Page:The poetical works of William Cowper (IA poeticalworksof00cowp).pdf/68

lx Theodora, but says that any father is happy who has three such daughters as his uncle has.

The correspondence thus begun was continued busily. Lady Hesketh soon inquired into his money matters, and offered him assistance. He replied with frankness. He had always been poor, he said, but Mrs. Unwin, whose income had been double his, had shared alike with him. But latterly her income had become reduced, and they had been obliged to forego some of their wonted comforts. He therefore freely accepted her proffered kindness. "I know you thoroughly, and have that consummate confidence in the sincerity of your wish to serve me, that delivers me from all awkward restraint, and from all fear of trespassing by acceptance. To you, therefore, I reply, yes. Whensoever, and whatsoever, and in what manner soever you please; and add, moreover, that my affection for the giver is such as will increase to tenfold the satisfaction that I shall have in receiving Strain no points to your own inconvenience or hurt, for there is no need of it, but indulge yourself in communicating (no matter what) that you can spare without missing it." How liberally she responded to this will presently appear; and she gave him additional pleasure by causing him to renew his correspondence with the General.

Very soon he entrusts to her "a great secret, so great that she must not even whisper it to her cat." He is engaged in translating Homer, and has done twenty-one books of the Iliad.

He had always been fond of Homer. In the Temple he had gone all through it with Pope's translation, and had been thoroughly dissatisfied, discovering, as he said, that there was nothing in the world of which Pope was so destitute as a taste for Homer. Homer and a Clavis were the only Greek books he had kept since. Three or four days after finishing "Tirocinium," whilst suffering from an insupportable attack of melancholy, he took up the "Iliad" as a diversion. With no other thought than this he translated the first twelve lines, and on the next attack did some more. Finding the work pleasant, he soon took it up as a regular employment, and worked at it assiduously. He had been engaged just twelve months with it when he made the announcement to Lady Hesketh. He soon after removed his injunction of secresy, and asked her to get him subscribers. He also communicated his design to Newton, not without apprehension of objections, but determined not to heed them if any came. However, Newton approved. Cowper, moreover, inserted a long letter, signed "Alethes," in the Gentleman's Magazine, pulling Pope's translation to pieces, and maintaining that a translation ought to be in blank verse, because otherwise the translator must be continually obliged to depart from the meaning of the original in order to bring in his rhymes. He ended by saying, that while Homer is grand and sublime, Pope