It has pleased God to give us rain, without which this part of the country at least must soon have become a desert. The mea dows have been parched to a January brown, and we have foddered our cattle for some time, as in the winter. The goodness and power of God are never (I believe) so universally acknowledged as at the end of a long drought. Man is naturally a self-sufficient animal, and, in all concerns that seem to lie within the sphere of his own ability, thinks little or not at all of the need he always has of protection and furtherance from above. But he is sensible that the clouds will not assemble at his bidding, and that, though the clouds assemble, they will not fall down in showers, because he commands them. When therefore at last the blessing descends, you shall hear even in the streets the most irreligious and thoughtless with one voice exclaim, "Thank God!"-confessing themselves indebted to his favor, and willing, at least so far as words go, to give him the glory. can hardly doubt, therefore, that the earth is sometimes parched, and the crops endangered in order that the multitude may not want a memento to whom they owe them, nor absolutely forget the power on which all depend for all things. Our solitary part of the year is over. Mrs. Unwin's daughter and son-in-law have lately spent some time with us. We shall shortly receive from London our old friends the Newtons (he was once minister of Olney), and when they leave us, we expect that Lady Hesketh will succeed them, perhaps to spend the summer here, and possibly the winter also. The summer indeed is leaving us at a rapid rate, as do all the seasons; and though I have marked their flight so often, I know not which is the swiftest. Man is never so TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.* June 24, 1788. found you at all points so well prepared to My dear Friend,-I rejoice that my letter answer it according to our wishes. I have written to Lady Hesketh to apprise her of your intended journey hither, and she, having as yet made no assignation with us herself, will easily adjust her measures to the occasion. I have not lately had an opportunity of seeing Mr. Bean. The late rains, which have revived the hopes of the farmers, have interI hear, howcepted our communication. ever, that he meets with not a little trouble in his progress towards a reformation of Olney manners; and that the Sabbath, which he wishes to have hallowed by a stricter and more general observation of it, is, through the brutality of the lowest order, a day of more turbulence and riot than any other. At the latter end of last week he found himself obliged to make another trip to the justice, in company with two or three of the principal inhabitants. What passed I have not learned; but I understand their errand to have been, partly at least, to efface the evil impressions made on his worship's mind, by a man who had applied a day or two before for a warrant against the constable; which, however, he did not obtain. I rather fear that the constables are not altogether judicious in the exercise either of their justice or their mercy. Some, who may have seemed proper objects of punishment, they have released, on a promise of better behavior; and others, whose offence has been personal against themselves, though in other respects less guilty, they have set in the stocks. The ladies, however, and of course the ladies of Silver-End in particular, give them most trouble, being always active on these occasions, as well as clamorous, and both with impunity. For the sex are privileged in the free use of their tongues and of their nails, the parliament having never yet laid them under any penal restrictions; and they employ them accordingly. Johnson, the constable, lost much of his skin, and deluded as when he dreams of his own duration. The answer of the old patriarch to Pharaoh may be adopted by every man at the close of the longest life: "Few and evil have been the days of the years of my pilgrimage." Whether we look back from fifty, or from twice fifty, the past appears equally a dream; and we can only be said truly to have lived, while we have been profitably still more of his coat, in one of those Sunemployed. Alas! then, making the neces sary deductions, how short is life! Were day battles; and had not Ashburner hastmen in general to save themselves all the ened to his aid, had probably been completesteps they take to no purpose, or to a badly stripped of both. With such a zeal are one, what numbers, who are now active, would become sedentary! Thus I have sermonized through my paper. Living where you live, you can bear with me the better. I always follow the leading of my unconstrained thoughts, when I write to a friend, be they grave or other wise. Homer reminds me of you every day. I am now in the twenty-first Iliad. Adieu. W. C. these fair ones animated, though, unfortunately for all parties, rather erroneously. What you tell me of the effect that the limitation of numbers to tonnage is likely to have on the slave trade, gives me the greatest pleasure. Should it amount, in the issue, to an abolition of the traffic, I shall account it indeed an argument of great wisdom in our youthful minister. A silent and indirect way of doing it, is, I suppose the only safe one. At the same time, in how horrid a light does it place the trade itself, when it comes to be proved by consequences that the mere article of a little elbow-room for the poor creatures in their passage to the islands could not be secured by an order of parliament, without the utter annihilation of it! If so it prove, no man deserving to be called a man, can say that it ought to subsist a moment longer. My writing time is expended, and breakfast is at hand. With our joint love to the trio, and our best wishes for your good journey to Weston, I remain, my dear friend, For the sake of a longer visit, my dearest Coz, I can be well