TO LADY HESKETH. that though to a bystander it may seem an occupation surpassing the powers of a constitution never very athletic, and, at present, not a little the The Lodge, Nov. 10, 1787. worse for wear, I can invent for myself no employTHE Parliament, my dearest Cousin, prorogued ment that does not exhaust my spirits more. I continually, is a meteor dancing before my eyes, will not pretend to account for this; I will only say promising me my wish only to disappoint me, and that it is not the language of predilection for a fanone but the king and his ministers can tell when vourite amusement, but that the fact is really so. you and I shall come together. I hope however I have even found that those plaything avocations that the period, though so often postponed, is not which one may execute almost without any attenfar distant, and that once more I shall behold you, tion, fatigue me, and wear me away, while such as and experience your power to make winter gay engage me much and attach me closely, are rather and sprightly. serviceable to me than otherwise. TO LADY HESKETH. W. C. The Lodge, Nov. 27, 1787. I have a kitten, my dear, the drollest of all creatures that ever wore a cat's skin. Her gambols are not to be described, and would be incredible if they could. In point of size she is likely to be a kitten always, being extremely small of her age, but time I suppose, that spoils every thing, will It is the part of wisdom, my dearest Cousin, to make her also a cat. You will see her I hope be- sit down contented under the demands of necesfore that melancholy period shall arrive, for no sity, because they are such. I am sensible that wisdom that she may gain by experience and re- you can not, in my uncle's present infirm state, and flection hereafter, will compensate the loss of her of which it is not possible to expect any considepresent hilarity. She is dressed in a tortoise-shell suit, and I know that you will delight in her. own part, to me it is ever new, and though I have now been an inhabitant of this village a twelvemonth, and have during the half of that time been rable amendment, indulge either us, or yourself, with a journey to Weston. Yourself I say, both Mrs. Throckmorton carries us to-morrow in her because I know it will give you pleasure to see chaise to Chicheley. The event however must be Causidice mi once more, especially in the comsupposed to depend on elements, at least on the fortable abode where you have placed him, and state of the atmosphere, which is turbulent beyond because, after so long an imprisonment in London, measure. Yesterday it thundered, last night it you, who love the country, and have a taste for lightened, and at three this morning I saw the sky it, would of course be glad to return to it. For my as red as a city in flames could have made it. I have a leech in a bottle that foretels all these prodigies and convulsions of nature. No, not as you will naturally conjecture by articulate utterance at liberty to expatiate, and to make discoveries, I of oracular notices, but by a variety of gesticula- am daily finding out fresh scenes and walks, which tions, which here I have not room to give an ac- you would never be satisfied with enjoying: some count of. Suffice it to say, that no change of of them are unapproachable by you either on foot weather surprises him, and that in point of the or in your carriage. Had you twenty toes (whereearliest and most accurate intelligence, he is worth as I suppose you have but ten) you could not reach all the barometers in the world. None of them them; and coach wheels have never been seen there all indeed can make the least pretence to foretell since the flood. Before it indeed, (as Burnet says thunder-a species of capacity of which he has that the earth was then perfectly free from all inegiven the most unequivocal evidence. I gave but qualities in its surface) they might have been seen sixpence for him, which is a groat more than the there every day. We have other walks both upon market price, though he is in fact, or rather would be if leeches were not found in every ditch, an invaluable acquisition. W. C. TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ. hill tops, and in valleys beneath, some of which by the help of your carriage, and many of them without its help, would be always at your command. On Monday morning last, Sam brought me word that there was a man in the kitchen who desired to speak with me. I ordered him in. A plain, decent, elderly figure made its appearance, and being desired to sit, spoke as follows: "Sir, I am clerk of the parish of All-saints in Northampton; brother of Mr. C. the upholsterer. It is customary Nov. 16, 1787. I THANK you for the solicitude that you express on the subject of my present studies. The work Is undoubtedly long and larious, but it has an for the person in my office to annex to a bill of end, and, proceeding leisurely, with a due attention to the use of air and exercise, it is possible that I • The appellation which Sir Thomas Hesketh used to give may live to finish it. Assure yourself of one thing, him in jest, when he was of the Temple. 