elegantly, and without seeming to displace a syllable for the sake of the rhyme, is one of the most arduous tasks a poet can undertake. He that could accomplish this task was Prior; many have imitated his excellence in this particular, but the best copies have fallen far short of the original. And now to tell us, after we and our fathers have admired him for it so long, that he is an easy writer, indeed, but that his ease has an air of stiffness in it; in short, that his ease is not ease, but only something like it, what is it but a self-contradiction, an observation that grants what it is just going to deny, and denies what it has just granted, in the same sentence, and in the same breath? But I have filled the greatest part of my sheet with a very uninteresting subject. I will only say, that as a nation we are not much indebted, in point of poetical credit, to this too sagacious and unmerciful judge; and that for myself in particular, I have reason to rejoice that he entered upon and exhausted the labours of his office, before my poor volume could possibly become an object of them. By the way, you cannot have a book at the time you mention: I have lived a fortnight or more in expectation of the last sheet, which is not yet arrived. You have already furnished John's memory with by far the greatest part of what a parent would wish to store it with. If all that is merely trivial, and all that has an immoral tendency, were expunged from our English poets, how would they shrink, and how would some of them completely vanish. I believe there are some of Dryden's fables which he would find very entertaining; they are for the most part fine compositions, and not above his apprehension; but Dryden has written few things that are not blotted here and there with an unchaste allusion, so that you must pick his way for him, lest he should tread in the dirt. You did not mention Milton's Allegro and Penseroso, which I remember being so charmed with when I was a boy that I was never weary of them. There are even passages in the paradisaical part of the Paradise Lost, which he might study with advantage. And to teach him, as you can, to deliver some of the fine orations made in the Pandaemonium, and those between Satan, Ithuriel, and Zephon, with emphasis, dignity, and propriety, might be of great use to him hereafter. The sooner the car is formed, and the organs of speech are accustomed to the various reflections of the voice, which the rehearsal of those passages demands, the better. I should think, too, that Thomson's Seasons might afford him some useful lessons. At least they would have a tendency to give his mind an observing and a philosophical turn. * I do not forget that he is but a child. But I remember, that he is a child favoured with talents superior to his years. We were much pleased with his remarks on your almsgiving, and doubt not but it will be verified with respect to the two guineas you sent us, which have made four Christian people happy. Ships I have none, nor have touched a pencil these three years; if ever I take it up again, which I rather suspect I shall not, (the employment requiring stronger eyes than mine,) it shall be at John's service. - Yours, my dear friend, W. C. 91. TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. PROGRESS OF THE VOLUME-INSENSIBILITY TO CRITICISM PRESENTING A COFY TO JOHNSON. February 2, 1782. MY DEAR FRIEND,-Though I value your correspondence highly on its own account, I certainly value it the more in consideration of the many difficulties under which you carry it on. Having so many other engagements, and engagements so much more worthy your attention, I ought to esteem it, as I do, a singular proof of your friendship, that you so often make an opportunity to bestow a letter upon me and this, not only because mine, which I write in a state of mind not very favourable to religious contemplations, are never worth your reading, but especially because, while you consult my gratification, and endeavour to amuse my melancholy, your thoughts are forced out of the only channel in which they delight to flow, and constrained into another so different and so little interesting to a mind like yours, that but for me, and for my sake, they would perhaps never visit it. Though I should be glad, therefore, to hear from you every week, I do not complain that I enjoy that privilege but once in a fortnight, but am rather happy to be indulged in it so often. I thank you for the jog you gave Johnson's elbow; communicated from him to the printer, it has produced me two more sheets, and two more will bring the business, I suppose, to a conclusion. I sometimes feel such a perfect indifference with respect to the public opinion of my book, that I am ready to flatter myself no censure of reviewers, or other critical These observations, on the reading fitted for children, are excellent, and may be turned to good account by every parent. readers, would occasion me the smallest disturbance. But not feeling myself constantly possessed of this desirable apathy, I am sometimes apt to suspect, that it is not altogether sincere, or at least that I may lose just in the moment when I may happen most to want it. Be it, however, as it may, I am still persuaded that it is not in their power to mortify me much. I have intended well, and performed to the best of my ability—so far was right, and this is a boast of which they cannot rob me. If they condemn my poetry, I must even say with Cervantes,* "Let them do better if they can!" -if my doctrine, they judge that which they do not understand; I shall except to the jurisdiction of the court, and plead, Coram non judice. Even Horace could say, he should neither be the plumper for the praise, nor the leaner for the condemnation of his readers; and it will prove me wanting to myself indeed, if, supported by so many sublimer considerations than he was master of, I cannot sit loose to