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your sleep be as sound as your bed will be sumptuous, and your nights at least will be well provided for.

I shall send up the sixth and seventh books of the Iliad shortly, and shall address them to you. You will forward them to the General. I long to show you my workshop, and to see you sitting on the opposite side of my table. We shall be as close packed as two wax figures in an old-fashioned picture frame. I am writing in it now. It is the place in which I fabricate all my verse in summer time. I rose an hour sooner than usual this morning, that I might finish my sheet before breakfast, for I must write this day to the General.

The grass under my windows is all bespangled with dewdrops, and the birds are singing in the apple trees, among the blossoms. Never poet had a more commodious oratory in which to invoke his Muse.

TRANSLATION OF HOMER-THE NONSENSE CLUB.

To JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.

OLNEY, June 9, 1786.

My dear friend, The little time that I can devote to any other purpose than that of poetry is, as you may suppose, stolen. Homer is urgent. Much is done, but much remains undone, and no schoolboy is more attentive to the performance of his daily task than I am. You will therefore excuse me if at present I am both unfrequent and short.

I had a letter some time since from your sister Fanny, that gave me great pleasure. Such notices from old friends are always pleasant, and of such pleasures I have received many lately. They refresh the remeinbrance of early days, and make me young again. The noble institution of the Nonsense Club will be turgotten, when we are gone who composed it; but I often think of your most heroic line, written at one of our meetings, and espe cially think of it when I am translating Homer,

"To whom replied the Devil yard-long-tailed."1

There never was any thing more truly Grecian than that triple epithet, and were it possible to introduce it into either Iliad or Odyssey, I should certainly steal it. I am now flushed with ex pectation of Lady Hesketh, who spends the summer with us. We hope to see her next week. We have found admirable lodgings both for her and her suite, and a Quaker in this town, still more admirable than they, who, as if he loved her as much as I do, furnishes them for her with real elegance.

1 Bee page 70 under "Moral Plays."

ON A PARTICULAR PROVIDENCE.1

How mysterious are the ways of Providence! Why did I receive grace and mercy? Why was I preserved, afflicted for my good, received, as I trust, into favor, and blessed with the greatest happiness I can ever know or hope for in this life, while others were overtaken by the great arrest, unawakened, unrepent ing, and every way unprepared for it? His infinite wisdom, to whose infinite mercy I owe it all, can solve these questions, and none beside him. If I am convinced that no affliction can befall me without the permission of God, I am convinced, likewise, that he sees and knows that I am afflicted. Believing this, I must in the same degree believe that, if I pray to him for deliverance, he hears me; I must needs know likewise with equal assurance that, if he hears, he will also deliver me, if that will, upon the whole, be most conducive to my happiness; and if he does not deliver me, I may be well assured that he has none but the most benevolent intention in declining it. He made us, not because we could add to his happiness, which was always perfect, but that we might be happy ourselves; and will he not, in all his dispensations towards us, even in the minutest, consult that end for which he made us? To suppose the contrary, is (which we are not always aware of) affronting every one of his attributes; and at the same time the certain consequence of disbelieving his care for us is, that we renounce utterly our dependence upon him. In this view, it will appear plainly that the line of duty is not stretched too tight, when we are told that we ought to accept every thing at his hands as a blessing, and to be thankful even while we smart under the rod of iron with which he sometimes rules us. Without this persuasion, every blessing, however we may think ourselves happy in it, loses its greatest recommendation, and every afiction is intolerable. Death itself must be welcome to him who has this faith, and he who has it not, must aim at it, if he ia not a madman.

1 From a letter to Lady Hesketh, dated Sept. 4, 1765.

INDEX TO SUBJECTS,

AND TO

NAMES INCIDENTALLY MENTIONED IN THE VOLUME.

[FOR THE AUTHORS IN THE WORK, SEE ALPHABETICAL LIST, IN THE SEVENTH PAGE!

PAGE

252

Abstinence, in Samson Agonistes.......... 268
Absurdities of Useless Learning............ 495
Acorn and Atheist, by Anne Finch......... 396
Activity Necessary to keep Fame bright.. 141
Addison, Deathbed of......
376
Death of, by Tickell... 427
Labor of.......
377
Lines to, by Somerville............ 432
Remark of, On "Invocation to
Light"..
Address to Melancholy, by Beaumont..... 143
Advancement of Learning, by Bacon...... 160
Adventurer, Drake on The.......
Adversity, by Taylor.........
Advice to the Youthful Student, by Pitt. 641
Encid, Remark of Addison on... 375
Ages, The Seven, by Shakspeare............ 134
Albert, The Commander, Death of........ 563
Albion, Origin of the name of, by Caxton. 43
All Can do Good, by Talbot..........
All cannot be Poets, by Goldsmith......... 634
All-Conquering Power of Truth.......... 267
Allegorical Characters in Hell, by Sack-
ville

All-Sufficiency of the Scriptures, by Wi-
clif.............

