My dear Sister,—You see my beginning—I do not know but, in time, I may proceed even to the printing of halfpenny ballads—excuse the coarseness of my paper—I wasted such a quantity before I could accomplish any thing legible that I could not afford finer. I intend to employ an ingenious mechanic of the town to make me a longer case: for you may observe that my lines turn up their tails like Dutch mastiffs, so difficult do I find it to make the two halves exactly coincide with each other.
We wait with impatience for the departure of this unseasonable flood. We think of you, and talk of you, but we can do no more till the waters shall subside. I do not think our correspondence should drop because we are within a mile of each other. It is but an imaginary approximation, the flood having in reality as effectually parted us as if the British channel rolled between us.
Yours, my dear sister, with Mrs. Unwin's best love,
W. C.
A flood that precluded him from the conversation of such an enlivening friend was to Cowper a serious evil; but he was happily relieved from the apprehension of such disappointment in future, by seeing the friend so pleasing and so useful to him very comfortably settled as his next-door neighbour. An event so agreeable to the poet was occasioned by circumstances of a painful nature, related in a letter to Mr. Unwin, which, though it bears no date of month or year, seems properly to claim insertion in this place.
My dear William,—The modest terms in which you express yourself on the subject of Lady Austen's commendation embolden me to add my suffrage to hers, and to confirm it by assuring you that I think her just and well-founded in her opinion of you. The compliment indeed glances at myself; for, were you less than she accounts you, I ought not to afford you that place in my esteem which you have held so long. My own sagacity, therefore, and discernment are not a little concerned upon the occasion, for either you resemble the picture, or I have strangely mistaken my man, and formed an erroneous judgment of his character. With respect to your face and figure, indeed, there I leave the ladies to determine, as being naturally best qualified to decide the point; but whether you are perfectly the man of sense and the gentleman, is a question in which I am as much interested as they, and which, you being my friend, I am of course prepared to settle in your favour. The lady (whom, when you know her as well, you will love her as much, as we do) is, and has been, during the last fortnight, a part of our family. Before she was perfectly restored to health, she returned to Clifton. Soon after she came back, Mr. Jones had occasion to go to London. No sooner was he gone than the chateau, being left without a garrison, was besieged as regularly as the night came on. Villains were both heard and seen in the garden, and at the doors and windows. The kitchen window in particular was attempted, from which they took a complete pane of glass, exactly opposite to the iron by which it was fastened, but providentially the window had been nailed to the wood-work, in order to keep it close, and that the air might be excluded; thus they were disappointed, and, being discovered by the maid, withdrew. The ladies, being worn out with continual watching and repeated alarms, were at last prevailed upon to take refuge with us. Men furnished with fire-arms were put into the house, and the rascals, having intelligence of this circumstance, beat a retreat. Mr. Jones returned; Mrs. Jones and Miss Green, her daughter, left us, but Lady Austen's spirits having been too much disturbed to be able to repose in a place where she had been so much terrified, she was left behind. She remains with us till her lodgings at the vicarage can be made ready for her reception. I have now sent you what has occurred of moment in our history since my last.
I say amen with all my heart to your observation on religious characters. Men who profess themselves adepts in mathematical knowledge, in astronomy, or jurisprudence, are generally as well qualified as they would appear. The reason may be, that they are always liable to detection should they attempt to impose upon mankind, and therefore take care to be what they pretend. In religion alone a profession is often slightly taken up and slovenly carried on, because, forsooth, candour and charity require us to hope the best, and to judge favourably of our neighbour, and because it is easy to deceive the ignorant, who are a great majority, upon this subject. Let a man attach himself to a particular party, contend furiously for what are properly called evangelical doctrines, and enlist himself under the banner of some popular preacher, and the business is done. Behold a Christian! a saint! a phœnix! In the meantime, perhaps, his heart and his temper, and even his conduct, are unsanctified; possibly less exemplary than those of some avowed infidels. No matter—he can talk—he has the Shibboleth of the true church—the Bible in his pocket, and a head well stored with notions. But the quiet, humble, modest, and peaceable person, who is in his practice what the other is only in his profession, who hates a noise, and therefore makes none, who, knowing the snares that are in the world, keeps himself as much out of it as he can, and never enters it but when duty calls, and even then with fear and trembling—is the Christian, that will always stand highest in the estimation of those who bring all characters to the test of true wisdom, and judge of the tree by its fruit.
You are desirous of visiting the prisoners; you wish to administer to their necessities, and to give them instruction. This task you will undertake, though you expect to encounter many things in the performance of it that will give you pain. Now this I can understand—you will not listen to the sensibilities that distress yourself, but to the distresses of others. Therefore, when I meet with one of the specious praters above mentioned, I will send him to Stock, that by your diffidence he may be taught a lesson of modesty; by your generosity, a little feeling for others; and by your general conduct, in short, to chatter less and do more.
