In the press, and speedily will be published, in one volume octavo,
price three shillings, Poems,[61] by William Cowper, of the Inner
Temple, Esq. You may suppose, by the size of the publication, that the
greatest part of them have never been long kept secret, because you
yourself have never seen them; but the truth is, that they are most of
them, except what you have in your possession, the produce of the last
winter. Two-thirds of the compilation will be occupied by four pieces,
the first of which sprung up in the month of December, and the last of
them in the month of March. They contain, I suppose, in all about two
thousand and five hundred lines; are known, or are to be known in due
time, by the names of Table-Talk, The Progress of Error, Truth,
Expostulation. Mr. Newton writes a preface, and Johnson is the
publisher. The principal, I may say the only reason why I never
mentioned to you, till now, an affair which I am just going to make
known to all the world (if that Mr. All-the-world should think it
worth his knowing) has been this--that, till within these few days, I
had not the honor to know it myself. This may seem strange, but it is
true; for, not knowing where to find underwriters who would choose to
insure them, and not finding it convenient to a purse like mine to run
any hazard, even upon the credit of my own ingenuity, I was very much
in doubt for some weeks whether any bookseller would be willing to
subject himself to an ambiguity that might prove very expensive in
case of a bad market. But Johnson has heroically set all peradventures
at defiance, and takes the whole charge upon himself. So out I come. I
shall be glad of my Translations from Vincent Bourne in your next
frank. My muse will lay herself at your feet immediately on her first
public appearance....
If[62] a writer's friends have need of patience, how much more the
writer! Your desire to see my muse in public, and mine to gratify you,
must both suffer the mortification of delay. I expected that my
trumpeter would have informed the world by this time of all that is
needful for them to know upon such an occasion; and that an
advertising blast, blown through every newspaper, would have said,
"The poet is coming." But man, especially man that writes verse, is
born to disappointments, as surely as printers and booksellers are
born to be the most dilatory and tedious of all creatures. The plain
English of this magnificent preamble is, that the season of
publication is just elapsed, that the town is going into the country
every day, and that my book can not appear till they return--that is
to say, not till next winter. This misfortune, however, comes not
without its attendant advantage: I shall now have, what I should not
otherwise have had, an opportunity to correct the press myself; no
small advantage upon any occasion, but especially important where
poetry is concerned! A single erratum may knock out the brains of a
whole passage, and that perhaps which, of all others, the unfortunate
poet is the most proud of. Add to this, that now and then there is to
be found in a printing-house a presumptuous intermeddler, who will
fancy himself a poet too, and what is still worse, a better than he
that employs him. The consequence is, that with cobbling, and
tinkering, and patching on here and there a shred of his own, he makes
such a difference between the original and the copy, that an author
can not know his own work again. Now, as I choose to be responsible
for nobody's dulness but my own, I am a little comforted when I
reflect that it will be in my power to prevent all such impertinence;
and yet not without your assistance. It will be quite necessary that
the correspondence between me and Johnson should be carried on without
the expense of postage, because proof-sheets would make double or
treble letters, which expense, as in every instance it must occur
twice, first when the packet is sent, and again when it is returned,
would be rather inconvenient to me, who, you perceive, am forced to
live by my wits, and to him, who hopes to get a little matter no doubt
by the same means. Half a dozen franks therefore to me, and totidem
to him, will be singularly acceptable, if you can, without feeling it
in any respect a trouble, procure them for me--Johnson, Bookseller,
St. Paul's Churchyard....
The writing of so long a poem[63] is a serious business; and the
author must know little of his own heart who does not in some degree
suspect himself of partiality to his own production; and who is he
that would not be mortified by the discovery that he had written five
thousand lines in vain? The poem, however, which you have in hand will
not of itself make a volume so large as the last, or as a bookseller
would wish. I say this, because when I had sent Johnson five thousand
verses, he applied for a thousand more. Two years since I began a
piece which grew to the length of two hundred, and there stopt. I have
lately resumed it, and I believe, shall finish it. But the subject is
fruitful and will not be comprized in a smaller compass than seven or
eight hundred verses. It turns on the question whether an education at
school or at home be preferable, and I shall give the preference to
the latter. I mean that it shall pursue the track of the former--that
is to say, it shall visit Stock in its way to publication. My design
also is to inscribe it to you. But you must see it first; and if,
after having seen it, you should have any objection, tho it should be
no bigger than the tittle of an i, I will deny myself that pleasure,
and find no fault with your refusal.