"Softly he placed his hand

On th' old man's hand, and pushed it gently away."

I can say neither more nor less than this, that when our dear friend, the General, sent me his opinion on the specimen, quoting those very words from it, he added "With this part I was particularly pleased: there is nothing in poetry more descriptive." Such were his very words. Taste, my dear, is various; there is nothing so various; and even between persons of the best taste there are diversities of opinion on the same subject, for which it is not possible to account. So much for these matters.

You advise me to consult the General and to confide in him. I follow your advice, and have done both. By the last post I asked his permission to send him the books of my Homer, as fast as I should finish them off. I shall be glad of his remarks, and more glad, than of any thing, to do that which I hope may be agreeable to him. They will of course pass into your hands before they are sent to Johnson. The quire that I sent is now in the hands of Johnson's friend. I intended to have told you in my last, but forgot it, that Johnson behaves very handsomely in the affair of my two volumes. He acts with a liberality not often found in persons of his occupation, and to mention it when occasion calls me to it is a justice due to him.

I am very much pleased with Mr. Stanley's letter -several compliments were paid me on the subject of that first volume by my own friends, but I do not recollect that I ever knew the opinion of a stranger about it before, whether favourable or otherwise; I

only heard by a side wind that it was very much read in Scotland, and more than here.

Farewell, my dearest Cousin, whom we expect, of whom we talk continually, and whom we continually long for.

W. C..

P. S. Your anxious wishes for my success delight me, and you may rest assured, my dear, that I have all the ambition on the subject that you can wish me to feel. I more than admire my author. I often stand astonished at his beauties: I am for ever amused with the translation of him, and I have received a thousand encouragements. These are all so many happy omens that I hope shall be verified by the event.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN.

Olney, March 13, 1786.

My dear Friend-I seem to be about to write to you, but I foresee that it will not be a letter, but a scrap that I shall send you. I could tell you things, that, knowing how much you interest yourself in my success, I am sure would please you, but every moment of my leisure is necessarily spent at Troy. I am revising my translation, and bestowing on it more labour than at first. At the repeated solicitation of General Cowper, who had doubtless irrefragable reason on his side, I have put my book into the hands of the most extraordinary critic that I

have ever heard of. He is a Swiss; has an accurate knowledge of English, and, for his knowledge of Homer, has I verily believe no fellow. Johnson recommended him to me. I am to send him the quires as fast as I finish them off, and the first is now in his hands. I have the comfort to be able to tell you that he is very much pleased with what he has seen Johnson wrote to me lately on purpose to tell me so. Things having taken this turn, I fear that I must beg a release from my engagement to put the MS. into your hands. I am bound to print as soon as three hundred shall have subscribed, and consequently have not an hour to spare.

People generally love to go where they are admired, yet Lady Hesketh complains of not having seen you.

Yours,

W. C.

TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.*

Olney, April 1, 1786.

My dear Friend-I have made you wait long for an answer, and am now obliged to write in a hurry. But, lest my longer silence should alarm you, hurried as I am, still I write. I told you, if I mistake not, that the circle of my correspondence has lately been enlarged, and it seems still increasing; which, together with my poetical business, makes an hour a momentous affair. Pardon an unintentional pun. You Private Correspondence.

need not fear for my health: it suffers nothing by my employment.

We who in general see no company are at present in expectation of a great deal, at least, if three different visits may be called so. Mr. and Mrs. Powley, in the first place, are preparing for a journey southward. She is far from well, but thinks herself well enough to travel, and feels an affectionate impatience for another sight of Olney.

In the next place, we expect, as soon as the season shall turn up bright and warm, General Cowper and his son. I have not seen him these twenty years and upwards, but our intercourse, having been lately revived, is likely to become closer, warmer, and more intimate than ever.

Lady Hesketh also comes down in June, and if she can be accommodated with any thing in the shape of a dwelling at Olney, talks of making it always, in part, her summer residence. It has pleased God that I should, like Joseph, be put into a well, and, because there are no Midianites in the way to deliver me, therefore my friends are coming down into the well to see me.

I wish you, we both wish you, all happiness in your new habitation: at least you will be sure to find the situation more commodious. I thank you for all your hints concerning my work, which shall be duly attended to. You may assure all whom it may concern, that all offensive elisions will be done away. With Mrs. Unwin's love to yourself and Mrs. Newton, I remain, my dear friend, affectionately yours, W. C.

The friends of Cowper were not without alarm at his engaging in so lengthened and perilous an undertaking as a new version of the Iliad, when the popular translation of Pope seemed to render such an attempt superfluous. To one of his correspondents, who urged this objection, he makes the following reply.

TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.

Olney, April 5, 1786.

I did, as you suppose, bestow all possible consideration on the subject of an apology for my Homerican undertaking. I turned the matter about in my mind a hundred different ways, and, in every way in which it would present itself, found it an impracticable business. It is impossible for me, with what delicacy soever I may manage it, to state the objections that lie against Pope's translation, without incurring odium and the imputation of arrogance; foreseeing this danger, I choose to say nothing.

W. C.

P. S. You may well wonder at my courage, who have undertaken a work of such enormous length. You would wonder more if you knew that I translated the whole Iliad with no other help than a Clavis. But I have since equipped myself better for this immense journey, and am revising the work company with a good commentator.

in

The motives which induced Cowper to engage in