In Cowper's letter to Lady Hesketh, dated January 18, 1787, occurs a notice
for the first time of Mr. Samuel Rose, with whom Cowper subsequently
corresponded. He informs Lady Hesketh that--
"A young gentleman called here yesterday, who came six miles out of his
way to see me. He was on a journey to London from Glasgow, having just
left the University there. He came, I suppose, partly to satisfy his
own curiosity, but chiefly, as it seemed, to bring me the thanks of
some of the Scotch professors for my two volumes. His name is Rose, an
Englishman."
Prefixed to a copy of Hayley's _Life and Letters of William Cowper, Esq._,
in the British Museum, is an extract in MS. of a letter from the late
Samuel Rose, Esq., to his favourite sister, Miss Harriet Rose, written in
the year before his marriage, at the age of twenty-two, and which, I
believe, has never been printed. It may, perhaps, merit a corner of "N. &
Q."
"Weston Lodge, Sept. 9, 1789.
"Last week Mr. Cowper finished the _Odyssey_, and we drank an
unreluctant bumper to its success. The labour of translation is now at
an end, and the less arduous work of revision remains to be done, and
then we shall see it published. I promise both you and myself much
pleasure from its perusal. You will most probably find it at first less
pleasing than Pope's versification, owing to the difference subsisting
between blank verse and rhyme--a difference which is not sufficiently
attended to, and whereby people are led into injudicious comparisons.
You will find Mr. Pope more refined: Mr. Cowper more simple, grand, and
majestic; and, indeed, insomuch as Mr. Pope is more refined than Mr.
Cowper, he is more refined than his original, and in the same
proportion departs from Homer himself. Pope's must universally be
allowed to be a beautiful poem: Mr. Cowper's will be found a striking
and a faithful portrait, and a pleasing picture to those who enjoy his
style of colouring, which I am apprehensive is not so generally
acceptable as the other master's. Pope possesses the gentle and amiable
graces of a Guido: Cowper is endowed with the bold sublime genius of a
Raphael. After having said so much upon their comparative merits,
enough, I hope, to refute your second assertion which was, that women,
in the opinion of men, have little to do with literature. I may inform
you, that the _Iliad_ is to be dedicated to Earl Cowper, and the
_Odyssey_ to the Dowager Lady Spencer but this information need not be
extensively circulated."