Hayley-IX-18

November 12 1807

My dear Flaxman

As I well know your delicate Scruples concerning Designs for printed Books, I should not have pressed you on the Subject, had not the singular Circumstances of the Orphan’s Book obviated every possible Objection to your befriending it.– Indeed (as I said before) after what you have done so happily for Homer & Dante, Milton & Cowper, in their present beneficent Union, seem to have such a claim on your Genius, that I am confident your Hand will Kindly employ itself in their Service with pleasure & Success — I thank you heartily for the welcome assurance you give me, in your Kind letter on the 6th of this Month, that you will make some drawings in a Manner most agreable to yourself, which my intelligent & obliging Friend Raimbach may easily reduce on his plates, & adapt to the Volume, which I am now preparing with peculiar Eagerness, because the Orphan of the Book has just been so fortunate as to obtain, by the Kindness of Lord Sheffield, a Nomination for a Cadetship at Woolwich, & I please myself with the Idea that his Book will appear in most seasonable Time to supply Him with those expensive Requisites for his new Line of Life, which his poor Mother would be otherwise, I believe, unable to provide.

Let me now thank you for the friendly Honour

You rendered to my Epitaph on Sir Joshua in reading it to his Niece:- I am glad it pleased her, & if either you or I find the lost Copy, I mean to insert it in my Life of Romney, which will contain Epitaphs on other artists whom we both regarded ––– I have been such a Manufacturer of Epitaphs in my Time, that I was surprized, in counting them the other day, to find they amount to 67 if the List ever amounts to 100 I should greatly like to make a volume of them with slight outlines, engraved in Imitation of Sketches with a Pen, from a certain dear Monumental Designer, who has so often cooperated with me in honouring the Dead.

I have just dispatched, to my afflicted Friend Sargent, a few sepulchral Lines in the hope of soothing his recent anguish of Heart on the Loss of his humane & courageous Son, whose calamitous destiny you have probably read in the Newspaper.

If the Line succeed in soothing parental affliction, I will send you a Copy of them: at present you shall have a recent sepulchral Tribute to a most amiable Lady of our County, who honoured me with particular Regard, & has very lately terminated a most gentle & benevolent Life by the most Easy departure, that I ever heard of at the age of 98.

She was Mother in Law to my good sisterly Friend of Lavant on Mrs Poole

Hail! and Farewell! dear venerable Friend,

Whose lengthen’d Days, without a struggle, end!

The placid Angel, who had blest they Birth,

Watch’d Thee, almost a Century on Earth;

And led Thee thro the Christian Cares of Life;

A tender Stepdame! and a duteous Wife!

Then, at thy destin’d Season to depart,

Joy’d, as the Witness of so pure a Heart,

Exempt from Mortal Anguish to dismiss

Thy peaceful Spirit to celestial Bliss.

I wish I had some magical Vehicle that might convey me, in a few minutes, into your Study to give you a hearty shake by the Hand, & to be treated with a sight of Your recent Works – but I must be content to admire your unrelenting Industry at a distance, & rejoice, that you still remember with Kindness

Your old affectionate

Hermit

My Benediction ever

attends you & all who are dear to you — adio!