The Works of William Cowper / His life, letters, and poems, now first completed by the introduction of Cowper's private correspondence

by William Cowper

TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN.

Olney, Nov 29, 1784.

My dear Friend,—I am happy that you are pleased, and accept it as an earnest that I shall not at least disgust the public. For, though I know your partiality to me, I know at the same time with what laudable tenderness you feel for your own reputation, and that, for the sake of that most delicate part of your property, though you would not criticise me with an unfriendly and undue severity, you would however beware of being satisfied too hastily, and with no warrantable cause of being so. I called you the tutor of your two sons, in contemplation of the certainty of that event: it is a fact in suspense, not in fiction.

My principal errand to you now is to give you information on the following subject:—The moment Mr. Newton knew (and I took care that he should learn it first from me) that I had communicated to you what I had concealed from him, and that you were my authorship's go-between with Johnson on this occasion, he sent me a most friendly letter indeed, but one in every line of which I could hear the soft murmurs of something like mortification, that could not be entirely suppressed. It contained nothing however that you yourself would have blamed, or that I had not every reason to consider as evidence of his regard to me. He concluded the subject with desiring to know something of my plan, to be favoured with an extract, by way of specimen, or (which he should like better still) with wishing me to order Johnson to send him a proof as fast as they were printed off. Determining not to accede to this last request for many reasons (but especially because I would no more show my poem piecemeal than I would my house, if I had one; the merits of the structure in either case being equally liable to suffer by such a partial view of it), I have endeavoured to compromise the difference between us, and to satisfy him without disgracing myself. The proof-sheets I have absolutely, though civilly refused. But I have sent him a copy of the arguments of each book, more dilated and circumstantial than those inserted in the work; and to these I have added an extract as he desired; selecting, as most suited to his taste, the view of the restoration of all things—which you recollect to have seen near the end of the last book. I hold it necessary to tell you this, lest, if you should call upon him, he should startle you by discovering a degree of information upon the subject which you could not otherwise know how to reconcile or to account for.

You have executed your commissions à merveille. We not only approve but admire. No apology was wanting for the balance struck at the bottom, which we accounted rather a beauty than a deformity. Pardon a poor poet, who cannot speak even of pounds, shillings, and pence, but in his own way.

I have read Lunardi with pleasure. He is a lively, sensible young fellow, and I suppose a very favourable sample of the Italians. When I look at his picture, I can fancy that I can see in him that good sense and courage that no doubt were legible in the face of a young Roman two thousand years ago.

Your affectionate
W. C.

TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.[251]

Olney, Dec. 4, 1784.

My dear Friend,—You have my hearty thanks for a very good barrel of oysters; which necessary acknowledgment once made, I might perhaps show more kindness by cutting short an epistle than by continuing one, in which you are not likely to find your account, either in the way of information or amusement. The season of the year indeed is not very friendly to such communications. A damp atmosphere and a sunless sky will have their effect upon the spirits; and when the spirits are checked, farewell to all hope of being good company, either by letter or otherwise. I envy those happy voyagers, who with so much ease ascend to regions unsullied with a cloud, and date their epistles from an extra-mundane situation. No wonder if they outshine us, who poke about in the dark below, in the vivacity of their sallies, as much as they soar above us in their excursions. Not but that I should be very sorry to go to the clouds for wit: on the contrary, I am satisfied that I discover more by continuing where I am. Every man to his business. Their vocation is to see fine prospects, and to make pithy observations upon the world below; such as these, for instance: that the earth, beheld from a height that one trembles to think of, has the appearance of a circular plain; that England is a very rich and cultivated country, in which every man's property is ascertained by the hedges that intersect the lands; and that London and Westminster, seen from the neighbourhood of the moon, make but an insignificant figure. I admit the utility of these remarks; but, in the meantime, I say chacun à son goût; and mine is rather to creep than fly, and to carry with me, if possible, an unbroken neck to the grave.

I remain, as ever,
Your affectionate
W. C.