of the success of our application, either from Lady Hesketh, or possibly from the Bishop of B. himself, who is an old friend as well as cousin of mine; and, since he would be willing, I believe, to gratify me on all proper occasions, I see not why he should do otherwise on this. On all accounts I wish and hope a favourable event, and particularly because I shall be glad to have the mathematical bigots who triumph in your mortification, mortified themselves. I shall have two books of alterations for you to transcribe when you come. One I have transcribed myself since you went. You will have also a new gimcrack to copy into my book, consisting of I know not how many stanzas.

With our united best love and wishes for your good journey, I remain, truly yours,

P.S.—The cheese came safe, and is excellent.

WM. COWPER

11

MY DEAREST JOHNNY,

W. U., June 28th, 1793

In the interval between Mrs. Unwin's walk and my own I take pen in hand, merely to tell you in few words that I have received no letter this many a day that has given me equal pleasure with that from yourself, and which arrived this morning. I told you, my man, that Providence would order the affair for you, and that you would find the door ecclesiastical opened to you exactly at the time and by the means that would be best for you; and so it proves. Now I see it to be well that Bristol would not comply; yet, though his non-compliance was evidently providential, that by no means excuses him. It was unfriendly to me, and by this time he probably knows that I account it so. I cannot tell you how much we both rejoice, not only at your accession to the void living, but likewise at the manner in which you get it; entreated to accept what all the young clergy, ay, and most of the old ones too, would go round the world to acquire. Nothing, in short, seems wanting in the whole affair, to make it the happiest event that could be, and may God but give you grace, as I trust he will, to exercise your new functions as becomes a Minister of his Gospel, your lot will be indeed a good one. Your entrance into the Church, your condition in it, and your performance of the duties it imposes on you, will be all honourable and such as will afford constant matter of thankfulness to yourself and to all who love you.

Mrs. Bodham's letter arrived here precisely at the worst time for a letter in haste to be delivered. It came on Saturday, consequently could not go hence till the next day, when I sent it directed to you at Caius.

I am truly sorry for her, and sympathize with her in all that she suffers on account of her husband's illness. I have lived a life of almost perpetual alarm on a similar account, and can for that reason the more feelingly apprehend what her distress must be.

Let me have as early an account as possible of the conclusion of all your matters, at least of your ordination, and believe me, with our united best remembrances,

Ever yours,

WM. COWPER

My love to the Bodhams, your sister, and all friends.

12

MY DEAR AND REVD. JOHNNY,

W. U., July 10th, 1793

Your letter which brought me the joyful news of your ordination reached me yesterday, and yesterday I intended to have answered it, but was hindered by the arrival of two gentlemen whom Mr. Greatheed, now at Buxton, has left to keep his house in his absence. At the peril of total dissolution they had come through a burning sun to see me, and I could do no less than give them all my attention.

I learn from Lady H. that you, in the abundance of your charity, not only apologize for the B. of Bristol, but judge that he did right to refuse you. So do not I. It was a trifle that we asked, and I still insist on it that he ought not to have said us nay; since, trifle as it was so far as he was concerned, to you it was of the last importance. I rejoice, however, that Norwich was more reasonable. What sort of a Bishop he may be in other respects I know not, but shall always honour him for the humanity he exercised in your case, which I expected and had reason to expect from my own cousin, but found not.

Tell me in your next when I shall see you again. I am at the end of the 22nd book. If there has * any hope that you will be here to transcribe for me when I have done, I will not transcribe for myself; otherwise, before I begin the Odyssey, I will finish the fair copy of the alterations and send away the "Iliad.”

Homer is erected, and a noble figure he makes. The sun never shone hotter on his head, ἐν μέσῳ "Αργεος ἱπποβάτοιο, than it does here to-day. Everybody admired him. I have doubts about a motto, whether any or none, and if any, whether a Greek one of two lines that I have made myself, or whether my own translation οἱ τὸν περὶ Μοῦσ ̓ ἐφίλησε, &c.

The intense heat is such that I can only add what you wish

* Sic; but query "is."

principally to know, that I am as well as usual, and Mrs. Unwin too, a rheumatic pain in her cheek excepted. Remember to get me a stock of paper.

Yours, my dear Johnny, affectionately,

Mrs. U. sends you her love and best wishes.

WM. COWPER

13

[October 23rd, 1793]

MY DEAREST JOHNNY,

The rumbling of your chaise was hardly out of my ears when I recollected that I had let you go without payment of what I owe you for good liquors and paper, and perhaps for twenty other matters. But Mr. Rose, I know, will have the goodness to settle the account for me, and pay himself again when any cash of mine comes

into his hands.

Whether you have taken my penknife or not I have not yet learned, but you have left your own, a leaving which I admire the more, because you found yours, after having missed it, only the moment before you went. Adieu; let me hear from you as soon as you get to Dereham, and tell me all that passes between you and Johnson. Give my love to the whole fireside where you are, and believe me your affectionate

October 23rd, 1793.

