When you and I, therefore, fhall have the whole and management of fuch a business entrusted to us, we fole I was glad to learn from the papers that our coufin Henry fhone as he did in reading the charge. This must have given much pleasure to the General. Thy ever affectionate, W. C. LETTER LXXXVIIL To Lady HESKETH. THE LODGE, March 3, 1788. ONE day last week, Mrs. Unwin and I having taken our morning walk, and returning homeward through the wilderness, met the Throckmortons. A minute after we had met them, we heard the cry of hounds at no great distance, and mounting the broad ftump of an elm, which had been felled, and by the aid of which we were enabled to look over the wall, we faw them. They were all that time in our orchard; prefently we heard a Terrier, belonging to Mrs. Throckmorton, which you may remember by the name of Fury, yelping with much vehemence, and faw her running through the thickets within a few yards of us at her utmost speed, as if in pursuit of fomething, which we doubted not was the Fox. Before we could reach the other end of the wilderness, the hounds entered alfo ; and when we arrived at the gate which opens into the grove, there we found the whole weary cavalcade affembled. The huntsman difmounting, begged leave to follow his hounds on foot, for he was fure he said that they had killed him. A conclufion which I fuppofe he drew from their profound filence. He was accordingly admitted, and with a fagacity that would not have dishonoured the best hound in the world, pursuing precifely the fame track which the fox and the dogs had taken, though he had never had a glimpse of either after their first entrance through the rails, arrived where he found the flaughtered prey. He foon produced dead Reynard, and rejoined us in the grove with all his dogs about him. Having an opportunity to fee a ceremony, which I was pretty fure would never fall in my way again, I determined to stay, and to notice all that paffed with the most minute attention. The huntfman having by the aid of a pitchfork lodged Reynard on the arm of an elm, at the height of about nine feet from the ground, there left him for a confiderable time. The gentlemen fat on their horfes contemplating the Fox, for which they had toiled fo hard; and the hounds. affembled at the foot of the tree, with faces not lefs expreffive of the most rational delight, contemplated the fame object. The huntfman remounted; he cut off a foot, and threw it to the hounds-one of them fwallowed it whole like a bolus. He then once more alighted, and drawing down the Fox by the hinder legs, defired the people, who were by this time rather numerous, to open a lane for him to the right and left. He was inftantly obeyed, when throwing the Fox to the distance of fome yards, and fereaming like a fiend, "tear him to pieces”—at least fix times repeatedly, he configned him over abfolutely to the pack, who in a few minutes devoured him completely. Thus, my dear, as Virgil fays, what none of the gods could have ventured to promise me, time itself, pursuing its accustomed course, has of its own accord prefented me with. I have been in at the death of a fox, and you now know as much of the matter as I, who am as well informed as any sportsman in England.. Yours, W. C. LETTER LXXXIX. To Lady HESKETH. THE LODGE, March 12, 1788 SLAVERY, and the Manners of the Great, I have read. The former I admired, as I do all that Mifs More writes, as well for energy of expreffion, as for the tendency of the defign. I have never yet seen any production of her pen that has not recommended itself by both these qualifications. There is likewise much good fenfe in her manner of treating every fubject, and no mere poetic cant (which is the thing that I abhor) in her manner of treating any. And this I fay, not because you now know and visit her, but it has long been my avowed opinion of her works, which I have both spoken and written as often as I have had occafion to mention them. Mr. Wilberforce's little book (if he was the author of it) has also charmed me. It must, I fhould imagine, engage the notice of thofe to whom it is addreffed. In that cafe one may say to them, either anfwer it, or be fet down by it. They will do neither. They will ap prove, commend, and forget it.` Such has been the fate of all exhortations to reform, whether in verse or profe,, and however closely preffed upon the confcience in all ages, here and there a happy individual, to whom God gives grace and wisdom to profit by the admonition, is the better for it. But the aggregate body (as Gilbert Cooper used to call the multitude) remain, though with a very good understanding of the matter, like horfe and mule that have none. We shall now foon lofe our neighbours at the Hall. We fhall truly miss them, and long for their return. Mr. Throckmorton faid to me last night, with sparkling cyes, and a face expreffive of the highest pleasure, "We com pared you this morning with Pope; we read your fourth Iliad, and his, and I verily think we fhall beat him. He has many fuperfluous lines, and does not interest one. When I read your tranflation, I am deeply affected. I fee plainly your advantage, and am convinced that Pope spoiled all by attempting the work in rhyme.” His brother George, who is my most active amanuenfis, and who indeed first introduced the subject, feconded all he faid. More would have paffed, but Mrs. Throckmorton having seated herself at the harpfichord, and for my amusement merely, my attention was of course turned to her. The new vicar of Olney is arrived, and we have exchanged vifits. He is a plain, fenfible man, and pleases me much. A treafure for Olney, if Olney' can understand his value. Adieu.. W.C. LETTER XC.. To General COWPER. WESTON, Dec. 13, 1787. MY DEAR GENERAL, A LETTER is not pleasant which excites curiosity, but does not gratify it. Such a letter was my laft, the defects of which I therefore take the first opportunity to fupply. When the condition of our negroes in the iflands was first prefented to me as a fubject for songs, I felt myself not at all allured to the undertaking; it feemed to offer only images of horror, which could. by no means be accommodated to the style of that sort of compofition. But having a defire to comply, if poffible, with the request made to me, after turning the matter my mind as many ways as I could, I at last, as I told you, produced three, and that which appears to myself the best of those three, I have sent you. Of the other in two, one is ferious, in a strain of thought perhaps rather too ferious, and I could not help it. The other, of which the Slave Trader is himself the fubject, is fomewhat ludicrous. If I could think them worth your feeing, I would, as opportunity should occur, fend them alfo. If this amufes you I fhall be glad.. W. C. THE MORNING DREAM.* A BALLAD. "TWAS in the glad season of spring, Far hence to the weftward I fail'd, And the fresh blowing breeze never fail'd. In the fteerage a woman I saw, Such at least was the form that she wore, Never taught me by woman before. Shed light like a fun on the waves, Then raifing her voice to a ftrain, The fweeteft that ear ever heard, *The excellence of this Ballad induces me to reprint it here, although it has appeared in the last edition of Cowper's Poems, |