609

222

567

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122

23

Alps, Scenery of the, by Goldsmith........ 631
Althea, lines to the, by Lovelace............ 206
Ambition, Folly of, by Raleigh... 147
America, as discovered by Columbus, by
Robertson............
Amusement and Industry, Pleasures of.. 365
Amusements, Cowper's.......
756

257

222

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687

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Anecdote of Queen Elizabeth...

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Angels, Care of, over Men, by Spenser... 102

-on Steele's Dream

404

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Blaize, Mrs. Mary, An Elegy on............. 626
Blank Verse, Note on.....
........... 519

Blindness, Sonnet of Milton on his own.. 259
Blossoms, lines on, by Herrick............ 214
Boccacio, Influence of, on Chaucer.......... 27
Body, Human, Structure of.............. 280
Bolingbroke, Address to, by Pope........... 457

Note on the Controversy of 495
Books and Tradition, by Johnson........... 662
Battle of the, by Swift.............. 433
Bosom Sin, by Herbert........
.............. 177
Boswell, on Goldsmith, Note ou...... 621
Remarks of Johnson on Goldsmith 624
on Johnson...............
653
Bounty To the Poor, Duty and Reward of.. 278
Boyle, Anecdote of............
Brave, Ode to the, by Collins.
Bristol, Close of Burke's Speech to the
Electors of......

Burns, Lines on Nature, by....... 221

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328

737

523

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80

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Britain, by Goldsmith........................... 624
and France, Garrick's lines on.... 648
Brook, Remark of, on Sidney.................

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527

333
83

Cato, Tragedy of, Warton on.................. 376
Cause and Effect, by Latimer................. 67
Cause of our Pleasure in Beauty...... 582
Censure, by Richardson........
Character, Human, Experience of
Character of the Poet, by Sidney.......
Characters, Allegorical, in Hell.............. 122
Charles Fifth, Resignation of................. 684
Charles I., Character of......................... 270
Charles II., Parody on the Speeches of.... 284
Charles XII., by Johnson..................... 670
Chatham, Encomium on Lord, by Junius 732
Chaucer and Cowley, by Dryden............ 353
Chesse, The Game and Play of the, by
Caxton......

Chesterfield, Johnson on......
Johnson's letter to.....

Chevy-Chase........

43

649

649

112
216

Child, Epitaph upon a, by Herrick...
Children, by Richardson....................... 527

Letter to his, by Hale........ 275

Penn's advice to his............... 372
Child, To a Dead, by Herrick................ 216
Chinese, The, by Mandeville................. 19
Chivalry, Note on .............
721

Chorus of the Birds, by Drayton............ 169
Christ and Mohammed Compared........... 532
Christian, Dying, To his Soul, by Pope... 461
Christian in Doubting Castle................. 320
Christianity a Scheme Imperfectly Com-
prehended

507

Christians, Preachers, by Leighton........ 311
Christians to preach by example, by
Donne.......

on Chaucer..

On Education............................

on Happiness, Duty, Faith
on The Bosom Sin................. 177

Collins, Ode on Fear by, Note to
Columbus Discovering America, by Ro-
bertson

517

687

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Hymn to, by Parnell......... 368
Content, Remarks on, by Taylor.......... 221
Controversies, Theological, by Baxter .... 336
Conversation, Hale's letter on............... 275
of Authors, by Johnson.... 661
Rules of Improvement by.. 486
Coquette, Dissection of the heart of a..... 385
Corbies, The Two................................. 116
Cosmologist and Geologist, by Cowper... 739
Country, A Description of Recreations of
the..........
149
Hospitality, by Swift............ 435
How Gray spent his time in the 603
Life, by Doddridge....................................................... 500
Life, Pleasures of a, by Cowley.. 229
Pleasures of the, by Vaughan... 340
Covenant, Entering into, by Doddridge... 504
Coverdale, Bible of................
....... 118
Covetousness, by South......

by Taylor.....

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167

Christ. Ode to the Nativity of, by Mil-

364
2299

ten.

241 Cowley and Chancer, by I-yden.

853

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