I have waited, and waited impatiently, for a line from you, and am at last determined to send you one, to inquire what has become of you, and why you are silent so much longer than usual.
I want to know many things, which only you can tell me, but especially I want to know what has been the issue of your conference with Nichol: has he seen your work?[732] I am impatient for the appearance of it, because impatient to have the spotless credit of the great poet's character, as a man and a citizen, vindicated, as it ought to be, and as it never will be again.
It is a great relief to me, that my Miltonic labours are suspended. I am now busy in transcribing the alterations of Homer, having finished the whole revisal. I must then write a new preface, which done, I shall endeavour immediately to descant on The Four Ages.
Adieu! my dear brother,
W. C.
The Miltonic labours of Cowper were not only suspended at this time, but we lament to say never resumed.
There is a period in the history of men of letters, when the mind begins to shrink from the toil and responsibility of a great undertaking, and to feel the necessity of contracting its exertions within limits more suited to its diminished powers. Physical and moral causes are often found to co-operate in hastening this crisis. The sensibilities that are inseparable from genius, the ardour that consumes itself by its own fires, the labour of thought, and the inadequacy of the body to sustain the energies of the soul within—these often unite in harassing the spirits, and sowing the seeds of a premature decay. Such was now the case with Cowper. His literary exertions had been too unremitting, and though we must allow much to the influence of his unhappy malady, and to the illness of Mrs. Unwin, yet there can be no doubt that his long and laborious habits of study had no small share in undermining his constitution.
It seems desirable therefore, at this period, to refer to the intended edition of Milton, and briefly to state the result of his labours.
The design is thus stated by Cowper himself, in one of his letters. "A Milton, that is to rival, and if possible to exceed in splendour, Boydell's Shakspeare, is in contemplation, and I am in the Editor's office. Fuseli is the painter. My business will be to select notes from others, and to write original notes; to translate the Latin and Italian poems, and to give a correct text."
All that he was enabled to accomplish of this undertaking was as follows: