My dearest Cousin, what shall I say in answer to your affectionate invitation? I must say this, I cannot come now, nor soon, and I wish with all my heart I could, But I will tell you what may be done, perhaps, and it will answer to us just as well: you, and Mr. Bodham, can come to Weston, can you not? The summer is at hand, there are roads and wheels to bring you, and you are neither of you translating Homer. I am crazed that I cannot ask you altogether, for want of house-room, but for Mr. Bodham, and yourself, we have good room, and equally good for any third, in the shape of a Donne, whether named Hewitt, Bodham, Balls, or Johnson, or by whatever name distinguished. Mrs. Hewitt has particular claims upon me; she was my play-fellow at Berkhamstead, and has a share in my warmest affections. Pray tell her so! Neither do I at all forget my Cousin Harriet. She and I have been many a time merry at Catfield, and have made the Parsonage ring with laughter. Give my love to her. Assure yourself, my dearest Cousin, that I shall receive you as if you were my Sister, and Mrs. Unwin is, for my sake, prepared to do the same. When she has seen you, she will love you for your own.

I am much obliged to Mr. Bodham, for his kindness to my Homer, and with my love to you all, and with Mrs. Unwin's kind

respects, am,

My dear, dear Rose,

Ever yours,

W. C.

P. S.

P.S. I mourn the death of your poor brother Castres, whom I should have seen had he lived, and should have seen with the greatest pleasure. He was an amiable boy, and I was very fond of him.

Still another P. S.-I find on consulting Mrs. Unwin, that I have under-rated our capabilities, and that we have not only room for you, and Mr. Bodham, but for two of your sex, and even for your Nephew into the bargain. We shall be happy to have it all so occupied.

Your Nephew tells me that his Sister, in the qualities of the mind, resembles you; that is enough to make her dear to me, and I beg you will assure her that she is so. Let it not be long before I hear from you.

LETTER CXXV.

TO JOHN JOHNSON, Esqr.

MY DEAR COUSIN JOHN,

Weston, Feb. 28, 1790.

I have much wished to hear from

you, and though you are welcome to write to Mrs. Unwin as often as you please, I wish myself to be numbered among your correspondents.

I shall find time to answer you, doubt it not! be as busy as we

may,

may, we can always find time to do what is agreeable to us. By the way, had you a Letter from Mrs. Unwin? I am witness that she addressed one to you before you went into Norfolk; but your mathematico-poetical head forgot to acknowledge the receipt of it.

I was never more pleased in my life than to learn, and to learn from herself, that my dearest Rose* is still alive. Had she not engaged me to love her by the sweetness of her character, when a child, she would have done it effectually now, by making me the most acceptable present in the world, my own dear Mother's picture. I am perhaps, the only person living who remembers her, but I remember her well, and can attest on my own knowledge, the truth of the resemblance. Amiable and elegant as the countenance is, such exactly was her own; she was one of the tenderest parents, and so just a copy of her is, therefore, to me invaluable.

I wrote yesterday to my Rose, to tell her all this, and to thank her for her kindness in sending it! neither do I forget your kindness who intimated to her that I should be happy to possess it.

She invites me into Norfolk, but alas! she might as well invite the house in which I dwell; for all other considerations and impediments apart, how is it possible that a translator of Homer should lumber to such a distance? But though I cannot comply

VOL. I.

Z z

with

Mrs. Ann Bodham.

with her kind invitation, I have made myself the best amends in my power, by inviting her, and all the family of Donne's, to Weston, Perhaps we could not accommodate them all at once, but in succession we could; and can at any time find room for five, three of them being females, and one a married one. You are a mathematician; tell me then how five persons can be lodged in three beds? (two males and three females,) and I shall have good hope that you will proceed a senior optime. It would make me happy to see our house so furnished. As to yourself, whom I know to be a subscalarian, or, a man that sleeps under the stairs, I should have no objection at all, neither could you, possibly, have any yourself, to the garret, as a place in which you might be disposed of with great felicity of accommodation,

I thank

services in the transcribing way,

much for you your and would by no means have you serve me in the same way yet again; me when I shall see you,

despair of an opportunity to

write to me soon, and tell

I have not said the half that I have to say; but breakfast is at hand, which always terminates my Epistles,

What have you done with your Poem? The trimming that it procured you here has not, I hope, put you out of conceit with it entirely; you are more than equal to the alteration that it needs. Only remember, that in writing, perspicuity is always more than

half

half the battle. The want of it is the ruin of more than half the poetry that is published. A meaning that does not stare you in the face, is as bad as no meaning; because nobody will take the pains to poke for it. So now adieu for the present. Beware of killing yourself with problems, for if you do, you will never live to be another Sir Isaac.

Mrs. Unwin's affectionate remembrances attend you; Lady Hesketh is much disposed to love you; perhaps most who know you have some little tendency the same way.

and for

,

ciating so well this poetical concern with Mrs. sending me her opinion in her own hand. I should be unreasonable indeed, not to be highly gratified by it; and I like it the better for being modestly expressed. It is, as you know, and it shall be some months longer, my daily business to polish and improve what is done, that when the whole shall appear, she may find her expectations answered. I am glad also that thou didst send her the