works, though presented to you long before, you had never read, made me laugh, and it was no sin against my friendship for you to do so. It was a ridiculous distress, and I can laugh at it even now. I hope she catechized you well. How did you extricate yourself?Now laugh at me. The clerk of the parish of All Saints, in the town of Northampton, having occasion for a poet, has appointed me to the office. I found myself obliged to comply. The bell-man comes next, and then, I think, though even borne upon your swan's quill, I can soar no higher!

I am, my dear friend, faithfully yours,

LETTER XXXV.

W. C.

To Lady HESKETH,

The Lodge, Dec. 10, 1787.

I thank you for the snip of

cloth, commonly called a pattern. At present I have two coats, and but one back. If at any time here

after, I should find myself possessed of fewer coats, or more backs, it will be of use to me.

Even as you suspect, my dear, so it proved. The ball was prepared for, the ball was held, and the ball passed, and we had nothing to do with it. Mrs. Throckmorton knowing our trim, did not give us the pain of an invitation, for a pain it would have been. And why? as Sternhold says-because, as Hopkins answers, we must have refused it. But it fell out singularly enough, that this ball was held, of all days in the year, on my birth-day—and so I told them-but not till it was all over.

Though I have thought proper never to take any notice of the arrival of my мSS. together with the other good things in the box, yet certain it is that I received them. I have furbished up the tenth book till it is as bright as silver, and am now occupied in bestowing the same labour upon the eleventh. The twelfth and thirteenth are in the hands of, and the fourteenth and fifteenth are ready to succeed them. This notable job is the delight of my heart,

and how sorry shall I be when it is ended.

The smith and the carpenter, my dear, are both in the room, hanging a bell, if I therefore make

a thousand blunders, let the said intruders answer for them all.

I thank you, my dear, for your history of the Gs. What changes in that family! And how many thousand families have in the same time experienced changes as violent as theirs! The course of a rapid river is the justest of all emblems to express the variableness of our scene below. Shakespear says, none ever bathed himself twice in the same stream, and it is equally true, that the world upon which we close our eyes at night, is never the same with that on which we open them in the morning.

I do not always say, give my love to my Uncle, because he knows that I always love him. I do not always present Mrs. Unwin's love to you, partly for the same reason, (Deuce take the smith and the carpenter) and partly because I forget it. But to pre

sent my own, I forget never, for I always have to finish my Letter, which I know not how to do, my dearest Coz. without telling you, that I am

Ever yours,

W. C.

DEAR SIR,

LETTER XXXVI.

To SAMUEL ROSE, Esqr.

Weston, Dec. 13, 1787.

Unless my memory deceives

me, I forewarned you that I should prove a very unpunctual correspondent. The work that lies before me, engages unavoidably my whole attention. The length of it, the spirit of it, and the exactness, that is requisite to its due performance, are so many most interesting subjects of consideration to me, who find that my best attempts are only introductory to others, and that what to-day I suppose finished, to-morrow I must begin again, Thus it fares with a translator of Homer. To exhibit the majesty of such a poet in a modern language, is a task that no man can estimate the difficulty of till he attempts it. To paraphrase him loosely, to hang him with trappings that do not belong to him, all this is comparatively easy. But to represent him with only his own ornaments, and still to preserve his dignity, is a labour that, if I hope in any measure to achieve it, I am sensible can only be achieved by the most assiduous, and

most unremitting attention. Our studies, however different in themselves, in respect of the means by which they are to be successfully carried on, bear some resemblance to each other. A perseverance that nothing can discourage, a minuteness of observation that suffers nothing to escape, and a determinanation not to be seduced from the strait line that lies before us, by any images with which fancy may present us, are essentials that should be common to us both. There are, perhaps, few arduous undertakings that are not in fact more arduous than we at first supposed them. As we proceed, difficulties increase upon us, but our hopes gather strength also, and we conquer difficulties which could we have foreseen them, we should never have had the boldness to encounter, May this be our experience, as I doubt not that it will. You possess by nature all that is necessary to success in the profession that you have chosen. What remains is in your own power. They say of poets that they must be born such: so must mathematicians, so must great generals, and so must lawyers, and so indeed must men of all denominations, or it is not possible that they should excel. But with whatever faculties we are born, and to whatever studies our genius may direct us, studies they must still be.