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with receiving their instruction from their proper minister.

I beg you will, on no future occasion, leave a blank for Mrs. Newton, unless you have first engaged her promise to fill it; for thus we lose the pleasure of your company, without being indemnified for the loss by the acquisition of hers. Our love to you both.

Yours, my dear friend, W. C.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN.

Olney, Nov. 5, 1781.

My dear William,-I give you joy of your safe return from the lips of the great deep. You did not discern many signs of sobriety or true wisdom among the people of Brighthelmstone, but it is not possible to observe the manners of a multitude, of whatever rank, without learning something; I mean if a man has a mind like yours, capable of reflection. If he sees nothing to imitate, he is sure to see something to avoid; if nothing to congratulate his fellow creatures upon, at least much to excite his compassion. There is not, I think, so melancholy a sight in the world (an hospital is not to be compared with it) as that of a thousand persons distinguished by the name of gentry, who, gentle perhaps by nature, and made more gentle by education, have the appearance of being innocent and inoffensive, yet being destitute of all religion, or not at all governed by the religion they profess, are none of them at any great distance from an eternal state, where self-deception will be impossible, and where amusements cannot enter. Some of them, we may say, will be reclaimed-it is most probable indeed that some of them will, because mercy, if one may be allowed the expression, is fond of distinguishing itself by seeking its objects among the most desperate class; but the Scripture gives no encouragement to the warmest charity to hope for deliverance for them all. When I see afflicted and unhappy man, I say to myself, there is, perhaps, a man whom the world would envy, if they knew the value of his sorrows, which are possibly intended only to soften his heart, and to turn his affections towards their proper centre. But when I see or hear of a crowd of voluptuaries, who have no ears but for music, no eyes but for splendor, and no tongue but for impertinence and folly-I say, or at least I see occasion to say-This is madness-this persisted in must have a tragical conclusion. It will condemn you not only as Christians unworthy of the name, but as intelligent creatures. You know by the light of nature, if you have not quenched it, that there is a God, and that a life like yours cannot be according to his will.

an

I ask no pardon of you for the gravity and gloominess of these reflections, which I stumbled on when I least expected it; though, to say the truth, these or others of a like complexion, are sure to occur to me when I think of a scene of public diversion like that you have lately left.

I am inclined to hope that Johnson told you the truth, when he said he should publish me soon after Christmas. His press has been rather more punctual in its remittances than it used to be; we have now but little more than two of the longest pieces, and the small ones that are to follow, by way of epilogue, But once more I am obliged to gape for to print off, and then the affair is finished. franks; only these, which I hope will be the last I shall want, at yours and Mr.

convenient leisure.

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We rejoice that you have so much reason to be satisfied with John's proficiency. The more spirit he has the better, if his spirit is but manageable, and put under such manage ment, as your prudence and Mrs. Unwin's will suggest. I need not guard you against severity, of which I conclude there is no need, and which I am sure you are not at all inclined to practise without it; but perhaps if I was to whisper, beware of too much indulgence, I should only give a hint that the fondness of a father for a fine boy might seem to justify. I have no particular reason for the caution, at this distance it is not possible I should, but, in a case like yours, an admoni tion of that sort seldom wants propriety. Yours, my dear friend,

TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.*

W. C.

Olney, Nov. 7, 1781.

My dear Friend,-Having discontinued the practise of verse-making for some weeks, I now feel quite incapable of resuming it; and can only wonder at it as one of the most extraordinary incidents in my life that I should have composed a volume. Had it been suggested to me as a practicable thing in better days, though I should have been glad to have found it so, many hindrances would have conspired to withhold me from such an enter prise. I should not have dared, at that time of day to have committed my name to the public, and my reputation to the hazard of their opinion. But it is otherwise with me now. I am more indifferent about what may touch me in that point than ever I was in my life. The stake that would then have seemed important now seems trivial; and it is of little consequence to me, who no longer feel myself possessed of what I accounted infinitely more valuable, whether the world's verdict shall pronounce me a poet, or an empty pretender to the title. This happy coldness towards a * Private correspondence.

matter so generally interesting to all rhymers left me quite at liberty for the undertaking, unfettered by fear, and under no restraints of that diffidence which is my natural temper, and which would either have made it impossible for me to commence an author by name, or would have insured my miscarriage if I had. In my last despatches to Johnson I sent him a new edition of the title-page, having discarded the Latin paradox which stood at the head of the former, and added a French motto to that from Virgil. It is taken from a volume of the excellent Caraccioli,* called Jouissance de soi-même, and strikes me as pecularly apposite to my purpose.

