To Mrs. King. [556]
Weston, Oct. 5, 1790.
My dear Madam,—I am truly concerned that you have so good an excuse for your silence. Were it proposed to my choice, whether you should omit to write through illness or indifference to me, I should be selfish enough, perhaps, to find decision difficult for a few moments; but have such an opinion at the same time of my affection for you, as to be verily persuaded that I should at last make a right option, and wish you rather to forget me than to be afflicted. But there is One wiser and more your friend than I can possibly be, who appoints all your sufferings, and who, by a power altogether his own, is able to make them good for you.
I wish heartily that my verses had been more worthy of the counterpane, their subject.[557] The gratitude I felt when you brought it, and gave it to me, might have inspired better; but a head full of Homer, I find, by sad experience, is good for little else. Lady Hesketh, who is here, has seen your gift, and pronounced it the most beautiful and best executed of the kind she ever saw.
I have lately received from my bookseller a copy of my subscribers' names, and do not find among them the name of Mr. Professor Martyn. I mention it because you informed me, some time since, of his kind intention to number himself among my encouragers on this occasion, and because I am unwilling to lose, for want of speaking in time, the honour that his name will do me. It is possible, too, that he may have subscribed, and that his non-appearance may be owing merely to Johnson's having forgot to enter his name. Perhaps you will have an opportunity to ascertain the matter. The catalogue will be printed soon, and published in the "Analytical Review," as the last and most effectual way of advertising my translation, and the name of the gentleman in question will be particularly serviceable to me in this first edition of it.
My whole work is in the bookseller's hands, and ought by this time to be in the press. The next spring is the time appointed for the publication. It is a genial season, when people who are ever good-tempered at all are sure to be so; a circumstance well worthy of an author's attention, especially of mine, who am just going to give a thump on the outside of the critics' hive, that will probably alarm them all.
Mrs. Unwin, I think, is on the whole rather improved in her health since we had the pleasure of your short visit; I should say the pleasure of your visit, and the pain of its shortness.
I am, my dearest madam,
Most truly yours,
W. C.