ways 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.

TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESQ.

MY DEAR BROTHER, Weston, May 21, 1793. 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 I rise at six every morning, and fag till near eleven, when I breakfast. The consequence is, Homer is indeed a tie upon me that must not that I am so exhausted as not to be able to write on any account be broken, till all his demands are when the opportunity offers. You will saysatisfied; though I have fancied while the revisal "breakfast before you work, and then your work of the Odyssey was at a distance, that it would ask will not fatigue you." I answer-" perhaps I less labour in the finishing, it is not unlikely that, might, and your counsel would probably prove when I take it actually in hand, I may find my- beneficial; but I can not spare a moment for eatself mistaken. Of this at least I am sure, that ing in the early part of the morning, having no uneven verse abounds much more in it than it other time for study." This uneasiness of which once did in the Iliad, yet to the latter the critics I complain is a proof that I am somewhat stricken objected on that account, though to the former in years; and there is no other cause by which I never; perhaps because they had not read it. can account for it, since I go early to bed, always Hereafter they shall not quarrel with me on that between ten and eleven, and seldom fail to sleep score. The Iliad is now all smooth turnpike, and I will take equal care that there shall be no jolts in the Odyssey.

well. Certain it is, ten years ago I could have done as much, and sixteen years ago did actually much more, without suffering fatigue, or any inconvenience from my labours. 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.

You have thought me long silent, and so have many others. In fact I have not for many months There has been a book lately published, entiwritten punctually to any but yourself, and Hay- tled, Man as he is. I have heard a high characley. My time, the little I have, is so engrossed ter of it, as admirably written, and am informed by Homer, that I have at this moment a bundle that for that reason, and because it inculcates of unanswered letters by me, and letters likely to Whig principles, it is by many imputed to you. be so. Thou knowest, I dare say, what it is to I contradicted this report, assuring my informant have a head weary with thinking. Mine is so that had it been yours, I must have known it, for fatigued by breakfast time, three days out of four, that you have bound yourself to make me your I am utterly incapable of sitting down to my desk father confessor on all such wicked occasions, and again for any purpose whatever. not to conceal from me even a murder, should you happen to commit one.

I am glad I have convinced thee at least, that thou art a Tory. Your friend's definition of I will not trouble you, at present, to send me Whig and Tory may be just for aught I know, any. more books with a view to my notes on as far as the latter are concerned; but respecting Homer. I am not without hopes that Sir John the former, I think him mistaken. There is no Throckmorton, who is expected here from Venice true Whig who wishes all power in the hands of in a short time, may bring me Villoison's edition his own party. The division of it which the of the Odyssey. He certainly will, if he found it lawyers call tripartite, is exactly what he desires; published, and that alone will be instar omnium. and he would have neither kings, lords, nor cominons unequally trusted, or in the smallest degree predominant. Such a Whig am I, and such Whigs are the true friends of the constitution. Adieu! my dear, I am dead with weariness.

W. C.

Adieu, my dearest brother! Give my love to Tom, and thank him for his book, of which I believe I need not have deprived him, intending that my readers shall detect the occult instruction contained in Homer's stories for themselves. W. C.

TO LADY HESKETH.

you; for I have both in a degree that has not been exceeded in the experience of any friend you have, or ever had. But I am so made up;—I MY DEAREST COUSIN, Weston, June 1, 1793. will not enter into a metaphysical analysis of my You will not, (you say) come to us now; and strange composition, in order to detect the true you tell us not when you will. These assigna- cause of this evil; but on a general view of the tions sine die are such shadowy things, that I matter, I suspect that it proceeds from that shycan neither grasp nor get any comfort from them. ness, which has been my effectual and almost fatal Know you not, that hope is the next best thing hindrance on many other important occasions; and to enjoyment? Give us then a hope, and a de- which I should feel, I well know, on this, to a terminate time for that hope to fix on, and we will degree that would perfectly cripple me. No! I endeavour to be satisfied. shall neither do, nor attempt any thing of conse Johnny is gone to Cambridge, called thither to quence more, unless my poor Mary get better; take his degree, and is much missed by me. He nor even then, unless it should please God to is such an active little fellow in my service, that give me another nature, in concert with any man he can not be otherwise. In three weeks how--I could not even with my own father or broever I shall hope to have him again for a fortnight. |ther, were they now alive. Small game must I have had a letter from him containing an inci- serve me at present, and till I have done with dent which has given birth to the following.* Homer and Milton, a sonnet or some such matter must content me. The utmost that I aspire to, and Heaven knows with how feeble a hope, is to write at some better opportunity, and when my hands are free, The Four Ages. Thus I have opened my heart unto thee. W. C.

