"Hills, that swell with gradual ease, very Mr W. will be at Bath this winter. He is warm-hearted, and oratorically persuasive. I have interested him in fame and success. your You have considerable connections amongst the people of rank. Once introduced, the woodnymphs and the naiads will be your acknowledged handmaids. I am not blind to the poetic faults of the Temple of Folly. It has many; but I find in it what appear to me indubitable marks of genius,bold invention, picturesque imagery, strong satire, and sonorous versification. The acrimony against the harmonic science is certainly a little impertinent, at least in the manner. But we must forgive poetic genius, so neglected in this soul-less silly age-this age, that strikes medals in honour of talents, that can personate naturally a detestable indecent Hoyden! We must, I say, forgive poetic genius, if we find her stung by the consciousness how much more the musicians are patronized and admired than the bards-though she certainly ought not, therefore, to express contempt for a sister-art-younger, less important, but still a sister. The notes are, it must be confessed, often superfluous and extravagant; but if they wander, it is into the regions of learning, from whence they bring back, to me at least, amusing information and ingenious disquisition, though frequently in too familiar, and sometimes in coarse language. I think all about Lunardi splendid, and judicious irony. The first discovery of the aerostatic powers seemed interesting and important; but when their uselessness was proved, by its being found impossible to navigate the machine, why pursue the expensive, the dangerous experiment? When life is thrown at the mercy of the viewless winds, to answer no better purpose than that of a raree-show, there cannot, I think, be a fitter object of poetic satire. It was not well to lay out the Garden of Folly upon a totally exploded plan. Existing and nonexisting absurdities should not be jumbled together. There is the same objection to the literary dunce being made to present Moria with a species of novel that nobody either writes or reads in the present day. The patron goddess, on her regal couch; her dress, and the allegoric personages that form her court, strike me as ingenious in no common degree, though an ill-judged employment is allotted to Credulity. We find a coxcomb-parson admi rably hit off." The new Adonis, fresh from Lebanon," the Birth-Day Carriage, drawn and coloured with classic elegance, and the modern fine lady who occupies it, are displayed in characteristic strength. I do not know a more spirited portrait in poetry than that of the Votary of Scandal, the Detestable Old Maid, on the pages 53 and 54,-nor, had the description of the female Jockey been Pope's, would it have disgraced him. But the poem is too long for me to pursue it farther through its maze of faults and beauties. Adieu! Success attend you. LETTER XLII. GEORGE HARDINGE, Esq. Lichfield, Oct. 19, 1788. THIS struggle with my pride, and my resolution for the resumption of our epistolary commerce, is flattering, I grant you; but nothing is more astonishing to me than that you should think it worth your while to make it for what, alas! can it give you? It is only once in many weeks that I can write to any single friend; and what is this seldom-letter to contain? We have neither friends nor connections in common. You may, it is true, amuse me from a thousand sources; but I feel a cheerless consciousness of being unable to make you any return. I have lately talked about you to a sweet unfortunate who knows you well-the widow of poor Mr Bicknel. Are you acquainted with the romantic circumstances of her early youth? She and her children are left without any provision. It is hard to be dependent upon the bounty of friends, especially after having married rather from discretion than from choice. Mr Herbert Croft, who wrote the life of Young, in Johnson's Lives of the Poets, is fabricating a dictionary upon a much more extensive plan than Johnson's. He has requested my assistance, together with that of many others in the line of poetic quotations. Mr C. thinks it arrogance in Johnson to expect that the world should take his word for passages being in certain authors, without enabling the reader to consult the passage itself, by directions how and where it can be found. He means also to avoid the invidious contempt Johnson shewed of his contemporaries, by scarce ever quoting them. Respecting the poetic authorities, he means to go as far back as he can among the elder poets, citing passages of illustration, and descending from them, through those of later times, to the bards of the present day. He desired me to put down any passages for this purpose that happened to present themselves to my recollection. I have blotted a few sheets at his request; but the minute exactness required in the signals of reference, bore too hard upon the memory, intrenched me in a litter of volumes, and transformed my fingers into ten angry ferrets, from the situation of the passages I recollected often eluding my search. I grew so completely sick of the task, that never shall I attempt to resume it; while doing no more, what I have done wasted many of my hours to just such a purpose, respecting his undertaking, "As when a rain-drop seeks to augment the ocean." VOL. II. I wish to send him these sheets, to shew that I had not been quite unmindful of his request. If you think them likely to afford you any amusement that may recompense the trouble of franking them to him for whom they are intended, I will send them open to you. M |