Yours, my dear friend,
W. C.
Olney, Feb. 16, 1782.
Carraccioli says—"There is something very bewitching in authorship, and that he who has once written will write again." It may be so; I can subscribe to the former part of his assertion from my own experience, having never found an amusement, among the many I have been obliged to have recourse to, that so well answered the purpose for which I used it. The quieting and composing effect of it was such, and so totally absorbed have I sometimes been in my rhyming occupation, that neither the past nor the future (those themes which to me are so fruitful in regret at other times) had any longer a share in my contemplation. For this reason, I wish, and have often wished, since the fit left me, that it would seize me again; but hitherto I have wished it in vain. I see no want of subjects, but I feel a total disability to discuss them. Whether it is thus with other writers or not I am ignorant, but I should suppose my case in this respect a little peculiar. The voluminous writers, at least, whose vein of fancy seems always to have been rich in proportion to their occasions, cannot have been so unlike and so unequal to themselves. There is this difference between my poetship and the generality of them—they have been ignorant how much they have stood indebted to an Almighty power for the exercise of those talents they have supposed their own. Whereas I know, and know most perfectly, and am perhaps to be taught it to the last, that my power to think, whatever it be, and consequently my power to compose, is, as much as my outward form, afforded to me by the same hand that makes me in any respect to differ from a brute. This lesson, if not constantly inculcated, might perhaps be forgotten, or at least too slightly remembered.
W. C.
Olney, Feb. 24, 1782.
My dear Friend,—If I should receive a letter from you to-morrow, you must still remember, that I am not in your debt, having paid you by anticipation. Knowing that you take an interest in my publication, and that you have waited for it with some impatience, I write to inform you, that, if it is possible for a printer to be punctual, I shall come forth on the first of March. I have ordered two copies to Stock; one for Mr. John Unwin. It is possible, after all, that my book may come forth without a preface. Mr. Newton has written (he could indeed write no other) a very sensible, as well as a very friendly one: and it is printed. But the bookseller, who knows him well, and esteems him highly, is anxious to have it cancelled, and, with my consent first obtained, has offered to negotiate that matter with the author. He judges, that, though it would serve to recommend the volume to the religious, it would disgust the profane, and that there is in reality no need of a preface at all. I have found Johnson a very judicious man on other occasions, and am therefore willing that he should determine for me upon this.
There are but few persons to whom I present my book. The Lord Chancellor is one. I enclose in a packet I send by this post to Johnson a letter to his lordship, which will accompany the volume; and to you I enclose a copy of it, because I know you will have a friendly curiosity to see it. An author is an important character. Whatever his merits may be, the mere circumstance of authorship warrants his approach to persons whom otherwise perhaps he could hardly address without being deemed impertinent. He can do me no good. If I should happen to do him a little, I shall be a greater man than he. I have ordered a copy likewise to Mr. Smith.
Yours,
W. C.
(ENCLOSED TO MR. UNWIN.)
Olney, Bucks. Feb. 25, 1782.
My Lord,—I make no apology for what I account a duty. I should offend against the cordiality of our former friendship should I send a volume into the world, and forget how much I am bound to pay my particular respects to your lordship upon that occasion. When we parted, you little thought of hearing from me again; and I as little that I should live to write to you, still less that I should wait on you in the capacity of an author.
Among the pieces I have the honour to send there is one for which I must entreat your pardon; I mean that of which your lordship is the subject. The best excuse I can make is, that it flowed almost spontaneously from the affectionate remembrance of a connexion that did me so much honour.
As to the rest, their merits, if they have any, and their defects, which are probably more than I am aware of, will neither of them escape your notice. But where there is much discernment, there is generally much candour; and I commit myself into your lordship's hands with the less anxiety, being well acquainted with yours.
If my first visit, after so long an interval, should prove neither a troublesome nor a dull one, but especially, if not altogether an unprofitable one, omne tulit punctum.
I have the honour to be, though with very different impressions of some subjects, yet with the same sentiments of affection and esteem as ever, your lordship's faithful and most obedient, humble servant,
W. C.
Olney, Feb. 1782.