These are spick and span. Johnny himself has not yet seen them. By the way, he has filled your book completely; and I will give thee a guinea if thou wilt search thy old book for a couple of songs, and two or three other pieces of which I know thou madest copies at the vicarage, and which I have lost. The songs I know are pretty good, and I would fain recover them.

W. C.

TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESQ.†

Weston, June 29, 1793. WHAT remains for me to say on this subject, my dear brother bard, I will say in prose. There are other impediments which I could not comprise within the bounds of a sonnet.

TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESQ. MY DEAREST HAYLEY, Weston, July 7, 1793. IF the excessive heat of this day, which forbids me to do any thing else, will permit me to scribble to you, I shall rejoice. To do this is a pleasure to me at all times, but to do it now, a double one; because I am in haste to tell you how much I am delighted with your projected quadruple alliance, and to assure you that if it please God to afford me health, spirits, ability and leisure, I will not fail to devote them all to the production of my quota, The Four Ages.

My poor Mary's infirm condition makes it impossible for me, at present, to engage in a work such as you propose. My thoughts are not suffi- You are very kind to humour me as you do, ciently free, nor have I, nor can I, by any means, and had need be a little touched yourself with all find opportunity; added to which, comes a diffi- my oddities, that you may know how to administer culty, which, though you are not at all aware of to mine. All whom I love do so, and I believe it it, presents itself to me under a most forbidding to be impossible to love heartily those who do not. appearance: Can you guess it? No, not you: People must not do me good in their way, but in neither perhaps will you be able to imagine that my own, and then they do me good indeed. My such a difficulty can possibly subsist. If your hair pride, my ambition, and my friendship, for you, begins to bristle, stroke it down again, for there and the interest I take in my own dear self, will is no need why it should erect itself. It concerns all be consulted and gratified by an arm-in-arm me, not you. I know myself too well not to appearance with you in public: and I shall work know that I am nobody in verse, unless in a corner, and alone, and unconnected in my operations. This is not owing to want of love for you, my brother, or the most consummate confidence in

• Verses to a Young Friend, &c. See Poems.

with more zeal and assiduity at Homer, and, when Homer is finished, at Milton, with the prospect of such a coalition before me. But what shall I do with a multitude of small pieces, from which I intended to select the best, and adding them to The Four Ages, to have made a volume?

This Letter commenced with the Lines to William Will there be room for them upon your plan? I Hayley, Esq. beginning, "Dear architect of fine chateaux in have retouched them, and will retouch them air" See Poems. lagain. Some of them will suggest pretty devices

to a designer, and in short I have a desire not to same promise I have hastily made to visit Sir lose them. John and Lady Throckmorton, at Bucklands. I am at this moment, with all the imprudence How to reconcile such clashing promises, and give natural to poets, expending nobody knows what, satisfaction to all, would puzzle me, had I nothing in embellishing my premises, or rather the pre-else to do; and therefore, as I say, the result will mises of my neighbour Courtenay, which is more probably be, that we shall find ourselves obliged poetical still. I have built one summer-house al- to go no where, since we can not every where. ready, with the boards of my old study, and am

*

*

building another spick and span as they say. I Wishing you both safe at home again, and to have also a stone-cutter now at work, setting a see you, as soon as may be, here,

bust of my dear old Grecian on a pedestal; and
besides all this, I meditate still more that is to be
done in the autumn. Your project therefore is
most opportune, as any project must needs be that
has so direct a tendency to put money into the
pocket of one so likely to want it.

