THREE PAPERS, BY COWPER,
INSERTED IN THE CONNOISSEUR.
"During Cowper's visit to Eartham, he kindly pointed out to me," Hayley observes, "three of his papers in the last volume of the 'Connoisseur.'—I inscribed them with his name at the time; and imagine that the readers of his Life may be gratified in seeing them inserted here. I find other numbers of that work ascribed to him, but the three following I print as his, on his own explicit authority. Number 119, Thursday, May 6, 1756—Number 134, Thursday, August 19,—Number 138, Thursday, Sept. 16."
No. CXIX.
Plenus rimarum sum, huc et illuc perfluo.
Ter.
Leaky at bottom; if those chinks you stop,
In vain—the secret will run o'er at top.
There is no mark of our confidence taken more kindly by a friend than the entrusting him with a secret, nor any which he is so likely to abuse. Confidants in general are like crazy firelocks, which are no sooner charged and cocked than the spring gives way, and the report immediately follows. Happy to have been thought worthy the confidence of one friend, they are impatient to manifest their importance to another; till, between them and their friend and their friend's friend, the whole matter is presently known to all our friends round the Wrekin. The secret catches as it were by contact, and like electrical matter breaks forth from every link in the chain, almost at the same instant. Thus the whole Exchange may be thrown into a buzz to-morrow, by what was whispered in the middle of Marlborough Downs this morning; and in a week's time the streets may ring with the intrigue of a woman of fashion, bellowed out from the foul mouths of the hawkers, though at present it is known to no creature living but her gallant and her waiting maid.
As the talent of secresy is of so great importance to society, and the necessary commerce between individuals cannot be securely carried on without it, that this deplorable weakness should be so general is much to be lamented. You may as well pour water into a funnel or sieve, and expect it to be retained there, as commit any of your concerns to so slippery a companion. It is remarkable that, in those men who have thus lost the faculty of retention, the desire of being communicative is always most prevalent where it is least justified. If they are entrusted with a matter of no great moment, affairs of more consequence will perhaps in a few hours shuffle it entirely out of their thoughts; but if any thing be delivered to them with an earnestness, a low voice, and the gesture of a man in terror for the consequence of its being known; if the door is bolted, and every precaution taken to prevent surprise, however they may promise secresy, and however they may intend it, the weight upon their minds will be so extremely oppressive, that it will certainly put their tongues in motion.