servant told me that Lady Bagot was in the parlour, I felt my spirits sink ten degrees, but the moment I saw her, at least when I had been a minute in her company, I felt them rise again, and they soon rose even above their former pitch. I know two ladies of fashion now, whose manners have this effect upon me. The Lady in question, and the Lady Spencer. I am a shy animal, and want much kindness to make me easy. Such I shall be to my dying day.

Here sit I calling myself shy, yet have just published, by the by, two great volumes of poetry.

This reminds me of Ranger's observation in the 'Suspicious Husband,' who says to somebody, I forget whom-" There is a degree of assurance in you modest men, that we impudent fellows can never arrive at !"-Assurance indeed! Have you seen 'em? What do you think they are? Nothing less I can tell you than a translation of Homer. Of the sublimest poet in the world. That's all. Can I ever have the impudence to call myself shy again?

You live, I think, in the neighbourhood of Birmingham? What must you not have felt on the late alarming occasion! You, I suppose, could see the fires from your windows. We who only heard the news of them have trembled. Never sure was religious zeal more terribly manifested, or more to the prejudice of its own

cause.

Adieu, my dear friend, I am, with Mrs. Unwin's best compliments,
Ever yours,
W. C.

CCCLIX.-TO THE REV. MR. HURDIS.

MY DEAR SIR, Weston, Aug. 9, 1791. I never make a correspondent wait for an answer through idleness, or want of proper respect for him; but if I am silent it is because I am busy or not well, or because I stay till something occur that may make my letter at least a little better than mere blank paper. I therefore write speedily in reply to yours, being at present neither much occupied, nor at all indisposed, nor forbidden by a dearth of materials.

I wish always when I have a new piece in hand to be as secret as you, and there was a time when I could be so. Then I lived the life of a solitary, was not visited by a single neighbour, because I had none with whom I could associate, nor ever had an inmate. This was when I dwelt at Olney; but since I have removed to Weston the case is different. Here I am visited by all around me, and study in a room exposed to all manner of inroads. It is on the ground-floor, the room in which we dine, and in which I am sure to be found by all who seek me. They find me generally at my desk, and with my work, whatever it be, before me, unless, perhaps, 1 have conjured it into its hiding place before they have had time to enter. This, however, is not always the case, and consequently, sooner or later, I cannot fail to be detected. Possibly you, who I

suppose have a snug study, would find it impracticable to attend to any thing closely in an apartment exposed as mine; but use has made it familiar to me, and so familiar, that neither servants going and coming disconcert me; nor even if a lady, with an oblique glance of her eye, catches two or three lines of my MS., do I feel myself inclined to blush, though naturally the shyest of mankind.

You did well, I believe, to cashier the subject of which you gave me a recital. It certainly wants those agremens which are necessary to the success of any subject in verse. It is a curious story, and so far as the poor young lady was concerned, a very affecting one; but there is a coarseness in the character of the hero that would have spoiled all. In fact, I find it myself a much easier matter to write than to get a convenient theme to write on.

I am obliged to you for comparing me as you go both with Pope and with Homer. It is impossible in any other way of management to know whether the translation be well executed or not, and if well, in what degree. It was in the course of such a process that I first became dissatisfied with Pope. More than thirty years since, and when I was a young Templar, I accompanied him with his original, line by line, through both poems. A fellow-student of mine, a person of fine classic taste, joined himself with me in the labour. We were neither of us, as you may imagine, very diligent in our proper business.

I shall be glad if my reviewers, whosoever they may be, will be at the pains to read me as you do. I want no praise that I am not entitled to, but of that to which I am entitled I should be loth to lose a tittle, having worked hard to earn it.

I would heartily second the Bishop of Salisbury in recommending to you a close pursuit of your Hebrew studies, were it not that Ĭ wish you to publish what I may understand. Do both, and I shall

be satisfied.

Your remarks, if I may but receive them soon enough to serve me in case of a new edition, will be extremely welcome.

CCCLX.-To JOHN JOHNSON, Esq.

W. C.

MY DEAREST JOHNNY, Weston, Aug. 9, 1791. The little that I have heard about Homer myself has been equally, or more flattering than Dr.'s intelligence, so that I have good reason to hope that I have not studied the old Grecian, and how to dress him, so long and so intensely, to no purpose. At present I am idle, both on account of my eyes, and because I know not to what to attach myself in particular. Many different plans and projects are recommended to me. Some call aloud for original verse, others for more translation, and others for other things. Providence, I hope, will direct me in my choice, for other guide I have none, nor wish for another.

God bless you, my dearest Johnny,

W. C.

CCCLXI.-To SAMUEL ROSE, Esq.

MY DEAR FRIEND, The Lodge, Sept. 14, 1791. Whoever reviews me will in fact have a laborious task of it, in the performance of which he ought to move leisurely, and to exercise much critical discernment. In the mean time my courage is kept up by the arrival of such testimonies in my favour as give me the greatest pleasure, coming from quarters the most respectable. I have reason, therefore, to hope that our periodical judges will not be very averse to me, and that perhaps they may even favour me. If one man of taste and letters is pleased, another man so qualified can hardly be displeased; and if the critics of a different description grumble, they will not, however, materially hurt me.

You, who know how necessary it is to me to be employed, will be glad to hear that I have been called to a new literary engagement, and that I have not refused it. A Milton that is to rival, and if possible to exceed in splendour, Boydell's Shakspeare, is in contemplation, and I am in the editor's office. Fuseli is the painter. My business will be to select notes from others, and to write original notes; to translate the Latin and Italian poems, and to give a correct text. I shall have years allowed me to do it in.