My dear Friend,—I enclose Johnson's letter upon the subject of the Preface, and would send you my reply to it, if I had kept a copy. This however was the purport of it. That Mr. ——, whom I described as you described him to me, had made a similar objection, but that, being willing to hope that two or three pages of sensible matter, well expressed, might possibly go down, though of a religious cast, I was resolved to believe him mistaken, and to pay no regard to it. That his judgment, however, who by his occupation is bound to understand what will promote the sale of a book, and what will hinder it, seemed to deserve more attention. That therefore, according to his own offer, written on a small slip of paper now lost, I should be obliged to him if he would state his difficulties to you; adding, I need not inform him, who is so well acquainted with you, that he would find you easy to be persuaded to sacrifice, if necessary, what you had written, to the interests of the book. I find he has had an interview with you upon the occasion, and your behaviour in it has verified my prediction. What course he determines upon, I do not know, nor am I at all anxious about it. It is impossible for me, however, to be so insensible of your kindness in writing the Preface, as not to be desirous of defying all contingencies, rather than entertain a wish to suppress it. It will do me honour in the eyes of those whose good opinion is indeed an honour; and if it hurts me in the estimation of others, I cannot help it; the fault is neither yours, nor mine, but theirs. If a minister's is a more splendid character than a poet's, and I think nobody that understands their value can hesitate in deciding that question, then undoubtedly the advantage of having our names united in the same volume is all on my side.
We thank you for the Fast-sermon. I had not read two pages before I exclaimed—the man has read Expostulation. But though there is a strong resemblance between the two pieces, in point of matter, and sometimes the very same expressions are to be met with, yet I soon recollected that, on such a theme, a striking coincidence of both might happen without a wonder. I doubt not that it is the production of an honest man, it carries with it an air of sincerity and zeal that is not easily counterfeited. But, though I can see no reason why kings should not hear sometimes of their faults as well as other men, I think I see many good ones why they should not be reproved so publicly. It can hardly be done with that respect which is due to their office, on the part of the author, or without encouraging a spirit of unmannerly censure in his readers. His majesty too, perhaps, might answer—my own personal feelings, and offences, I am ready to confess, but were I to follow your advice, and cashier the profligate from my service, where must I seek men of faith and true Christian piety, qualified by nature and by education to succeed them? Business must be done, men of business alone can do it, and good men are rarely found, under that description. When Nathan reproved David, he did not employ a herald, or accompany his charge with the sound of the trumpet; nor can I think the writer of this sermon quite justifiable in exposing the king's faults in the sight of the people.
Your answer respecting Ætna is quite satisfactory, and gives me much pleasure. I hate altering, though I never refuse the task when propriety seems to enjoin it; and an alteration in this instance, if I am not mistaken, would have been singularly difficult. Indeed, when a piece has been finished two or three years, and an author finds occasion to amend or make an addition to it, it is not easy to fall upon the very vein from which he drew his ideas in the first instance, but either a different turn of thought or expression will betray the patch, and convince a reader of discernment that it has been cobbled and varnished.
Our love to you both, and to the young Euphrosyne; the old lady of that name being long since dead, if she pleases, she shall fill her vacant office, and be my muse hereafter.
Yours, my dear Sir,
W. C.
Olney, March 6, 1782.
Is peace the nearer because our patriots have resolved that it is desirable? Will the victory they have gained in the House of Commons be attended with any other? Do they expect the same success on other occasions, and, having once gained a majority, are they to be the majority for ever?[138] These are the questions we agitate by the fire-side in an evening, without being able to come to any certain conclusion, partly, I suppose, because the subject is in itself uncertain, and partly, because we are not furnished with the means of understanding it. I find the politics of times past more intelligible than those of the present. Time has thrown light upon what was obscure, and decided what was ambiguous. The characters of great men, which are always mysterious while they live, are ascertained by the faithful historian, and sooner or later receive the wages of fame or infamy, according to their true deserts. How have I seen sensible and learned men burn incense to the memory of Oliver Cromwell, ascribing to him, as the greatest hero in the world, the dignity of the British empire, during the interregnum. A century passed before that idol, which seemed to be of gold, was proved to be a wooden one. The fallacy, however, was at length detected, and the honour of that detection has fallen to the share of a woman. I do not know whether you have read Mrs. Macaulay's history of that period. She has handled him more roughly than the Scots did at the battle of Dunbar. He would have thought it little worth his while to have broken through all obligations divine and human, to have wept crocodile's tears, and wrapped himself up in the obscurity of speeches that nobody could understand, could he have foreseen that, in the ensuing century, a lady's scissors would clip his laurels close, and expose his naked villainy to the scorn of all posterity. This however has been accomplished, and so effectually, that I suppose it is not in the power of the most artificial management to make them grow again. Even the sagacious of mankind are blind, when Providence leaves them to be deluded; so blind, that a tyrant shall be mistaken for a true patriot: true patriots (such were the Long Parliament) shall be abhorred as tyrants, and almost a whole nation shall dream that they have the full enjoyment of liberty, for years after such a complete knave as Oliver shall have stolen it completely from them. I am indebted for all this show of historical knowledge to Mr. Bull, who has lent me five volumes of the work I mention. I was willing to display it while I have it; in a twelvemonth's time, I shall remember almost nothing of the matter.
