for June; and June, my dear cousin, was never so wished for since June was made. Ishall have a thousand things to hear, and a thousand to say, and they will all rush into my mind together, till it will be so crowded with things impatient to be said, that for some time I shall say nothing. But no matter-sooner or later they will all come out. After so long a separation, a separation which of late seemed so likely to last for life, we shall meet each other as alive from the dead; and, for my own part, I can truly say, that I have not a friend in the other world whose resurrection would give me greater pleasure.

never hear from you again. But with my present feel-justed; and now I have nothing to do but to wish ings superadded to those that I always had for you, I find it no easy matter to do justice to my sensations. I perceive myself in a state of mind, similar to that of the traveller described in Pope's Messiah, who, as he passes through a sandy desert, starts at the sudden and unexpected sound of a waterfall.-Your very generous offer of assistance has placed me in a situation new to me, and in which I feel myself somewhat puzzled how to behave. When I was once asked if I wanted any thing, and given delicately to understand that the inquirer was ready to supply all my occasions, I thankfully and civilly, but positively, declined the favor. I neither suffer nor have suffered such inconveniences, as I had not much rather endure, than come under an obligation to a person who is almost a stranger to me. But to you I answer otherwise. I know you thoroughly, and the liberality of your disposition, and have that consummate confidence in the sincerity of your wish to serve me, that delivers me from all awkward constraint, and from all fear of trespassing by acceptance. To you, therefore, I reply, yes. Whensoever and whatsoever, and in what manner soever, you please, and add moreover, that my affection for the giver is such as will increase to me ten-fold the satisfaction I shall have in receiving. You must not, however, strain any points to your own inconvenience or hurt; there is no need of it; but indulge yourself in communicating (no matter what) that you can spare without missing it, since by so doing you will be sure to add to the comforts of my life, one of the sweetest that I can enjoy-a token and a proof of your affection. At the same time, that I would not grieve you by putting a check upon your bounty, I would be as careful not to abuse it, as if I were a miser, and the question were, not about your money but my own."

The happiest consequences resulted from the renewal of Cowper's correspondence with this accomplished and excellent lady. After an interchange of some of the most interesting letters that were ever written, she proposed at length to pay the sequestered poet a visit at Olney, and made arrangements accordingly.

The following extracts from Cowper's letters to her on this occasion will be read with pleasure, as a faithful record of the delight he anticipated from this interview:-"I have been impatient to tell you, that I am impatient to see you again. Mrs. Unwin partakes with me in all my feelings. Let me assure you, that your kindness in promising us a visit, has charmed us both. I shall see you again, I shall hear your voice. We shall take walks together. I will show you my prospects-the hovel, the alcove, the Ouse, and its banks, every thing that I have described. I anticipate the pleasure of those days not very far distant, and feel a part of it this moment. My dear, I will not let you come till the end of May, or the beginning of June, because before that time my green-house will not be ready to receive us, and it is the only pleasant room belonging to us. When the plants go out, we go ir I line it with nets, and spread the floor with mats; and there you shall sit, with a bed of mignonette at your side, and a hedge of honeysuckles, roses, and jasmine; and I will make you a bouquet of myrtle every day. We now talk of nobody but you-what we will do with you when we get you, where you shall walk, where you shall sleep, in short, every thing that bears the remotest relation to your well-being at Olney occupies all our talking time, which is all that I do not spend at Troy. Mrs. Unwin has already secured for you an apartment, or rather two, just such as we could wish. The house in which you will find them is within thirty yards of our own, and opposite to it. The whole affair is thus commodiously ad

