more passed between us. A fortnight ago I received an invitation in the civilest terms, in which he told me that the next day he should attempt to fill a balloon, and if it would be any pleasure to me to be present, should be happy to see me. Your mother and I went. The whole country were there, but the balloon could not be filled. The endeavor was, I believe, very philosophically made, but such a process depends for its success upon such niceties as make it very precarious. Our reception was however flattering to a degree, insomuch that more notice seemed to be taken of us than we could possibly have expected, indeed rather more than any1 of his other guests. They even seemed anxious to recommend themselves to our regards. We drank chocolate, and were asked to dine, but were engaged.

A day or two afterwards Mrs. Unwin and I walked that way, and were overtaken in a shower. I found a tree that I thought would shelter us both, a large elm, in a grove that fronts the mansion. Mrs. T. observed us, and running towards us in the rain, insisted on our walking in. He was gone out. We sat chatting with her till the weather cleared up, and then at her instance took a walk with her in the garden. The garden is almost their only walk, and is certainly the only retreat in which they are not liable to interruption. She offered us a key of it in a manner that made it impossible not to accept it, and said she would send us one.

A few days afterwards, in the cool of the evening, we walked that way again. We saw them going toward the house, and exchanged bows and curtsies at a distance, but did not join them. In a few minutes, when we had passed the house, and had almost reached the gate that opens out of the park into the adjoining field, I heard the iron gate belonging to the courtyard ring, and saw Mr. T. advancing hastily toward us; we

1 So in the original. — EDS.

made equal haste to meet him; he presented to us the key, which I told him I esteemed a singular favor, and, after a few such speeches as are made on such occasions, we parted. This happened about a week ago. I concluded nothing less than that all this civility and attention was designed on their part as a prelude to a nearer acquaintance; but here at present the matter rests. I should like exceedingly to be on an easy footing there, to give a morning call now and then, and to receive one, but nothing more. For though he is one of the most agreeable men I ever saw, I could not wish to visit him in any other way; neither our house, furniture, servants, or income being such as qualify us to make entertainments; neither would I on any account be introduced to the neighboring gentry. Mr. T. is altogether a man of fashion, and respectable on every

account.

I have told you a long story. Farewell. We number the days as they pass, and are glad that we shall see you and your sister soon.

XXIV

William Cowper to Joseph Hill

Oct. 20, 1783.

I should not have been thus long silent had I known with certainty where a letter of mine might find you. Your summer excursions, however, are now at an end, and addressing a line to you in the centre of the busy scene in which you spend your winter, I am pretty sure of my mark.

I see the winter approaching without much concern, though a passionate lover of fine weather and the pleasant scenes of summer; but the long evenings have their comforts too, and there is hardly to be found upon earth, I suppose, so snug a creature as an Englishman by his fireside in the winter I

mean, however, an Englishman that lives in the country, for in London it is not very easy to avoid intrusion. I have two ladies to read to, sometimes more, but never less; at present we are circumnavigating the globe, and I find the old story with which I amused myself some years since, through the great felicity of a memory not very retentive, almost new. I am however sadly at a loss for Cook's voyage; can you send it? I shall be glad of Foster's too. These together will make the winter pass merrily, and you will much oblige me.

XXV

William Cowper to John Newton

MY DEAR FRIEND:

Aug. 16, 1784.

Had you not expressed a desire to hear from me before you take leave of Lymington, I certainly should not have answered you so soon. Knowing the place, and the amusements it affords, I should have had more modesty than to suppose myself capable of adding anything to your present entertainments worthy to rank with them. I am not, however, totally destitute of such pleasures as an inland country may pretend to. If my windows do not command a view of the ocean, at least they look out upon a profusion of mignonette, which, if it be not so grand an object, is, however, quite as fragrant; and if I have not a hermit in a grotto, I have nevertheless myself in a greenhouse, a less venerable figure perhaps, but not at all less animated than he. Nor are we in this nook altogether unfurnished with such means of philosophical experiment and speculation as at present the world rings with; on Thursday morning last we sent up a balloon from Emberton meadow. Thrice it rose, and as oft descended, and in the evening it performed another flight at Newport,

where it went up, and came down no more. Like the arrow discharged at the pigeon in the Trojan games, it kindled in the air, and was consumed in a moment. I have not heard what interpretation the soothsayers have given to the omen, but shall wonder a little if the Newton shepherd prognosticate anything less from it than the most bloody war that was ever waged in Europe.

I am reading Cook's last voyage, and am much pleased and amused with it. It seems that in some of the Friendly Isles they excel so much in dancing, and perform that operation with such exquisite delicacy and grace, that they are not surpassed even upon our European stages. O that Vestris had been in the ship, that he might have seen himself outdone by a savage! The paper indeed tells us that the queen of France has clapped this king of capers up in prison for declining to dance before her, on a pretense of sickness, when in fact he was in perfect health. If this be true, perhaps he may by this time be prepared to second such a wish as mine, and to think that the durance he suffers would be well exchanged for a dance at Annamooka. I should, however, as little have expected to hear that these islanders had such consummate skill in an art that requires so much taste in the conduct of the person as that they were good mathematicians and astronomers. Defective as they are in every branch of knowledge and in every other species of refinement, it seems wonderful that they should arrive at such perfection in the dance, which some of our English gentlemen, with all the assistance of French instruction, find it impossible to learn. We must conclude, therefore, that particular nations have a genius for particular feats, and that our neighbors in France, and our friends in the South Sea, have minds very nearly akin, though they inhabit countries so very remote from each other.

Mrs. Unwin remembers to have been in company with Mr. Gilpin at her brother's. She thought him very sensible and polite, and consequently very agreeable.

We are truly glad that Mrs. Newton and yourself are so well, and that there is reason to hope that Eliza is better. You will learn from this letter that we are so, and that, for my own part, I am not quite so low in spirits as at some times. Learn too, what you knew before, that we love you all, and that I am your affectionate friend.

XXVI

Horace Walpole to Sir Horace Mann

Strawberry Hill, Sept. 30, 1784.

I shall now be expecting your nephew soon, and I trust with a perfectly good account of you. The next time he visits you I may be able to send you a description of my Galleria-I have long been preparing it, and it is almost finished with some prints, which, however, I doubt, will convey no very adequate idea of it. In the first place, they are but moderately executed; I could not afford to pay our principal engravers, whose prices are equal to, nay, far above, those of former capital painters. In the next, as there is a solemnity in the house of which the cuts will give you an idea, they cannot add the gay variety of the scene without, which is very different from every side, and almost from every chamber, and makes a most agreeable contrast; the house being placed almost in an elbow of the Thames, which surrounds half, and consequently beautifies three of the aspects. Then my little hill — and diminutive enough it is gazes up to royal Richmond; and Twickenham on the left, and Kingston Wick on the right, are seen across bends of the river, which on each hand appears like a Lilliputian seaport. Swans, cows, sheep,