[844] I have heard about my wether mutton from various quarters. It was a blunder hardly pardonable in a man who has lived amid fields and meadows, grazed by sheep, almost these thirty years. I have accordingly satirized myself in two stanzas which I composed last night, while I lay awake, tormented with pain, and well dosed with laudanum. If you find them not very brilliant, therefore, you will know how to account for it.—Letter to Joseph Hill, Esq. dated April 15, 1792.
[845] For Mrs. Greville's Ode, see Annual Register, vol. v. p. 202.
[846] Sir William Russel, the favourite friend of the young poet.
[847] See The Life of the Rev. John Newton, written by himself, in a series of letters addressed to the Rev. Mr. Haweis.
[848] See "Life of Newton," prefixed to his works.
[849] Life of Newton.
[850] These lines are a translation from the following well-known passage of Propertius; Newton piously applying to the Creator what the poet addresses to the creature.
Sic ego desertis possim bene vivere sylvis,
Quo nulla humano sit via trita pede.
Tu mihi curarum requies, in nocte vel atrâ
Lumen, et in solis tu mihi turba locis.
See Life of Newton.
[851] Life of Newton.