strength, and often with his versification; such as you have caught in those lines on the royal unction, on the papal dominion, and convents of both sexes, on Henry VIII. and Charles II. for these are to me the shining parts of your Epistle.* There are many lines I could wish corrected, and some blotted out, but beauties enough to atone for a thousand worse faults than these. The opinion of such as can at all judge, who saw it before in Dr. Middleton's hands, concurs nearly with mine. As to what any one says, since it came out; our people (you must know) are slow of judgment: they wait till some bold body saves them the trouble, and then follow his opinion; or stay till they hear what is said in town, that is, at some bishop's table, or some coffee-house about the Temple. When they are determined, I will tell you faithfully their verdict. As for the Beauties,† I am their most humble servant. What shall I say to Mr. Lowth, Mr. Ridley, Mr. Rolle, the Reverend Mr. Brown, Seward, &c.? If I say, Messieurs! this is not the thing; write prose, write sermons, write nothing at all; they will disdain me and my advice. What then would the sickly peer have done, that spends so much time in admiring every thing that has four legs, and fretting at his own misfortune in having but two; and cursing his own politic head and feeble constitution, that won't let him be such a beast as he would wish? Mr. S. Jenyns now and then can write a good line or two-such as these Snatch us from all our little sorrows here, I like Mr. Aston Hervey's fable; and an ode (the last of all) by Mr. Mason, a new acquaintance of mine, whose Musæus too seems to carry with it the promise at least of something good to come. I was glad to see * Epistle from Florence to Thomas Asheton, tutor to the Earl of Plymouth. † The Epistle to Mr. Eckardt the painter. + Lord Hervey. : you distinguished who poor West was, before his charming ode, and called it any thing rather than a Pindaric. The town is an owl, if it don't like Lady Mary,† and I am surprised at it: we here are owls enough to think her eclogues very bad; but that I did not wonder at. Our present taste is Sir T. Fitz-Osborne's Letters. I send you a bit of a thing for two reasons: first, because it is one of your favourites, Mr. M. Green; and next, because I would do justice. The thought on which my second ode‡ turns is manifestly stole from hence :-not that I knew it at the time, but, having seen this many years before, to be sure it imprinted itself on my memory, and, forgetting the author, I took it for my own. subject was the Queen's Hermitage. Though yet no palace grace the shore If thou, the god with winged feet, While each exists (as poets sing) * * Monody on the Death of Queen Caroline. + Lady Mary W. Montagu's Poems. Speaking to the Thames. + The Ode to Spring. The four busts. The I WILL not give you the trouble of sending your chaise for me. I intend to be with you on Wednesday in the evening. If the press stands still all this time for me, to be sure it is dead in child-bed. I do not love notes, though you see I had resolved to put two or three.* They are signs of weakness and obscurity. If a thing cannot be understood without them, it had better be not understood at all. If you will be vulgar and pronounce it Lunnun, instead of London,* I can't help it. Caradoc I have private reasons against; and besides it is in reality Caradoc, and will not stand in the verse. * To the Bard. I rejoice you can fill all your vuides: the Maintenon could not, and that was her great misfortune. Seriously though, I congratulate you on your happiness and seem to understand it. The receipt is obvious: it is only, Have something to do; but how few can apply it!Adieu! I am ever yours. LETTER XII. I AM SO charmed with the two specimens of Erse poetry, that I cannot help giving you the trouble to inquire a little farther about them, and should wish to see a few lines of the original, that I may form some slight idea of the language, the measures, and the rhythm. Is there any thing known of the author or authors, and of what antiquity are they supposed to be? Is there any more to be had of equal beauty, or at all approaching to it? I have been often told that the poem called Hardicnute (which I always admired, and still admire) was the work of somebody that lived a few years ago.† This I do not at all believe, though it has evidently been retouched in places by some modern hand: but, however, I am authorized by this report to ask, whether the two poems in question are certainly antique and genuine. I make this inquiry in quality of an antiquary, and am * "Ye tow'rs of Julius! London's lasting shame."-Bard, verse 87. ↑ It has been supposed the work of a lady of the name of Wardlaw, who died in Scotland not many years ago, but upon no better evidence, that I could ever learn, than that a copy of the poem, with some erasures, was found among her papers after her death. -No proof surely of its original composition, as few but persons of business, which women seldom are, take the precaution of docketing, or writing "Copy" upon every thing they may transcribe. 7 not otherwise concerned about it: for if I were sure that any one now living in Scotland had written them to divert himself, and laugh at the credulity of the world, I would undertake a journey into the Highlands only for the pleasure of seeing him. LETTER XIII. I HAVE been very ill this week with a great cold and a fever, and though now in a way to be well, am like to be confined some days longer: whatever you will send me that is new, or old, and long, will be received as a charity. Rousseau's people do not interest me; there is but one character and one style in them all, I do not know their faces asunder. I have no esteem for their persons or conduct, am not touched with their passions; and, as to their story, I do not believe a word of itnot because it is improbable, but because it is absurd. If I had any little propensity, it was to Julie; but now she has gone and (so hand over head) married that Monsieur de Wolmar, I take her for a vraie Suissesse, and do not doubt but she had taken a cup too much like her lover.* All this does not imply that I will not read it out, when you can spare the rest of it.. LETTER XIV. Sunday, February 28, 1762. I RETURN you my best thanks for the copy of your book,† which you sent me, and have not at all lessened my opinion of it since I read it in print, though the press * Were we not in possession of Mr. Gray's opinion of the Nouvelle Heloise, (see Letter xli. p. 235.) how would such a criticism, from such a critic, astonish all those more happily constituted readers, who, capable of appreciating varied excellence, have perhaps read with equal delight the exquisite odes of the one author, and the extraordinary and (with all its faults) inimitable romance of the other! +The Anecdotes of Painting. |