To the Rev. Walter Bagot.
Weston, Sept. 21, 1791.
My dear Friend,—Of all the testimonies in favour of my Homer that I have received, none has given me so sincere a pleasure as that of Lord Bagot. It is an unmixed pleasure, and without a drawback; because I know him to be perfectly, and in all respects, whether erudition or a fine taste be in question, so well qualified to judge me, that I can neither expect nor wish a sentence more valuable than his—
... εισοκ αυτμη
Εν στηθεσσι μενει, και μοι φιλα γουνατ ορωρει.
I hope by this time you have received your volumes, and are prepared to second the applauses of your brother—else, woe be to you! I wrote to Johnson immediately on the receipt of your last, giving him a strict injunction to despatch them to you without delay. He had sold some time since a hundred of the unsubscribed-for copies.
I have not a history in the world except Baker's Chronicle, and that I borrowed three years ago from Mr. Throckmorton. Now the case is this: I am translating Milton's third Elegy—his Elegy on the death of the Bishop of Winchester.[609] He begins it with saying, that, while he was sitting alone, dejected, and musing on many melancholy themes, first, the idea of the Plague presented itself to his mind, and of the havoc made by it among the great. Then he proceeds thus:
Tum memini clarique ducis, fratrisque verendi
Intempestivis ossa cremata rogis:
Et memini Heroum quos vidit ad æthera raptos;
Flevit et amissos Belgia tota duces.
I cannot learn from my only oracle, Baker, who this famous leader, and his reverend brother were. Neither does he at all ascertain for me the event alluded to in the second of these couplets. I am not yet possessed of Warton, who probably explains it, nor can be for a month to come. Consult him for me if you have him, or, if you have him not, consult some other. Or you may find the intelligence perhaps in your own budget; no matter how you come by it, only send it to me if you can, and as soon as you can, for I hate to leave unsolved difficulties behind me.[610] In the first year of Charles the First, Milton was seventeen years of age, and then wrote this elegy. The period therefore to which I would refer you, is the two or three last years of James the First.
Ever yours,
W. C.