empty. It is a very good one, infinitely superior | marvellous than fiction itself would dare to hazard: to ours. When we drank chocolate with them, and (blessed be God!) they are not all of the disthey both expressed their ardent desire that we tressing kind. Now and then in the course of an would take it, wishing to have us for nearer neigh-existence, whose hue is for the most part sable, a bours. If you, my cousin, were not so well pro-day turns up that makes amends for many sighs, vided for as you are, and at our very elbow, I verily and many subjects of complaint. Such a day believe I should have mustered up all my rhetoric shall I account the day of your arrival at Olney. to recommend it to you. You might have it for Wherefore is it (canst thou tell me?) that toever without danger of ejectment, whereas your gether with all those delightful sensations, to which possession of the vicarage depends on the life of the the sight of a long absent dear friend gives birth, vicar, who is eighty-six. The environs are most there is a mixture of something painful; flutterings, beautiful, and the village itself one of the prettiest and tumults, and I know not what accompaniI ever saw. Add to this, you would step imme- ments of our pleasure, that are in fact perfectly diately into Mr. Throckmorton's pleasure ground, foreign from the occasion? Such I feel when I where you would not soil your slipper even in win- think of our meeting; and such I suppose feel you; ter. A most unfortunate mistake was made by and the nearer the crisis approaches, the more I am that gentleman's bailiff in his absence. Just before sensible of them. I know beforehand that they he left Weston last year for the winter, he gave will increase with every turn of the wheels, that him orders to cut short the tops of the flowering shall convey me to Newport, when I shall set out shrubs, that lined a serpentine walk in a delightful to meet you, and that when we actually meet, the grove, celebrated in my poetship in a little piece pleasure, and this unaccountable pain together, that you remember was called the Shrubbery. The will be as much as I shall be able to support. I dunce, misapprehending the order, cut down and am utterly at a loss for the cause, and can only fagoted up the whole grove, leaving neither tree, resolve it into that appointment, by which it has bush, nor twig; nothing but stumps about as high been foreordained that all human delights shall be as my ancle. Mr. T. told us that she never saw qualified and mingled with their contraries. For her husband so angry in her life. I judged indeed there is nothing formidable in you. To me at by his physiognomy, which has great sweetness in least there is nothing such, no, not even in your it, that he is very little addicted to that infernal menaces, unless when you threaten me to write no passion. But had he cudgeled the man for his more. Nay, I verily believe, did I not know you cruel blunder, and the havoc made in consequence to be what you are, and had less affection for you of it, I could have excused him. than I have, I should have fewer of these emo I felt myself really concerned for the Chancel-tions, of which I would have none, if I could help lor's illness, and from what I learned of it, both it. But a fig for them all! Let us resolve to comfrom the papers, and from General Cowper, con- bat with, and to conquer them. They are dreams. cluded that he must die. I am accordingly de- They are illusions of the judgment. Some enemy lighted in the same proportion with the news of that hates the happiness of human kind, and is his recovery. May he live, and live to be still the ever industrious to dash it, works them in us; and support of government! If it shall be his good their being so perfectly unreasonable as they are is pleasure to render me personally any material ser- a proof of it. Nothing that is such can be the vice, I have no objection to it. But Heaven knows, work of a good agent. This I know too by exthat it is impossible for any living wight to bestow perience, that, like all other illusions, they exist less thought on that subject than myself.-May God be ever with you, my beloved cousin! TO LADY HESKETH. W. C. only by force of imagination, are indebted for their prevalence to the absence of their object, and in a few moments after its appearance cease. So then this a settled point, and the case stands thus. You will tremble as you draw near to Newport, and so shall I. But we will both recollect that there is no reason why we should, and this recollection will at least have some little effect in our favour. We will likewise both take the comfort of what we know to be true, that the tumult will soon cease, and the pleasure long survive the pain, even as long as I trust we ourselves shall survive it. MY DEAREST COUSIN, Olney, May 15, 1786. FROM this very morning I begin to date the last month of our long separation, and confidently and most comfortably hope that before the fifteenth of June shall present itself, we shall have seen each other. Is it not so? And will it not be one What you say of Maty gives me all the conso of the most extraordinary eras of my extraordinary lation that you intended. We both think it highly life? A year ago, we neither corresponded, nor probable that you suggest the true cause of his expected to meet in this