“If you will not quote Solomon, my dearest consin, I will. He says, and as beautifully as truly, Hope deferred maketh the heart sick, but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life!' I feel how much reason he had on his side when he made this observation, and I am myself really sick of your delay. Well, the middle of June will not always be a thousand years off; and when it comes, I shall hear you, and see you too; and shall not care a single farthing if you do not touch a pen for a month. From this very morning, 15th May, 1786, I begin to date the last month of our long separation; and confidently, and most comfortably hope, that before the fifteenth of June shall present itself, we shall have seen each other. Is it not so? and will it not be one of the most extraordinary eras of my extraordinary life? A year ago, we neither corresponded, nor expected to meet in this world. But this world is a scene of marvellous events, many of them more marvellous than fiction itself would dare to hazard: (blessed be God!) they are not all of the distressing kind. Now and then, in the course of an existence, whose hue is for the most part sable, a day turns up that makes amends for many sighs, and many subjects of complaint. Such a day shall I account the day of your arrival at Olney. Wherefore is it (canst thou tell me?) that, together with all these delightful sensations, to which the sight of a long absent dear friend gives birth, there is a mixture of something painful, flutterings and tumults, and I know not what accompaniments of our pleasure, that are in fact perfectly foreign from the occasion? Such I feel when I think of our meeting, and such, I suppose, feel you; and the nearer the crisis approaches, the more I am sensible of them. I know beforehand that they will increase with every turn of the wheels that shall convey you to Olney; and when we actually meet, the pleasure, and this unaccountable pain together, will be as much as I shall be able to support. I am utterly at a loss for the cause, and can only resolve it into that appointment, by which it has been foreordained that all human delights shall be qualified and mingled with their contraries. But a fig for them all! Let us resolve to combat with, and to conquer them. They are dreams; they are illusions of the judgment. Some enemy that hates the happiness of human kind, and is ever industrious to dash, if he cannot destroy it, works them in us, and they being so perfectly unreasonable as they are, is a proof of it. Nothing that is such can be the work of a good agent. This I know too by experience, that, like all other illusions, they exist only by force of imagination, are indebted for their prevalence to the absence of their objects, and in a few moments after their appearance cease. So then this is a settled point, and the case stands thus. You will tremble as you draw near to Olney, and so shall I; but we will both recollect that there is no reason why we should, and this recollection will at least have some little effect in our favor. We will likewise both take the comfort of what we know to be true, that the tumult will soon cease, and the pleasure long survive the pain, even as long, I trust,

as we ourselves shall survive it. Assure yourself, my dear cousin, that both for your sake, since you make a point of it, and for my own, I will be as philosophically careful as possible, that these fine nerves of mine shall not be beyond measure agitated when you arrive. In truth, there is a much greater probability that they will be benefited, and greatly, too. Joy of heart, from whatever occasion it may arise, is the best of all nervous medicines; and I should not wonder, if such a turn given to my spirits should have even a lasting effect, of the most advantageous kind, upon them. You must not imagine neither, that I am, on the whole, in any great degree, subject to nervous affections: occasionally I am, and have been these many years, much liable to dejection; but, at intervals, and sometimes for an interval of weeks, no creature would suspect it. For I have not that which commonly is a symptom of such a case, belonging to me: I mean, occasional extra-effect of, not only while she is here, but while I live. ordinary elevation. When I am in the best health, my tide of animal sprightliness flows with great equality, so that I am never, at any time, exalted in proportion as I am sometimes depressed. My depression has a cause, and if that cause were to cease, I should be as cheerful thenceforth, and perhaps for ever, as any man need be.

Your visit is delayed too long, to my impatience, at least it seems so, who find the spring, backward as it is, too forward, because many of its beauties will have faded before you will have an opportunity to see them. We took our customary walk yesterday, and saw, with regret, the laburnums, syriangas, and guelder roses, some of them blown, and others just upon the point of blowing, and could not help observing, that all these will be gone before Lady Hesketh comes. Still, however, there will be roses, and jasmine, and honey suckles, and shady walks, and cool alcoves, and you will partake them with But I want you to have a share of every thing that is delightful here, and cannot bear that the advance of the season should steal away a single pleasure before you come to enjoy it. I will venture to say, that even you were never so much expected in your life.

us.

"I regret that I have made your heart ache so often, my dear cousin, with talking about my fits of dejection. Something has happened that has led me to the subject, or I would have mentioned them more sparingly. Do not suppose that I treat you with reserve; there is nothing in which I am concerned that you shall not be made acquainted with. But the tale is too long for a letter: I will only add, for your present satisfaction, that the cause is not exterior, that it is not within the reach of human aid, and that yet I have a hope myself, and Mrs. Unwin a strong persuasion of its removal. I am indeed even now, and have been for a considerable time, sensible of a change for the better, and expect, with good reason, a comfortable lift from you. Guess then, my beloved cousin, with what wishes I look forward to the time of your arrival, from whose coming I promise myself not only pleasure, bu peace of mind, at least an additional share of it. At present it is an uncertain and transient guest with me; but the joy with which I shall see, and converse with you, at Olney, may, perhaps, make it an abiding one."