content to wait. The country, this country at least, is pleasant at all times, and when winter is come, or near at hand, we shall have the better chance for being snug. I know your passion for retirement indeed, or for what we call deedy retirement, and, the Fs intending to return to Bath with their mother, when her visit at the Hall is over, you will then find here exactly the retirement in question. I have made in the orchard the best winter-walk in all the parish, sheltered from the east and from the north-east, and open to the sun, except at his rising, all the day. Then we will have Homer and Don Quixote; and then we will have saunter and chat and one laugh more before we die. Our orchard is alive with creatures of all kinds; poultry of every denomination swarms in it, and pigs, the drollest in the world! I rejoice that we have a cousin Charles also, as well as a cousin Henry, who has had the address to win the good likings of the Chancellor. May he fare the better for it. As to myself, I have long since ceased to have any expectations from that quarter. Yet, if he were indeed mortified as you say (and no doubt you have particular reasons for thinking so), and repented to that degree of his hasty exertions in favor of the present occupant, who can tell? He wants neither means nor management, but can easily at some future period redress the evil, if he chooses to do it. But in the meantime life steals away, and shortly neither he will be in circumstances to do me a kindness, nor I to receive one at his hands. Let him make haste, therefore, or he will die a promise in my debt, which he will never be able to perform. Your communications on this sub. ject are as safe as you can wish them. We divulge nothing but what might appear in the magazine, nor that without great consid eration. I must tell you a feat of my dog Beau. Walking by the river-side, I observed some water-lilies floating at a little distance from the bank. They are a large white flower, with an orange-colored eye, very beautiful. I had a desire to gather one, and, having your long cane in my hand, by the help of it endeavored to bring one of them within my reach. But the attempt proved vain, and I walked forward. Beau had all the while observed me very attentively. Returning soon after toward the same place, I observed him plunge into the river, while I was about forty yards distant from him; and, when I had nearly reached the spot, he swam to land with a lily in his mouth, which he came and laid at my foot. Mr. Rose, whom I have mentioned to you as a visitor of mine for the first time soon after you left us, writes me word that he has seen my ballads against the slave-mongers, but not in print. Where he met with them I know not. Mr. Bull begged hard for leave to print them at Newport-Pagnel, and I refused, thinking that it would be wrong to anticipate the nobility, gentry, and others, at whose pressing instance I composed them, in their designs to print them. But perhaps I need not have been so squeamish: for the opportunity to publish them in London seems now not only ripe, but rotten. I am well content. There is but one of them with which I am myself satisfied, though I have heard them all well spoken of. there are very few things of my own composition that I can endure to read, when they have been written a month, though at first they seem to me to be all perfection. But Mrs. Unwin, who has been much the hap pier since the time of your return hither has been in some sort settled, begs me to make her kindest remembrance. Yours, my dear, most truly, W. C. The following verses are so singularly beautiful, and interesting from the incident which gave rise to them, that, though they are inserted in the Poems, we cannot refrain from introducing them, in connexion with the letter which records the occasion of their being written. *Lord Thurlow, it will be remembered, pledged him self to make some provision for Cowper, if he became Lord Chancellor. We have elsewhere observed that they never were printed as ballads, but were inserted in his works. THE DOG AND THE WATER-LILY. No Fable. The noon was shady, and soft airs My spaniel, prettiest of his race, Two nymphs adorned with every grace Now wantoned, lost in flags and reeds, It was the time when Ouse displayed With cane extended far I sought To steer it close to land; Beau marked my unsuccessful pains I thence withdrew, and followed long My ramble ended, I returned, Beau, trotting far before, The floating wreath again discerned, I saw him, with that lily cropped, My quick approach, and soon he dropped You It is in vain that you tell me that you have no talent at description, while in fact you describe better than anybody. have given me a most complete idea of your mansion and its situation; and I doubt not that, with your letter in my hand by way of map, could I be set down on the spot in a moment, I should find myself qualified to take my walks and my pastime in whatever quarter of your paradise it should please me the most to visit. We also, as you know, have scenes at Weston worthy of descrip tion; but, because you know them well, I will only say, that one of them has, within these few days been much improved; I mean the lime-walk. By the help of the axe and the wood-bill, which have of late been constantly employed in cutting out all strag gling branches that intercepted the arch, Mr. Throckmorton has now defined it with such exactness that no cathedral in the world can show one of more magnificence or beauty. I bless myself that I live so near it; for, were it distant several miles, it would be well worth while to visit it, merely as an ob Charmed with the sight, "The world," I cried, ject of taste; not to mention the refresh "Shall hear of this thy deed; My dog shall mortify the pride Of man's superior breed. "But chief myself I will enjoin- To show a love as prompt as thine TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.