make no doubt; for, unreasonable as it is to do so, they all require something better than Homer, and that something they will certainly never get from me. As to the canal that is to be my neighbor, I hear little about it. The Courtenays of Weston have nothing to do with it, and I have no intercourse with Tyringham. When it is finished, the people of these parts will have to carry their coals seven miles only, which now they bring from Northampton or Bedford, both at the distance of fifteen. But, as Balaam says, who shall live when these things are done? It is not for me, a sexagenarian already, to expect that I shall. The chief objection to canals in general seems to be, that, multiplying as they do, they are likely to swallow the coasting trade. I cannot tell you the joy I feel at the disappointment of the French: pitiful mimics of Spartan and Roman virtue, without a grain of it in their whole character. My dearest Johnny,-The long muster-roll of my great and small ancestors I signed and dated, and sent up to Mr. Blue-mantle, on Monday, according to your desire. Such a pompous affair, drawn out for my sake, reminds me of the old fable of the mountain in parturition, and a mouse the produce. Rest undisturbed, say I, their lordly, ducal, and royal dust! Had they left me something handsome, I should have respected them more. But perhaps they did not know that such a one as I should have the honor to be numbered among their descendants.* Well! I have a little bookseller that makes me some amends for their deficiency. He has made me a present; an act of liberality which I take every opportunity to blazon, as it well deserves. But you, I suppose, have learned it already from Mr. Rose. Fear not, my man. You will acquit your self very well, I dare say, both in standing for your degree, and when you have gained it. A little tremor and a little shame-facedness in a stripling like you, are recommendations rather than otherwise; and so they ought to be, being symptoms of an ingenu Cowper, according to his kinsman, was descended, by the maternal line, through the families of Hippesley of Throughley, in Sussex, and Pellet, of Bolney, in the same county, from the several noble houses of West, Knollys, Carey, Bollen, Howard, and Mowbray; and so by four different lines from Henry the Third, king of England. He justly adds, " Distinction of this nature can shed no additional lustre on the memory of Cowper; but genius, however exalted, disdains not, while it boasts not, the splendor of ancestry; and royalty itself may be flattered, and perhaps benefited, by discovering its kindred to such plety, such purity, such talents as his."-See Sketch of the Life of Cowper, by Dr. Johnson. ous mind, rather unfrequent in this age of brass. What you say of your determined purpose, with God's help, to take up the cross and despise the shame, gives us both real pleasure. In our pedigree is found one, at least, who did it before you. Do you the like; and you will meet him in heaven, as sure as the scripture is the word of God.† The quarrel that the world has with evangelic men and doctrines, they would have with a host of angels in the human form. For it is the quarrel of owls with sunshine; of ignorance with divine illumination. Adieu, my dear Johnny! We shall expect you with earnest desire of your coming, and receive you with much delight. TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESQ. W. C. Weston, April 23, 1793. My dear Friend and Brother,-Better late than never, and better a little than none at all! Had I been at liberty to consult my inclinations, I would have answered your truly kind and affectionate letter immediately. But I am the busiest man alive, and, when this epistle is despatched, you will be the only one of my correspondents to whom I shall not be indebted. While I write this, my poor Mary sits mute; which I cannot well bear, and which, together with want of time to write much, will have a curtailing effect on my epistle. My only studying time is still given to Homer, not to correction and amendment of him (for that is all over) but to writing notes. Johnson has expressed a wish for some, that the unlearned may be a little illuminated concerning classical story and the mythology of the ancients; and his behavior to me has been so liberal, that I can refuse him nothing. Poking into the old Greek commentators blinds me. But it is no matter. I am the more like Homer. Ever yours, my dearest Hayley, TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. W.C April 25, 1793. My dear Friend,-Had it not been stipulated between us that, being both at present pretty much engrossed by business, we should write when opportunity offers, I should be frighted at the date of your last; but you will not judge me, I know, by the unfrequency of my letters; nor suppose that my thoughts about you are equally unfrequent. * Dr. Donne, formerly Dean of St. Paul's. "Be wiser thou-like our forefather Donne, Seek heavenly wealth, and work for God alone." + Private correspondence. In truth, they are not. No day passes in which you are excluded from them. I am so busy that I do not expect even now to fill my paper. While I write, my poor invalid, who is still unable to muse herself either with book or needle, sits silent at my side; which makes me, in all my letters, hasten to a conclusion. My only time for study is now before breakfast; and I lengthen it as much as I can, by rising early. I know not that, with respect to our health, we are either better or worse than when you saw us. Mrs. Unwin, perhaps, has gained a little strength; and the advancing spring, I hope, will add to it. As to myself, I am, in body, soul, and spirit, semper idem. Prayer, I know, is made for me, and sometimes with great enlargement of heart, by those who offer it; and in this circumstance consists