pose, the more desirable one of entertaining you be effected, I then receive double fruit of my labour, and consider this produce of it as a second crop, the more valuable because less expected. But when I have once remitted a composition to you, I have done with it. It is pretty certain that I shall never read it or think of it again. From that moment I have constituted you sole judge of its accomplishments, if it has any, and of its defects, which it is sure to have. For this reason I decline answering the question with which you concluded your last, and cannot persuade myself to enter into a critical examen of the two pieces upon Lord Mansfield's loss, either with respect to their intrinsic or comparative merit; and, indeed, after having rather discouraged that use of them which you had designed, there is no occasion for it. W. C. The poet's affectionate effort in renewing his correspondence with Mrs. Cowper, to whom he had been accustomed to pour forth his heart without reserve, appears to have had a beneficial effect on his reviving spirits. His pathetic letter to that lady was followed, in the course of two months, by a letter of a more lively cast, in which the reader will find some touches of his native humour, and a vein of pleasantry peculiar to himself. MY DEAR COUSIN, LIX.-TO MRS. COWPER. July 20, 1780. Mr. Newton having desired me to be of the party, I am come to meet him. You see me sixteen years older, at the least, than when I saw you last; but the effects of time seem to have taken place rather on the outside of my head, than within it. What was brown is become grey, but what was foolish remains foolish still. Green fruit must rot before it ripens, if the season is such as to afford it nothing but cold winds and dark clouds, that interrupt every ray of sunshine. My days steal away silently, and march on (as poor mad Lear would have made his soldiers march) as if they were shod with felt; not so silently, but that I hear them; yet were it not that I am always listening to their flight, having no infirmity that I had not when I was much younger, I should deceive myself with an imagination that I am still young. I am fond of writing as an amusement, but do not always find it one. Being rather scantily furnished with subjects that are good for any thing, and corresponding only with those who have no relish for such as are good for nothing, I often find myself reduced to the necessity, the disagreeable necessity, of writing about myself. This does not mend the matter much; for though in a description of my own condition, I discover abundant materials to employ my pen upon, yet as the task is not very agreeable to me, so I am sufficiently aware that it is likely to prove irksome to others. A painter, who should confine himself in the exercise of his art, to the drawing of his own picture, must be a wonderful coxcomb if he did not soon grow sick of his occupation, and be peculiarly fortunate if he did not make others as sick as himself. Remote as your dwelling is from the late scene of riot and confusion, I hope that, though you could not but hear the report, you heard no more, and that the roarings of the mad multitude did not reach you. That was a day of terror to the innocent, and the present is a day of still greater terror to the guilty. The law was, for a few moments, like an arrow in the quiver, it seemed to be of no use, and did no execution; now it is an arrow upon the string, and many who despised it lately are trembling as they stand before the point of it. I have talked more already than I have formerly done in three visits—you remember my taciturnity, never to be forgotten by those who knew me; not to depart entirely from what might be, for aught I know, the most shining part of my character-I here shut my mouth, make my bow, and return to Olney. LX.-TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. W. C. MY DEAR FRIEND, July, 27, 1780. As two men sit silent, after having exhausted all their topics of conversation, one says," It is very fine weather,"-and the other says " Yes;" one blows his nose, and the other rubs his eyebrows (by the way, this is very much in Homer's manner): such seems to be the case between you and me. Aftera silence of some days, I wrote you a long something, that (I suppose) was nothing to the purpose, because it has not afforded you materials for an answer. Nevertheless as it often happens in the case above-stated, one of the distressed parties, being deeply sensible of the awkwardness of a dumb duet, breaks silence again, and resolves to speak though he has nothing to say-so it fares with me. I am with you again in the form of an epistle, though considering my present emptiness, I have reason to fear, that your only joy upon the occasion will be, that it is conveyed to you in a frank. When I began I expected no interruption. But if I had expected interruption without end, I should have been less disappointed. First came the barber; who, after having embellished the outside of my head, has left the inside just as unfunished as he found it. Then came Olney-bridge, not into the house, but into the conversation. The cause relating to it was tried on Tuesday at Buckingham. The judge directed the jury to find a verdict favourable to Olney. The jury consisted of one knave, and eleven fools. The last-mentioned followed the afore-mentioned, as sheep follow a bell-wether, and decided in direct opposition to the said judge. Then a flaw was discovered in the indictment. The indictment was quashed, and an order made for a new trial. The new trial will be in the King's Bench, where said knave, and said fools, will have nothing to do with it. So the men of Olney fling up their caps, and assure themselves of a complete victory. A victory will save me and your mother many shillings, perhaps some pounds, which, except that it has afforded me a subject to write upon, was the only reason why I said so much about it. I know you take an interest in all that concerns us, and will consequently rejoice with us in the prospect of an event in which we are concerned so nearly. Yours, affectionately, LXI. TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. W. C.. MY DEAR SIR, I am often sold dear, good for nothing when bought, W. C. LXII.-TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. MY DEAR FRIEND, August 6, 1780. You like to hear from me. This is a very good reason why I should write. But I have nothing to say. This seems equally a good reason why I should not. Yet if you had alighted from your horse at our door this morning, and at this present writing, being five o'clock in the afternoon, had found occasion to say to me" Mr. Cowper, you have not spoke since I came in, have you resolved never to speak again?" It would be but a poor reply, if in answer to the summons, I should plead inability as my best and only excuse. And this by the way suggests to me a seasonble piece of instruction, and reminds me of what I am very apt to forget when I have any epistolary business in hand, that a letter may be written upon any thing or nothing, just as that any thing or nothing happens to occur. A man that has a journey before him twenty miles in length, which he is to perform on foot, will not hesitate, and doubt, whether he shall set out or not, because he does not readily conceive how he shall ever reach the end of it; for he knows, that by the simple operation of moving one foot forward first and then the other, he shall be sure to accomplish it. So it is in the present case, and so it is in every similar case. A letter is written as a conversation is maintained, or a journey performed, not by preconcerted or premeditated means, a new contrivance, or an invention never heard of before, but merely by maintaining a progress, and resolving, as a postillion does, having once set out, never to stop till we reach the appointed end. If a man may talk without thinking, why may he not write upon the same terms? A grave gentleman of the last century, a tie-wig, square-toe, Steinkirk figure, would say"My good sir, a man has no right to do either.' But it is to be hoped, that the present century has nothing to do with the mouldy opinions of the last, and so good Sir Launcelot, or Sir Paul, or whatever be your name, step into your picture frame again, and look as if you thought for another century, and leave us moderns, in the mean time, to think when we can, and to write, whether we can or not, else we might as well be dead as you are. When we look back upon our forefathers, we seem to look back upon the people of another nation, almost upon creatures of another species. Their vast rambling mansions, spacious halls, and painted casements, the Gothic porch, smothered with honeysuckles, their little gardens and high walls, their box-edgings, balls of holly, and yew-tree statues, are become so entirely unfashionable now, that we can hardly believe it possible, that a people who resembled us so little in their taste, should resemble us in any thing else. But in every thing else I suppose they were our counterparts exactly, and time, that has sewed up the slashed sleeve, and reduced the large trunk hose to a neat pair of silk stockings, has left human nature just where it found it. The inside of man at least has undergone no change. His passions, appetites, and aims, are just what they ever were. They wear perhaps a handsomer disguise than they did in days of yore; for philosophy and literature will have their effect upon the exterior, but in every other respect, a modern is only an ancient in a different dress. W. C. 88 LXIII. TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. August 21, 1780. The following occurrence ought not to be passed over in silence in a place where so few notable ones are to be met with. Last Wednesday night, while we were at supper, between the hours of eight and nine, I heard an unusual noise in the back parlour, as if one of the hares was entangled, and endeavouring to disengage herself. I was just going to rise from table, when it ceased. In about five minutes, a voice on the outside of the parlour-door inquired if one of my hares had got away. I immediately rushed into the next room, and found that my poor favourite puss had made her escape. She had gnawed in sunder the strings of a lattice work, with which I thought I had sufficiently secured the window, and which I preferred to any other sort of blind, because it admitted plenty of air. From thence I hastened to the kitchen, where I saw the redoubtable Thomas Freeman, who told me, that having seen her just after she dropped into the street he attempted to cover her with his hat, but she screamed out and leaped directly over his head. I then desired him to pursue as fast as possible, and added Richard Coleman to the chase, as being nimbler, and carrying less weight than Thomas; not expecting to see her again, but desirous to learn, if possible, what became of her. In something less than an hour, Richard returned, almost breathless, with the following account. That soon after he began to run, he left Tom behind him, and came in sight of a most numerous hunt of men, women, children, and dogs; that he did his best to keep back the dogs, and presently outstripped the crowd, so that the race was at last disputed between himself and puss-she ran right through the town and down the lane that leads to Dropshort-a little before she came to the house he got the start and turned her; she pushed for the town again, and soon after she entered it, sought shelter in Mr. Wagstaff's tan-yard, adjoining to old Mr. Drake's-Sturge's harvest-men were at supper, and saw her from the opposite side of the way. There she encountered the tan-pits full of water, and while she was struggling out of one pit, and plunging into another, and almost drowned, one of the men drew her out by the ears and secured her. She was then well washed in a bucket, to get the lime out of her coat, and brought home in a sack at ten o'clock. This frolic cost us four shillings, but you may believe we did not grudge a farthing of it. The poor creature received only a little hurt in one of her claws, and in one of her ears, and is now almost as well as ever. I do not call this an answer to your letter, but such as it is I send it, presuming upon that interest which I know you take in my minutest concerns, which I cannot express better than in the words of Terence, a little varied-Nihil mei a te alienum putas. Yours, my dear friend, W. C. |