With a son of Lady Heard's, by a former husband, I was well acquainted; the most prepossessing being, of fourteen, I ever knew—he sunk, by consumption, at eighteen; a fallen blossom, but á translated Angel.

I doubt whether the utility of Doctor Croft's projected dictionary will be in proportion to the immense labour of the undertaking. Upon one of your objections to Johnson's, viz. that he contents himself with giving very copious authorities for the use of words, without telling us his own opinion of the respect due to those words, I must observe, that I think it a very judicious abstinence. Opinions are so various; verbal partialities, and verbal dislikes, as well as prejudices of other kinds, are so frequent, and so arbitrary, that perhaps no one person has a right to decide upon the ́elegance, or inelegance of particular words, or modes of expression. With two people, equally ingenious, I often find one very fond of certain verbalisms, and usages of style, which the other detests. What then remains but to settle these wide extremes of differing tastes, not by reference to the opinion of any third individual, but by examining whether they are in frequent use with various writers of acknowledged eminence ?

Till people have familiarized themselves with such writers, and learned to appreciate the weight

of their respective authorities, they will do well to abstain from using any word or phrase, in their own writings, which are not in general use, always taking care to avoid idioms, which disgrace serious composition of every sort. They should also shun all expressions which are pert, quaint, or vulgar.

Certainly Johnson's reason for excluding Bollingbroke and Shaftesbury, from his list of authorities, was a most ridiculous one. O! let us be thankful, that a being so prejudiced, forbore to throw the iron fetters of his dogmas over our style! Have we not enough of his attempting to throw them over our poetic taste, in that unjust, and because ingenious so much the more mischievous, work, the Lives of the Poets?

I hope Doctor Croft will not take up that arrogance, which the most arrogant of men forbore to assume. What right has one man's opinion to "bestride the verbal world, like a Colossus."

Shaftesbury was a much admired prose writer in his day, but within the last fifty years nothing has made greater progress to perfection than style. Shaftesbury has one most inelegant mode of expression, viz. "this is pleasant enough, in the way of gaiety and humour ;”—and "such arrangement is powerful, in the way of argument;" "these fancies may be well parried, in the way of burlesque." In short, I found this trick of

phraseology perpetually in my way, when I was looking for the celebrated elegance of Lord Shaftesbury's style.

What an enthusiast you are to London! I wish you do not say a great deal too much for that imperial city. . For her greatness perhaps you cannot, but for her justice I think you do. How does Johnson esteem her? let us hear him :

London, the needy villain's general home,
The common-shore of Paris, and of Rome."

Cowper in his Task has given a more faithful portrait of her than you, in your youthful glow of generous partiality, or than Johnson in his caustic spleen.

The worthy Mr Green, and the ingenious and enlightened Mr Saville, desire their compliments; I wish you knew more of the latter. He is a man of strong imagination, and benevolent sensibility, with a considerable fund of classic and scientific knowledge ;-nor know I a better poetic critic; though his accurate severity now and then makes my muse murmur a little, but reflection generally shows me that he is right.

I have mentioned you to Mr Hayley and Miss Helen Williams, as a rising character in the lite

rary world.

"Proceed, illustrious youth,

And virtue guide thee to the throne of truth!"

Yes, in every opinion, and in every science.

LETTER V.

J. WEDGEWOOD, Esq.

Lichfield, Feb. 18, 1788.

I AM honoured and obliged by your endeavours to enlighten me on a subject so important to human virtue and human happiness. They have not been vain; and I blush for the coldness my late letter expressed, whose subject demanded the ardour of benevolent wishes, and of just indignation.

Let me, however, do myself the justice to observe, that my heart always recoiled with horror from the miseries which I heard were inflicted on the negro slaves; but I have had long acquaintance with a Mr Newton of this place, who made a large fortune in the East, where slavery pervades every opulent establishment. He con

stantly assured me, that the purchase, employment, and strict discipline of the negroes were absolutely necessary to maintain our empire, and our commerce, in the Indies. As constantly did he affirm, that they were of a nature so sordid and insensible, as to render necessary a considerable degree of severity, and to make much lenity alike injurious to the indulger and the indulged; that the accounts of the cruelties practised upon the slaves by their masters were false, or at least infinitely exaggerated. He observed, that the worst people will abstain from vice, when it is against their interest to practice it; that the high price and value of the subjugated, inevitably preserves them from the dire effects of this imputed barbarity.

When I sighed over the severe discipline, for the necessity of which he pleaded, I was desired to recollect the fate of the Ashwells-uncle and brother to young gentlewomen of this town. The former, a West India Planter, whose compassionate temper, which his nieces assert had been ever soft and indulgent, even to weakness, led him to give his slaves unusual relaxation from toil, and to take scrupulous care that they were constantly and plentifully supplied with wholesome food; yet was he murdered by them in the