address, I would write to him also, though I have been but once in his company since I left Westminster, where he and I read the Iliad' and Odyssey' through together. I enclose Lord Dartmouth's answer to my application, which I will get you to show to Lady Hesketh, because it will please her. I shall be glad if you can make an opportunity to call on her during your present stay in town. You observe, therefore, that I am not wanting to myself. He that is so has no just claim on the assistance of others, neither shall myself have cause to complain of me in other respects. I thank you for your friendly hints and precautions, and shall not fail to give them the guidance of my pen. I respect the public and I respect myself, and had rather want bread than expose myself wantonly to the condemnation of either. I hate the affectation, so frequently found in authors, of negligence and slovenly slightness; and in the present case am sensible how necessary it is to shun them, when I undertake the vast and invidious labour of doing better than Pope has done before me. I thank you for all that you have said and done in my cause, and beforehand for all that you shall say and do hereafter. I am sure that there will be no deficiency on your part. In particular I thank you for taking such jealous care of my honour and respectability, when the man you mentioned applied for samples of my translation. When I deal in wine, cloth, or cheese, I will give samples, but of verse never. No consideration would have induced me to comply with the gentleman's demand, unless he could have assured me that his wife had longed.

I have frequently thought with pleasure of the summer that you have had in your heart, while you have been employed in softening the severity of winter in behalf of so many, who must otherwise have been exposed to it. I wish that you could make a general gaoldelivery, leaving only those behind who cannot elsewhere be so properly disposed of. You never said a better thing in your life, than when you assured Mr. — of the expediency of a gift of bedding to the poor of Olney. There is no one article of this world's comforts with which, as Falstaff says, they are so heinously unprovided. When a poor woman, and an honest one, whom we know well, carried home two pair of blankets, a pair for herself and husband, and a pair for her six children; as soon as the children saw them, they jumped out of their straw, caught them in their arms, kissed them, blessed them, and danced for joy. An old woman, a very old one, the first night that she found herself so comfortably covered, could not sleep a wink, being kept awake by the contrary emotions of transport on the one hand, and the fear of not being thankful enough on the other.

It just occurs to me to say that this manuscript of mine will be ready for the press, as I hope, by the end of February. I shall have finished the Iliad' in about ten days, and shall proceed immediately to the revisal of the whole. You must, if possible, come down to Olney, if it be only that you may take charge of its safe delivery to

Johnson. For if by any accident it should be lost, I am undone the first copy being but a lean counterpart of the second.

Your mother joins with me in love and good wishes of every kind to you, and all yours.

Adieu,

W. C.

CXCVI.-To LADY HESKETH.

Jan. 10, 1786.

It gave me great pleasure that you found my friend Unwin what I was sure you would find him, a most agreeable man. I did not usher him in with the marrow-bones and cleavers of high-sounding panegyric; both because I was certain that whatsoever merit he had, your discernment would mark it, and because it is possible to do a man material injury by making his praise his harbinger. It is easy to raise expectation to such a pitch, that the reality, be it ever so excellent, must necessarily fall below it.

I hold myself much indebted to Mr., of whom I have the first information from yourself, both for his friendly disposition towards me, and for the manner in which he marks the defects in my volume. An author must be tender indeed to wince on being touched so gently. It is undoubtedly as he says, and as you and my uncle say, you cannot be all mistaken, neither is it at all probable that any of you should be so. I take it for granted, therefore, that there are inequalities in the composition; and I do assure you, my dear, most faithfully, that if it should reach a second edition, I will spare no pains to improve it. It may serve me for an agreeable amusement, perhaps, when Homer shall be gone and done with. The first edition of poems has generally been susceptible of improvement. Pope, I believe, never published one in his life that did not undergo variations, and his longest pieces many. I will only observe, that inequalities there must be always, and in every work of length. There are level parts of every subject, parts which we cannot with propriety attempt to elevate. They are by nature humble, and can only be made to assume an awkward and uncouth appearance by being mounted. But again, I take it for granted that this remark does not apply to the matter of your objection. You were sufficiently aware of it before, and have no need that I should suggest it as an apology, could it have served that office, but would have made it for me yourself. In truth, my dear, had known in what anguish of mind I wrote the whole of that poem, and under what perpetual interruptions, from a cause that has since been removed, so that sometimes I had not an opportunity of writing more than three lines at a sitting, you would long since have wondered as much as I do myself that it turned out any thing better than Grub-street.

you

My cousin, give yourself no trouble to find out any of the magi to scrutinize my Homer. I can do without them; and if I were

not conscious that I have no need of their help, I would be the first to call for it. Assure yourself that I intend to be careful to the utmost line of all possible caution, both with respect to language and versification. I will not send a verse to the press that shall not have undergone the strictest examination.

A subscription is surely on every account the most eligible mode of publication. When I shall have emptied the purses of my friends, and of their friends, into my own, I am still free to levy contributions upon the world at large, and I shall then have a fund to defray the expenses of a new edition. I have ordered Johnson to print the proposals immediately, and hope that they will kiss your hands before the week is expired.

I have had the kindest letter from Josephus that I ever had. He mentioned my purpose to one of the Masters of Eton, who replied, that" such a work is much wanted."

Affectionately yours,

W. C.

CXCVII.-TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN.

MY DEAR WILLIAM,

Jan. 14, 1786.

