sable, hue to the first letter of a correspondence so unexpectedly renewed. I am delighted with what you tell me of my uncle's good health. To enjoy any measure of cheerfulness at so late a day, is much. But to have that late day enlivened with the vivacity of youth, is much more, and in these postdiluvian times, a rarity indeed. Happy, for the most part, are parents, who have daughters. Daughters are not apt to outlive their natural affections, which a son has generally survived, even before his boyish years are expired, I rejoice particularly in my uncle's, felicity, who has three female descendants from his little person, who leave him nothing to wish for upon that head. My dear cousin, dejection of spirits, which (I suppose) may have prevented many a man from becoming an author, made me one. I find constant employment. necessary, and, therefore, take care to be constantly employed. Manual occupations, do not engage the mind sufficiently, as I know by experience, having tried many. But.composition, especially of verse, absorbs it wholly. I write therefore, generally, three hours in the morning, and in an evening I transcribe. I read also, but less than I write, for I must have bodily exercise, and, therefore, never pass a day without it. You ask me, Where I have been this summer? I answer, at Olney. Should you ask me where I spent the last seventeen summers, I should still answer at Olney. Ay, and the winters also, I have seldom left it; and, except when I attended my brother in his last illness, never, I believe, a fortnight together. Adieu, my beloved cousin, I shall not always be thas nimble in reply, but shall always have great pleasure in answering you when I can. Yours, My dear friend and cousin, TO LADY HESKETH. MY DEAREST COUSIN, Olney, Nov. 9, 1785. WHOSE last most affectionate letter has run in my head ever since I received it, and which I now sit down to answer, two days sooner than the post will serve me. I thank you for it, and with a warmth for which I am sure you will give me credit, though I do not spend many words in describing it. I do not seek new friends, not being altogether sure that I should find them, but have unspeakable pleasure in being still beloved by an old one. I hope that now our correspondence has suffered it's last interruption, and that we shall go down together to the grave; chatting and chirping as merrily as such a scene of things as this will permit. you I am happy that my poems have pleased you. My vò lume has afforded me no such pleasure at any time, either while I was writing it, or since it's publication, as I have derived from yours, and my uncle's opinion of it. I make certain allowances for partiality, and for that peculiar quickness of taste, with which you both relish what like, and, after all drawbacks upon those accounts duly made, find myself rich in the measure of your approbation, that still remains. But, above all, I honour John Gilpin, since it was he who first encouraged you to write. I made him on purpose to laugh at, and he served his purpose well; but I am now in debt to him for a more valuable acquisi tion than all the laughter in the world amounts to, the recovery of my intercourse with you, which is to me inestimable. My benevolent and generous cousin, when I was once asked, if I wanted any thing, and given delicately to understand, that the inquirer was ready to supply all my occasions, I thankfully and civilly, but positively declined the favour. I neither suffer, nor have suffered, any such inconveniences as I had not much rather endure, than come under obligations of that sort to a person comparatively with yourself a stranger to me. But to you I answer otherwise. I know you thoroughly, and the liberality of your disposition, and have that consummate confidence in the sincerity of your wish to serve me, that delivers me from all awkward constraint, and from all fear of trespassing by acceptance. To you, therefore, I reply, yes. Whensoever, and whatsoever, and in what manner soever you please; and add, moreover, that my affection for the giver is such, as will increase to me tenfold the satisfaction that I shall have in receiving it. It is necessary, however, that I should let you a little into the state of my finances, that you may not suppose them more narrowly circumscribed than they are. Since Mrs. Unwin and I have lived at Olney, we have had but one purse, although during the whole of that time, till lately, her income was nearly double mine. Her revenues, indeed, are now in some measure reduced, and do not much exceed my own; the worst consequence of this is, that we are forced to deny ourselves some things, which hitherto we have been better able to afford, but they are such things as neither life nor the well-being of life depend upon. My own income has been better than it is, but when it was best, it would not have enabled me to live as my connexions demanded that I should, had it not been combined with a better than itself, at least at this end of the kingdom. Of this I had full proof during three months that I spent in lodgings at Huntingdon, in which time, by the help of good management, and a clear notion of economical matters, I contrived to spend the income of a twelvemonth. Now my beloved cousin, you are in possession of the whole case as it stands. Strain no points to your own inconvenience or hurt, for there is no need of it, but indulge yourself in communicating (no matter what) that you can spare without missing it, since, by so doing, you will be sure to add to the com forts of my life one of the sweetest that I can enjoy — a token and proof of your affection. In the affair of my next publication, toward which you also offer me so kindly your assistance, there will be no need that you should help me in the manner that you propose. It will be a large work, consisting, I should imagine, of six volumes at least. The 12th of this month I shall have spent a year upon it, and it will cost me more than another. I do not love the booksellers well enough to make them a present of such a labour, but intend to publish by subscription. Your vote and interest, my dear cousin, upon the occasion, if you please, but nothing more! I will trouble you with some papers of proposals when the time shall come, and am sure that you will circulate as many for me as you can. Now, my dear, I am going to tell you a secret. It is a great secret, that you must not whisper even to your cat. No creature is at this moment apprised of it but Mrs. Unwin and her son. I am making a new translation of Homer, and am on the point of finishing the twenty-first book of the Iliad. The reasons upon which I undertake this Herculean labour, and by which I justify an enterprise in which I seem so effectually anticipated by Pope, although, in fact, he has not anticipated me at all, I may possibly give you, if you wish for them, when I can find nothing more interesting to say. A period, which I do not conceive to be very near! I have not answered many things in your letter, nor can do it at present for want of room. I cannot believe but that I should know you, notwithstanding all that time may have done. There is not a feature of your face, could I meet it upon the road, by itself, that I should not instantly recollect. I should say, that is my cousin's nose, or those are her lips and her chin, and no woman upon Earth can claim them but herself. As for me, I am a very smart youth of my years. I am not, in deed grown gray, so much as I am grown bald. No matter. There was more hair in the world than ever had the honour to belong to me. Accordingly, having found just enough to curl a little at my ears, and to intermix with a little of my own, that still hangs behind, I appear, if you see me in an afternoon, to have a very decent head dress, not easily distinguished from my natural growth, which, being worn with a small bag, and a black riband about my neck, continues to me the charms of my youth, even on the verge of age. Away with the fear of writing too often. W.COWPER. P. SThat the view I give you of myself may be complete, I add the two following items-That I am in debt to nobody, and that I grow fat. TO LADY HESKETH. Olney, Feb. 9, 1786. MY DEAREST COUSIN, I HAVE been impatient to tell you, that I am im-` patient to see you again. Mrs. Unwin partakes with me in all my feelings upon this subject, and longs, also, to see you. I should have told you so by the last post, but have been so completely occupied by this tormenting specimen, that it was impossible to do it. I sent the general a letter on Monday, that would distress and alarm him; I sent him another yesterday, that will, I hope, quiet him again. Johnson has apologized very civilly for the multitude of his friend's strictures; and his friend has promised to confine himself, in future, to a comparison of me with the original, so that (I doubt not) we shall jog on merrily together. And now, my dear, let me tell you, once more, that your kindness in promising us a visit has charmed us both. I shall see you again. I shall hear your voice. We |