General, and to rest that night at Kingston; but the pleasure I shall have in the interview will hardly be greater than the pain I shall feel at the end of it, for we shall part probably to meet no more. Johnny, I know, has told you that Mr. Hurdis is here. Distressed by the loss of his sister, he has renounced the place where she died for ever, and is about to enter on a new course of life at Oxford. You would admire him much He is gentle in his manners, and delicate in his person, resembling our poor friend Unwin, both in face and figure, more than any one I have ever seen. But he has not, at least he has not at present, his vivacity. I have corresponded since I came here with Mrs. Courtenay, and had yesterday a very kind letter from her. aggregate. In these circumstances I find myself so indisposed to writing, that save to yourself I would on no account attempt it; but to you. I will give such a recital as I can of all that has passed since I sent you that short note from Kingston, knowing that if it be a perplexed recital, you will consider the cause, and pardon it. I will begin with a remark in which I am inclined to think you will agree with me, that there is sometimes more true heroism passing in a corner, and on occasions that make no noise in the world, than has often been exercised by those whom that world esteems her greatest heroes, and on occasions the most illustrious; I hope so at least; for all the heroism I have to boast, and all the opportunities I have of displaying any, are of a private nature. After writing the note I immediately began to prepare for my appointed visit to Ham; but the struggles that Adieu, my dear: may God bless you. Write to me as soon as you can after the twentieth. II had with my own spirit, labouring as I did under shall then be at Weston, and indulging myself in the hope that I shall ere long see you there also. W. C. TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESQ. The Sun, at Kingston, Sept. 18, 1792. MY DEAR BROTHER, WITH no sinister accident to retard or terrify us, we find ourselves, at a quarter before one, arrived safe at Kingston. I left you with a heavy heart, and with a heavy heart took leave of our dear Tom, at the bottom of the chalk-hill. But soon after this last separation my troubles gushed from my eyes, and then I was better. We must now prepare for our visit to the General. I add no more therefore than our dearest remembrances and prayers that God may bless you and yours, and reward you an hundred-fold for all your kindness. Tell Tom I shall always hold him dear for his affectionate attentions to Mrs. Unwin. From her heart the memory of him can never be erased. Johnny loves you all, and has his share in all these acknowledgments. Adieu. W. C. MY DEAR HAYLEY, the most dreadful dejection, are never to be told. I W.C. TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESQ. MY DEAR HAYLEY, Weston, Oct. 2, 1792. TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESQ. A BAD night, succeeded by an east wind, and a sky all in sables, have such an effect upon my Weston, Sept. 21, 1792. spirits, that if I did not consult my own comfort CHAOS himself, even the Chaos of Milton, is not more than yours, I should not write to-day, for I surrounded with more confusion, nor has a mind shall not entertain you much: yet your letter, more completely in a hubbub, than I experience at though containing no very pleasant tidings, has the present moment. At our first arrival, after afforded me some relief. It tells me, indeed, that long absence, we find an hundred orders to ser- you have been dispirited yourself, and that poor vants necessary, a thousand things to be restored little Tom, the faithful squire of my Mary, has to their proper places, and an endless variety of been seriously indisposed; all this grieves me, but minutiæ to be adjusted; which, though individually then there is a warmth of heart, and a kindness of little importance, are most momentous in the in it, that do me good. I will endeavour not to repay you in notes of sorrow and despondence, who will tell me in a few days that he has seen. though all my sprightly chords seem broken. In you. Your wishes to disperse my melancholy truth, one day excepted, I have not seen the day would, I am sure, prevail, did that event depend when I have been cheerful, since I left you. My on the warmth and sincerity with which you spirits, I think, are almost constantly lower than frame them; but it has baffled both wishes and they were: the approach of winter is perhaps the prayers, and those the most fervent that could be cause; and if it is, I have nothing better to ex-made, so many years, that the case seems hopepect for a long time to come. less. But no more of this at present. Yesterday was a day of assignation with my- Your verses to Austen are as sweet as the self, the day of which I said some days before it honey that they accompany; kind, friendly, witty, came, when that day comes I will begin my dis- and elegant. When shall I be able to do the like? sertations. Accordingly when it came I prepared perhaps when my Mary, like your Tom, shall to do so; filled a letter-case with fresh paper, fur- cease to be an invalid, I may recover a power at nished myself with a pretty good pen, and reple- least to do something. I sincerely rejoice in the nished my ink-bottle; but partly from one cause, dear little man's restoration. My Mary continues, and partly from another, chiefly however from I hope, to mend a little. distress and dejection, after writing and obliterat W. C. TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESQ. ing about six lines, in the composition of which I spent near an hour, I was obliged to relinquish the attempt. An attempt so unsuccessful could have no other effect than to dishearten me, and it MY DEAREST JOHNNY, Weston, Oct. 19, 1792..' has had that effect to such a degree that I