It is seldom that pleasure, anticipated with such warmth of feeling, fully answers our expectations. Human enjoyments almost invariably seem much more valuable in prospect than in possession. Cowper's interview with his cousin, however, was altogether an exception, and proved a source of more real delight to both parties than either of them had expected. As might naturally be supposed, after a separation of three-and-twenty years, they both experienced the full force of those emotions, which

Cowper had so well described in his letters, and
their first meeting was, indeed, painfully pleasing;
every sensation, however, that was in any degree
painful, soon subsided, and gave place to such only
as were pure and delightful. Mrs. Unwin was
pleased with the sweetness of temper, agreeable
manners, and cheerful conversation of Lady Hes-
keth, and her ladyship was no less delighted with
the mild, amiable, and affectionate conduct of her
new companion; while Cowper's heart was glad-
dened to have the advantage of daily intercourse
with another highly cultivated mind.
The happy effect this change had upon Cowper's
spirits will be seen by the following extracts from
his correspondence:-"My dear cousin's arrival, as
it could not fail to do, has made us happier than we
ever were at Olney. Her great kindness, in giving
us her company, is a cordial that I shall feel the
She has been with us a fortnight. She pleases
every body, and is, in her turn, pleased with every
thing she finds here; is always cheerful and good
tempered; and knows no pleasure equal to that of
communicating pleasure to us, and to all around
her. The disposition in her is the more comforta-
ble, because it is not the humor of the day, a sudden
flash of benevolence and goodness, occasioned
merely by a change of scene, but it is her natural
turn, and has governed all her conduct ever since I
knew her first. We are consequently happy in her
society, and shall be happier still to have you par-
take with us in our joy. I am fond of the sound of
bells, but was never more pleased with those of
Olney than when they rang her into her new habi-
tation. She is, as she ever was, my pride and my
joy; and I am delighted with every thing that means
to do her honor. Her first appearance was too
much for me; my spirits, instead of being gently
raised, broke down with me, under the pressure of
too much joy, and left me flat, or rather melancho-
ly, throughout the day, to a degree that was morti-
fying to myself, and alarming to her. But I have
made amends for this torture since; and, in point of
cheerfulness, have far exceeded her expectations,
for she knew that sable had been my suit for many
years. By her help we get change of air and of
scene, though still resident at Olney; and by her
means, have intercourse with some families in this
country, with whom, but for her, we could never
have been acquainted. Her presence here would
at any time, even in her happiest days, have been a
comfort to me; but in the present day I am doubly
sensible of its value. She leaves nothing unsaid,
nothing undone, that she thinks will be conducive
to our well-being; and so far as she is concerned, I
have nothing to wish, but that I could believe her
sent hither in mercy to myself;-then I should be
thankful."

Lady Hesketh had not long been at Olney before she became dissatisfied with the poet's residence. She thought it a situation altogether unsuitable for a person subject to depression. Cowper himself had often entertained the same opinion respecting it: and both he and Mrs. Unwin had frequently wished for a change, and had, indeed, been looking out for a house more agreeable to their taste. At that time a very commodious cottage, pleasantly situated in the village of Weston Underwood, a mile and a half distant from Olney, belonging to Sir John Throckmorton, was unoccupied. It occurred to Cowper, that this would be a very agreeable summer residence for his cousin; and on his mentioning it to her, she immediately engaged it, not for herself only, but for the future residence of the poet and his amiable companion, with whom she had now made up her mind to become a frequent, if not a constant associate. The following extracts

Animal spirits, however, have their value, and are especially desirable to him who is condemned to carry a burden which at any rate will tire him, but which without their aid, cannot fail to crush him."

