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therefore, your share of their gratitude, and be convinced that when they pray for a blessing upon those who relieved their wants, He that answers that prayer, when he answers it, will remember his servant at Stock.

I little thought when I was writing the history of John Gilpin that he would appear in print. I intended to laugh, and to make two or three others laugh, of whom you were one. But now all the world laugh at least if they have the same relish for a tale ridiculous in itself, and quaintly told, as we have. Well, they do not always laugh so innocently, and at so small an expense; for in a world like this, abounding with subjects for satire, and with satirical wits to mark them, a laugh that hurts nobody has at least the grace of novelty to recommend it. Swift's darling motto was Vive la bagatelle a good wish for a philosopher of his complexion, the greater part of whose wisdom, whencesoever it came, most certainly came not from above. La bagatelle has no enemy in me, though it has neither so warm a friend, nor so able a one, as it had in him. If I trifle, and merely trifle, it is because I am reduced to it by necessity-a melancholy that nothing else so effectually disperses, engages me sometimes in the arduous task of being merry by force; and, strange as it may seem, the most ludicrous lines I ever wrote have been written in the saddest mood; and but for that saddest mood, perhaps, had never been written at all.

I hear from Mrs. Newton, that some great persons have spoken with great approbation of a certain book: who they are, and what they have said, I am to be told in a future letter. The Monthly Reviewers, in the mean time, have satisfied me well enough.

Yours, my dear William,

CXI. TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN.

MY DEAR WILLIAM,

W. C.

Doctor Beattie is a respectable character. I account him a man of sense, a philosopher, a scholar, a person of distinguished genius, and a good writer. I believe him too a Christian; with a profound reverence for the Scripture, with great zeal and ability to enforce the belief of it (both which he exerts with the candour and good manners of a gentleman), he seems well entitled to that allowance; and to deny it him would impeach one's right to the appellation. With all these good things to recommend him, there can be no dearth of sufficient reasons to read his writings. You favoured me some years since with one of his volumes, by which I was both pleased and instructed; and I beg that you will send me the new one, when you can conveniently spare it, or rather bring it yourself, while the swallows are yet upon the wing; for the summer is going down apace.

You tell me you have been asked if I am intent upon another

volume? I reply-not at present, not being convinced that I have met with sufficient encouragement. I account myself happy in having pleased a few, but am not rich enough to despise the many. I do not know what sort of market my commodity has found, but if a slack one, I must beware how I make a second attempt. My bookseller will not be willing to incur a certain loss; and I can as little afford it. Notwithstanding what I have said, I write, and am even now writing, for the press. I told you that I had translated several of the poems of Madame Guion. I told you too, or I am mistaken, that Mr. Bull designed to print them. That gentleman is gone to the sea-side with Mrs. Wilberforce, and will be absent six weeks. My intention is to surprise him at his return with the addition of as much more translation as I have already given him. This, however, is still less likely to be a popular work than my former. Men that have no religion would despise it; and men that have no religious experience would not understand it. But the strain of simple and unaffected piety in the original is sweet beyond expression. She sings like an angel, and for that very reason has found but few admirers. Other things I write too, as you will see on the other side, but these merely for my amusement.*

CXII. TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN.

MY DEAR WILLIAM,

Jan. 19, 1783.

Not to retaliate, but for want of opportunity I have delayed writing. From a scene of most uninterrupted retirement, we have passed at once into a state of constant engagement; not that our society is much multiplied. The addition of an individual has made all this difference. Lady Austen and we pass our days alternately at each other's chateau. In the morning I walk with one or other of the ladies, and in the afternoon wind thread. Thus did Hercules and Sampson, and thus do I; and were both those heroes living I should not fear to challenge then to a trial of skill in that business, or doubt to beat them both. As to killing lions and other amusements of that kind, with which they were so delighted, I should be their humble servant, and beg to be excused.

Having no franks I cannot send you Mr.- -'s two letters as I intended. We corresponded as long as the occasion required, and then ceased. Charmed with his good sense, politeness, and liberality to the poor, I was indeed ambitious of continuing a correspondence with him, and told him so. Perhaps I had done more prudently had I never proposed it. But warm hearts are not famous for wisdom, and mine was too warm to be very considerate on such an occasion. I have not heard from him since, and have long given up all expectation of it. I know he is too busy a man to have leisure for me, and I ought to have recollected it sooner. He found time to do much good, and to employ us as his agents in doing it, and that

*This letter closed with the English and Latin verses on the loss of the Royal George, inserted before,

might have satisfied me. Though laid under the strictest injunctions of secrecy, both by him, and by you on his behalf, I consider myself as under no obligation to conceal from you the remittances he made. Only, in my turn, I beg leave to request secrecy on your part, because intimate as you are with him, and highly as he values you, I cannot yet be sure that the communication would please him, his delicacies on this subject being as singular as his benevolence. He sent forty pounds, twenty at a time. Olney has not had such a friend as this many a day; nor has there been an instance at any time of a few families so effectually relieved, or so completely encouraged to the pursuit of that honest industry by which, their debts being paid, and the parents and children comfortably clothed, they are now enabled to maintain themselves. Their labour was almost in vain before; but now it answers; it earns them bread, and all their other wants are plentifully supplied.

