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various other engagements, that to write was impossible.

Since my return, I have been almost constantly afflicted with weak and inflamed eyes, and indeed have wanted spirits as well as leisure. If you can, therefore, you must pardon me; and you will do it perhaps the rather, when I assure you that not you alone, but every person and every thing that had demands upon me has been equally neglected. A strange weariness that has long had dominion over me has indisposed and indeed disqualified me for all employment ;* and my hindrances besides have been such that I am sadly in arrear in all quarters. A thousand times I have been sorry and ashamed that your MSS. are yet unrevised, and if you knew the compunction that it has cost me, you would pity me: for I feel as if I were guilty in that particular, though my conscience tells me that it could not be otherwise.

Before I received your letter written from Margate, I had formed a resolution never to be engraven, and was confirmed in it by my friend Hayley's example. But, learnin since, though I have not learned it from himself, that my bookseller has an intention to prefix a copy of Abbott's picture of me to the next edition of my poems, at his own expense, if I can be prevailed upon to consent to it; in consideration of the liberality of his

This expression alludes to the nervous fever and great depression of spirits that Cowper laboured under, in the months of October and November, and which has been frequently mentioned in the preceding correspondence.

behaviour, I have felt my determination shaken. This intelligence, however, comes to me from a third person, and till it reaches me in a direct line from Johnson, I can say nothing to him about it. When he shall open to me his intentions himself, I will not be backward to mention to him your obliging offer, and shall be particularly gratified, if I must be engraved at last, to have that service performed for me by a friend.

I thank you for the anecdote, which could not fail to be very pleasant,* and remain, my dear Sir, With gratitude and affection,

Yours,

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.

Give my love to dear Tom, and thank him for

* The Hon. Mrs. Boscawen had expressed her regret that Cowper should employ his time and talents in translation, instead of original composition; accompanied by a wish that he would produce another Task,' adverting to what Pope had made his friend exclaim,

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"Do write next winter more Essays on Man.""

VOL. V

I

his very apposite extract, which I should be nappy 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! The year ninety-two shall stand chronicled in my remembrance as the most melancholy that I have ever known, except the few weeks that I spent at Eartham; and such it has been principally because, being engaged to Milton, I felt myself no longer free for any other engagement. That ill-fated work, impracticable in itself, has made every thing else impracticable.

I am very Pindaric, and obliged to be
My friends are come

so by the hurry of the hour.
down to breakfast.

Adieu !

W. C.

TO THOMAS PARK, ESQ.

Weston Underwood, Jan. 3, 1793.

My dear Sir-A few lines must serve to introduce to you my much-valued friend Mr. Rose, and to thank you for your very obliging attention in sending me so approved a remedy for my disorder. It is no fault of yours, but it will be a disappointment to you to know, that I have long been in possession of that remedy, and have tried it without effect, or, to speak more truly, with an unfavourable one. Judging by the pain it causes, I conclude

that it is of the caustic kind, and may therefore be sovereign in cases where the eye-lids are ulcerated; but mine is a dry inflammation, which it has always increased as often as I have used it. 1 used it again, after having long since resolved to use it no more, that I might not seem, even to myself, to slight your kindness, but with no better effect than in every former instance.

You are very candid in crediting so readily the excuse I make for not having yet revised your MSS. and as kind in allowing me still longer time. I refer you for a more particular account of the circumstances that make all literary pursuits at present impracticable to me, to the young gentleman who delivers this into your hands.* He is perfectly master of the subject, having just left me after having spent a fortnight with us.

You asked me a long time since a question concerning the Olney Hymns, which I do not remember that I have ever answered. Those marked C. are mine, one excepted, which, though it bears that mark, was written by Mr. Newton. I have not the collection at present, and therefore cannot tell you which it is.

You must extend your charity still a little farther, and excuse a short answer to your two obliging letters. I do every thing with my pen in a hurry, but will not conclude without entreating you to make my thanks and best compliments to the lady +

* Mr. Rose.

+ Mrs. Haden, formerly governess to the daughters of Lord Eardley.

who was so good as to trouble herself for my sake to write a character of the medicine. I remain,

My dear Sir,
Sincerely yours,

W. C.

Your request does me honour. Johnson will have orders in a few days to send a copy of the edition just published.*

TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESQ.

Weston, Jan. 20, 1793.

My dear Brother-Now I know that you are safe, I treat you, as you see, with a philosophical indifference, not acknowledging your kind and immediate answer to anxious inquiries, till it suits my own convenience. I have learned, however, from my late solicitude, that not only you, but yours, interest me to a degree, that, should any thing happen to either of you, would be very inconsistent with my peace. 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. "Oh, 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

* The fifth edition of Cowper's Poems.

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