The Works of William Cowper. William Cowper
before the end of the week, and will return them by the diligence next Monday.
I shall be glad if you will let me know whether I am to understand by the sorrow you express that any part of my former supplies is actually cut off, or whether they are only more tardy in coming in than usual. It is useful, even to the rich, to know, as nearly as may be, the exact amount of their income; but how much more so to a man of my small dimensions! If the former should be the case, I shall have less reason to be surprised than I have to wonder at the continuance of them so long. Favours are favours indeed, when laid out upon so barren a soil, where the expense of sowing is never accompanied by the smallest hope of return. What pain there is in gratitude, I have often felt; but the pleasure of requiting an obligation has always been out of my reach.
Affectionately yours,
W. C.
TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.[35]
Olney, April 11, 1778.
My dear Friend—Poor Sir Thomas![36] I knew that I had a place in his affections, and, from his own information many years ago, a place in his will; but little thought that after a lapse of so many years I should still retain it. His remembrance of me, after so long a season of separation, has done me much honour, and leaves me the more reason to regret his decease.
I am reading the Abbé with great satisfaction,[37] and think him the most intelligent writer upon so extensive a subject I ever met with; in every respect superior to the Abbé in Scotland.
Yours affectionately,
W. C.
TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.[38]
Olney, May 7, 1778.
My dear Friend—I have been in continual fear lest every post should bring a summons for the Abbé Raynal, and am glad that I have finished him before my fears were realized. I have kept him long, but not through neglect or idleness. I read the five volumes to Mrs. Unwin; and my voice will seldom serve me with more than an hour's reading at a time. I am indebted to him for much information upon subjects which, however interesting, are so remote from those with which country folks in general are conversant, that, had not his works reached me at Olney, I should have been for ever ignorant of them.
I admire him as a philosopher, as a writer, as a man of extraordinary intelligence, and no less extraordinary abilities to digest it. He is a true patriot. But then the world is his country. The frauds and tricks of the cabinet and the counter seem to be equally objects of his aversion. And, if he had not found that religion too had undergone a mixture of artifice, in its turn, perhaps he would have been a Christian.
Yours affectionately,
W. C.
TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.[38]
Olney, June 18, 1778.
My dear Friend—I truly rejoice that the Chancellor has made you such a present, that he has given such an additional lustre to it by his manner of conferring it, and that all this happened before you went to Wargrave, because it made your retirement there the more agreeable. This is just according to the character of the man. He will give grudgingly in answer to solicitation, but delights in surprising those he esteems with his bounty. May you live to receive still further proofs that I am not mistaken in my opinion of him!
Yours affectionately,
W. C.
TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN.
Olney, June 18, 1778.
Dear Unwin—I feel myself much obliged to you for your intimation, and have given the subject of it all my best attention, both before I received your letter and since. The result is, that I am persuaded it will be better not to write. I know the man and his disposition well; he is very liberal in his way of thinking, generous, and discerning. He is well aware of the tricks that are played upon such occasions, and, after fifteen years' interruption of all intercourse between us, would translate my letter into this language—pray remember the poor.[39] This would disgust him, because he would think our former intimacy disgraced by such an oblique application. He has not forgotten me, and, if he had, there are those about him who cannot come into his presence without reminding him of me, and he is also perfectly acquainted with my circumstances. It would, perhaps, give him pleasure to surprise me with a benefit, and if he means me such a favour, I should disappoint him by asking it.
I repeat my thanks for your suggestion: you see a part of my reasons for thus conducting myself; if we were together, I could give you more.
Yours affectionately,
W. C.
TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN.
Olney, May 26, 1779.
I am obliged to you for the Poets, and, though I little thought that I was translating so much money out of your pocket into the bookseller's, when I turned Prior's poem into Latin, yet I must needs say that, if you think it worth while to purchase the English Classics at all, you cannot possess yourself of them upon better terms. I have looked into some of the volumes, but, not having yet finished the Register, have merely looked into them. A few things I have met with, which, if they had been burned the moment they were written, it would have been better for the author, and at least as well for his readers. There is not much of this, but a little is too much. I think it a pity the editor admitted any; the English muse would have lost no credit by the omission of such trash. Some of them, again, seem to me to have but a very disputable right to a place among the Classics, and I am quite at a loss, when I see them in such company, to conjecture what is Dr. Johnson's idea or definition of classical merit. But, if he inserts the poems of some who can hardly be said to deserve such an honour, the purchaser may comfort himself with the hope that he will exclude none that do.
W. C.
TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN.[40]
Olney, July—79.
My dear Friend—When I was at Margate, it was an excursion of pleasure to go to see Ramsgate. The pier, I remember, was accounted a most excellent piece of stone-work, and such I found it. By this time, I suppose, it is finished, and surely it is no small advantage that you have an opportunity of observing how nicely those great stones are put together, as often as you please, without either trouble or expense.
There was not, at that time, much to be seen in the Isle of Thanet, besides the beauty of the country and the fine prospects of the sea, which are no where surpassed, except in the Isle of Wight, or upon some parts of the coast of Hampshire. One sight, however, I remember, engaged my curiosity, and I went to see it—a fine piece of ruins, built by the late Lord Holland at a great expense, which, the day after I saw it, tumbled down for nothing. Perhaps, therefore, it is still a ruin; and, if it is, I would advise you by all means to visit it, as it must have been much improved by this fortunate incident. It is hardly possible to put stones together with that air of wild and magnificent disorder which they are sure to acquire