LXXXII.-TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN.

July 6, 1781.

We are obliged to you for the rugs, a commodity that can never come to such a place as this at an unseasonable time. We have given one to an industrious poor widow with four children, whose sister overheard her shivering in the night, and with some difficulty brought her to confess the next morning that she was half perished for want of sufficient covering. Her said sister borrowed a rug for her at a neighbour's immediately, which she had used only one night when yours arrived; and I doubt not but we shall meet with others, equally indigent and deserving of your bounty.

Much good may your humanity do you, as it does so much good to others!-You can no where find objects more entitled to your pity than where your pity seeks them. A man, whose vices and irregularities have brought his liberty and life into danger, will always be viewed with an eye of compassion by those who understand what human nature is made of; and while we acknowledge the severities of the law to be founded upon principles of necessity and justice, and are glad that there is such a barrier provided for the peace of society, if we consider, that the difference between ourselves and the culprit is not of our own making, we shall be, as you are, tenderly affected by the view of his misery; and not the less so because he has brought it upon himself.

I give you joy of your own hair; no doubt you are considerably a gainer in your appearance by being disperiwigged. The best wig is that which most resembles the natural hair-why then should he who has hair enough of his own have recourse to imitation? I have little doubt, but that if an arm or leg could have been taken off with as little pain as attends the amputation of a curl or a lock of hair, the natural limb would have been thought less becoming or less convenient by some men than a wooden one, and have been disposed of accordingly.

Having begun my letter with a miserable pen I was unwilling to change it for a better, lest my writing should not be all of a-piece. But it has worn me and my patience quite out.

Yours ever,

LXXXIII.-TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.

MY VERY DEAR FRIEND,

W. C.

July 12, 1781.

I am going to send what, when you have read, you may scratch your head and say,- I suppose there's nobody knows whether what I have got be verse or not-by the tune and the time it ought to be rhyme; but if it be, did you ever see, of late or of yore, such a ditty before?"

I have writ Charity, not for popularity, but as well as I could, in hopes to do good; and if the Reviewer should say, "To be sure the gentleman's Muse wears methodist shoes, you may know by her

pace, and talk about grace, that she and her bard have little regard for the taste and fashions, and ruling passions, and hoydening play of the modern day; and though she assume a borrowed plume, and now and then wear a tittering air, 'tis only her plan to catch if she can, the giddy and gay as they go that way, by a production on a new construction; she has baited her trap in hopes to snap all that may come, with a sugar plum."—His opinion in this will not be amiss; 'tis what I intend my principal end, and if I succeed, and folks should read, till a few are brought to a serious thought, I shall think I am paid for all I have said and all I have done, though I have run many a time after a rhyme, as far as from hence to the end of my sense, and by hook or crook write another book, if I live and am here another year.

I have heard before of a room with a floor laid upon springs and such like things, with so much art in every part, that when you went in you were forced to begin a minuet pace, with an air and a grace, swimming about, now in and now out, with a deal of state, in a figure of eight, without pipe or string, or any such thing; and now I have writ in a rhyming fit what will make you dance, and as you advance will keep you still, though against your will, dancing away, alert and gay, till you come to an end of what I have penned, which that you may do ere Madam and you are quite worn out with jigging about, I take my leave, and here you receive a bow profound, down to the ground, from humble meyour

W. C.

LXXXIV.-TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

Oct. 6, 1781.

What a world are you daily conversant with, which I have not seen these twenty years, and shall never see again! The arts of dissipation (I suppose) are no where practised with more refinement or success than at the place of your present residence. By your account of it, it seems to be just what it was when I visited it, a scene of idleness and luxury, music, dancing, cards, walking, riding, bathing, eating, drinking, coffee, tea, scandal, dressing, yawning, sleeping, the rooms perhaps more magnificent because the proprietors are grown richer, but the manners and occupations of the company just the same. Though my life has long been like that of a recluse, I have not the temper of one, nor am I in the least an enemy to cheerfulness and good humour; but I cannot envy you your situation; I even feel myself constrained to prefer the silence of this nook, and the snug fireside in our own diminutive parlour, to all the splendour and gaiety of Brighton.

You ask me how I feel on the occasion of my approaching publication? Perfectly at my ease. If I had not been pretty well assured beforehand, that my tranquillity would be but little endangered by such a measure, I would never have engaged in it; for I

cannot bear disturbance. I have had in view two principal objects; first, to amuse myself and, secondly, to compass that point in such a manner that others might possibly be the better for my amusement. If I have succeeded, it will give me pleasure; but if I have failed, I shall not be mortified to the degree that might perhaps be expected. I remember an old adage (though not where it is to be found) "bene vixit, qui bene latuit," and if I had recollected it at the right time it should have been the motto to my book. By the way, it will make an excellent one for Retirement,' if you can but tell me whom to quote for it. The critics cannot deprive me of the pleasure I have in reflecting, that so far as my leisure has been employed in writing for the public, it has been conscientiously employed with a view to their advantage. There is nothing agreeable to be sure in being chronicled for a dunce; but I believe there lives not a man upon earth who would be less affected by it than myself. With all this indifference to fame, which you know me too well to suppose me capable of affecting, I have taken the utmost pains to deserve it. This may appear a mystery, or a paradox in practice, but it is true. I considered that the taste of the day is refined and delicate to excess, and that to disgust that delicacy of taste by a slovenly inattention to it, would be to forfeit at once all hope of being useful; and for this reason, though I have written more verse this last year than perhaps any man in England, I have finished and polished, and touched and retouched with the utmost care. If after all I should be converted into waste paper, it may be my misfortune, but it will not be my fault. I shall bear it with the most perfect serenity.

