done, that when the whole shall appear, fhe may find her expectations answered. I am glad also that thou didst fend her the fixteenth Odyssey, though, as I faid before, I know not at all at present, whereof it is made; but I am fure that thou wouldst not have fent it, hadft thou not conceived a good opinion of it thyself, and thought that it would do me credit.. It was very kind in thee to facrifice to this Minerva on my account.

For my fentiments on the fubject of the Test Act, I cannot do better than refer thee to my Poem entitled and called "Expoftulation." I have there expreffed myself not much in its favour, confidering it in a religious view; and in a political one, I like it not a jot the better. I am neither tory, nor high churchman, but an old whig, as my father was before me; and an enemy, confequently, to all tyrannical impofitions.

Mrs. Unwin bids me return thee many thanks for thy inquiries fo kindly made concerning her health. She is a little better than of late, but has been ill continually ever fince last November. Every thing that could try patience and fubmiffion, she has had, and her fubmiffion and patience have answered in the trial, though mine on her account have often failed fadly.

I have a letter from Johnson, who tells me that he has fent his transcript to you, begging at the fame time more copy. Let him have it by all means; he is an industri..... ous youth, and I love him dearly. I told him that you are difpofed to love him a little. A new Poem is born on. the receipt of my mother's picture. Thou fhalt have it..

W. C

LETTER CXXVII.

To SAMUEL ROSE, Efq.

THE LODGE, March 11, 1790.

I WAS glad to hear from you, for a line from you gives me always much pleasure, but was not much gladdened by the contents of your letter. The ftate of your health, which I have learned more accurately perhaps from my coufin, except in this last instance, than from yourself, has rather alarmed me, and even she has collected her information upon that fubject more from your looks, than from your own acknowledgments. To complain much, and often, of our indifpofitions, does not always enfure the pity of the hearer, perhaps fometimes forfeits it; but to diffemble them altogether, or at least to fupprefs the worft, is attended ultimately, with an inconvenience greater ftill; the fecret will out at laft, and our friends, unprepared to receive it, are doubly diftreffed about us. In faying this, I fquint a little at Mrs. Unwin, who will read it; it is with her as with you, the only fubject on which fhe practises any diffimulation at all; the confequence is, that when fhe is much indifpofed, I never believe myself in poffeffion of the whole truth, live in conftant expectation of hearing fomething worfe, and at the long run am feldom. disappointed. It seems therefore, as on all other occa-, fions, fo even in this, the better course on the whole to. appear what we are, not to lay the fears of our friends afleep by cheerful looks which do not properly belong to us, or by letters written as if we were well, when in fact we are very much other wife. On conditien, however, that you act differently toward me for the future, I will pardon the past, and she may gather from my clemency fhewn to you, fome hopes, on the fame conditions, of fimilar clemency to herself. W. C.

LETTER CXXVIII.

To Mrs. THROCKMORTON.

MY DEAREST MADAM,

THE LODGE, March 21, 1790.

I SHALL only obferve on the fubject of your abfence, that you have stretched it fince you went, and have made it a week longer. Weston is fadly unked without you; and here are two of us, who will be heartily glad to fee you again. I believe you are happier at home than any where, which is a comfortable belief to your neighbours, because it affords affurance, that fince you are neither likely to ramble for pleasure, nor to meet with any avocatious of business, while Weston shall continue to be your home, it will not often want you.

The two first books of my Iliad have been fubmitted to the inspection and fcrutiny of a great critic of your fex, at the instance of my coufin, as you may suppose. The lady is mistress of more tongues than a few; (it is to be hoped the is fingle) and particularly she is mistress of the Greek. She returned them with expreffions, that if any thing could make a Poet prouder than all Poets naturally are, would have made me fo. I tell you this, because I know that you all intereft yourselves in the fuccefs of the faid Iliad.

My periwig is arrived, and is the very perfection of all periwigs, having only one fault; which is, that my head will only go into the first half of it, the other half, or the upper part of it, continuing ftill unoccupied. My artist in this way at Olney has however undertaken to make the whole of it tenantable; and then I fhall be twenty years younger than you have ever seen me.

I heard of your birth-day very early in the morning ; the news came from the steeple. W. C.

of

LETTER CXXIX.

To Lady HESKETH.

THE LODGE, March 22, 1790.

I REJOICE, my dearest coufin, that my мss. have roamed the earth fo fuccefsfully, and have met with no difafter. The fingle book excepted, that went to the bottom of the Thames, and rofe again, they have been fortunate without exception. I am not fuperftitious, but have nevertheless as good a right to believe that adventure an omen, and a favourable one, as Swift had to interpret, as he did, the lofs of a fine fish, which he had no fooner laid on the bank, than it flounced into the water again. This, he tells us himself, he always confidered as a type of his future difappointments; and why may I not as well confider the marvellous recovery my loft book from the bottom of the Thames, as typical of its future profperity? To fay the truth, I have no fears now about the fuccefs of my Tranflation, though in time past I have had many. I knew there was a style fomewhere, could I but find it, in which Homer ought to be rendered, and which alone would fuit him. Long time I blundered about it, ere I could attain to any decided judgment on the matter: at first I was betrayed by a defire of accommodating my language to the fimplicity of his, into much of the quaintnefs that belonged to our writers of the fifteenth century. In the course of many revisals I have delivered myfelf from this evil, I believe, entirely; but I have done it flowly, and as a man separates himself from his mistress, when he is going to marry. I had fo ftrong a predilection in favour of this ftyle, at first, that I was crazed to find that others were not as much enamoured with it as myself. At every paffage of that fort which I obliterated, I groaned bitterly, and faid to myfelf, I am fpoiling my work to

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pleafe thofe who have no tafte for the fimple graces of antiquity. But in measure, as I adopted a more modern phrafeology, I became a convert to their opinion; and in the last revifal, which I am now making, am not senfible of having spared a single expreffion of the obsolete kind. I fee my work fo much improved by this alteration, that I am filled with wonder at my own backwardnefs to affent to the neceffity of it; and the more when I confider that Milton, with whofe manner I account myfelf intimately acquainted, is never quaint, never twangs through the nose, but is every where grand and elegant, without reforting to musty antiquity for his beauties. On the contrary, he took a long ftride forward, left the language of his own day far behind him, and anticipated the expreflions of a century yet to come.

I have now, as I faid, no longer any doubt of the event, but I will give thee a fhilling if thou wilt tell me what I fhall fay in my preface. It is an affair of much delicacy, and I have as many opinions about it as there are whims in a weather-cock.

Send my мss. and thine when thou wilt. In a day or two I fhall enter on the laft Iliad, when I have finished it I fhall give the Odyffey one more reading, and fhall, therefore, fhortly have occafion for the copy in thy poffeffion; but you fee that there is no need to hurry.

I leave the little space for Mrs. Unwin's ufe, who means, I believe, to occupy it, and am evermore thine most truly. W. C.

POSTSCRIPT (in the hand of Mrs. Unwin.)

You cannot imagine how much your Ladyfhip would oblige your unworthy fervant, if you would be so good as to let me know in what point I differ from you. All that at prefent I can fay is, that I will readily facrifice my own opinion, unless I can give you a fubftantial reafon for adhering to it.