W. C.
It has been the lot of Cromwell to be praised too little or too much. Of his political delinquencies, and gross hypocrisy, there can be only one opinion. But those who are conversant with that period well know how the genius of Mazarine, the minister of Louis XIII., was awed by the decision and boldness of Cromwell's character; that Spain and Holland experienced a signal humiliation, and that the victories of Admiral Blake at that crisis are among the most brilliant records of our naval fame. It was in allusion to these triumphs that Waller remarks, in his celebrated panegyric on the Lord Protector,
We add the following anecdote recorded of Waller, though it is probably familiar to many of our readers. On Charles's restoration the poet presented that prince with a congratulatory copy of verses, when the king shortly afterwards observed, "You wrote better verses on Cromwell;" to which Waller replied, "Please your majesty, we poets always succeed better in fiction than in truth."
Olney, March 7, 1782.
My dear Friend,—We have great pleasure in the contemplation of your northern journey, as it promises us a sight of you and yours by the way, and are only sorry Miss Shuttleworth cannot be of the party. A line to ascertain the hour when we may expect you, by the next preceding post, will be welcome.
It is not much for my advantage that the printer delays so long to gratify your expectation. It is a state of mind that is apt to tire and disconcert us; and there are but few pleasures that make us amends for the pain of repeated disappointment. I take it for granted you have not received the volume, not having received it myself, nor indeed heard from Johnson, since he fixed the first of the month for its publication.
What a medley are our public prints! Half the page filled with the ruin of the country, and the other half filled with the vices and pleasures of it—here is an island taken, and there a new comedy—here an empire lost, and there an Italian opera, or a lord's rout on a Sunday!
"May it please your lordship! I am an Englishman, and must stand or fall with the nation. Religion, its true palladium, has been stolen away; and it is crumbling into dust. Sin ruins us, the sins of the great especially, and of their sins especially the violation of the sabbath, because it is naturally productive of all the rest. If you wish well to our arms, and would be glad to see the kingdom emerging from her ruins, pay more respect to an ordinance that deserves the deepest! I do not say, pardon this short remonstrance!—The concern I feel for my country, and the interest I have in its prosperity, give me a right to make it. I am, &c."
Thus one might write to his lordship, and (I suppose) might be as profitably employed in whistling the tune of an old ballad.
I have no copy of the Preface, nor do I know at present how Johnson and Mr. Newton have settled it. In the matter of it there was nothing offensively peculiar. But it was thought too pious.
Yours, my dear friend,
W. C.
It is impossible to read this passage without very painful emotions. How low must have been the state of religion at that period, when the introduction of a Preface to the Poems of Cowper, by the Rev. John Newton, was sufficient to endanger their popularity. We are at the same time expressly assured, that there was nothing in the Preface offensively peculiar; and that the only charge alleged against it was that of its being "too pious." What a melancholy picture does this single fact present of the state of religion in those days; and with what sentiments of gratitude ought we to hail the great moral revolution that has since occurred! Witness the assemblage of so many Christian charities, our Bible, Missionary, Jewish, and Tract Societies, which, to use the emphatic language of Burke, "like so many non-conductors, avert the impending wrath of Heaven!" Witness the increasing instances of rank ennobled by piety, and consecrated to its advancement! Witness too the entrance of religion into our seats of learning, and into some of our public schools, thus presenting the delightful spectacle of classic taste and knowledge in alliance with heavenly wisdom. To these causes of pious gratitude we may add the revival of religion among our clergy, and generally among the ministers of the sanctuary, till we are constrained to exclaim, "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace, that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!"[140] We trust that we are indulging in no vain expectation, when we express our firm persuasion, that the dawn of a brighter day is arrived; and though we see, both at home and on the continent of Europe, much over which piety may weep and tremble, while idolatry and superstition spread their thick veil of darkness over the largest portion of the globe, still, notwithstanding all these impediments and discouragements, we believe that the materials for the moral amelioration of mankind are all prepared; and that nothing but the fire of the Eternal Spirit is wanting, to kindle them into flame and splendour.
Olney, March 14, 1782.
