TO THOMAS PARK, ESQ.
Weston Underwood, April 27, 1792.
Dear Sir,—I write now merely to prevent any suspicion in your mind that I neglect you. I have been very ill, and for more than a fortnight unable to use the pen, or you should have heard long ere now of the safe arrival of your packet. I have revised the Elegy on Seduction,[647] but have not as yet been able to proceed farther. The best way of returning these which I have now in hand, will be to return them with those which you propose to send hereafter. I will make no more apologies for any liberties that it may seem necessary to me to take with your copies. Why do you send them, but that I may exercise that freedom, of which the very act of sending them implies your permission? I will only say, therefore, that you must neither be impatient nor even allow yourself to think me tardy, since assuredly I will not be more so than I needs must be. My hands are pretty full. Milton must be forwarded, and is at present hardly begun; and I have beside a numerous correspondence, which engrosses more of my time than I can at present well afford to it. I cannot decide with myself whether the lines in which the reviewers are so smartly noticed had better be expunged or not. Those lines are gracefully introduced and well written; for which reasons I should be loath to part with them. On the other hand, how far it may be prudent to irritate a body of critics, who certainly much influence the public opinion, may deserve consideration. It may be added too, that they are not all equally worthy of the lash: there are among them men of real learning, judgment, and candour. I must leave it, therefore, to your own determination.
I thank you for Thomson's Epitaph, on which I have only to remark (and I am sure that I do it not in a captious spirit) that, since the poet is himself the speaker, I cannot but question a little the propriety of the quotation subjoined. It is a prayer, and when the man is buried, the time of prayer is over. I know it may be answered, that it is placed there merely for the benefit of the reader; but all readers of tombstones are not wise enough to be trusted for such an interpretation.
I was well pleased with your poem on * * and equally well pleased with your intention not to publish it. It proves two points of consequence to an author:—both that you have an exuberant fancy, and discretion enough to know how to deal with it. The man is formidable for his ludicrous talent, as he has made himself contemptible by his use of it. To despise him therefore is natural, but it is wise to do it in secret.
Since the juvenile poems of Milton were edited by Warton, you need not trouble yourself to send them. I have them of his edition already.
I am, dear sir,
Affectionately yours,
W. C.
The marriage of Miss Stapleton, the Catharina of Cowper, to Sir John Throckmorton's brother (now Mr. Courtenay,) was one of those events which the muse of Cowper had ventured to anticipate; and he had now the happiness of finding his cherished wish fulfilled, and of thereby securing them as neighbours at the Hall.[648]