numerous connexions my poetical merits, and at proper intervals levelling it at Olney, and pouring into my ear the welcome sound of their approbation. I need not encourage you to proceed, your breath will never fail in such a cause; and thus encouraged, I myself, perhaps, may proceed also, and when the versifying fit returns, produce another volume. Alas! we shall never receive such commendations from him on the woolsack, as your good friend has lavished upon us. Whence I learn, that, however important I may be in my own eyes, I am very insignificant in his. To make me amends, however, for this mortification, Mr. Newton tells me that my book is likely to run, spread, and prosper; that the grave cannot help smiling, and the gay are struck with the truth of it; and that it is likely to find its way into his Majesty's hands, being put into a proper course for that purpose. Now, if the King should fall in love with my muse, and with you for her sake, such an event would make us ample amends for the Chancellor's indifference, and you might be the first divine that ever reached a mitre from the shoulders of a poet. But (I believe) we must be content, I with my gains, if I gain anything, and you with the pleasure of knowing that I am a gainer. We laughed heartily at your answer to little John's question; and yet I think you might have given him a direct answer“There are various sorts of cleverness, my dear—I do not know that mine lies in the poetical way, but I can do ten times more towards the entertainment of company in the way of conversation than our friend at Olney. He can rhyme, and I can rattle. If he had my talent, or I had his, we should be too charming, and the world would almost adore us." Yours, ever, CIV. TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. W. C. MY DEAR WILLIAM, April 27, 1782. A part of Lord Harrington's new-raised corps have taken up their quarters at Olney since you left us. They have the regimental music with them. The men have been drawn up this morning, upon the market-hill, and a concert, such as we have not heard these many years, has been performed at no great distance from our window. Your mother and I both thrust our heads into the coldest cast wind that ever blew in April, that we might hear them to greater advantage. The band acquitted themselves with taste and propriety, not blaring like trumpeters at a fair, but producing gentle and elegant symphony, such as charmed our ears, and convinced us that no length of time can wear out a taste for harmony; and that though plays, balls, and masquerades, have lost all their power to please us, and we should find them not only insipid, but insupportable, yet sweet music is sure to find a corresponding faculty in the soul, a sensibility that lives to the last, which even religion itself does not extinguish. When we objected to your coming for a single night it was only in the way of argument, and in hopes to prevail on you to contrive a longer abode with us. But rather than not see you at all, we should be glad of you though but for an hour. If the paths should be clean enough, and we are able to walk (for you know we cannot ride) we will endeavour to meet you in Weston park. But I mention no particular hour, that I may not lay you under a supposed obligation. to be punctual, which might be difficult at the end of so long a journey; only if the weather be favourable you shall find us there in the evening. It is winter in the south, perhaps therefore it may be spring at least, if not summer, in the north. For I have read that it is warmest in Greenland when it is coldest here. Be that as it may, we may hope at the latter end of such an April that the first change of wind will improve the season. The curate's simile latinized Sors adversa gerit stimulum, sed tendit et alas: What a dignity there is in the Roman language, and what an idea it gives us of the good sense and masculine mind of the people that spoke it! The same thought which clothed in English seems childish, and even foolish, assumes a different air in Latin, and makes at least as good an epigram as some of Martial's. I remember your making an observation when here on the subject of parentheses, to which I acceded without limitation; but a little attention will convince us both that they are not to be universally condemned. When they abound and when they are long they both embarrass the sense, and are a proof that the writer's head is cloudy, that he has not properly arranged his matter, or is not well skilled in the graces of expression. But as parenthesis is ranked by grammarians among the figures of rhetoric, we may suppose they had a reason for conferring that honour upon it. Accordingly we shall find, that in the use of some of our finest writers, as well as in the hands of the ancient poets and orators, it has a peculiar elegance, and imparts a beauty which the period would want without it. "Hoc nemus, hunc, inquit, frondoso vertice collem (Quis deus incertum est) habitat deus." Vir. Æn. 8. In this instance, the first that occurred, it is. graceful. I have not time to seek for more, nor room to insert them. But your own observation, I believe, will confirm my opinion. Yours, ever, W. C. CV. TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. May 27, 1782. MY DEAR FRIEND, Rather ashamed of having been at all dejected by the censure of the critical reviewers, who certainly could not read without prejudice L a book replete with opinions and doctrines to which they cannot subscribe, I have at present no little occasion to keep a strict guard upon my vanity, lest it should be too much flattered by the following eulogium. I send it you for the reasons I gave, when I imparted to you some other anecdotes of a similar kind, while we were together. Our interests in the success of this same volume are so closely united, that you must share with me in the praise or blame that attends it; and sympathizing with me under the burthen of injurious treatment, have a right to enjoy with me the cordials I now and then receive, as I happen to meet with more favourable and candid judges, A merchant, a friend of ours (you will soon guess him), sent my poems to one of the first philosophers, one of the most eminent literary characters, as well as one of the most important in the political world, that the present age can boast of. Now, perhaps, your conjecturing faculties are puzzled, and you begin to ask " Who, where, and what, is he? speak out, for I am all impatience." I will not say a word more, the letter in which he returned his thanks, for the present, shall speak for him.