After Homer and before breakfast.

WILLIAM COWPER

14

Weston Underwood, November 30th, 1793

MY DEAREST JOHNNY,

That I may begin my Sabbath pleasantly at least, though not so piously as yourself, I begin it with a letter to you. To pay a debt that has been long owing cannot be a bad deed on any day. Time was when on Sabbath mornings in winter I rose before day, and by the light of a lanthorn trudged with Mrs. Unwin, often through snow and rain, to a prayer meeting at the Great House, as they call it, near the church at Olney. There I always found assembled forty or fifty poor folks, who preferred a glimpse of the light of God's countenance and favour to the comforts of a warm bed, or to any comforts that the world could afford them; and there I have often myself partaken that blessing with them. If I live a different life now, it is not because I have found, or think that I have found, a better way of living, but because, for

reasons too long and too unpleasant to be enumerated here, I have been constrained to do so, God knows with how much sorrow and misery to myself on account of the loss of his presence which is better than life. I will not tell you how I lost it, and probably I never shall, and that merely because it would do you no good to know it, the story being absolutely incredible; but I know the truth of it, and have for twenty years suffered things not to be expressed, in consequence. The instruction, however, to be collected from it I will give you, and it is this. Never shut your eyes against a known duty, nor close your ears to an express providential call, however uncommon and even unprecedented it may be, and however difficult the service that it enjoins. Thus, my dear Johnny, without intending it when I began, I have preached to you, who are now preparing to preach to others. God help you to profit by the lesson which I am sure is a good one, and heal the wounds that I have incurred and long time languished under, because I neglected it! Amen.

It is of no consequence that you had not time to see Johnson, for Hayley has seen him, and conferred with him much to my satisfaction. Diverse matters, all very agreeable to me, were the subjects of it, but the most agreeable of all, in the result of it, was this new edition of Milton; on which subject I learn that the publication is postponed on account of the war, which leaves the world no leisure for literary amusements; Johnson accordingly thinks it would be too hazardous to send forth so expensive a work at present. I have therefore leisure, when Homer is finished, which will soon be the case, instead of acting the dull part of a commentator, to perform the poet's part, far pleasanter and more adapted to my natural propensity. You will not be displeased to learn that Lawrence's sketch of me is to be engraved by Bartolozzi, though for private use only, and that a new edition of my poems with embellishments by Lawrence is in contemplation.

You do kindly and like yourself to gratify your sister's preference of landed honours to vile cash, though your compliance is certainly an expensive one. Her pride in this instance is of a kind that I have no quarrel with.

Adieu. We are as well as usual. and Mrs. Unwin's best love attend you.

Lady Hesketh is here. Hers

Yours ever,

WILLIAM COWPER

Give my love to your sister, whose likeness to my mother insures to her always my tenderest attachment, and my love to all friends. I hope you have by this time heard from Mr. Newton. I have nothing more to do with Homer now but to go over the last book of the Iliad with Clarke's notes, to write a new preface, and to transcribe the alterations.

LETTERS TO JOSEPH HILL

15

May 31st, 1777

MY DEAR FRIEND,

I received yesterday Mr. Child's note for £30, and return my best thanks for it.

I wish it had been possible to have sent you a riper fruit, but it is necessary to gather melons a day or two too soon when they are to be sent to a distance, else they would be as yellow as a gourd before they could be brought to table. Three days after I cut yours I sent the fellow to it to a neighbouring clergyman who gives me all my litter, and that was so ripe that it parted from the stalk. We have eat part of one to-day, of a different sort (the early Cantalupe), as high-flavoured a fruit as ever I tasted. I have a third sort to produce by-and-by, called the Black Rock, which I design you shall partake of, and for experiment's sake I will let it hang till it cracks.

If you can furnish me (I mean if Mrs. Hill can) at Michaelmas with any embellishments for my borders, I shall be obliged to her; a crocus in spring, a pink in summer, and a sunflower in autumn, is almost the ne plus of our gardens in this neighbourhood. Yours affectionately,

16

WILLIAM COWPER

June 6th, 1778

MY DEAR FRIEND,

I am much obliged to you for your offer to advance the necessary sum upon this important occasion, but it is now summer time, and I should fear lest the wine might suffer by a journey in hot weather. My stock is not exhausted, and I can wait till Michaelmas. Nevertheless, as you gave me reason not long since to hope that you would receive near £20 more on my account, in the course of the summer, I shall be glad, should that be the case, to have it remitted to me; otherwise I should be in danger of being straitened.

Thurlow's advancement to the seals, I imagine, surprises nobody. I should formerly have conceived great pleasure from such an event, in which self would have its share. A certain provision for me would have been the consequence of his promotion. But "Damnosa