world. But this world is displeasure, when you suppose him mortified at a scene of marvellous events, many of them more not having had a part of the translation laid before W. C. TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT. MY DEAR FRIEND, you a just measure of submission to his will! the most effectual of all remedies for the evils of this changing scene. I doubt not that he has granted you this blessing already, and may he still continue it! him, ere this specimen was published. The Ge- the consequence has been that we have mutually neral was very much hurt, and calls his censure wished an acquaintance without being able to acharsh and unreasonable, He likewise sent me a complish it. Blessings on you for the hint that consolatory letter on the occasion, in which he you dropped on the subject of the house at Westook the kindest pains to heal the wound that he ton! For the burthen of my song is-'Since we supposed I might have suffered. I am not na- have met once again, let us never be separated, as turally insensible, and the sensibilities that I had we have been, more.' by nature have been wonderfully enhanced by a long series of shocks, given to a frame of nerves that was never very athletic. I feel accordingly, whether painful or pleasant, in the extreme; am easily elevated, and easily cast down. The frown of a critic freezes my poetical powers, and dis- ABOUT three weeks since I met your sister Chescourages me to a degree that makes me ashamed ter at Mr. Throckmorton's, and from her learned of my own weakness. Yet I presently recover my that you are at Blithfield, and in health. Upon confidence again. The half of what you so kindly the encouragement of this information it is that I say in your last would at any time restore my write now; I should not otherwise haye known spirits, and, being said by you, is infallible. I am with certainty where to find you, or have been not ashamed to confess, that having commenced equally free from the fear of unseasonable intruan author, I am most abundantly desirous to suc- sion. May God be with you, my friend, and give ceed as such. I have (what perhaps you little suspect me of) in my nature an infinite share of ambition, But with it I have at the same time, as you well know, an equal share of diffidence. To this combination of opposite qualities it has been owing that, till lately, I stole through life without undertaking any thing, yet always wishing to distinguish myself. At last I ventured, ventured too in the only path that at so late a period was yet open to me; and am determined, If God have not determined otherwise, to work my way through the obscurity that has been so long my portion, into notice. Every thing therefore so. But 1 was never more mistaken. By the that seems to threaten this my favourite purpose with disappointment, affects me nearly. I suppose that all ambitious minds are in the same predica ment. He who seeks distinction must be sensible of disapprobation, exactly in the same proportion as he desires applause. And now, my precious improveable, and that cousin, I have unfolded my heart to you in this secure that point as to give the whole book a new particular, without a speck of dissimulation. Some translation. With the exception of very few lines people, and good people too, would blame me. But I have so done, and was never in my life so conyou will not; and they I think would blame with- vinced of the soundness of Horace's advice to pubout just cause. We certainly do not honour God lish nothing in haste; so much advantage have when we bury, or when we neglect to improve, as I derived from doing that twice which I thought I far as we may, whatever talent he may have be- had accomplished notably at once. He indeed stowed on us, whether it be little or much. In recommends nine years' imprisonment of your natural things, as well as in spiritual, it is a never- verses before you send them abroad; but the ninth failing truth, that to him who hath (that is to him part of that time is I believe as much as there is who occupies what he hath diligently, and so as need of to open a man's eyes upon his own defects to increase it) more shall be given. Set me down and to secure him from the danger of premature therefore, my dear, for an industrious rhymer, so self-approbation. Neither ought it to be forgotten long as I shall have the ability. For in this only way is it possible for me, so far as I can see, either to honour God, or to serve man, or even to serve myself. I rejoice to hear that Mr. Throckmorton wishes to be on a more intimate footing. I am shy, and suspect that he is not very much otherwise; and Now I will talk a little about myself. For ex cept myself, living in this Terrarum angulo, what can I have to talk about? In a scene of perfect tranquillity, and the profoundest silence, I am kicking up the dust of heroic narrative, and besieging Troy again. I told you that I had almost finished the translation of the Iliad, and I verily thought time when I had reached the end of the poem, the first book of my version was a twelvemonth old. When I came to consider it after having laid it by so long, it did not satisfy me. I set myself to mend it, and I did so. But still it appeared to me. nothing would so effectually that nine years make so wide an interval between the cup and the lip, that a thousand things