better it is for the Cowpers that such you are, and I give them joy

of you with all my heart) you must not forget, that I boast myself a Cowper too, and have my humours, and fancies, and purposes, and determinations, as well as others of my name, and hold them as fast as they can. You indeed tell me how often I shall see you when A pretty story truly. I am a He Cowper, my dear, and claim the privileges that belong to my noble sex. But these matters shall be settled, as my Cousin Agamemnon used to say, at a more convenient time.

you come.

From

I shall rejoice to see the Letter you promise me, for though I met with a morsel of praise last week, I do not know that the week current is likely to produce me any, and having lately been pretty much pampered with that diet, I expect to find myself rather hungry by the time when your next Letter shall arrive. It will therefore be very opportune. The morsel above alluded to, came from-whom do you think? but she desires that her authorship may be a secret. And in my answer I promised not to divulge it, except to you. It is a pretty copy of verses neatly written, and well turned, and when you come, you shall see them. I intend to keep all pretty things to myself till then, that they may serve me as a bait to lure you hither more effectually. The last Letter that I had from I received so many years since, that

it seems as if it had reached me a good while before I was born.

I was grieved at the heart that the General could not come, and that illness was in part the cause that hindered him. I have sent him by his express desire, a new edition of the first book, and half the second. He would not suffer me to send it to you, my He did not dear, least you should post it post it away to Maty at once. give that reason, but being shrewd, I found it.

The grass begins to grow, and the leaves to bud, and every

thing is preparing to be beautiful against you come.

Adieu.

W. C.

You inquire of our walks, I perceive, as well as of our rides. They are beautiful. You inquire also concerning a cellar. You have two cellars. Oh! what years have passed since we took the same walks, and drank out of the same bottle! but a few more weeks, and then!

LETTER LIII.

To Lady HESKETH.

Olney, May 8, 1786.

I did not at all doubt that your ten

in

your

Let

derness for my feelings had inclined you to suppress ters to me the intelligence concerning Maty's critique, that yet reached me from another quarter. When I wrote to you I had

not

not learned it from the General, but from my friend Bull, who only knew it by hear-say. The next post brought me the news of it from the first mentioned, and the critique itself inclosed. Together with it came also a squib discharged against me in the Public Advertizer. The General's Letter found me in one of my most melancholy moods, and my spirits did not rise on the receipt of it. The Letter indeed that he had cut from the news-paper gave me little pain, both because it contained nothing formidable, though written with malevolence enough, and because a nameless author can have no more weight with his readers than the reason which he has on his side, can give him. But Maty's animadversions hurt me more. In part they appeared to me unjust, and in part illnatured, and yet the man himself being an Oracle in every body's account, I apprehended that he had done me much mischief. Why he says that the Translation is far from exact, is best known to himself. For I know it to be as exact as is compatible with poetry; and prose translations of Homer are not wanted; the world has one already. But I will not fill my Letter to you with hypercriticisms, I will only add an extract from a Letter of Colman's, that I received last Friday, and will then dismiss the subject. It came accompanied by a copy of the Specimen, which he himself had amended, and with so much taste and candour that it charmed me. He says as follows:

" One

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"One copy I have returned, with some remarks prompted by my zeal for your success, not, Heaven knows, by arrogance

or impertinence. I know no other way at once so plain, and so short of delivering my thoughts on the specimen of your Trans"lation, which on the whole I admire exceedingly, thinking it breathes the spirit, and conveys the manner of the original; though having here neither Homer, nor Pope's Homer, I cannot speak precisely of particular lines or expressions, or compare your blank verse with his rhyme, except by declaring that I "think blank verse infinitely more congenial to the magnificent simplicity of Homer's hexameters, than the confined couplets, and the jingle of rhyme.”

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His amendments are chiefly bestowed on the lines encumbered with Elisions, and I will just take this opportunity to tell you, my dear, because I know you to be as much interested in what I write as myself, that some of the most offensive of those Elisions were occasioned by mere criticism. I was fairly hunted into them by vexatious objections made without end by and his friend,

and altered, and altered, till at last I did not care how altered. Many thanks for -'s verses, which deserve just the character you give of them, they are neat and easy-but I would mumble her well if I could get at her, for allowing herself to suppose for a moment that I praised the Chancellor with a view to emolument. I wrote those Stanzas merely for my own amusement, and they slept

in

in a dark closet years after I composed them; not in the least designed for publication. But when Johnson had printed off the longer pieces of which the first Volume principally consists, hewrote me word that he wanted yet two thousand lines to swell it to a proper size. On that occasion it was that I collected every scrap of verse that I could find, and that among the rest. None of the smaller poems had been introduced, or had been published at all with my name, but for this necessity.

Just as I wrote the last word I was called down to Dr. Kerr, who came to pay me a voluntary visit. Were I sick, his cheerful and friendly manner would almost restore me. Air and exercise are his theme; them he recommends as the best physic for me, and in all weathers. Come, therefore, my dear, and take a little of this good physic with me, for you will find it beneficial as well as I; come and assist Mrs. Unwin in the re-establishment of your Cousin's health. Air and exercise, and she and you together, will make me a perfect Samson. You will have a good house over your head, comfortable apartments, obliging neighbours, good roads, a pleasant country, and in us your constant companions, two who will love you, and do already love you dearly, and with all our hearts. If you are in any danger of trouble it is from myself, if my fits of dejection seize me; and as often as they do, you will be grieved for me; but perhaps by your assistance I shall be able to resist them better. If there is a creature under Heaven, from whose co-opera