TO THOMAS PARK, ESQ.
Weston-Underwood, Dec. 17, 1792.
My dear Sir,—You are very kind in thinking it worth while to inquire after so irregular a correspondent. When I had read your last, I persuaded myself that I had answered your obliging letter received while I was at Eartham, and seemed clearly to remember it; but upon better recollection, am inclined to think myself mistaken, and that I have many pardons to ask for neglecting to do it so long.
While I was at Mr. Hayley's I could hardly find opportunity to write to anybody. He is an early riser and breakfasts early, and unless I could rise early enough myself to despatch a letter before breakfast, I had no leisure to do it at all. For immediately after breakfast we repaired to the library, where we studied in concert till noon; and the rest of my time was so occupied by necessary attention to my poor invalid, Mrs. Unwin, and by various other engagements, that to write was impossible.
Since my return, I have been almost constantly afflicted with weak and inflamed eyes, and indeed have wanted spirits as well as leisure. If you can, therefore, you must pardon me; and you will do it perhaps the rather, when I assure you that not you alone, but every person and every thing that had demands upon me has been equally neglected. A strange weariness that has long had dominion over me has indisposed and indeed disqualified me for all employment;[681] and my hindrances besides have been such that I am sadly in arrear in all quarters. A thousand times I have been sorry and ashamed that your MSS. are yet unrevised, and if you knew the compunction that it has cost me, you would pity me: for I feel as if I were guilty in that particular, though my conscience tells me that it could not be otherwise.
Before I received your letter written from Margate, I had formed a resolution never to be engraven, and was confirmed in it by my friend Hayley's example. But, learning since, though I have not learned it from himself, that my bookseller has an intention to prefix a copy of Abbot's picture of me[682] to the next edition of my poems, at his own expense, if I can be prevailed upon to consent to it; in consideration of the liberality of his behaviour, I have felt my determination shaken. This intelligence, however, comes to me from a third person, and till it reaches me in a direct line from Johnson, I can say nothing to him about it. When he shall open to me his intentions himself, I will not be backward to mention to him your obliging offer, and shall be particularly gratified, if I must be engraved at last, to have that service performed for me by a friend.
I thank you for the anecdote,[683] which could not fail to be very pleasant, and remain, my dear sir, with gratitude and affection,
Yours,
W. C.