45. TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.

USE OF AMUSEMENTS - WORTHLESSNESS OF EVERY THING IN COMPARISON WITH THE LOVE OF GOD.

May 3, 1780.

DEAR SIR,-You indulge me in such a variety of subjects, and allow me such a latitude of excursion in this scribbling employment, that I have no excuse for silence. I am much obliged to you for swallowing such boluses as I send you, for the sake of my gilding, and verily believe I am the only man alive from whom they would be welcome to a palate like yours. I wish I could make them more splendid than they are, more alluring to the eye, at least, if not more pleasing to the taste; but my leaf gold is tarnished, and has received such a tinge from the vapours that are ever brooding over my mind, that I think it no small proof of your partiality to me, that you will read my letters. I am not fond of longwinded metaphors; I have always observed, that they halt at the latter end of their progress, and so does mine. I deal much in ink, indeed, but not such ink as is employed by poets and writers of essays. Mine is a harmless fluid, and guilty of no deceptions but such as may prevail without the least injury to the person imposed on. I draw mountains, valleys, woods, and streams, and ducks, and dab-chicks. I admire them myself, and Mrs Unwin admires them; and her praise, and my praise put together, are fame enough for me. Oh! I could spend whole days and moonlight nights in feeding upon a lovely prospect! My eyes drink the rivers as they flow. If every human being upon earth could think, for one quarter of an hour, as I have done for many years, there might perhaps be many miserable men among them, but not an unawakened one would be found, from the Arctic to the Antarctic circle. At present, the difference between them and me is greatly to their advantage. I delight in baubles, and know them to be so; for rested in, and viewed without a reference to their Author, what is the earth, what are the planets, what is the sun itself but a bauble? Better for a man never to have seen them, or to see them with the eyes of a brute, stupid and unconscious of what he beholds, than not to be able to say, "The Maker of all these wonders is my friend!" Their eyes have never been opened, to see that they are trifles; mine have been, and will be till they are

closed for ever. They think a fine estate, a large conservatory, a hot-house rich as a West Indian garden, things of consequence; visit them with pleasure, and muse upon them with ten times more. I am pleased with a frame of four lights, doubtful whether the few pines it contains will ever be worth a farthing; amuse myself with a greenhouse which Lord Bute's gardener could take upon his back, and walk away with; and when I have paid it the accustomed visit, and watered it, and given it air, I say to myself" This is not mine, 'tis a plaything lent me for the present; I must leave it soon." W. C.

COWPER DESCRIBES FACETIOUSLY HIS PRACTICE AS A RURAL LAWYER-THE CHANCELLOR'S ILLNESS.

OLNEY, May 6, 1780.

MY DEAR FRIEND,-I am much obliged to you for your speedy answer to my queries. I know less of the law than a country attorney, yet sometimes I think I have almost as much business. My former connection with the profession has got wind; and though I earnestly profess and protest, and proclaim it abroad, that I know nothing of the matter, they cannot be persuaded to believe, that a head once endued with a legal periwig can ever be deficient in those natural endowments it is supposed to cover. I have had the good fortune to be once or twice in the right, which added to the cheapness of a gratuitous counsel, has advanced my credit to a degree I never expected to attain in the capacity of a lawyer. Indeed, if two of the wisest in the science of jurisprudence may give opposite opinions on the same point, which does not unfrequently happen, it seems to be a matter of indifference, whether a man answers by rule or at a venture. He that stumbles upon the right side of the question, is just as useful to his client as he that arrives at the same end by regular approaches, and is conducted to the mark he aims at by the greatest authorities.

These violent attacks of a distemper so often fatal, are very alarming to all who esteem and respect the Chancellor as he deserves. A life of confinement, and of anxious attention to important objects, where the habit is bilious to such a terrible degree, threatens to be but a short one; and I wish he may

not be made a text for men of reflection to moralize upon, affording a conspicuous instance of the transient and fading nature of all human accomplishment and attainments. Yours affectionately,

W. C.

47. TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN.

PLEASURES OF LANDSCAPE DRAWING INVITATION TO OLNEY MODERN POLITICS AND THOSE OF CHARLES I.

May 8, 1780. MY DEAR FRIEND,-My scribbling humour has of late been entirely absorbed in the passion for landscape drawing. It is a most amusing art, and, like every other art, requires much practice and attention.

Nil sine multo

Vita, labore, dedit mortalibus.