1 mortality, which he publishes at Christmas, a You say well, my dear, that in Mr. Throckcopy of verses. You would do me a great favour, morton we have a peerless neighbour; we have so. sir, if you would furnish me with one." To this In point of information upon all important subjects I replied, "Mr. C. you have several men of genius in respect too of expression and address, and in in your town, why have you not applied to some short, every thing that enters into the idea of a genof them? There is a namesake of yours in parti- tleman, I have not found his equal, not often, any cular, C―, the statuary, who, every body knows, where. Were I asked who in my judgment apis a first-rate maker of verses. He surely is the proaches nearest to him, in all his amiable qualiman of all the world for your purpose.""-"Alas! ties, and qualifications, I should certainly answer Sir, I have heretofore borrowed help from him, his brother George, who if he be not his exact but he is a gentleman of so much reading, that counterpart, endued with precisely the same meathe people of our town can not understand him." sure of the same accomplishments, is nevertheless I confess to you, my dear, I felt all the force of the deficient in none of them, and is of a character compliment implied in this speech, and was al- singularly agreeable, in respect of a certain manly, most ready to answer, Perhaps, my good friend, I had almost said, heroic frankness, with which they may find me unintelligible too for the same his air strikes one almost immediately. So far as reason. But on asking him whether he had walked his opportunities have gone, he has ever been as over to Weston on purpose to implore the assist-friendly and obliging to us, as we could wish him, ance of my muse, and on his replying in the af- and were he lord of the Hall to-morrow, would I firmative, I felt my mortified vanity a little con- dare say conduct himself toward us in such a mansoled, and pitying the poor man's distress, which ner, as to leave us as little sensible as possible appeared to be considerable, promised to supply of the removal of its present owners. But all this him. The wagon has accordingly gone this day I say, my dear, merely for the sake of stating the to Northampton loaded in part with my effusions matter as it is; not in order to obviate, or to prove in the mortuary style. A fig for poets who write the inexpedience of any future plans of yours, epitaphs upon individuals! I have written one concerning the place of our residence. Providence that serves two hundred persons. 妻 and time shape every thing; I should rather say Providence alone, for time has often no hand in the wonderful changes that we experience; they take place in a moment. It is not therefore worth while perhaps to consider much what we will, or will not do in years to come, concerning which all that I can say with certainty at present is, that those years will be to me the most welcome, in which I can see the most of you. W. C. A few days since I received a second very obliging letter from Mr. M. He tells me that his own papers, which are by far, he is sorry to say it, the most numerous, are marked V.I.Z. Accordingly, my dear, I am happy to find that I am engaged in a correspondence with Mr. Viz, a gentleman for whom I have always entertained the profoundest veneration. But the serious fact is, that the papers distinguished by those signatures have ever pleased me most, and struck me as the work of a sensible man, who knows the world well, and has more of Addison's delicate humour than any body. A poor man begged food at the Hall lately. The cook gave him some vermicelli soup. He fadled it about some time with the spoon, and then Chicheley. returned it to her saying, "I am a poor man it is shall write true, and I am very hungry, but yet I can not eat broth with maggots in it." Once more, my dear, a thousand thanks for your box full of good things, useful things, and beautiful things. Yours ever, W. C. TO LADY HESKETH. The Lodge, Dec. 4, 1787. I AM glad, my dearest coz, that my last letter proved so diverting. You may assure yourself of the literal truth of the whole narration, and that however droll, it was not in the least indebted to any embellishments of mine. TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT. MY DEAR FRIEND, Weston, Dec. 6, 1787. A SHORT time since, by the help of Mrs. Throckmorton's chaise, Mrs. Unwin and I reached "Now," said I to Mrs. Chester, "I boldly to your brother Walter, and will do it immediately. I have passed the gulf that parted us, and he will be glad to hear it." But let not the man who translates Homer be so presumptuous as to have a will of his own, or to promise any thing. A fortnight, I suppose, has elapsed since I paid this visit, and I am only now beginning to fulfil what I then undertook to accomplish without delay. The old Grecian must answer for it. I spent my morning there so agreeably, that I have ever since regretted more sensibly, that there are five miles of a dirty country interposed between us. For the increase of my