cess than he seems to do. Could he get the Pope to subscribe, I should have him, and should be glad of him and the whole conclave. The following letters are without a date; nor do we know to what period they refer. We insert them in the order in which we find them. TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. My dear Friend-You are my mahogany box, with a slip in the lid of it, to which I commit my productions of the lyric kind, in perfect confidence that they are safe, and will go no farther. All who are attached to the jingling art have this peculiarity, that they would find no pleasure in the exercise, had they not one friend at least to whom they might publish what they have composed. If you approve my Latin, and your wife and sister my English, this, together with the approbation of your mother, is fame enough for me. He who cannot look forward with comfort must find what comfort he can in looking backward. Upon this principle I the other day sent my imagination upon a trip thirty years behind me. She was very obedient and very swift of foot, presently performed her journey, and at last set me down in the sixth form at Westminster. I fancied myself once more a school-boy, a period of life in which, if I had never tasted true happiness, I was at least equally unacquainted with its contrary. No manufacturer of waking dreams ever succeeded better in his employment than I do. I can weave such a piece of tapestry, in a few minutes, as not only has all the charms of reality, but is embellished also with a variety of beauties, which, though they never existed, are more captivating than any that ever did :—accordingly, I was a school-boy, in high favour with the master, received a silver groat for my exercise, and had the pleasure of seeing it sent from form to form, for the admiration of all who were able to understand it. Do you wish to see this highly applauded performance? It follows on the other side. By way of compensation, we subjoin some verses, addressed to a young lady, at the request of Mr. Unwin, to whom he thus writes: "I have endeavoured to comply with your request, though I am not good at writing upon a given subject. Your mother however comforts me by her approbation, and I steer myself in all that I produce by her judgment. If she does not understand me at the first reading, I am sure the lines are obscure and always alter them; if she laughs, I know it is not without reason; and if she says, "That's well, it will do," I have no fear lest any body else should find fault with it. She is my lord chamberlain, who licenses all I write. * This jeu d'esprit has never been found, notwithstanding the most diligent inquiry. How many between east and west If you like it, use it: if not, you know the remedy. It is serious, yet epigrammatic-like a bishop at a ball ! W. C. It is remarkable, that the laudable efforts which are now making to enforce the better observance of the Lord's day, to diminish the temptations to perjury by the unnecessary multiplication of oaths, and to arrest the progress of the vice of drunkenness, appear from the following letter to have been anticipated nearly fifty years since, by the Rev. William Unwin. Deeply impressed with a sense of the extent and enormity of these national sins, his conscientious mind (always seeking opportunities for doing good) led him to urge the employment of Cowper's pen in the correction of these evils. What he suggested, as we believe, was as follows, viz. to draw up a memorial or representation on this subject to the bench of bishops, as the constituted guardians of public morals, and thus to call forth their united exertions; secondly, to awaken the public mind to the magnitude of these crimes, and, finally, to obtain some legislative enactment for their prevention. We now insert Cowper's reply to the proposition of his friend Mr. Unwin. TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. My dear Friend-I am sensibly mortified at finding myself obliged to disappoint you; but, though I have had many thoughts upon the subjects you propose to my consideration, I have had none that have been favourable to the undertaking. I applaud your purpose, for the sake of the principle from which it springs, but I look upon the evils you mean to animadvert upon as too obstinate and inveterate ever to be expelled by the means you mention. The very persons to whom you would address your remonstrance are themselves sufficiently aware of their enormity; years ago, to my knowledge, they were frequently the topics of conversations at polite tables; they have been frequently mentioned in both houses of parliament; and, I suppose, there is hardly a member of either who would not immediately assent to the necessity of a reformation, were it proposed to him in a reasonable way. But there it stops; and there it will for ever stop, till the majority are animated with a zeal in which they are at present deplorably defective. A religious man is unfeignedly shocked when he reflects upon the prevalence of such crimes; a moral man must needs be so in a degree, and will affect to be much more so than he is. But how many do you suppose there are among our worthy representatives that come under either of these descriptions? If all were such, yet to new model the police of the country, which must be done in order to make even unavoidable perjury less frequent, were a task they would hardly undertake, on account of the great difficulty that would attend it. Government is too much interested in the consumption of malt liquor to reduce the number of venders. Such plausible pleas may be offered in defence of travelling on Sundays, especially by the trading part of the world, as the whole bench of bishops would find it difficult to overrule. And with respect to the violation of oaths, till a certain name is more generally respected than it is at present, however such persons as yourself may be grieved at it, the legislature are never likely to lay it to heart. I do not mean, nor would by any means attempt, to discourage you in so laudable an enterprise, but such is the light in which it appears to me, that I do not teel the least spark of courage qualifying or prompt-` ing me to embark in it myself. An exhortation therefore written by me, by hopeless, desponding me, would be flat, insipid, and uninteresting; and disgrace the cause instead of serving it. If, after what I have said, however, you still retain the same sentiments, Macte esto virtute tuâ, there is nobody better qualified than yourself, and may your success prove that I despaired of it without a reason. Adieu, My dear friend, W. C. |