TO LADY HESKETH.
The Lodge, June 17, 1790.
My dear Coz,—Here am I, at eight in the morning, in full dress, going a-visiting to Chicheley. We are a strong party, and fill two chaises; Mrs. F. the elder, and Mrs. G. in one; Mrs. F. the younger, and myself in another. Were it not that I shall find Chesters at the end of my journey, I should be inconsolable. That expectation alone supports my spirits: and, even with this prospect before me, when I saw this moment a poor old woman coming up the lane, opposite my window, I could not help sighing, and saying to myself, "Poor, but happy old woman! Thou art exempted by thy situation in life from riding in chaises, and making thyself fine in a morning: happier therefore in my account than I, who am under the cruel necessity of doing both. Neither dost thou write verses, neither hast thou ever heard of the name of Homer, whom I am miserable to abandon for a whole morning!" This, and more of the same sort, passed in my mind on seeing the old woman abovesaid.
The troublesome business with which I filled my last letter is, I hope, by this time concluded, and Mr. Archdeacon satisfied. I can, to be sure, but ill afford to pay fifty pounds for another man's negligence, but would be happy to pay a hundred rather than be treated as if I were insolvent; threatened with attorneys and bums. One would think that, living where I live, I might be exempted from trouble. But alas! as the philosophers often affirm, there is no nook under heaven in which trouble cannot enter; and perhaps, had there never been one philosopher in the world, this is a truth that would not have been always altogether a secret.
I have made two inscriptions lately, at the request of Thomas Gifford, Esq., who is sowing twenty acres with acorns on one side of his house, and twenty acres with ditto on the other.[544] He erects two memorials of stone on the occasion, that, when posterity shall be curious to know the age of the oaks, their curiosity may be gratified.
1.
INSCRIPTION.
Other stones the era tell
When some feeble mortal fell.
I stand here to date the birth
Of these hardy sons of earth.
Anno 1790.
2.
INSCRIPTION.
Reader! Behold a monument
That asks no sigh or tear,
Though it perpetuate the event
Of a great burial here.
Anno 1791.
My works therefore will not all perish, or will not all perish soon, for he has ordered his lapidary to cut the characters very deep, and in stone extremely hard. It is not in vain, then, that I have so long exercised the business of a poet. I shall at last reap the reward of my labours, and be immortal probably for many years.
Ever thine,
W. C.