Ah brother poet! send me of your shade,
And bid the Zephyrs hasten to my aid!
Or, like a worm unearth'd at noon, I go,
Despatch'd by sunshine, to the shades below.

My poor Mary is as well as the heat will allow
her to be, and whether it be cold or sultry, is
ways affectionately mindful of you and yours.
W. C.

TO THE REV. MR. GREATHEED.

July 23, 1793.

I remain, affectionately yours, W. C.

TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESQ.

Weston, July 24, 1793.

I HAVE been vexed with myself, my dearest brother, and with every thing about me, not excepting even Homer himself, that I have been obliged so long to delay an answer to your last kind letter. If I listen any longer to calls another

al-way, I shall hardly be able to tell you how happy we are in the hope of seeing you in the autumn before the autumn will have arrived. Thrice welcome will you and your dear boy be to us, anc the longer you will afford us your company, the more welcome. I have set up the head of Homes on a famous fine pedestal, and a very majestic appearance he makes. I am now puzzled about a motto, and wish you to decide for me between two one of which I have composed myself, a Greek one as follows:

many a time.

The present edition of the lines stands thus:

Him partially the muse,

And dearly loved, yet gave him good and ill:
She quench'd his sight, but gave him strains divine.

I was not without some expectation of a line from you, my dear sir, though you did not promise me one at your departure; and am happy not to have been disappointed; still happier to Εικονα τις ταυτην; κλυτον ανρος ενομ' ολωλεν. learn that you and Mrs. Greatheed are well, and Ούνομα δ' ατος ανήρ αφθιτον αιεν έχει. so delightfully situated. Your kind offer to us of The other is my own translation of a passage sharing with you the house which you at present in the Odyssey, the original of which I have seen inhabit, added to the short but lively description used as a motto to an engraved head of Homer of the scenery that surrounds it, wants nothing to win our acceptance, should it please God to give Mrs. Unwin a little more strength, and should I ever be master of my time so as to be able to gratify myself with what would please me most. But many have claims upon us, and some who can not absolutely be said to have any, would yet Tell me by the way (if you ever had any specucomplain, and think themselves slighted, should lations on the subject) what is it you suppose Howe prefer rocks and caves to them. In short we mer to have meant in particular, when he ascribed are called so many ways, that these numerous de- his blindness to the muse; for that he speaks of mands are likely to operate as a remora, and to himself under the name Demodocus in the eighth keep us fixt at home. Here we can occasionally book, I believe is by all admitted. How could the have the pleasure of yours and Mrs. Greatheed's old bard study himself blind, when books are eicompany, and to have it here must I believe con- ther few, or none at all? And did he write his tent us. Hayley in his last letter gives me reason poems? If neither were the cause, as seems reato expect the pleasure of seeing him and his dear sonable to imagine, how could he incur his blindboy Tom, in the autumn. He will use all his ness by such means as could be justly imputable eloquence to draw us to Eartham again. My to the muse? Would mere thinking blind him? cousin Johnny of Norfolk holds me under a pro- I want to know:

mise to make my first trip thither, and the very

"Call up some spirit from the vasty deep!"

I said to my Sam*—" Sam, build me a shed in charming sonnets, and my two most agreeable old the garden, with any thing that you can find, and friends, Monimia and Orlando.

make it rude and rough, like one of those at Eartham."-"Yes, sir," says Sam, and straightway laying his own noddle, and the carpenter's noddle together, has built me a thing fit for Stow Gardens. Is not this vexatious?-I threaten to in scribe it thus;

Beware of building! I intended

Rough logs and thatch, and thus it ended.

