The more intimate and private letters of this period, of which there is a large and interesting collection, are of a deeper significance to us now, for they contain a human interest by revealing the nature of the people who wrote them. In _The Life of Doctor Johnson_ Boswell published many of Johnson’s letters, the most famous of which is that containing the snub to Chesterfield. It is quoted in the exercises attached to this chapter. Horace Walpole, as we have already noted (p. 323), left a voluminous correspondence which for wit, vivacity, and urbane and shallow common sense is quite remarkable. The private letters of Cowper are attractive for their easy and unaffected grace and their gentle and pervasive humor. We add an extract from a letter by Cowper. The style of it should be compared with that of Chesterfield. (_To William Hayley._) WESTON, _February 24, 1793_ ... Oh! you rogue! what would you give to have such a dream about Milton, as I had about a week since? I dreamed that being in a house in the city, and with much company, looking toward the lower end of the room from the upper end of it, I descried a figure which I immediately knew to be Milton’s. He was very gravely, but very neatly attired in the fashion of his day, and had a countenance which filled me with those feelings which an affectionate child has for a beloved father, such, for instance, as Tom has for you. My first thought was wonder, where he could have been concealed so many years; my second, a transport of joy to find him still alive; my third, another transport to find myself in his company; and my fourth, a resolution to accost him. I did so, and he received me with a complacence, in which I saw equal sweetness and dignity. I spoke of his _Paradise Lost_, as every man must, who is worthy to speak of it at all, and told him a long story of the manner in which it affected me, when I first discovered it, being at that time a schoolboy. He answered me by a smile and a gentle inclination of his head. He then grasped my hand affectionately, and with a smile that charmed me, said, “Well, you for your part will do well also”; at last recollecting his great age (for I understood him to be two hundred years old), I feared that I might fatigue him by much talking; I took my leave, and he took his, with an air of the most perfect good breeding. His person, his features, his manner, were all so perfectly characteristic, that I am persuaded an apparition of him could not present him more completely. This may be said to have been one of the dreams of Pindus,[169] may it not?... With Mary’s kind love, I must now conclude myself, my dear brother, ever yours, LIPPUS[170]