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, W. C.

60. TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.

POETICAL TRIFLES - RIDDLE ON A KISS.

July 30, 1780.

MY DEAR SIR,-You may think, perhaps, that I deal more liberally with Mr Unwin, in the way of poetical export, than I do with you, and I believe you have reason. The truth is this, --If I walked the streets with a fiddle under my arm, I should never think of performing before the window of a privy counsellor, or a chief justice, but should rather make free with ears more likely to be open to such an amusement. The trifles I produce in this way are indeed such trifles, that I cannot think them seasonable presents for you. Mr Unwin himself would not be offended if I was to tell him that there is this difference between him and Mr Newton, that the latter is already an apostle, while he himself is only undergoing the business of incubation, with a hope that he may be hatched in time. When my muse comes forth arrayed in sables, at least in a robe of graver cast, I make no scruple to direct her to my friend at Hoxton. This has been one reason why I have so long delayed the riddle. But lest I should seem to set a value upon it, that I do not, by making it an object of still farther inquiry, here it comes :

I am just two and two, I am warm, I am cold,
And the parent of numbers that cannot be told,
I am lawful, unlawful-a duty, a fault,

I am often sold dear, good for nothing when bought,
An extraordinary boon, and a matter of course,
And yielded with pleasure-when taken by force.

W. C.

61. TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN.

HAVING NOTHING TO SAY, NO REASON FOR NOT WRITING MANKIND THE SAME IN ALL AGES.

August 6, 1780.

MY DEAR FRIEND, -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 seasonable 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 anything or nothing, just as that anything 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 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 postilion 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 meantime

case.

* Steinkirk cravats were, to the beaux of our great-grandmothers' days, what the noud- Gordien, or starch, mysterious mucilage of fashion," is to the exquisite as now existing.

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 boxedgings, 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 the 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. Yours.

W. C.

ESCAPE, ADVENTURES, AND RECAPTURE OF A TAME HARE.

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 the 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 carying 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.

LADY COWFER'S DEATH-EFFECTS OF TIME UPON THE PERSON AND MIND.

August 31, 1780.

MY DEAR COUSIN, -I am obliged to you for your long letter, which did not seem so, and for your short one, which was more than I had any reason to expect. Short as it was, it conveyed to me two interesting articles of intelligence,

an account of your recovering from a fever, and of Lady Cowper's death. The latter was, I suppose, to be expected, for by what remembrance I have of her ladyship, who was

never much acquainted with her, she had reached those years that are always found upon the borders of another world. As for you, your time of life is comparatively of a youthful date. You may think of death as much as you please—you cannot think of it too much—but I hope you will live to think of it many years.

It costs me not much difficulty to suppose that my friends, who were already grown old when I saw them last, are old still, but it costs me a good deal sometimes to think of those who were at that time young, as being older than they were. Not having been an eyewitness of the change that time has made in them, and my former idea of them not being corrected by observation, it remains the same; my memory presents me with this image unimpaired, and while it retains the resemblance of what they were, forgets that by this time the picture may have lost much of its likeness, through the alterations that succeeding years have made in the original. I know not what impressions Time may have made upon your person, for while his claws (as our grannams called them) strike deep furrows in some faces, he seems to sheath them with much tenderness, as if fearful of doing injury to others. But though an enemy to the person, he is a friend to the mind, and you have found him so. Though, even in this respect, his treatment of us depends upon what he meets with at our hands; if we use him well, and listen to his admonitions, he is a friend indeed, but otherwise the worst of enemies, who takes from us daily something that we valued, and gives us nothing better in its stead. It is well with them who, like you, can stand a-tiptoe on the mountain top of human life, look down with pleasure upon the valley they have passed, and sometimes stretch their wings in joyful hope of a happy flight into Eternity. Yet a little while, and your hope will be accomplished.

When you can favour me with a little account of your own family, without inconvenience, I shall be glad to receive it; for though separated from my kindred by little more than half a century of miles, I know as little of their concerns, as if oceans and continents were interposed between us.. Yours, my dear cousin, W. C.

VOL. I.

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