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accept mine, and my dear invalid's affectionate remembrances. Ever yours,

W. C.

TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESQ.

Weston, March 19, 1793.

My dear Hayley-I am so busy every morning before breakfast (my only opportunity) strutting and stalking in Homeric stilts, that you ought to account it an instance of marvellous grace and favour, that I condescend to write even to you. Sometimes I am seriously almost crazed with the multiplicity of the matters before me, and the little or no time that I have for them; and sometimes I repose myself, after the fatigue of that distraction, on the pillow of despair; a pillow, which has often served me in the time of need, and is become, by frequent use, if not very comfortable, at least convenient. So reposed, I laugh at the world, and say, "Yes, you may gape and expect both Homer and Milton from me, but I'll be hanged if ever you get them."

In Homer you must know I am advanced as far as the fifteenth book of the Iliad, leaving nothing behind me that can reasonably offend the most fastidious; and I design him for public appearance in his new dress as soon as possible, for a reason which any poet may guess, if he will but thrust his hand into his pocket.

You forbid me to tantalize you with an invitation to Weston, and yet invite me to Eartham!-No! no! there is no such happiness in store for me at

present. Had I rambled at all, I was under promise to all my dear mother's kindred to go to Norfolk, and they are dying to see me : but I have told them that die they must, for I cannot go; and ergo, as you will perceive, can go no where else.

Thanks for Mazarin's epitaph !* it is full of witty paradox, and is written with a force and severity which sufficiently bespeak the author. I account it an inestimable curiosity, and shall be happy when time shall serve, with your aid, to make a good

* We have not been able to discover this epitaph, nor does it appear that it was ever translated by Cowper.

Cardinal Mazarin was minister of state to Louis XIII, and during the minority of Louis XIV. The last moments of this great statesman are too edifying not to be recorded. To the ecclesiastic (Joly) who attended him, he said, "I am not satisfied with my state; I wish to feel a more profound sorrow for my sins. I am a great sinner. I have no hope but in the mercy of God." (Je suis un grand criminel, je n'ai d'espérance qu'en la miséricorde divine.) At another time he besought his confessor to treat him like the lowest subject in the realm, being convinced, he said, that there was but one gospel for the great, as well as for the little. (Qu'il n'y avoit qu'un Evangile pour les grands, et pour les petits.) His sufferings were very acute. to those around him, "what infirmities and wretchedness the fortunes and dignities of this world come to." He repeated many times the Miserere, (Ps. li.) stretching forth his hands, then clasping them, and lifting up his eyes to heaven, with all the marks of the most sincere devotion.

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At midnight he exclaimed, “ I am dying—my mind grows indistinct. I trust in Jesus Christ." (Je vais bientôt mourir, mon jugement se trouble, j'espère en Jésus Christ.) Afterwards, frequently repeating the sacred name of Jesus, he expired. (Se mettant en devoir de répéter aussi fréquemment le très-saint nom de Jésus, il expira.)

Histoire du Card. Mazarin, par M. Aubery.

translation of it.

But that will be a stubborn

business. Adieu ! The clock strikes eight; and now for Homer.

W. C.

The two following letters bear an honourable testimony to his bookseller, Johnson, whom he had commissioned his friend, Mr. Rose, to consult, respecting a second and revised edition of his Homeric version.

TO SAMUEL ROSE, ESQ.

Weston, March 27, 1793. My dear Friend—I must send you a line of congratulation on the event of your transaction with Johnson, since you, I know, partake with me in the pleasure I receive from it. Few of my concerns have been so happily concluded. I am now satisfied with my bookseller, as I have substantial cause to be, and account myself in good hands; a circumstance as pleasant to me as any other part of my business; for I love dearly to be able to confide, with all my heart, in those with whom I am connected, of what kind soever the connexion may be.

The question of printing or not printing the alterations seems difficult to decide. If they are not printed, I shall perhaps disoblige some purchasers of the first edition, and if they are, many others of them, perhaps a great majority, will never care about them. As far as I have gone I have made a fair copy, and when I have finished the whole, will send them to Johnson, together with the interleaved volumes. He will see in a few minutes what it will

be best to do, and by his judgment I shall be determined. The opinion to which I most incline is, that they ought to be printed separately, for they are many of them rather long, here and there a whole speech, or a whole simile, and the verbal and lineal variations are so numerous, that altogether, I apprehend, they will give a new air to the work, and I hope a much improved one.

I forgot to say in the proper place, that some notes, although but very few, I have added already; and may perhaps see here and there opportunity for a few more. But, notes being little wanted, especially by people at all conversant with classical literature, as most readers of Homer are, I am persuaded that were they numerous, they would be deemed an incumbrance. I shall write to Johnson

soon, perhaps to-morrow, and then shall say the same thing to him.

In point of health we continue much the same. Our united love, and many thanks for your prosperous negociations, attend yourself and whole family, and especially my little namesake.

Adieu, W. C.

TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.*

Weston, March 29, 1793.

My dear Friend-Your tidings concerning the slender pittance yet to come are, as you observe, of the melancholy cast. Not being gifted by nature with the means of acquiring much, it is well, however, that she has given me a disposition to be

Private Correspondence.

contented with little. I have now been so many years habituated to small matters, that I should probably find myself incommoded by greater; and may I but be enabled to shift, as I have been hitherto, unsatisfied wishes will never trouble me much. My pen has helped me somewhat; and, after some years' toil, I begin to reap the benefit. Had I begun sooner, perhaps I should have known fewer pecuniary distresses; or, who can say?-it is possible that I might not have succeeded so well. Fruit ripens only a short time before it rots; and man, in general, arrives not at maturity of mental powers at a much earlier period. I am now busied in preparing Homer for his second appearance. An author should consider himself as bound not to please himself, but the public; and as far as the good pleasure of the public may be learned from the critics, I design to accommodate myself to it. The Latinisms, though employed by Milton, and numbered by Addison among the arts and expedients by which he has given dignity to his style, I shall render into plain English; the rougher lines, though my reason for using them has never been proved a bad one, so far as I know, I shall make perfectly smooth; and shall give body and substance to all that is in any degree feeble and flimsy. And when I have done all this and more, if the critics still grumble, I shall say the very deuce is in them. Yet, that they will grumble, I make no doubt; for, unreasonable as it is to do so, they all require something better than Homer, and that something they will certainly never get from me.

As to the canal that is to be my neighbour, I

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