Letter from William Cowper, Olney, to Lady Harriet Hesketh, 1786 January 10 : autograph manuscript signed.

Thanking her for her "assiduous labors in my poetical cause;" asking "How fares it with your poor thumbkins? do you bite them as much as you were wont?"; discussing an appeal he has made to Major-General Spencer Cowper regarding his translation of the Iliad, and its positive result: "I could not have wished for a kinder letter than he sent me;" describing how many letters he is sending ("I am become the wonder of the Post Office in this town. They never sent so many letters to London in their lives") and the possibility of dedicating his translation to the King or the Queen: "I have the profoundest respect for them both, and shall be sure not to falsify my own sentiments, say whatsoever I may on the occasion;" saying that Queen Charlotte's failure to respond to Lady Hesketh about the dedication is no doubt due to the illness of Princess Elizabeth; writing of how pleased he is that Lady Hesketh found William Cawthorne Unwin "what I was sure you would find him, a most agreeable man;" describing how grateful he is for the Reverend John Burrows's friendly disposition towards him and his criticisms of his poetry; writing at length of his plans to revise his Poems: "It may serve me for an agreeable amusement perhaps, when Homer shall be gone and done with. The first Edition of Poems has generally been susceptible of improvement. [Alexander] Pope I believe never published one in his life that did not undergo Variations, and his longest pieces, many. I will only observe that inequalities there must be always and in every work of length [...] In truth my Dear, had you known in what anguish of mind I wrote the whole of that poem, and under what perptual interruptions from a cause that has since been removed, so that sometimes I had not opportunity to write more than 3 lines at a Sitting, you would long since have wonder'd as much as I do myself, that it turned out anything better than mere Grub Street;" expressing complete confidence in his translation: "I tell you my beloved, anxious, precious friend, that I understand Homer as well as I understand Chevy Chase. And if I do not prove it soon, call me Coxcomb for ever. I am ambitious of the whole honour, I can not spare as much of it to any man, as might be transmitted through the eye of a needle. Assure yourself moreover, that I intend to be carefull to the utmost line of all possible caution both with respect to language and versification [...] I will not send a verse to the Press that shall not have undergone the strictest examination;" discussing the advantages of subscription as a mode of publication and saying that he has ordered Joseph Johnson to print proposals immediately: "The terms are at last settled for Two large Volumes, Quarto, Royal Paper three guineas, common paper two;" discussing prospects for the subscription and saying that he cannot forgive "the Chancellor" for dropping Lady Hesketh and he hears that George Colman is "at Bath and in high Spirits," so "[h]is silence therefore if it continue, must be construed into a refusal;" sending greetings from Mrs. Unwin; writing in a postscript of the support he has received from other individuals, including Walter Bagot: "I have all possible encouragement from all quarters."