TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN.
Olney, Oct. 10, 1784.
My dear William,—I send you four quires of verse, which, having sent, I shall dismiss from my thoughts, and think no more of till I see them in print. I have not after all found time or industry enough to give the last hand to the points. I believe however they are not very erroneous, though, in so long a work, and in a work that requires nicety in this particular, some inaccuracies will escape. Where you find any, you will oblige me by correcting them.
In some passages, especially in the second book, you will observe me very satirical. Writing on such subjects I could not be otherwise. I can write nothing without aiming at least at usefulness. It were beneath my years to do it, and still more dishonourable to my religion. I know that a reformation of such abuses as I have censured is not to be expected from the efforts of a poet; but to contemplate the world, its follies, its vices, its indifference to duty, and its strenuous attachment to what is evil, and not to reprehend, were to approve it. From this charge at least I shall be clear, for I have neither tacitly nor expressly flattered either its characters or its customs. I have paid one and only one compliment, which was so justly due that I did not know how to withhold it, especially having so fair an occasion (I forget myself, there is another in the first book to Mr. Throckmorton,) but the compliment I mean is to Mr. ——. It is however so managed, that nobody but himself can make the application, and you to whom I disclose the secret; a delicacy on my part, which so much delicacy on his obliged me to the observance of!
What there is of a religious cast in the volume, I have thrown towards the end of it, for two reasons—first, that I might not revolt the reader at his entrance—and, secondly, that my best impressions might be made last. Were I to write as many volumes as Lopez de Vega, or Voltaire, not one of them would be without this tincture. If the world like it not, so much the worse for them. I make all the concessions I can, that I may please them, but I will not please them at the expense of my conscience.
My descriptions are all from nature; not one of them second-handed. My delineations of the heart are from my own experience; not one of them borrowed from books, or in the least degree conjectural. In my numbers, which I varied as much as I could, (for blank verse without variety of numbers is no better than bladder and string,) I have imitated nobody, though sometimes perhaps there may be an apparent resemblance; because, at the same time that I would not imitate, I have not affectedly differed.
If the work cannot boast a regular plan, (in which respect however I do not think it altogether indefensible,) it may yet boast that the reflections are naturally suggested always by the preceding passage, and that, except the fifth book, which is rather of a political aspect, the whole has one tendency; to discountenance the modern enthusiasm after a London life, and to recommend rural ease and leisure, as friendly to the cause of piety and virtue.
If it pleases you I shall be happy, and collect from your pleasure in it an omen of its general acceptance.
Yours, my dear friend,
W. C.