LETTER XV. To Lady HESKETIĮ. Weston-Lodge, Nov. 26, 1786. It is my birth-day, my beloved Cousin, and I determine to employ a part of it, that it may not be destitute of festivity, in writing to you. The dark, thick fog that has obscured it, would have been a burthen to me at Olney, but here I have hardly attended to it. The neatness and snugness of our abode, compensates all the dreariness of the season, and whether the ways are wet or dry, our house at least is always warm and commodious. Oh! for you, my Cousin to partake these comforts with us! I will not begin already to tease you upon that subject, but Mrs. Unwin remembers to have heard from your own lips, that you hate London in the spring. Perhaps, therefore, by that time, you may be glad to escape from a scene which will be every day growing more disagreeable, that you may enjoy the comforts of the lodge. You well know that the best house has a desolate appearance unfurnished. This house accordingly, since it has been occupied by us, and our meubles, is as much superior to what it was when you saw it, as you can imagine. The parlour is even elegant. When I say that the parlour is elegant, I do not mean to insinuate that the study is not SO. It is neat, warm, and silent, and a much better study than I deserve, if I do not produce in it, an incomparable translation of Homer. I think every day of those lines of Milton, and congratulate myself on having obtained, before I am quite superannuated, what he seems not to have hoped for sooner. And may at length my weary age, "Find out the peaceful hermitage!" For if it is not a hermitage, at least it is a much better thing, and you must always understand, my dear, that when poets talk of cottages, hermitages, and such like things, they mean a house with six sashes in front, two comfortable parlours, a smart stair-case, and three bed chambers, of convenient dimensions; in short, exactly such a house as this. The Throckmortons continue the most obliging neighbours in the world. One morning last week, they both went with me to the cliffs-a scene, my dear, in which you would delight beyond mea or autumn. sure, but which you cannot visit except in the spring The heat of summer, and clinging dirt of winter, would destroy you. What is called the cliff, is no cliff, nor at all like one, but a beautiful terrace, sloping gently down to the Ouse, and from the brow of which, though not lofty, you have a view of such a valley, as makes that which you see from the hills near Olney, and which I have had the honour to celebrate, an affair of no consideration. Wintry as the weather is, do not suspect that it confines me. change my ramble. Wherever I go, I find short grass under my feet, and when I have travelled perhaps five miles, come home with shoes not at all too dirty for a drawing-room. I was pacing yesterday under the elms, that surround the field in which stands the great alcove, when lifting my eyes I saw two black genteel figures bolt through a hedge, into the path where I was walking. You guess already who they were, and that they could be nobody but our neighbours. They had seen me from a hill at a distance, and had traversed a great turnip field to get at me. You see therefore, my dear, that I am in some request. Alas! in too much request with some peo ple. The verses of Cadwallader have found me at last. I am charmed with your account of our little Cousin* at Kensington. If the world does not spoil him hereafter, he will be a valuable man, Good night, and may God bless thee, LETTER XVI. To LADY HESKETH. W. C. The Lodge, Dec. 4, 1786. I sent you, my dear, a melancholy Letter, and I do not know that I shall now send you one very unlike it. Not that any thing occurs in consequence of our late loss more afflictive than was to be expected, but the mind does not perfectly recover its tone after a shock like that which has been felt so lately. This I observe, that though my experience has long since taught me, that this world is a Lord Cowper. world of shadows, and that it is the more prudent, as well as the more Christian course, to possess the comforts that we find in it, as if we possessed them not, it is no easy matter to reduce this doctrine into practice. We forget that that God who gave them, may, when he pleases, take them away; and that perhaps it may please him to take them at a time when we least expect, or are least disposed to part from them. Thus it has happened in the present case. There never was a moment in Unwin's life when there seemed to be more urgent want of him than the moment in which he died. He had attained to an age, when, if they are at any time useful, men become more useful to their families, their friends, and the world. His parish began to feel, and to be sensible of the advantages of his ministry. The clergy around him were many of them awed by his example. His children were thriving under his own tuition and management, and his eldest boy is likely to feel his loss severely, being by his years, in some respect, qualified to understand the value of such a parent; by his literary proficiency too clever for a school-boy, and too young at the same time for the university. The removal of a man in the prime of life, of such a character, and with such connexions, seems to make a void in society that |