I am glad that you have seen Lady Hesketh: I knew that you would find her every thing that is amiable and elegant; else, being my relation, I would never have shown her to you. She also was delighted with her visitor, and expects the greatest pleasure in seeing you again; but is under some apprehensions that a tender regard for the drum of your ear may keep you from her. Never mind, you have two drums, and if she should crack both I will buy you a trumpet.

General Cowper having much pressed me to accompany my proposals with a specimen, I have sent him one. It is taken from the twenty-fourth book of the Iliad, and is part of the interview between Priam and Achilles. Tell me, if it be possible for any man to tell me, why did Homer leave off at the burial of Hector? Is it possible that he could be determined to it by a conceit so little worthy of him, as that, having made the number of his books. completely the alphabetical number, he would not for the joke's sake proceed any farther? Why did he not give us the death of Achilles, and the destruction of Troy? Tell me also if the critics, with Aristotle at their head, have not found that he left off exactly where he should, and that every epic poem, to all generations, is bound to conclude with the burial of Hector? I do not the least doubt it. Therefore, if I live to write a dozen epic poems, I will always take care to bury Hector, and to bring all matters at that point to an immediate conclusion.

I had a truly kind letter from Mr., written immediately on his recovery from the fever. I am bound to honour James's powder; not only for the services it has often rendered to myself, but still

more for having been the means of preserving a life ten times more valuable to society than mine is ever likely to be.

You say "Why should I trouble you with my troubles?"

answer

I

Why not? What is a friend good for, if we may not lay one end of the sack upon his shoulders, while we ourselves carry the other?"

You see your duty to God, and your duty to your neighbour; and you practise both with your best ability; yet a certain person accounts you blind. I would that all the world were so blind even as you are. But there are some in it, who, like the Chinese, say— "We have two eyes, and other nations have but one!" I am glad, however, that in your one eye you have sight enough to discover that such censures are not worth minding.

I thank you heartily for every step you take in the advancement of my present purpose.

Contrive to pay Lady H. a long visit, for she has a thousand things to say.

Yours, my dear William,

CXCVIII.-TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

W. C.

Jan. 15, 1786.

I have just time to give you a hasty line to explain to you the delay that the publication of my proposals has unexpectedly encountered, and at which, I suppose, that you have been somewhat surprised.

I have a near relation in London, and a warm friend in General Cowper: he is also a person as able as willing to render me material service. I lately made him acquainted with my design of sending into the world a new translation of Homer, and told him that my papers would soon attend him. He soon after desired that I would annex to them a specimen of the work. To this I at first objected, for reasons that need not be enumerated here, but at last acceded to his advice; and, accordingly, the day before yesterday, I sent him a specimen. It consists of one hundred and seven lines, and is taken from the interview between Priam and Achilles in the last book. I chose to extract from the latter end of the poem, and as near to the close of it as possible, that I might encourage a hope in the readers of it, that if they found it in some degree worthy of their approbation, they would find the former parts of the work not less so; for if a writer flags any where, it must be when he is near the end.

My subscribers will have an option given them in the proposals respecting the price. My predecessor in the same business was not quite so moderate. You may say, perhaps (at least if your kindness for me did not prevent it, you would be ready to say), "It is well; but do you place yourself on a level with Pope?" I answer, or rather should answer- By no means-not as a poet; but as a

translator of Homer, if I did not expect and believe that I should even surpass him, why have I meddled with this matter at all? If I confess inferiority I reprobate my own undertaking.

When I can hear of the rest of the bishops, that they preach and live as your brother does, I will think more respectfully of them than I feel inclined to do at present. They may be learned, and I know that some of them are; but your brother, learned as he is, has other more powerful recommendations. Persuade him to publish his poetry, and I promise you that he shall find as warm and sincero an admirer in me as in any man that lives.

Yours, my dear friend, very affectionately,

W. C.

CXCIX.-TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT.

MY DEAR ANd faithful Friend,

*

*

Jan. 23, 1786.

The paragraph that I am now beginning will contain information of a kind that I am not very fond of communicating, and on a subject that I am not very fond of writing about. Only to you I will open my budget without reserve, because I know that in what concerns my authorship you take an interest that demands my confidence, and will be pleased with every occurrence that is at all propitious to my endeavours. Lady Hesketh, who, had she as many mouths as Virgil's fame, with a tongue in each, would employ them all in my service, writes me word that Dr. Maty of the Museum has read my Task.' I cannot, even to you, relate what he says of it, though, when I began this story, I thought I had courage enough to tell it boldly. He designs, however, to give his opinion of it in his next Monthly Review, and being informed that I was about to finish a translation of Homer, asked her Ladyship's leave to mention the circumstance on that occasion. This incident pleases me the more, because I have authentic intelligence of his being a critical character in all its forms-acute, sour, and blunt, and so incorruptible withal, and so unsusceptible of bias from undue motives, that, as my correspondent informs me, he would not praise his own mother did he not

think she deserved it.

The said Task' is likewise gone to Oxford, conveyed thither by an intimate friend of Dr., with a purpose of putting it into his hands. My friend, what will they do with me at Oxford? Will they burn me at Carfax, or will they anathematize me with bell, book, and candle? I can say, with more truth than Ovid did— Parve nec invideo.

The said Dr. —- has been heard to say, and I give you his own words (stop both your ears while I utter them), "that Homer has never been translated, and that Pope was a fool." Very irreverent language to be sure; but, in consideration of the subject on which he