sixteenth Odyssey, though, as I said before, I know not at all at present, whereof it is made; but I am sure that thou wouldst not have sent it, hadst thou not conceived a good opinion of it thyself, and thought that it would do me credit. It was very kind in thee to sacrifice to this Minerva on my account. For my sentiments on the subject of the Test Act, I cannot do better than refer thee to my Poem, intituled and called Expostulation." I have there expressed myself not much in its favour; considering it in a religious view; and in a political one, I like it not a jot the better. I am neither Tory, nor High Churchman, but an old Whig, as my Father was before me; and an enemy, consequently, to all tyrannical impositions. Mrs. Unwin bids me return thee many thanks for thy inquiries so kindly made concerning her health. She is a little better than of late, but has been ill continually ever since last November. Every thing that could try patience, and submission, she has had, and her submission and patience have answered in the trial, though mine, on her account, have often failed sadly. Let I have a Letter from Johnson, who tells me that he has sent his transcript to you, begging at the same time more copy. him have it by all means; he is an industrious youth, and I love him dearly. I told him that you are disposed to love him a little. A new A new Poem is born on the receipt of my Mother's picture. Thou shalt have it. LETTER CXXVII. W. C. To SAMUEL ROSE, Esqr. The Lodge, March 11, 1790. I was glad to hear from you, for a line from you gives me always much pleasure, but was not much gladdened by the contents of your Letter. The state of your health, which I have learned more accurately perhaps from my Cousin, except in this last instance, than from yourself, has rather alarmed me, and even she has collected her information upon that subject more from your looks, than from your own acknowledgements, To complain much, and often, of our indispositions, does not always insure the pity of the hearer, perhaps sometimes forfeits it, but to dissemble them altogether, or at least to suppress the worst, is attended, ultimately, with an inconvenience greater still; the secret will out at last, and our friends unprepared to receive it, are doubly distressed about us. In saying this, I squint a little at Mrs. Unwin, who will read it; it is with her, as with you, the only subject on which she practices any dissimulation at all; the consequence is, that when she is much indisposed, I never believe myself myself in possession of the whole truth, live in constant expectation of hearing something worse, and at the long run am seldom disappointed. It seems therefore, as on all other occasions, so even in this, the better course on the whole to appear what we are, not to lay the fears of our friends asleep by cheerful looks which do not probably belong to us, or by Letters written as if we were well, when in fact we are very much otherwise. On condition however, that you act differently toward me for the future, I will pardon the past, and she may gather from my clemency shewn to you, some hopes, on the same conditions, of similar clemency to herself. W.C. LETTER CXXVIII. To Mrs, THROCKMORTON. MY DEAREST MADAM, The Lodge, March 21, 1790. I shall only observe on the subject of your absence, that you have stretched it since you went, and have made it a week longer. Weston is sadly unked without you; and here are two of us, who will be heartily glad to see you again. I believe you are happier at home than any where, which is a comfortable belief to your neighbours, because it affords assurance, that since you are neither likely to ramble for pleasure, nor to meet with any avocations of business, while Weston shall continue to be your home, it will not often want you. The two first books of my Iliad have been submitted to the inspection and scrutiny of a great Critic of your sex, at the instance of my Cousin, as you may suppose. The lady is mistress of more tongues than a few; (it is to be hoped she is single) and particularly she is mistress of the Greek. She returned them with expressions, that if any thing could make a Poet prouder than all Poets naturally are, would have made me so. I tell you this, because I know that you all interest yourselves in the success of the said Iliad. My periwig is arrived, and is the very perfection of all periwigs, having only one fault; which is, that my head will only go into the first half of it, the other half, or the upper part of it, continuing still unoccupied. My artist in this way at Olney has however undertaken to make the whole of it tenantable; and then I shall be twenty years younger than you have ever seen me. I heard of your birth-day very early in the morning; the news came from the steeple. W. C. LETTER I rejoice, my dearest Cousin, that my MSS. have roamed the earth so successfully, and have met with no disaster. The single book excepted, that went to the bottom of the Thames, and rose again, they have been fortunate without exception. I am not superstitious, but have nevertheless as good a right to believe that adventure an omen, and a favourable one, as Swift had to interpret, as he did, the loss of a fine fish, which he had no sooner laid on the bank, than it flounced into the water again, This, he tells us himself, he always considered as a type of his future disappointments; and why may I not as well consider the marvellous recovery of my lost book from the bottom of the Thames, as typical of its future prosperity? To say the truth, I have no fears now about the success of my Translation, though in time past I have had many. I knew there was a style somewhere, could I but find it, in which Homer ought to be rendered, and which alone would suit him. Long time I blundered about it, ere I could attain to any decided judgment on the matter: at first I was betrayed by a desire of accommodating my language to the simplicity of his, into much of the quaintness that belonged to our writers of the fifteenth century. In the course of many revisals I have delivered myself from |