tution, as to be able to put a pestilence into his pocket, confine it there, and to let it loose at his pleasure. We are much indebted to him that he did not give us here a stroke of his ability. I must not forget to mention that I have received (probably not without your privity) Mr. Twining's valuable volume.* For a long time I supposed it to have come from my bookseller, who It was a scene in every part And seem'd by some magician's art But other magic there she knew To raise such wonders in her view, That cordial thought her spirit cheer'd, And, through the cumb'rous throng, So, ancient poets say, serene With more than astronomic eyes She view'd the sparkling show; One Georgian star adorns the skies, Yet let the glories of a night Like that, once seen, suffice! Heav'n grant us no such future sight Such precious woe the price! The translation of Aristotle. now and then sends me a new publication; but I find, on inquiry, that it came not from him. I beg, madam, if you are aware that Mr. Twining himself sent it, or your friend Mr. Martyn, that you will negociate for me on the occasion, and contrive to convey to the obliging donor my very warmest thanks. I am impatient till he receives them. I have not yet had time to do justice to a writer so sensible, elegant, and entertaining, by a complete perusal of his work; but I have with pleasure sought out all those passages to which Mr. Martyn was so good as to refer me, and am delighted to observe the exact agreement in opinion on the subject of translation in general, and on that of Mr. Pope's in particular, that subsists between Mr. Twining and myself. With Mrs. Unwin's best compliments, I remain, my dear madam, your obliged and affectionate W. C. TO MRS. KING.* April 30, 1789. My dear Madam-I thought to have sent you, by the return of your messenger, a letter; at least, something like one: but instead of sleeping here, as I supposed he would, he purposes to pass the night at Lavendon, a village three miles off. This design of his is but just made known to me, and it is now near seven in the evening. Therefore, lest he should be obliged to feel out his way, in an unknown country, in the dark, I am forced to scribble * Private Correspondence. a hasty word or two, instead of devoting, as I intended, the whole evening to your service. * A thousand thanks for your basket, and all the good things that it contained; particularly for my brother's Poems, whose hand-writing struck me the moment I saw it. They gave me some feelings of a melancholy kind, but not painful. I will return them to you by the next opportunity. I wish that mine, which I send you, may prove half as pleasant to you as your excellent cakes and apples have proved to us. You will then think yourself sufficiently recompensed for your obliging present. If a crab-stock can transform a pippin into a nonpareil, what may not I effect in a translation of Homer? Alas! I fear, nothing half so valuable. I have learned, at length, that I am indebted for Twining's Aristotle to a relation of mine, General Cowper. Pardon me that I quit you so soon. It is not willingly; but I have compassion on your poor mes senger. Adieu, my dear Madam, and believe me Affectionately yours, W. C. * See letter to Lady Hesketh, August 9, 1788, where Cowper states that most of his brother's early productions, as well as his own, were lost, at the period that he left the Temple. TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESQ. The Lodge, May 20, 1789. My dear Sir-Finding myself between twelve and one, at the end of the seventeenth book of the Odyssey, I give the interval between the present moment and the time of walking, to you. If I write letters before I sit down to Homer, I feel my spirits too flat for poetry, and too flat for letterwriting if I address myself to Homer first; but the last I choose as the least evil, because my friends will pardon my dullness, but the public will not. At I had been some days uneasy on your account when yours arrived. We should have rejoiced to have seen you, would your engagements have permitted: but in the autumn, I hope, if not before, we shall have the pleasure to receive you. what time we may expect Lady Hesketh, at present, I know not; but imagine that at any time after the month of June you will be sure to find her with us, which I mention, knowing that to meet you would add a relish to all the pleasures she can find at Weston. When I wrote those lines on the Queen's visit, I thought I had performed well; but it belongs to me, as I have told you before, to dislike whatever I write when it has been written a month. The performance was therefore sinking in my esteem, when your approbation of it, arriving in good time, buoyed it up again. It will now keep possession of the place it holds in my good opinion, because it has been favoured with yours; and a copy will certainly be at your service whenever you choose to have one. Nothing is more certain than that when I wrote the line, God made the country, and man made the town, I had not the least recollection of that very similar one, which you quote from Hawkins Brown. It convinces me that critics (and none more than Warton, in his notes on Milton's minor poems) have often charged authors with borrowing what they drew from their own fund. Brown was an entertaining companion when he had drunk his bottle, but not before: this proved a snare to him, and he would sometimes drink too much; but I know not that he was chargeable with any other irregularities. He had those among his intimates, who would not have been such, had he been otherwise viciously inclined; the Duncombs, in particular, father and son, who were of unblemished morals. w. c. TO MRS. KING.* The Lodge, May 30, 1789. Dearest Madam-Many thanks for your kind and valuable dispatches, none of which, except your letter, I have yet had time to read; for true it is, and a sad truth too, that I was in bed when your messenger arrived. He waits only for my answer, for which reason I answer as speedily as I can. * Private Correspondence. |