to his house, and repeat them to his secretaries, that they might write them. Now, it happened that more were desirous of the reward than qualified to deserve it. The consequence was, that the non-qualified persons, having many of them a pretty knack at versification, imposed on the generous Athenian most egregiously, giving him, instead of Homer's verses, which they had not to give, verses of their own invention. He, good creature, suspecting no such fraud, took them all for gospel, and entered them into his volume accordingly. Now, let him believe the story who can. That Homer's works were in this manner corrected, I can believe; but, that a learned Athenian could be so imposed upon, with sufficient means of detection at hand, I cannot. Would he not be on his guard? Would not a difference of style and manner have occurred? Would not that difference have excited a suspicion? Would not that suspicion have led to inquiry, and would not that inquiry have issued in detection? For how easy was it in the multitude of Homer-conners to find two, ten, twenty, possessed of the questionable passage, and, by confronting him with the impudent impostor, to convict him. Abeas ergo in malam rem cum istis tuis hallucinationibus, Villoisone!* comprised the whole detail of my present history. Thus I fared when you were here; thus I have fared ever since you were here; and thus, if it please God, I shall continue to fare for some time longer: for, though the work is done, it is not finished: a riddle which you, who are a brother of the press, will solve easily.* I have also been the less anxious, because I have had frequent opportunities to hear of you; and have always heard that you are in good health and happy. Of Mrs. Newton, too, I have heard more favorable accounts of late, which have given us both the sincerest pleasure. Mrs. Unwin's case is, at present, my only subject of uneasi ness, that is not immediately personal, and properly my own. She has almost constant headaches; almost a constant pain in her side, which nobody understands; and her lameness, within the last half year, is very little amended. But her spirits are good, because supported by comforts which depend not on the state of the body; and I do not know that, with all these pains, her looks are at all altered since we had the happiness to see you here, unless, perhaps, they are altered a little for the better. I have thus given you as circumstantial an account of ourselves as I could; the most interesting matter, I verily believe, with which I could have filled my paper, unless I could have made spiritual mercies to myself the subject. In my next, perhaps, I shall find leisure to bestow a few lines on what is doing in France, and in the Austrian Netherlands;† My dear Friend,-On this fine first of De- though, to say the truth, I am much better qualified to write an essay on the siege of cember, under an unclouded sky, and in a room full of sunshine, I address myself to the revolutions. I question if, in either of the Troy than to descant on any of these modern payment of a debt long in arrear, but never countries just mentioned, full of bustle and forgotten by me, however I may have seemed tumult as they are, there be a single characto forget it. I will not waste time in apolo-ter whom Homer, were he living, would gies. I have but one, and that one will sug-deign to make his hero. The populace are gest itself unmentioned. I will only add, the heroes now, and the stuff of which genthat you are the first to whom I write, of several to whom I have not written many months, who all have claims upon me; and who, I flatter myself, are all grumbling at my silence. In your case, perhaps, I have been less anxious than in the case of some others; because, if you have not heard from myself, you have heard from Mrs. Unwin. From her you have learned that I live, that I am as well as usual, and that I translate Homer:-three short items, but in which is Yours, TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.† W. C. Weston, Dec. 1, 1789. * The reveries of learned men are amusing, but injurious to true taste and sound literature. Bishop Warburton's labored attempt to prove that the descent of Eneas into hell in the 6th book of the Eneid, is intended to convey a representation of the Eleusinian mysteries, is of this description; when it is obviously an imitation of a similar event, recorded of Ulysses. Genins should guard against a fondness for speculative discurgion, which often leads from the simplicity of truth to the establishment of dangerous errors. We consider speculative inquiries to form one of the features of the present times, against which we have need to be vigilantly on ⚫ur guard. ↑ Private correspondence. tlemen heroes are made seems to be all expended. I will endeavor that my next letter shall the last; and, with our joint affectionate renot follow this so tardily as this has followed membrances to yourself and Mrs. Newton, remain as ever, Sincerely yours, TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ. W. C. Weston, Dec. 18, 1789. My dear Friend,—The present appears to * Revision is no small part of the literary labors of an author. The French revolution, that great event which exercised so powerful an influence not only on European governments but on the world at large, and