may fall out between. New engagements may occur, which may make the finishing of that which a poet has begun, impossible. In nine years he may rise into a situation, or he may sink into one highly incompatible with his purpose. His con stitution may break in nine years, and sickness that opens into that orchard, through which, as I may disqualify him for improving what he enter-am sitting here, I shall see you often pass, and prised in the days of health. His inclination may which therefore I already prefer to all the orchards change, and he may find some other employment in the world. You do well to prepare me for all more agreeable, or another poet may enter upon possible delays, because in this life all sorts of disthe same work, and get the start of him. There-appointments are possible, and I shall do well, if fore, my friend Horace, though I acknowledge any such delay of your journey should happen, to your principle to be good, I must confess that I practise that lesson of patience which you inculthink the practice you would ground upon it car- cate. But it is a lesson which, even with you for ried to an extreme. The rigour that I exercised my teacher, I shall be slow to learn. Being sure upon the first book, I intend to exercise upon all however that you will not procrastinate without that follow, and have now actually advanced into cause, I will make myself as easy as I can about the middle of the seventh, no where admitting it, and hope for the best. To convince you how more than one line in fifty of the first translation. much I am under discipline, and good advice, I You must not imagine that I had been careless will lay aside a favourite measure, influenced in and hasty in the first instance. In truth I had doing so by nothing but the good sense of your connot; but in rendering so excellent a poet as Homer trary opinion. I had set my heart on meeting you into our language, there are so many points to be at Newport. In my haste to see you once again, attended to both in respect to language and num-I was willing to overlook many awkwardnesses I bers, that a first attempt must be fortunate indeed could not but foresee would attend it. I put them if it does not call aloud for a second. You saw aside so long as I only foresaw them myself, but the specimen, and you saw (I am sure) one great since I find that you foresee them too, I can no fault in it; I mean the harshness of some of the longer deal so slightly with them. It is therefore elisions. I did not altogether, take the blame of determined that we meet at Olney. Much I shall these to myself, for into some of them I was actually driven and hunted by a series of reiterated objections made by a critical friend, whose scruples and delicacies teazed me out of all my patience. But no such monsters will be found in the volume. Your brother Chester has furnished me with Last Monday in the evening we walked to Barnes's Homer, from whose notes I collect here Weston, according to our usual custom. It hapand there some useful information, and whose fair pened, owing to a mistake of time, that we set and legible type preserves me from the danger of out half an hour sooner than usual. This mis being as blind as was my author. I saw a sister take we discovered while we were in the wilderof yours at Mr. Throckmorton's, but I am not goodness. So, finding that we had time before us, as at making myself heard across a large room, and they say, Mrs. Unwin proposed that we should go therefore nothing passed between us. I felt how-into the village, and take a view of the house that ever that she was my friend's sister, and I much I had just mentioned to you. We did so, and esteemed her for your sake. found it such a one as in most respects would suit you well. But Moses Brown, our vicar, who, as I told you, is in his eighty-sixth year, is not bound P. S. The swan is called argutus (I suppose) to die for that reason. He said himself, when he a non arguendo, and canorus a non canendo. was here last summer, that he should live ten But whether he be dumb or vocal, more poetical years longer, and for aught that appears so he than the eagle or less, it is no matter. A feather may. In which case, for the sake of its near of either, in token of your approbation and esteem, neighbourhood to us, the vicarage has charms for will never, you may rest assured, be an offence me, that no other place can rival. But this and a thousand things more, shall be talked over when you come. to me. Ever yours, TO LADY HESKETH. W.C. Olney, May 25, 1786. feel, but I will not die if I can help it, and I beg that you will take all possible care to outlive it likewise, for I know what it is to be balked in the moment of acquisition, and should be loath to know it again. We have been industriously cultivating our acquaintance with our Weston neighbours since 1 wrote last, and they on their part have been equally diligent in the same cause. I have a notion that we shall all suit well. I see much in them both that I admire. You know perhaps that they are I HAVE at length, my cousin, found my way into my summer abode. I believe that I described it to you some time since, and will therefore now leave catholics. it undescribed. I will only say that I am writing It is a delightful bundle of praise, my cousin, in a bandbox, situated, at least in my account, de- that you