public.

.....

LETTER CLV.

To JOHN JOHNSON, Esqr.

W. C.

Weston, March 19, 1791.

MY DEAREST JOHNNY,

You ask, if it may not be improper to solicit Lady Hesketh's subscription to the Poems of the Norwich maiden? To which I reply, it will be by no means improper; on the contrary, I am persuaded that she will give her name with a very good will, for she is much an admirer of poesy, that is worthy to be admired, and such I think, judging by the specimen, the poesy of this maiden, Elizabeth Bentley, of Norwich, is likely to prove.

Not that I am myself inclined to expect in general, great matters in the poetical way from persons whose ill-fortune it has been to want the common advantages of education; neither do I account it in general a kindness to such to encourage them in the indulgence of a propensity more likely to do them harm in the end, than to advance their interest. Many such phenomena have arisen within my remembrance, at which all the world has wondered for a season, and has then forgot them.

The

The fact is, that though strong natural genius is always accompanied with strong natural tendency to its object, yet it often happens that the tendency is found where the genius is wanting. In the present instance however (the Poems of a certain Mrs. Leapor excepted, who published some forty years ago) I discern, I think, more marks of a true poetical talent than I remember to have observed in the verses of any other male or female, so disadvantageously circumstanced. I wish her therefore good speed, and subscribe to her with all my heart.

You will rejoice when I tell you, that I have some hopes, after all, of a harvest from Oxford also: Mr. Throckmorton has written to a person of considerable influence there, which he has desired him to exert in my favour, and his request, I should imagine, will hardly prove a vain one. Adieu.

LETTER CLVI.

To SAMUEL ROSE, Esqr.

W. C.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

Weston March 24, 1791.

You apologize for your silence in a

manner which affords me so much pleasure, that I cannot but be satisfied. Let business be the cause, and I am contented. That is a cause to which I would even be accessary myself, and would

increase