the effects of which are experienced at the present moment, had just commenced. The Austrian Netherlands had also revolted, and Brussels and most of the principal towns and cities were in the hands of the insurgents. me a wonderful period in the history of mankind. That nations so long contentedly slaves should on a sudden become enamored of liberty, and understand as suddenly their own natural right to it, feeling themselves at the same time inspired with resolution to assert it, seems difficult to account for from natural causes. With respect to the final issue of all this, I can only say that if, having discovered the value of liberty, they should next discover the value of peace, and lastly the value of the word of God, they will be happier than they ever were since the rebellion of the first pair, and as happy as it is possible they should be in the present life. Most sincerely yours, W. C. The features which distinguished the revo lution in France from that of England in 1688 are thus finely drawn by Mr. Burke. "In truth, the circumstances of our revolu tion (as it is called) and that of France are just the reverse of each other in almost every particular, and in the whole spirit of the transaction. With us it was the case of a legal monarch attempting arbitrary power. In France it is the case of an arbitrary mon arch, beginning, from whatever cause, to legalize his authority. The one was to be resisted, the other was to be managed and directed; but in neither case was the order of the state to be changed, lest government might be ruined, which ought only to be corrected and legalized. "What we did was, in truth and substance, and in a constitutional light, a revolution, not made, but prevented. We took solid securities; we settled doubtful questions; we corrected anomalies in our law. In the stable, fundamental parts of our constitution we made no revolution; no, nor any alteration at all. We did not impair the monarchy. "The nation kept the same ranks, the same orders, the same privileges, the same franchises, the same rules for property, the same subordinations, the same order in the law, in the revenue, and in the magistracy: the same lords, the same commons, the same corporations, the same electors."* The French revolution, to which we have now been led by the correspondence of Cowper, whether we consider its immediate or ultimate consequences, was one of the most extraordinary events recorded in the history of modern Europe. It fixed the contemplation of the politician, the philosopher, and the moralist. By the first, it was viewed according to the political bias which marks the two great divisions of party established in this country. Mr. Fox designated it as one of the noblest fabrics ever erected by human liberty for the happiness of mankind. Mr. Burke asserted that it was a system of demolition, and not of reparation. The French That we should have been so graciously revolution might possibly have merited the eulogium of Mr. Fox, if its promoters had preserved in such a period of political conknown when to pause, or how to regulate its vulsions, will ever demand our gratitude and progress. But unhappily the spirit of dem- praise. We owe it not to our arms, or to our ocracy was let loose, and those who first encouncils, but to the goodness and mercy of gaged in the work (influenced no doubt by der, and the howlings of the storm. God. We heard the loud echo of the thunWe the purest motives) were obliged to give way to men of more turbulent passions; even felt some portion of the heavings of the demagogues, who were willing to go all earthquake; but we were spared from falllengths; who had nothing to lose, and every- ing into the abyss; we survived the ruin thing to gain; and in whose eyes modera- and desolations. We trust we shall still be tion was a crime, and the fear of spoliation preserved, by the same superintending Prov and carnage an act of ignoble timidity. Con-idence, and that we may say, in the language tending factions succeeded each other like the of Burke,— waves of the sea, and were borne along with the same irresistible power, till their fury was spent and exhausted. The sequel is well known. Property was confiscated. Whatever was venerable in virtue, splendid in rank, or sacred in religion, became the object of popular violence. The throne and the altar were overturned; and an amiable and inoffensive monarch, whose only crime was the title that he sustained, was led in triumph to the scaffold, amidst the acclamations of his people: and, as if to make death more terrible, the place selected for his execution was in view of the very palace which had been the scene of his former greatness.