rogative, whose preponderance has ever been fatal to the peace and prosperity of this kingdom!—to oppose whose dangerous inroads, Hambden fought, and Milton abdicated the splendid throne of Parnassus, during twenty years,

"In liberty's defence---his noble cause,
Of which all Europe rung from side to side;"

and for which Russell and Sydney were martyred on the block.

When you were met on your processions, which, in the trust that your enthusiasm was from principle, filled with delight the heart of every true Briton, could this apostacy have been foreseen, how would they have burnt to tear your yellow ribands from your brows!-they had at least exclaimed, with the spirit of the deserted Constance,

"Doff them for shame!

And hang the rusty chain of Stuart-power
About your recreant necks!"

But, to change the subject, I do not much wonder that the pageant scenery, and even the Siddonian pathos, in fallen majesty, cannot sufficiently animate that heavy play, Henry the 8th; which, in despite of some great poetic beauties,

3

is not calculated, on the whole, to rouse attention, and awaken the passions.

So, the little Mrs Jordan seduces the croud from the truly great Mrs Siddons. Each, however, are doubtless exquisite in their different paths.

In the past two years, I have made so great a point of devoting an hour most days to the harpsichord, that I feel my progress in thorough bass, and am much complimented upon it, under the consciousness that all my youth passed away in total ignorance of musical notes. I can now play in little private concerts, with tolerable facility. No small delight to such an enthusiast in the science as your friend.

My celebrated friend, Mr Hardinge, has risen prodigiously of late in my esteem, on account of some nobly generous exertions in favour of sweet Mrs. B, whose story is so extraordinary, and so interesting; whose conduct has been so amiable; whose fate so hard. She was in Lichfield this winter with Mrs Smith, and more graceful, more attractive, much more eloquent than ever, though less beautiful. I mentioned to Mr Hardinge her present distress, and related her eventful history. His exertions in her favour became instantly energetic, and their consequences have

procured a very considerable sum for herself and for her children.

So the world has lost my two friends, Mrs Brooke and Mr Miers; Beings whose talents were first-rate in their different departments, and every way did honour to the age in which they lived. Adieu! Yours faithfully.

LETTER LVII.

GEORGE HARDINGE, ESQ.

Lichfield, Feb. 5, 1789.

HAVE the goodness to transmit the inclosed to the penny-post, after having given it a wafer, not merely to save Miss Weston postage, but because I have made a speech for you in it. What would you take as a bribe to give this same Philippic your impressive tones in the senate?

I am delighted with the Chancellor's speech, in which he asserts the superior degree of attachment produced by the expectation of favours, to that which is excited by the receipt of them; where he wittily and eloquently observes, that the zeal of the new-made peer will probably cool be

fore the wax on his patent, while the peer in expectation is a most steady adherent.

And what is become of your muse?—Is she frightened into silence by the clamours of repressed ambition, struggling around the vacant throne? You have not sent me a sonnet time immemorial, and I sicken in deprivation.

Behold two of mine, and pay me in kind, I pray you. When your muse discharges debt of this sort, she pays them back with interest. Ask again about the quotation for Mr Croft. Adio!

LETTER LVIII.

MORFITT, Esq.*

Lichfield, Feb. 7, 1789.

My best thanks are due to the poetical friends for their elegant copy of their ingenious publication +. I prefer the rhyme translation, not because

* Died at Birmingham in 1809.

+ The Woodman of Arden, a poem, written by Mr Morfitt in Latin, and of which his friend, Mr Weston, gave two translations, one in blank verse, the other in rhyme.-S.

it is in rhyme, but because it is paraphrastic, and the other close. All close translations have about them an air of ungraceful restraint. I confess also, that it appears to me that our friend has not formed his blank verse after the best examples, viz. Milton, Thomson, and Akenside. Else, however unfashionable, I think blank verse much the superior vehicle for the effusions of genius;—but the often recurrence of the redundant syllable at the end of a line, (so frequent in Mr Weston's poem) is highly injurious to that harmony and freedom which result from the varied pauses, undulating from line to line through the work, and forming, in sound, the magic curve, so dear to beauty; and whose floating course the redundant syllable interrupts. I have never known it used, in any frequency, by the best writers, except in dramatic poetry,-believe it will scarce once be found in the Paradise Lost. Its effect upon my ear, in our friend's translation, is like that which my eye would perceive by sudden jirking curtesies being made by a fine woman, as she was gliding through the Louvre," with arms sublime that floated on the air."

Milton, Thomson, and Akenside, knew how to give contrasting and picturesque harshness to some of their lines, without this jirking redundancy at their final syllables.