will best describe Cowper's feelings on this occasion:-"I shall now communicate news that will give you pleasure. When you first contemplated the front of our abode, you were shocked. In your eyes it had the appearance of a prison, and you sighed at the thought that your mother lived in it. On the 15th November, 1786, Cowper entered Your view of it was not only just, but prophetic. It upon his new abode. The following extracts from had not only the aspect of a place built for the pur- his letters describe his sensations on the occasion: Foses of incarceration, but has actually served that "There are some things that do not exactly shorpurpose, through a long, long period, that we have ten the life of man, yet seem to do so, and frequent been the prisoners; but a jail delivery is at hand. removals from place to place are of that number. The bolts and bars are to be loosed, and we shall For my own part, at least, I am apt to think, if I escape. A very different mansion, both in point of had been more stationary, I should seem to myself appearance and accommodation, expects us; and to have lived longer. My many changes of habitathe expense of living in it will not be much greater tion have divided my time into many short periods; than we are subjected to in this. It is situated at and when I look back upon them, they appear only Weston, one of the prettiest villages in England, as the stages of a day's journey, the first of which and belongs to Mr. Throckmorton, afterwards Sir is at no great distance from the last. I lived longer John Throckmorton. We all three dine with him at Olney than any where. There indeed I lived till to-day by invitation, and shall survey it in the after-mouldering walls and a tottering house warned me noon, point out the necessary repairs, and finally to depart. I have accordingly taken the hint, and adjust the treaty. I have my cousin's promise that two days since arrived, or rather took up my abode, she will never let another year pass without a visit at Weston. You perhaps have never made the exto us, and the house is large enough to take us, and periment, but I can assure you that the confusion our suite, and her also, with as many of her's as that attends a transmigration of this kind is infinite, she shall choose to bring. The change will, I hope, and has a terrible effect in deranging the intellect. prove advantageous, both to your mother and to me, When God speaks to a chaos, it becomes a scene of in all respects. Here we have no neighborhood; order and harmony in a moment; but when his there we shall have very agreeable neighbors in the creatures have thrown one house into confusion by Throckmortons. Here we have a bad air in the leaving it, and another by tumbling themselves and winter, impregnated with the fishy-smelling fumes their goods into it, not less than many days' labor of the marsh miasma; there we shall breathe in an and contrivance are necessary to give them their atmosphere untainted. Here we are confined from proper places. And it belongs to furniture of all September to March, and sometimes longer; there kinds, however convenient it may be in its place, to we shall be upon the very verge of pleasure grounds, be a nuisance out of it. We find ourselves here in upon which we can always ramble, and shall not a comfortable house. Such it is in itself; and my wade through almost impassable dirt to get at them. cousin, who has spared no expense in dressing it up Both your mother's constitution and mine have suf- for us, has made it a genteel one. Such, at least, it fered materially by such close and long confine- will be, when its contents are a little harmonized. ment; and it is high time, unless we intend to re- She left us on Tuesday, and on Wednesday, Mrs. treat into the grave, that we should seek out a more Unwin and I took possession of our new abode. I wholesome residence. So far is well; the rest is could not help giving a last look to my old prison, left to Heaven." and its precincts; and though I cannot easily acTo his friend Mr. Newton, he thus writes:-count for it, having been miserable there so many "You have heard of our intended removal. The years, felt something like a heart-ache, when I took house that is to receive us is in a state of prepara- my leave of a scene, that certainly in itself had notion, and when finished, will be both smarter and thing to engage affection. But I recollected that I more commodious than our present abode. But the had once been happy there, and could not, without circumstance that recommends it chiefly is its situ- tears in my eyes, bid adieu to a place in which God ation. Long confinement in the winter, and indeed, had so often found me. The human mind is a for the most part in autumn too, has hurt us both. great mystery; mine, at least, appears to be such A gravel-walk, thirty yards long, affords but indif- upon this occasion. I found that I not only had a ferent scope to the locomotive faculty; yet it is all tenderness for that ruinous abode, because it had that we have had to move in for eight months in once known me happy in the presence of God, but the year, during thirteen years that I have been a that even the distress I had there suffered, for so prisoner. Had I been confined in the Tower, the long a time, on account of his absence, had endeared battlements of it would have furnished me with a it to me as much. I was weary of every object, had larger space. You say well, that there was a time long wished for a change, yet could not take leave when I was happy at Olney; and I am now as hap- without a pang at parting. What consequences are py at Olney, as I expect to be any where, without, to attend our removal, God only knows. I know the presence of God. Change of situation is with well that it is not in the power of situation to effect me no otherwise an object, than as both Mrs. Un- a cure of melancholy like mine. The change, howwin's health and my own happen to be concerned ever, has been entirely a providential one; for much in it. We are both I believe partly indebted for our as I wished it, I never uttered that wish, except to respective maladies, to an atmosphere encumbered Mrs. Unwin. When I learned that the house was with raw vapors, issuing from flooded meadows, and to be let, and had seen it, I had a strong desire that we have perhaps fared the worse for sitting so often, Lady Hesketh should take it for herself, if she and sometimes for several successive months, over should happen to like the country. That desire, a cellar filled with water. These ills we shall es- indeed, is not exactly fulfilled, and yet, upon the cape in the uplands; and as we may reasonably whole, is exceeded. We are the tenants; but she hope, of course, their consequences. But as for assures us that we shall often have her for a guest, happiness, he that once had communion with his and here is room enough for us all. You, I hope, Maker, must be more frantic than ever I was yet, my dear friend, and Mrs. Newton, will want no if he can dream of finding it at a distance from assurances to convince you that you will always be him. I no more expect happiness at Weston than received here with the sincerest welcome; more here, or than I should expect it in company with welcome than you have been you cannot be, but felons and outlaws in the hold of a ballast-lighter. better accommodated you may and will be."