* Hæc finis Priami fatorum; hic exitus illum Sorte tulit, Trojam incensam et prolapsa videntem "We are not the converts of Rousseau; we has made no progress amongst us. are not the disciples of Voltaire; Helvetius Atheists are not our preachers; madmen are not our lawgivers." But, if history be philosophy teaching by example, what, we may ask, were the politi cal and moral causes of that extraordinary convulsion in France, of which we are speak ing? They are to be traced to that spirit of ambition and conquest, which, however splendid in military prowess, ultimately exhausted the resources of the state, and oppressed the people with imposts and taxation. They are Fergama; tot quondam populls, terrisque, superbum to be found in the system of peculation and extravagance that pervaded every department of the government; in the profligacy of the court; in the luxurious pomp and pride of the noblesse; and in the universal corruption that infected the whole mass of society. To the above may be added, the zeal with which infidel principles were propagated, and the systematic attempts to undermine the whole fabric of civil society through the agency of the press. The press became impious towards God, and disloyal towards kings; and unfortunately the church and the state, being enfeebled by corruption, opposed an ineffectual resistance. Religion had lost its hold on the public mind. Men were required to believe too much, and believed nothing. The consequences were inevitable. When men have once cast off the fear of God, it is an easy transition to forget reverence to the authority of kings, and obedience to the majesty of law. It is curious to observe how the effects of this antisocial conspiracy were distinctly foreseen and predicted. "I hold it impossible," said Rousseau, "that the great monarchies of Europe can subsist much longer." "The high may be reduced low, and the rich become poor, and even the monarch dwindle into a subject."* The train was laid, the match alone was wanting to produce the explosion. The occasion was at length presented. The immediate cause of the French revolution must be sought in the plains of America. When Great Britain was involved with her American colonies, France ungraciously interposed in the quarrel. She paid the price of her interference in a manner that she little anticipated. The Marquis de la Fayette there first acquired his ardor for the cause of liber In his "Emilie." The memorable remark of Madame de Pompadour will not soon be forgotten; "Après nous le Deluge," "After us, the Deluge.' ↑ Rousseau's prophecy of this great catastrophe has been already inserted; but the most remarkable prediction, specifying even the precise period of its fulfilment, is to be found in Fleming's Apocalyptic Key," published so far back as the year 1701. In this work is the following passage. Perhaps the French monarchy may hegin to be considerably humbled about that time: that whereas the present French King (Lewis XIV.) takes the Sun for his emblem, and this for his motto, nec pluribus impar,' he may at length, or rather his successors, and the monarchy itself, at least before the year 1794, be forced to acknowledge that in respect to neighboring potentates, he is even singulis impar."* We add one more very curious prediction. Yes; that Versailles, which thou hast made for the glory of thy names, I will throw to the ground, and all your insolent inscriptions, figures, abominable pictures. And Paris; Paris, that imperial city, I will afflict it dreadfully. Yes, I will aflict the Royal Family. Yes, I will avenge the iniquity of the King upon his grandchildren."-Lacy's Prophetic Warnings, London, 1707, p. 42. By referring to Revelation xvi. 8, it will be seen that the fourth vial is poured out on the Sun, which is interpreted as denoting the humiliation of some eminent potentates of the Romish communion, and therefore principally to be understood of the House of Bourbon, which takes precedence of them all. ty; and, crossing the Atlantic, carried back with him the spirit into France, and in a short time lighted up a flame which has since spread so great a conflagration. But whence sprung the revolution in Amer ica? To solve this momentous question, we must overlook the more immediate causes, and extend our inquiry to the political and religious discussions of the times of James I. and Charles I. and II. It is in that unfortu nate period of polemical controversy and excitement, that the foundation of events was laid which have not even yet spent their strength; and that the philosophical inquirer, whose sole object is the attainment of truth, will find it. The Puritans proposed to carry forth the principle of the Reformation to a still further extent. The proposition was rejected, their views were impugned, and the freedom of religious inquiry was impeded by vexatious obstructions. They found no asylum at home; they sought it abroad, and on the American continent planted the standard of civil and religious liberty. The times of Charles I. followed. There was the same spirit, and the same results. The Star Chamber and the High Commission Court supplied new victims to swell the tide of angry feeling beyond the Atlantic. It was persecution that first peopled America. Time alone was wanting to mature the fruits. The reign of Charles II. completed the eventful crisis. The Act of Uniformity excluded, in one day, two thousand ministers (many of whom were distinguished for profound piety and learning) from the bosom of the Church of England; and thus, by the acts of three successive reigns, the spirit of independence was established in America, and dissent in England, from which such mighty results have since followed. We have indulged in these remarks, because we wish to show the tendency of that high feeling, which, originating, as we sincerely believe, in a cordial attachment to our Church, endangers, by mistaking the means, the stability of the