TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN.
Olney, July 2, 1780.
Carissime, I am glad of your confidence, and have reason to hope I shall never abuse it. If you trust me with a secret, I am hermetically sealed; and if you call for the exercise of my judgment, such as it is, I am never freakish or wanton in the use of it, much less mischievous and malignant. Critics, I believe, do not often stand so clear of those vices as I do. I like your epitaph, except that I doubt the propriety of the word immaturus; which, I think, is rather applicable to fruits than flowers; and except the last pentameter, the assertion it contains being rather too obvious a thought to finish with; not that I think an epitaph should be pointed like an epigram. But still there is a closeness of thought and expression necessary in the conclusion of all these little things, that they may leave an agreeable flavour upon the palate. Whatever is short should be nervous, masculine, and compact. Little men are so; and little poems should be so; because, where the work is short, the author has no right to the plea of weariness, and laziness is never admitted as an available excuse in any thing. Now you know my opinion, you will very likely improve upon my improvement, and alter my alterations for the better. To touch and re-touch is, though some writers boast of negligence, and others would be ashamed to show their foul copies, the secret of almost all good writing, especially in verse. I am never weary of it myself, and, if you would take as much pains as I do, you would have no need to ask for my corrections.
HIC SEPULTUS EST
INTER SUORUM LACRYMAS
GULIELMUS NORTHCOT,
Gulielmi et Mariæ filius
UNICUS, UNICE DILECTUS,
QUI FLORIS RITU SUCCISUS EST SEMIHIANTIS,
APRILIS DIE SEPTIMO,
1780, ÆT. 10.
Care, vale! Sed non æternum, care, valeto!
Namque iterum tecum, sim modo dignus, ero.
Tum nihil amplexus poterit divellere nostros,
Nec tu marcesces, nec lacrymabor ego.[59]
Having an English translation of it by me, I send it though it may be of no use.
Farewell! "But not for ever," Hope replies,
Trace but his steps, and meet him in the skies!
There nothing shall renew our parting pain,
Thou shalt not wither, nor I weep again.
The stanzas that I sent you are maiden ones, having never been seen by any eye but your mother's and your own.
If you send me franks, I shall write longer letters.—Valete, sicut et nos valemus! Amate, sicut et nos amamus!
W. C.
TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.[60]
Olney, June 3, 1780.
Mon Ami,—By this time, I suppose, you have ventured to take your fingers out of your ears, being delivered from the deafening shouts of the most zealous mob that ever strained their lungs in the cause of religion. I congratulate you upon a gentle relapse into the customary sounds of a great city, which, though we rustics abhor them, as noisy and dissonant, are a musical and sweet murmur, compared with what you have lately heard. The tinkling of a kennel may be distinguished now, where the roaring of a cascade would have been sunk and lost. I never suspected, till the newspapers informed me of it, a few days since, that the barbarous uproar had reached Great Queen Street. I hope Mrs. Hill was in the country, and shall rejoice to hear that, as I am sure you did not take up the protestant cudgels[61] upon this hair-brained occasion, so you have not been pulled in pieces as a papist.
W. C.
The next letter to Mr. Hill affords a striking proof of Cowper's compassionate feelings towards the poor around him.