maticians, makes me proud, and I am, if possible, prouder still of the contents of the Letter that you inclosed,

You complained of being stupid, and sent me one of the cleverest Letters. I have not complained of being stupid, and have sent you one of the dullest. But it is no matter; I never aim at any thing above the pitch of every day's scribble, when I write to those I love.

Homer proceeds, my boy-We shall get through it in time, and I hope by the time appointed. We are now in the tenth Iliad. I expect the ladies every minute to breakfast. You have their best love. Mine attends the whole army of Donnes at Mattishall Green assembled. How happy should I find myself were I but one of the party. My capering days are over, but do you caper for me, that you may give them some idea of the happiness I should feel were I in the midst of them.

W. C.

LETTER CXLIX.

To JOHN JOHNSON, Esqr.

Weston, Jan. 21, 1791.

I know that you have already been

catechized by Lady Hesketh on the subject of your return hither

before

before the winter shall be over, and shall therefore only say that if you can come we shall be happy to receive you. Remember also that nothing can excuse the non-performance of a promise, but absolute necessity. In the mean time my faith in your veracity is such, that I am persuaded you will suffer nothing less than necessity to prevent it. Were you not extremely pleasant to us, and just the sort of youth that suits us, we should neither of us have said half so much, or perhaps a word on the subject.

Yours, my dear Johnny, are vagaries that I shall never see practised by any other, and whether you slap your ancle, or reel as if you were fuddled, or dance in the path before me, all is characteristic of yourself, and therefore to me delightful. I have hinted to you indeed, sometimes, that you should be cautious of indulging antic habits and singularities of all sorts, and young men in general have need enough of such admonition; but yours are a sort of fairy habits, such as might belong to Puck or Robin Goodfellow, and therefore good as the advice is, I should be half sorry should you

take it.

This allowance at least I give you-Continue to take your walks, if walks they may be called, exactly in their present fashion, till you have taken Orders. Then, indeed, for as much as a skipping, curvetting, bounding Divine, might be a spectacle not altogether seemly, I shall consent to your adoption of a more grave demeanour.

W. C.

LETTER

LETTER CL.

To SAMUEL ROSE, Esqr.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

The Lodge, Feb. 5, 1791.

My Letters to you are all either peti

tionary, or in the style of acknowledgments and thanks, and such nearly in an alternate order. In my last I loaded you with commissions, for the due discharge of which I am now to say, and say truly, how much I feel myself obliged to you. Neither can I stop there, but must thank you likewise for new honours from Scotland, which have left me nothing to wish for from that country, for my list is now, I believe, graced with the subscription of all its learned bodies. I regret only that some of them arrived too late to do honour to my present publication of names, but there are those among them, and from Scotland too, that may give an useful hint perhaps to our own Universities. Your very handsome present of

Pope's Homer has arrived safe, notwithstanding an accident that befell him by the way. The Hall servant brought the parcel. from Olney, resting it on the pommel of the saddle, and his horse fell with him: Pope was in consequence rolled in the dirt, but being well coated got no damage. If augurs and soothsayers were not out of fashion, I should have consulted one or two of that order, in hope of learning from them that this fall was ominous. I have found a place for him in the parlour, where he makes a splendid

VOL. I.

EEE

appearance,

appearance, and where he shall not long want a neighbour; one, who if less popular than himself, shall at least look as big as he. How has it happened, that since Pope did certainly dedicate both Iliad and Odyssey, no Dedication is found in this first edition of them?

LETTER CIF,

To Lady HESKETH.

W. C.

Feb. 13, 1791.

I can now send you a full and true

account of this business; having learned that your Inn at Woburn was the George, we sent Samuel thither yesterday. Mr. Martin, master of the George, told him ** * * * * * * * * †.

W. C.

you.

P. S. I cannot help adding a circumstance that will divert Martin having learned from Sam, whose servant he was, told him, that he had never seen Mr. Cowper, but he had heard him frequently spoken of by the companies that had called at his house; and

+ NOTE BY THE EDITOR,

This Letter contained the history of a Servant's cruelty to a post-horse, which a reader. of humanity could not wish to see in print. But the Postcript describes so pleasantly, the signal influence of a Poet's reputation, on the spirit of a liberal Inn-keeper, that it surely ought not to be supprest..

and therefore, when Sam would have paid for his breakfast, would take nothing from him. Who says that Fame is only empty breath? On the contrary, it is good ale and cold beef into the bargain,

LETTER CLII.

To JOHN JOHNSON, Esqr.

Feb. 27, 1791.

Now my dearest Johnny I must tell

thee in few words, how much I love and am obliged to thee for thy affectionate services.

My Cambridge honours are all to be ascribed to you, and to you only. Yet you are but a little man, and a little man into the bargain, who have kicked the Mathematics, their idol, out of your study. So important are the endings which Providence frequently connects with small beginnings-Had you been here, I could have furnished you with much employment, for I have so dealt with your fair мss. in the course of my polishing and improving, that I have almost blotted out the whole; such, however, as it is, I must now send it to the Printer, and he must be content with it, for there is not time to make a fresh copy. We are now printing the second book of the Odyssey.