113.TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN.

CHARACTER OF DR BEATTIE COWPER NOT YET COMMENCED WITH A SECOND VOLUME-MADAME GUYON.

MY DEAR WILLIAM,-Doctor Beattie is a respectable character. I account him a man of sense, a philosopher, a scholar, a person of distinguished genius, and a good writer. I believe him, too, a Christian; with a profound reverence for the Scripture, with great zeal and ability to enforce the belief of it, (both which he exerts with the candour and good manners of a gentleman,) he seems well entitled to that allowance; and to deny it him, would impeach one's right to the appellation. With all these good things to recommend him, there can be no dearth of sufficient reasons to read his writings. You favoured me some years since with one of his volumes, by which I was both pleased and instructed and I beg you will send me the new one, when you can conveniently spare it, or rather bring it yourself, while the swallows are yet upon the wing; for the summer is going down apace.*

You tell me you have been asked, if I am intent upon another volume? I reply-not at present, not being convinced that I have met with sufficient encouragement. I account myself happy in having pleased a few, but am not rich enough to despise the many. I do not know what sort of market my commodity has found, but if a slack one, I must beware how I make a second attempt. My bookseller will not be willing to incur a certain loss; and I can as little afford it. Notwithstanding what I have said, I write, and am even now writing, for the press. I told you that I had translated several of the poems of Madame Guyon. I told you too, or I am mistaken, that Mr Bull designed to print them. That gentleman is gone to the sea-side with Mrs Wilberforce, and will be absent six weeks. My intention is to surprise him at his return with the addition of as much more translation as I have already given him. This, however, is still less likely to be a popular work than my former. Men that have no religion would despise it, and men that have no religious experience would not understand it. But the strain of simple and unaffected piety in the original is sweet beyond expression.

*This new volume, by Dr Beattie, must have been the second of his Essays, the first having been published in 1776. The author of the Minstrel was born 1736, and died in 1803.

She sings like an but few admirers. on the other side,

angel, and for that very reason has found Other things I write too, as you will see but these merely for my amusement.*

MY DEAR WILLIAM,-Not to retaliate, but for want of opportunity, I have delayed writing. From a scene of most uninterrupted retirement, we have passed at once into a state of constant engagement; not that our society is much multiplied. The addition of an individual has made all this difference. Lady Austen and we pass our days alternately at each other's chateau. In the morning I walk with one or other of the ladies, and in the afternoon wind thread. Thus did Hercules and Samson, and thus do I; and were both those heroes living, I should not fear to challenge them to a trial of skill in that business, or doubt to beat them both. As to killing lions, and other amusements of that kind, with which they were so delighted, I should be their humble servant, and beg to be excused.

Having no frank, I cannot send you Mr. as I intended.

-'s two letters

We corresponded as long as the occasion required, and then ceased. Charmed with his good sense, politeness, and liberality to the poor, I was indeed ambitious of continuing a correspondence with him, and told him so. Perhaps I had done more prudently had I never proposed it. But warm hearts are not famous for wisdom, and mine was too warm to be very considerate on such an occasion. I have not heard from him since, and have long given up all expectation of it. I know he is too busy a man to have leisure for me, and I ought to have recollected it sooner. He found time

to do much good, and to employ us as his agents in doing it, and that might have satisfied me. Though laid under the strictest injunctions of secrecy, both by him, and by you on his behalf, I consider myself as under no obligation to conceal from you the remittances he made. Only, in my turn, I beg leave to request secrecy on your part, because, intimate as you are with him, and highly as he values you, I cannot yet

* This letter closed with the English and Latin Verses on the loss of the Royal George. See Poems.

be sure that the communication would please him, his delicacies on this subject being as singular as his benevolence. He sent forty pounds, twenty at a time. Olney has not had such a friend this many a day; nor has there been an instance at any time of a few poor families so effectually relieved, or so completely encouraged to the pursuit of that honest industry by which, their debts being paid, and the parents and children comfortably clothed, they are now enabled to maintain themselves. Their labour was almost in vain before; but now it answers - it earns them bread, and all their other wants are plentifully supplied.

I wish that, by Mr- -'s assistance, your purpose in behalf of the prisoners may be effectuated. A pen so formidable as his might do much good, if properly directed. The dread of a bold censure is ten times more moving than the most eloquent persuasion. They that cannot feel for others, are the persons of all the world who feel most sensibly for themselves. Yours, my dear friend, W. C.

