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 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?

W. C.

LETTER CXX.

To Lady HESKETH.

Feb. 13, 1791.

I 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

*

*

料

W. Ć.

P. S. I cannot help adding a circumstance that will divert you. 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 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.

† 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 Postscript describes so pleasantly the signal influence of a poet's reputation on the spirit of a liberal innkeeper, that it surely ought not to be supprest.

LETTER CXXI.

To the Revd. WALTER BAGOT.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

Weston Underwood, Feb. 26, 1791.

It is a maxim of much weight.

Worth conning o'er and o'er,

He, who has Homer to translate,

Had need do nothing more.

But notwithstanding the truth and importance of this apothegm, to which I lay claim as the original author of it, it is not equally true, that my application to Homer, close as it is, has been the sole cause of my delay to answer you. No. In observing so long a silence I have been influenced much more by a vindictive purpose, a purpose to punish you for your suspicion, that I could possibly feel myself hurt or offended by any critical suggestion of yours, that seemed to reflect on the purity of my nonsense verses. Understand, if you please, for the future, that, whether I disport myself in Greek or Latin, or in whatsoever other language, you are hereby, henceforth, and for ever, entitled and warranted to take any liber

ties with it, to which you shall feel yourself inclined, not exepting even the lines themselves, which stand at the head of this Letter!

You delight me when you call Blank verse the English heroic; for I have always thought, and often said, that we have no other verse worthy to be so entitled. When you read my Preface you will be made acquainted with my sentiments on this subject pretty much at large, for which reason I will curb my zeal, and say the less about it at present. That Johnson, who wrote harmoniously in rhyme, should have had so defective an ear as never to have discovered any music at all in Blank verse, till he heard a particular friend of his reading it, is a wonder never sufficiently to be wondered at. Yet this is true on his own acknowledgment, and amounts to a plain confession (of which perhaps he was not aware when he made it,) that he did not know how to read Blank verse himself. In short, he either suffered prejudice to lead him in a string whithersoever it would, or his taste in poetry was worth little. I dont believe he ever read any thing of that kind with enthusiasm in his life; and as good poetry cannot be composed without a considerable share of that quality in the mind of the

author, so neither can it be read or tasted as it ought to be without it.

I have said all this in the morning fasting, but am soon going to my tea. When therefore I shall have told you that we are now, in the course of our printing, in the second book of the Odyssey, I shall only have time to add, that

I am, my dear friend,

Most truly yours,

W. C.

I think your Latin quotations very applicable.

to the present state of France. But France is in a situation new and untried before.