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tion, and will be buried, I hope, never to rise again, in the ashes of its own combustion. There is a melancholy pleasure in looking back upon such a scene, arising from a comparison of possibilities with facts; the enormous bulk of the intended mischief, with the abortive and partial accomplishment of it: much was done, more indeed than could have been supposed practicable in a well-regulated city, not unfurnished with a military force for its protection. But surprise and astonishment seem, at first, to have struck every nerve of the police with a palsy, and to have disarmed government of all its powers.*

I congratulate you upon the wisdom that withheld you from entering yourself a member of the Protestant Association. Your friends who did so have reason enough to regret their doing it, even though they should never be called upon. Innocent as they are, and they who know them cannot doubt of their being perfectly so, it is likely to bring an odium on the profession they make that will not soon be forgotten. Neither is it possible for a quiet, inoffensive man to discover on a sudden that his zeal has carried him into such company, without being to the last degree shocked at his imprudence. Their religion was an honorable mantle, like that of Elijah, but the majority wore cloaks of Guy Fawkes's time, and meant nothing so little as what they pretended. W. C.

Yours,

TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.

W. C.

Olney, June 12, 1780.

Dear Sir,-We accept it as an effort of your friendship, that you could prevail with yourself, in a time of such terror and distress, to send us repeated accounts of yours and Mrs. Newton's welfare. You supposed, with reason enough, that we should be apprehensive for your safety, situated as you were, apparently within the reach of so much danger. We rejoice that you have escaped it all, and that, except the anxiety which you must have felt both for yourselves and others, you have suffered nothing upon this dreadful occasion. A metropolis in flames, and a nation in ruins, are subjects of contemplation for such a mind as yours, that will leave a lasting impression behind them.* It is well that the design died in the execu

*The event here alluded to was a crisis of great national danger. It originated in the concessions granted by Parliament to the Roman Catholics, in consequence of which a licentious mob assembled in great multitudes in St. George's Fields, and excited the greatest alarm by their unbridled fury. They proceeded to destroy all the Romish chapels in London and its vicinity. The prisons of Newgate, the Fleet, and King's Bench, were attacked,

TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN.

Olney, June 18, 1780. Reverend and dear William,-The affairs of kingdoms and the concerns of individuals are variegated alike with the chequer-work of joy and sorrow. The news of a great acquisition in America† has succeeded to terriand exposed to the devouring flame. The Bank itself was threatened with an assault, when a well-disciplined band, called the London Association, aided by the regu slaughter of about two hundred and twenty of the most lar troops, dispersed the multitude, but not without the active ringleaders. The whole city presented a melancholy scene of riot and devastation; and the houses of many private individuals were involved in the ruin. The house of Lord Chief Justice Mansfield was the particular object of popular fury. Lord George Gordon, who acted to trial, and his defence undertaken by Mr. Kenyon, afa prominent part on this occasion, was afterwards brought terwards well known by the title of Lord Kenyon. Various facts and circumstances having been adduced in favor of Lord George Gordon, his lordship was acquitted. It is instructive to contemplate the tide of human passions and events, and to contrast this spirit of religious

persecution with the final removal of Catholic disabilities

at a later period.

Cowper alludes to this afflicting page in our domestic history, in his Table Talk:

When tumult lately burst his prison door,
And set plebeian thousands in a roar;
When he usurp'd authority's just place,
And dared to look his master in the face.
When the rude rabble's watchword was-Destroy,
And blazing London seem'd a second Troy.

*The surrender of Charles-Town, in South Carolina, to Admiral Arbuthnot and General Sir Henry Clinton.