pleasure, I had the good fortune to find your brother the bishop there. We had much talk about many things, but most. I believe, about Homer; and great satisfaction it because, as Hopkins answers, we must have regave me to find, that on the most important points fused it. But it fell out singularly enough, that of that subject his lordship and I were exactly this ball was held, of all days in the year, on my of one mind. In the course of our conversation birth day-and so I told them but not till it was he produced from his pocket-book a translation all over. of the first ten or twelve lines of the Iliad, and in Though I have thought proper never to take order to leave my judgment free, informed me any notice of the arrival of my MSS. together kindly at the same time that they were not his with the other good things in the box, yet certain own. I read them, and according to the best it is, that I received them. I have furbished up of my recollection of the original, found them well the tenth book till it is as bright as silver, and am executed. The bishop indeed acknowledged that now occupied in bestowing the same labour upon they were not faultless, neither did I find them the eleventh. The twelfth and thirteenth are in so. Had they been such, I should have felt their the hands of, and the fourteenth and fifperfection as a discouragement hardly to be sur-teenth are ready to succeed them. This notable mounted; for at that passage I have laboured job is the delight of my heart, and how sorry shall more abundantly than at any other, and hitherto I be when it is ended. with the least success. I am convinced that Ho- The smith and the carpenter, my dear, are both mer placed it at the threshold of his work as a in the room, hanging a bell; if I therefore make a scarecrow to all translators. Now, Walter, if thou thousand blunders, let the said intruders answer. knowest the author of this version, and it be not for them all. treason against thy brother's confidence in thy se- I thank you, my dear, for your history of the crecy, declare him to me. Had I been so happy G-s. What changes in that family! And how as to have seen the bishop again before he left this many thousand families have in the same time excountry, I should certainly have asked him the perienced changes as violent as theirs! The course question, having a curiosity upon the matter that is extremely troublesome.. of a rapid river is the justest of all emblems, to express the variableness of our scene below. Shakspeare says, none ever bathed himself twice in the same stream, and it is equally true that the world upon which we close our eyes at night is never the same with that on which we open them in the morning. The awkward situation in which you found yourself on receiving a visit from an authoress, whose works, though presented to you long before, you had never read, made me laugh, and it was no sin against my friendship for you to do so. It was a ridiculous distress, and I can laugh at it I do not always say, give my love to my uncle, even now. I hope she catechised you well. How because he knows that I always love him. I do did you extricate yourself? Now laugh at me. not always present Mrs. Unwin's love to you, The clerk of the parish of All Saints, in the town partly for the same reason (Deuce take the smith of Northampton, having occasion for a poet, has and the carpenter,) and partly because I forget it. appointed me to the office. I found myself obliged to comply. The bellman comes next, and then, I think, though even borne upon your swan's quill, I can soar no higher! I am, my dear friend, faithfully yours, W. C. But to present my own I forget never, for I always 1 THANK you for the snip of cloth, commonly you that I should prove a very unpunctual correscalled a pattern. At present I have two coats, pondent. The work that lies before me engages and but one back. If at any time hereafter I unavoidably my whole attention. The length of should find myself possessed of fewer coats, or more it, the spirit of it, and the exactness that is requibacks, it will be of use to me. site in its due performance, are so many most inEven as you suspect, my dear, so it proved. teresting subjects of consideration to me, who find The ball was prepared for, the ball was held, and that my best attempts are only introductory to the ball passed, and we had nothing to do with it. others, and that what to day I suppose finished, Mrs. Throckmorton, knowing our trim, did not to-morrow I must begin again. Thus it fares give us the pain of an invitation, for a pain it with a translator of Homer. To exhibit the mawould have been. And why? as Sternhold says, 'jesty of such a poet in a modern language is a task that no man can estimate the difficulty of till | he attempts it. To paraphrase him loosely, to TO LADY HESKETH. hang him with trappings that do not belong to him, The Lodge, Jan. 1, 1788. all this is comparatively easy. But to represent Now for another story almost incredible! A him with only his own ornaments, and still to pre-story that would be quite such, if it was not cerserve his