the present moment and that of breakfast should prove sufficient for the purpose.

Yours to Mrs. Unwin was received yesterday, for which she will thank you in due time., I have also seen, and have now in my desk, your Letter to Lady Hesketh; she sent it thinking that it would divert me; in which she was not mistaken. I shall tell her when I write to her next, that you long to receive a line from her. Give yourself no trouble on the subject of the politic device you saw good to recur to, when you presented me with your Manuscript; it was an innocent deception, at least it could harm nobody save yourself; an effect which it did not fail to produce: and since the punishment followed it so closely, by me at least, it may very well be forgiven. You ask, how I can tell that you are not addicted to practices of the deceptive kind? And certainly, if the little time that I have had to study you, were alone to be considered, the question would not be unreasonable; but in general a man who reaches my years, finds that

"To something like prophetic strain."

I am very much of Lavater's opinion, and persuaded that faces are as legible as books; only with these circumstances to recommend them to our perusal, that they are read in much less time, and are much less likely to deceive us. Yours gave me a favourable impression of you the moment I beheld it; and though I shall

not

not tell you in particular what I saw in it, for reasons mentioned in my last, I will add, that I have observed in you nothing since, that has not confirmed the opinion I then formed in your favour. In fact, I cannot recollect that my skill in physiognomy has ever deceived me, and I should add more on this subject had I room.

When you have shut up your mathematical books, you must give yourself to the study of Greek; not merely that you may be able to read Homer, and the other Greek Classics, with ease, but the Greek Testament and the Greek Fathers also. Thus qualified, and by the aid of your fiddle into the bargain, together with some portion of the grace of God, (without which nothing can be done) to enable you to look well to your flock, when you shall get one, you will be well set up for a Parson. In which character, if I live to see you in it, I shall expect and hope that you will make a very different figure from most of your fraternity.

he expressed an ardent desire of a line from you, and the delight he would feel on receiving it. I know not whether you will have the charity to satisfy his longings, but mention the matter, thinking it possible that you may. A Letter from a lady to a youth immersed in mathematics must be singularly pleasant.

I am finishing Homer backward, having begun at the last book, and designing to persevere in that crab-like fashion, till I arrive at the first. This may remind you, perhaps, of a certain Poet's prisoner in the Bastile (thank Heaven! in the Bastile now no more) counting the nails in the door, for variety sake, in all directions. I find so little to do in the last revisal, that I shall soon reach the Odyssey, and soon want those books of it which are in thy possession; but the two first of the Iliad, which are also in thy possession, much sooner; thou mayst, therefore, send them by the first fair opportunity. I am in high spirits on this subject, and think that I have at last licked the clumsy cub into a shape that will secure to it the favourable notice of the public. Let not retard me, and I shall hope to get it out next winter.

I am glad that thou hast sent the General those Verses on my Mother's picture. They will amuse him-only I hope that he will not miss my Mother-in-law, and think that she ought to have made a third. On such an occasion it was not possible to mention her with any propriety. I rejoice at the General's recovery; may it prove a perfect one.

W. C.

LETTER

LETTER CXXXIII.

To Lady HESKETH.

The Lodge, April 30, 1790.

To my old friend, Dr. Madan, thou

couldst not not have spoken better than thou didst. Tell him, I beseech you, that I have not forgotten him; tell him also, that to my heart and home he will be always welcome; nor he only, but all that are his. His judgment of my Translation gave me the highest satisfaction, because I know him to be a rare old Grecian.

The General's approbation of my Picture Verses gave me also much pleasure. I wrote them not without tears; therefore, I presume it may be that they are felt by others. Should he offer me my Father's picture, I shall gladly accept it. A melancholy pleasure is better than none, nay verily, better than most. He had a sad task imposed on him; but no man could acquit himself of such a one with more discretion, or with more tenderness. The death of the unfortunate young man reminded me of those lines in Lycidas,

"It was that fatal and perfidious bark,

Built in the eclipse, and rigg'd with curses dark, That sunk so low that sacred head of thine !"How beautiful!

W. C.

LETTER

LETTER CXXXIV.

To Mrs. THROCKMORTON.

The Lodge, May 10, 1790.

My dear Mrs. Frog*, you have by this

time (I presume) heard from the Doctor; whom I desired to present to you our best affections, and to tell you that we are well. He sent an urchin (I do not mean a hedge-hog, commonly called an urchin in old times, but a boy, commonly so called at present) expecting that he would find you at Buckland's, whither he supposed you gone on Thursday. He sent him, charged with divers articles, and among others with letters, or at least with a letter: which I mention, that, if the boy should be lost, together with his dispatches, past all possibility of recovery, you may yet know that the Doctor stands acquitted of not writing. That he is utterly lost (that is to say, the boy-for, the Doctor being the last antecedent, as the grammarians say, you might otherwise suppose, that he was intended) is the more probable, because he was never four miles from his home before, having only travelled at the side of a plough-team; and when the Doctor gave him his direction to Buckland's, he asked, very naturally, if that place was in England. So, what has become of him, Heaven knows.

VOL. I.

BBB

I do

*The sportive title generally bestowed by Cowper on his amiable friends the Throckmortons.