ble tumults in London, and the beams of prosperity are now playing upon the smoke of that conflagration which so lately terrified the whole land. These sudden changes, which are matter of every man's observation, and may therefore always be reasonably expected, serve to hold up the chin of despondency above water, and preserve mankind in general from the sin and misery of accounting existence a burden not to be endured an evil we should be sure to encounter, if we were not warranted to look for a bright reverse of our most afflictive experiences, The Spaniards were sick of the war at the very commencement of it; and I hope that by this time the French themselves begin to find themselves a little indisposed, if not desirous of peace, which that restless and meddling temper of theirs is incapable of desiring for its own sake. But is it true that this detestable plot was an egg laid in France, and hatched in London, under the influence

of French corruption?-Nam te scire, deos quoniam propius contingis, oportet. The offspring has the features of such a parent, and yet, without the clearest proof of the fact, I would not willingly charge upon a civilized nation what perhaps the most barbarous would abhor the thought of. I no sooner saw the surmise, however, in the paper, than I immediately began to write Latin verses upon the occasion. "An odd effect," you will say," of such a circumstance ;"-but an effect, nevertheless, that whatever has at any time moved my passions, whether pleasantly or otherwise, has always had upon me. Were I to express what I feel on such occasions in prose, it would be verbose, inflated, and disgusting. I therefore have recourse to verse, as a suitable vehicle for the most vehement expressions my thoughts suggest to me. What I have written, I did not write so much for the comfort of the English as for the mortification of the French. You will immediately perceive therefore that I have been laboring in vain, and that this bouncing explosion is likely to spend itself in the air. For I have no means of circulating what follows through all the French territories; and unless that, or something like it, can be done, my indignation will be entirely fruitless. Tell me how I can convey it into Sartine's pocket, or who will lay it upon his desk for me. But read it first, and, unless you think it pointed enough to sting the Gaul to the quick, burn it.

IN SEDITIONEM HORRENDAM, CORRUPTELIS GALLICIS, UT FERTUR, LONDINI NUPER EXORTAM.

Perfida, crudelis, victa et lymphata furore, Non armis, laurum Gallia fraude petit. Venalem pretio plebem conducit et urit Undique privatas patriciasque domos.

Nequicquàm conata sua, fœdissima sperat Posse tamen nostrâ nos superare manu.

Gallia, vana struis! Precibus nunc utere! Vinces, Nam mites timidis, supplicibusque sumus.

I have lately exercised my ingenuity in contriving an exercise for yours, and have composed a riddle which, if it does not make you laugh before you have solved it, will probably do it afterwards. I would transcribe it now, but am really so fatigued with writing, that, unless I knew you had a quinsy, and that a fit of laughter might possibly save your life, I could not prevail with myself to do it.

What could you possibly mean, slender as you are, by sallying out upon your two walking sticks at two in the morning, in the midst of such a tumult? We admire your prowess, but cannot commend your prudence.

Our love attends you all, collectively and individually.

Yours, W. C.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN.

Olney, June 22, 1780.

My dear Friend,-A word or two in answer to two or three questions of yours, which I have hitherto taken no notice of. I am not in a scribbling mood, and shall therefore make no excursions to amuse either myself or you. The needful will be as much as I can manage at present-the playful must wait another opportunity.

I thank you for your offer of Robertson, but I have more reading upon my hands at this present writing than I shall get rid of in a twelvemonth, and this moment recollect that I have seen it already. He is an author that I admire much, with one exception, that I think his style is too labored. Hume, as an historian, pleases me more.

I have just read enough of the Biographia Britannica to say that I have tasted it, and have no doubt but I shall like it. I am pretty much in the garden at this season of the year, so read but little. In summer-time I am as giddy-headed as a boy, and can settle to nothing. Winter condenses me, and makes me lumpish and sober; and then I can read all day long.

For the same reasons, I have no need of the landscapes at present; when I want them I will renew my application, and repeat the description, but it will hardly be before October.

Before I rose this morning, I composed the three following stanzas; I send them because I like them pretty well myself; and, if you should not, you must accept this handsome compliment as an amends for their deficien

cies. You may print the lines, if you judge them worth it.*

I have only time to add love, &c., and my two initials. W. C.

TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.

