fields to clap their hands. I intend, therefore, that | business. Adieu! The clock strikes eight, and my Olympus shall be still tipsy. now for Homer. The accuracy of your last remark, in which. you convicted me of a bull, delights me. A fig for all critics but you! The blockheads could not find it. It shall stand thus, First spake Polydamas W. C. TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESQ. Homer was more upon his guard than to commit event of your transaction with Johnson, since you such a blunder, for he says, And now, my dear little censor, once more accept my thanks. I only regret that your strictures are so few, being just and sensible as they are. I know partake with me in the pleasure I receive from it. Few of my concerns have been so happily concluded. I am now satisfied with my bookseller, as I have substantial cause to be, and account myself in good hands; a circumstance as pleasant to me as any other part of my business; Tell your papa that he shall hear from me soon; for I love dearly to be able to confide with all my accept mine, and my dear invalid's affectionate re-heart in those with whom I am connected, of what Ever yours. W. C. kind soever the connexion may be. membrances. TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESQ. MY DEAR HAYLEY, The question of printing or not printing the alterations, seems difficult to decide. If they are not printed, I shall perhaps disoblige some purchasers of the first edition; and if they are, many others Weston, March 19, 1793. of them, perhaps a great majority, will never care I AM SO busy every morning before breakfast about them. As far as I have gone I have made (my only opportunity), strutting and stalking in a fair copy, and when I have finished the whole, Homeric stilts, that you ought to account it an in- will send them to Johnson, together with the instance of marvellous grace and favour, that I con- terleaved volumes. He will see in a few minutes descend to write even to you. Sometimes I am what it will be best to do, and by his judgment I seriously almost crazed with the multiplicity of the shall be determined. The opinion to which I most matters before me, and the little or no time that I incline is, that they ought to be printed separately, have for them; and sometimes I repose myself for they are many of them rather long, here and after the fatigue of that distraction on the pillow there a whole speech, or a whole simile, and the of despair; a pillow which has often served me in verbal and lineal variations are so numerous, that time of need, and is become, by frequent use, if not altogether, I apprehend, they will give a new air very comfortable, at least convenient! So reposed, to the work, and I hope a much improved one. I laugh at the world, and say, "Yes, you may gape and expect both Homer and Milton from me, but I'll be hanged if ever you get them." I forgot to say in the proper place that some notes, although but very few, I have added already, and may perhaps see here and there opportunity In Homer you must know I am advanced as far for a few more. But notes being little wanted, esas the fifteenth book of the Iliad, leaving nothing pecially by people at all conversant with classical behind me that can reasonably offend the most literature, as most readers of Homer are, I am perfastidious: and I design him for public appearance suaded that, were they numerous, they would be in his new dress as soon as possible, for a reason deemed an incumbrance. I shall write to Johnson which any poet may guess, if he will but thrust soon, perhaps to-morrow, and then shall say the his hand into his pocket. same thing to him. You forbid me to tantalize you with an invita- In point of health we continue much the same. tion to Weston, and yet invite me to Eartham! Our united love, and many thanks for your prosNo! no! there is no such happiness in store for perous negotiations, attend yourself and whole me at present. Had I rambled at all, I was under family, and especially my little namesake. Adieu, promise to all my dear mother's kindred to go to Norfolk, and they are dying to see me; but I have told them, that die they must, for I can not go; and ergo, as you will perceive, can go nowhere else. Thanks for Mazarine's epitaph! it is full of witty parodox, and is written with a force and severity TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESQ. W.C The Lodge, April 11, 1793. which sufficiently bespeak the author. I account MY DEAREST JOHNNY, it an inestimable curiosity, and shall be happy THE long muster-roll of my great and small anwhen time shall serve, with your aid, to make a cestors I signed, and dated, and sent up to Mr. good translation of it. But that will be a stubborn Blue-mantle, on Monday, according to your desire. Such a pompous affair, drawn out for my sake, [haviour to me has