Letter from William Cowper, Weston Underwood, to Robert Smith?, 1787 December 7: autograph manuscript signed.

Writing of how glad he was to hear of Smith's recovery: "Many a time have I earnestly wished for Intelligence on the subject of your health, since I in some measure regained by my own, for there is no man living now, in whose welfare I interest myself so much;" thanking Smith for inquiring after his own health and writing "I have now attained an age at which Nature not having such favorable materials to work upon, rather patches than mends, and seems by her best efforts to promise nothing more than a respite, and that a short one;" saying that he has been anxious about a packet containing part of his translation of the Iliad and that he was glad to hear that Smith saw it at Joseph Johnson's ("a slovenly idle sensible fellow, [who] never sends me a syllable of information but when he cannot possibly avoid it"); writing of his work on the translation: "Yet endless as it seems, I am neither weary of it, nor even wish to arrive soon at the conclusion. It is now become so habitual to me, to spend half my time with Homer, that it is impossible for me not to apprehend a tremendous Vacuum, when this work shall be accomplished. But thanks to the excellent and long-winded old Grecian, what with the difficulties with which he presents me, and the necessity that I find of sifting and searching and improving for ever my most successful attempts to represent him so as not grossly to wrong him, that dreaded consummation seems yet at a distance. The box that you saw contained the 12th and 13th books of the Iliad for [Henry] Fuseli's revisal, and the 14th and 15th. are now ready to follow them;" acknowledging receipt of a note of £50 and saying that he and Mary Unwin have spent the day "in enjoying the comforts that you have thus kindly enabled us to impart to others. The diseased, the naked, the hungry, are going to leap for joy, though ignorant of their Benefactor. No matter. He is known where by and by, but I hope not yet, he will be rewarded;" adding that Mrs. Unwin joins with him in congratulating Smith on his safe return to England and in "the Sincerest acknowledgments of all your kindness."