dignity, is a labour that, if I hope in any tain that you give me credit for any thing. I measure to achieve it, I am sensible can only be have read the poem for the sake of which you achieved by the most assiduous, and most unre-sent the paper, and was much entertained by it. mitting attention. Our studies, however different You think it perhaps, as very well you may, the in themselves, in respect of the means by which only piece of that kind that was ever produced. they are to be successfully carried on, bear some It is indeed original, for I dare say Mr. Merry resemblance to each other. A perseverance that never saw mine; but certainly it is not unique. nothing can discourage, a minuteness of observa- For most true it is, my dear, that ten years since, tion that suffers nothing to escape, and a determi- having a letter to write to a friend of mine, to nation not to be seduced from the straight line that whom I could write any thing, I filled a whole lies before us, by any images with which fancy sheet with a composition, both in measure and may present us, are essentials that should be com- in manner precisely similar. I have in vain mon to us both. There are perhaps few arduous searched for it. It is either burnt or lost. Could undertakings, that are not in fact more arduous I have found it, you would have had double postthan we at first supposed them. As we proceed, age to pay. For that one man in Italy, and anodifficulties increase upon us, but our hopes gather ther in England, who never saw each other, strength also, and we conquer difficulties which, should stumble on a species of verse, in which no could we have foreseen them, we should never have other man ever wrote (and I believe that to be the had the boldness to encounter. May this be your case) and upon a style and manner too, of which, experience, as I doubt not that it will. You pos- I suppose, that neither of them had ever seen an sess by nature all that is necessary to success in example, appears to me so extraordinary a fact, the profession that you have chosen. What re- that I must have sent you mine, whatever it had mains is in your own power. They say of poets, cost you, and am really vexed that I can not authat they must be born such: so must mathemati-thenticate the story by producing a voucher. cians, so must great generals, and so must law- The measure I recollect to have been perfectly yers, and so indeed must men of all denominations, the same, and as to the manner I am equally sure or it is not possible that they should excel. But of that, and from this circumstance, that Mrs. with whatever faculties we are born, and to what- Unwin and I never laughed more at any producever studies our genius may direct us, studies they tion of mine, perhaps not even at John Gilpin. must still be. I am persuaded, that Milton did not write his Paradise Lost, nor Homer his Iliad, nor Newton his Principia, without immense labour. Nature gave them a bias to their respective pursuits, and that strong propensity, I suppose, is what we mean by genius. The rest they gave themselves. "Macte esto," therefore, have no ficulty and inconvenience. fears for the issue! But for all this, my dear, you must, as I said, give me credit; for the thing itself is gone to that limbo of vanity, where alone, says Milton, things lost on earth are to be met with. Said limbo is, as you know, in the moon, whither I could not at present convey myself without a good deal of dif This morning being the morning of new year's I have had a second kind letter from your friend day, I sent to the hall a copy of verses, addressed Mr. which I have just answered. I must to Mrs. Throckmorton, entitled, the Wish, or the not I find hope to see him here, at least I must Poet's New Year's Gift. We dine there to-mornot much expect it. He has a family that does row, when, I suppose, I shall hear news of them. not permit him to fly southward. I have also a Their kindness is so great, and they seize with notion, that we three could spend a few days com- such eagerness every opportunity of doing all fortably together, especially in a country like this, they think will please us, that I held myself al abounding in scenes with which I am sure you most in duty bound to treat them with this stroke would both be delighted. Having lived till lately of my profession. at some distance from the spot that I now inhabit, The small pox has done, I believe, all that it and having never been master of any sort of ve- has to do at Weston. Old folks, and even women hicle whatever, it is but just now that I begin my-with child, have been inoculated. We talk of self to be acquainted with the beauties of our situ- our freedom, and some of us are free enough, but ation. To you I may hope, one time or other, to not the poor. Dependant as they are upon parish show them, and shall be happy to do it, when an bounty, they are sometimes obliged to submit to opportunity offers. impositions, which perhaps in France itself could Yours, most affectionately, W. C. hardly be paralleled. Can man or woman be said, to be free, who is commanded to take