been so liberal, that I can refuse reminds me of the old fable of the mountain in par- him nothing. Poking into the old Greek comturition, and a mouse the produce. Rest undis-mentators blinds me. But it is no matter. turbed, say I, their lordly, ducal, and royal dust! the more like Homer. Had they left me something handsome, I should have respected them more. But perhaps they did not know that such a one as I should have the honour to be numbered among their descendants. Well! I have a little bookseller that makes me some amends for their deficiency. He has made me a present; an act of liberality which I take every opportunity to blazon, as it well deserves. But you I suppose have learned it already from Mr. Rose. Fear not, my man. You will acquit yourself very well I dare say, both in standing for your degree, and when you have gained it. A little tremor, and a little shamefacedness in a stripling, like you, are recommendations rather than otherwise; and so they ought to be, being symptoms of an ingenuous mind rather unfrequent in this age of brass. What you say of your determined purpose, with God's help, to take up the cross, and despise the shame, gives us both real pleasure. In our pedigree is found one at least who did it before you. Do you the like: and you will meet him in Heaven, as sure as the Scripture is the word of God, The quarrel that the world has with evangelic men and doctrines, they would have with a host of angels in the human form. For it is the quarrel of owls with sunshine; of ignorance with divine illumination. Adieu, my dear Johnny! We shall expect you with earnest desire of your coming, and receive you with much delight. W. C. TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESQ. Weston, April 23, 1793. I am Ever yours, my dearest Hayley, W. C. TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT. MY DEAR FRIEND, Weston, May 4, 1793. WHILE your sorrow for our common loss was fresh in your mind, I would not write, lest a letter on so distressing a subject should be too painful both to you and me; and now that I seem to have reached a proper time for doing it, the multiplicity of my literary business will hardly afford me leisure. Both you and I have this comfort when deprived of those we love-at our time of life we have every reason to believe that the deprivation can not be long. Our sun is setting too; and when the hour of rest arrives we shall rejoin your brother, and many whom we have tenderly loved, our forerunners into a better country. I will say no more on a theme which it will be better perhaps to treat with brevity; and because the introduction of any other might seem a transition too violent, I will only add that Mrs. Unwin and I are about as well as we at any time have been within the last year. Truly yours. W.C. TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESQ. MY DEAR FRIEND, May 5, 1793. My delay to answer your last kind letter, to which likewise you desired a speedy reply, must have seemed rather difficult to explain on any other supposition than that of illness; but illness has not been the cause, although to say the truth I can not boast of having been lately very well. Yet has not this been the cause of my silence, but your MY DEAR FRIEND AND BROTHER, own advice, very proper and earnestly given to BETTER late than never, and better a little than me, to proceed in the revisal of Homer. To this none at all! Had I been at liberty to consult my it is owing that instead of giving an hour or two inclinations, I would have answered your truly before breakfast to my correspondence, I allot that kind and affectionate letter immediately. But I time entirely to my studies. I have nearly given am the busiest man alive; and when this epistle is the last touches to the poetry, and am now busied despatched, you will be the only one of my corres- far more laboriously in writing notes at the request pondents to whom I shall not be indebted. While of my honest bookseller, transmitted to me in the I write this, my poor Mary sits mute; which I can first instance by you, and afterwards repeated by not well bear, and which, together with want of himself. I am therefore deep in the old Scholia, time to write much, will have a curtailing effect on and have advanced to the latter part of Iliad nine, my epistle. explaining, as I go, such passages as may be diffiMy only studying time is still given to Homer, cult to unlearned readers, and such only; for notes not to correction and amendment of him (for that of that kind are the notes that Johnson desired. I is all over) but to writing notes. Johnson has ex- find it a more laborious task than the translation pressed a wish for some, that the unlearned may was, and shall be heartily glad when it is over. In be a little illuminated concerning classical story the mean time all the letters I receive