My dear Friend,—The pains you have taken to disengage our correspondence from the expense with which it was threatened, convincing me that my letters, trivial as they are, are yet acceptable to you, encourage me to observe my usual punctuality. You complain of unconnected thoughts. I believe there is not a head in the world but might utter the same complaint, and that all would do so, were they all as attentive to their own vagaries and as honest as yours. The description of your meditations at least suits mine; perhaps I can go a step beyond you, upon the same ground, and assert with the strictest truth that I not only do not think with connexion, but that I frequently do not think at all. I am much mistaken if I do not often catch myself napping in this way; for, when I ask myself, what was the last idea (as the ushers at Westminster ask an idle boy what was the last word,) I am not able to answer, but, like the boy in question, am obliged to stare and say nothing. This may be a very unphilosophical account of myself, and may clash very much with the general opinion of the learned, that, the soul being an active principle, and her activity consisting in thought, she must consequently always think. But pardon me, messieurs les philosophes, there are moments when, if I think at all, I am utterly unconscious of doing so, and the thought and the consciousness of it seem to me at least, who am no philosopher, to be inseparable from each other. Perhaps however we may both be right; and, if you will grant me that I do not always think, I will in return concede to you the activity you contend for, and will qualify the difference between us by supposing that, though the soul be in herself an active principle, the influence of her present union with a principle that is not such makes her often dormant, suspends her operations, and affects her with a sort of deliquium, in which she suffers a temporary loss of all her functions. I have related to you my experience truly and without disguise; you must therefore either admit my assertion, that the soul does not necessarily always act, or deny that mine is a human soul: a negative, that I am sure you will not easily prove. So much for a dispute which I little thought of being engaged in to-day.
Last night I had a letter from Lord Dartmouth. It was to apprise me of the safe arrival of Cook's last Voyage, which he was so kind as to lend me, in Saint James's Square. The reading of those volumes afforded me much amusement, and I hope some instruction. No observation however forced itself upon me with more violence than one, that I could not help making on the death of Captain Cook. God is a jealous God, and at Owhyhee the poor man was content to be worshipped. From that moment, the remarkable interposition of Providence in his favour was converted into an opposition that thwarted all his purposes. He left the scene of his deification, but was driven back to it by a most violent storm, in which he suffered more than in any that had preceded it. When he departed, he left his worshippers still infatuated with an idea of his godship, consequently well disposed to serve him. At his return, he found them sullen, distrustful, and mysterious. A trifling theft was committed, which, by a blunder of his own in pursuing the thief after the property had been restored, was magnified to an affair of the last importance. One of their favourite chiefs was killed too by a blunder. Nothing in short but blunder and mistake attended him, till he fell breathless into the water, and then all was smooth again. The world indeed will not take notice or see that the dispensation bore evident marks of divine displeasure; but a mind, I think, in any degree spiritual cannot overlook them. We know from truth itself that the death of Herod was for a similar offence. But Herod was in no sense a believer in God, nor had enjoyed half the opportunities with which our poor countryman had been favoured. It may be urged perhaps that he was in jest, that he meant nothing but his own amusement, and that of his companions. I doubt it. He knows little of the heart, who does not know that even in a sensible man it is flattered by every species of exaltation. But be it so, that he was in sport—it was not humane, to say no worse of it, to sport with the ignorance of his friends, to mock their simplicity, to humour and acquiesce in their blind credulity. Besides, though a stock or stone may be worshipped blameless, a baptized man may not. He knows what he does, and, by suffering such honours to be paid him, incurs the guilt of sacrilege.[248]
We are glad that you are so happy in your church, in your society, and in all your connexions. I have not left myself room to say any thing of the love we feel for you.
Yours, my dear friend,
W. C.
Several of the succeeding letters advert to the poem of "The Task," and cannot fail to inspire interest.
TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN.
Olney, Oct. 10, 1784.
My dear William,—I send you four quires of verse, which, having sent, I shall dismiss from my thoughts, and think no more of till I see them in print. I have not after all found time or industry enough to give the last hand to the points. I believe however they are not very erroneous, though, in so long a work, and in a work that requires nicety in this particular, some inaccuracies will escape. Where you find any, you will oblige me by correcting them.
In some passages, especially in the second book, you will observe me very satirical. Writing on such subjects I could not be otherwise. I can write nothing without aiming at least at usefulness. It were beneath my years to do it, and still more dishonourable to my religion. I know that a reformation of such abuses as I have censured is not to be expected from the efforts of a poet; but to contemplate the world, its follies, its vices, its indifference to duty, and its strenuous attachment to what is evil, and not to reprehend, were to approve it. From this charge at least I shall be clear, for I have neither tacitly nor expressly flattered either its characters or its customs. I have paid one and only one compliment, which was so justly due that I did not know how to withhold it, especially having so fair an occasion (I forget myself, there is another in the first book to Mr. Throckmorton,) but the compliment I mean is to Mr. ——. It is however so managed, that nobody but himself can make the application, and you to whom I disclose the secret; a delicacy on my part, which so much delicacy on his obliged me to the observance of!