but a complimentary or friendly tone,) acknowledged that the correctness of her statement respecting the adoption of her lines as an introduction to the first Canto of the Botanic Garden is placed beyond a doubt. Even the mild and cautious Walter Scott says, that Darwin's disingenuous suppression of the aid of which he had availed himself, must remain a considerable stain upon the character of the Poet of Flora.

Miss Seward's letters are the most artificial epistolary compositions in the language. They are sometimes ludicrously inflated. They are rarely, however, obscure or dull. They teem with highly interesting literary anecdotes and very ingenious criticisms on poetry. If the criticisms, when influenced by personal partialities, are too laudatory, it is an error that leans to virtue's side. She was an enthusiast in friendship, and appears to have taken as intense an interest in the success of her numerous poetical friends as in her own. Her character in this point of view is quite admirable. She had not the slightest taint of envy in her nature, and had such a generous admiration of intellectual eminence, that she could take the most profound and fervid delight in the productions of those whom she personally disliked or who had seriously injured her. Thus she is perpetually dilating upon the greatness of Dr. Johnson's genius, though she abhorred the man. Darwin's conduct towards herself never checked in the least her warm admiration of his genius, and she seizes every opportunity of offering his Muse a glowing tribute of applause. An ill-natured critic might find a feast of faults in her six volumes of letters, and yet they are not only highly entertaining on account of the literary anecdotes and ingenious criticisms on poetry with which they abound, but they charm us with so many traits of a delicate mind and a feeling heart, that we allude to the imperfections of her style and her occasional errors with something like that reluctance with which we admit the defects of a personal friend. Mudford, in his Life of Cumberland, attacks her with savage bitterness, in return for an

observation in one of her letters to the effect that Sheridan's portrait of Cumberland, Sir Fretful Plagiary, is not a caricature. He affirms that her correspondence is "an heterogeneous mass of vanity, pedantry and virulence ;" and gives a specimen of what he calls her "miserable rant." This is outrageously severe-in fact quite unjust, and Mr. Mudford's own style is perhaps in every respect as open to censure as Miss Seward's. Mr. Mudford himself records the fact, that when Cumberland's son saw The Critic performed he immediately recognized his father in the character of Sir Fretful. The amusing anecdote of the origin of this satirical sketch is worth repeating, though it may be familiar to readers who are versed in the history of Dramatic Literature. It is said that when Sheridan produced his School for Scandal, Cumberland, who was always remarkable for his jealousy of other men's success in his own line, sat in a conspicuous part of the Theatre, and while the house rang with laughter and applause, preserved a perfect gravity of countenance, and expressed his surprise at the merriment of those about him. Sheridan was told of this. "It was somewhat ungracious," he observed, “ in Cumberland not to laugh a little at my comedy, when I lately laughed at one of his tragedies from the beginning to the end*." Not satisfied with this pungent witticism, he subsequently revenged himself still further by drawing the portrait of Cumberland in The Critic.

* However, Sheridan himself, when he tried his hand at the serious drama, gave judicious critics a temptation to indulge in risible emotions. The play of Pisarro, is mere fustian from the first scene to the last. Its sickly sentimentality-its extravagant heroism—and its stilted and unnatural diction are very offensive to a mature and healthy judgment. It is a sad thing that he should have associated his name with such a production. It is true that it is little more than a translation from the German; but the choice of such a play for translation, and the style in which it is " done into English," show that Sheridan had little genius for the tragic drama. He should have been satisfied with his fame as a wit. In his comedies the brilliant thoughts and fancies sparkle as incessantly as fireflies in an Indian grove. But he had no mastery over the graver and deeper passions. In the play of Pisarro human nature is melodramatized after the same manner as inanimate nature is bedaubed and varnished on a tea-tray.