know not when I shall find courage to make another. At present I shall certainly abstain, since at present I can not well afford to expose myself to the danger of a fresh mortification. W. C. TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESQ. Weston, Oct. 13, 1792. I BEGAN a letter to you yesterday, my dearest brother, and proceeded through two sides of the sheet; but so much of my nervous fever found its way into it, that looking it over this morning I determined not to send it. I have risen, though not in good spirits, yet in better than I generally do of late, and therefore will not address you in the melancholy tone that belongs to my worst feelings. You are too useful when you are here not to be missed on a hundred occasions daily and too much domesticated with us not to be regretted always. I hope therefore that your month or six weeks will not be like many that I have known, capable of being drawn out into any length whatever, and productive of nothing but disappoint ment. I have done nothing since you went, except that I have composed the better half of a sonnet to Romney; yet even this ought to bear an earlier date, for I began to be haunted with a desire to do it long before we came out of Sussex, and have daily attempted it ever since. It would be well for the reading part of the world, if the writing part were, many of them, as dull as I am. Yet even this small produce, which · my steril intellect has hardly yielded at last, may serve to convince you that in point of spirits I am not worse. In fact, I am a little better. The powders and the laudanum together have, for the present at least, abated the fever that consumes them; and in measure as the fever abates, I acquire a less discouraging view of things, and with it a little power to exert myself. In the evenings I read Baker's Chronicle to Mrs. Unwin, having no other history, and hope in time to be as well versed in it as his admirer W. C. I began to be restless about your portrait, and to say, how long shall I have to wait for it? I wished it here for many reasons: the sight of it will be a comfort to me, for I not only love, but am proud of you, as of a conquest made in my old age. Johnny goes to town on Monday, on purpose to call on Romney, to whom he shall give all proper information concerning its conveyance hither. The name of a man, whom I esteem as I do Romney, ought not to be unmusical in my ears; but his name will be so, till I shall Sir Roger de Coverley. have paid him a debt justly due to him, by doing such poetical honours to it as I intend. Heaven 'knows when that intention will be executed, for the Muse is still as obdurate and as coy as ever. Your kind postscript is just arrived, and gives Weston, Oct. 22, 1792 me great pleasure. When I can not see you my- HERE am I with I know not how many letters self, it seems some comfort however that you to answer, and no time to do it in. I exhort you, have been seen by another known to me; and therefore, to set a proper value on this, as proving TO JOHN JOHNSON, ESQ. MY DEAR JOHNNY, W. C. your priority in my attentions, though in other occupied as you, though in a different way; but it is respects likely to be of little value. not so with me. Mrs. Unwin's great debility (who You do well to sit for your picture, and give is not yet able to move without assistance) is of very sufficient reasons for doing it; you will also, itself a hindrance such as would effectually disaI doubt not, take care that when future genera- ble me. Till she can work and read, and fill up tions shall look at it, some spectator or other shall her time as usual (all which is at present entirely say, this is the picture of a good man, and a use-out of her power,) I may now and then find time ful one. to write a letter, but I shall write nothing more. And now God bless you, my dear Johnny. II can not sit with my pen in my hand, and my proceed much after the old rate; rising cheerless books before me, while she is in effect in solitude, and distressed in the morning, and brightening a silent, and looking at the fire. To this hindrance little as the day goes on. Adieu. that other has been added, of which you are already aware, a want of spirits, such as I have never known, when I was not absolutely laid by, since I commenced an author. How long I shall be continued in these uncomfortable circumstances is known only to Him who, as he will, disposes of us all. I may be yet able perhaps to prepare the first book of the Paradise Lost for the press before it will be wanted; and Johnson himself seems to think there will be no haste for the second. But poetry is my favourite employment, and all my poetical operations are in the mean time suspended, for while a work to which I have bound myself remains unaccomplished I can do nothing else. TO WILLIAM HALEY, ESQ. Weston, Oct. 28, 1792. NOTHING done, my dearest brother, nor likely to be done at present; yet I purpose in a day or two to make another attempt, to which however I shall address myself with fear and trembling, like a man who, having sprained his wrist, dreads to use it. I have not, indeed, like such a man, injured myself by any extraordinary exertion, but seem as much enfeebled as if I had. The consciousness that there is so much to do, and nothing done, is a burthen that I am not able to bear. Milton especially is my grievance, and I might Johnson's plan of prefixing my phiz to the new almost as well be haunted by his ghost, as goaded edition of my Poems is by no means a pleasant with such continual reproaches for neglecting him. one to me, and so I told him in a letter I sent him I will therefore begin; I will do my best; and if, from Eartham, in which I assured him that my after all, that best prove good for nothing, I will objections to it would not be easily surmounted. even send the notes, worthless as they are, that I But if you judge that it may really have an effect have made already, a measure very disagreeable in advancing the sale, I would not be so squeamto myself, and to which nothing but necessity ish as to suffer the spirit of prudery to prevail in shall compel me. I shall rejoice to see those new samples of your biography, which you give me to expect. me to his disadvantage. Somebody told an author, I forgot whom, that there was more vanity in refusing his picture, than in granting it, on which he instantly complied. I do not perfectly feel all the force of the argument, but it shall content me that he did. Allons! Courage!