the taste, that we can give the prize to the best writing, in preference to the worst. Much less are we able to execute what is good ourselves. But Lowth seems to have stepped into excellence at once, and to have gained by intuition, what we little folks are happy if we can learn at last, after much labour of our own, and instruction of others. The compliments he pays to the memory of King Charles he would probably now retract, though he be a bishop, and his majesty's zeal for episcopacy was one of the causes of his ruin. An age or two must pass before some characters can be properly understood. The spirit of party employs itself in veiling their faults, and ascribing to them virtues which they never possessed. See Charles's face drawn by Clarendon, and it is a handsome portrait. See it more justly exhibited by Mrs. Macaulay, and it is deformed to a degree that shocks us. Every feature expresses cunning, employing itself in the maintaining of tyranny and dissimulation, pretending itself an advocate for truth. My letters have already apprized you of that close and intimate connexion that took place between the lady you visited in Queen Anne's Street, and us. Nothing could be more promising, though sudden, in the commencement. She treated us with as much unreservedness of communication as if we had been born in the same house, and educated together. At her departure, she herself proposed a correspondence; and because writing does not agree with your mother, proposed a correspondence with me. By her own desire, I wrote to her under the assumed relation of a brother, and she to me as my sister. I thank you for the search you have made after my intended motto, but I no longer need it.-Our love is always with yourself and family. Yours, my dear friend, W. C. Lady Austen returned in the following summer to the house of her sister, situated on the brow of a hill, the foot of which is washed by the river Ouse, as it flows between Clifton and Olney. Her benevolent ingenuity was exerted to guard the spirits of Cowper from sinking again into that hypochondriacal dejection, to which, even in her company, he still sometimes discovered an alarming tendency. To promote his occupation and amusement, she furnished him with a small portable printing-press, and he gratefully sent her the following verses, printed by himself, and enclosed in a billet that alludes to the occasion on which they were composed-a very unseasonable flood, that interrupted the communication between Clifton and Olney. To watch the storms, and hear the sky 'Tis thus I spend my moments here, MY DEAR SISTER, August 12, 1782. You see my beginning-I do not know but in time I may proceed even to the printing of halfpenny ballads-excuse the coarseness of my paper-I wasted such a quantity before I could accomplish anything legible, that I could not afford finer. I intend to employ an ingenious mechanic of the town to make me a longer case; for you may observe that my lines turn up their tails like Dutch mastiffs, so difficult do I find it to make the two halves exactly coincide with each other. We wait with impatience for the departure of this unseasonable flood. We think of you, and talk of you, but we can do no more till the waters shall subside. I do not think our correspondence should drop because we are within a mile of each other. It is but an imagi. nary approximation, the flood having in reality as effectually parted us as if the British Channel rolled between us. Yours, my dear sister, with Mrs. Unwin's best love, W. C. A flood that precluded him from the conversation of such an enlivening friend was to Cowper a serious evil; but he was happily relieved from the apprehension of such disappointment in future, by seeing the friend so pleasing and so useful to him very comfortably settled as his next-door neighbour. An event so agreeable to the poet was occasioned by circumstances of a painful nature, related in a letter to Mr. Unwin, which, though it bears no date of month or year, I am induced by these circumstances to introduce at present, though it was probably written after some of the subsequent letters. CI.-TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. MY DEAR WILLIAM, The modest terms in which you express yourself on the subject of Lady Austen's commendation, emboldened me to add my suffrage to hers, and to confirm it by assuring you that I think her just and well-founded in her opinion of you. The compliment indeed glances at myself; for were you less than she accounts you, I ought not to afford you that place in my esteem which you have held have held so long. My own sagacity, therefore, and discernment, are not a little concerned upon the occasion; for either you resemble the picture, or I have strangely mistaken my man, and formed an erroneous judgment of his character. With respect to your face and figure, indeed, there I leave the ladies to determine, as being naturally best qualified to decide the point; but whether you are perfectly the man of sense, and the gentleman, is a question in which I am as much interested as they, and which, you being my friend, I am of course prepared to settle in your favour. The lady (whom, when you know her as well, you will love as much as we do) is, and has been during the last fortnight, a part of our family. Before she was perfectly restored to health, she returned to Clifton. Soon after she came back, Mr. Jones had occasion to go to London. No sooner was he gone, than the Chateau, being left without a garrison, was besieged as regularly as the night came on. Villains were both heard and seen in the garden, and at the doors and windows. The kitchen window in particular was attempted, from which they took a complete pane of glass, exactly opposite to the iron by which it was fastened; but providentially the window had been nailed to the wood-work, in order to keep it close, and that the air might be excluded: thus they were disappointed; and being discovered by the maid, withdrew. The ladies being worn out with continual watching, and repeated alarms, were at last prevailed upon to take refuge with us. furnished with fire-arms, were put into the house; and the rascals having intelligence of this circumstance, beat a retreat. Mr. Jones returned Mrs. Jones and Miss Green, her daughter, left us; but Lady Austen's spirits having been too much disturbed, to be able to repose in a place where she had been so much terrified, she was left behind. She remains with us till her lodgings at the vicarage can be made ready for her reception. I have now sent you what has occurred of moment in our history since my last. Men, I say amen, with all my heart, to your observation on religious characters. Men who profess themselves adepts in mathematical knowledge, in astronomy, or jurisprudence, are generally as well qualified as they would appear. The reason may be, that they are always liable to detection, should they attempt to impose upon mankind, and therefore take care to be what they pretend. In religion alone, a profession is often slightly taken up, and slovenly carried on, because, forsooth, candour and charity require us to hope the best, and to judge favourably of our neighbour, and because it is easy to deceive the ignorant, who are a great majority, upon this subject. Let a man attach himself to a particular party, contend furiously for what are properly called evangelical doctrines, and enlist himself under the banner of some popular preacher, and the business is done. Behold a Christian! a Saint! a Phoenix!