HUMOROUS LETTERS. 209 dental notices, as well as whole epistles, that demonstrate how very unjust any intimation of this nature must have been ; unjust to Cowper himself as well as Newton, and conveying an idea of constraint, if not dissimulation, where there was never any thing but openness and freedom. For example, Cowper sent to Newton, in one of his letters, the following lines, entitled Mary and John: If John marries Mary, and Mary alone, "Tis a very good match between Mary and John. Should John wed a score, oh the claws and the scratches! In another letter, November 27, 1781, he refers to this trifle, and says to Newton, "I never wrote a copy of 'Mary and John' in my life, except that which I sent to you. It was one of those bagatelles which sometimes spring up like mushrooms in my imagination, either while I am writing, or just before I begin. I sent it to you, because to you I send any thing that I think may raise a smile, but should never have thought of multiplying the impression." Now let us take, as additional instances of the familiar and playful attitude of his mind in his correspondence with Newton, first, an amusing letter, which beautifully sets forth his motive and manner in writing his admirable poem "On Charity;" and second, as an example of the spontaneous ease 210 LETTERS TO NEWTON. with which his thoughts flowed in the particular form of versification in which that poem was cast, his poetical letter to Mrs. Newton, thanking her for a present of oysters. Both these epistles were in the same year, 1781. My very dear friend, I am going to send, what when you have read, you may scratch your head, and say I suppose, there's nobody knows, whether what I have got, be verse or not ;-by the tune and the time, it ought to be rhyme; but if it be, did ever you see, of late or of yore, such a ditty before? "I have writ' Charity,' not for popularity, but as well as I could, in hopes to do good; and if the 'Reviewer' should say to be sure, the gentleman's muse wears Methodist shoes, you may know by her pace, and talk about grace, that she and her bard have little regard for the taste and fashions, and ruling passions, and hoidening play, of the modern day; and though she assume a borrowed plume, and now and then wear a tittering air, 'tis only her plan, to catch if she can, the giddy and gay, as they go that way, by a production of a new construction; she has baited her trap, in the hope to snap all that may come, with a sugar-plum. His opinion in this will not be amiss; 'tis what I intend, my principal end; and if I succeed, and folks should read, till a few are brought to a serious thought, I shall think I am paid for all I have LETTERS TO NEWTON. 211 said, and all I have done, although I have run, many a time, after a rhyme, as far as from hence to the end of my sense, and by hook or by crook, write another book, if I live and am here, another year. 66 I have heard before of a room with a floor, laid upon springs, and such like things, with so much art in every part, that when you went in, you was forced to begin a minuet pace, with an air and a grace, swimming about, now in and now out, with a deal of state, in a figure of eight, without pipe or string, or any such thing; and now I have writ, in a rhyming fit, what will make you dance, and as you advance, will keep you still, though against your will, dancing away, alert and gay, till you come to an end of what I have penn'd, which that you may do, ere madam and you are quite worn out with jigging about, I take my leave, and here you receive a bow profound, down to the ground, from your humble me.-W. C." The other epistle to Mrs. Newton is one of the happiest specimens of Cowper's perfectly natural and easy command of the best language, the aptest familiar words, trooping spontaneously to their places in flowing and harmonious verse; an illustration of what he once told Mr. Unwin, that when he thought at all, he thought most naturally in rhyme. |