a manner, that others might possibly be the better for my amusement. If I have succeeded, it will give me pleasure, but if I have failed, I shall not be mortified to the degree that might perhaps be expected. I remember an old adage (though not where it is to be found), "bene vixit, qui bene latuit ;" and if I had recollected it at the right time, it should have been the motto to my book. By the way, it will make an excellent one for retirement, if you can but tell me whom to quote for it. The critics cannot deprive me of the pleasure I have in reflecting, that so far as my leisure has been employed in writing for the public, it has been conscientiously employed, and with a view to their advantage. There is nothing agreeable, to be sure, in being chronicled for a dunce; but I believe, there lives not a man upon earth who would be less affected by it than myself. With all this indifference to fame, which you know me too well to suppose me capable of affecting, I have taken the utmost pains to deserve it. This may appear a mystery, or a paradox in practice; but it is true. I considered that the taste of the day is refined, and delicate to excess; and that to disgust that delicacy of taste, by a slovenly inattention to it, would be to forfeit, at once, all hope of being useful; and for this reason, though I have written more verse this last year than perhaps any man in England, I have finished, and polished, and touched and retouched, with the utmost care. If, after all, I should be converted into waste papér, it may be my misfortune, but it shall not be my fault. I shall bear it with the most perfect serenity.

a copy he is a

I do not mean to give good-natured little man, and crows exactly like a cock; but knows no more of verse, than the cock he imitates.

Whoever supposes that lady Austen's fortune is precarious, is mistaken. I can assure you, upon the ground of the most circumstantial and authentic information, that it is both genteel and perfectly safe. Yours.

LETTER XXVIII.

WILLIAM COWPER, ESQ. TO THE REV. W. UNWIN.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

Nov. 26, 1781.

I WROTE to you by the last post, supposing you at Stock; but lest that letter should not follow you to Laytonston, and you should suspect me of unreasonable delay; and lest the frank you have sent me should degenerate into waste paper and perish upon my hands, I write again. The former letter, however, containing all my present stock of intelligence, it is more than possible that this may prove a blank, or but little worthy your acceptance. You will do me the justice to suppose, that if I could be very entertaining, I would be so ; because, by giving me credit for such a willingness to please, you only allow me a share of that universal vanity which inclines every man, upon all occasions, to exhibit himself to the best advantage. To say the truth, however, when I write, as I do to you, not about business, nor on any subject that

approaches to that description, I mean much less my correspondent's amusement, which my modesty will not always permit me to hope for, than my own. There is a pleasure annexed to the communication of one's ideas, whether by word of mouth, or by letter, which nothing earthly can supply the place of; and it is the delight we find in this mutual intercourse, that not only proves us to be creatures intended for social life, but more than any thing else, perhaps, fits us for it. -I have no

patience with philosophers-they, one and all, suppose (at least I understand it to be a prevailing opinion among them) that man's weakness, his necessities, his inability to stand alone, have furnished the prevailing motive, under the influence of which he renounced at first a life of solitude, and became a gregarious creature. It seems to me more reasonable as well as more honourable to my species, to suppose, that generosity of soul, and a brotherly attachment to our own kind, drew us, as it were, to one common centre; taught us to build cities, and inhabit them, and welcome every stranger that would cast in his lot amongst us, that we might enjoy fellowship with each other, and the luxury of reciprocal endearments, without which a paradise could afford no comfort. There are, indeed, all sorts of characters in the world; there are some whose understandings are so sluggish, and whose hearts are such mere clods, that they live in society without either contributing to the sweets of it, or having any relish for them.—A man of this stamp passes by our window continually-I never saw him conversing with a neighbour but once in my life, though I have known him by sight these

twelve years he is of a very sturdy make, and has a round belly, extremely protuberant; which he evidently considers as his best friend, because it is his only companion, and it is the labour of his life to fill it. I can easily conceive, that it is merely the love of good eating and drinking, and now and then the want of a new-pair of shoes, that attaches this man so much to the neighbourhood of his fellow-mortals; for suppose these exigencies, and others of a like kind, to subsist no longer, and what is there that could give society the preference in his esteem? He might strut about with his two thumbs upon his hips in the wilderness, he could hardly be more silent than he is at Olney; and for any advantage or comfort of friendship, or brotherly affection, he could not be more destitute of such blessings there than in his present situation. But other men have something more than guts to satisfy; there are the yearnings of the heart, which, let philosophers say what they will, are more importunate than all the necessities of the body, that will not suffer a creature, worthy to be called human, to be content with an insulated life, or to look for his friends among the beasts of the forest. Yourself for instance! It is not because there are no tailors, or pastry-cooks, to be found upon Salisbury plain, that you do not choose it for your abode, but because you are a philanthropist-because you are susceptible of social impressions, and have a pleasure in doing a kindness when you can. Now, upon the word of a poor creature, I have said all that I have said without the least intention to say one word of it when I began. But thus it is with my thoughts-when

you shake a crab-tree, the fruit falls; good for nothing indeed when you have got it, but still the best that is to be expected from a crab-tree. You are welcome to them, such as they are; and if you approve my sentiments, tell the philosophers of the day, that I have out-shot them all, and have discovered the true origin of society, when I least Looked for it.

LETTER XXIX.

WILLIAM COWPER, ESQ. TO THE REV. W. UNWIN.

June 12, 1782.

MY DEAR FRIEND, EVERY extraordinary occurrence in our lives, affords us an opportunity to learn, if we will, something more of our own hearts and tempers than we were before aware of. It is easy to promise ourselves before-hand, that our conduct shall be wise, or moderate, or resolute, on any given occasion. But when that occasion occurs, we do not always find it easy to make good the promise: such a difference there is between theory and practice. Perhaps this is no new remark; but it is not a whit the worse for being old, if it be true.

Before I had published, I said to myself You and I, Mr. Cowper, will not concern ourselves much abont what the critics may say of our book. But having once sent my wits for a venture, I soon became anxious about the issue, and found that I could not be satisfied with a warm place in my own good graces, unless my friends were pleased with me as much as I pleased myself. Meeting with