I wish that by Mr.'s assistance your purpose in behalf of the prisoners may be effectuated. A pen so formidable as his might do much good, if properly directed. The dread of a bold censure is ten times more moving than the most eloquent persuasion. They that cannot feel for others are the persons, of all the world, who feel most sensibly for themselves.

Yours, my dear friend,

CXIII. TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.

W. C.

MY DEAR FRIend, Feb. 8, 1783. When I contemplate the nations of the earth, and their conduct towards each other through the medium of a scriptural light, my opinions of them are exactly like your own. Whether they do good or do evil, I see them acting under the permission or direction of that Providence who governs the earth, whose operations are as irresistible as they are silent and unsuspected. So far we are perfectly agreed, and howsoever we may differ upon inferior parts of the subject, it is as you say an affair of no great consequence. For instance, you think the peace a better than we deserve, and in a certain sense I agree with you as a sinful nation, we deserve no peace at all, and have reason enough to be thankful that the voice of war is at any rate put to silence.

Mr. 's last child is dead; it lived a little while in a world of which it knew nothing, and is gone to another in which it is already become wiser than the wisest it has left behind. The earth is a grain of sand, but the interests of man are commensurate with the heavens.

Mrs. Unwin thanks Mrs. Newton for her kind letter, and for executing her commissions. We truly love you both, and think of you often.

M

W. C.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

CXIV. To JOSEPH HILL, Esq.

Feb. 13, 1783.

In writing to you I never want a subject. Self is always at hand, and self, with its concerns, is always interesting to a friend.

You may think, perhaps, that having commenced poet by profession I am always writing verses. Not so I have written nothing, at least finished nothing, since I published-except a certain facetious history of John Gilpin, which Mrs. Unwin would send to the Public Advertiser.' Perhaps you might read it without suspecting the author.

My book procures me favours which my modesty will not permit me to specify; except one, which, modest as I am, I cannot suppress -a very handsome letter from Dr. Franklin at Passy. These fruits it has brought me.

I have been refreshing myself with a walk in the garden, where I find that January (who according to Chaucer was the husband of May) being dead, February has married the widow.

Yours, &c.

W. C.

CXV. To JOSEPH HILL, Esq.

Olney, Feb. 20, 1783.

Suspecting that I should not have hinted at Dr. Franklin's encomium under any other influence than that of vanity, I was several times on the point of burning my letter for that very reason. But not having time to write another by the same post, and believing that you would have the grace to pardon a little self-complacency in an author on so trying an occasion, I let it pass. One sin naturally leads to another and a greater; and thus it happens now, for I have no way to gratify your curiosity, but by transcribing the letter in question. It is addressed, by the way, not to me, but an acquaintance of mine, who had transmitted the volume to him without my knowledge.

"SIR,

Passy, May 8, 1782.

"I received the letter you did me the honour of writing to me, and am much obliged by your kind present of a book. The relish for reading of poetry had long since left me; but there is something so new in the manner, so easy and yet so correct in the language, so clear in the expression yet concise, and so just in the sentiments, that I have read the whole with great pleasure, and some of the pieces more than once. I beg you to accept my thankful acknowledgments, and to present my respects to the author.

"Your most obedient humble servant,

"B. FRANKLIN."

MY DEAR FRIEND,

CXVI. TO JOSEPH HILL, Esq.

One

Great revolutions happen in this ant's nest of ours. emmet of illustrious character and great abilities pushes out another; parties are formed, they range themselves in formidable opposition, they threaten each other's ruin, they cross over and are mingled together, and like the coruscations of the northern aurora amuse the spectator, at the same time that by some they are supposed to be forerunners of a general dissolution.

There are political earthquakes as well as natural ones, the former less shocking to the eye, but not always less fatal in their influence than the latter. The image which Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream was made up of heterogeneous and incompatible materials, and accordingly broken. Whatever is so formed must expect a like catastrophe.

I have an etching of the late Chancellor hanging over the parlour chimney. I often contemplate it, and call to mind the day when I was intimate with the original. It is very like him, but he is disguised by his hat, which though fashionable is awkward; by his great wig, the tie of which is hardly discernible in profile; and by his band and gown, which give him an appearance clumsily sacerdotal. Our friendship is dead and buried; yours is the only surviving one of all with which I was once honoured.

Adieu,

CXVII. TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.

W. C.

MY DEAR FRIEND, April 5, 1783. When one has a letter to write there is nothing more useful than to make a beginning. In the first place, because unless it be begun, there is no good reason to hope it will ever be ended; and secondly, because the beginning is half the business, it being much more difficult to put the pen in motion at first, than to continue the progress of it when once moved.

Mrs. C's illness, likely to prove mortal, and seizing her at such a time, has excited much compassion in my breast and in Mrs. Unwin's, both for her and her daughter. To have parted with a child she loves so much, intending soon to follow her; to find herself arrested before she could set out, and at so great a distance from her most valued relations, her daughter's life, too, threatened by a disorder not often curable, are circumstances truly affecting. She has indeed much natural fortitude, and to make her condition still more tolerable, a good Christian hope for her support. But so it is, that the distresses of those who least need our pity excite it most; the amiableness of the character engages our sympathy, and we mourn for persons, for whom perhaps we might more reasonably rejoice. There is still, however, a possibility that she may

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