Weston, June 22, 1790.
My dear Friend,—
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Villoison makes no mention of the serpent, whose skin or bowels, or perhaps both, were honoured with the Iliad and the Odyssey inscribed upon them. But I have conversed with a living eye-witness of an African serpent long enough to have afforded skin and guts for the purpose. In Africa there are ants also which frequently destroy these monsters. They are not much larger than ours, but they travel in a column of immense length, and eat through everything that opposes them. Their bite is like a spark of fire. When these serpents have killed their prey, lion or tiger, or any other large animal, before they swallow him, they take a considerable circuit round about the carcass, to see if the ants are coming, because, when they have gorged their prey, they are unable to escape them. They are nevertheless sometimes surprised by them in their unwieldy state, and the ants make a passage through them. Now if you thought your own story of Homer, bound in snake-skin, worthy of three notes of admiration, you cannot do less than add six to mine, confessing at the same time, that, if I put you to the expense of a letter, I do not make you pay your money for nothing. But this account I had from a person of most unimpeached veracity.
I rejoice with you in the good Bishop's removal to St. Asaph,[545] and especially because the Norfolk parsons much more resemble the ants above-mentioned than he the serpent. He is neither of vast size, nor unwieldy, nor voracious; neither, I dare say, does he sleep after dinner, according to the practice of the said serpent. But, harmless as he is, I am mistaken if his mutinous clergy did not sometimes disturb his rest, and if he did not find their bite, though they could not actually eat through him, in a degree resembling fire. Good men like him, and peaceable, should have good and peaceable folks to deal with; and I heartily wish him such in his new diocese. But if he will keep the clergy to their business, he shall have trouble, let him go where he may; and this is boldly spoken, considering that I speak it to one of that reverend body. But ye are like Jeremiah's basket of figs: some of you cannot be better, and some of you are stark naught. Ask the bishop himself if this be not true!
W. C.
TO MRS. BODHAM.
Weston, June 29, 1790.
My dearest Cousin,—It is true that I did sometimes complain to Mrs. Unwin of your long silence. But it is likewise true that I made many excuses for you in my own mind, and did not feel myself at all inclined to be angry, not even much to wonder. There is an awkwardness and a difficulty in writing to those whom distance and length of time have made in a manner new to us, that naturally gives us a check, when you would otherwise be glad to address them. But a time, I hope, is near at hand when you and I shall be effectually delivered from all such constraints, and correspond as fluently as if our intercourse had suffered much less interruption.
You must not suppose, my dear, that though I may be said to have lived many years with a pen in my hand, I am myself altogether at my ease on this tremendous occasion. Imagine rather, and you will come nearer the truth, that when I placed this sheet before me, I asked myself more than once, "how shall I fill it? One subject indeed presents itself, the pleasant prospect that opens upon me of our coming once more together; but, that once exhausted, with what shall I proceed?" Thus I questioned myself; but finding neither end nor profit of such questions, I bravely resolved to dismiss them all at once, and to engage in the great enterprise of a letter to my quondam Rose at a venture. There is great truth in a rant of Nat. Lee's, or of Dryden's, I know not which, who makes an enamoured youth say to his mistress,