have sent me. All jasmine and lavenughtfully, because it has a window in one side der. Whoever the lady is, she has evidently an admirable pen, and a cultivated mind. If a per- may glow in us to our last hour, and be renewed son reads, it is no matter in what language, and if in a better world, there to be perpetuated for ever. the mind be informed, it is no matter whether For you must know, that I should not love you that mind belongs to a man or à woman. The half so well, if I did not believe you would be my taste and the judgment will receive the benefit friend to eternity. There is not room enough for alike in both. Long before the Task was published friendship to unfold itself in full bloom, in such a I made an experiment one day, being in a frolick-nook of life as this. Therefore I am, and must, some mood, upon my friend. We were walking and will be, Yours for ever, W. C. in the garden, and conversing on a subject similar to these lines The few that pray at all, pray oft amiss, And seeking grace t' improve the present good, TO LADY HESKETH. Olney, May 29, 1784. THOU dear, comfortable cousin, whose letters, 1 repeated them, and said to him with an air of among all that I receive, have this property pecunonchalance; "Do you recollect those lines? Iliarly their own, that I expect them without have seen them somewhere, where are they?" He trembling, and never find any thing that does not put on a considering face, and after some deliber-give me pleasure; for which therefore I would ation replied—“ O, I will tell you where they must take nothing in exchange that the world could be in the Night Thoughts.". I was glad my give me, save and except that for which I must trial turned out so well, and did not undeceive exchange them soon (and happy shall I be to do him. I mention this occurrence only in confirma- so), your own company. That, indeed, is delayed tion of the letter-writer's opinion, but at the same time I do assure you, on the faith of an honest man, that I never in my life designed an imitation of Young, or of any other writer; for mimicry is my abhorrence, at least in poetry. a little too long; to my impatience at least it seems so, who find the spring, backward as it is, too forward because many of its beauties will have faded before you will have an opportunity to see them. We took our customary walk yesterday in the wilderness at Weston, and saw, with regret, the laburnums, syringas, and guelder-roses, some of them blown, and others just upon the point of blowing, and could not help observing-all these will be gone before Lady Hesketh comes. Still however there will be roses, and jasmine, and honeysuckle, and shady walks, and cool alcoves, and you will partake them with us. But I want you to have a share of every thing that is delightful here, and can not bear that the advance of the season should steal away a single pleasure before you can come to enjoy it. Assure yourself, my dearest cousin, that both for your sake, since you make a point of it, and for my own, I will be as philosophically careful as possible, that these fine nerves of mine shall not be beyond measure agitated when you arrive. In truth, there is much greater probability that they will be benefited, and greatly too. Joy of heart, from whatever occasion it may arise, is the best of all nervous medicines; and I should not wonder if such a turn given to my spirits should have even a lasting effect, of the most advantageous kind, upon them. You must not imagine neither, that I am on the whole in any great degree subject Every day I think of you, and almost all the to nervous affections; occasionally I am, and have day long; I will venture to say, that even you been these many years, much liable to dejection. were never so expected in your life, I called last But at intervals, and sometimes for an interval of week at the Quaker's to see the furniture of your weeks, no creature would suspect it. For I have bed, the fame of which had reached me. It is, I not that which commonly is a symptom of such a assure you, superb, of printed cotton, and the subcase belonging to me: I mean extraordinary ele- ject classical. Every morning you will open your vation in the absence of Mr. Bluedevil. When eyes on Phaton kneeling to Apollo, and implorI am in the best health, my tide of animal sprightli-ing his father to grant him the conduct of his ness flows with great equality, so that I am never, chariot for a day. May your sleep be as sound as at any time, exalted in proportion as I am some- your bed will be sumptuous, and your nights at times depressed. My depression has a cause, and least will be well provided for. if that cause were to cease, I should be as cheerful thenceforth, and perhaps for ever, as any man need be. But, as I have often said, Mrs. Unwin shall be my expositor. I shall send up the sixth and seventh books of the Iliad shortly, and shall address them to you. You will forward them to the General. I long to show you my workshop, and to see you sitting on Adieu, my beloved cousin. God grant that our the opposite side of my table. We shall be as friendship which, while we could see each other, close packed as two wax figures in an old fash- ' never suffered a moment's interruption, and which ioned picture frame. I am writing in it now. It so long a separation has not in the least abated, is the