the only evidence I can find, that God is still favorably mindful of me, and has not cast me off for ever. A long time since, I received a parcel from Dr. Cogshall, of New York; and, looking on the reverse of the packing-paper, saw there an address to you. I conclude, therefore, that you received it first, and at his desire transmitted it to me; consequently you are acquainted with him, and, probably, apprised of the nature of our correspondence. About three years ago I had his first letter to me, which came accompanied by half a dozen American publications. He proposed an exchange of books on religious subjects, as likely to be useful on both sides of the water. Most of those he sent, however, I had seen before. I sent him, in return, such as I could get; but felt myself indifferently qualified for such a negotiation. I am now called upon to contribute my quota again; and shall be obliged to you if, in your next, you will mention the titles of half a dozen that may be procured at little cost, that are likely to be new in that country and useful. About two months since, I had a letter from Mr. Jeremiah Waring, of Alton in Hampshire. Do you know such a man? I think I have seen his name in advertisements of mathematical works. He is, however, or seems to be, a very pious man. I was a little surprised lately, seeing in the last Gentleman's Magazine a letter from somebody at Winchester, in which is a copy of the epitaph of our poor friend Unwin: an English, not a Latin one. It has been pleasant to me sometimes to think, that his dust lay under an inscription of my writing; which I had no reason to doubt, because the Latin one, which I composed at the request of the executors, was, as I understood from Mr. H. Thornton, accepted by them and approved. If they thought, after all, that an English one, as more intelligible, would therefore be preferable, I believe they judged wisely; but, having never heard that they had changed their mind about it, I was at a loss to account for the alteration. So now, my dear friend, adieu!-When I have thanked you for a barrel of oysters, and added our united kind remembrances to yourself and Miss Catlett, I shall have exhausted the last moment that I can spare at present. I remain sincerely yours, W. C. TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT. Weston, May 4, 1793, My dear Friend,-While your sorrow for our common loss was fresh in your mind, I would not write, lest a letter on so distressing a subject should be too painful both to you and me; and now that I seem to have reached a proper time for doing it, the mul tiplicity of my literary business will bardly afford me leisure. Both you and I have this comfort when deprived of those we love at our time of life we have every reason to believe that the deprivation cannot be long. Our sun is setting too, and when the hour of rest arrives we shall rejoin your brother, and many whom we have tenderly loved, our forerunners into a bettter country. I will say no more on a theme which it will be better perhaps to treat with brevity; and because the introduction of any other might seem a transition too violent, I will only add that Mrs. Unwin and I are about as well as we at any time have been within the last year. Truly yours, TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESQ. W. C. May 5, 1793, My dear Friend,-My delay to answer your last kind letter, to which likewise you desired a speedy reply, must have seemed rather difficult to explain on any other supposition than that of illness; but illness has not been the cause, although, to say the truth, I cannot boast of having been lately very well. Yet has not this been the cause of my silence, but your own advice, very proper and earnestly given to me, to proceed in the revisal of Homer. To this it is owing, that, instead of giving an hour or two before breakfast to my correspondents, I allot that time entirely to my studies. I have nearly given the last touches to the poetry, and am now busied far more laboriously in writing notes at the request of my honest bookseller, transmitted to me in the first instance by you, and afterward repeated by himself. I am therefore, deep in the old Scholia, and have advanced to the latter part of Iliad nine, explaining, as I go, such passages as may be difficult to unlearned readers, and such only; for notes of that kind are the notes that Johnson desired. I find it a more laborious task than the translation was, and shall be heartily glad when it is over. In the meantime, all the letters I receive remain unanswered, or, if they receive an answer, it is always a short one. Such this must be. Johnny is here, having flown over London, Homer, I believe, will make a much more respectable appearance than before. Johnson now thinks it will be right to make a separate impression of the amendments. W. C. I breakfast every morning on seven or eight pages of the Greek commentators. For so much I am obliged to read in order to select perhaps three or four short notes for the readers of my translation. Dear Sir,-It has not been without frequent self-reproach that I have so long omitted to answer your last very kind and most obliging letter. I am by habit and inclinasuch arrears, and it is only through necessity, tion extremely punctual in the discharge of and under constraint of various indispensable become of late much otherwise. engagements of a different kind, that I am of a curiosity that you cannot easily replace.