edifice which it seeks to We think this feeling, though support. abated in its intenseness, still exists; and, cast as we now are into perilous times, when Churches and States are undergoing a most scrutinizing inquiry, we are deeply solicitous that the past should operate as a beacon for the future. If the Church of England is to be preserved as a component part of our institutions, and in its ascendancy over the public mind, the members of that Church must not too incautiously resist the spirit of the age, but seek to guide what they cannot arrest. Let the value and necessity of an Established Church be recognized by the evidence of its usefulness; let the pure doctrines of the Gospel be proclaimed in our pulpits; and a noble ardor and co-operation be manifested in the prosperity of our great Institutions, our Bible, Missionary, and Jewish societies. She will then attract the favor, the love and the veneration of the poor, and diffuse a holy and purifying influence among all classes in the community. Her priests will thus be clothed with righteousness, and her saints shout for joy. To her worshippers we may then exclaim with humble confidence and joy," Walk about Zion, and go round about her; tell the towers thereof. Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces, that ye may tell it to the generation following. For this God is our God forever and ever; he will be our guide even unto death."* requisite to give them grace and elegance. I forget if I told you that your German Clavis has been of considerable use to me. I am indebted to it for a right understanding of the manner in which Achilles prepared pork, mutton, and goat's flesh, for the entertainment of his friends, in the night when they came deputed by Agamemnon to negotiate a reconciliation. A passage of which nobody in the world is perfectly master, myself only, and Slaukenbergius excepted, nor ever was, except when Greek was a live language. I do not know whether my cousin has told you or not how I brag in my letters to her concerning my Translation; perhaps her modesty feels more for me than mine for myself, and she would blush to let even you know the degree of my self-conceit on that subject. I will tell you, however, expressing We now resume the correspondence of myself as decently as my vanity will permit, Cowper. TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESQ. The Lodge, Jan. 3, 1790. My dear Sir, I have been long silent, but you have had the charity, I hope and believe, not to ascribe my silence to a wrong cause. The truth is, I have been too busy to write to anybody, having been obliged to give my early mornings to the revisal and correction of a little volume of Hymns for Children, written by I know not whom. This task I finished but yesterday, and while it was in hand wrote only to my cousin, and to her rarely. From her, however, I knew that you would hear of my well-being, which made me less anxious about my debts to you than I could have been otherwise. I am almost the only person at Weston known to you who have enjoyed tolerable health this winter. In your next letter give us some account of your own state of health, for I have had many anxieties about you. The winter has been mild; but our winters are in general such, that, when a friend leaves us in the beginning of that season, I always feel in my heart a perhaps, importing that we have possibly met for the last time, and that the robins may whistle on the grave of one of us before the return of summer. I am still thrumming Homer's lyre; that is to say, I am still employed in my last revisal; and, to give you some idea of the intenseness of my toils, I will inform you that it cost me all the morning yesterday, and all the evening, to translate a single simile to my mind. The transitions from one member of the subject to another, though easy and natural in the Greek, turn out often so intolerably awkward in an English version, that almost endless labor and no little address are * Psalm xlviii. 12-14. that it has undergone such a change for the better in this last revisal, that I have much warmer hopes of success than formerly. Yours, TO MRS KING.* W. C. The Lodge, Jan. 4, 1790. My dear Madam,-Your long silence has occasioned me to have a thousand anxious thoughts about you. So long it has been, that, whether I now write to a Mrs. King at present on earth, or already in heaven, I know not. I have friends whose silence troubles me less, though I have known them longer; because, if I hear not from themselves, I yet hear from others that they are still living, and likely to live. But if your letters cease to bring me news of your wel fare, from whom can I gain the desired intelligence? The birds of the air will not bring it, and third person there is none between us by whom it might be conveyed. Nothing is plain to me on this subject, but that either you are dead, or very much indisposed; or, which would affect me with perhaps as deep a concern, though of a different kind, very much offended. The latter of these suppositions I think the least probable, conscious as I am of an habitual desire to offend nobody, especially a lady, and especially a lady to whom I have many obligations. But all the three solutions above mentioned are very uncomfortable; and if you live, and can send me one that will