remain unand the mythology of the ancients; and his be-lanswered, or if they receive an answer, it is al ways a short one. Such this must be. Johnny is here, having flown over London. TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESQ. Homer I believe will make a much more respectable appearance than before. Johnson now MY DEAR BROther, Weston, May 21, 1793. thinks it will be right to make a separate impression of the amendments. W. C. I breakfast every morning on seven or eight pages of the Greek commentators. For so much I am obliged to read, in order to select perhaps three or four short notes for the readers of my translation. You must either think me extremely idle, or extremely busy, that I have made your last very kind letter wait so very long for an answer. The truth however is, that I am neither; but have had time enough to have scribbled to you, had I been able to scribble at all. To explain this riddle I must give you a short account of my proceedings I rise at six every morning, and fag till near eleven, when I breakfast. The consequence is, Homer is indeed a tie upon me that must not that I am so exhausted as not to be able to write on any account be broken, till all his demands are when the opportunity offers. You will saysatisfied; though I have fancied while the revisal "breakfast before you work, and then your work of the Odyssey was at a distance, that it would ask will not fatigue you." I answer-"perhaps I less labour in the finishing, it is not unlikely that, might, and your counsel would probably prove when I take it actually in hand, I may find my- beneficial; but I can not spare a moment for eatself mistaken. Of this at least I am sure, that ing in the early part of the morning, having no uneven verse abounds much more in it than it other time for study." This uneasiness of which once did in the Iliad, yet to the latter the critics I complain is a proof that I am somewhat stricken objected on that account, though to the former in years; and there is no other cause by which I never; perhaps because they had not read it. can account for it, since I go early to bed, always Hereafter they shall not quarrel with me on that between ten and eleven, and seldom fail to sleep score. The Iliad is now all smooth turnpike, and well. Certain it is, ten years ago I could have I will take equal care that there shall be no jolts done as much, and sixteen years ago did actually in the Odyssey. much more, without suffering fatigue, or any inconvenience from my labours. How insensibly old age steals on, and how often is it actually arrived before we suspect it! Accident alone; some occurrence that suggests a comparison of our former with our present selves, affords the discovery. Well! it is always good to be undeceived especially on an article of such importance. TO-LADY HESKETH. MY DEAREST COZ, The Lodge, May 7, 1793. You have thought me long silent, and so have many others. In fact I have not for many months There has been a book lately published, entiwritten punctually to any but yourself, and Hay- tled, Man as he is. I have heard a high characley. My time, the little I have, so engrossed ter of it, as admirably written, and am informed by Homer, that I have at this moment a bundle that for that reason, and because it inculcates of unanswered letters by me, and letters likely to Whig principles, it is by many imputed to you. be so. Thou knowest, I dare say, what it is to I contradicted this report, assuring my informant have a head weary with thinking. Mine is so that had it been yours, I must have known it, for fatigued by breakfast time, three days out of four, that you have bound yourself to make me your I am utterly incapable of sitting down to my desk father confessor on all such wicked occasions, and again for any purpose whatever. not to conceal from me even a murder, should you happen to commit one. I am glad I have convinced thee at least, that thou art a Tory. Your friend's definition of I will not trouble you, at present, to send me Whig and Tory may be just for aught I know, any more books with a view to my notes on as far as the latter are concerned; but respecting Homer. I am not without hopes that Sir John the former, I think him mistaken. There is no Throckmorton, who is expected here from Venice true Whig who wishes all power in the hands of in a short time, may bring me Villoison's edition his own party. The division of it which the of the Odyssey. He certainly will, if he found it lawyers call tripartite, is exactly what he desires; and he would have neither kings, lords, nor cominons unequally trusted, or in the smallest degree predominant. Such a Whig am I, and such Whigs are the true friends of the constitution. Adieu! my dear, I am dead with weariness. W. C. published, and that alone will be instar omnium. Adieu, my dearest brother! Give