My dear Friend,—I can only repeat what I said some time since, that the world is grown more foolish and careless than it was when I had the honour of knowing it. Though your Preface was of a serious cast, it was yet free from every thing that might with propriety expose it to the charge of Methodism, being guilty of no offensive peculiarities, nor containing any of those obnoxious doctrines at which the world is apt to be angry, and which we must give her leave to be angry at, because we know she cannot help it. It asserted nothing more than every rational creature must admit to be true—"that divine and earthly things can no longer stand in competition with each other, in the judgment of any man, than while he continues ignorant of their respective value; and that the moment the eyes are opened, the latter are always cheerfully relinquished for the sake of the former." Now I do most certainly remember the time when such a proposition as this would have been at least supportable, and when it would not have spoiled the market of any volume to which it had been prefixed; ergo—the times are altered for the worse.
I have reason to be very much satisfied with my publisher—he marked such lines as did not please him, and, as often as I could, I paid all possible respect to his animadversions. You will accordingly find, at least if you recollect how they stood in the MS., that several passages are better for having undergone his critical notice. Indeed I not know where I could have found a bookseller who could have pointed out to me my defects with more discernment; and as I find it is a fashion for modern bards to publish the names of the literati who have favoured their works with a revisal, would myself most willingly have acknowledged my obligations to Johnson, and so I told him. I am to thank you likewise, and ought to have done it in the first place, for having recommended to me the suppression of some lines, which I am now more than ever convinced would at least have done me no honour.
W. C.
Olney, March 14, 1782.
My dear Friend,—As servant-maids, and such sort of folks, account a letter good for nothing, unless it begins with—This comes hoping you are well, as I am at this present: so I should be chargeable with a great omission, were I not to make frequent use of the following grateful exordium—Many thanks for a fine cod and oysters. Your bounty never arrived more seasonably. I had just been observing that, among other deplorable effects of the war, the scarcity of fish which it occasioned was severely felt at Olney; but your plentiful supply immediately reconciled me, though not to the war, yet to my small share in the calamities it produces.
I hope my bookseller has paid due attention to the order I gave him to furnish you with my books. The composition of those pieces afforded me an agreeable amusement at intervals, for about a twelvemonth; and I should be glad to devote the leisure hours of another twelvemonth to the same occupation; at least, if my lucubrations should meet with a favourable acceptance. But I cannot write when I would; and whether I shall find readers is a problem not yet decided. So the Muse and I are parted for the present.
I sent Lord Thurlow a volume, and the following letter with it, which I communicate because you will undoubtedly have some curiosity to see it.[142]
Yours,
W. C.
Olney, March 18, 1782.
My dear Friend,—Nothing has given me so much pleasure, since the publication of my volume, as your favourable opinion of it. It may possibly meet with acceptance from hundreds, whose commendation would afford me no other satisfaction than what I should find in the hope that it might do them good. I have some neighbours in this place, who say they like it; doubtless I had rather they should than that they should not, but I know them to be persons of no more taste in poetry than skill in the mathematics; their applause therefore is a sound that has no music in it for me. But my vanity was not so entirely quiescent when I read your friendly account of the manner it had affected you. It was tickled, and pleased, and told me in a pretty loud whisper that others, perhaps, of whose taste and judgment I had a high opinion, would approve it too. As a giver of good counsel, I wish to please all; as an author, I am perfectly indifferent to the judgment of all, except the few who are indeed judicious. The circumstance, however, in your letter which pleased me most was, that you wrote in high spirits, and, though you said much, suppressed more, lest you should hurt my delicacy; my delicacy is obliged to you, but you observe it is not so squeamish but that, after it has feasted upon praise expressed, it can find a comfortable dessert in the contemplation of praise implied. I now feel as if I should be glad to begin another volume, but from the will to the power is a step too wide for me to take at present, and the season of the year brings with it so many avocations into the garden, where I am my own fac-totum, that I have little or no leisure for the quill. I should do myself much wrong, were I to omit mentioning the great complacency with which I read your narrative of Mrs. Unwin's smiles and tears; persons of much sensibility are always persons of taste; and a taste for poetry depends indeed upon that very article more than upon any other. If she had Aristotle by heart, I should not esteem her judgment so highly, were she defective in point of feeling, as I do and must esteem it, knowing her to have such feelings as Aristotle could not communicate, and as half the readers in the world are destitute of. This it is that makes me set so high a price upon your mother's opinion. She is a critic by nature and not by rule, and has a perception of what is good or bad in composition that I never knew deceive her, insomuch that when two sorts of expression have pleaded equally for the precedence in my own esteem, and I have referred, as in such cases I always did, the decision of the point to her, I never knew her at a loss for a just one.
Whether I shall receive any answer from his Chancellorship[143] or not, is at present in ambiguo, and will probably continue in the same state of ambiguity much longer. He is so busy a man, and at this time, if the papers may be credited, so particularly busy, that I am forced to mortify myself with the thought, that both my book and my letter may be thrown into a corner, as too insignificant for a statesman's notice, and never found till his executor finds them. This affair, however, is neither at my libitum nor his. I have sent him the truth. He that put it into the heart of a certain eastern monarch to amuse himself, one sleepless night, with listening to the records of his kingdom, is able to give birth to such another occasion, and inspire his lordship with a curiosity to know what he has received from a friend he once loved and valued. If an answer comes, however, you shall not long be a stranger to the contents of it.