--In 142 the mean time, perhaps, his heart and his temper, and even his conduct, are unsanctified; possibly less exemplary than those of some avowed infidels. No matter he can talk-he has the Shibboleth of the true church-the Bible in his pocket, and a head well stored with notions. But the quiet, humble, modest, and peaceable person who is in his practice what the other is only in his profession, who hates a noise and therefore makes none, who knowing the snares that are in the world keeps himself as much out of it as he can, and never enters it but when duty calls, and even then with fear and trembling-is the Christian that will always stand highest in the estimation of those who bring all characters to the test of true wisdom, and judge of the tree by its fruit. You are desirous of visiting the prisoners; you wish to administer to their necessities, and to give them instruction. This task you will undertake, though you expect to encounter many things in the performance of it that will give you pain. Now this I can understand you will not listen to the sensibilities that distress yourself, but to the distresses of others. Therefore, when I meet with one of the specious praters abovementioned, I will send him to Stock, that by your diffidence he may be taught a lesson of modesty; by your generosity, a little feeling for others; and by your general conduct, in short, to chatter less, and to do more. Yours, my dear friend, CII. TO THE REV, WILLIAM UNWIN. W. C. MY DEAR FRIEND, Nothing has given me so much pleasure, since the publication March 18, 1782. of my volume, as your favourable opinion of it. It may possibly meet with acceptance from hundreds, whose commendation would afford me no other satisfaction than what I should find in the hope that it might do them good. who say they like it-doubtless I had rather they should than that I have some neighbours in this place they should not-but I know them to be persons of no more taste in poetry, than skill in the mathematics: their applause therefore is a sound that has no music in it for me. entirely quiescent when I read your friendly account of the manner But my vanity was not so it had affected you. It was tickled and pleased, and told me in a pretty loud whisper, that others, perhaps, of whose taste and judgment I had a high opinion, would approve it too. As a giver of good counsel I wish to please all-as an author, I am perfectly indifferent to the judgment of all, except the few who are indeed judicious. The circumstance, however, in your letter which pleased me most was, that you wrote in high spirits, and though you said much, suppressed more, lest you should hurt my delicacy-my delicacy is obliged to you-but you observe it is not so squeamish, but that, after it has feasted upon praise expressed, it can find a comfortable dessert in the contemplation of praise implied. I now feel as if I should be glad to begin another volume, but from the will to the power is a step too wide for me to take at present, and the season of the year brings with it so many avocations into the garden, where I am my own fac totum, that I have little or no leisure for the quill. I should do myself much wrong were I to omit mentioning the great complacency with which I read your narative of Mrs. Unwin's smiles and tears; persons of much sensibility are always persons of taste, and a taste for poetry depends, indeed, upon that very article more than upon any other. If she had Aristotle by heart, I should not esteem her judgment so highly, were she defective in point of feeling, as I do, and must esteem it, knowing her to have such feelings as Aristotle could not communicate, and as half the readers in the world are destitute of. This it is that makes me set so high a price upon your mother's opinion. She is a critic by nature and not by rule, and has a perception of what is good or bad in composition, that I never knew deceive her; insomuch that when two sorts of expression have pleaded equally for the precedence in my own esteem, and I have referred, as in such cases I always did, the decision of the point to her, I never knew her at a loss for a just one. Whether I shall receive any answer from his Chancellorship or not is at present in ambiguo and will probably continue in the same state of ambiguity much longer. He is so busy a man, and at this time, if the papers may be credited, so particularly busy, that I am forced to mortify myself with the thought, that both my book and my letter may be thrown into a corner as too insignificant for a statesman's notice, and never found till his executor finds them. This affair, however, is neither at my libitum nor his. I have sent him the truth. He that put it into the heart of a certain eastern monarch to amuse himself one sleepless night with listening to the records of his kingdom, is able to give birth to such another occasion, and inspire his lordship with a curiosity to know what he has received from a friend he once loved and valued. If an answer comes, however, you shall not long be a stranger to the contents of it. I have read your letter to their worships, and much approve of it. May it have the desired effect it ought! If not, still you have acted an humane and becoming part, and the poor aching toes and fingers of the prisoners will not appear in judgment against you. I have made a slight alteration in the last sentence, which perhaps you will not disapprove. CIII. TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. MY DEAR FRIEND, W. C. April 1, 1782. I could not have found a better trumpeter. Your zeal to serve the interest of my volume, together with your extensive acquaintance, qualify you perfectly for that most useful office. Methinks I see you with the long tube at your mouth, proclaiming to your |