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TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN.* Olney, Nov. 24, 1781. My dear Friend,-News is always acceptable, especially from another world. I cannot tell you what has been done in the Chesapeake, but I can tell you what has passed in West Wycombe, in this county. Do you feel yourself disposed to give credit to the story of an apparition? No, say you. I am of your mind. I do not believe more than one in a hundred of those tales with which old woman frighten children, and teach children to frighten each other. But you are not such a philosopher, I suppose, as to have persuaded yourself that an apparition is an impossible thing. You can attend to a story of that sort, if well authenticated? can tell you one.

Yes. Then I

Mr. Bull is an honest man. We have seen him twice since he received your orders to march hither, and faithfully told us it was in consequence of those orders that he came.He dined with us yesterday; we were all in pretty good spirits, and the day passed very agreeably. It is not long since he called on Mr. Scott. Mr. R- came in. Mr. Bull began, addressing himself to the former, "My friend, you are in trouble; you are unhappy; I read it in your countenance." Mr. Scott replied, he had been so, but he was better. "Come then," says Mr. Bull, "I will expound You have heard, no doubt, of the romantic to you the cause of all your anxiety. You friendship that subsisted once between Paul are too common; you make yourself cheap. Whitehead, and Lord le Despenser, the late Visit your people less, and converse more Sir Francis Dashwood.-When Paul died, he with your own heart. How often do you left his lordship a legacy. It was his heart, speak to them in the week?" Thrice.--"Ay, which was taken out of his body, and sent as there it is. Your sermons are an old ballad; directed. His friend, having built a church, your prayers are an old ballad; and you are and at that time just finished it, used it as a an oid ballad too."-I would wish to tread in mausoleum upon this occasion; and, having the steps of Mr. Newton.-"You do well to (as I think the newspapers told us at the follow his steps in all other instances, but time) erected an elegant pillar in the centre in this instance you are wrong, and so was of it, on the summit of this pillar, enclosed he. Mr. Newton trod a path which no man in a golden urn, he placed the heart in quesbut himself could have used so long as he tion; but not as a lady places a china figure did, and he wore it out long before he went upon her mantel-tree, or on the top of her from Olney, Too much familiarity and con- cabinet, but with much respectful ceremony descension cost him the estimation of his and all the forms of funeral solemnity. lie people. He thought he should insure their hired the best singers and the best performlove, to which he had the best possible title, ers. He composed an anthem for the purand by those very means he lost it. Be pose; he invited all the nobility and gentry Wise, my friend; take warning; make yourself in the country to assist at the celebration of scarce, if you wish that persons of little un- these obsequies, and, having formed them all derstanding should know how to prize you." into an august procession, marched to the When he related to us this harangue, so nicely place appointed at their head, and consigned adjusted to the case of the third person pres- the posthumous treure, with his own hands, eui. it did us both good, and as Jacques says, to its state of honorable elevation. Having thus, as he thought, and as he might well think, ( ) appeased the with what he had done, and supposed his manes of the deceased, he rested satisfied friend would rest. But not so, about a week since I received a letter from a person who cannot have been misinformed, telling me that Paul has appeared frequently of late, and that there are few, if any, of his lordship's numerous household, who have not seen him, * Private correspondence.

It made my lungs to crow like chanticleer."
Our love of you both, though often sent to

⚫ Marquis Caraccioli, born at Paris, 1732. It is now well known that the letters of Pope Ganganelli, though jomsiz ander the name of that pontiff, were composed by the writer. These letters, as well as all his writings, are distinguished by a sweet strain of moral feeling, that powerfully awakens the best emotions of the heart; but

there is a want of more evangelical light. He is also the

author of "La Jomsance de soi-mêine;"La Conver sation avec soi-même;"La Grandeur d'Ame," &c.; and of The Life of Madame de Maintenon."

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sometimes in the park, sometimes in the garden, as well as in the house, by day and by night, indifferently. I make no reflection upon this incident, having other things to write about and but little room.

most prudent and sagacious landlady. As much as I admire her, I admire much more that philosophical temper with which you seem to treat her; for I know few characters more provoking, to me at least, than the selfish, who are never honest, especially if, while they determine to pick your pocket, they have not ingenuity enough to conceal their purpose. But you are perfectly in the right, and act just as I would endeavor to do on the same occasion. You sacrifice everything to a retreat you admire, and, if the natural indolence of my disposition did not forsake me, so would I.