I have read your letter to their worships, and much approve of it. May it have the desired effect it ought! If not, still you have acted a humane and becoming part, and the poor aching toes and fingers of the prisoners will not appear in judgment against you. I have made a slight alteration in the last sentence, which perhaps you will not disapprove.
Yours ever,
W. C.
The conclusion of the preceding letter alludes to an application made by Mr. Unwin to the magistrates, for some warmer clothing for the prisoners in Chelmsford gaol.
It is a gratifying reflection, that the whole system of prison discipline has undergone an entire revision since the above period. This reformation first commenced under the great philanthropist Howard, who devoted his life to the prosecution of so benevolent an object and finally fell a victim to his zeal. Subsequently, and in our own times, the system has been extended still further; and the names of a Gurney, a Buxton, a Hoare, and others, will long be remembered with gratitude, as the friends and benefactors of these outcasts of society. One more effort was still wanting to complete this humane enterprize, viz. to endeavour to eradicate the habits of vice, and to implant the seeds of virtue. This attempt has been made by Mrs. Fry and her excellent female associates in the prison of Newgate; and the result, in some instances, has proved that no one, however depraved, is beyond the reach of mercy; and that divine truth, conveyed with zeal, and in the accents of Christian love and kindness, seldom fails to penetrate into the heart and conscience.
The unwillingness with which the mind receives the consolations of religion, when labouring under an illusion, is painfully evinced in the following letter:—
Olney, March 24, 1782.
My dear Friend,—I was not unacquainted with Mr. B—'s extraordinary case,[145] before you favoured me with his letter and his intended dedication to the Queen, though I am obliged to you for a sight of those two curiosities, which I do not recollect to have ever seen till you sent them. I could, however, were it not a subject that would make us all melancholy, point out to you some essential differences between his state of mind and my own, which would prove mine to be by far the most deplorable of the two. I suppose no man would despair, if he did not apprehend something singular in the circumstances of his own story, something that discriminates it from that of every other man, and that induces despair as an inevitable consequence. You may encounter his unhappy persuasion with as many instances as you please of persons who, like him, having renounced all hope, were yet restored; and may thence infer that he, like them, shall meet with a season of restoration—but it is in vain. Every such individual accounts himself an exception to all rules, and therefore the blessed reverse that others have experienced affords no ground of comfortable expectation to him. But, you will say, it is reasonable to conclude, that as all your predecessors in this vale of misery and horror have found themselves delightfully disappointed at last, so will you:—I grant the reasonableness of it; it would be sinful, perhaps, because uncharitable, to reason otherwise; but an argument, hypothetical in its nature, however rationally conducted, may lead to a false conclusion; and, in this instance, so will yours. But I forbear. For the cause above mentioned, I will say no more, though it is a subject on which I could write more than the mail would carry. I must deal with you as I deal with poor Mrs. Unwin, in all our disputes about it, cutting all controversy short by an appeal to the event.
W. C.
Olney, April 1, 1782.
My dear Friend,—I could not have found a better trumpeter. Your zeal to serve the interest of my volume, together with your extensive acquaintance, qualify you perfectly for that most useful office. Methinks I see you with the long tube at your mouth, proclaiming to your numerous connexions my poetical merits, and at proper intervals levelling it at Olney, and pouring into my ear the welcome sound of their approbation. I need not encourage you to proceed, your breath will never fail in such a cause; and, thus encouraged, I myself perhaps may proceed also, and, when the versifying fit returns, produce another volume. Alas! we shall never receive such commendations from him on the woolsack as your good friend has lavished upon us. Whence I learn that, however important I may be in my own eyes, I am very insignificant in his. To make me amends, however, for this mortification, Mr. Newton tells me that my book is likely to run, spread, and prosper; that the grave cannot help smiling, and the gay are struck with the truth of it; and that it is likely to find its way into his Majesty's hands, being put into a proper course for that purpose. Now, if the King should fall in love with my muse, and with you for her sake, such an event would make us ample amends for the Chancellor's indifference, and you might be the first divine that ever reached a mitre, from the shoulders of a poet. But (I believe) we must be content, I with my gains, if I gain any thing, and you with the pleasure of knowing that I am a gainer.
We laughed heartily at your answer to little John's question; and yet I think you might have given him a direct answer—"There are various sorts of cleverness, my dear.—I do not know that mine lies in the poetical way, but I can do ten times more towards the entertainment of company in the way of conversation than our friend at Olney. He can rhyme, and I can rattle. If he had my talent, or I had his, we should be too charming, and the world would almost adore us."