CHAPTER XI.

Extracts from his correspondence. Description of the deep seriousness that generally pervaded his mind. His remarks to justify his removal from Olney. Vindicates himself and Mrs. Unwin from unjust aspersions. Reasons for undertaking the translation of Homer. His opinion of Pope's. Unremitting attention to his own. Immense pains he bestowed upon it. His readiness to avail himself of the assistance of others. Vexation he experienced from a multiplicity of critics. Just remarks upon criticism. Determination to persevere in his work. Justifies himself for undertaking it. Pleasure he took in relieving the poor. Renewal of his correspondence with General Cowper and the Rev. Dr. Bagot. Consolatory letter to the latter.

despair, and a thousand times filled with unspeak-
able horror, I first commenced an author. Distress

drove me to it; and the impossibility of existing
without some employment, still recommends it.
am not, indeed, so perfectly hopeless as I was, but I
am equally in need of an occupation, being often as
much, and sometimes even more, worried than ever.
I cannot amuse myself as I once could with carpen-
ters' or with gardeners' tools, or with squirrels and
guinea-pigs. At that time I was a child; but since
it has pleased God, whatever else he withholds from
me, to restore to me a man's mind, I have put away
childish things. Thus far, therefore, it is plain that

way, but have been providentially led to it; perhaps
I might say, with equal propriety, compelled and
scourged into it: for certainly could I have made
my choice, or were I permitted to make it even
now, those hours which I spend in poetry I would
spend with God. But it is evidently his will that I
should spend them as I do, because every other way
of employing them he himself continues to make
impossible. The dealings of God with me are to
myself utterly unintelligible. I have never met,
either in books, or in conversation, with an expe
rience at all similar to my own. More than twelve
months have now passed since I began to hope, that
having walked the whole breadth of the bottom of
this Red Sea, I was beginning to climb the oppo-
site shore, and I prepared to sing the song of Moses.
But I have been disappointed; those hopes have
been blasted; those comforts have been wrested
from me. I could not be so duped even by the arch-
enemy himself as to be made to question the divine
nature of them, but I have been made to believe
(which you will say is being duped still more) that
God gave them to me in derision, and took them
away in vengeance. Such, however, is, and has
been my persuasion many a long day; and when I
shall think on this subject more comfortably, or as
you will be inclined to tell me, more rationally and
scripturally, I know not. In the mean time I em-
brace, with alacrity, every alleviation of my case,
and with the more alacrity, because, whatever
proves a relief of my distress is a cordial to Mrs.
Unwin, whose sympathy with me, through the
whole of it, has been such, that despair excepted,
her burthen has been as heavy as mine."