* July 6, 1788. My dear Friend,-"Bitter constraint and sad occasion dear" have compelled me to draw on you for the sum of twenty pounds, payable to John Higgins, Esq., or order. The draft bears date July 5th. You will excuse my giving you this trouble, in consideration that I am a poet, and can consequently draw for money much easier than I can earn it. I heard of you a few days since, from *The Miss Gunnings, the daughters of Sir Robert Gunning, Bart. † Private correspondence. ment of such a gloom both to the eyes and spirits. And these are the things which our modern improvers of parks and pleasuregrounds have displaced without mercy; because, forsooth, they are rectilinear. It is a wonder that they do not quarrel with the sunbeams for the same reason. Have you seen the account of five hundred celebrated authors now living?* I am one of them; but stand charged with the high crime and misdemeanor of totally neglecting method; an accusation, which, if the gentleman would take the pains to read me, he would find sufficiently refuted. I am conscious at least myself of having labored much in the arrangement of my matter, and of having given to the several parts of every book of "The Task," as well as to each poem in the first volume, that sort of slight connexion which poetry demands; for in poetry (except professedly of the didactic kind) a logical precision would be stiff, pe * A book full of blunders and scandal, and destitute both of information and interest. dantic, and ridiculous. But there is no pleas- shall lose thee. Ever thine, TO LADY HESKETH. W C. The Lodge, Aug. 9, 1788. TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESQ. ble regret, alleviated only by the considerMy dear Friend,-I left you with a sensiation, that I shall see you again in October. I was under some concern also, lest, not being able to give you any certain direcfind a guide, should you wander and fatigue tions myself, nor knowing where you might yourself, good walker as you are, before you heard me whistle just after our separation; could reach Northampton. Perhaps you it was to call back Beau, who was running after you with all speed to entreat you to own time to return, and did not reach home return with me. For my part, I took my till after one, and then so weary that I was glad of my great chair; to the comforts of which I added a crust, and a glass of rum and water, not without great occasion. Such a foot-traveller am I. I am writing on Monday, but whether I shall finish my letter this morning depends The Newtons are still here, and continue on Mrs. Unwin's coming sooner or later with us, I believe, until the 15th of the month. down to breakfast. Something tells me that Here is also my friend, Mr. Rose, a valuable you set off to-day for Birmingham; and young man, who, attracted by the effluvia of though it be a sort of Irishism to say here, I my genius, found me out in my retirement last beseech you take care of yourself, for the January twelvemonth. I have not permitted day threatens great heat, I cannot help it; him to be idle, but have made him transcribe the weather may be cold enough at the time for me the twelfth book of the Iliad. He when that good advice shall reach you, but, brings me the compliments of several of the be it hot or be it cold, to a man who travels literati, with whom he is acquainted in town, as you travel, take care of yourself can never and tells me, that from Dr. Maclain, whom be an unseasonable caution. I am somehe saw lately, he learns that my book is in the times distressed on this account, for though hands of sixty different persons at the Hague, you are young, and well made for such exwho are all enchanted with it; not forget-ploits, those very circumstances are more ting the said Dr. Maclain himself, who tells likely than anything to betray you into danhim that he reads it every day, and is always the better for it. O rare we! ger. Consule quid valeant PLANTE, quid ferre re cusent. I have been employed this morning in composing a Latin motto for the king's clock, the embellishments of which are by The Newtons left us on Friday. We freMr. Bacon. That gentleman breakfasted quently talked about you after your depart with us on Wednesday, having come thirty-ure, and everything that was spoken was to seven miles out of his way on purpose to see your cousin. At his request I have done it, and have made two, he will choose that which liketh him best. Mr. Bacon is a most excellent man, and a most agreeable companion; I would that he lived not so remote, or that he had more opportunity of travelling. There is not, so far as I know, a syllable of the rhyming correspondence between me and my poor brother left, save and except the six lines of it quoted in yours. I had the whole of it, but it perished in the wreck of a thousand other things when I left the Temple. Breakfast calls. Adieu! W. C. your advantage. I know they will be glad to see you in London, and perhaps, when your summer and autunm rambles are over, you will afford them that pleasure. The Throckmortons are equally well disposed to you, able connexion, the rather because you can and them also I recommend to you as a valuonly cultivate it at Weston. I have not been idle since you went, having not only labored as usual at the Iliad, but composed a spick and span new piece, called shall see when we meet again. I believe I "The Dog, and the Water-Lily," which you related to you the incident which is the subject of it. I have also read most of Lavater's Aphorisms: they appear to me some of them wise, many of them whimsical, a few of them false, and not a few of them extravagant. Nil illi medium. If he finds in a man the feature or quality that he approves, he deifies him; if the contrary, he is a devil. His verdict is in neither casc, I suppose, a just one.* W. C. TO MRS. KING.