cause me less pain than either of them, 1 conjure you by the charity and benevolence which I know influence you upon all occa sions, to communicate it without delay. It is possible, notwithstanding appear ances to the contrary, that you are not be • Private correspondence. come perfectly indifferent to me and to what concerns me. I will therefore add a word or two on a subject which once interested you, and which is, for that reason worthy to be mentioned, though truly for no other-meaning myself. I am well, and have been so, (uneasiness on your account excepted,) both in mind and body, ever since I wrote to you last. I have still the same employment. Homer in the morning, and Homer in the evening, as constant as the day goes round. In the spring I hope to send the Iliad and Odyssey to the press. So much for me and my occupations. Poor Mrs. Unwin has hitherto had but an unpleasant winter; unpleasant as constant pain, either in the head | or side, could make it. She joins me in affectionate compliments to yourself and Mr. King, and in earnest wishes that you will soon favor me with a line that shall relieve me from all my perplexities. I am, dear madam, Sincerely yours, TO MRS. KING.* W. C. The Lodge, Jan 18, 1790. My dear Madam,-The sincerest thanks attend you, both from Mrs. Unwin and myself, for many good things, on some of which I have already regaled with an affectionate remembrance of the giver. it. The under parts of the poems (those I mean which are merely narrative) I find the most difficult. These can only be supported by the diction, and on these, for that reason, I have bestowed the most abundant labor. Fine similes and fine speeches take care of themselves; but the exact process of slaying a sheep, and dressing it, it is not so easy to dignify in our language, and in our measure. But I shall have the comfort, as I said, to refleet, that, whatever may be hereafter laid to my charge, the sin of idleness will not. Justly, at least, it never will. In the meantime, my dear madam, I whisper to you a secret;-not to fall short of the original in everything is impossible. I send you, I believe, all my pieces that you have never seen. Did I not send you "Catharina?" If not, you shall have it hereafter. I am, dear madam, ever, ever in haste, Sincerely yours, W. C. We are here first introduced to the notice of the Rev. John Johnson, the cousin of Cowper, by the maternal line of the Donnes. The poet often used familiarly to call him "Johnny of Norfolk." His name will frequently appear in the course of the ensuing correspondence. It is to his watchful and affectionate care that the poet was indebted for all the solace that the most disinterested regard, and highly conscientious sense of duty, could administer, under circumstances The report that informed you of inquiries the most afflicting. Nor did he ever leave made by Mrs. Unwin after a house at Hunt- his beloved bard, till he had closed his eyes ingdon was unfounded. We have no thought in death, and paid the last sad offices, due to of quitting Weston, unless the same Provi- departed worth and genius. His acquaintdence that led us hither should lead us away. ance with Cowper commenced about this time, It is a situation perfectly agreeable to us by a voluntary introduction, on his own part. both; and to me in particular who write He has recorded the particulars of this first much, and walk much, and consequently interview and visit in a poem, entitled "Reclove silence and retirement, one of the most ollections of Cowper." We trust that his eligible. If it has a fault, it is that it seems estimable widow may see fit to communicate to threaten us with a certainty of never see-it to the public, who we have no doubt will ing you. But may we not hope that, when feel a lively interest in a subject, issuing from a milder season shall have improved your the kinsman of Cowper. health, we may yet, notwithstanding the distance, he favored with Mr. King's and your company? A better season will likewise improve the roads, and, exactly in proportion as it does so, will, in effect, lessen the interval between us. I know not if Mr. Martyn be a mathematician, but most probably he is a good one, and he can tell you that this is a proposition mathematically true, though rather paradoxical in appearance. I am obliged to that gentleman, and much obliged to him for his favorable opinion of my translation. What parts of Homer are particularly intended by the critics as those in which I shall probably fall short, I know not; but let me fail where I may, I shall fail nowhere through want of endeavors to avoid • Private correspondence. TO LADY HESKETH. The Lodge, Jan. 22, 1790. from the wild boy Johnson, for whom I have My dear Coz.,-I had a letter yesterday conceived a great affection. It was just such a letter as I like, of the true helter-skelter kind; and, though he writes a remarkably good hand, scribbled with such rapidity, that it was barely legible. He gave me a droll account of the adventures of Lord Howard's note, and of his own pursuit of it. The poem he brought me came as from Lord would revise it. It is in the form of a pasHoward, with his Lordship's request that I toral, and is entitled, "The Tale of the Lute, or the Beauties of Audley End." I read it attentively, was much pleased with part of it, |