THE extracts we have already made from Cow-I have not chosen, or prescribed to myself, my own per's correspondence prove, unquestionably, that the leading bias of his mind was towards the allimportant concerns of religion. As an exhibition, however, of the state of his mind in this respect, at least, up to the close of 1786, the period of his removal to Weston, we think the following extracts cannot fail to be interesting. To Mr. Newton he writes as follows:-"Those who enjoy the means of grace, and know how to use them well, will thrive any where; others no where. More than a few, who were formerly ornaments of this garden, which you once watered, here flourished, and have seemed to wither, and become, as the apostle James strongly expresses it-twice dead-plucked up by the roots; others trasplanted into a soil, apparently less favorable to their growth, either find the exchange an advantage, or at least, are not injured by it. Of myself, who had once both leaves and fruit, but who have now neither, I say nothing, or only this-that when I am overwhelmed with despair, I repine at my barrenness, and I think it hard to be thus blighted; but when a glimpse of hope breaks in upon me, I am then contented to be the sapless thing I am, knowing that he who has commanded me to wither, can command me to flourish again when he pleases. My experiences, however, of this latter kind, are rare and transient. The light that reaches me cannot be compared either to that of the sun, or of the moon; it is a flash in a dark night, during which the heavens seem opened only to shut again. I should be happy (and when I say this, I mean to be understood in the fullest and most emphatical sense of the word) if my frame of mind were such as to permit me to study the important truths of religion. But Adam's approach to the tree of life, after he had sinned, was not more effectually prohibited by the flaming sword that turned every way, than mine to its great Antitype has been now almost these thirteen years, a short interval of three or four days, which passed about this time twelvemonth, alone excepted. For what reason I am thus long excluded, if I am ever again to be admitted, is known to God only. I can say but this, that if he is still my father, his paternal severity has, toward me, been such as to give me reason to account it unexampled. For though others have suffered desertion, yet few, I believe, for so long a time, and perhaps none a desertion accompanied with such experience. But they have this belonging to them: that as they are not fit for a recital, being made up merely of infernal ingredients, so neither are they susceptible of it, for I know no language in which they could be expressed. They are as truly things which it is not possible for man to utter, as those were which Paul heard and saw in the third heaven. If the ladder of Christian experience eaches, as I suppose it does, to the very presence of God, it has nevertheless its foot in the abyss. And if Paul stood, as no doubt he did, on the topmost stave of it, I have been standing, and still stand, on the lowest, in this thirteenth year that has passed since I descended. In such a situation of mind, encompassed by the midnight of absolute

Some of his friends, and Mr. Newton among the rest, on being apprized of his intended removal from Olney, expressed apprehensions that it would introduce him to company, uncongenial to his taste, if not detrimental to his piety. Adverting to these objections, he thus writes to his esteemed correspondent: "If in the course of such an occupation as I have been driven to by despair, or by the inevitable consequence of it, either my former connections are revived, or new ones occur, these things are as much a part of the dispensation of Providence as the leading points themselves. If his purposes in thus directing me are gracious, he will take care to prove them such in the issue; and, in the mean time, will preserve me (for he is able to do that, in one condition of life as well as in another) from all mistakes that might prove pernicious to myself, or give reasonable offence to others. I can say it, as truly as it was ever spoken, Here I am; let him do with me as seemeth to him good. At present, however, I have no connections, at which either you, I trust, or any who love me, and wish me well, have occasion to conceive alarm. Much kindness indeed I have experienced at the hands of several, some of them near relations, others not related to me at all, but I do not know that there is among them a single person from whom I am likely to catch contamination. I can say of them all, with more truth than Jacob uttered, when he

contrary, we are exactly what we were when you saw us last:-I, miserable on account of God's departure from me, which I believe to be final; and she seeking his return to me in the path of duty, and by continual prayer."

called kid venison, 'The Lord thy God brought | assured, that notwithstanding all the rumors to the them unto me.' I could show you among them two men, whose lives, though they have but little of what we call evangelical light, are ornaments to a Christian country, men who fear God more than some who profess to love him. But I will not particularize further on such a subject. Be they what they may, our situations are so distant, and we are likely to meet so seldom, that were they, as they are not, persons even of exceptionable manners, their manners would have little to do with me. We correspond, at present, only on the subject of what passed at Troy three thousand years ago; and they are matters that, if they can do no good, will at least hurt nobody."

