The Correspondence of William Cowper *> \ the Correspondence of William Cowper
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This is a reproduction of a library book that was digitized by Google as part of an ongoing effort to preserve the information in books and make it universally accessible. https://books.google.com S>*L\. 5" cii; 1. \ ■<\ THE CORRESPONDENCE OF WILLIAM COWPER *> \ THE CORRESPONDENCE OF WILLIAM COWPER ARRANGED IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER, WITH ANNOTATIONS BY THOMAS WRIGHT PRINCIPAL OF COWPER SCHOOL, OLNEY AUTHOR OF ' THE LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER,1 ETC. IN FOUR VOLUMES VOLUME IV NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 372 FIFTH AVENUE LONDON: HODDER AND STOUGHTON MCMIV Edinburgh : T. and A. Constable., Printers to Hi» Majesty THE LETTERS OF WILLIAM COWPER TO THE REV. WILLIAM BULL Wetlon, November 1, 1790. My dear Mr. Bull, — I thank you much for the communication of the enclosed, which I read with a tender remembrance of the days that are past, and felt much sympathy with the writer of it. If you have not already answered it, present our kindest love to him when you do. I must trouble you to beg Mr. Greatheed, in Lady Hesketh's name, to return, if he has done with it, the book she lent him, sending it either to Olney or Weston, as may be most convenient to him. Griggs the butcher will take the charge of it. Our best compliments attend yourself, Mrs. Bull, and your son. Let us see you when the weather will permit. — Yours ever, Wm. Cowper. On November 7th died ' John Thornton the Great.' The elegy which Cowper wrote upon his death will be found in the Collected Poems. TO MRS. BODHAM Weston, November 21, 1790. My dear Coz, — Our kindness to your nephew is no more than he must entitle himself to wherever vol. IV. A 9 2 4- <B b *2 COWPER'S LETTERS [1790 he goes. His amiable disposition and manners will never fail to secure him a warm place in the affec tion of all who know him. The advice I gave respecting his poem on ' Audley End ' was dictated by my love of him, and a sincere desire of his success. It is one thing to write what may please our friends, who, because they are such, are apt to be a little biassed in our favour ; and another to write what may please every body; because they who have no connection, or even knowledge of the author, will be sure to find fault if they can. My advice, however salutary and necessary as it seemed to me, was such as I dared not have given to a poet of less diffidence than he. Poets are to a proverb irritable, and he is the only one I ever knew, who seems to have no spark of that fire about him. He has left us about a fortnight, and sorry we were to lose him ; but had he been my son, he must have gone, and I could not have regretted him more. If his sister be still with you, present my love to her, and tell her how much I wish to see them at Weston together. Mrs. Hewitt probably remembers more of my childhood, than I can recollect either of hers or my own; but this I recollect, that the days of that period were happy days, compared with most I have seen since. There are few perhaps in the world who have not cause to look back with regret on the days of infancy ; yet, to say the truth, I suspect some deception in this. For infancy itself has its cares ; and though we cannot now conceive how trifles could affect us much, it is certain that they did. Trifles they appear now, but such they were not then. W. C. 1790] TO MRS. BALLS 3 TO MBS. BALLS,1 CATFIELD, NORFOLK Weston Undertvood, Wednesday, Nov. 24, 1790. My dear Cousin, — I shall love the turkeys the better for having procured me a letter from you, my old friend and playfellow in other days. We sent for them yesterday to the waggoner's house, in a village five miles off, and they arrived safe at Weston in the evening ; safe, as I said, and in perfect health, as they desire me to tell you, and to thank you for your kind inquiries. They have also had a good night, have rested well, and feel themselves much refreshed ; and will shortly be made acquainted with our premises, — for it is early at present, and they have not yet quitted their apartment. Mrs. Unwin, truly grateful, for your kindness in sending them, bids me present you her very best thanks and acknowledgments. Mine accompany hers, and we both long for the spring, that we may thank you here in person. Your nephew,2 whom I love as if he were my son, and who I believe is not unwilling to serve me in that capacity, since I am likely never to have any other, has left us, as you suppose, and is now at Cambridge. Yesterday I had a letter from him, in which he informs me that he has freed himself from all mathematical shackles ; and after many frowns and many arguments from his tutor, has forsaken his unprofitable lectures, and betaken himself to others in the civil law. The consequence of this will be that instead of injuring 1 Harriet, second daughter of the Rev. Roger Donne. 