CCCLXII. TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT.

W. C.

MY DEAR FRIEND, Weston, Sept. 21, 1791. Of all the testimonies in favour of my Homer that I have received, none has given me so sincere a pleasure as that of Lord Bagot. It is an unmixed pleasure, and without a drawback, because I know him to be perfectly, and in all respects, whether erudition or a fine taste be in question, so well qualified to judge me, that I can neither expect nor wish a sentence more valuable than his—

Εν στήθεσσι μένει, καί μοι φίλα γούνατ' ορώρει.

I hope by this time you have received your volumes, and are prepared to second the applauses of your brother, else, wo be to you! I wrote to Johnson immediately on the receipt of your last, giving him a strict injunction to dispatch them to you without delay. He had sold some time since a hundred of the unsubscribed-for copies.

I have not a history in the world except Baker's Chronicle, and that I borrowed three years ago from Mr. Throckmorton. Now the case is this: I am translating Milton's third Elegy-his Elegy on the death of the Bishop of Winchester. He begins it with saying that while he was sitting alone, dejected and musing on many melancholy themes, first the idea of the plague presented itself to his mind, and of the havoc made by it among the great. Then he proceeds thus:

Tum memini clarique ducis, fratrisque verendi
Intempestivis ossa cremata rogis:

Et memini Heroum, quos vidit ad æthera raptos,
Flevit et amissos Belgia tota duces.

I cannot learn from my only oracle, Baker, who this famous leader and his reverend brother were; neither does he at all ascertain for me the event alluded to in the second of these couplets. I am not yet possessed of Warton, who probably explains it, nor can be for a month to come. Consult him for me if you have him; or if you have him not, consult some other; or you may find the intelligence, perhaps, in your own budget. No matter how you come by it, only send it to me if you can, and as soon as you can, for I hate to leave unsolved difficulties behind me. In the first year of Charles the First, Milton was seventeen years of age, and then wrote this elegy. The period therefore to which I would refer you is the two or three last years of James the First.

Ever yours,

CCCLXIII.-TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

W. C.

Weston, Oct. 25, 1791. Your unexpected and transient visit, like every thing else that is past, has now the appearance of a dream; but it was a pleasant one, and I heartily wish that such dreams could recur more frequently. Your brother Chester repeated his visit yesterday, and I never saw him in better spirits. At such times he has, now and then, the very look that he had when he was a boy; and when I see it I seem to be a boy myself, and entirely forget, for a short moment, the years that have intervened since I was one. The look that I mean is one that you, I dare say, have observed. Then we are at Westminster again. He left with me that poem of your brother Lord Bagot's, which was mentioned when you were here. It was a treat to me, and I read it to my cousin Lady Hesketh, and to Mrs. Unwin, to whom it was a treat also. It has great sweetness of numbers, and much elegance of expression, and is just such a poem as I should be happy to have composed myself about a year ago, when I was loudly called upon by a certain nobleman to celebrate the beauties of his villa. But I had two insurmountable difficulties to contend with; one was, that I had never seen his villa, and the other, that I had no eyes at that time for any thing but Homer. Should I at any time hereafter undertake the task, I shall now at least know how to go about it, which, till I had seen Lord Bagot's poem, I verily did not. I was particularly charmed with the parody of those beautiful lines of Milton:

"The song was partial, but the harmony

(What could it less, when spirits immortal sing?)
Suspended Hell, and took with ravishment
The thronging audience."

There's a parenthesis for you! The parenthesis, it seems, is out of fashion, and perhaps the moderns are in the right to proscribe what they cannot attain to. I will answer for it, that, had we the art at this day of insinuating a sentiment in this graceful manner, no reader of taste would quarrel with the practice. Lord Bagot showed his by selecting the passage for his imitation.

I would beat Warton, if he were living, for supposing that Milton ever repented of his compliment to the memory of Bishop Andrews. I neither do, nor can, nor will believe it. Milton's mind could not be narrowed by any thing; and though he quarrelled with episcopacy, in the church of England idea of it, I am persuaded that a good bishop, as well as any other good man, of whatsoever rank or order, had always a share of his veneration.

Yours, my dear friend, very affectionately,

W. C.

CCCLXIV.-To JOHN JOHNSON, Esq.

MY DEAR JOHNNY,

Weston, Oct. 31, 1791.

Your kind and affectionate letter well deserves my thanks, and should have had them long ago, had I not been obliged lately to give my attention to a mountain of unanswered letters, which I have just now reduced to a molehill; yours lay at the bottom, and I have at last worked my way down to it.

It gives me great pleasure that you have found a house to your minds. May you all three be happier in it than the happiest that ever occupied it before you! But my chief delight of all is to learn that you and Kitty are so completely cured of your long and threatening maladies. I always thought highly of Dr. Kerr, but his extraordinary success in your two instances has even inspired me with an affection for him.

My eyes are much better than when I wrote last, though seldom perfectly well many days together. At this season of the year I catch perpetual colds, and shall continue to do so till I have got the better of that tenderness of habit with which the summer never fails to affect me.

I am glad that you have heard well of my work in your country. Sufficient proofs have reached me, from various quarters, that I have not ploughed the field of Troy in vain.

Were you here I would gratify you with an enumeration of particulars, but since you are not, it must content you to be told that I have every reason to be satisfied.

Mrs. Unwin, I think, in her letter to cousin Balls, made mention of my new engagement. I have just entered on it, and therefore can at present say little about it.

It is a very creditable one in itself; and may I but acquit myself of it with sufficiency, it will do me honour. The commentator's part, however, is a new one to me, and one that I little thought to appear in.