The writing of so long a poem[63] is a serious business; and the author must know little of his own heart who does not in some degree suspect himself of partiality to his own production; and who is he that would not be mortified by the discovery that he had written five thousand lines in vain? The poem, however, which you have in hand will not of itself make a volume so large as the last, or as a bookseller would wish. I say this, because when I had sent Johnson five thousand verses, he applied for a thousand more. Two years since I began a piece which grew to the length of two hundred, and there stopt. I have lately resumed it, and I believe, shall finish it. But the subject is fruitful and will not be comprized in a smaller compass than seven or eight hundred verses. It turns on the question whether an education at school or at home be preferable, and I shall give the preference to the latter. I mean that it shall pursue the track of the former--that is to say, it shall visit Stock in its way to publication. My design also is to inscribe it to you. But you must see it first; and if, after having seen it, you should have any objection, tho it should be no bigger than the tittle of an i, I will deny myself that pleasure, and find no fault with your refusal. I have not been without thoughts of adding "John Gilpin" at the tail of all. He has made a good deal of noise in the world, and perhaps it may not be amiss to show, that, tho I write generally with a serious intention, I know how to be occasionally merry. The critical reviewers charged me with an attempt at humor. John having been more celebrated upon the score of humor than most pieces that have appeared in modern days, may serve to exonerate me from the imputation; but in this article I am entirely under your judgment, and mean to be set down by it. All these together will make an octavo like the last. I should have told you that the piece which now employs me is rime. I do not intend to write any more blank. It is more difficult than rime, and not so amusing in the composition. If, when you make the offer of my book to Johnson, he should stroke his chin, and look up to the ceiling and cry "Humph!"--anticipate him, I beseech you, at once, by saying--"that you know I should be sorry that he should undertake for me to his own disadvantage, or that my volume should be in any degree prest upon him. I make him the offer merely because I think he would have reason to complain of me if I did not." But that punctilio once satisfied, it is a matter of indifference to me what publisher sends me forth. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 58: Letter to the Rev. John Newton, dated Olney, November 30, 1783.] [Footnote 59: Letter to the Rev. William Unwin, dated "October 31, 1779."] [Footnote 60: Letter to the Rev. William Unwin, dated "Olney, May 1, 1781."] [Footnote 61: His first volume of verse.] [Footnote 62: This paragraph is from another letter to Unwin, written three weeks later--May 23, 1781.]