* The line or two which you quote from him, except that the expression of " a well-written soul" has the quaintness of his times in it, do him credit. He cannot surely be the same Chapman who wrote a poem, I think, on the battle of Hochstadt, in which, when I was a very young man, I remember to have seen the following lines: Homer is indeed a tie upon me, that must of Homer, and will not refuse your offer of I have never seen Chapman's translation not on any account be broken, till all his de-it, unless, by accepting it, I shall deprive you mands are satisfied; though I have fancied, while the revisal of the Odyssey was at a distance, that it would ask less labor in the finishing, it is not unlikely, that, when I take it actually in hand, I may find myself mistaken. Of this at least I am sure, that uneven verse abounds much more in it than it once did in the Iliad; yet to the latter the critics objected on that account, though to the former never; perhaps because they had not read it. Hereafter they shall not quarrel with me on that score. The Iliad is now all smooth turnpike, and I will take equal care, that there shall be no jolts in the Odyssey. TO LADY HESKETH. The Lodge, May 7, 1793. My dearest Coz.,-You have thought me long silent, and so have many others. In fact I have not for many months written punctually to any but yourself and Hayley. My time, the little I have, is so engrossed by Homer, that I have at this moment a bundle of unanswered letters by me, and letters likely to be so. Thou knowest, I dare say, what it is to have a head weary with thinking. Mine is so fatigued by breakfast time, three days out of four, I am utterly incapable of sitting down to my desk again for any purpose whatever. I am glad I have convinced thee at last that thou art a Tory. Your friend's definition of Whig and Tory must be just, for aught I know, as far as the latter are concerned; but respecting the former, I think him mistaken. There is no TRUE Whig who wishes all power in the hands of his own party. The division of it which the lawyers call tripartite is exactly what he desires; and he would have neither king, lords, nor commons unequally trusted, or in the smallest "Think of two thousand gentlemen at least, And each man mounted on his capering beast. Into the Danube they were push'd by shoals," &c. These are lines that could not fail to impress the memory, though not altogether in the Homerican style of battle. I am, as you say, a hermit, and probably an irreclaimable one, having a horror of London that I cannot express, nor indeed very easily account for. Neither am I much less disinclined to migration in general. I did no little violence to my love of home last summer, when I paid Mr. Hayley a visit, and in truth was principally induced to the journey by a hope that it might be useful to Mrs. Unwin; who, however, derived so little benefit from it, that I purpose for the future to avail myself of the privilege my years may reasonably claim, by compelling my younger friends to visit me. which I cannot well compass at present, both But even this is a point Mrs. Unwin is not able to bear the fatigue of because I am too busy, and because poor company. Should better days arrive, days * Chapman claims the honor of being the first translator of the whole of the works of Homer. He was born in 1557, and was the contemporary of Shakspeare, Spento Henry, Prince of Wales. He also translated Musaus and Hesiod, and was the author of many other works. He died in 1634, aged seventy-seven. His version of tracted measure of fourteen syllables; though occasion Homer is now obsolete, and rendered tedious by the proally it exhibits much spirit. Waller, according to Dry den, could never read his version without emotion, and Pope found it worthy of his particular attention. ser, Jonson, &c. His version of the Iliad was dedicated of more leisure to me, and of some health to her, I shall not fail to give you notice of the change, and shall then hope for the pleasure of seeing you at Weston. The epitaph you saw is on the tomb of the same Mr. Unwin to whom the "Tirocinium" is inscribed; the son of the lady above mentioned. By the desire of his executors I wrote a Latin one, which they approved, but it was not approved by a relation of the deceased, and therefore was not used. He objected to the mention I had made in it of his mother having devoted him to the service of God in his infancy. She did it, however, and not in vain, as I wrote in my epitaph. Who wrote the English one I know not. There has been a book lately published entitled "Man as he is." I have heard a high character of it, as admirably written. and am informed, that for that reason, and because it inculeates Whig principles, it is by many imputed to you. I contradict this report, assuring my informant, that had it been yours, I must have known it, for that you have bound yourself to make me your father-confessor on all such wicked occasions, and not to conceal from me even a murder, should you happen to commit one.* I will not trouble you, at present, to send me any more books with a view to my notes on Homer. I am not without hopes that Sir John Throckmorton, who is expected here The poem called the "Slave" is not mine, from Venice in a short time, may bring me nor have I ever seen it. I wrote two on the Villoison's edition of the Odyssey. He cer subject-one entitled "The Negro's Com-tainly will, if he found it published, and that plaint," and the other "The Morning Dream." With thanks for all your kindness, and the patience you have with me, I remain, dear sir, Sincerely yours, W. C. TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESQ. Weston, May 21, 1793. My dear Brother,-You must either think me extremely idle, or extremely busy, that I have made your last very kind letter wait so very long for an answer. The truth however is, that I am neither; but have had time enough to have scribbled to you, had I been able to scribble at all. To explain this riddle I must give you a short account of my proceedings. alone will be instar omnium. Give my love TO LADY HESKETH. Weston, June 1, 1793. My dearest Cousin,-You will not (you say) come to us now; and you tell us not