To Samuel Rose, Esq.
Weston, April 29, 1791.
My dear Friend,—I forget if I told you that Mr. Throckmorton had applied through the medium of —— to the university of Oxford. He did so, but without success. Their answer was, "that they subscribe to nothing."
Pope's subscriptions did not amount, I think, to six hundred; and mine will not fall very short of five. Noble doings, at a time of day when Homer has no news to tell us, and when, all other comforts of life having risen in price, poetry has of course fallen. I call it a "comfort of life:" it is so to others, but to myself it is become even a necessary.
The holiday times are very unfavourable to the printer's progress. He and all his demons are making themselves merry and me sad, for I mourn at every hindrance.
W. C.