To the Rev. Mr. Hurdis.
Weston, March 2, 1792.
My dear Sir,—I have this moment finished a comparison of your remarks with my text, and feel so sensibly my obligations to your great accuracy and kindness, that I cannot deny myself the pleasure of expressing them immediately. I only wish that instead of revising the two first books of the Iliad, you could have found leisure to revise the whole two poems, sensible how much my work would have benefited.
I have not always adopted your lines, though often, perhaps, at least as good as my own; because there will and must be dissimilarity of manner between two so accustomed to the pen as we are. But I have let few passages go unamended which you seemed to think exceptionable; and this not at all from complaisance: for in such a cause I would not sacrifice an iota on that principle, but on clear conviction.
I have as yet heard nothing from Johnson about the two MSS. you announce, but feel ashamed that I should want your letter to remind me of your obliging offer to inscribe Sir Thomas More to me, should you resolve to publish him. Of my consent to such a measure you need not doubt. I am covetous of respect and honour from all such as you.
Tame hare, at present, I have none. But, to make amends, I have a beautiful little spaniel, called Beau, to whom I will give the kiss your sister Sally intended for the former, unless she should command me to bestow it elsewhere; it shall attend on her directions.
I am going to take a last dinner with a most agreeable family, who have been my only neighbours ever since I have lived at Weston. On Monday they go to London, and in the summer to an estate in Oxfordshire, which is to be their home in future. The occasion is not at all a pleasant one to me, nor does it leave me spirits to add more, than that I am, dear sir,
Most truly yours,
W. C.