I do not mean to give a copy; he is a goodnatured little man, and crows exactly like a cock, but knows no more of verse than the cock he imitates.

Whoever supposes that Lady Austen's fortune is precarious is mistaken. I can assure you, upon the ground of the most circumstantial and authentic information, that it is both genteel and perfectly safe. Yours, W. Č.

LXXXV.-To MRS. COWPER.

MY DEAR COUSIN, October 19, 1781. Your fear lest I should think you unworthy of my correspondence, on account of your delay to answer, may change sides now, and more properly belongs to me. It is long since I received your last, and yet I believe I can say truly, that not a post has gone by me since the receipt of it that has not reminded me of the debt I owe you for your obliging and unreserved communications both in prose and verse, especially for the latter, because I consider them as marks of your peculiar confidence. The truth is, I have been such a versemaker myself, and so busy in preparing a volume for the press, which I imagine will make its appearance in the course of the winter, that I hardly had leisure to listen to the calls of any other engagement.

It is, however, finished, and gone to the printer's; and I have nothing now to do with it but to correct the sheets as they are sent to me, and consign it over to the judgment of the public. It is a bold undertaking at this time of day, when so many writers of the greatest abilities have gone before, who seem to have anticipated every valuable subject, as well as all the graces of poetical embellishment, to step forth into the world in the character of a bard, especially when it is considered that luxury, idleness, and vice have debauched the public taste, and that nothing hardly is welcome but childish fiction, or what has at least a tendency to excite a laugh. I thought, however, that I had stumbled upon some subjects that had never before been poetically treated, and upon some others to which I imagined it would not be difficult to give an air of novelty by the manner of treating them. My sole drift is to be useful; a point which, however, I knew I should in vain aim at, unless I could be likewise entertaining. I have therefore fixed these two strings upon my bow, and by the help of both have done my best to send my arrow to the mark. My readers will hardly have begun to laugh before they will be called upon to correct that levity, and peruse me with a more serious air. As to the effect, I leave it alone in His hands who can alone produce it. Neither prose nor verse can reform the manners of a dissolute age, much less can they inspire a sense of religious obligation, unless assisted and made efficacious by the Power who superintends the truth he has vouchsafed to impart.

You made my heart ache with a sympathetic sorrow, when you described the state of your mind on occasion of your late visit into Hertfordshire. Had I been previously informed of your journey before you made it, I should have been able to have foretold all your feelings with the most unerring certainty of prediction. You will never cease to feel upon that subject; but, with your principles of resignation and acquiescence in the divine will, you will always feel as becomes a Christian. We are forbidden to murmur, but we are not forbidden to regret; and whom we loved tenderly while living, we may still pursue with an affectionate remembrance, without having any occasion to charge ourselves with rebellion against the sovereignty that appointed a separation. A day is coming when, I am confident, you will see and know that mercy to both parties was the principal agent in a scene, the recollection of which is still painful.

W. C.

Those who read what the poet has here said of his intended publication may, perhaps, think it strange that it was introduced to the world with a Preface not written by himself, but by his friend Mr. Newton. The circumstance is singular; but it arose from two amiable peculiarities in the character of Cowper-his extreme diffidence in regard to himself, and his kind eagerness to gratify the affectionate ambition of a friend whom he tenderly esteemed. Mr. Newton has

avowed the fervency of this ambition in a very ingenuous and manly manner; and they must have little candour indeed who are disposed to cavil at his alacrity in presenting himself to the public as the bosom friend of that incomparable author, whom he had attended so faithfully in sickness and sorrow. I hope it is no sin to covet honour as the friend of Cowper, for, if it is, I fear I may say but too truly in the words of Shakspeare,

"I am the most offending soul alive." Happy, however, if I may be able so to conduct and finish this biographical compilation, that those who knew and loved him best may be the most willing to applaud me as his friend; a title that my heart prefers to almost every other distinction!

In the course of the following letters, the reader will find occasion to admire the grateful delicacy of the poet, not only toward the writer of his Preface, but even in the liberal praise with which he speaks of his publisher.

LXXXVI.-TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN.

MY DEAR WILLIAM,

November 5, 1781.

I give you joy of your safe return from the lips of the great deep. You did not discern many signs of sobriety, or true wisdom, among the people of Brighthelmstone; but it is not possible to observe the manners of a multitude, of whatever rank, without learning something; I mean, if a man has a mind like yours, capable of reflection. If he sees nothing to imitate, he is sure to see something to avoid; if nothing to congratulate his fellow-creatures upon, at least much to excite his compassion. There is not, I think, so melancholy a sight in the world (an hospital is not to be compared with it) as that of a thousand persons distinguished by the name of gentry, who, gentle perhaps by nature, and made more gentle by education, have the appearance of being innocent and inoffensive, yet being destitute of all religion, or not at all governed by the religion they profess, are none of them at any great distance from an eternal state, where self-deception will be impossible, and where amusements cannot enter. Some of them, we may say, will be reclaimed; it is most probable, indeed, that some of them will; because mercy, if one may be allowed the expression, is fond of distinguishing itself by seeking its objects among the most desperate class; but the Scripture gives no encouragement to the warmest charity to hope for deliverance for them all. When I see an afflicted and unhappy man, I say to myself, There is perhaps a man whom the world would envy if they knew the value of his sorrows, which are possibly intended only to soften his heart, and to turn his afflictions toward their proper centre. But when I see or hear of a crowd of voluptuaries, who have no ears but for music, no eyes but for splendour, and no tongue but for impertinence and folly, I say, or at least I see occasion to say-This is madness-this, persisted in, must have a tragical conclusion-it will condemn you, not

I