TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.[108]
Olney, Nov. 7, 1781.
My dear Friend—Having discontinued the practice of verse-making for some weeks, I now feel quite incapable of resuming it; and can only wonder at it as one of the most extraordinary incidents in my life that I should have composed a volume. Had it been suggested to me as a practicable thing in better days, though I should have been glad to have found it so, many hindrances would have conspired to withhold me from such an enterprise. I should not have dared, at that time of day, to have committed my name to the public, and my reputation to the hazard of their opinion. But it is otherwise with me now. I am more indifferent about what may touch me in that point than ever I was in my life. The stake that would then have seemed important now seems trivial; and it is of little consequence to me, who no longer feel myself possessed of what I accounted infinitely more valuable, whether the world's verdict shall pronounce me a poet, or an empty pretender to the title. This happy coldness towards a matter so generally interesting to all rhymers left me quite at liberty for the undertaking, unfettered by fear, and under no restraints of that diffidence which is my natural temper, and which would either have made it impossible for me to commence an author by name, or would have insured my miscarriage if I had. In my last despatches to Johnson I sent him a new edition of the title-page, having discarded the Latin paradox which stood at the head of the former, and added a French motto to that from Virgil. It is taken from a volume of the excellent Caraccioli,[109] called Jouissance de soi-meme, and strikes me as peculiarly apposite to my purpose.
Mr. Bull is an honest man. We have seen him twice since he received your orders to march hither, and faithfully told us it was in consequence of those orders that he came. He dined with us yesterday; we were all in pretty good spirits, and the day passed very agreeably. It is not long since he called on Mr. Scott. Mr. R—— came in. Mr. Bull began, addressing himself to the former, "My friend, you are in trouble; you are unhappy; I read it in your countenance." Mr. Scott replied, he had been so, but he was better. "Come then," says Mr. Bull, "I will expound to you the cause of all your anxiety. You are too common; you make yourself cheap. Visit your people less, and converse more with your own heart. How often do you speak to them in the week?" Thrice.—"Ay, there it is. Your sermons are an old ballad; your prayers are an old ballad; and you are an old ballad too."—I would wish to tread in the steps of Mr. Newton.—"You do well to follow his steps in all other instances, but in this instance you are wrong, and so was he. Mr. Newton trod a path which no man but himself could have used so long as he did, and he wore it out long before he went from Olney. Too much familiarity and condescension cost him the estimation of his people. He thought he should insure their love, to which he had the best possible title, and by those very means he lost it. Be wise, my friend; take warning; make yourself scarce, if you wish that persons of little understanding should know how to prize you."
When he related to us this harangue, so nicely adjusted to the case of the third person present, it did us both good, and, as Jacques says,
"It made my lungs to crow like chanticleer."
Our love of you both, though often sent to London, is still with us. If it is not an inexhaustible well, (there is but one love that can with propriety be called so,) it is, however, a very deep one, and not likely to fail while we are living.
Yours, my dear Sir,
W. C.
TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN.[110]
Olney, Nov. 24, 1781.
My dear Friend—News is always acceptable, especially from another world. I cannot tell you what has been done in the Chesapeake, but I can tell you what has passed in West Wycombe, in this county. Do you feel yourself disposed to give credit to the story of an apparition? No, say you. I am of your mind. I do not believe more than one in a hundred of those tales with which old women frighten children, and teach children to frighten each other. But you are not such a philosopher, I suppose, as to have persuaded yourself that an apparition is an impossible thing. You can attend to a story of that sort, if well authenticated? Yes. Then I can tell you one.
You have heard, no doubt, of the romantic friendship that subsisted once between Paul Whitehead, and Lord le Despenser, the late Sir Francis Dashwood.—When Paul died, he left his lordship a legacy. It was his heart, which was taken out of his body, and sent as directed. His friend, having built a church, and at that time just finished it, used it as a mausoleum upon this occasion; and, having (as I think the newspapers told us at the time) erected an elegant pillar in the centre of it, on the summit of this pillar, enclosed in a golden urn, he placed the heart in question; but not as a lady places a china figure upon her mantel-tree, or on the top of her cabinet, but with much respectful ceremony and all the forms of funeral solemnity. He hired the best singers and the best performers. He composed an anthem for the purpose; he invited all the nobility and gentry in the country to assist at the celebration of these obsequies, and, having formed them all into an august procession, marched to the place appointed at their head, and consigned the posthumous treasure, with his own hands, to its state of honourable elevation. Having thus, as he thought, and as he might well think, (. … .) appeased the manes of the deceased, he rested satisfied with what he had done, and supposed his friend would rest. But not so—about a week since I received a letter from a person who cannot have been misinformed, telling me that Paul has appeared frequently of late, and that there are few, if any, of his lordship's numerous household, who have not seen him, sometimes in the park, sometimes in the garden, as well as in the house, by day and by night, indifferently. I make no reflection upon this incident, having other things to write about and but little room.
I am much indebted to Mr. S—— for more franks, and still more obliged by the handsome note with which he accompanied them. He has furnished me sufficiently for the present occasion, and, by his readiness and obliging manner of doing it, encouraged me to have recourse to him, in case another exigence of the same kind should offer. A French author I was reading last night says, He that has written will write again. If the critics do not set their foot upon this first egg that I have laid and crush it, I shall probably verify his observation; and, when I feel my spirits rise, and that I am armed with industry sufficient for the purpose, undertake the production of another volume. At present, however, I do not feel myself so disposed; and, indeed, he that would write should read, not that he may retail the observations of other men, but that, being thus refreshed and replenished, he may find himself in a condition to make and to produce his own. I reckon it among my principal advantages, as a composer of verses, that I have not read an English poet these thirteen years, and but one these twenty years. Imitation, even of the best models, is my aversion; it is servile and mechanical, a trick that has enabled many to usurp the name of author, who could not have written at all, if they had not written upon the pattern of somebody indeed original. But when the ear and the taste have been much accustomed to the manner of others, it is almost impossible to avoid it; and we imitate, in spite of ourselves, just in proportion as we admire. But enough of this.
Your mother, who is as well as the season of the year will permit, desires me to add her love.—The salmon you sent us arrived safe and was remarkably fresh. What a comfort it is to have a friend who knows that we love salmon, and who cannot pass by a fishmonger's shop without finding his desire to send us some, a temptation too strong to be resisted!
Yours, my dear friend,
W. C.
TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.[111]