my love to Tom, and thank him for his book, of which I believe I need not have deprived him, intending that my readers shall detect the occult instruction contained in Homer's stories for themselves. W. C. TO LADY HESKETH. you; for I have both in a degree that has not been exceeded in the experience of any friend you have, or ever had. But I am so made up;-I MY DEAREST COUSIN, Weston, June 1, 1793. will not enter into a metaphysical analysis of my You will not, (you say) come to us now; and strange composition, in order to detect the true you tell us not when you will. These assigna- cause of this evil; but on a general view of the tions sine die are such shadowy things, that I matter, I suspect that it proceeds from that shycan neither grasp nor get any comfort from them. ness, which has been my effectual and almost fatal Know you not, that hope is the next best thing hindrance on many other important occasions; and to enjoyment? Give us then a hope, and a de- which I should feel, I well know, on this, to a terminate time for that hope to fix on, and we will degree that would perfectly cripple me. No! I endeavour to be satisfied. shall neither do, nor attempt any thing of conse Johnny is gone to Cambridge, called thither to quence more, unless my poor Mary get better; take his degree, and is much missed by me. He nor even then, unless it should please God to is such an active little fellow in my service, that give me another nature, in concert with any man he can not be otherwise. In three weeks how--I could not even with my own father or broever I shall hope to have him again for a fortnight. [ther, were they now alive. Small game must I have had a letter from him containing an inci- serve me at present, and till I have done with dent which has given birth to the following.* Homer and Milton, a sonnet or some such matter These are spick and span. Johnny himself has must content me. The utmost that I aspire to, not yet seen them. By the way, he has filled and Heaven knows with how feeble a hope, is to your book completely; and I will give thee a write at some better opportunity, and when my guinea if thou wilt search thy old book for a cou-hands are free, The Four Ages. Thus I have ple of songs, and two or three other pieces of opened my heart unto thee. W. C. which I know thou madest copies at the vicarage, and which I have lost. The songs I know are pretty good, and I would fain recover them. W. C. TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESQ.† Weston, June 29, 1793. WHAT remains for me to say on this subject, my dear brother bard, I will say in prose. There are other impediments which I could not comprise within the bounds of a sonnet. TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESQ. Weston, July 7, 1793. MY DEAREST HAYLEY, IF the excessive heat of this day, which forbids me to do any thing else, will permit me to scribble to you, I shall rejoice. To do this is a pleasure to me at all times, but to do it now, a double one; because I am in haste to tell you how much I am delighted with your projected quadruple alliance, and to assure you that if it please God to afford me health, spirits, ability and leisure, I will not My poor Mary's infirm condition makes it im-fail to devote them all to the production of my possible for me, at present, to engage in a work quota, The Four Ages. such as you propose. My thoughts are not suffi- You are very kind to humour me as you do, ciently free, nor have I, nor can I, by any means, and had need be a little touched yourself with all find opportunity; added to which, comes a diffi- my oddities, that you may know how to administer culty, which, though you are not at all aware of to mine. All whom I love do so, and I believe it it, presents itself to me under a most forbidding to be impossible to love heartily those who do not. appearance: Can you guess it? No, not you: People must not do me good in their way, but in neither perhaps will you be able to imagine that my own, and then they do me good indeed. My such a difficulty can possibly subsist. If your hair pride, my ambition, and my friendship, for you, begins to bristle, stroke it down again, for there and the interest I take in my own dear self, will is no need why it should erect itself. It concerns all be consulted and gratified by an arm-in-arm me, not you. I know myself too well not to appearance with you in public: and I shall work know that I am nobody in verse, unless in a cor-with more zeal and assiduity at Homer, and, ner, and alone, and unconnected in my operations. when Homer is finished, at Milton, with the prosThis is not owing to want of love for you, my pect of such a coalition before me. But what trother, or the most consummate confidence in shall I do with a multitude of small pieces, from which I intended to select the best, and adding them to