Letter from William Cowper, place not identified, to John Newton, 1784 June 21 : autograph manuscript signed.

Writing about festival concerts staged in Westminster Abbey and the Pantheon to celebrate the centenary of the birth of Handel: "A religious service instituted in honor of a Musician, and performed in the house of God, is a subject that calls loudly for the animadversion of an enlighten'd minister, and would be no mean one for a Satyrist, could a poet of that description be found spiritual enough to feel and to resent the profanation. It is reasonable to suppose that in the next years Almanac we shall find the name of Handel among the red-lettered worthies, for it would surely puzzle the Pope himself to add any thing to his Canonization;" adding "The Bishops however seem to have been rather slack, as indeed they prove themselves to be upon most devotional occasions. I take it for granted that they were hearers, but why were they not performers too?"; speculating about which instruments the bishops could have played, given their clerical garments; writing about how cold the summer has been: "We have now frosty mornings, and so cold a wind, that even at high noon we have been obliged to break off our walk in the southern side of the garden and seek shelter, I in the green house and Mrs. [Mary] Unwin by the fireside;" discussing at length a visit from a Mr. Wright (King and Ryskamp identify him as Lord Dartmouth's steward) who is in service but longs for "liberty," his wife, and a large inheritance she was supposed to have received but which was lost at sea: "immediately after he had left us, I sent a brace of cucumbers to his Inn designing that he should eat them himself, but seeing them remarkably fine he wrappd them up in a cabbage leaf and devoted them to Lord Dartmouths table;" saying that he had charged Wright with asking Lord Dartmouth to send him "Cooks last voyage which I have a great curiosity to see, and no other means of procuring" (referring to A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean); discussing the character of William Pitt and the difficulty for "we who live at a distance from the center of all political bustle" to form accurate opinions of public figures; writing "perhaps the prize of preference is due to the man, who if he has no private virtues to boast of, has no private vices either, but is content that mankind should know him to be what he is;" noting that they expect the Unwins (Mary, William, and Susanna) on Tuesday.