Letter from William Cowper, place not identified, to Maria Frances Madan Cowper, 1768 December? : autograph manuscript signed.

Apologizing for not having written and adding "instead of being surprized at your Silence, I rather wonder that you or any of my Friends have any Room left for so careless & negligent a Correspondent in your Memories;" thanking her for news of family members and saying that, despite living far away from them, "I do not therefore forget their former Kindness to me, or cease to be interested in their Well: being;" adding "You live in the Center of a World which I know you do not delight in. Happy are you my dear Friend in being able to discern the Insufficiency of all that it can afford to fill & satisfy the Desires of an immortal Soul;" writing at length of their shared faith: "I bless [God's] Goodness and grace that I have any Reason to hope I am a Partaker with you in the Desire after better things than are to be found in a World polluted with Sin, and therefore, devoted to Destruction. May he enable us both to consider our present Life in its only true Light, as an Opportunity put into our Hands to glorify him amongst Men by a Conduct suited to his Word and Will. I am miserably defective in this Holy and blessed Art..."; saying that her mother Judith Madan "is too good to me, and puts a more charitable Construction upon my Silence than the Fact will warrant. I am not better employed than I shd. be in corresponding with her. I have That within which hinders me wretchedly in every thing that I ought to do, but is prone to trifle and let Time & every good thing run to waste. I hope however to write to her soon;" sending good wishes to her husband William and "all that Enquire after me;" adding in a postscript "N.B. I am not married."