tion of a man's best interests; to censure the vices and the follies which people carry with them into their retreats, where they make no other use of their leisure than to gratify themselves with the indulgence of their favourite appetites, and to pay themselves, by a life of pleasure, for a life of business. In conclusion, I would enlarge upon the happiness of that state, when discreetly enjoyed and religiously improved. But all this is, at present, in embryo. I generally despair of my progress when I begin; but if, like my travelling 'squire, I should kindle as I go, this likewise may make a part of the volume, for I have time enough before me."

Cowper was peculiarly fortunate in having a publisher who, to the habits of a man of business, united considerable critical judgment and good taste. Since literature has degenerated into a mere calculation of profit and loss, publishers of this class have nearly become extinct, but of the valuable assistance which an intelligent bookseller may afford to an author, no one is more aware than the writer of the Memoirs which are prefixed to this, and the preceding volumes of the present edition of the Poets.

Cowper repeatedly expresses to Mr. Newton and others his acknowledgments for his publisher Mr.Johnson's suggestions; and the following letters to him, which have not before been printed, still farther evince the poet's obligations:

SIR,

TO MR. JOHNSON.

I AM obliged to you for your queries, the poems will be the better for them. I wish you always to read me with the closest attention and to give my lines as strict a scrutiny as you can find time for some things always escape a writer, which yet strike a judicious reader perhaps at the first view; and while you allow me a right of decision in the last instance, if I go into public with any uncorrected faults upon my head, the blame and the disgrace will be all my own. You will perceive that I have made some use of the liberty I stipulated for beforehand, and though I have followed your advice in several passages, yet not in all. I proceed according to previous engagements to give my reasons.

No man living abhors a louse more than I do, but hermits are notoriously infested with these vermin; it is even a part of their supposed meritorious mortification to encourage the breed; the fact being true becomes an important feature in the face of that folly I mean to expose, and having occasion to mention the loathsome animal, I cannot, I think, do better than call him by his loathsome name. It is a false delicacy that is offended by the mention of any thing God has seen fit to create, where the laws of modesty are not violated, and therefore we will not mind it.

Die then. The word italicised to direct the

I con

emphasis, the objection to that line I suppose must vanish, at least I can see none, the sentiment I take to be unquestionably true. fess the two lines that close the period are two of my favourites, they may possibly at first sight seem chargeable with some harshness of expression, but that harshness is rather to be ascribed to the truth they convey, than to the terms in which it is conceived; every body knows that a final rejection of the Gospel must terminate in destruction; the words damnable and damned may be vehement indeed, but they are no more than adequate to the case, nor would any other words that I can think of do justice to the idea they intend; that vehemence is indeed the very circumstance that gives them a peculiar propriety in the place they occupy, they bring up the rear of a whole clause of admonitions and cautions, and therefore cannot make too forcible an impression, they are the lead at the end of the bludgeon.

You may draw on me when you please for about eight hundred lines, I have just finished a poem of that length, which I intended should take the lead in a second volume, upon proper encouragement to print again. But if you choose to begin with Table Talk and end with Conversation (for that is the title of it), I have no objection the last bears no affinity to the first except in the name of it.

Olney, August 6, 1781.

SIR,

TO MR. JOHNSON, BOOKSELLER.

I RETURN the copy always by the first opportunity, though sometimes I may seem to detain it longer than necessary. We have the post but

three times a week. Mr. Newton writes me word he has received Conversation,' which, therefore, I suppose will soon pay its respects to you. I am now writing, but whether what I write will be ready for the present volume, should you choose to insert it, I know not. I never write except when I can do it with facility, and am rather apprehensive that the muse is about to forsake me for the present; ever since I could use a pen I have been subject to such vicissitudes.

September 3, 1781.

I have corrected no mistakes but my own.

you

have

In a letter to Johnson, dated Feb. 17, 1782, he says, "I now reckon the book finished, and therefore once for all and very unfeignedly return you my thanks for the many useful hints given me; and if I were to prefix an advertisement to the reader, would most willingly acknowledge myself indebted to my bookseller as my very judicious, and only corrector."

There is much novelty in Cowper's opinion of music, as conveyed in a letter to Mr. Newton, in September, 1781: "The lawfulness of music,

when used with moderation, and in its proper place, is unquestionable; but I believe that wine itself, though a man be guilty of habitual intoxication, does not more debauch and befool the natural understanding, than music, always music, music in season and out of season, weakens and destroys the spiritual discernment. If it is not used with an unfeigned reference to the worship of God, and with a design to assist the soul in the performance of it, which cannot be the case when it is the only occupation, it degenerates into a sensual delight, and becomes a most powerful advocate for the admission of other pleasures, grosser perhaps in degree, but in their kind the same."

Cowper's observations upon the Ocean, which occur in a letter, dated September, 1781, are extremely poetical: "I think with you, that the most magnificent object under heaven is the great deep; and cannot but feel an unpolite species of astonishment, when I consider the multitudes that view it without emotion, and even without reflection. In all its various forms, it is an object of all others the most suited to affect us with lasting impressions of the awful Power that created and controls it. I am the less inclined to think this negligence excusable, because at a time of life when I gave as little attention to religious subjects as almost any man, I yet remember that the waves would preach to me, and that in the midst of dissipation I had an ear to hear them.