Excellence is providentially placed beyond the reach of indolence, that success may be the reward of industry, and that idleness may be punished with obscurity and disgrace. So long as I am pleased with an employment, I am capable of unwearied application, because my feelings are all of the intense kind. I never received a little pleasure from any thing in my life; if I am delighted, it is in the extreme. The unhappy consequence of this temperature is, that my attachment to any occupation seldom outlives the novelty of it. That nerve of my imagination, that feels the touch of any particular amusement, twangs under the energy of the pressure with so much vehemence that it soon becomes sensible of weariness and fatigue. Hence I draw an unfavourable prognostic, and expect that I shall shortly be constrained to look out for something else. Then perhaps I may string the harp again, and be able to comply with your demand.

Now for the visit you propose to pay us, and propose not to pay us; the hope of which plays upon your paper, like a jack-o-lantern upon the ceiling. This is no mean simile, for Virgil (you remember) uses it. 'Tis here, 'tis there, it vanishes, it returns, it dazzles you, a cloud interposes, and it is gone. However just the comparison, I hope you will contrive to spoil it, and that your final determination will be to As to the masons you expect, bring them with youbring brick, bring mortar, bring every thing that would oppose itself to your journey-all shall be welcome. I have

come.

a greenhouse that is too small, come and enlarge it; build me a pinery; repair the garden-wall, that has great need of your assistance; do any thing; you cannot do too much so far from thinking you and your train troublesome, we shall rejoice to see you, upon these or upon any other terms you can propose. But to be serious-you will do well to consider 'that a long summer is before you that the party will not have such another opportunity to meet this great while — that you may finish your masonry long enough before winter, though you should not begin this month, but that you cannot always find your brother and sister Powley at Olney. These, and some other considerations, such as the desire we have to see you, and the pleasure we expect from seeing you all together may, and I think ought to overcome your scruples.

From a general recollection of Lord Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, I thought (and I remember I told you so) that there was a striking resemblance between that period and the present. But I am now reading and have read three volumes of Hume's History, one of which is engrossed entirely by that subject. There I see reason to alter my opinion, and the seeming resemblance has disappeared upon a more particular information. Charles succeeded to a long train of arbitrary princes, whose subjects had tamely acquiesced in the despotism of their masters, till their privileges were all forgot. He did but tread in their steps, and exemplify the principles in which he had been brought up, when he oppressed his people. But just at that time, unhappily for the monarch, the subject began to see, and to see that he had a right to property and freedom. This marks a sufficient difference between the disputes of that day and the present. But there was another main cause of that rebellion, which at this time does not operate at all. The king was devoted to the hierarchy; his subjects were puritans, and would not bear it. Every circumstance of ecclesiastical order and discipline was an abomination to them, and in his esteem an indispensable duty. And though at last he was obliged to give up many things, he would not abolish episcopacy, and till that were done, his concessions could have no conciliating effect. These two concurring causes were indeed sufficient to set three kingdoms in a flame. But they subsist not now, nor any other, I hope, notwithstanding the bustle made by the patriots, equal to the production of such terrible events.Yours, my dear friend,

W. C.

BILLET ON THE DEATH OF HER BROTHER.

May 10, 1780. MY DEAR COUSIN, -I do not write to comfort you; that office is not likely to be well performed by one who has no comfort for himself; nor to comply with an impertinent ceremony, which in general might well be spared upon such occasions: but because I would not seem indifferent to the concerns of those I have so much reason to esteem and love. If I did not sorrow for your brother's death, I should expect that nobody would for mine; when I knew him, he was much beloved, and I doubt not continued to be so. To live and die together is the lot of a few happy families, who hardly know what a separation means, and one sepulchre serves them all; but the ashes of our kindred are dispersed indeed. Whether the American gulf has swallowed up any other of my relations, I know not; it has made many mourners.

Believe me, my dear Cousin, though after a long silence, which perhaps nothing less than the present concern could have prevailed with me to interrupt, as much as ever, your affectionate kinsman, W. C.

49. TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.

FACETIOUS CHARACTER OF BENTLEY AND CRITICISM LANDSCAPE DRAWING

-FABLE OF THE RAVEN.

May 10, 1780.

MY DEAR FRIend, If authors could have lived to adjust and authenticate their own text, a commentator would have been an useless creature. For instance: if Dr Bentley* had found, or opined that he had found, the word tube, where it seemed to present itself to you, and had judged the subject worthy of his critical acumen, he would either have justified the corrupt reading, or have substituted some invention of his own, in defence of which he would have exerted all his

* Richard Bentley, "the prince of critics," was born near Wakefield, in Yorkshire, in 1662, studied at Cambridge, and died there, master of Trinity College, in 1742. His principal works are Discourses on Atheism, Dissertation on the Epistles of Philaris, and editions of various classics, with notes and annotations. His edition of Milton is forgotten.