our contemplation I think you a sufferer under the weight of an animadversion not founded in truth, and which, consequently, you did not deserve. I account him faithful in the pulpit, who dissembles nothing that he believes, for fear of giving offence. To accommodate a discourse to the judgement and opinion of others, for the sake of pleasing them, though by doing so we are obliged to depart widely from our own, is to be unfaithful to ourselves at least, and cannot be accounted fidelity to him, whom we profess to serve. But there are few men who do not stand in need of the exercise of charity and forbearance; and the gentleman in question has afforded you an ample opportunity in this respect, to show how readily, though differing in your views, you can practise all that he could possibly expect from you, if your persuasion corresponded exactly with his own.

With respect to Monsieur le Curé, I think you not quite excusable for suffering such a man to give you any uneasiness at all. The grossness and injustice of his demand ought to be its own antidote. If a robber should miscall you a pitiful fellow for not carrying a purse full of gold about you, would his brutality give you any concern? I suppose not. Why then have you been distressed in the present instance?

Yours,

W. C.

TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

April 8, 1781.

SINCE I commenced author, my letters are even less worth your acceptance than they were before. I shall soon, however, lay down the character, and cease to trouble you with directions to a printer, at least till the summer is over. If I live to see the return of winter, I may perhaps assume it again; but my appetite for fame is not keen enough to combat with my love of fine weather, my love of indolence, and my love of gardening employments.

I send you by Mr. Old my Works complete, bound in brown paper, and numbered according to the series in which I would have them published. With respect to the poem called Truth, it is so true that it can hardly fail of giving offence to an unenlightened reader. I think, therefore, that in order to obviate in some measure those prejudices that will naturally erect their bristles against it, an explanatory preface, such as you (and nobody so well as you) can furnish me with, will have every grace of propriety to recommend it. Or, if you are not averse to the task, and your avocations will allow you to undertake it, and if you think it would still be more proper, I should be glad to be indebted to you for the preface to the whole. I wish you, however, to consult your own judgement upon the occasion, and to engage in either of these works, or neither, just as your discretion guides you.

The observations contained in the Progress of Error, though, as you say, of general application, have yet such an unlucky squint at the author of Thelyphthora, that they will be almost as sure to strike him in the sore place, as he will be to read the poem, if published with my name; and I would by no means wish to involve you in the resentment that I shall probably incur by those lines; which might be the consequence of our walking arm in arm into the public notice. For my own part I have my answer ready, if I should be called upon; but as you have corresponded with him upon the subject, and have closed that correspondence in as amicable a way as the subject of it would permit, you may perhaps think it would appear like a departure from the friendly moderation of your conduct, to give an open countenance and encouragement to a work in which he seems to be so freely treated. But after all there is no necessity for your name, though I should choose by all means to be honoured with it, if there be no unanswerable objection. - You will find the substituted passage in the Progress of Error, just where the ground was occupied by the reflections upon Mr. Madan's performance.

Mr. Hill's answer seems to have no fault but what it owes to a virtue. His great charity and candour have in my mind excluded from it that animation and energy, which even a good man might lawfully show when answering a book which could hardly fail to excite a little indignation. Mildness and meekness are not more plainly recommended in Scripture in some instances, than sharpness of reproof and severity in others.

I am very well satisfied with the commendation the reviewers have bestowed upon Sir Airy. It is as much as I hoped for; and I question much whether they will speak so favourably of my next publication.

I have written a great deal to-day, which must be my excuse for an abrupt conclusion. Our love attends you both. We are in pretty good health; Mrs. Unwin indeed better than usual: and as to me, I ail nothing but the incurable ailment.

Yours, my dear friend,

W. C.

Thanks for the cocoa-nut.

I send a cucumber, not of my own raising, and yet raised by me.

Solve this enigma, dark enough
To puzzle any brains

That are not downright puzzle-proof,
And eat it for your pains.

TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

Monday, April 23, 1781.

HAVING not the least doubt of your ability to execute just such a preface as I should wish to see prefixed to my publication, and being convinced that you have no good foundation for those which you yourself entertain upon the subject, I neither withdraw my requisition, nor abate one jot of the earnestness with which I made it. I admit the delicacy of the occasion, but am far from apprehending that you will therefore find it difficult to succeed. You can draw a hair-stroke

s. C.-4.

G

where another man would make a blot as broad as a sixpence.

With respect to the Heathen and what I have said about them, the subject is of that kind which every man must settle for himself, and on which we can proceed no further than hypothesis and opinion will carry us. I was willing however to obviate an objection I foresaw, and to do it in a way not derogatory from the truth of the Gospel, yet at the same time as conciliatory as possible to the prejudices of the objector. After all, indeed, I see no medium: either we must suppose them lost, or if saved, saved by virtue of the only propitiation. They seem to me, on the principles of equity, to stand in much the same predicament, and to be entitled, (at least according to human apprehensions of justice,) to much the same allowance as Infants: both partakers of a sinful nature, and both unavoidably ignorant of the remedy. Infants I suppose universally saved, because impeccable; and the virtuous Heathen, having had no opportunity to sin against Revelation, and having made a conscientious use of the light of Nature, I should suppose saved too. But I drop a subject on which I could say a good deal more, for two reasons; first, because I am writing a letter, and not an essay; and secondly, because after all I might write about it, I could come to no certain conclusion.

I once had thoughts of annexing a few smaller pieces to those I have sent you; but having only very few that I accounted worthy to bear them company, and those for the most part on subjects less calculated for utility than amusement, I changed my mind. If