After the publication of Cowper's second volume of poems, and indeed, for some considerable time before its actual appearance, he was diligently engaged in producing a new translation of Homer's unrivalled poems. His reasons for undertaking a work of so great magnitude, and that required such immense labor; and the spirited manner with which he brought it to a close, shall be related as nearly as possible in his own words. Writing to Mr. Newton, he thus describes the commencement of this great undertaking:-"I am employed in writing a narrative, but not so useful as that you have just published. Employment, however, with the pen, is through habit become essential to my well-being; and to produce always original poems, especially of considerable length, is not so easy. For some weeks after I had finished the Task, and sent away the last sheet corrected, I was through for being so. One day, being in such distress of mind as was hardly supportable, I took up the Iliad; and merely to direct attention, and with no more preconception of what I was then entering upon, than I have at this moment of what I shall be doing this day twenty years hence, translated the first twelve lines of it. The same necessity pressed me again, I had recourse to the same expedient, and translated more. Every day bringing its occasion for employment with it, every day consequently added something to the work; till at last I began to reflect thus:-The Iliad and the Odyssey together consist of about forty thousand verses. To translate these forty thousand verses will furnish me with occupation for a considerable time. I have already made some progress, and find it a most agreeable amusement. Homer, in point of purity, is a most blameless writer, and though he was not an enlightened man, has interspersed many great and valuable truths throughout both his poems. In short, he is in all respects a most venerable old gentleman, by an acquaintance with whom no man can disgrace himself; the literati are all agreed, to a man, that although Pope has given us two pretty poems, under Homer's title, there is not to be found in them the least portion of Homer's spirit, nor the least resemblance of his manner. I will try, therefore, whether I cannot copy him more happily myself. I have at least the advantage of Pope's faults and failings, which, like so many beacons upon a dangerous coast, will serve me to steer by, and will make my chance for success more probable. These, and many other considerations, but especially a mind that abhorred a vacuum as its chief bane, impelled me so effectually to the work, that ere long I mean to publish proposals for a subscription of it, having advanced so far as to be warranted in doing so."

"Your letter to Mrs. Unwin concerning our conduct, and the offence taken at it in our neighborhood, gave us both a great deal of concern, and she is still deeply affected by it. Of this you may assure yourself, that if our friends in London have been grieved, it is because they have been misinformed, which is the more probable, because the bearers of intelligence hence to London are not always very scrupulous concerning the truth of their reports; and that if any of our serious neigh-necessity idle, and suffered not a little in my spirits bors have been astonished, they have been so without the slightest occasion. Poor people are never well employed even when they judge one another; but when they undertake to scan the motives, and estimate the behavior of those whom Providence has raised a little above them, they are utterly out of their province and their depth. They often see us get into Lady Hesketh's carriage, and rather uncharitably suppose that it always carries us into a scene of dissipation, which, in fact, it never does. We visit, indeed, at Mr. Throckmorton's, and at Gayhurst; rarely, however, at the latter, on account of the greater distance; frequently, though not very frequently, at Weston, both because it is nearer, and because our business in the house that is making ready for our reception, often calls us that way. What good we can get or can do in these visits, is another question, which they, I am sure, are not qualified to solve. Of this we are both sure, that under the guidance of Providence we have formed these connections; that we should have hurt the Christian cause rather than have served it, by a prudish abstinence from them; and that St. Paul himself, conducted to them as we have been, would have found it expedient to have done as we have done. It is always impossible to conjecture to much purpose, from the beginnings of a providential event, how it will terminate. If we have neither received nor communicated any spiritual good at present, while conversant with our new acquaintance, at least no harm has befallen on either side; and it were too hazardous an assertion, even for our censorious neighbors to make, that the cause of the gospel can never be served in any of our future interviews with them, because it does not appear to have been served at present. In the mean time, I speak a strict truth as in the sight of God, when I say that we are neither of us at all more addicted to gadding than heretofore. We both naturally love seclusion from company, and never go into it without putting a force upon our own dispositions; at the same time I will confess, and you will easily conceive, that the melancholy, incident to such close confinement as we have so long endured, finds itself a little relieved by such amusements as a society so innocent affords. You may look round the Christian world, and find few, I believe, of our station, who have so little intercourse as we with the world, that is not Christian. We place all the uneasiness that you have felt for us on the subject, to the account of that cordial friendship of which you have long given us a proof. But you may be

In another letter to the same correspondent, the following just and critical remarks on Pope's translation occur:-"Your sentiments of Pope's Homer agree perfectly with those of every competent judge with whom I have at any time conversed about it. I never saw a copy so unlike the original. There is not, I believe, in all the world, to be found an uninspired poem so simple as are both of those of Homer; nor in all the world a poem more bedizened with ornaments than Pope's translation of them. Accordingly, the sublime of Homer in the hands of Pope, becomes bloated and tumid, and his description tawdry. Neither had Pope the faintest conception of those exquisite discriminations of character for which Homer is so remarkable. All