sonnets, viz. that the legitimate sonnet is not suited to the genius of our language. Now that same true-born sonnet is, with me, a very favourite branch of poetry. The best of Milton's, I have always thought, formed the model for sonnet-writing, which, demanding the gracefully undulating pauses of blank verse, happily blends the nature of blank verse with that of rhyme. Its name seems to call for light composition; not so its nature, if Petrarch and Milton may be allowed to have understood it. Mrs Smith's have the gravity, but appear to me deficient in every other characteristic of that order of verse. I have seen the legitimate sonnet exquisitely beautiful, not only from yours, but from various pens.

Reproving me for not liking Mrs Smith's sonnets, and trying to enlist my vanity against my want of taste for them, makes me fear that my dear Bard suspects me of speaking rather from grudging spleen, than from involuntary opinion. He has never had cause to think me capable of envious coldness. That lady's opinion of my works, if indeed she professes to like them, does me honour, but cannot change the nature of my perceptions.

Mrs Smith's versification is melodious-but that appears to me a subordinate excellence in poetry. I do not find in her sonnets any original

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ideas, any vigour of thought, any striking imagery-but plagiarism, glaring and perpetual ;— whole lines taken verbatim, and without acknowledgment from Shakespeare, Milton, Young, Pope, Gray, Collins, Mason, and Beattie.

When I see an author reduced to crib an whole line from Young's Night Thoughts, another whole line from Mason's Elegy on Lady Coventry, and two whole lines from Shakespeare, to make up a little poem, which contains only fourteen lines, I cannot help concluding that the imagination is barren. Yet is it even so with the eighth sonnet in Mrs Smith's first edition.

I have not seen the second edition, but am told that she has in that put the quotation marks so disingenuously withheld in the first publication. She has there, among many other plagiarisms, as notorious, given this line as her own,

"And drink delicious poison from her eyes."

But if, after all, you sincerely think there is genuine poetic genius in Mrs Smith's sonnets, you should not condemn in me, as illiberal, a contrary opinion, recollecting the wide extremes of Gray and Mason's ideas, on Ossian's Poetry, and on Rousseau's Eloisa.

Giovanni is, I hope, recovering, and my aged

nursling has wonderfully well sustained the late cutting blasts. They were, I apprehend, more welcome to your peculiar constitution, than milder gales.

I have great delight in the information concerning your improving health, and have observed, that when the vital light has been clouded and inauspicious through youth, it often grows permanently clear and serene, as life advances. So be it with my dear bard!-Adieu! Adieu !

LETTER LIV.

MRS KNOWLES.

Lichfield, Feb. 1, 1789.

AND what becomes of my brilliant Mrs Knowles? I long for her spirited and ever-eloquent remarks, upon the sudden, barefaced, disgraceful adoption of Tory principles, by those who so lately affected to triumph in the blessings of the Revolution.

And how goes on the combination between

George's learning, and his mother's genius, marching hand in hand over Horatian ground?

I, who was always enamoured of the legitimate Miltonic sonnet, write one now and then, upon that model. It is the intermediate style of poetry, between rhyme and blank verse; and the undulating and varied pauses of the latter, give to the true sonnet an air of graceful freedom, beyond that of all other measures-though, from the restraint respecting the exact number of the lines, and the demand of four rhymes, twice used in the first eight verses, it is in reality the most difficult.

However, where there is tolerable vigour of intellect, difficulty rather stimulates than discourages. An appearance in rural nature, a thrill of the spirit from affectionate recollections, or a sentiment, or a reflection, strikes us. It would do little towards the composition of an extensive poem, but it happily, perhaps, occupies the dimensions of a sonnet. Therefore is it that that order of verse suits a mind which has more propensity to poetic efforts, than leisure to employ them. It is true, we may sooner write forty lines, in any other measure, than fourteen in that of the true sonnet-but I can easier write fourteen on that arduous model, than an hundred on the easier ones-and where new matter is allowed to flow

in to the first idea, we are led into expansion, inconsistent with the claims of domestic business, the stewardship of a fluctuating income, the intercourse of society, and the duties of correspondence. I present you with four* of my sonnets, that have not yet passed the press-but which, if I may trust the report of several literary friends, rank with the best of my compositions.

In what more than usual austerity did winter frown upon us, in the late zenith of his blank dominion! You will be sure I trembled for its effects upon the full of days; yet, by the counteraction of large fires, and an increased quantity of vinous cordials, he seemed not to suffer from it at all. Your poor friend Giovanni was not so fortunate. He is but now recovering from a severe illness.

You are, as usual, often inquired after in our circles; which inquire after little that is ingenious, except yourself. Though such inquiry may be, on that account, the higher personal compliment, it will not, therefore, be more welcome. Adieu !

* Viz. That to Ingratitude-the Summer Evening-why Retirement is shunn'd-and that to a Botanic Friend.