I have corresponded since I came here with Mrs. Courtenay, and had yesterday a very kind letter from her.
Adieu, my dear; may God bless you. Write to me as soon as you can after the twentieth. I shall then be at Weston, and indulging myself in the hope that I shall ere long see you there also.
W. C.
Hayley, speaking of the manner in which they employed their time at Eartham, observes, "Homer was not the immediate object of our attention. The morning hours that we could bestow upon books were chiefly devoted to a complete revisal and correction of all the translations, which my friend had finished, from the Latin and Italian poetry of Milton: and we generally amused ourselves after dinner in forming together a rapid metrical version of Andreini's Adamo."[667] He also mentions the interest excited in Cowper's mind by his son, a fine boy of eleven years, whose uncommon talents and engaging qualities endeared him so much to the poet, that he allowed and invited him to criticise his Homer. A specimen of this juvenile criticism will appear in the future correspondence. This interesting boy, with a young companion, employed themselves regularly twice a day in drawing Mrs. Unwin in a commodious garden-chair, round the airy hill at Eartham. "To Cowper and to me," he adds, "it was a very pleasing spectacle to see the benevolent vivacity of blooming youth thus continually labouring for the ease, health, and amusement of disabled age."
The reader will perceive from the last letter, that Cowper, amused as he was with the scenery of Sussex, began to feel the powerful attraction of home.
TO MRS. COURTENAY,[668] WESTON-UNDERWOOD.[669]
Eartham, Sept. 10, 1792.
My dear Catharina,—I am not so uncourteous a knight as to leave your last kind letter, and the last I hope that I shall receive for a long time to come, without an attempt, at least, to acknowledge and to send you something in the shape of an answer to it; but, having been obliged to dose myself last night with laudanum, on account of a little nervous fever, to which I am always subject, and for which I find it the best remedy, I feel myself this morning particularly under the influence of Lethean vapours, and, consequently, in danger of being uncommonly stupid!
You could hardly have sent me intelligence that would have gratified me more than that of my two dear friends, Sir John and Lady Throckmorton, having departed from Paris two days before the terrible 10th of August. I have had many anxious thoughts on their account; and am truly happy to learn that they have sought a more peaceful region, while it was yet permitted them to do so. They will not, I trust, revisit those scenes of tumult and horror while they shall continue to merit that description. We are here all of one mind respecting the cause in which the Parisians are engaged; wish them a free people, and as happy as they can wish themselves. But their conduct has not always pleased us: we are shocked at their sanguinary proceedings, and begin to fear, myself in particular, that they will prove themselves unworthy, because incapable of enjoying it, of the inestimable blessing of liberty. My daily toast is, Sobriety and freedom to the French; for they seem as destitute of the former as they are eager to secure the latter.