Pray us, would translate my letter into this language, remember the poor. This would disgust him, because he would think our former intimacy disgraced by such an oblique application. He has not forgotten me, and if he had, there are those about him who cannot come into his presence without reminding him of me, and he is also perfectly acquainted with my circumstances. It would perhaps give him pleasure to surprise me with a benefit; and if he means me such a favour, I should disappoint him by asking it. I repeat my thanks for your suggestion; you see a part of my reasons for thus conducting myself, if we were together I could give you more.* Yours affectionately, W. C. May 26, 1779. I AM obliged to you for the Poets; and though I little thought that I was translating so much money out of your pocket into the bookseller's, when I turned Prior's poem into Latin, yet I must needs say, that if you think it worth while to purchase the English Classics at all, you cannot possess yourself of them upon better terms. I have looked into some of the volumes, but not having yet finished the Register, have merely looked into them. A few things I have met with, which, if they had been burned the moment they were written, it would have been better for the author, and at least as well for his readers. There is not much of this, but a little too much. I think it a pity the editor admitted any; the English Muse would have lost no credit by the omission of such trash. Some of them again seem to me to have but a very disputable right to a place among the Classics; and I am quite at a loss, when I see them in such company, to conjecture what is Dr Johnson's idea or definition of classical merit.f *The allusion in this letter is to Lord Thurlow, who was promoted to the Lord High Chancellorship of England in the early part of the month in which it was written. He and Cowper were schoolfellows at Westminster, students together in the Temple, and spent much of their leisure time—that is, in the humorous phrase of the poet, "all their time" at Cowper's uncle's in Harley Street. Yet Thurlow, in the power of greatness, forgot his early friend. + Severe but just: Johnson, by placing their works among the contents of his seventy-two volumes, has loaded our literature with the names of at least fifteen verse writers, who would otherwise have been forgotten. But if he inserts the poems of some who can hardly be said to deserve such an honour, the purchaser may comfort himself with the hope that he will exclude none that do. W. C. 37. TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. HUMOROUS DESCRIPTION OF HIS AMUSEMENTS. September 21, 1779. AMICO MIO, Be pleased to buy me a glazier's diamond pencil. I have glazed the two frames designed to receive my pine plants. But I cannot mend the kitchen windows, till by the help of that implement I can reduce the glass to its proper dimensions. If I were a plumber I should be a complete glazier; and possibly the happy time may come, when I shall be seen trudging away to the neighbouring towns with a shelf of glass hanging at my back. If government should impose another tax upon that commodity, I hardly know a business in which a gentleman might more successfully employ himself. A Chinese of ten times my fortune, would avail himself of such an opportunity without scruple; and why should not I, who want money as much as any mandarin in China? Rousseau would have been charmed to have seen me so occupied, and would have exclaimed with rapture," that he had found the Emilius who (he supposed) had subsisted only in his own idea." I would recommend it to you to follow my example. You will presently qualify yourself for the task, and may not only amuse yourself at home, but may even exercise your skill in mending the church windows; which, as it would save money to the parish, would conduce, together with your other ministerial accomplishments, to make you extremely popular in the place. I have eight pair of tame pigeons. When I first enter the garden in the morning, I find them perched upon the wall, waiting for their breakfast; for I feed them always upon the gravel-walk. If your wish should be accomplished, and you should find yourself furnished with the wings of a dove, I shall undoubtedly find you amongst them. Only be so good, if that should be the case, to announce yourself by some means or other. For I imagine your crop will require something better than tares to fill it. Your mother and I last week made a trip in a post chaise to Gayhurst, the seat of Mr Wright, about four miles off. He understood that I did not much affect strange faces, and sent over his servant on purpose to inform me that he was going into Leicestershire, and that, if I chose to see the gardens, I might gratify myself without danger of seeing the proprietor. I accepted the invitation, and was delighted with all I found there. The situation is happy, the gardens elegantly disposed, the hot-house in the most flourishing state, and the orange trees the most captivating creatures of the kind I ever saw. A man, in short, had need have the talents of Cox or Langford, the auctioneers, to do the whole scene justice. Our love attends you all. Yours, W. C. 38. TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. JOHNSON'S LIVES THE DOCTOR'S CRITICISM OF MILTON. October 31, 1779. MY DEAR FRIEND,-I wrote my last letter merely to inform you that I had nothing to say, in answer to which you have said nothing. I admire the propriety of your conduct, though I am a loser by it. I will endeavour to say something now, and shall hope for something in return. I have been well entertained with Johnson's biography, for which I thank you: with one