When we first sat down to a perusal of Anna Seward's letters, we were sorely tempted to make an amusing collection of her foolish praises of small poets now forgotten, and to expose many of her defects of style; but as we proceeded in our task, we were so much touched with her amiable personal qualities, and so much pleased with the better parts of her correspondence, that "a change came over the spirit of our dream," and we were determined to dwell only on the favorable side of her character. Nothing can be more interesting than some of the domestic allusions in these letters. It appears that she waited upon her old bedridden father with the same profound and ever-watchful tenderness with which Pope attended upon his mother,

"And rocked the cradle of reposing age."

Such glaring colours, however, catch the vulgar eye. The crowd are enraptured with these glittering effects, in which they think that nature is not exaggerated but surpassed. The language of Pizarro is neither verse nor prose. It reminds us of Dr. Johnson's censure of blank-verse; "If it be not tumid and gorgeous," said he, "it is crippled prose." Sheridan, though eschewing blank-verse for an equivocal measure of his own invention, has contrived in this tragedy to combine all the faults attributed by the critic to the uurhymed heroic metre. The style is not only inflated and gaudy, but it limps into the bargain. It is not quite fair to expect much, even from the best actors, when this strange piece is brought upon the stage; in the performance of such a play actors are of little importance. They merely add by their presence to the general effect of the spectacle. "Now," says Puff in the Critic, " now, for my magnificence, my noise, and my procession!"

"The play stands still; damn action and discourse;

Back fly the scenes, and enter foot and horse."

This couplet of Pope's seems to have been suggested by a passage in the Rehearsal. "The plot stands still," says Smith. Why, what in the world is a plot good for," replies Bayes, "but to bring in fine things?"

In the theatrical exhibition of Pizarro the tailor and the actor seem to divide the public admiration.

"Such was the shout, the long-applauding note

At Quin's high plume, or Oldfield's petticoat.

Booth enters-hark! the universal peal!

'But has he spoken ?'-' Not a syllable,'

'What shook the stage, and made the people stare?'

'Cato's long wig, flowered gown, and lackered chair.'"

Such instances of domestic virtue in the literary character should always be duly recorded, for they double its attractions. If the sentimental Sterne "loved a dead ass better than a living mother," it is gratifying to be able to turn to instances of imaginative minds connected with tender hearts, of spirits who are not the less capable of practical kindness and home-emotions because they occasionally sympathize with beautiful abstractions or soar into a visionary world.

Miss Seward forms a kind of link in literary history between the last generation and the present. She was personally acquainted with Dr. Johnson and Boswell, with Dr. Darwin and Hayley, with Dr. Parr and Sir Walter Scott and Robert Southey.

SONNET-AN ENGLISH LANDSCAPE.

THE land ne'er smiled beneath a lovelier day,
So rich is every light, so soft each shadow !
How brightly beautiful this sun-lit meadow!
How merrily the small rills o'er it stray,

While on their fairy banks sweet children play!
With songs of birds the perfumed groves are ringing-
Neath cottage eaves the village maids are singing,
And blend their artless songs with laughter gay ;-

A herdsman old in yonder shade reposes;

And kine, knee-deep in pasture, feed at pleasure ;—
Oh! fairer far than Persia's fields of roses

Is this calm scene, that memory long shall treasure ;—
Elysian landscape! ere life's vision closes

May this worn heart here taste luxurious leisure.

DEATH.

I.

WE weep and tremble at the doom---
The dreadful doom of death;

"Tis sad amidst the fair earth's bloom
To yield this mortal breath!
The brave may sternly bear the pain
That soon must pass away,

But oh! to think that ne'er again
Dear friends with eager hands shall greet,
Or fond hearts share Love's converse sweet,
O'erwhelms us with dismay!

II.

"Tis true that trusting faith is told

Of worlds beyond the sky,

And few there are so blind or bold

As dare such creed deny;

It is not that an after-state,

Or dark or doubtful seems;

Alas! we shrink from future fate,

Because we may not brook the thought

That hours with Life's endearments fraught

Are unreturning dreams!