August 1, 1789.
My dear Madam,—The post brings me no letters that do not grumble at my silence. Had not you, therefore, taken me to task as roundly as others, I should have concluded you perhaps more indifferent to my epistles than the rest of my correspondents; of whom one says,—"I shall be glad when you have finished Homer; then possibly you will find a little leisure for an old friend." Another says—"I don't choose to be neglected, unless you equally neglect every one else." Thus I hear of it with both ears, and shall, till I appear in the shape of two great quarto volumes, the composition of which, I confess, engrosses me to a degree that gives my friends, to whom I feel myself much obliged for their anxiety to hear from me, but too much reason to complain. Johnson told Mr. Martyn the truth, but your inference from that truth is not altogether so just as most of your conclusions are. Instead of finding myself the more at leisure because my long labour draws to a close, I find myself the more occupied. As when a horse approaches the goal, he does not, unless he be jaded, slacken his pace, but quickens it: even so it fares with me. The end is in view; I seem almost to have reached the mark, and the nearness of it inspires me with fresh alacrity. But, be it known to you, that I have still two books of the Odyssey before me, and when they are finished, shall have almost the whole eight-and-forty to revise. Judge, then, my dear madam, if it is yet time for me to play or to gratify myself with scribbling to those I love. No: it is still necessary that waking I should be all absorbed in Homer, and that sleeping I should dream of nothing else.
I am a great lover of good paintings, but no connoisseur, having never had an opportunity to become one. In the last forty years of my life, I have hardly seen six pictures that were worth looking at; for I was never a frequenter of auctions, having never had any spare money in my pocket, and the public exhibitions of them in London had hardly taken place when I left it. My cousin, who is with us, saw the gentleman whose pieces you mention, on the top of a scaffold, copying a famous picture in the Vatican. She has seen some of his performances, and much admires them.
You have had a great loss, and a loss that admits of no consolation, except such as will naturally suggest itself to you, such, I mean, as the Scripture furnishes. We must all leave, or be left; and it is the circumstance of all others that makes a long life the least desirable, that others go while we stay, till at last we find ourselves alone, like a tree on a hill-top.
Accept, my dear madam, mine and Mrs. Unwin's best compliments to yourself and Mr. King, and believe me, however unfrequent in telling you that I am so,
Affectionately yours.
W. C.
TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESQ.
Weston, August 8, 1789.
My dear Friend,—Come when you will, or when you can, you cannot come at a wrong time; but we shall expect you on the day mentioned.
If you have any book that you think will make pleasant evening reading, bring it with you. I now read Mrs. Piozzi's[491] Travels to the ladies after supper, and shall probably have finished them before we shall have the pleasure of seeing you. It is the fashion, I understand, to condemn them. But we, who make books ourselves, are more merciful to book-makers. I would that every fastidious judge of authors were himself obliged to write: there goes more to the composition of a volume than many critics imagine.[492] I have often wondered that the same poet who wrote the "Dunciad," should have written these lines,