. TO JOHN WILKES, ESQ.

CHELSEA, 16th March, 1759.

Dear Sir

I am again your petitioner, in behalf of that great CHAM of literature,
Samuel Johnson. His black servant, whose name is Francis Barber, has
been pressed on board the Stag frigate, Captain Angel, and our
lexicographer is in great distress. He says the boy is a sickly lad, of
a delicate frame, and particularly subject to a malady in his throat,
which renders him very unfit for His Majesty's service. You know what
matter of animosity the said Johnson has against you: and I dare say you
desire no other opportunity of resenting it, than that of laying him
under an obligation. He was humble enough to desire my assistance on
this occasion, though he and I were never cater-cousins; and I gave him
to understand that I would make application to my friend Mr. Wilkes,
who, perhaps, by his interest with Dr. Hay and Mr. Elliot, might be able
to procure the discharge of his lacquey. It would be superfluous to say
more on this subject, which I leave to your own consideration; but I
cannot let slip this opportunity of declaring that I am, with the most
inviolable esteem and attachment, dear Sir, your affectionate, obliged,
humble servant,

T. SMOLLETT.

WILLIAM COWPER (1731-1800)

It was necessary to say a good deal about Cowper's letters
in the Introduction, but it would hardly do to stint him of
some further comment. It will be a most unfortunate evidence
of degradation in English literary taste if he ever loses
the position there assigned to him, and practically
acknowledged by all the best judges for the last century.
For there is certainly no other epistoler who has displayed
such consummate (if also such unconscious) art in making the
most out of the least. Of course people who must have noise,
and bustle, and "importance" of matter, and so forth, may be
dissatisfied. But their dissatisfaction convicts not Cowper
but themselves: and the conviction is not for want of Art,
but for want of appreciation of Art. Now this last is one of
the most terrible faults to be found in any human creature.
Not everybody can be an artist: but everybody who is not
deficient to this or that extent in sense--to use that word
in its widest and best interpretation, for understanding and
feeling both--can enjoy an artist's work. Nor is there any
more important function of the often