LETTER CLVI. To SAMUEL ROSE, Esquire. MY DEAR FRIEND, Weston, March 24, 1791. You apologize for your silence in a manner which affords me so much pleasure that I cannot but be satisfied. Let business be the cause, and I am contented. That is a cause to which I would even be accessary myself, and would increase yours by any means, except by a law-suit of my own, at the expense of all your opportunities of writing oftener than thrice in a twelvemonth. Your application to Dr. Dunbar reminds me of two lines to be found some where in Dr. Young "And now a poet's gratitude you see, "Grant him two favours, and he'll ask for three." In this particular, therefore, I perceive that a poet and a poet's friend bear a striking resemblance to each other. The Doctor will bless himself that the number of Scotch universities is not larger, assured that, if they equalled those of England in number of colleges, you would give him no rest till he had engaged them all. It is true, as Lady Hesketh told you, that I shall not fear, in the matter of subscriptions, a comparison even with Pope himself. Considering, I mean, that we live in days of terrible taxation, and when verse, not being a necessary of life, is accounted dear, be it which it may, even at the lowest price. I am no very good arithmeti cian, yet I calculated the other day in my morning walk, that my two volumes at the price of three guineas, will cost the purchaser less than the seventh part of a farthing per line. Yet there are lines among them that have cost me the labour of hours, and none that have not cost me some labour. W. C. LETTER CLVII. To Mrs. THROCKMORTON. two before breakfast, time to send you. April 1, 1791. My dear Mrs. Frog, a word or which is all that I shall have You have not, I hope, forgot to tell Mr. Frog how much I am obliged to him for his kind, though unsuccessful attempt in my favour at Oxford. It seems not a little extraordinary, that persons so nobly patronized themselves, on the score of literature, should resolve to give no encouragement to it in return. Should I find a fair opportunity to thank them,hereafter, I will not neglect it. Could Homer come himself, distress'd and poor, I have read your husband's pamphlet through and through. You may think, perhaps, and so may he, that a question so remote from all concern of mine could not interest me; but if you think so, you are both mistaken. He can write nothing that will not interest me; in the first place for the writer's sake, and in the next place, because he writes better and reasons better than any body; with more candour, and with more sufficiency; and, consequently, with more satisfaction to all his readers, save only his opponents. They, I think by this time, wish that they had let him alone. Tom is delighted past measure with his wooden nag, and gallops at a rate that would kill any horse that had a life to lose. W. C. LETTER CLVIII. MY DEAR JOHNNY, Weston, April 6, 1791. A thousand thanks for your splendid assemblage of Cambridge luminaries. If you are not contented with your collection, it can only be because you are unreasonable; for I, who may be supposed more covetous on this occasion than any body, am highly satisfied, and even delighted with it. If, indeed, you should find it practicable to add still to the number, I have not the least objection; but this charge I give you, Αλλο δε τοι ερέω, συ δ' ενι φρεσι βάλλεο σησι. Stay not an hour beyond the time you have mentioned, even though you should be able to add a thousand names by doing so; for I cannot afford to purchase them at that cost. I long to see you, and so do we both, and will not suffer you to postpone your visit for any such consideration. No, my dear boy, in the affair of subscriptions we are already illustrious enough; shall be so at least when you shall have enlisted a college or two more, which, perhaps, you may be able to do in the course of the ensuing week. I feel myself much obliged to your university, and much disposed to admire the liberality of spirit they have shown on this occasion. Certainly I had not deserved much favour of their hands, all things considered: but the cause of literature seems to have some weight with them, and to have superseded the resentment they might be supposed to entertain on the score of certain censures that you wot of. It is not so at Oxford. at W. C. LETTER CLIX. To SAMUEL ROSE, Esquire, April 29, 1791. I forgot if I told you that Mr. Throckmorton had applied, through the medium of to the university of Oxford. He did so, but withTheir answer was, "that they subscribe out success. to nothing." Pope's subscriptions did not amount, I think, to six hundred; and mine will not fall very far short of five. Noble doings, at a time of day when Homer has no news to tell us, and when all other comforts of life having risen in price, poetry has of course fallen. I call it a "comfort of life;" it is so to others, but to myself it is become even a necessary. These holiday times are very unfavourable to the printer's progress. He and all his demons are making themselves merry, and me sad, for I mourn at every hinderance. W. C. LETTER CLX. To JOHN JOHNSON, Esquire. MY DEAREST JOHNNY, Weston, May 23, 1791. Did I not know that you are never more in your element than when you are exerting yourself in my cause, I should congratulate you on the hope there seems to be that your labour will soon have an end. You will wonder, perhaps, my Johnny, that Mrs. Unwin, by my desire, enjoined you to secrecy concerning the translation of the Frogs and Mice. Wonderful it may well seem to you, that I should wish to hide, for a short time, from a few, what I am just going to publish to all. But I had more reasons than one for this mysterious management; that is to say, I had two. In the first place, I wished to surprise my readers agreeably; and, secondly, I wished to allow none of my friends an opportunity to object to the measure, who might think it, perhaps, a measure bountiful than prudent. But I have had my sufficient reward, though not a pecuniary one. It is a poem of much humour, and accordingly I found the translation of it very amusing. It struck me too, that I must either make it part of the present publication, or never publish it at all; it would have been so terribly out of its place in any other volume. more I long for the time that shall bring you once more to Weston, and all your et cetera's with you. O! what a month of May this has been! Let never poet, English poet at least, give himself to the praises of May again, W. C. THE JUDGMENT OF THE POETS. Two Nymphs, both nearly of an age, A warm dispute once chanc'd to wage, The worth of each had been complete, But one, although her smile was sweet, |