a distemper, On all other occasions I prune with an unsparing sometimes at least mortal, and in circumstances hand, determined that there shall not be found in most likely to make it so? No circumstance what-the whole translation an idea that is not Homer's. ever was permitted to exempt the inhabitants of My ambition is to produce the closest copy possiWeston. The old as well as the young, and the ble, and at the same time as harmonious as I pregnant as well as they who had only themselves know how to make it. This being my object, you within them, have been inoculated. Were I ask- will no longer think, if indeed you have thought ed who is the most arbitrary sovereign on earth? it at all, that I am unnecessarily and over much I should answer, neither the king of France, nor industrious. The original surpasses every thing; the grand signor, but an overseer of the poor in England. it is of an immense length, is composed in the best language ever used upon earth, and deserves, I am as heretofore occupied with Homer: my indeed demands all the labour that any translator, present occupation is the revisal of all I have be he who he may, can possibly bestow on it. Of done, viz. of the first fifteen books. I stand this I am sure, and your brother the good bishop amazed at my own increasing dexterity in the business, being verily persuaded that, as far as I have gone, I have improved the work to double its former value. That you may begin the new year and end it in all health and happiness, and many more when the present shall have been long an old one, is the ardent wish of Mrs. Unwin, and of yours, my dearest coz, most cordially, W. C. TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT. MY DEAR FRIEND, Weston, Jan 5, 1788. is of the same mind, that, at present, mere English readers know no more of Homer in reality, than if he had never been translated. That consideration indeed it was, which mainly induced me to the undertaking; and if after all, either through idleness, or dotage upon what I have already done, I leave it chargeable with the same incorrectness as my predecessors, or indeed with any other that I may be able to amend, I had better have amused myself otherwise. And you I know are of my opinion. I send you the clerk's verses, of which I told you. They are very clerklike, as you will perceive. But plain truth in plain words seemed to 1 THANK you for your information concerning me to be the ne plus ultra of composition on such the author of the translation of those lines. Had an occasion. I might have attempted something a man of less note and ability than Lord Bagot very fine, but then the persons principally concernproduced it, I should have been discouraged. As ed, viz. my readers, would not have understood me. it is, I comfort myself with the thought, that even If it puts them in mind that they are mortal, its he accounted it an achievement worthy of his best end is answered. My dear Walter, adieu! powers, and that even he found it difficult. Though I never had the honour to be known to his lordship, I remember him well at Westminster, and the reputation in which he stood there. Since that time I have never seen him, except onice, many years ago, in the House of Commons, when I heard him speak on the subject of a drainage bill better than any member there. Yours faithfully, W. C. TO LADY HESKETH. The Lodge, Jan. 19, 1788. WHEN I have prose enough to fill my paper, which is always the case when I write to you, I My first thirteen books have been criticised in can not find in my heart to give a third part of it London; have been by me accommodated to those to verse. Yet this I must do, or I must make my criticisms, returned to London in their improved pacquets more costly than worshipful, by doubling state, and sent back to Weston with an impri- the postage upon you, which I should hold to be mantur. This would satisfy some poets less anxi- unreasonable. See then the true reason why I did ous than myself about what they expose in public; not send you that same scribblement till you debut it has not satisfied me. I am now revising sired it. The thought which naturally presents them again by the light of my own critical taper, and make more alterations than at the first. But are they improvements? you will ask-Is not the spirit of the work endangered by all this attention to correctness? I think and hope that it is not. Fine things indeed I have few. He who has Being well aware of the possibility of such a ca- Homer to transcribe may well be contented to do tastrophe, I guard particularly against it. Where little else. As when an ass, being harnessed with I find that a servile adherence to the original would ropes to a sand cart, drags with hanging ears his render the passage less animated than it should heavy burthen, neither filling the long echoing be, I still, as at the first, allow myself a liberty. streets with his harmonious bray, nor throwing up itself to me on all such occasions is this-Is not your cousin coming? Why are you impatient? Will it not be time enough to show her your fine things when she arrives? |