"Since thus ye have combin'd," he said,
"My fav'rite nymph to slight,
Adorning May, that peevish maid!
With June's undoubted right;
"The minx shall, for your folly's sake,
Still prove herself a shrew;
Shall make your scribbling fingers ache,
And pinch your noses blue."
TO LADY HESKETH.
The Lodge, May 27, 1791.
My dearest Coz,—I, who am neither dead, nor sick, nor idle, should have no excuse, were I as tardy in answering as you in writing. I live indeed where leisure abounds, and you where leisure is not; a difference that accounts sufficiently both for your silence and my loquacity.
When you told Mrs. —— that my Homer would come forth in May, you told her what you believed, and therefore no falsehood. But you told her at the same time what will not happen, and therefore not a truth. There is a medium between truth and falsehood; and I believe the word mistake expresses it exactly. I will therefore say that you were mistaken. If instead of May you had mentioned June, I flatter myself that you would have hit the mark. For in June there is every probability that we shall publish. You will say, "Hang the printer!—for it is his fault!" But stay, my dear, hang him not just now! For to execute him and find another will cost us time, and so much too, that I question if, in that case, we should publish sooner than in August. To say truth, I am not perfectly sure that there will be any necessity to hang him at all; though that is a matter which I desire to leave entirely at your discretion, alleging only, in the meantime, that the man does not appear to me during the last half-year to have been at all in fault. His remittance of sheets in all that time has been punctual, save and except while the Easter holidays lasted, when I suppose he found it impossible to keep his devils to their business. I shall however receive the last sheet of the Odyssey to-morrow, and have already sent up the Preface, together with all the needful. You see, therefore, that the publication of this famous work cannot be delayed much longer.
As for politics, I reck not, having no room in my head for any thing but the Slave bill. That is lost; and all the rest is a trifle. I have not seen Paine's book,[589] but refused to see it, when it was offered to me. No man shall convince me that I am improperly governed while I feel the contrary.
Adieu,
W. C.
TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESQ.
Weston, June 1, 1791.