popularity, which, like the wind, bloweth where it listeth, and is equally out of our command. If you, and two or three more such as you, say, Well done, it ought to give me more contentment than if I could earn Churchill's † laurels, and by the same means. I wrote to Lord Dartmouth to apprise him of my intended present, and have received a most affectionate and obliging answer. I am rather pleased that you have adopted other sentiments respecting our intended present to the critical Doctor. I allow him to be a man of gigantic talents, and most profound learning, nor have I any doubts about the universality of his knowledge. But by what I have seen of his animadversions on the poets, I feel myself much disposed to question, in many instances, either his candour or his taste. He finds fault too often, like a man that, having sought it very industriously, is at last obliged to stick it on a pin's point, and look at it through a microscope; and I am sure I could easily convict him of having denied many beauties, and overlooked more. Whether his judgment be in itself defective, or whether it be warped by collateral considerations, a writer upon such * Michael Saavreda Cervantes was born at Alcala de Henares, 1547, and, after an eventful life in Italy, Greece, and Africa, died in Madrid, 1617. Besides the immortal Don Quixote, he wrote thirty dramas, twelve tales, The Journey to Parnassus, a poem, in eight books, and the romance of Persiles and Sigismunda. John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, born 1650, died 1722. subjects as I have chosen would probably find but little mercy at his hands. No winter since we knew Olney has kept us more confined than the present. We have not more than three times escaped into the fields since last autumn. Man, a changeable creature in himself, seems to subsist best in a state of variety, as his proper element. a melancholy man, at least, is apt to grow sadly weary of the same walks, and the same pales, and to find that the same scene will suggest the same thoughts perpetually. Though I have spoken of the utility of changes, we neither feel nor wish for any in our friendships, and consequently stand just where we did with respect to your whole self.. Yours, my dear sir, W. C. 92. TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. JUVENILE VERSES OF LOWTH-CHARLES I.- COWPER'S CORRESPONDENCE WITH LADY AUSTEN. February 9, 1782. MY DEAR FRIEND, -I thank you for Mr Lowth's* verses. They are so good, that had I been present when he spoke them, I should have trembled for the boy, lest the man should disappoint the hopes such early genius had given birth to. It is not common to see so lively a fancy so correctly managed, and so free from irregular exuberance, at so inexperienced an age; fruitful, yet not wanton, and gay without being tawdry. When schoolboys write verse, if they have any fire at all, it generally spends itself in flashes, and transient sparks, which may indeed suggest an expectation of something better hereafter, but deserve not to be much commended for any real merit of their own. Their wit is generally forced and false, and their sublimity, if they affect any, bombast. I remember well when it was thus with me, and when a turgid, noisy, unmeaning speech in a tragedy, which I should now laugh at, afforded me raptures, and filled me with wonder. It is not in general till reading and observation have settled the taste, that we * Dr Lowth, the celebrated bishop of London, died about five years after the date of this letter, at the age of seventy-seven. His most celebrated works are, Dissertation on Hebrew Poetry, and Translation of Isaiah; but his Life of William de Wykeham, and especially his Letter on Warburton's Divine Legation, are masterpieces also in their respective classes, of pleasing narrative and forcible reasoning. can give the prize to the best writing, in preference to the worst. Much less are we able to execute what is good ourselves. But Lowth seems to have stept into excellence at once, and to have gained by intuition, what we little folks are happy if we can learn at last, after much labour of our own, and instruction of others. The compliments he pays to the memory of King Charles, he would probably now retract, though he be a bishop, and his majesty's zeal for episcopacy was one of the causes of his ruin. An age or two must pass before some characters can be properly understood. The spirit of party employs itself in veiling their faults, and ascribing to them virtues which they never possessed. See Charles's face drawn by Clarendon, and it is a handsome portrait. See it more justly exhibited by Mrs Macaulay, and it is deformed to a degree that shocks us. Every feature expresses cunning, employing itself in the maintaining of tyranny—and dissimulation, pretending itself an advocate for truth. She My letters have already apprised you of that close and intimate connection that took place between the lady you visited in Queen Ann Street, and us. Nothing could be more promising, though sudden in the commencement. treated us with as much unreservedness of communication, as if we had been born in the same house, and educated together. At her departure, she herself proposed a correspondence, and because writing does not agree with your mother, proposed a correspondence with me. By her own desire I wrote to her under the assumed relation of a brother, and she to me as my sister. I thank you for the search you have made after my intended motto, but I no longer need it. Our love is always with yourself and family. Yours, my dear friend, W. C. February 16, 1782. CARACCIOLI says* "There is something very bewitching in authorship, and that he who has once written will write * Louis Antony Caraccioli, or rather Caracciuoli, was born in the French capital, 1751, and died there, we believe, in 1803. He was a man of most philosophic temper, and author of numerous works. of |