* August 28, 1788. My dear Madam,-Should you discard me from the number of your correspondents, you would treat me as I seem to deserve, though I do not actually deserve it. I have lately been engaged with company at our house, who resided with us five weeks, and have had much of the rheumatism into the bargain. Not in my fingers, you will say-True. But you know as well as I, that pain, be it where it may, indisposes us to writing. You express some degree of wonder that I found you out to be sedentary, at least much a stayer within doors, without any sufficient data for my direction. Now, if I should guess your figure and stature with equal success, you will deem me not only a poet but a conjurer. Yet in fact I have no pretensions of that sort. I have only formed a picture of you in my own imagination, as we ever do of a person of whom we think much, though we have never seen that person. Your height I conceive to be about five feet five inches, which, though it would make a short man, is yet height enough for a woman. If you insist on an inch or two more, I have no objection. You are not very fat, but * Cowper's strictures on Lavater are rather severe; in a subsequent letter we shall find that he expresses himself almost in the language of a disciple. We believe all men to be physiognomists, that is, they are guided in their estimate of one another by external impressions, until they are furnished with better data to determine their judgment. The countenance is often the faithful mirror of the inward emotions of the soul, in the same manner as the light and shade on the mountain's side exhibit the variations of the atmosphere. In the curious and valuable cabinet of Denon, in Paris, which was sold in 1927, two casts taken from Robespierre and Marat were singularly expressive of the atrocity of their character. The cast of an idiot, in the same collection, denoted the total absence of intellect. But, whatever may be our sentiments on this subject, there is one noble act of benevolence which has justly endeared the name of Lavater to his country. We allude to the celebrated Orphan Institution at Zurich, of which he was the founder. It is a handsome and commodious establishment, where these interesting objects of humanity receive a suitable education, and are fitted for future usefulness. The church is shown where John Gaspar Lavater officiated, surrounded by his youthful auditory; and an humble stone in the churchyard briefly records his name and virtues. His own Orphan-house is the most honorable monument of his fame. It is in visiting scenes like these that we feel the moral dignity of our nature, that the heart becomes expanded with generous emotions, and that we learn to imitate that Divine Master, who went about doing good. country, where charity assumes almost every possible form, the Orphan-house is of rare occurrence, though abounding in most of the cities of Switzerland. Where are the philanthropists of Bristol, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Norwich, and of our other great towns? Surely, to wipe away the tear from the cheek of the orphan, to rescue want from destitution and unprotected innocence from exposure to vice and ruin, must ever be considered to be one of the noblest efforts of Christian benevolence. The Editor could not avoid regretting that, in his own ↑ Private correspondence. somewhat inclined to be fat, and unless you allow yourself a little more air and exercise, will incur some danger of exceeding in your dimensions before you die. Let me, therefore, once more recommend to you to walk a little more, at least in your garden, and to amuse yourself occasionally with pulling up here and there a weed, for it will be an inconvenience to you to be much fatter than you are, at a time of life when your strength will be naturally on the decline. I have given you a fair complexion, a slight tinge of the rose in your cheeks, dark brown hair, and, if the fashion would give you leave to show it, an open and well-formed forehead. To all this I add a pair of eyes not quite black, but nearly approaching to that hue, and very animated. I have not absolutely determined on the shape of your nose, or the form of your mouth; but should you tell me that I have in other respects drawn a tolerable likeness, have no doubt but I can describe them too. I assure you that though I have a great desire to read him, I have never seen Lavater, nor have availed myself in the least of any of his rules on this occasion. Ah, madam! if with all that sensibility of yours, which exposes you to so much sorrow, and necessarily must expose you to it, in a world like this, I have had the good fortune to make you smile, I have then painted you, whether with a strong resemblance, or with none at all, to very good purpose.* I had intended to have sent you a little poem, which I have lately finished, but have no room to transcribe it. You shall have it by another opportunity. Breakfast is on the table, and my time also fails, as well as my paper. I rejoice that a cousin of yours found volumes agreeable to him, for, being your my cousin, I will be answerable for his good taste and judgment. When I wrote last, I was in mourning for a dear and much-valued uncle, Ashley Cowper. He died at the age of eighty-six. My best respects attend Mr. King: and I am, dear madam, Most truly yours, TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. W. C. Weston Lodge, Sept. 2, 1781. My dear Friend,.-I rejoice that you and yours reached London safe, especially when I reflect that you performed the journey on a day so fatal, as I understand, to others travelling the same road. I found those com. forts in your visit which have formerly sweetened all our interviews, in part restored. I knew you; knew you for the same shepherd *Cowper's fancy was never more erroneously em ployed. The portrait he here draws of Mrs. King pos sessed no resemblance to the original. †The Dog and the Water-Lily. Private correspondence. |