It is true, I often fight Mr G.'s coldness, but he thinks scarce less highly of the dear bard's writings than myself. This similarity proves as good as the bark to our literary hectics.

I am glad you find Mr Hayley's adopted boy a pleasing companion; that his understanding is firm, and his heart good; but you say he is not poetical. The absence of that faculty in him, proves that poetry is a present that nature only can make; and not to be implanted by any power of education, by the force of early habit, or by the imitative ardour of childhood. I cannot help being sorry to hear that the coarse wit of Swift, and the burlesque of Anstey, are preferred to the finer sallies of the imagination by a young mind, especially his, around which her purest emanations so perpetually play.

Why sleeps Mr Sargent's muse, that once awaked" so sweetly, and so well?" Adieu!

Lichfield, Jan. 20, 1789.

IT has been in vain that I wished earlier to transmit my congratulations on the brightning prospect in the region of friendship from Lady Moira's amendment. May all the clouds of disease soon disperse from that fair horizon!

I am sure you have felt for dear Lady Carhampton, mourning the loss of her justly darling son. The resignation with which she sustains this heavy blow is saint-like. O blessed hope of immortality, it is thou only, operating upon the consciousness of a virtuous life, that, beneath deprivations like these, canst assuage the storm of anguish, and silence the murmurs of complaint.

You plead the controul of the House of Lords for passing three times through Lichfield, as if you had not a friend within its walls. Hang aristocracy, if such are its fruits.

I cannot say that I have read Dr Kippis's Life of Cook, though I have looked into it. When I was upon a visit, of a few days, in Mr Gell's fa

mily, in Derbyshire, it first met my eye. Our society was too interesting, to permit much attention to books; and, I confess, the style did not please me sufficiently, to excite much avidity for an entire and attentive perusal. Familiar as are the public with the events of that great man's life, and with all the traits of his character, it required more than common abilities that should strike out new lights, and, at least, throw the splendour of fine style over a subject so perfectly known.

Miss William's Ode seems the gem of the Doctor's work. It is very sublime. That young lady's talents are indeed an honour to our sex. Her disposition is as amiable as her imagination is vivid and original.

It will probably be thought, that we both ought to make low curtseys to the learned editor, for the praise he deigns to bestow on the efforts of the Misses; but, lest we should grow too vain of that praise, immediately after having bestowed it, he observes how much it must be regretted, that some writer of eminence, Cowper or Hayley, does not take up a subject, so worthy of their pen, and do justice to merit and heroism so distinguished.

However true this may be, and with whatever propriety the observation might have been made in any other part of the work, it was pedant im

politeness to insert it in exactly the place it stands.

Adieu !

LETTER LIII.

WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESQ.

Lichfield, Jan. 29, 1789.

ALAS! my dear Bard, to how many of your friends has this year been fatal. With grief I now see the mournful list swelled by the name of Miers. He was a Being in whom genius, benevolence, and modesty were conspicuously blended. The celebrated Wyatt seems the twin spirit of poor Miers.

Inclosed you will find a transcript of my Runic dialogue. The imperfect rhymes will I fear offend you, and yet I confess myself incorrigible on that head. Mingling occasionally with the more perfect ones, they relieve my ear, as in music it is relieved by the intermixture of discords. It seems impossible to banish them, even considering them as blemishes, without sacrificing to an excellence so very subordinate the higher graces of poetry. Pope and Gray, in whose

works they occur so often, must have used them upon deliberation, and by free choice, as not thinking them defects; else, taking such confessed pains to polish, and perfect their poetry, we may be assured they would have banished the rhyme of less complete jingle.

Mr Cary is very grateful for the kind interest you take in his peace, and in his fame, and beyond measure gratified that you have been pleased with his sonnets. Since our first acquaintance I have assiduously endeavoured to instil the just and necessary cautions your letter breathes; but the slow sale which you mention, of a poem of that eminence, must give them irresistible weight. It is a circumstance which verifies the indignant prophecy of my spirit, on first reading Johnson's Lives of the Poets. I foresaw that the contempt, with which so many of the most exalted in that tribe are there treated by an author, whom the nation at large seems to consider as oracular, would, like the Gothic clouds, spread a night over the English Parnassus, which might probably darken, till no degree of genius, however splendid, should be able to pierce it.

I confess, my dear Bard, that in the prefatory sonnet to Mr Cary's publication, I wished, and designed to combat the doctrine, held out by Mrs Smith, in her preface to the first edition of her