The Works of William Cowper. William Cowper
as it is I send it, presuming upon that interest which I know you take in my minutest concerns, which I cannot express better than in the words of Terence, a little varied—Nihil mei a te alienum putas.
Yours, my dear friend,
W. C.
TO MRS. COWPER.
Olney, Aug. 31, 1780.
My dear Cousin—I am obliged to you for your long letter, which did not seem so, and for your short one, which was more than I had any reason to expect. Short as it was, it conveyed to me two interesting articles of intelligence—an account of your recovering from a fever, and of Lady Cowper's death. The latter was, I suppose, to be expected, for, by what remembrance I have of her Ladyship, who was never much acquainted with her, she had reached those years that are always found upon the borders of another world. As for you, your time of life is comparatively of a youthful date. You may think of death as much as you please, (you cannot think of it too much,) but I hope you will live to think of it many years.
It costs me not much difficulty to suppose that my friends, who were already grown old when I saw them last, are old still, but it costs me a good deal sometimes to think of those who were at that time young as being older than they were. Not having been an eye-witness of the change that time has made in them, and my former idea of them not being corrected by observation, it remains the same; my memory presents me with this image unimpaired, and, while it retains the resemblance of what they were, forgets that by this time the picture may have lost much of its likeness, through the alteration that succeeding years have made in the original. I know not what impressions Time may have made upon your person, for while his claws (as our grannams called them) strike deep furrows in some faces, he seems to sheath them with much tenderness, as if fearful of doing injury, to others. But, though an enemy to the person, he is a friend to the mind, and you have found him so; though even in this respect his treatment of us depends upon what he meets with at our hands: if we use him well, and listen to his admonitions, he is a friend indeed, but otherwise the worst of enemies, who takes from us daily something that we valued, and gives us nothing better in its stead. It is well with them, who, like you, can stand a-tiptoe on the mountain-top of human life, look down with pleasure upon the valley they have passed, and sometimes stretch their wings in joyful hope of a happy flight into eternity. Yet a little while, and your hope will be accomplished.
When you can favour me with a little account of your own family, without inconvenience, I shall be glad to receive it, for, though separated from my kindred by little more than half a century of miles, I know as little of their concerns as if oceans and continents were interposed between us.
Yours, my dear cousin,
W. C.
TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN.
Olney, Sept. 3, 1780.
My dear Friend—I am glad you are so provident, and that, while you are young, you have furnished yourself with the means of comfort in old age. Your crutch and your pipe may be of use to you, (and may they be so!) should your years be extended to an antediluvian date; and, for your perfect accommodation, you seem to want nothing but a clerk called Snuffle, and a sexton of the name of Skeleton, to make your ministerial equipage complete.
I think I have read as much of the first volume of the Biographia as I shall ever read. I find it very amusing; more so, perhaps, than it would have been, had they sifted their characters with more exactness, and admitted none but those who had in some way or other entitled themselves to immortality by deserving well of the public. Such a compilation would perhaps have been more judicious, though I confess it would have afforded less variety. The priests and monks of earlier and the doctors of later days, who have signalized themselves by nothing but a controversial pamphlet, long since thrown by and never to be perused again, might have been forgotten, without injury or loss to the national character for learning or genius. This observation suggested to me the following lines, which may serve to illustrate my meaning, and at the same time to give my criticism a sprightlier air.
O fond attempt to give a deathless lot
To names ignoble, born to be forgot!
In vain recorded in historic page,
They court the notice of a future age;
Those twinkling, tiny lustres of the land,
Drop one by one, from Fame's neglecting hand;
Lethean gulphs receive them as they fall,
And dark Oblivion soon absorbs them all.
So, when a child (as playful children use)
Has burnt to cinder a stale last year's news,
The flame extinct, he views the roving fire,
There goes my lady, and there goes the 'squire,
There goes the parson—O illustrious spark!
And there—scarce less illustrious—goes the clerk!
Virgil admits none but worthies into the Elysian fields; I cannot recollect the lines in which he describes them all, but these in particular I well remember:
Quique sui memores alios fecere merendo,
Inventas aut qui vitam excoluere per artes.
A chaste and scrupulous conduct like this would well become the writer of national biography. But enough of this.
Our respects attend Miss Shuttleworth, with many thanks for her intended present. Some purses derive all their value from their contents, but these will have an intrinsic value of their own; and, though mine should be often empty, which is not an improbable supposition, I shall still esteem it highly on its own account.
If you could meet with a second-hand Virgil, ditto Homer, both Iliad and Odyssey, together with a Clavis, for I have no Lexicon, and all tolerably cheap, I shall be obliged to you if you will make the purchase.
Yours,
W. C.
The three following letters are interesting, as containing Cowper's sentiments on the subject of education.
TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN.
Olney, Sept. 7, 1780.
My dear Friend—As many gentlemen as there are in the world, who have children, and heads capable of reflecting upon the important subject of their education, so many opinions there are about it, and many of them just and sensible, though almost all differing from each other. With respect to the education of boys, I think they are generally made to draw in Latin and Greek trammels too soon. It is pleasing no doubt to a parent to see his child already in some sort a proficient in those languages, at an age when most others are entirely ignorant of them; but hence it often happens that a boy, who could construe a fable of Æsop at six or seven years of age, having exhausted his little stock of attention and diligence in making that notable acquisition, grows weary of his task, conceives a dislike for study, and perhaps makes but a very indifferent progress afterwards. The mind and body have, in this respect, a striking resemblance to each other. In childhood they are both nimble, but not strong; they can skip, and frisk about with wonderful agility, but hard labour spoils them both. In maturer years they become less active, but more vigorous, more capable of a fixed application, and can make themselves sport with that which a little earlier would have affected them with intolerable fatigue, I should recommend it to you, therefore, (but after all you must judge for yourself,) to allot the two next years of little John's scholarship to writing and arithmetic, together with which, for variety's