LETTER LXXI. To the Revd. WALTER BAGOT. Weston, Jan. 29, 1789. MY DEAR FRIEND, I shall be a better, at least a more frequent correspondent when I have done with Homer. I am not forgetful of any Letters that I owe, and least of all forgetful of my debts in that way to you; on the contrary, I live in a continual state of self reproach for not writing more punctually, but the old Grecian whom I charge myself never to neglect, lest I should never finish him, has at present a voice that seems to drown all other demands, and many, to which I could listen with more pleasure, than even to his Os rotundum. I am now in the eleventh book of the Odyssey, conversing with the dead. Invoke the muse in my behalf, that I may roll the stone of Sisyphus with some success. To do it as Homer has done it, is I suppose, in our verse and language, impossible, but I will hope not to labour altogether to as little purpose as Sisyphus himself did. Though I meddle little with politics, and can find but little leisure to do so, the present state of things unavoidably engages a share of my attention. But as they say, Archimedes, when Syracuse was taken, was found busied in the solution of a problem, so, come what may, I shall be found translating Homer. twelve and one, at the end of the seventeenth book pre of the Odyssey, I give the interval between the sent moment and the time of walking, to you. If I write Letters before I sit down to Homer, I feel my spirits too flat for poetry, and too flat for letter-writing if I address myself to Homer first; but the last I chuse as the least evil, because my friends will pardon my dullness, but the public will not. I had been some days uneasy on your account when yours arrived. We should have rejoiced to have seen you, would your engagements have permitted but in the autumn I hope, if not before, we shall have the pleasure to receive you. At what time we may expect Lady Hesketh, at present, I know not; but imagine that at any time after the month of June you will be sure to find her with us, which I mention, knowing that to meet you will add a relish to all the pleasures she can find at Weston. When I wrote those lines on the Queen's visit, I thought I had performed well; but it belongs to me, as I have told you before, to dislike whatever I write when it has been written a month. The performance was therefore sinking in my esteem, when your approbation of it arriving in good time, buoyed it up again. It will now keep possession of the place it holds in my good opinion, because it has been favoured with yours; and a copy will certainly be at your service whenever you chuse to have one. Nothing is more certain than that when I wrote the line. God made the country, and man made the town, I had not the least recollection of that very si milar one, which you quote from Hawkins Brown. It convinces me that critics (and none more than Warton, in his notes on Milton's minor poems) have often charged authors with borrowing what they drew from their own fund. Brown was an entertaining companion when he had drunk his bottle, but not before, this proved a snare to him, and he would sometimes drink too much; but I know not that he was chargeable with any other irregularities. had those among his intimates, who would not have been such, had he been otherwise viciously inclined; the Duncombs, in particular, father and son, who were of unblemished morals. He W. C. ON THE QUEEN'S VISIT TO LONDON, THE NIGHT OF THE SEVENTEENTH OF MARCH, 1789. When long sequester'd from his throne George took his seat again, By right of worth, not blood alone, Entitled here to reign! Then Loyalty, with all her lamps New trimm'd, a gallant show! Chasing the darkness, and the damps, Set London in a glow. "Twas hard to tell, of streets, of squares, Which form'd the chief display, These most resembling cluster'd stars, Those the long milky way. Bright shone the roofs, the domes, the spires, And rockets flew, self-driven, To hang their momentary fires Amid the vault of Heaven. So fire with water to compare, Up-spouted by a whale in air, To express unwieldy joy, Had all the pageants of the world In one procession join'd, For no such sight had England's Queen Forsaken her retreat, Where George recover'd made a scene Sweet always, doubly sweet. |