But my Mary says I shall break Sam's heart, and the carpenter's too, and will not consent to it. Poor Mary sleeps but ill. How have you lived who can not bear a sunbeam? Adieu! my dearest Hayley.

that I am not actually in possession of it, at least you are not gone for ever, as once I supposed you of the engravings which you mention. In fact, I were, and said that we should probably meet no have had them more than a fortnight. Lady more. Some news, however, we have; but then Dowager Spencer, to whom I inscribed my Odys- I conclude that you have already received it from sey, and who was at Rome when Sir John the Doctor, and that thought almost deprives me Throckmorton was there, charged him with them of all courage to relate it. On the evening of the as a present to me, and arriving here lately he feast, Bob Archer's house affording I suppose the executed his commission. Romney I doubt not is best room for the purpose, all the lads and lasses, right in his judgment of tnem; he is an artist him- who felt themselves disposed to dance, assembled self, and can not easily be mistaken; and I take there. Long time they danced, at least long time his opinion as an oracle, the rather because it they did something a little like it; when at last coincides exactly with my own. The figures are the company having retired, the fiddler asked Bob highly classical, antique, and elegant: especially for a lodging. Bob replied "that his beds were that of Penelope, who whether she wakes or sleeps all full of his own family, but if he chose it he must necessarily charm all beholders. would show him a haycock, where he might sleep Your scheme of embellishing my Odyssey with as sound as in any bed whatever.”—So forth they these plates is a kind one, and the fruit of your went together, and when they reached the place, benevolence to me; but Johnson, I fear, will hardly the fiddler knocked down Bob, and demanded his stake so much money as the cost would amount money. But happily for Bob, though he might be to on a work, the fate of which is at present un- knocked down, and actually was so, yet he could certain. Nor could we adorn the Odyssey in this not possibly be robbed, having nothing. The fidsplendid manner, unless we had similar ornaments dler therefore having amused himself with kicking to bestow on the Iliad. Such I presume are not him and beating him as he lay, as long as he saw ready, and much time must elapse, even if Flax-good, left him, and has never been heard of since, man should accede to the plan, before he could nor inquired after indeed, being no doubt the last possibly prepare them. Happy indeed should I man in the world whom Bob wishes to see again. be to see a work of mine so nobly accompanied, By a letter from Hayley to-day I learn that but should that good fortune ever attend me, it Flaxman, to whom we are indebted for those can not take place till the third or fourth edition Odyssey figures which Lady Frog brought over, shall afford the occasion. This I regret, and I re- has almost finished a set for the Iliad also. I gret too that you shall have seen them before I can should be glad to embellish my Homer with them, have an opportunity to show them to you. Here but neither my bookseller nor I shall probably is sixpence for you if you will abstain from the choose to risk so expensive an ornament on a sight of them while you are in London. work, whose reception with the public is at present doubtful.

The sculptor? Nameless, though once dear to fame;
But this man bears an everlasting name."

So I purpose it shall stand; and on the pedesal, when you come, in that form you will find it. The added line from the Odyssey is charming, but the assumption of sonship to Homer seems too daring; suppose it stood thus,

Ως δε παις ῳ πατρί, και έποτε λησομαι αυτό.

Adieu, my dearest Catharina. Give my best love to your husband. Come home as soon as you can, and accept our united very best wishes.

TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESQ.

I am not sure that this would be clear of the same MY DEAREST FRIEND,
objection, and it departs from the text still more.
With my poor Mary's best love and our united
wishes to see you here, I remain,

My dearest brother, ever yours, W.C.

TO MRS. COURTENAY. Weston, Aug. 20, 1793. My dearest Catharina is too reasonable, I know, to expect news from me, who live on the outside of the world, and know nothing that passes within 't. The best news is, that though you are gone,

*A translation of Cowper's Greek verses on his bust of Яomer

W. C.

Weston, Aug. 22, 1793.

I REJOICE that you have had so pleasant an excursion, and have beheld so many beautiful scenes. Except the delightful Upway I have seen them all. I have lived much at Southampton, have slept and caught a sore throat at Lyndhurst, and have swum in the bay of Weymouth. It will give us great pleasure to see you here, should your business give you an opportunity to finish your excursions of this season with one to Weston.

As for my going on, it is much as usual. I rise from which I have never swerved since March. at six; an industrious and wholesome practice, I breakfast generally about eleven-have given all the intermediate time to my old delightful bard Vil.