Olney, June 23, 1780.

of the person; their tale would then, at least, have an air of probability, and it might cost a peaceable good man much more trouble to disprove it. But perhaps it would not be easy to discern what part of your conduct lies more open to such an attempt than another, or what it is that you either say or do, at any time, that presents a fair opportunity to the most ingenious slanderer to slip in a falsehood between your words or actions, that shall seem to be of a piece with either. You hate compliment. I know, but, by your leave, this is not one-it is a truth-worse and worse-now I have praised you indeed

My dear Friend,-Your reflections upon the state of London, the sins and enormities of that great city, while you had a distant view of it from Greenwich, seem to have been prophetic of the heavy stroke that fell upon it just after. Man often prophesies without knowing it-a spirit speaks by him, well you must thank yourself for it, it was which is not his own, though he does not at absolutely done without the least intention that time suspect that he is under the influ- on my part, and proceeded from a pen, that, ence of any other. Did he foresee what is as far as I can remember, was never guilty always foreseen by Him who dictates, what of flattery, since I knew how to hold it. He he supposes to be his own, he would suffer that slanders me, paints me blacker than I by anticipation as well as by consequence, am, and he that flatters me, whiter-they and wish perhaps as ardently for the happy both daub me, and when I look in the glass ignorance to which he is at present so much of conscience, I see myself disguised by both indebted, as some have foolishly and incon--I had as lief my tailor should sew gingersiderately done for a knowledge that would be but another name for misery.

bread-nuts on my coat instead of buttons as that any man should call my Bristol stone a diamond. The tailor's trick would not at all embellish my suit, nor the flatterer's make me at all the richer. I never make a present to my friend of what I dislike myself. Ergo, (I have reached the conclusion at last,) I did not mean to flatter you.

did not think

And why have I said all this, especially to you who have hitherto said it to me? not because I had the least desire of informing a wiser man than myself, but because the observation was naturally suggested by the recollection of your letter, and that letter, though not the last, happened to be We have sent a petition to Lord Dartuppermost in my mind. I can compare this mind mouth, by this post, praying him to interfere of mine to nothing that resembles it more in parliament in behalf of the poor lacethan to a board that is under the carpenter's makers. I say we, because I have signed it. plane, (I mean while I am writing to you,)-Mr. G. drew it up. Mr. the shavings are my uppermost thoughts; it grammatical, therefore would not sign it. after a few strokes of the tool it acquires a Yet I think, Priscian himself would have new surface; this again upon a repetition of pardoned the manner for the sake of the his task he takes off, and a new surface still matter. I dare say if his lordship does not succeeds: whether the shavings of the pre-comply with the prayer of it, it will not be sent day will be worth your acceptance, I know not; I am unfortunately made neither of cedar nor mahogany, but Truncus ficulnus, inutile lignum-consequently, though I should be planed till I am as thin as a wafer, it will be but rubbish to the last.

It is not strange that you should be the subject of a false report, for the sword of slander, like that of war, devours one as well as another and a blameless character is particularly delicious to its unsparing appetite. But that you should be the object of such a report, you who meddle less with the designs of government than almost any man that lives under it, this is strange indeed. It is well, however, when they who account it good sport to traduce the reputation of another invent a story that refutes itself. I wonder they do not always endeavor to accommodate their fiction to the real character

* Verses on the burning of Lord Chief Justice Mansfield's house, during the riots in London.

because he thinks it of more consequence to
write grammatically than that the poor should
eat, but for some better reason.
My love to all under your roof.
Yours,

W. C.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. Olney, July 2, 1780. Carissime, I am glad of your confidence, and have reason to hope I shall never abuse it. If you trust me with a secret, I am hermetically sealed; and if you call for the exercise of my judgment, such as it is, I am never freakish or wanton in the use of it, much less mischievous and malignant. Crities, I believe, do not often stand so clear of those vices as I do. I like your epitaph, except that I doubt the propriety of the word immaturus; which, I think, is rather applicable to fruits than flowers; and except the last

pentameter, the assertion it contains being rather too obvious a thought to finish with; not that I think an epitaph should be pointed like an epigram. But still there is a closeness of thought and expression necessary in the conclusion of all these little things, that they may leave an agreeable flavor upon the palate. Whatever is short should be nervous, masculine, and compact. Little men are so; and little poems should be so; because, where the work is short, the author has no right to the plea of weariness, and laziness is never admitted as an available excuse in anything. Now you know my opinion, you will very likely improve upon my improvement, and alter my alterations for the better. To touch and retouch is, though some writers boast of negligence, and others would be ashamed to show their foul copies, the secret of almost all good writing, especially in verse. I am never weary of it myself, and, if you would take as much pains as I do, you would have no need to ask for my corrections.