I am much indebted to Mr. S- for more franks, and still more obliged by the handsome note with which he accompanied them. He has furnished me sufficiently for the present occasion, and, by his readiness and obliging manner of doing it, encouraged me to have recourse to him, in case another exigence of the same kind should offer. A French author I was reading last night says, He that has written will write again. If the critics do not set their foot upon this first egg that I have laid and crush it, I shall probably verify his observation; and, when I feel my spirits rise, and that I am armed with industry sufficient for the purpose, undertake the production of another volume. At present, however, I do not feel myself so disposed; and, indeed, he that would write should read, not that he may retail the observations of other men, but that, being thus refreshed and replenished, he may find himself in a condition to make and to produce his own. I reckon it among my principal advantages, as a composer of verses, that I have not read an English poet these thirteen years, and but one these twenty years. Imitation, even of the best models, is my aversion; it is servile and mechanical, a trick that has enabled many to usurp the name of author, who could not have written at all, if they had not written upon the patMore thanks to Mrs. Hill for her intentern of somebody indeed original. But when tions. She has the true enthusiasm of a the ear and the taste have been much accus-gardener, and I can pity her under her disaptomed to the manner of others, it is almost pointment, having so large a share of that impossible to avoid it; and we imitate, in spite commodity myself. of ourselves, just in proportion as we admire. But enough of this.

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You might as well apologize for sending me forty pounds, as for writing about yourself. Of the two ingredients, I hardly know which made your letter the most agreeable (observe, I do not say the most acceptable). The draft, indeed, was welcome; but though it was so, yet it did not make me laugh. "I laughed heartily at the account you give me of yourself, and your landlady, Dame Saveall, whose picture you have drawn, though not with a flattering hand, yet, I dare say, with a strong resemblance. As to you, I have never seen so much of you since I saw you in London, where you and I have so often made ourselves merry with each other's humor, yet never gave each other a moment's pain by doing so. We are both humorists, and it is well for your wife and my Mrs. Unwin that they have alike found out the way to deal with us.

Yours, my dear Sir, affectionately,

W. C.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN.

Olney, Nov. 26, 1781.

My dear Friend,-I wrote to you by the last post, supposing you at Stock; but, lest that letter should not follow you to Laytonstone, and you should suspect me of unreasonable delay, and lest the frank you have sent me should degenerate into waste paper and perish upon my hands, I write again. The former letter, however, containing all my present stock of intelligence, it is more than possible that this may prove a blank, or but little worthy your acceptance. You will do me the justice to suppose that, if I could be very entertaining I would be so, because. by giving me credit for such a willingness to please, you only allow me a share of that universal vanity which incnes every man, upon all occasions, to exhibit himself to the best advantage. To say the truth, however, when I write, as I do to you, not about

business, nor on any subject that approaches to that description, I mean much less my correspondent's amusement, which my modesty will not always permit me to hope for, than my own. There is a pleasure annexed to the communication of one's ideas, whether by word of mouth or by letter, which nothing earthly can supply the place of; and it is the delight we find in this mutual intercourse that not only proves us to be creatures intended for social life, but, more than anything else, perhaps, fits us for it. I have no patience with philosophers: they, one and all, suppose (at least I understand it to be a prevailing opinion among them) that man's weakness, his necessities, his inability to stand alone, have furnished the prevailing motive, under the influence of which he renounced at first a life of solitude, and became a gregarious creature. It seems to me more reasonable, as well as more honorable to my species, to suppose that generosity of soul and a brotherly attachment to our own kind, drew us, as it were, to one common centre, taught us to build cities and inhabit them, and welcome every stranger that would cast in his let amongst us, that we might enjoy fellowship with each other and the luxury of reciprocal endearments, without which a paradise could afford no comfort. There are indeed all sorts of characters in the world; there are some whose understandings are so sluggish, and whose hearts are such mere clods, that they live in society without either contributing to the sweets of it, or having any relish for them. A man of this stamp passes by our window continually; I never saw him conversing with a neighbor but once in my life, though I have known him by sight these twelve years; he is of a very sturdy make, and has a round protuberance, which he evidently considers as his best friend, because it is his only companion, and it is the labor of his life to fill it. I can easily conceive that it is merely the love of good eating and drinking, and now and then the want of a new pair of shoes, that attaches this man so much to the neighborhood of his fellow mortals; for suppose these exigencies and others of a like kind to subsist no longer, and what is there that could give society the preference in his esteem? He might strut about with his two thumbs upon his hips in the wilderness; he could hardly be more silent than he is at Olney; and, for any advantage of comfort, of friendship, of brotherly affection, he could not be more destitute of such blessings there than in his present situation. But other men have something more to satisfy: there are the yearnings of the heart, which, let the philosphers say what they will, are more importunate than all the necessities of the body, that will not suffer a creature worthy to be called human to be content with an insulated life, or to look for his friends

among the beasts of the forest.* Yourself, for instance! It is not because there are no tailors or pastrycooks to be found upon Salisbury plain, that you do not choose it for your abode, but because you are a philanthropist ; because you are susceptible of social impres sions; and have a pleasure of doing a kindness when you can. Now, upon the word of a poor creature, I have said all that I have said, without the least intention to say one word of it when I began. But thus it is with my thoughts-when you shake a crab-tree the fruit falls; good for nothing indeed when you have got it, but still the best that is to be expected from a crab-tree. You are welcome to them, such as they are; and, if you approve my sentiments, tell the philosophers of the day that I have outshot them all, and have discovered the true origin of society when I least looked for it. W. C.

TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.†

Olney, Nov. 27, 1781.

My dear Friend,-First Mr. Wilson, then Mr. Teedon, and lastly Mr. Whitford, each with a cloud of melancholy on his brow and with a mouth wide open, have just announced to us this unwelcome intelligence from America. We are sorry to hear it, and should be more cast down than we are, if we did not know that this catastrophe was ordained beforehand, and that therefore neither conduct, nor courage, nor any means that can possibly be mentioned, could have prevented it. If the king and his ministry can be contented to close the business here, and, taking poor Dean Tucker's advice, resign the Americans into the hands of their new masters, it may be well for Old England. But, if they will still persevere, they will find it, I doubt, a hopeless contest to the last. Domestic murmurs will grow louder, and the hands of faction, being strengthened by this late miscarriage, will find it easy to set fire to the pile of combustibles they have been so long employed in building. These are my politics, and, for aught I can see, you and we, by our respective firesides, though neither connected with men in power, nor professing to possess any share of that sagacity which thinks itself qualified to wield the affairs of kingdoms, can make as probable conjectures, and look forward into futurity with as clear a sight as the greatest man in the cabinet.

"There is a solitude of the gods, and there is the solitude of wild beasts."

† Private correspondence.

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Though, when I wrote the passage in ques- before I begin. I sent it to you, because to tion, I was not at all aware of any impropri-you I send anything that I think may raise a ety in it, and though I have frequently, since smile, but should never have thought of mul that time, both read and recollected it with tiplying the impression. Neither did I ever the same approbation, I lately became uneasy repeat them to any one except Mrs. Unwin. upon the subject, and had no rest in my mind The inference is fair and easy, that you have for three days, till I resolved to submit it to some friend who has a good memory.* a trial at your tribunal, and to dispose of it This afternoon the maid opened the parultimately according to your sentence. I am lor-door, and told us there was a lady in the glad you have condemned it, and, though I do kitchen. We desired she might be intronot feel as if I could presently supply its duced, and prepared for the reception of Mrs. place, shall be willing to attempt the task, Jones. But it proved to be a lady unknown whatever labor it may cost me, and rejoice to us, and not Mrs. Jones. She walked dithat it will not be in the power of the critics, rectly up to Mrs. Unwin, and never drew whatever else they may charge me with, to back till their noses were almost in contact. accuse me of bigotry or a design to make a It seemed as if she meant to salute her. An certain denomination of Christians odious, at uncommon degree of familiarity, accompanied the hazard of the public peace. I had rather with an air of most extraordinary gravity, I was my book were burnt than a single line of such made me think her a little crazy. a tendency should escape me. alarmed, and so was Mrs. Unwin. She had a bundle in her hand-a silk handkerchief When I found tied up at the four corners. she was not mad, I took her for a smuggler, and made no doubt but she had brought samples of contraband goods. But our surprise, considering the lady's appearance and deportment, was tenfold what it had been, when we found that it was Mary Philips's daughter, who had brought us a few apples by way of a specimen of a quantity she had for sale.

We thank you for two copies of your Address to your Parishioners. The first I lent to Mr. Scott, whom I have not seen since I put it into his hands. You have managed your subject well; have applied yourself to despisers and absentees of every description, in terms so expressive of the interest you take in their welfare, that the most wrongheaded person cannot be offended. We both wish it may have the effect you intend, and that, prejudices and groundless apprehensions being removed, the immediate objects of your ministry may make a more considerable part of your congregation.

Yours, my dear Sir, as ever,

TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.*

FRAGMENT.

W. C.

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TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.†

Olney, Dec. 2, 1781. My dear Friend,-I thank you for the note. There is some advantage in having a tenant who is irregular in his payments: the longer the rent is withheld, the more considerable the sum when it arrives; to which we may add, that its arrival, being unexpected, a circumstance that obtains always in a degree exactly in proportion to the badness of the tenant, is always sure to be the occasion of an agreeable surprise; a sensation that deserves to be ranked among the pleasantest that belong to us.

I gave two hundred and fifty pounds for the chambers. Mr. Ashurst's receipt, and the receipt of the person of whom he purchased, are both when wanted, as I suppose they will be in among my papers; and order. case of a sale, shall be forthcoming at your

The conquest of America seems to go on but slowly. Our ill success in that quarter

* The lines alluded to are the following, which appeared Verse:

afterwards, somewhat varied, in the Elegant Extracts in
If John marries Mary, and Mary alone,
'Tis a very good match between Mary and John.
Should John wed a score, ob! the claws and the
It can't be a match: 'tis a bundle of matches.—ED.

scratches!

† Private correspondence.

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