REFLECTIONS ON THE PEACE AT THE CONCLUSION OF THE AMERICAN WARPROVIDENCE OVERRULES THE AFFAIRS OF NATIONS.

February 8, 1783.

MY DEAR FRIEND,- When I contemplate the nations of the earth, and their conduct towards each other, through the medium of a scriptural light, my opinions of them are exactly like your own. Whether they do good or do evil, I see them acting under the permission or direction of that Providence who governs the earth, whose operations are as irresistible as they are silent and unsuspected. So far we are perfectly agreed; and howsoever we may differ upon inferior parts of the subject, it is, as you say, an affair of no great consequence. For instance, you think the peace a better than we deserve, and in a certain sense I agree with you: as a sinful nation we deserve no peace at all, and have reason enough to be thankful that the voice of war is at any rate put to silence.*

Mr S -'s last child is dead; it lived a little while in a world of which it knew nothing, and is gone to another, in which it is already become wiser than the wisest it has left

*This was the treaty of Paris, signed on the 20th of January, and which acknowledged the independence of the American colonies.

behind. The earth is a grain of sand, but the interests of men are commensurate with the heavens.

Mrs Unwin thanks Mrs Newton for her kind letter, and for executing her commissions. We truly love you both, and think of you often. W. C.

116. TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.

FAVOURABLE RECEPTION OF HIS POEMS-JOHN GILPIN.

February 13, and 20, 1783.

MY DEAR FRIEND,-In writing to you I never want a subject. Self is always at hand, and self with its concerns is always interesting to a friend.

You may think perhaps that, having commenced poet by profession, I am always writing verses. Not so- -I have written nothing, at least finished nothing, since I published— except a certain facetious history of John Gilpin, which Mr Unwin would send to the Public Advertiser. Perhaps you might read it without suspecting the author.

My book procures me favours, which my modesty will not permit me to specify, except one, which, modest as I am, I cannot suppress, -a very handsome letter from Dr Franklin at Passy. These fruits it has brought me.

I have been refreshing myself with a walk in the garden, where I find that January (who, according to Chaucer, was the husband of May) being dead, February has married the widow. Yours, &c.

W. C.

117.-TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.

VANITY OF AN AUTHOR-FRANKLIN'S LETTER TRANSCRIBED.

OLNEY, February 20, 1783. SUSPECTING that I should not have hinted at Dr Franklin's encomium under any other influence than that of vanity, I was several times on the point of burning my letter for that very reason. But not having time to write another by the same post, and believing that you would have the grace to pardon a little self-complacency in an author on so trying an occasion, I let it pass. One sin naturally leads to another, and a greater; and thus it happens now, for I have no way to gratify your curiosity, but by transcribing the letter in question. It is addressed, by the way, not to me, but to an

acquaintance of mine, who had transmitted the volume to him without my knowledge.

PASSY, May 8, 1782.

SIR, I received the letter you did me the honour of writing to me, and am much obliged by your kind present of a book. The relish for reading of poetry had long since left me, but there is something so new in the manner, so easy, and yet so correct in the language, so clear in the expression, yet concise, and so just in the sentiments, that I have read the whole with great pleasure, and some of the pieces more than once. I beg you to accept my thankful acknowledgments, and to present my respects to the author.-Your most obedient humble servant, B. FRANKLIN.

118. TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.

REFLECTIONS ON YOUTHFUL FRIENDSHIPS.

MY DEAR FRIEND, Great revolutions happen in this ant's nest of ours. One emmet of illustrious character and great abilities pushes out another; parties are formed, they range themselves in formidable opposition, they threaten each other's ruin, they cross over and are mingled together, and, like the corruscations of the Northern Aurora, amuse the spectator, at the same time that by some they are supposed to be forerunners of a general dissolution.

There are political earthquakes as well as natural ones, the former less shocking to the eye, but not always less fatal in their influence than the latter. The image which Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream was made up of heterogeneous and incompatible materials, and accordingly broken. Whatever is so formed must expect a like catastrophe.

I have an etching of the late Chancellor hanging over the parlour chimney. I often contemplate it, and call to mind the day when I was intimate with the original. It is very like him, but he is disguised by his hat, which, though fashionable, is awkward; by his great wig, the tie of which is hardly discernible in profile; and by his band and gown, which give him an appearance clumsily sacerdotal. friendship is dead and buried, yours is the only surviving one of all with which I was once honoured.- Adieu,

Our

W. C.