when you will. These assignations, sine die, are such shadowy things that I can neither grasp nor get any comfort from them. Know you not that hope is the next best thing to enjoyment? Give us then a hope, and a determinate time for that hope to fix on, and we will endeavor to be satisfied. TO A YOUNG FRIEND,† ON HIS ARRIVAL AT CAMBRIDGE WET, WHEN NO I rise at six every morning and fag till near eleven, when I breakfast. The consequence is, that I am so exhausted as not to Johnny is gone to Cambridge, called thither be able to write when the opportunity offers. to take his degree, and is much missed by me. You will say "Breakfast before you work. He is such an active little fellow in my ser and then your work will not fatigue you." I vice, that he cannot be otherwise. In three answer "Perhaps I might, and your counsel weeks, however, I shall hope to have him would probably prove beneficial; but I can-again for a fortnight. I have had a letter not spare a moment for eating in the early from him, containing an incident which has part of the morning, having no other time given birth to the following. for study." This uneasiness of which I complain is a proof that I am somewhat stricken in years; and there is no other cause by which I can account for it, since I go early to bed, always between ten and eleven, and seldom fail to sleep well. Certain it is, ten If Gideon's fleece, which drench'd with dew he years ago I could have done as much, and sixteen years ago did actually much more, without suffering fatigue or any inconvenience from my labors. How insensibly old age steals on, and how often is it actually arrived before we suspect it! Accident alone, some occurrence that suggests a comparison of our former with our present selves, affords the discovery. Well! it is always good to be undeceived, especially on an article of such importance. found. While moisture none refreshed the herbs around Might fitly represent the Church, endow'd, These are spick and span. Johnny him * The real anthor was Robert Bage. Weston, June 6, 1793. can My dear Sir, I seize a passing moment merely to say that I feel for your distresses, and sincerely pity you, and I shall be happy to learn from your next, that your sister's amendment has superseded the necessity you feared of a journey to London. Your candid account of the effect that your afflictions have both on your spirits and temper I perfectly understand, having labored much in that fire myself, and perhaps more than any man. It is in such a school, however, that we must learn if we ever truly learn it, the natural depravity of the human heart, and of our own in particular; together with the consequence that necessarily follows such I wretched premises; our indispensable need of the atonement, and our inexpressible obligations to Him who made it. This reflection cannot escape a thinking mind, looking back to those ebullitions of fretfulness and impatience to which it has yielded in a season of great affliction. Having lately had company, who left us only on the 4th, I have done nothing-nothing indeed, since my return from Sussex, except a trifle or two, which it was incumbent upon me to write. Milton hangs in doubt: neither spirits nor opportunity suffice me for that labor. I regret continually that I ever suffered myself to be persuaded to undertake it. The most that I hope to effect is a comJohnson plete revisal of my own Homer. told my friend, who has just left me, that it will begin to be reviewed in the next Analytical, and he hoped the review of it would not offend me. By this I understand, that if I am not offended it will be owing more to my own equanimity than to the mildness of the critic. So be it! He will put an opportunity of victory over myself into my hands, and I will endeavor not to lose it. My dear Friend,-You promise to be contented with a short line, and a short one you must have, hurried over in the little interval I of my morning task and breakfast. Study has this good effect, at least: it makes me an early riser, who might otherwise, perhaps, be as much given to dozing as my readers. The scanty opportunity I have, I shall employ in telling you what you principally wish to be told-the present state of mine and Mrs. Unwin's health. In her I cannot perceive any alteration for the better; and must be satisfied, I believe, as indeed I have great reason to be, if she does not alter for the worse. She uses the orchard-walk daily, but always supported between two, and is still unable to employ herself as formerly. But she is cheerful, seldom in much pain, and has always strong confidence in the mercy and faithfulness of God. As to myself, I have always the same song sing-Well in body, but sick in spirit; sick, nigh unto death. to Seasons return, but not to me returns could easily set my complaint to Milton's tone, and accompany him through the whole passage,* on the subject of a blindness more deplorable than his; but time fails me. I feel great desire to see your intended publication; a desire which the manner in which Mr. Bull speaks of it, who called here lately, has no tendency to allay. I believe I forgot to thank you for your last poetical present; not because I was not much pleased with it, but I write always in a hurry, and in a hurry must now conclude myself, with our united love, Yours, my dear friend, Most sincerely, W. C. TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESQ. Weston, June 29, 1793. Dear architect of fine CHATEAUX in air Worthier to stand forever if they could, Much to my own, though little to thy good, But I am bankrupt now; and doom'd henceforth What remains for me to say on this subject, have happened to find between the conclusion my dear brother bard, I will say in prose. • Private correspondence. * Paradise lost, Book III. He alludes to his notes on Homer. |