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

I do not always fay, give my love to my uncle, because he knows that I always love him. I do not always prefent Mrs. Unwin's love to you, partly for the fame reason, (deuce take the fmith and the carpenter) and partly because I fometimes forget it. But to prefent 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.

LETTER LXXX.

To SAMUEL ROSE, Efq.

WESTON, Dec. 13, 1787.

UNLESS my memory deceives me, I forewarned you that I fhould prove a very unpunctual correfpondent. The work that lies before me engages un avoidably my whole attention. The length of it, the fpirit of it, and the exactness that is requifite to its due performance, are so many most interesting subjects of confideration to me, who find that my best attempts are only introductory to others, and that what to-day I fuppofe finished, to-morrow I must begin again. Thus it fares with a tranflator of Homer. To exhibit the majesty of fuch 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 eafy. But to represent him with only his own ornaments, and still to preferve his dignity, is a labour that, if I hope in any measure to achieve it, I am fenfible can only be achieved by the most affiduous, and most unremitting attention. Our studies, however different in themselves, in respect of the means by which they are to be fuccessfully carried on, bear fome resemblance to each other. A perfeverance that nothing can difcourage, a minuteness of obfervation that fuffers nothing to escape, and a determination not to be seduced from the straight line that lies before us, by any images with which fancy may prefent us, are effentials that should be common to us both. There are, perhaps, few arduous undertakings that are not in fact more arduous than we at first suppos ed 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 your experience, as I doubt not that it will. You possess by nature all that is necessary to success in the profeffion that have chofen. What remains is in your own power. They say of poets that they must be born fuch; fo must mathematicians, fo muft great generals, and fo must lawyers, and fo indeed muft men of all denominations, or it is not poffible that they fhould excel. But with whatever faculties we are born, and to whatever studies our genius may direct us, ftudies they must still be. I am perfuaded that Milton did not write his Paradife Loft, nor Homer his Iliad, nor Newton his Principia without immenfe labour. Nature gave them a bias to their respective pursuits, and that ftrong propenfity, I fuppofe, is what we mean by genius. The reft they gave

you

VOL. I.

themselves. "Macte efto," therefore, have no fears for the iffue!

I have had a fecond kind letter from your friend Mr. which I have juft answered. I must not, I find, hope to see him here, at least I must not much expect it. He has a family that does not permit him to fly Southward. I have also a notion that we three could spend a few days comfortably together, especially in a country like this, abounding in scenes with which I am fure you would both be delighted. Having lived till lately at fome diftance from the spot that I now inhabit, and having never been master of any sort of vehicle whatever, it is but just now that I begin myself to be acquainted with the beauties of our fituation. To you I may hope one time or other to fhow them, and shall be happy to do it when an opportunity offers.

Yours, most affectionately,

W. C.

LETTER LXXXI.

To Lady HESKETH.

THE LODGE, Jan. 1, 1788.

NOW for another ftory almost incredible!

A ftory, that would be quite fuch, if it was not certain that you give me credit for any thing. I have read the poem for the fake of which you fent the paper, and was much entertained by it. You think it, perhaps, as very well you may, the only piece of that kind that was ever produced. It is indeed original, for I dare fay Mr. Merry never saw mine; but certainly it is not unique. For moft true it is, my dear, that ten years fince, having a letter to write to a friend of mine, to whom I could write any thing, I filled a whole fheet with a compofition, both in measure and in manner, precisely fimilar. I have in vain fearched for it. It is either burnt or loft.

Could I have found it, you would have had double postage to pay. For that one man in Italy, and another in England, who never faw each other, fhould ftumble on a fpecies of verse, in which no other man ever wrote, (and I believe that to be the cafe) and upon a style and manner too, of which I fuppofe that neither of them had ever seen an example, appears to me fo extraordinary a fact, that I must have sent you mine, whatever it had coft you, and am really vexed that I cannot authenticate the ftory by producing a voucher. The measure I recollect to have been perfectly the fame, and as to the manner I am equally fure of that, and from this circumftance, that Mrs. Unwin and I never laughed more at any production of mine, perhaps not even at John Gil-. pin. But for all this, my dear, you must, as I said, give me credit; for the thing itself has gone to that Limbo of vanity, where alone, fays Milton, things loft on earth are to be met with. Said Limbo is, as you know, in the moon, whither I could not at present convey myself without a good deal of difficulty and inconvenience.

This morning, being the morning of New-Year's day, I fent to the Hall a copy of verfes addreffed to Mrs. Throckmorton, entitled, The Wifh, or the Poet's New Year's Gift. We dine there to-morrow, when, I fuppofe, I shall hear news of them. Their kindness is fo great, and they feize with fuch eagernefs every opportunity of doing all they think will please us, that I held myself almost in duty bound to treat them with this stroke of my profeffion.

The small-pox has done, I believe, all that it has to do at Weston. Old folks, and even women with child, have been inoculated. We talk of our freedom, and fome of us are free enough, but not the poor. Dependent as they are upon parish bounty, they are fometimes obliged to fubmit to impofitions which, perhaps in France itself, could hardly be paralleled. Can man or woman be

faid to be free, who is commanded to take a diftemper, fometimes at least mortal, and in circumstances most likely to make it fo? No circumstance whatever was permitted to exempt the inhabitants of Weston. The old as well as the young, and the pregnant as well as they who had only themselves within them, have been inoculated. Were I asked who is the moft arbitrary fovereign on earth? I should answer, neither the King of France, nor the Grand Seignior, but an Overseer of the Poor in England.

I am as heretofore occupied with Homer: my prefent occupation is the revifal of all I have done, viz. of the first fifteen Books. I ftand amazed at my own increafing dexterity in the bufinefs, being verily perfuaded that as far as I have gone, I have improved the work to double its former value.

That you may begin the new year, and end it in all health and happiness, and many more when the present fhall have been long an old one, is the ardent wish of Mrs. Unwin, and of yours, my dearest coz. most cordially, W. C.

LETTER LXXXII,

To Lady HESKETH.

THE LODGE, Jan. 19, 1788.

WHEN I have profe enough to fill my

paper, which is always the cafe when I write to you, cannot find in my heart to give a third part of it to verfe. Yet this I must do, or I must make my pacquets more coftly than worshipful, by doubling the poftage upon you, which 1 should hold to be unreasonable. See then, the true reason why I did not fend you that fame fcribblement till you defired it. The thought which naturally presents itself to me on all fuch occafions is this, Is not your coufin coming? Why are you impatient?