-Here comes something how ever; produced after a gestation as long as that of a pregnant woman. It is the debt long unpaid; the compliment due to Romney; and if it has your I do most sincerely rejoice in the success of your approbation, I will send it, or you may send it for publication, and have no doubt that my prophecy me. I must premise, however, that I intended concerning your success in greater matters will nothing less than a sonnet when I began. I know be fulfilled. We are naturally pleased when our not why, but I said to myself, it shall not be a friends approve what we approve ourselves; how sonnet; accordingly I attempted it in one sort of much then must I be pleased, when you speak so measure, then in a second, then in a third, till I kindly of Johnny! I know him to be all that you had made the trial in half a dozen different kinds think him, and love him entirely. of shorter verse, and behold it is a sonnet at last. Adieu! We expect you at Christmas, and shall The fates would have it so.* therefore rejoice when Christmas comes. Let no thing interfere. Ever yours, W. C. W. C. dialogue between wood and stone; between Ho-new clerk; he came to solicit the same service as mer's head, and the head of Samuel; kindly in- I had rendered his predecessor, and I reluctantly tended, I know well, for my amusement, and that complied; doubtful, indeed, whether I was capaamused me much. ble. I have however achieved that labour, and I The successor of the clerk defunct, for whom I hope nothing more. I am just sent for up to Mary, used to write mortuary verses, arrived here this dear Mary! Adieu! she is as well as when I left morning, with a recommendatory letter for Joe you, I would I could say better. Remember us both Rye, and an humble petition of his own, entreat- affectionately to your sweet boy, and trust me for ing me to assist him as I had assisted his prede- being Most truly yours, W. C. cessor. I have undertaken the service, although with no little reluctance, being involved in many arrears on other subjects, and having very little dependence at present on my ability to write at all. TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ. I proceed exacty as when you were here a letter MY DEAR SIR, The fever on my spirits has harassed me much, and I have never had so good a night, nor so quiet a rising, since you went, as on this very morning. A relief that I account particularly seasonable and propitious, because I had, in my intentions, devoted this morning to you, and could not have fulfilled those intentions, had I been as spiritless as I generally am. Weston, Dec. 16, 1792. WE differ so little, that it is pity we should not agree. The possibility of restoring our diseased government is, I think, the only point on which we are not of one mind. If you are right, and it can not be touched in the medical way, without danger of absolute ruin to the constitution, keep the doctors at a distance, say I-and let us live as long as we can. But perhaps physicians might be found of skill sufficient for the purpose, were they but as willing as able. Who are they? Not those honest blunderers the mob, but our governors themselves. As it is in the power of any indiviI am glad that Johnson is in no haste for Mil- dual to be honest if he will, any body of men are, ton, for I seem myself not likely to address myself as it seems to me, equally possessed of the same presently to that concern, with any prospect of option. For I can never persuade myself to think success; yet something now and then, like a se- the world so constituted by the author of it, and cret whisper, assures and encourages me that it human society, which is his ordinance, so shabby will yet be done. W.C. TO WILLIAM HAYLEY ESQ. a business, that the buying and selling of votes and consciences should be essential to its existence. As to multiplied representation, I know not that I foresee any great advantage likely to arise from that. Provided there be but a reasonable number Weston, Nor. 25, 1792. of reasonable heads laid together for the good of How shall I thank you enough for the interest the nation, the end may as well be answered by you take in my future Miltonic labours, and the five hundred, as it would be by a thousand, and assistance you promised me in the performance perhaps better. But then they should be honest of them? I will some time or other, if I live, and as well as wise; and in order that they may be live a poet, acknowledge your friendship in some so, they should put it out of their own power to be of my best verse; the most suitable return one otherwise. This they might certainly do, if they poet can make to another; in the mean time, I love would; and would they do it, I am not convinced you, and am sensible of all your kindness. You that any great mischief would ensue. You say, wish me warm in my work, and I ardently wish "somebody must have influence," but I see no the same; but when I shall be so, God only knows. necessity for it. Let integrity of intention and a My melancholy, which seemed a little alleviated for a few days, has gathered about me again, with as black a cloud as ever; the consequence is absolute incapacity to begin. due share of ability be supposed, and the influence will be in the right place, it will all centre in the zeal and good