whom we have learned to value by absence no less perhaps than we did by presence; for recollection often surpasses everything. Indeed the prospect of returning to our friends is supremely delightful. Then, I am determined that Mr. Butts shall have a good likeness of you, if I have hands and eyes left; for I am become a likeness-taker, and succeed admirably well. But this is not to be achieved without the original sitting before you for every touch, all likenesses from memory being necessarily very, very defective. But nature and fancy are two things, and can never be joined; neither ought any one to attempt it, for it is idolatry,[1] and destroys the soul.
I ought to tell you that Mr. H [ayley] is quite agreeable to our return, and that there is all the appearance in the world of our being fully employed in engraving for his projected works, particularly Cowper's Milton—a work now on foot by subscription, and I understand that the subscription goes on briskly. This work is to be a very elegant one, and to consist of all Milton's Poems, with Cowper's Notes, and translations by Cowper from Milton's Latin and Italian Poems.[2] These works will