exception, and that a swinging one, I think he has acquitted himself with his usual good sense and sufficiency. His treatment of Milton is unmerciful to the last degree. He has belaboured that great poet's character with the most industrious cruelty. As a man, he has hardly left him the shadow of one good quality. Churlishness in his private life, and a rancorous hatred of every thing royal in his public, are the two colours with which he has smeared all the canvass. If he had any virtues, they are not to be found in the Doctor's picture of him, and it is well for Milton, that some sourness in his temper is the only vice with which his memory has been charged; it is evident enough that if his biographer could have discovered more, he would not have spared him. As a poet, he has treated him with severity enough, and has plucked one or two of the most beautiful feathers out of his Muse's wing, and trampled them under his great foot. He has passed sentence of condemnation upon Lycidas, and has taken occasion, from that charming poem, to expose to ridicule (what is indeed ridiculous enough) the childish prattlement of pastoral compositions, as if Lycidas was the prototype and pattern of them all. The liveliness of the description, the sweetness of the numbers, the classical spirit of antiquity that prevails in it, go for nothing. I am convinced, by the way, that he has no ear for poetical numbers, or that it was stopped by prejudice against the harmony of Milton's. Was there ever any thing so delightful as the music of the Paradise Lost? It is like that of a fine organ; has the fullest and the deepest tones of majesty, with all the softness and elegance of the Dorian flute: variety without end, and never equalled, unless perhaps by Virgil. Yet the Doctor has little or nothing to say upon this copious theme, but talks something about the unfitness of the English language for blank verse, and how apt it is, in the mouth of some readers, to degenerate into declamation. I could talk a good while longer, but I have no room; our love attends you. Yours affectionately, W. C. 39. TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. TITHE VEXATIONS-HOLLOWNESS OF MODERN PATRIOTISM. December 2, 1779. MY DEAR FRIEND,-How quick is the succession of human events! The cares of to-day are seldom the cares of tomorrow; and when we lie down at night, we may safely say to most of our troubles "Ye have done your worst, and we shall meet no more." This observation was suggested to me by reading your last letter; which though I have written since I received it, I have never answered. When that epistle passed under your pen, you were miserable about your tithes, and your imagination was hung round with pictures that terrified you to such a degree, as made even the receipt of money burdensome. But it is all over now. You sent away your farmers in good humour (for you can make people merry whenever you please,) and now you have nothing to do but to chink your purse, and laugh at what is past. Your delicacy makes you groan under that which other men never feel, or feel but lightly. A fly, that settles upon the tip of the nose, is troublesome; and this is a comparison adequate to the most that mankind in general are sensible of, upon such tiny occasions. But the flies that pester you always get between your eyelids, where the annoyance is almost insupportable.* * The same ideas are followed out in the poem, entitled, "The Yearly Distress." I would follow your advice, and endeavonr to furnish Lord North with a scheme of supplies for the ensuing year, if the difficulty I find in answering the call of my own emergencies did not make me despair of satisfying those of the nation. I can say but this, -if I had ten acres of land in the world, whereas I have not one, and in those ten acres should discover a gold mine, richer than all Mexico and Peru, when I had reserved a few ounces for my own annual supply, I would willingly give the rest to government. My ambition would be more gratified by annihilating the national encumbrances, than by going daily down to the bottom of a mine, to wallow in my own emolument. This is patriotism—you will allow ; but, alas, this virtue is for the most part in the hands of those who can do no good with it! He that has but a single handful of it, catches so greedily at the first opportunity of growing rich, that his patriotism drops to the ground, and he grasps the gold instead of it. He that never meets with such an opportunity, holds it fast in his clenched fists, and says,— 66 5 Oh, how much good I would do, if I could!” Your mother says " Pray send my dear love." hardly room to add mine, but you will suppose it. There is Yours, W. C. THE WRITER'S MODESTY REYNOLDS' REMARK ON GENIUS AND MEDIOCRITY COWPER'S ATTEMPTS IN FUGITIVE POETRY. February 27, 1780. MY DEAR FRIEND,-As you are pleased to desire my letters, I am the more pleased with writing them, though, at the same time, I must needs testify my surprise that you should think them worth receiving, as I seldom send one that I think favourably of myself. This is not to be understood as an imputation upon your taste or judgment, but as an encomium upon my own modesty and humility, which I desire you to remark well. It is a just observation of Sir Joshua Reynolds, that though men of ordinary talents may be highly satisfied with their own productions, men of true genius never are. Whatever be their subject, they always seem to themselves to fall short of it, even when they seem to others most to excel. And for this reason, because they have a certain sublime sense of perfection, which other men are strangers to, and which they themselves in their performances are not able |