To the Rev. William Unwin.
Olney, Jan. 14, 1786.
My dear William,—I am glad that you have seen Lady Hesketh. I knew that you would find her everything that is amiable and elegant. Else, being my relation, I would never have shown her to you. She was also delighted with her visitor, and expects the greatest pleasure in seeing you again; but is under some apprehensions that a tender regard for the drum of your ear may keep you from her. Never mind! You have two drums, and if she should crack both, I will buy you a trumpet.
General Cowper having much pressed me to accompany my proposals with a specimen, I have sent him one. It is taken from the twenty-fourth book of the Iliad, and is part of the interview between Priam and Achilles. Tell me, if it be possible for any man to tell me—why did Homer leave off at the burial of Hector? Is it possible, that he could be determined to it by a conceit so little worthy of him as that, having made the number of his books completely the alphabetical number, he would not for the joke's sake proceed any further? Why did he not give us the death of Achilles, and the destruction of Troy? Tell me also if the critics, with Aristotle at their head, have not found that he left off exactly where he should, and that every epic poem to all generations is bound to conclude with the burial of Hector? I do not in the least doubt it. Therefore if I live to write a dozen epic poems, I will always take care to bury Hector, and to bring all matters at that point to an immediate conclusion.
I had a truly kind letter from Mr. ——, written immediately on his recovery from the fever. I am bound to honour James's powder, not only for the services it has often rendered to myself, but still more for having been the means of preserving a life ten times more valuable to society than mine is ever likely to be.
You say, "Why should I trouble you with my troubles?" I answer, "Why not? What is a friend good for, if we may not lay one end of the sack upon his shoulders, while we ourselves carry the other?"
You see your duty to God, and your duty to your neighbour, and you practise both with your best ability. Yet a certain person accounts you blind. I would, that all the world were so blind even as you are. But there are some in it who, like the Chinese, say, "We have two eyes; and other nations have but one!" I am glad however that in your one eye you have sight enough to discover that such censures are not worth minding.
I thank you heartily for every step you take in the advancement of my present purpose.
Contrive to pay Lady H. a long visit, for she has a thousand things to say.
Yours, my dear William,
W. C.