HIC SEPULTUS EST

INTER SUORUM LACRYMAS

GULIELMUS NORTHCOT,
GULIELMI ET MARIE FILIUS

UNICUS, UNICE DILECTUS,

QUI FLORIS RITU SUCCISUS EST SEMIHIANTIS, APRILIS DIE SEPTIMO,

1780, ET. 10.

Care vale! Sed non æternum, care, valeto!
Nam que iterum tecum, sim modo dignus, ero.
Tum nihil amplexus poterit divellere nostros,
Nec tu marcesces, nec lacrymabor ego.*

your ears, being delivered from the deafening shouts of the most zealous mob that ever strained their lungs in the cause of religion. I congratulate you upon a gentle relapse into the customary sounds of a great city, which, though we rustics abhor them, as noisy and dissonant, are a musical and sweet murmur, compared with what you have lately heard. The tinkling of a kennel may be distinguished now, where the roaring of a cascade would have been sunk and lost. I never suspected, till the newspapers informed me of it, a few days since, that the barbarous uproar had reached Great Queen Street. I hope Mrs. Hill was in the country, and shall rejoice to hear that, as I am sure you did not take up the protestant cudgels* upon this hair-brained occasion, so you have not been pulled in pieces as a papist. W. C.

The next letter to Mr. Hill affords a striking proof of Cowper's compassionate feelings towards the poor around him.

TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.

Olney, July 8, 1780. Mon Ami,-If you ever take the tip of the chancellor's ear between your finger and thumb, you can hardly improve the opportunity to better purpose, than if you should whisper into it the voice of compassion and lenity to the lace-makers. I am an eye-witness to their poverty, and do know that hundreds in this little town are upon the point of starving; and that the most unremitting

Having an English translation of it by me, industry is but barely sufficient to keep them I send it though it may be of no use. Farewell! But not forever," Hope replies, Trace but his steps, and meet him in the skies! There nothing shall renew our parting pain, Thou shalt not wither, nor I weep again. The stanzas that I sent you are maiden ones, having never been seen by any eye but your mother's and your own.

If you send me franks, I shall write longer letters-Valete, sicut et nos valemus! Amate, W. C.

sicut et nos amamus!

TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.†

Olney, June 3, 1780.

Mon Ami,-By this time, I suppose, you have ventured to take your fingers out of * These lines of Mr. Unwin, and here retouched by Cowper's pen, bear a strong resemblance to the beautiful Epitaph. composed by Bishop Lowth, on the death of he beloved daughter, which seem to have suggested some hints, in the composition of the above epitaph to Northcote.

Cara, vale, ingenio præstans, pietate, pudore,
Et plus quam nata nomine cara, vale.
Cara Maria, vale: at veniet felicius ævum,
Quando iterum tecum. sim modo dignus, ero.
Cara redi, latà tum dicam voce, paternos
Eja age in amplexus, cara María, redi.
! Private correspondence.

from it. I know that the bill by which they would have been so fatally affected is thrown out, but Lord Stormont threatens them with another; and if another like it should pass, they are undone. We lately sent a petition to Lord Dartmouth; I signed it, and am sure the contents are true. The purport of it was to inform him, that there are very near one thousand two hundred lace-makers in this beggarly town, the most of whom had reason enough, while the bill was in agitation, to look upon every loaf they bought as the last they should ever be able to earn. I can never think it good policy to incur the certain inconvenience of ruining thirty thousand, in order to prevent a remote and possible damage, though to a much greater number. The measure is like a scythe, and the poor lacemakers are the sickly crop, that trembles before the edge of it. The prospect of a peace with America is like the streak of dawn in their horizon; but this bill is like a black cloud behind it, that threatens their hope of a comfortable day with utter extinction.

*The alarm taken at the concessions made in favor of the Catholics was such, that many persons formed themselves into an association, for the defence of Protestant principles.-ED.

I did not perceive, till this moment, that I had tacked two similes together, a practice | which, though warranted by the example of Homer, and allowed in an Epic Poem, is rather luxuriant and licentious in a letter; lest I should add another, I conclude.

