you will always find me happy to receive you; and in the mean time I remain with much respect,

Your most obedient servant, critic, and friend,

W. C.

P. S. I wish to know what you mean to do with Sir Thomas*, For though I expressed doubts about his theatrical possibilities, I think him a very respectable person, and with some improvement well worthy of being introduced to the public.

MY DEAR SIR,

LETTER II.

To the Revd. Mr. HURDIS.

Weston, June 13, 1791:

I ought to have thanked you for your

agreeable and entertaining Letter much sooner; but I have many correspondents who will not be said, nay; and have been obliged of late to give my last attentions to Homer. The very last indeed, for yesterday I dispatched to Town, after revising them carefully, the proof sheets of subscribers' names; among which I took special notice of yours, and am much obliged to you for it. We have contrived, or rather my Bookseller and Printer have contrived (for they have never waited a moment for me) to publish as critically at the wrong time, as if my whole interest and success had de

pended

Sir Thomas More, a Tragedy.

9

pended on it. March, April, and May, said Johnson to me in a Letter that I received from him in February, are the best months for publication. Therefore now it is determined that Homer shall come out on the first of July; that is to say, exactly at the moment when, except a few Lawyers, not a creature will be left in Town who will ever care one farthing about him. To which of these two friends of mine I am indebted for this management, I know not. It does not please, but I would be a Philosopher as well as a Poet, and therefore make no complaint or grumble at all about it. You, I presume, have had dealings with them both-how did they manage for you? And if as they have for me, how did you behave under it? Some who love me, complain that I am too passive; and I should be glad of an opportunity to justify myself by your example. The fact is, should I thunder ever so loud, no efforts of that sort will avail me now; therefore like a good economist of my bolts, I choose to reserve them for more profitable occasions.

I am glad to find that your amusements have been so similar to mine; for in this instance too I seemed to have need of somebody to keep me in countenance, especially in my attention and attachment to animals. All the notice that we lords of the creation vouchsafe to bestow on the creatures, is generally to abuse them; it is well, therefore, that here and there a man should be found a little womanish, or perhaps a little childish in this matter, who will make some amends, by kissing and coaxing, and laying them in one's bosom. You remember the little ewe lamb, mentioned by

VOL. II.

C

the

the Prophet Nathan; the Prophet perhaps invented the tale for the sake of its application to David's conscience; but it is more probable, that God inspired him with it for that purpose. If he did, it amounts to a proof, that he does not over-look, but on the contrary, much notices such little partialities and kindnesses to his dumb creatures, as we, because we articulate, are pleased to call them.

Your Sisters are fitter to judge than I, whether assemblyrooms are the places, of all others, in which the ladies may be studied to most advantage. I am an old fellow, but I had once my dancing days, as you have now, yet I could never find that I learned half so much of a woman's real character by dancing with her, as by conversing with her at home, where I could observe her behaviour at the table, at the fire side, and in all the trying circumstances of domestic life. We are all good when we are pleased, but she is the good woman who wants not a fiddle to sweeten her. If I am wrong, the young ladies will set me right; in the mean time I will not teaze you with graver arguments on the subject, especially as I have a hope, that years, and the study of the Scripture, and His Spirit, whose word it is, will, in due time, bring you to my way of thinking. I am not one of those sages who require that young men should be as old as themselves, before they have had time to be so..

• With my love to your fair Sisters, I remain, dear Sir,

MY DEAR SIR,

LETTER III.

To the Revd. Mr. HURDIS.

Weston, August 9, 1791.

I never make a correspondent wait for

an answer through idleness or want of proper respect for him; but if I am silent, it is because I am busy, or not well, or because I stay till something occur that may make my Letter, at least a little better than mere blank paper. I therefore write speedily in reply to yours, being at present neither much occupied, nor at all indisposed, nor forbidden by a dearth of materials.

I wish always when I have a new piece in hand, to be as secret as you, and there was a time when I could be so. Then I lived the life of a solitary, was not visited by a single neighbour, because I had none with whom I could associate; nor ever had an inmate. This was when I dwelt at Olney; but since I have removed to Weston the case is different. Here I am visited by all around me, and study in a room exposed to all manner of inroads. It is on the ground floor, the room in which we dine, and in which I am sure to be found by all who seek me. They find me generally at my desk, and with my work, whatever it be, before me, unless perhaps I have conjured it into its hiding-place before they have had time to enter. This however is not always the case, and consequently sooner or later, I cannot fail to be detected. Possibly

you, who I suppose have a snug study, would find it impracticable to attend to any thing closely in an apartment exposed as mine, but use has made it familiar to me, and so familiar, that neither. servants going and coming disconcert me, nor even if a lady, with an oblique glance of her eye, catches two or three lines of my MSS. do I feel myself inclined to blush, though naturally the shyest of mankind.

You did well, I believe, to cashier the subject of which you give me a recital. It certainly wants those agremens, which are necessary to the success of any subject in verse. It is a curious story, and so far as the poor young lady was concerned, a very affecting one; but there is a coarseness in the character of the hero that would have spoiled all. In fact, I find it myself a much easier matter to write, than to get a convenient theme to write on.

I am obliged to you for comparing me, as you go, both with Pope and with Homer. It is impossible in any other way of management to know whether the Translation be well executed or not, and if well, in what degree, It was in the course of such a process that I first became dissatisfied with Pope. More than thirty years since, and when I was a young Templar, I accompanied him with his original, line by line, through both poems. A fellow student of mine, a person of fine classic taste, joined himself with me in the labour. We were neither of us, as you may imagine, very diligent in our proper business.

I shall