Life and works of William Cowper - v. 5 Author:William Cowper Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: claims to be considered as a part of our national literature. It remains only to be observed that tilt- foreigner whom he mentions with so much estimation, as ha... more »ving aided him with his critical taste and erudition, was Fuseli the painter. He gratefully acknowledges his obligations in the following letters to Johnson the bookseller. Weston, Feb. 11, 1790. Dear Sir—1 am very sensibly obliged by the remarks of Mr. Fuseli, and beg that you will tell him so ; they afford me opportunities of improvement which I shall not neglect. When he shall see the press-copy, he will be convinced of this, and will be convinced likewise, that, smart as he sometimes is, he spares me often, when I have no mercy on myself. He will see almost a new translation. I assure you faithfully, that whatever my faults may be, to be easily or hastily satisfied with what I have written is not one of them. Sept. 7, 1790. It grieves me that, after all, I am obliged to go into public without the whole advantage of Mr. Fuseli's judicious strictures. The only consolation is, that I have not forfeited them by my own impatience. Five years are no small portion of a chapter{Section 4man's life, especially at the latter end of it, and in those five years, being a man of almost no engagements, I have done more in the way of hard work, than most could have done in twice the number. I beg you to present my compliments to Mr. Fuseli, with many and sincere thanks for the services that his own more important occupations would allow him to render me. We add one more letter in this place, addressed to his bookseller, to show with what becoming resolution he could defend his poetical opinions when he considered them to be just. Some accidental reviser of the manuscript had taken the liberty to alter a line in...« less