W. C.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN.

Olney, July 11, 1780.

I account myself sufficiently commended for my Latin exercise, by the number of translations it has undergone. That which you distinguished in the margin by the title of "better" was the production of a friend, and, except that, for a modest reason, he omitted the third couplet, I think it a good one. To finish the group, I have translated it myself; and, though I would not wish you to give it to the world, for more reasons than one, especially lest some French hero should call me to account for it, I add it on the other side. An author ought to be the best judge of his own meaning; and, whether I have succeeded or not, I cannot but wish, that where a translator is wanted, the writer was always to be his own.

False, cruel, disappointed, stung to the heart,
France quits the warrior's for the assassin's part;
To dirty hands a dirty bribe conveys,
Bids the low street, and lofty palace blaze.
Her sons too weak to vanquish us alone,
She hires the worst and basest of our own.
Kneel. France! a suppliant conquers us with ease,
We always spare a coward on his knees.*

I have often wondered that Dryden's illustrious epigram on Milton,† (in my mind the second best that ever was made) has never been translated into Latin, for the admiration of the learned in other countries. I have at last presumed to venture upon the task myThe great closeness of the original, which is equal, in that respect, to the most compact Latin I ever saw, made it extremely difficult.

self.

Tres tria, sed longè distantia, sæcula vates

Ostentant tribus è gentibus eximios. Grecia sublimem, cum majestate disertum Roma tulit, felix Anglia utrique parem. Partubus ex binis Natura exhausta, coacta est, Tertius ut fieret, consociare duos.

liant subject. It is not when I will, nor upon what I will, but as a thought happens to occur to me; and then I versify, whether I will or not. I never write but for my amusement; and what I write is sure to an swer that end, if it answers no other. If, besides this purpose, the more desirable one of entertaining you be effected, I then receive double fruit of my labor, and consider this produce of it as a second crop, the more val uable because less expected. But when I have once remitted a composition to you, I have done with it. It is pretty certain that I shall never read it or think of it again. From that moment I have constituted you sole judge of its accomplishments, if it has any, and of its defects, which it is sure to have.

For this reason I decline answering the question with which you concluded your last, and cannot persuade myself to enter into a critical examen of the two pieces upon Lord Mansfield's loss,* either with respect to their intrinsic or comparative merit, and, indeed, after having rather discouraged that use of them which you had designed, there is no occasion for it. W. C.

TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.t

Olney, July 12, 1780. My dear Friend,-Such nights as I frequently spend are but a miserable prelude to the succeeding day, and indispose me above all things to the business of writing. Yet, with a pen in my hand, if I am able to write at all, I find myself gradually relieved; and as I am glad of any employment that may serve to engage my attention, so especially I am pleased with an opportunity of conversing with you, though it be but upon paper. This occupation above all others assists me in that self-deception to which I am indebted for all the little comfort I enjoy; things seem to be as they were, and I almost forget that they never can be so again.

We are both obliged to you for a sight of Mr. —'s letter. The friendly and obliging manner of it will much enhance the difficulty of answering it. I think I can see plainly that, though he does not hope for your ap plause, he would gladly escape your censure. He seems to approach you smoothly and softly, and to take you gently by the hand, as if he bespoke your lenity, and entreated skill in the management of your pen that I you at least to spare him. You have such

I have not one bright thought upon the chancellor's recovery; nor can I strike off so much as one sparkling atom from that bril-doubt not you will be able to send him a

*These lines are founded on the suspicion, prevalent at that time, that the fires in London were owing to French gold, circulated for the purposes of corruption.

†Three poets in three distant ages born,
Greece. Italy, and England did adorn."
The first in loftiness of thought surpass'd;
The next in majesty, in both the last.
The force of Nature could no further go,
To make a third she joined the other two.

balmy reproof, that shall give him no reason to complain of a broken head. How delu

* Lord Chief Justice Mansfield incurred the loss, on this occasion, of one of the most complete and valuable collections of law books ever known, together with manuscripts and legal remarks, the result of his own industry and professional knowledge.

Private correspondence.

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