TO THE REV.  WILLIAM UNWIN

A laugh that hurts nobody

18 Nov. 1782.

MY DEAR WILLIAM,

...  I little thought when I was writing the history of John Gilpin, that he would appear in print—­I intended to laugh, and to make two or three others laugh, of whom you were one.  But now all the world laughs, at least if they have the same relish for a tale ridiculous in itself, and quaintly told, as we have.—­Well—­they do not always laugh so innocently, or at so small an expense—­for in a world like this, abounding with subjects for satire, and with satirical wits to mark them, a laugh that hurts nobody has at least the grace of novelty to recommend it.  Swift’s darling motto was, Vive la bagatelle—­a good wish for a philosopher of his complexion, the greater part of whose wisdom, whencesoever it came, most certainly came not from above. La bagatelle has no enemy in me, though it has neither so warm a friend, nor so able a one, as it had in him.  If I trifle, and merely trifle, it is because I am reduced to it by necessity—­a melancholy, that nothing else so effectually disperses, engages me sometimes in the arduous task of being merry by force.  And, strange as it may seem, the most ludicrous lines I ever wrote have been written in the saddest mood, and, but for that saddest mood, perhaps had never been written at all.  To say truth, it would be but a shocking vagary, should the mariners on board a ship buffeted by a terrible storm, employ themselves in fiddling and dancing; yet sometimes much such a part act I....

To THE REV.  JOHN NEWTON

Village politicians

26 Jan. 1783.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

It is reported among persons of the best intelligence at Olney—­the barber, the schoolmaster, and the drummer of a corps quartered at this place,—­that the belligerent powers are at last reconciled, the articles of the treaty adjusted, and that peace is at the door.  I saw this morning, at nine o’clock, a group of about twelve figures very closely engaged in a conference, as I suppose, upon the same subject.  The scene of consultation was a blacksmith’s shed, very comfortably screened from the wind, and directly opposed to the morning sun.  Some held their hands behind them, some had them folded across their bosom, and others had thrust them into their breeches pockets.  Every man’s posture bespoke a pacific turn of mind; but the distance being too great for their words to reach me, nothing transpired.  I am willing, however, to hope that the secret will not be a secret long, and that you and I, equally interested in the event, though not, perhaps, equally well-informed, shall soon have an opportunity to rejoice in the completion of it.  The powers of Europe have clashed with each other to a fine purpose; that the Americans, at length declared independent, may