2 Johnny of Norfolk. 4 COWPERS LETTERS [1790 his health and wasting his time in a study that could never have been of use to him, he will be able to take an eternal leave of Cambridge in May, and to pursue such studies at home as will be more suited to his future function. I am my self at the bottom of all this mischief; my evil counsels have perverted him. But I trust that neither I, nor he, nor his friends, will have any reason to regret it hereafter. Dr. Cheatham in deed is displeased ; but that, I presume, is an affair of no great importance, compared with the irretrievable loss of some of the best years that a man can give to study, — a loss that he must have suffered had he continued to busy himself with squares and circles. Do you consider, child, that when you call yourself an old woman, you make it impossible for me to be young? Know you not that it is forty years since we saw each other ; that I was at that time at least two years older than you, and that, consequently, I continue to be so still ? How then can you be old, when I, who am so much your elder have still, as Falstaff says, a smatch of my youth, and am almost as active as ever? Oh, when shall we ride in a whiskum snivel1 again, and laugh as we have done hereto fore ? Should ever that day come, you must be the driver ; for I have too great a value for your neck and my own to aspire to that office myself. I never ex celled in it, and have hardly been in a whiskum since. You have done wisely, I dare say, in selling your estate at Catfield;2 but I should have been 1 A name coined by Lady Hesketh for a gig — the old-fashioned gig, with bow springs. J Norfolk. i/9o] TO JOHN JOHNSON 5 glad would wisdom have permitted you to keep it: for of all places in the earth I love Catfield, and should then have had a chance of seeing it again. Lady Hesketh will not allow that you are un known to her, though you call yourself so. Have you forgotten how she threatened one evening to kill you, and how you verily believed that she intended it, and were frightened out of your wits ? She, however, remembers it well ; bids me present her best compliments to you, and assure you that she has laid aside all such murtherous intentions. Adieu, my dear cousin. Let me hear from you as often as you can : and believe me with much affection, yours Wm. Cowper. TO JOHN JOHNSON MY BIRTHDAY Friday, Nov. 26, 1790. My dearest Johnny, — I am happy that you have escaped from the claws of Euclid into the bosom of Justinian. It is useful I suppose to every man, to be well grounded in the principles of jurisprudence; and I take it to be a branch of science, that bids much fairer to enlarge the mind and give an accuracy of reasoning, than all the mathematics in the world. Mind your studies, and you will soon be wiser than I can hope to be. We had a visit on Monday from one of the first women in the world; in point of character, 6 COWPERS LETTERS [1790 I mean, and accomplishments, the Dowager Lady Spencer ! I may receive perhaps some honours hereafter, should my translation speed according to my wishes, and the pains I have taken with it ; but shall never receive any that I shall esteem so highly. She is indeed worthy to whom I should dedicate, and may but my Odyssey prove as worthy of her, I shall have nothing to fear from the critics. — Yours, my dear Johnny, with much affection, W. C. TO MRS. KING Weston Undenvood, Nov. 29, 1790. My dear Madam, — It has not been owing to any neglect of mine, that by my long silence I have reduced you to the necessity of concluding that your letter, enclosing that of Mr. Martyn, never reached me. The post brought them safe, and at the proper time ; but an indisposition of the feverish kind, attended by a violent cough, seized me immediately after, and rendered me in capable of acknowledging the kindness both of your own letter and of Mr.