LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

      It is a sort of paradox, but it is true: we are never more in danger than when we think ourselves most secure, nor in reality more secure than when we seem to be most in danger. Both sides of this apparent contradiction were lately verified in my experience: passing from the green-house to the barn, I saw three kittens (for we have so many in our retinue) looking with fixed attention on something which lay on the threshold of a door nailed up. I took but little notice of them at first, but a loud hiss engaged me to attend more closely, when behold—a viper! the largest that I remember to have seen, rearing itself, darting its forked tongue, and ejaculating the aforesaid hiss at the nose of a kitten, almost in contact with his lips. I ran into the hall for a hoe with a long handle, with which I intended to assail him, and returning in a few seconds, missed him: he was gone, and I feared had escaped me. Still, however, the kitten sat watching immoveably on the same spot. I concluded, therefore, that sliding between the door and the threshold, he had found his way out of the garden into the yard. I went round immediately, and there found him in close conversation with the old cat, whose curiosity being excited by so novel an appearance, inclined her to pat his head repeatedly with her fore foot, with her claws however sheathed, and not in anger, but in the way of philosophic inquiry and examination. To prevent her falling a victim to so laudable an exercise of her talents, I interposed in a moment with the hoe, and performed upon him an act of decapitation, which, though not immediately mortal, proved so in the end. Had he slid into the passages, where it is dark, or had he, when in the yard, met with no interruption from the cat, and secreted himself in any of the out-houses, it is hardly possible but that some of the family must have been bitten; he might have been trodden upon without being perceived, and have slipped away before the sufferer could have distinguished what foe had wounded him. Three years ago we discovered one in the same place, which the barber slew with a trowel.

      Our proposed removal to Mr. Small's was, as you may suppose, a jest, or rather a joco-serious matter. We never looked upon it as entirely feasible, yet we saw in it something so like practicability that we did not esteem it altogether unworthy of our attention. It was one of those projects which people of lively imaginations play with and admire for a few days, and then break in pieces. Lady Austen returned on Thursday from London, where she spent the last fortnight, and whither she was called by an unexpected opportunity to dispose of the remainder of her lease. She has therefore no longer any connexion with the great city, and no house but at Olney. Her abode is to be at the vicarage, where she has hired as much room as she wants, which she will embellish with her own furniture, and which she will occupy as soon as the minister's wife has produced another child, which is expected to make its entry in October.

Mr. Bull, a dissenting minister of Newport, a learned, ingenious, good-natured, pious friend of ours, who sometimes visits us, and whom we visited last week, put into my hands three volumes of French poetry, composed by Madame Guion—a quietist, say you, and a fanatic, I will have nothing to do with her.—'Tis very well, you are welcome to have nothing to do with her, but, in the meantime, her verse is the only French verse I ever read that I found agreeable; there is a neatness in it equal to that which we applaud, with so much reason, in the compositions of Prior. I have translated several of them, and shall proceed in my translations till I have filled a Lilliputian paper-book I happen to have by me, which, when filled, I shall present to Mr. Bull. He is her passionate admirer; rode twenty miles to see her picture in the house of a stranger, which stranger politely insisted on his acceptance of it, and it now hangs over his chimney. It is a striking portrait, too characteristic not to be a strong resemblance, and, were it encompassed with a glory, instead of being dressed in a nun's hood, might pass for the face of an angel.

      Yours,

       W. C.

      To this letter we annex a very lively lusus poeticus from the pen of Cowper, on the subject mentioned in the former part of the preceding letter.

      THE COLUBRIAD.

      Close by the threshold of a door nail'd fast,

       Three kittens sat; each kitten look'd aghast.

       I, passing swift and inattentive by,

       At the three kittens cast a careless eye;

       Not much concerned to know what they did there,

       Not deeming kittens worth a poet's care.

       But presently a loud and furious hiss

       Caus'd me to stop, and to exclaim, "What's this?"

       When, lo! upon the threshold met my view,

       With head erect, and eyes of fiery hue,

       A viper, long as Count de Grasse's queue.

       Forth from his head his forked tongue he throws,

       Darting it full against a kitten's nose;

       Who, having never seen, in field or house,

       The like, sat still and silent as a mouse:

       Only projecting, with attention due,

       Her whisker'd face, she ask'd him, "Who are you?"

       On to the hall went I, with pace not slow,

       But swift as lightning, for a long Dutch hoe:

       With which well arm'd I hastened to the spot,

       To find the viper, but I found him not.

       And turning up the leaves and shrubs around,

       Found only—that he was not to be found.

       But still the kittens, sitting as before,

       Sat watching close the bottom of the door.

       "I hope," said I, "the villain I would kill

       Has slipt between the door and the door's sill;

       And, if I make despatch and follow hard,

       No doubt but I shall find him in the yard;"

       For long ere now it should have been rehearsed,

       'Twas in the garden that I found him first.

       Ev'n there I found him, there the full-grown cat

       His head with velvet paw did gently pat:

       As curious as the kittens erst had been

       To learn what this phenomenon might mean.

       Fill'd with heroic ardour at the sight,

       And fearing every moment he would bite,

       And rob our household of our only cat,

       That was of age to combat with a rat;

       With outstretched hoe I slew him at the door,

       And taught him NEVER TO COME THERE NO MORE.

      Lady Austen became a tenant of the vicarage at Olney. When Mr. Newton occupied that parsonage, he had opened a door in the garden-wall, which admitted him in the most commodious manner to visit the sequestered poet, who resided in the next house. Lady Austen had the advantage of this easy intercourse; and so captivating was her society, both to Cowper and to Mrs. Unwin, that these intimate neighbours might be almost said to make one family, as it became their custom to dine always together, alternately in the houses of the two ladies.

      The musical talents of Lady Austen induced Cowper to write a few songs of peculiar sweetness and pathos, to suit particular airs that she was accustomed to play on the harpsichord. We insert three of these, as proofs that, even in his hours of social amusement, the poet loved to dwell on ideas of tender devotion and pathetic solemnity.

SONG WRITTEN IN THE SUMMER OF 1783, AT THE REQUEST OF LADY AUSTEN.

       Table of Contents

      Air—"My fond shepherds of late," &c.

      No longer I follow a sound;

       No longer a dream I pursue:

       O happiness! not to be found,

       Unattainable

Скачать книгу