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in safety! The severity of the season will, I suppose, retard her journey. We should rejoice more in your joy on the occasion, did not her visit to London look with an unfavourable aspect upon yours to Olney.

About three weeks since Mrs. Unwin sent you a couple of fowls, and about ten days since a sparerib from her own pig. We do not wish you to thank us for such matters, nor do we even imagine that any are due, every idea of that sort vanishes before the recollection of the many obligations under which you have laid us: but it is always satisfactory to us to know that they have reached you.

We are tolerably well, and love you both.

Yours, my dear friend,

W. C.

When your last letter came, my eye was so much inflamed, that I could not look at your seal. It is better now, and I mean to consider it well when I see it next.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

March 30, 1783.

THE sturgeon was incomparable, the best we ever had. We like both sturgeon and salmon, but choose the former as the more durable commodity of the two, thanking you at the same time for your bounty.

To dispatch your questions first, which are of more importance than any subject that is likely to occur at present, will be both the civilest and the wisest course. Walnut shells skilfully perforated, and bound over the

eyes, are esteemed a good remedy for squinting; the pupil naturally seeking its light at the aperture, becomes at length habituated to a just position. But to alleviate your anxiety upon this subject, I have heard good judges of beauty declare that they thought a slight distortion of the eye in a pretty face rather advantageous.

The figure, however, cannot be good if the legs do not stand perpendicular to the person; knock-knees, therefore, must be corrected if they can. It is, I suppose, a case of weakness. I should therefore recommend the cold bath as a strengthener, and riding on horseback, as soon as the boy is capable of it, as a means of forcing the knees into their proper line. Their pressure against the saddle will naturally push them outwards, and accordingly you may frequently observe the legs of persons habituated from their infancy to this sort of exercise, curved almost into an arch: witness half the jockeys and postilions in the kingdom. The more the little man is made to turn the point of his toe inward when he is riding, I suppose the better.

You ask me how I like the peace. When a country is exhausted, peace is always preferable to war, and so far I like it, but no farther. Bad, however, as it is, it might be attended with some benefits, which the jarring interests of irreconcileable parties will not suffer us to reap at present. The papers inform us that Lord Bute is at the bottom of all this mischief, no matter: -if the country is to be visited for its iniquities, there would be discord and anarchy, though Lord Bute were mouldering in the tomb of his ancestors. The Chancellor, too, is blamed, and perhaps with reason: the nation stands much in need of a political reform, to which he is an enemy, and consequently to all who advise one. A man of his abilities must have great influence, must either do much good or much evil; though wise, he is not infallible, and the errors of wise men are the most pernicious of all. I have found the etching you recommended, and admire it as the express image of a face with which I was once familiar, but his great hat and his long band give him the air of an awkward country parson.

One of my hares is dead-behold his Epitaph 1. We shall be happy to see you, and Mrs. U. with you, or any part of your family. I hope to be able to find a melon or two.

Yours ever, with our united love,

W.C.

TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

April 5, 1783. WHEN one has a letter to write, there is nothing more useful than to make a beginning. In the first place, because, unless it be begun, there is no good reason to hope it will ever be ended; and secondly, because the beginning is half the business; it being much more difficult to put the pen in motion at first, than to continue the progress of it, when once moved.

Mrs. Cunningham's illness, likely to prove mortal, and seizing her at such a time, has excited much comPrinted among the Poems.

passion in my breast, and in Mrs. Unwin's, both for her and her daughter. To have parted with a child she loves so much, intending soon to follow her; to find herself arrested before she could set out, and at so great a distance from her most valued relations, her daughter's life too threatened by a disorder not often curable, are circumstances truly affecting. She has indeed much natural fortitude, and to make her condition still more tolerable, a good Christian hope for her support. But so it is, that the distresses of those who least need our pity excite it most; the amiableness of the character engages our sympathy, and we mourn for persons for whom perhaps we might more reasonably rejoice. There is still however a possibility that she may recover; an event we must wish for, though for her to depart would be far better. Thus we would always withhold from the skies those who alone can reach them; at least till we are ready to bear them company.

Last week I had a letter from William Hadland, in very tragical terms soliciting the favour of an old coat, or money to purchase one. I have returned no answer, nor do I at present intend any; partly for the reasons that influenced you to refuse it, and partly because I have heard a very different account of the offence for which he was degraded, from that which his friend East related. I am informed that after the mutiny of the volunteers had been punished by confinement, they were offered their pay and a free pardon, upon condition that they would return to their duty; and that this was the critical moment which Hadland seized to

raise a contribution for them, that they might still continue obstinate in their refusal, which the want of subsistence would otherwise render difficult, if not impossible. I am the rather inclined to believe this story, because his punishment, which else seems to have been unreasonable and unjust, is thus sufficiently accounted for: certainly they would not flog and degrade him for a mere act of benevolence and compassion; but when he had abetted the mutineers, he made their cause his own, and became even more guilty than the original delinquents.

I did not see Mr. W when he was at Olney, or only saw him from the window. What reason he had for excepting us out of the number of those he visited, I know not; but we are not sorry that he made the exception. I wish him well, but am glad that he made no appeal or apology to me: the many to whom he made them are not satisfied, nor did even the letter he produced serve him. It professed to be a letter from his wife, but it was written by his son, and therefore had no weight.

I would always close what I write with news from Olney, did Olney furnish any worth communicating; but either it does not, or I have not heard it. The Lower Meeting has found a minister at last, and the people it seems are fond of him. His name I think is Hillyard. While he is new he will be sure to please. Mr. Scott has been ill ever since he returned from Lincolnshire; indeed, he is hardly ever well, and his distempers are of a kind that seem to make his life extremely precarious. He is better, however, within these few days.

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