place in which I fabricate all my verse in summer time. I rose an hour sooner than usual, | minster.) If these things are so, and I am sure this morning, that I might finish my sheet before that you can not gainsay a syllable of them all breakfast, for I must write this day to the General. then this consequence follows; that I do not proThe grass under my windows is all bespangled mise myself more pleasure from your company with dewdrops, and the birds are singing in the than I shall be sure to find. Then you are my apple trees, among the blossoms. Never poet had cousin, in whom I always delighted, and in whom a more commodious oratory in which to invoke I doubt not that I shall delight even to my latest his muse. hour. But this wicked coach-maker has sunk I have made your heart ache too often, my my spirits. What a miserable thing it is to depoor dear cousin, with talking about my fits of de- pend, in any degree, for the accomplishment of a jection. Something has happened that has led wish, and that wish so fervent, on the punctuality me to the subject, or I would have mentioned of a creature who I suppose was never punctual them more sparingly. Do not suppose, or suspect in his life! Do tell him, my dear, in order to that I treat you with reserve; there is nothing in quicken him, that if he performs his promise, he which I am concerned that you shall not be made shall make my coach, when I want one, and that acquainted with. But the tale is too long for a if he performs it not, I will most assuredly emletter. I will only add for your present satisfac- ploy some other man. tion, that the cause is not exterior, that it is not The Throckmortons sent a note to invite us to within the reach of human aid, and that yet I dinner-we went, and a very agreeable day we have a hope myself, and Mrs. Unwin a strong had. They made no fuss with us, which I was persuasion of its removal. I am indeed even now, heartily glad to see, for where I give trouble I am and have been for a considerable time, sensible of sure that I can not be welcome. Themselves, a change for the better, and expect, with good and their chaplain, and we, were all the party. reason, a comfortable lift from you. Guess then, After dinner we had much cheerful and pleasant, my beloved cousin, with what wishes I look for- talk, the particulars of which might not perhaps ward to the time of your arrival, from whose com- be so entertaining upon paper, therefore all but ing I promise myself not only pleasure, but peace one I will omit, and that I will mention only be of mind, at least an additional share of it. At cause it will of itself be sufficient to give you an present it is an uncertain and transient guest insight into their opinion on a very important subwith me, but the joy with which I shall see and ject—their own religion.. I happened to say that converse with you at Olney, may perhaps make in all professions and trades mankind affected an it an abiding one. W. C. air of mystery. Physicians, I observed, in particular, were objects of that remark, who persist in prescribing in Latin, many times no doubt to the hazard of a patient's life, through the ignorance of an apothecary. Mr. Throckmorton assented to what I said, and turning to his chaplain, AH! my cousin, you begin already to fear and to my infinite surprise observed to him, "That is quake. What a hero am I, compared with you. just as absurd as our praying in Latin." I could I have no fears of you. On the contrary am as have hugged him for his liberality, and freedom bold as a lion. I wish that your carriage were from bigotry, but thought it rather more decent to even now at the door. You should soon see with let the matter pass without any visible notice. I how much courage I would face you. But what therefore heard it with pleasure, and kept my cause have you for fear? Am I not your cousin, pleasure to myself. The two ladies in the mean with whom you have wandered in the fields of time were tête-à-tête in the drawing-room. Their Freemantle, and at Bevis's Mount? who used to conversation turned principally (as I afterwards read to you, laugh with you, till our sides have learned from Mrs. Unwin) on a most delightful ached, at any thing, or nothing? And am I in topic, viz. myself. In the first place, Mrs. Throckthese respects at all altered? You will not find morton admired my book, from which she quoted me so; but just as ready to laugh, and to wander, by heart more than I could repeat, though I so as you ever knew me. A cloud perhaps may lately wrote it. TO LADY HESKETH. Olney, June 4 and 5, 1786. come over me now and then, for a few hours, but In short, my dear, I can not proceed to relate from clouds I was never exempted. And are not what she said of the book, and the book's author, you the identical cousin with whom I have per- for that abominable modesty that I can not even formed all these feats? The very Harriet whom yet get rid of. Let it suffice to say that you, who I saw, for the first time, at De Grey's, in Norfolk- are disposed to love every body who speaks kindly street? (It was on a Sunday, when you came of your cousin, will certainly love Mrs. Throckwith my uncle and aunt to drink tea there, and I morton, when you shall be told what she said of gad dined there, and was just going back to West- him, and that you will be told is equally certain, |