I know, my dear sir, how much you valued him, and I know also, how much he valued you. With respect to him, all is well; and of you, if I should survive you, which perhaps, is not very probable, I shall say the same.
In the meantime, believe me, with the warmest wishes for your health and happiness, and with Mrs. Unwin's affectionate respects,
Yours, my dear sir,
Most faithfully,
W. C.
Joseph Hill, Esq., survived Cowper many years, and lived to an advanced age. He formerly resided in Great Queen Street, and afterwards in Saville Row, and was eminent in his profession. His widow survived him, and died in the year 1824. The letters addressed to him by Cowper were arranged by Dr. Johnson, and ornamented with a suitable binding. They were finally left as an heir-loom at Wargrave, near Henley. Joseph Jekyll, Esq., the barrister, once celebrated for his wit and humour, succeeded to that property, and still survives at the moment in which we are writing.
Samuel Rose, Esq., after a comparatively short career of professional eminence, was seized with a rheumatic fever, which he caught at Horsham, in attending the Sussex sessions, in 1804. He died in the thirty-eighth year of his age, declaring to those around him, "I have lived long enough to review my grounds for confidence, and I have unspeakable comfort in assuring those I love that I am daily more reconciled in leaving the world now than at a later period."
Cowper's sentiments of him are expressed in the following letter.
TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.
Weston-Underwood, Dec. 2, 1788.
My dear Friend,—I told you lately, that I had an ambition to introduce to your acquaintance my valuable friend, Mr. Rose. He is now before you. You will find him a person of genteel manners and agreeable conversation. As to his other virtues and good qualities, which are many, and such as are not often found in men of his years, I consign them over to your own discernment, perfectly sure, that none of them will escape you. I give you joy of each other, and remain, my dear old friend, most truly yours,