4.
To George Cumberland.
Lambeth, 22rd December 1796.
Dear Cumberland,—I have lately had some pricks of conscience on account of not acknowledging your friendship to me immediately on the receipt of your beautiful book.[1] I have likewise had by me all the summer six plates which you desired me to get made for you. They have laid on my shelf, without speaking to tell me whose they were, or that they were at all, and it was some time (when I found them) before I could divine whence they came or whither they were bound, or whether they were to lie there to eternity. I have now sent them to you to be transmuted, thou real alchymist!
Go on! Go on! Such works as yours Nature and Providence, the eternal parents, demand from their children. How few produce them in such perfection! How nature smiles on them; how Providence rewards them; how all your brethren say: "The sound of his harp and his flute heard from his secret forest cheers us to the labours of life, and we plow and reap, forgetting our labour."
- ↑ Thoughts on Outline (see note 1, p. 53).