Yours,
W. C.
Olney, April 27, 1782.
My dear William,—A part of Lord Harrington's new-raised corps have taken up their quarters at Olney, since you left us. They have the regimental music with them. The men have been drawn up this morning upon the Market-hill, and a concert, such as we have not heard these many years, has been performed at no great distance from our window. Your mother and I both thrust our heads into the coldest east wind that ever blew in April, that we might hear them to greater advantage. The band acquitted themselves with taste and propriety, not blairing, like trumpeters at a fair, but producing gentle and elegant symphony, such as charmed our ears, and convinced us that no length of time can wear out a taste for harmony, and that though plays, balls, and masquerades, have lost all their power to please us, and we should find them not only insipid but insupportable, yet sweet music is sure to find a corresponding faculty in the soul, a sensibility that lives to the last, which even religion itself does not extinguish.
When we objected to your coming for a single night, it was only in the way of argument, and in hopes to prevail on you to contrive a longer abode with us. But rather than not see you at all, we should be glad of you though but for an hour. If the paths should be clean enough, and we are able to walk, (for you know we cannot ride,) we will endeavour to meet you in Weston-park. But I mention no particular hour, that I may not lay you under a supposed obligation to be punctual, which might be difficult at the end of so long a journey. Only, if the weather be favourable, you shall find us there in the evening. It is winter in the south, perhaps therefore it may be spring at least, if not summer, in the north; for I have read that it is warmest in Greenland when it is coldest here. Be that as it may, we may hope at the latter end of such an April, that the first change of wind will improve the season.
The curate's simile Latinized—
What a dignity there is in the Roman language; and what an idea it gives us of the good sense and masculine mind of the people that spoke it! The same thought which, clothed in English, seems childish and even foolish, assumes a different air in Latin, and makes at least as good an epigram as some of Martial's.
I remember your making an observation, when here, on the subject of "parentheses," to which I acceded without limitation; but a little attention will convince us both that they are not to be universally condemned. When they abound, and when they are long, they both embarrass the sense, and are a proof that the writer's head is cloudy; that he has not properly arranged his matter, or is not well skilled in the graces of expression. But, as parenthesis is ranked by grammarians among the figures of rhetoric, we may suppose they had a reason for conferring that honour upon it. Accordingly we shall find that, in the use of some of our finest writers, as well as in the hands of the ancient poets and orators, it has a peculiar elegance, and imparts a beauty which the period would want without it.
Virg. Æn. 8.
In this instance, the first that occurred, it is graceful. I have not time to seek for more, nor room to insert them. But your own observation, I believe, will confirm my opinion.
Yours ever,
W. C.
Olney, May 27, 1782.
My dear Friend,—Rather ashamed of having been at all dejected by the censure of the Critical Reviewers, who certainly could not read without prejudice a book replete with opinions and doctrines to which they cannot subscribe, I have at present no little occasion to keep a strict guard upon my vanity, lest it should be too much flattered by the following eulogium. I send it to you for the reasons I gave, when I imparted to you some other anecdotes of a similar kind, while we were together. Our interests in the success of this same volume are so closely united, that you must share with me in the praise or blame that attends it; and, sympathizing with me under the burden of injurious treatment, have a right to enjoy with me the cordials I now and then receive, as I happen to meet with more candid and favourable judges.
A merchant, a friend of ours,[146] (you will soon guess him,) sent my Poems to one of the first philosophers, one of the most eminent literary characters, as well as one of the most important in the political world, that the present age can boast of. Now perhaps your conjecturing faculties are puzzled, and you begin to ask "who, where, and what is he? speak out, for I am all impatience." I will not say a word more: the letter in which he returned his thanks for the present shall speak for him.[147]
We may now treat the critics as the archbishop of Toledo treated Gil Blas, when he found fault with one of his sermons. His grace gave him a kick and said, "Begone for a jackanapes, and furnish yourself with a better taste, if you know where to find it."
