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To the details given in the correspondence before the reader, of his habits of application and thought during this laborious portion of his life, we may here add a few gleanings from his private letters."My reason for giving notice of an Odyssey as well as an Iliad in my subscription papers was this:. I feared that the public, being left to doubt whether I should ever translate the former, would be unwilling to treat with me for the latter, which they would be apt to consider as an odd volume, and unworthy to stand upon their shelves alone. It is hardly probable, however, that I shall begin the Odyssey for some months to come," (two years after first commencing,) "being now closely engaged in the revisal of my translation of the Iliad, which I compare as I go most minutely with the original. Whatever may be said of my version when it shall appear, it shall never be said that it is not faithful." * "I am not glad," thus he writes in another letter, "that I am obliged to apologize for an interval of three weeks that have elapsed since the receipt of yours; but not having it in my power to write oftener than I do, I am glad that my reason is such a one as you admit. In truth, my time is very much occupied; and the more that because I not only have a long and laborious work in hand, for such it would prove at any rate, but because I make it a point to bestow my utmost attention upon it, and to give it all the finishing that the most scrupulous accuracy can command. As soon as breakfast is over, I retire to my nutshell of a summer-house, which is my verse manufactory, and here I abide seldom less than three hours, and not often more. In the afternoon I return to it again; and all the day light that follows, except what is devoted to a walk, is given to Homer."† To Mrs King he writes,---"The post brings me no letters that do not grumble at my silence. Had you, therefore, taken me as roundly to task as others, I should have concluded you, perhaps, more indifferent to my epistles than the rest of my correspondents; of whom one says, 'I shall be glad when you have finished Homer; * Private Correspondence. Letter to Newton. + Ibid.

Letter to Newton, 1786.

then possibly you may find a little leisure for an old friend.' Another says, 'I don't choose to be neglected, unless you Thus I hear of it with equally neglect every one else.' both ears, and shall, until I appear in the shape of two great quartos." To the same lady he writes again on the subject: "I have hardly a scrap in the following characteristic vein :

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of paper belonging to me that is not scribbled over with blank verse; and, taking out your letter from a bundle of others, this moment, I find it thus inscribed on the seal side:

Meantime his steeds

Snorted, by myrmidons detain❜d, and loosed
From their own master's chariot, foam'd to fly.

You will easily guess to what they belong; and I mention the circumstance merely in proof of my perpetual engagement to Homer, whether at home or abroad; for when I committed these lines to the back of your letter, I was rambling at a considerable distance from home. I set one foot on a mole hill, placed my hat, with the crown upwards, upon my knee, laid your letter upon it, and, with a pencil, wrote the fragment that I have sent you. In the same position I have written many and many a passage of a work which I hope soon to have done with." *

To his old friend, Mr Hill, he thus describes his "Homeric industry," and probable consequence when that industry should no longer have an object:

"May 2, 1790.

"MY DEAR FRIEND, I am still at the old sport- Homer all the morning, and Homer all the evening. Thus have I -been held in constant employment I know not exactly how many, but I believe these six years, an interval of eight. months excepted. It is now become so familiar to me to take Homer from my shelf at a certain hour, that I shall, no doubt, continue to take him from my shelf at the same time even after I have ceased to want him. That period is not

* Private Correspondence, June, 1790.

far distant. I am now giving the last touches to a work which, had I foreseen the difficulty of it, I should never have meddled with; but which, having at length nearly finished it to my mind, I shall discontinue with regret." Of the amount of subscription, he thus writes :— "I received last night a copy of my subscribers' names. It is an illustrious catalogue in respect of rank and title; but methinks I should have liked it as well had it been more numerous. The sum subscribed, however, will defray the expense of printing; which is as much as, in these unsubscribing days, I had any reason to promise myself. I devoutly second your droll wish, that the booksellers may contend about me. The more the better. Seven times seven, if they please; and let them fight with the fury of Achilles,

Till every rubric post be crimson'd o'er

With blood of booksellers, in battle slain,
For me and not a periwig untorn!"

The following, to the same friend, seems to strengthen our previous supposition respecting the inadequacy of the remuneration for Homer:

"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 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 Fruit is possible that I might not have succeeded so well. ripens only a short time before it rots; and man in general arrives not at maturity of mental powers at a much earlier period."

The translation thus laboriously prepared was given to the world on the 1st of July, 1791. The version received then much the same reception as it generally meets with now, when it is more esteemed for accuracy and care, than read for poetic beauty. Cowper seems to have made a point in his various publications of acknowledging every obligation of friendship and respect, and in the present instance, embraced the opportunity of recording both feelings. The Iliad he inscribed to his youthful kinsman, Earl Cowper, whose venerable father, "benevolent to all, but especially kind to the author," had previously accepted this honour, but death intervened before the completion of the work.* The dedication of the Odyssey, to the Dowager Lady Spencer, appears to have been a spontaneous tribute to her ladyship's character. Nothing can be more truly elegant than this inscription, as managed by Cowper, though the offering of a translation from the Greek to a lady, might at first be pronounced an exceedingly unpromising subject: "To the right honourable Countess Dowager Spencer, the following translation of the Odyssey, a poem that exhibits, in the character of its heroine, an example of all domestic virtue, is with equal propriety and respect inscribed." Such a compliment, and so expressed, conveys at once graceful praise to the individual, while it is calculated to lend support to public morals. The cause, indeed, of virtue and religion was an interest uppermost in Cowper's thoughts, and never more so than when occupied with Homer, an employment which, it is alleged, withdrew his mind from religious concerns. But though it be a matter of regret that Cowper became a translator, in so far as his attention might thus be diverted from original composition, which would doubtless have turned upon subjects of piety, yet it is certain that he regarded his labours in this capacity as not fruitless of advantage to the cause of religion. "I thank you heartily," thus he writes to Newton at an early stage in his progress, "both for * wishes and prayers your Strange as it

*See "Dedication to the Iliad."

*

may seem to say it, and unwilling as I should be to say it to any person less candid than yourself, I will nevertheless say, that I have not entered on this work, unconnected as it must needs appear with the interests of the cause of God, without the direction of his providence, nor altogether unassisted by him in the performance of it. Time will shew to what it ultimately tends. I am inclined to believe that it has a tendency to which I myself am at present perfectly a stranger."*

Within a few days of its expected appearance, and with the retrospect of five years spent upon the work clearly before him, he expresses still more confidently his belief of its moral tendency. "You oblige me by saying that you will read Homer for my sake. I verily think, that any person of a spiritual turn of mind may read him to some advantage. He may suggest reflections that may not be unserviceable even in a sermon; for I know not where we can find more striking exemplars of the pride, the arrogance, and the insignificance of man; at the same time that, by ascribing all events to a divine interposition, he inculcates constantly the belief of a Providence; insists much on the duty of charity towards the poor and the stranger; on the respect that is due to superiors, and to our seniors in particular; and on the expedience and necessity of prayer and piety towards the gods, -a piety mistaken, indeed, in its object, but exemplary for the punctuality of its performance. Thousands, who will not learn from Scripture to ask a blessing, either on their actions or on their food, may learn it, if they please, from Homer."†

There can be little hope, that those who neglect Scripture will be improved by Homer. But while, in these remarks, allowance is to be made for the enthusiasm of the classic, and the natural prejudice in favour of a long cherished task, they prove at the same time, that, even in his most secular occupations, Cowper had constant reference to their results upon

* Private Correspondence, February 18, 1786.
+ Ibid, June 24, 1791.

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