of the nation. That will influence their debates and decisions, and nothing else ought I was for some vears dirge writer to the town to do it. You will say perhaps that, wise men of Northampton, being employed by the clerk of and honest men as they are supposed, they are the principal parish there, to furnish him with an yet liable to be split into almost as many differannual copy of verses proper to be printed at the ences of opinion as there are individuals: but I foot of his bill of mortality; but the clerk died, rather think not. It is observed of Prince Eugene and hearing nothing for two years from his suc- and the Duke of Marlborough, that each always cessor, I well hoped that I was out of my office. approved and seconded the plans and views of the The other morning however Sam announced the other: and the reason given for it is, that they were men of equal ability. The same cause that | school, however, that we must learn, if we ever could make two unanimous, would make twenty truly learn it, the natural depravity of the human so; and would at least secure a majority among heart, and of our own in particular, together with the as many hundreds. As to the reformation of the consequence that necessarily follows such wretchchurch, I want none, unless by a better provision ed premises; our indispensable need of the atonefor the inferior clergy; and if that could be brought ment, and our inexpressible obligations to him who about by emaciating a little some of our too corpu- made it. This reflection can not escape a thinklent dignitaries, I should be well contented. ing mind, looking back on those ebullitions of fretThe dissenters, I think, catholics and others, fulness and impatience, to which it has yielded in have all a right to the privileges of all other Eng-a season of great affliction. lishmen, because to deprive them is persecution; and persecution on any account, but especially on a religious one, is an abomination. But after all, valeat respublica. I love my country, I love my king, and I wish peace and prosperity to Old Eng-in doubt, neither spirits nor opportunity suffice me land. Adieu. W. C. TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESQ. Weston, Dec. 26, 1792. THAT I may not be silent till my silence alarms you, I snatch a moment to tell you that although toujours triste I am not worse than usual, but my opportunities of writing are paucified, as perhaps Dr. Johnson would have dared to say, and the few that I have are shortened by company. * I am very Pindaric, and obliged to be so by the hurry of the hour. My friends are come Having lately had company who left us only on the fourth, I have done nothing indeed, since my return from Sussex, except a trifle or two, which it was incumbent upon me to write. Milton hangs for that labour. I regret continually that I ever suffered myself to be persuaded to undertake it. The most that I hope to effect is a complete revisal of my own Homer. Johnson told my friend, who has just left me, that it will begin to be reviewed in the next Analytical, and that he hoped the review of it would not offend me. By this I understand that if I am not offended, it will be owing more to my own equanimity, than to the mildness of the critic. So be it! He will put an opportunity of victory over myself into my hands, and I will endeavour not to lose it! Adieu. W. C. TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESQ MY DEAR BROTHER, Weston, Jan. 20, 1793. Give my love to dear Tom, and thank him for his very apposite extract, which I should be happy indeed to turn to any account. How often do I wish, in the course of every day, that I could be employed once more in poetry, and how often of course that this Miltonic trap had never caught me! Now I know that you are safe, I treat you, as The year ninety-two shall stand chronicled in my you see, with a philosophical indifference, not acremembrance as the most melancholy that I have knowledging your kind and immediate answer to ever known, except the few weeks that I spent at anxious inquiries, till it suits my own convenience. Eartham; and such it has been principally, because I have learned, however, from my late solicitude, being engaged to Milton, I felt myself no longer that not only you, but yours, interest me to a defree for any other engagement. That ill-fated gree, that, should any thing happen to either of work, impracticable in itself, has made every thing you, would be very inconsistent with my peace. else impracticable. Sometimes I thought that you were extremely ill, and once or twice that you were dead. As often some tragedy reached my ear concerning little Tom. "O, vana mentes hominum How liable are we to a thousand impositions, and how indebted to honest old Time, who never fails to undeceive us! | Whatever you had in prospect you acted kindly by me not to make me partaker of your expectations, for I have a spirit, if not so sanguine as I SEIZE a passing moment merely to say that I yours, yet that would have waited for your coming feel for your distresses, and sincerely pity you; and with anxious impatience, and have been dismally I shall be happy to learn from your next, that your mortified by the disappointment. Had you come, sister's amendment has superseded the necessity and come without notice too, you would not have you feared of a journey to London. Your candid surprised us more, than (as the matter was manaccount of the effect that your afflictions have both aged) we were surprised at the arrival of your picon your spirits and temper I can perfectly under- ture. It reached us in the evening, after the shutstand, having laboured much in that fire myself, ters were closed, at a time when a chaise might and perhaps more than any man. It is in such a actually have brought you without giving us the down to breakfast. Adieu. W. C. TO THE REV. MR. HURDIS. MY DEAR SIR, Weston, Jan. 6, 1793. |