The mistake that has occasioned the mention of Unwin's name in the margin would be ludicrous if it were not, inadvertently indeed, and innocently on their part, profane. I should have thought it impossible that when I spoke of One who had been wounded in the hands and in the side, any reader in a Christian land could have been for a moment at a loss for the person intended. Adieu, my dear cousin; I intended that one of these should have served as a case for the other, but before I was aware of it, I filled both sheets completely. However, as your money burns in your pocket, there is no harm done. I shall not add a syllable more except that I am and, while I breathe, ever shall be Most truly yours, WM. COWPER. Yes; one syllable more. Having just finished the Iliad, I was determined to have a deal of talk with you. TO LADY HESKETH. MY DEAR, Olney, Monday, Jan. 23, 1786. ANONYMOUS is come again;—may God bless him, whosoever he be, as I doubt not that he will. A certain person said on a certain occasion, (and he never spoke a word that failed,) Whoso giveth you a cup of cold water in my name, shall by no means lose his reward. Therefore anonymous as he chooses to be upon earth, his name, I trust, will hereafter be found written in heaven. But when great princes, or characters much superior to great princes, choose to be incog, it is a sin against decency and good manners to seem to know them. I therefore know nothing of anonymous, but that I love him heartily and with most abundant cause. Had I opportunity I would send you his letter, though yourself excepted, I would indulge none with a sight of it. To confide it to your hands will be no violation of the secrecy that he has enjoined himself, and consequently me. But I can give you a short summary of its purport.-After an introduction of a religious cast, which does great honour to himself, and in which he makes a humble comparison between himself and me, by far too much to my advantage, he proceeds to tell me that being lately in company where my last work was mentioned, mention was also made of my intended publication. He informs me of the different sentiments of the company on that subject, and expresses his own in terms the most encouraging; but adds, that having left the company, and shut himself up in his chamber, an apprehension there seized him, lest, if perhaps the world should not enter into my views of the matter, and the work should come short of the success that I hope for, the mortification might prove too much for my health; yet thinks that even in that case I may comfort myself by adverting to similar instances of failure where the writer's genius would have insured success, if any thing could have insured it, and alludes in particular to the fate and fortune of the Paradise Lost. In the last place he gives his attention to my circumstances, takes the kindest notice of their narrowness, and makes me a present of an annuity of fifty pounds a year, wishing that it were five hundred pounds. In a P. S. he tells me, a small parcel will set off by the Wellingborough coach on Tuesday next, which he hopes will arrive safe. I have given you the bones, but the benignity and affection which is the marrow of those bones, in so short an abridgement, I could not give you. Wonder with me, my beloved cousin, at the goodness of God, who, according to Dr. Watts's beautiful stanza, can clear the darkest skies, As I said once before, so say I again, my heart is as light as a bird on the subject of Homer. Neither without prayer, nor without confidence in the providential goodness of God, has that work been undertaken or continued. I am not so dim-sighted, sad as my spirit is at times, but that I can plainly discern his Providence going before me in the way. Unforeseen, unhoped-for advantages have sprung at his bidding, and a prospect, at first cloudy indeed and discouraging enough, has been continually brightening ever since I announced my intentions. But suppose the worst;— suppose that I should not succeed in any measure proportioned to my hopes;- -how then? Why then, my dear, I will hold this language with myself: To write was necessary to me. I undertook an honourable task, and with upright intentions. It served me for more than two years as an amusement, and as such was of infinite service to my spirits. But God did not see it good for me that I should be very famous. S. C.-5. R If he did not, it is better for me that I am not. Fame is neither my meat nor my drink; I lived fifty years without it, and should I live fifty more and get to heaven at last, then I shall not want it.—So, my dear, you see that I am armed at all points. I do not mean that I should feel nothing, but that thus thinking I should feel supportably. I knew that my last letter would give you pain, but there is no need that it should give you so much. He who hath preserved me hitherto, will still preserve me. All the dangers that I have escaped are so many pillars of remembrance to which I shall hereafter look back with comfort, and be able, as I well hope, to inscribe on every one of them a grateful memorial of God's singular protection of me. Mine has been a life of wonders for many years, and a life of wonders I in my heart believe it will be to the end. Wonders I have seen in the great deeps, and wonders I shall see in the paths of mercy also. This, my dear, is my creed. My eyes, you know were never strong, and it was in the character of a carpenter that I almost put them out. The strains and the exertions of hard labour distended and relaxed the blood vessels to such a degree that an inflammation ensued so painful that for a year I was in continual torment, and had so far lost the sight of one of them that I could distinguish with it nothing but the light, and very faintly that. But a medicine of Elliot's, which I had never tried before, though two of his medicines I had used for many years, through God's mercy cured me almost in an instant, and my eyes are for the most part stronger and clearer now than they were when you used to see me daily. I shall write to Sephus soon for a supply of this medicine, for though I do not often want it, I would never be without it. He has always procured it for me. I am heartily glad that your thoughts and ours coincided so exactly on the subject of the Madans. I should be very sorry to see Signors and Signoras in the list of my subscribers; yet such a sight, as those warblers have so much the command of his purse, it is not at all impossible that I might encounter. He will necessarily hear of the work, and if he subscribes himself, it shall be quite sufficient. I rejoice at my success with Dr. Maty. He was probably that friend of Dr. Johnson's, who revised my first volume, and made a favourable report of it. But that the knowledge of this last has diffused itself so much further, has been owing, my dear, principally to yourself. If Dr. Maty applied to you for permission to mention my Homer in his next Review, it is plainly enough to be seen that from you he received, or by your means, my last publication. Vous avez beaucoup de courage, ma cousine, in my cause. Neither the asperity of a critic professed, nor the frowns of a whole university whom I have censured, have any terrors for you, where you apprehend my interest is concerned. If Dr. Jackson should not call me also a dd fool, as well as Pope, I should not wonder if he were to give me as hard a name, or if my book were to be burnt at Carfax. But never mind, the book will do them no harm, if they do not quarrel with good counsel; and if they should, their resentment will do me none. |