The Four Ages, to have made a volume? This Letter commenced with the Lines to William Will there be room for them upon your plan? I Hayley, Esq. beginning, "Dear architect of fine chateaux in have retouched them, and will retouch them Jagain. Some of them will suggest pretty devices * Verses to a Young Friend, &c. See Poems. air" See Poems. to a designer, and in short I have a desire not to same promise I have hastily made to visit Sir lose them. John and Lady Throckmorton, at Bucklands. How to reconcile such clashing promises, and give satisfaction to all, would puzzle me, had I nothing else to do; and therefore, as I say, the result will probably be, that we shall find ourselves obliged to go no where, since we can not every where. I am at this moment, with all the imprudence natural to poets, expending nobody knows what, in embellishing my premises, or rather the premises of my neighbour Courtenay, which is more poetical still. I have built one summer-house already, with the boards of my old study, and am building another spick and span as they say. I have also a stone-cutter now at work, setting a bust of my dear old Grecian on a pedestal; and besides all this, I meditate still more that is to be done in the autumn. Your project therefore is most opportune, as any project must needs be that has so direct a tendency to put money into the pocket of one so likely to want it. Ah brother poet! send me of your shade, * Wishing you both safe at home again, and to see you, as soon as may be, here, I remain, affectionately yours, W. C. TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESQ. Weston, July 24, 1793. I HAVE been vexed with myself, my dearest brother, and with every thing about me, not excepting even Homer himself, that I have been obliged so long to delay an answer to your last kind letter. If I listen any longer to calls another al-way, I shall hardly be able to tell you how happy My poor Mary is as well as the heat will allow her to be, and whether it be cold or sultry, is ways affectionately mindful of you and yours. W. C. TO THE REV. MR. GREATHEED. July 23, 1793. we are in the hope of seeing you in the autumn before the autumn will have arrived. Thrice wel come will you and your dear boy be to us, and the longer you will afford us your company, the more welcome. I have set up the head of Home on a famous fine pedestal, and a very majestic ap pearance he makes. I am now puzzled about a motto, and wish you to decide for me between two one of which I have composed myself, a Greek one as follows: Εικονα τις ταυτην; κλυτον ανέρος ανομο ολωλων. Ούνομα δ κτος ανηρ αφθιτον αιεν έχει The other is my own translation of a passage in the Odyssey, the original of which I have seen used as a motto to an engraved head of Homer many a time. The present edition of the lines stands thus: Him partially the muse, I was not without some expectation of a line from you, my dear sir, though you did not promise me one at your departure; and am happy not to have been disappointed; still happier to learn that you and Mrs. Greatheed are well, and so delightfully situated. Your kind offer to us of sharing with you the house which you at present inhabit, added to the short but lively description of the scenery that surrounds it, wants nothing to win our acceptance, should it please God to give Mrs. Unwin a little more strength, and should I ever be master of my time so as to be able to gratify myself with what would please me most. But many have claims upon us, and some who can not absolutely be said to have any, would yet Tell me by the way (if you ever had any specu complain, and think themselves slighted, should lations on the subject) what is it you suppose Ho we prefer rocks and caves to them. In short we mer to have meant in particular, when he ascribed are called so many ways, that these numerous de- his blindness to the muse; for that he speaks of mands are likely to operate as a remora, and to himself under the name Demodocus in the eighth keep us fixt at home. Here we can occasionally book, I believe is by all admitted. How could the have the pleasure of yours and Mrs. Greatheed's old bard study himself blind, when books are eicompany, and to have it here must I believe con- ther few, or none at all? And did he write his tent us. Hayley in his last letter gives me reason poems? If neither were the cause, as seems rea And dearly loved, yet gave him good and ill: pect the pleasure of seeing him and his dear sonable to imagine, how could he incur his blindboy Tom, in the autumn. He will use all his ness by such means as could be justly imputable eloquence to draw us to Eartham again. My to the muse? Would mere thinking blind him? cousin Johnny of Norfolk holds me under a pro- I want to know: mise to make my first trip thither, and the very "Call up some spirit from the vasty deep!" |