* We may now treat the critics as the Archbishop of Toledo treated Gil Blas, when he found fault with one of his sermons. His grace gave him a kick, and said, " Begone for a jackanapes, and furnish yourself with a better taste, if you know where to find it." We are glad that you are safe at home again. Could we see at one glance of the eye what is passing every day upon all the roads in the kingdom, how many are terrified and hurt, how many plundered and abused, we should indeed find reason enough to be thankful for journeys performed in safety, and for deliverance from dangers we are not perhaps even permitted to see. When in some of the high southern latitudes, and in a dark tempestuous night, a flash of lightning discovered to Captain Cook a vessel which glanced along close by his side, and which but for the lightning he must have run foul of, both the danger and the transient light that showed it, were undoubtedly designed to convey to him this wholesome instruction, that a particular Providence attended him, and that he was not only preserved from evils of which he had notice, but from many more of which he had no information or even the least suspicion. What unlikely contingencies may nevertheless take place! How improbable that two ships should dash against each other, in the midst of the vast Pacific Ocean, and that steering contrary courses, from parts of the world so immensely distant from each other, they should yet move so exactly in a line as to clash, fill, and go to the bottom, in a sea where all the ships in the world might be so dispersed as that none should see another! Yet this must have happened but for the remarkable interference which he *Here Cowper transcribed the letter written from Passy, by the American ambassador Franklin, in praise of his book. The has recorded. The same Providence, indeed, might as easily have conducted them so wide of each other that they should never have met at all, but then this lesson would have been lost; at least, the heroic voyager would have encompassed the globe without having had occasion to relate an incident that so naturally suggests it. I am no more delighted with the season than you are. absence of the sun, which has graced the spring with much less of his presence than he vouchsafed to the winter, has a very uncomfortable effect upon my frame. I feel an invincible aversion to employ ment, which I am yet constrained to fly to as my only remedy against something worse. If I do nothing I am dejected; if I do any thing I am weary; and that weariness is best described by the word lassitude, which of all weariness in the world is the most oppressive. But enough of myself and the weather. The blow we have struck in the West Indies will I suppose be decisive, at least for the present year, and so far as that part of our possessions is concerned in the present conflict. But the newswriters, and their correspondents, disgust me and make me sick. One victory after such a long series of adverse occurrences has filled them with self-conceit, and impertinent boasting; and while Rodney is almost accounted a methodist for ascribing his success to Providence, men who have renounced all dependence upon such a friend, without whose assistance nothing can be done, threaten to drive the French out of the sea, laugh at the Spaniards, sneer at the Dutch, and are to carry the world before them. Our enemies are apt to brag, and we deride them for it; but we can sing as loud as they can in the same key, and no doubt, wherever our prayers go, shall be derided in our turn. An Englishman's true glory should be, to do his business well and say little about it; but he disgraces himself when he puffs his prowess as if he had finished his task when he has but just begun it. Yours, CVI. TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. MY DEAR FRIEND, W. C. June 12, 1782. Every extraordinary occurrence in our lives affords us an opportunity to learn, if we will, something more of our own hearts and tempers than we were before aware of. It is easy to promise ourselves beforehand, that our conduct shall be wise, or moderate, or resolute, on any given occasion. But when that occasion occurs, we do not always find it easy to make good the promise: such a difference there is between theory and practice. Perhaps this is no new remark, but it is not a whit the worse for being old if it be true. Before I had published I said to myself-You and I, Mr. Cowper, will not concern ourselves much about what the critics may say of our book. But having once set my wits for a venture I soon became anxious about the issue, and found that I could not be satisfied with a warm place in my own good graces unless my friends were pleased with me as much as I pleased myself. Meeting with their approbation I began to feel the workings of ambition. It is well, said I, that my friends are pleased; but friends are sometimes partial, and mine, I have reason to think, are not altogether free from bias. Methinks I should like to hear a stranger or two speak well of me. I was presently gratified by the approbation of the London Magazine, and the Gentleman's, particularly by that of the former, and by the plaudit of Dr. Franklin. By the way, magazines are publications we have but little respect for till we ourselves are chronicled in them, and then they assume an importance in our esteem which before we could not allow them. But the Monthly Review, the most formidable of all my judges, is still behind. What will that critical Rhadamanthus say, when my shivering genius shall appear before him? Still he keeps me in hot water, and I must wait another month for his award. Alas! when I wish for a favourable sentence from that quarter (to confess a weakness that I should not confess to all) I feel myself not a little influenced by a tender regard to my reputation here, even among my neighbours at Olney. Here are watchmakers, who themselves are wits, and who at present, perhaps, think me one. Here is a carpenter and a baker, and not to mention others, here is your idol, Mr. — whose smile is fame. All these read the Monthly Review, and all these will set me down for a dunce if those terrible critics should show them the example. But oh! wherever else I am accounted dull, dear Mr. Griffith, let me pass for a genius at Olney! We are sorry for little William's illness. It is, however, the privilege of infancy to recover almost immediately what it has lost by sickness. We are sorry too for Mr.'s dangerous condition. But he that is well prepared for the great journey cannot enter on it too soon for himself, though his friends will weep at his departure. Yours, W. C. CVII. TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. MY DEAR FRIEND, July 16, 1782. Though some people pretend to be clever in the way of prophetical forecast, and to have a peculiar talent of sagacity, by which they can divine the meaning of a providential dispensation, while its consequences are yet in embryo-I do not. There is at this time to be found I suppose, in the cabinet, and in both houses, a greater assemblage of able men both as speakers and counsellors than ever were contemporary in the same land. A man not accustomed to trace the workings of Providence as recorded in Scripture, and that has given no attention to this particular subject, while employed in the study of profane history, would assert boldly that it is a token for good, that much may be expected from them, and that the country, though heavily afflicted, is not yet to be despaired of, dis |