We are glad that you are safe at home again. Could we see at one glance of the eye what is passing every day upon all the roads in the kingdom, how many are terrified and hurt, how many plundered and abused, we should indeed find reason enough to be thankful for journeys performed in safety, and for deliverance from dangers we are not perhaps even permitted to see. When, in some of the high southern latitudes, and in a dark tempestuous night, a flash of lightning discovered to Captain Cook a vessel, which glanced along close by his side, and which but for the lightning he must have run foul of, both the danger and the transient light that showed it were undoubtedly designed to convey to him this wholesome instruction, that a particular Providence attended him, and that he was not only preserved from evils of which he had notice, but from many more of which he had no information, or even the least suspicion. What unlikely contingencies may nevertheless take place! How improbable that two ships should dash against each other, in the midst of the vast Pacific Ocean, and that, steering contrary courses from parts of the world so immensely distant from each other, they should yet move so exactly in a line as to clash, fill, and go to the bottom, in a sea, where all the ships in the world might be so dispersed as that none should see another! Yet this must have happened but for the remarkable interference which he has recorded. The same Providence indeed might as easily have conducted them so wide of each other that they should never have met at all, but then this lesson would have been lost; at least, the heroic voyager would have encompassed the globe, without having had occasion to relate an incident that so naturally suggests it.
I am no more delighted with the season than you are. The absence of the sun, which has graced the spring with much less of his presence than he vouchsafed to the winter, has a very uncomfortable effect upon my frame; I feel an invincible aversion to employment, which I am yet constrained to fly to as my only remedy against something worse. If I do nothing I am dejected, if I do any thing I am weary, and that weariness is best described by the word lassitude, which of all weariness in the world is the most oppressive. But enough of myself and the weather.
The blow we have struck in the West Indies[148] will, I suppose, be decisive, at least for the present year, and so far as that part of our possessions is concerned in the present conflict. But the news-writers and their correspondents disgust me and make me sick. One victory, after such a long series of adverse occurrences, has filled them with self-conceit and impertinent boasting; and, while Rodney is almost accounted a Methodist for ascribing his success to Providence,[149] men who have renounced all dependence upon such a friend, without whose assistance nothing can be done, threaten to drive the French out of the sea, laugh at the Spaniards, sneer at the Dutch, and are to carry the world before them. Our enemies are apt to brag, and we deride them for it; but we can sing as loud as they can, in the same key; and no doubt, wherever our papers go, shall be derided in our turn. An Englishman's true glory should be, to do his business well and say little about it; but he disgraces himself when he puffs his prowess, as if he had finished his task, when he has but just begun it.
Yours,
W. C.
Olney, June 12, 1782.
My dear Friend,—Every extraordinary occurrence in our lives affords us an opportunity to learn, if we will, something more of our own hearts and tempers than we were before aware of. It is easy to promise ourselves beforehand that our conduct shall be wise, or moderate, or resolute, on any given occasion. But, when that occasion occurs, we do not always find it easy to make good the promise: such a difference there is between theory and practice. Perhaps this is no new remark; but it is not a whit the worse for being old, if it be true.
Before I had published, I said to myself—you and I, Mr. Cowper, will not concern ourselves much about what the critics may say of our book. But, having once sent my wits for a venture, I soon became anxious about the issue, and found that I could not be satisfied with a warm place in my own good graces, unless my friends were pleased with me as much as I pleased myself. Meeting with their approbation, I began to feel the workings of ambition. It is well, said I, that my friends are pleased; but friends are sometimes partial, and mine, I have reason to think, are not altogether free from bias. Methinks I should like to hear a stranger or two speak well of me. I was presently gratified by the approbation of the "London Magazine" and the "Gentleman's," particularly by that of the former, and by the plaudit of Dr. Franklin. By the way, magazines are publications we have but little respect for till we ourselves are chronicled in them, and then they assume an importance in our esteem which before we could not allow them. But the "Monthly Review," the most formidable of all my judges, is still behind. What will that critical Rhadamanthus say, when my shivering genius shall appear before him? Still he keeps me in hot water, and I must wait another month for his award. Alas! when I wish for a favourable sentence from that quarter (to confess a weakness that I should not confess to all,) I feel myself not a little influenced by a tender regard to my reputation here, even among my neighbours at Olney. Here are watchmakers, who themselves are wits, and who at present perhaps think me one. Here is a carpenter, and a baker, and not to mention others, here is your idol, Mr. ——, whose smile is fame. All these read the "Monthly Review," and all these will set me down for a dunce, if those terrible critics should show them the example. But oh! wherever else I am accounted dull, dear Mr. Griffith, let me pass for a genius at Olney.
We are sorry for little William's illness. It is, however, the privilege of infancy to recover almost immediately what it has lost by sickness. We are sorry too for Mr. ——'s dangerous condition. But he that is well prepared for the great journey cannot enter on it too soon for himself, though his friends will weep at his departure.
Yours,
W. C.
The immediate success of his first volume was very far from being equal to its extraordinary merit. For some time it seemed to be neglected by the public, although the first poem in the collection contains such a powerful image of its author as might be thought sufficient not only to excite attention but to secure attachment: for Cowper had undesignedly executed a masterly portrait of himself in describing the true poet: we allude to the following verses in "Table Talk."