TO LADY HESKETH.
Friday night, March 25, 1791.
My dear Coz,—Johnson writes me word, that he has repeatedly called on Horace Walpole, and has never found him at home. He has also written to him and received no answer. I charge thee therefore on thy allegiance, that thou move not a finger more in this business. My back is up, and I cannot bear the thought of wooing him any farther, nor would do it, though he were as pig a gentleman (look you!) as Lucifer himself. I have Welsh blood in me, if the pedigree of the Donnes say true, and every drop of it says—"Let him alone!"
I should have dined at the Hall to-day, having engaged myself to do so. But an untoward occurrence, that happened last night or rather this morning, prevented me. It was a thundering rap at the door, just after the clock struck three. First, I thought the house was on fire. Then I thought the Hall was on fire. Then I thought it was a house-breaker's trick. Then I thought it was an express. In any case I thought, that if it should be repeated, it would awaken and terrify Mrs. Unwin, and kill her with spasms. The consequence of all these thoughts was the worst nervous fever I ever had in my life, although it was the shortest. The rap was given but once, though a multifarious one. Had I heard a second, I should have risen myself at all adventures. It was the only minute since you went, in which I have been glad that you were not here. Soon after I came down, I learned that a drunken party had passed through the village at that time, and they were, no doubt, the authors of this witty but troublesome invention.
Our thanks are due to you for the book you sent us. Mrs. Unwin has read to me several parts of it, which I have much admired. The observations are shrewd and pointed; and there is much wit in the similes and illustrations. Yet a remark struck me, which I could not help making vivâ voce on the occasion. If the book has any real value, and does in truth deserve the notice taken of it by those to whom it is addressed, its claim is founded neither on the expression, nor on the style, nor on the wit of it, but altogether on the truth that it contains. Now the same truths are delivered, to my knowledge, perpetually from the pulpit by ministers, whom the admirers of this writer would disdain to hear. Yet the truth is not the less important for not being accompanied and recommended by brilliant thoughts and expressions; neither is God, from whom comes all truth, any more a respecter of wit than he is of persons. It will appear soon whether they applaud the book for the sake of its unanswerable arguments, or only tolerate the argument for the sake of the splendid manner in which it is enforced. I wish as heartily that it may do them good as if I were myself the author of it. But, alas! my wishes and hopes are much at variance. It will be the talk of the day, as another publication of the same kind has been; and then the noise of vanity-fair will drown the voice of the preacher.
I am glad to learn that the Chancellor does not forget me, though more for his sake than my own: for I see not how he can ever serve a man like me.
Adieu, my dearest coz,
W. C.
TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.[583]
Weston, March 29, 1791.
My dear Friend,—It affords me sincere pleasure that you enjoy serenity of mind after your great loss. It is well in all circumstances, even in the most afflictive, with those who have God for their comforter. You do me justice in giving entire credit to my expressions of friendship for you. No day passes in which I do not look back to the days that are fled; and, consequently none in which I do not feel myself affectionately reminded of you and of her whom you have lost for a season. I cannot even see Olney spire from any of the fields in the neighbourhood, much less can I enter the town, and still less the vicarage, without experiencing the force of those mementoes, and recollecting a multitude of passages to which you and yours were parties.
The past would appear a dream were the remembrance of it less affecting. It was in the most important respects so unlike my present moments that I am sometimes almost tempted to suppose it a dream. But the difference between dreams and realities long since elapsed seems to consist chiefly in this—that a dream, however painful or pleasant at the time, and perhaps for a few ensuing hours, passes like an arrow through the air, leaving no trace of its flight behind it; but our actual experiences make a lasting impression. We review those which interested us much when they occurred, with hardly less interest than in the first instance; and whether few years or many have intervened, our sensibility makes them still present, such a mere nullity is time to a creature to whom God gives a feeling heart and the faculty of recollection.
That you have not the first sight and sometimes, perhaps, have a late one of what I write, is owing merely to your distant situation. Some things I have written not worth your perusal; and a few, a very few, of such length that, engaged as I have been to Homer, it has not been possible that I should find opportunity to transcribe them. At the same time, Mrs. Unwin's pain in her side has almost forbidden her the use of the pen. She cannot use it long without increasing that pain; for which reason I am more unwilling than herself that she should ever meddle with it. But, whether what I write be a trifle, or whether it be serious, you would certainly, were you present, see them all. Others get a sight of them, by being so, who would never otherwise see them; and I should hardly withhold them from you, whose claim upon me is of so much older a date than theirs. It is not, indeed, with readiness and good-will that I give them to anybody; for, if I live, I shall probably print them; and my friends, who are previously well acquainted with them, will have the less reason to value the book in which they shall appear. A trifle can have nothing to recommend it but its novelty. I have spoken of giving copies; but, in fact, I have given none. They who have them made them; for, till my whole work shall have fairly passed the press, it will not leave me a moment more than is necessarily due to my correspondents. Their number has of late increased upon me, by the addition of many of my maternal relatives, who, having found me out about a year since, have behaved to me in the most affectionate manner, and have been singularly serviceable to me in the article of my subscription. Several of them are coming from Norfolk to visit me in the course of the summer.
I enclose a copy of my last mortuary verses. The clerk for whom they were written is since dead; and whether his successor, the late sexton, will choose to be his own dirge-maker, or will employ me, is a piece of important news which has not yet reached me.
Our best remembrances attend yourself and Miss Catlett, and we rejoice in the kind Providence that has given you in her so amiable and comfortable a companion. Adieu, my dear friend.
I am sincerely yours,
W.C.