have studied Virgil and Lucan. Milton, again, would not. But these, and an hundred similar instances of clashing opinions amongst the bards, concerning each other's productions, will never prove that the opaque imagination of the prosecritic will enable him to judge better of difficulties he never knew, or to decide more acutely concerning the different degree of heat in fires which were never kindled in his own bosom :

"Let such teach others who themselves excel,
And censure freely who have written well."

to

Of prose-men critics I have long been sick, from Warburton, Kames, and, down to and Headly!-How superior to theirs the criticisms of Pope, Warton, and Hayley!Of Johnson I say nothing, because he suffered prejudice and envy to warp his truth, and blunt his sensibility, else what prose-man could have been found so able?

By the way, one of the above-named prosecritics, Headly's book, has been boring me lately with its supremely dull preferences of second and third-rate poets of Elizabeth's day, to the brightest and purest efforts of modern genius. This gentleman is the twin-brother, in judgment, and the applauder of alias

After the critic in question has decried Pope and the moderns, with Westonian prejudice, and after pronouncing that. bell-man dialogue, between the man and the woman, superior to Prior's thrice beautiful work upon that rude and barren foundation, his Henry and Emma, which this author calls, in derision, "Matt's versification-piece," he stuffs a large quarto volume with extracts from these exploded gentry, in all of which, collectively, the sum of poetic beauty does not amount to what may be extracted from any ten stanzas of Beattie's Minstrel; any three pages of Cowper's Task, or of Hayley's Triumphs of Temper; while all that remains in the thick and close-printed volume, after the deduction of those few striking passages, is but an heap of rhyming rubbish, forced conceits, vile quibbling, frittered sense, metaphysic vulgarisms, and incongruous metaphor.

This same critic censures Prior for omitting the tender apostrophe of Emma to her mother, which we find in the original. It appears to me that the poet shewed great judgment in this omission. We have difficulty enough in excusing, even in consideration of an attachment so tender, pure, and enthusiastic, Emma's resolve to abandon her indulgent father, and to follow the fortunes of a mysterious and unknown lover, whose

suit had been so suspiciously clandestine, and who acknowledges the commission of murder. The image of a sorrowing mother, presenting itself in vain to the imagination of that love-devoted maid, would not have heightened our sympathy with her distress. Aware that it would not, Prior informs us, that his heroine lost her mother in infancy:

"They call'd her Emma, for the beauteous dame,
Who gave the virgin birth, had borne the name.”

By the word had, we learn that she was no more at the period of this jealous experiment.

So much for Mr Headly, that prose-man decider upon the constituent excellencies of genuine poetry.

My poor father has lately suffered extremely from the paroxysms of a violent cough, to which his strength seems very unequal. To-night he seems better. God grant he may continue to amend and may you, dear Cary, never know the misery of witnessing pains and struggles which you cannot soften, in an object exquisitely dear to you!

LETTER LXXXIX.

MISS WESTON.

Feb. 9, 1790.

SINCE I last conversed with you upon paper, my dear Sophia, months have hurried away, whose every hour presented claims upon my attention, oppressive from their number, and often painful from their nature. I lead an anxious and fearful, as well as busy life; struggling to preserve a precarious blessing, which seems every moment ready to elude my grasp. Nor is it alone of filial dread that my spirit is sick-shadows of apprehension often lour upon me from another quarter, in some alarming symptoms of declining health in that disinterested faithful friend, whose distinguished virtues have so long been dear to me.

You have doubtless heard of Charlotte Rogers' smiling fortune, in captivating the heart of a man of considerable estate and acknowledged merit. Gentle, benevolent, intelligent; it is of little moment that Mr Zachary has but one arm, and is a Quaker. He retains none of that rigidity which teaches many of his sect to fancy cri

minality in fashionable apparel, and in partaking the public amusements.

If you have seen Mr

since his return to

town, you are doubtless acquainted with the dissolution of all intercourse and companionship between me and his Lichfield friend, who has lately assumed airs of superiority and contempt in public company, rudely contradicting every opinion I advanced. I was sorry, on many accounts, that he forced me to shun him-I bore much ere I took the resolution, on account of our long acquaintance, of the bounty of his spirit to those that wanted his generosity; for his amiable sister's sake, and for the sake of another lady in Lichfield whom I esteem-but I was not to forget what I owed to myself.

Notwithstanding my estrangement from the house where he sojourned, Mr- often called upon me, and passed two afternoons and one evening here. We talked much of you and Miss Powel, when to him a still more interesting theme did not draw his eloquence along its channel; I mean the attractions of his lovely Sappho. I have seen a sonnet of her's that has very considerable beauty. It is really a sonnet, legitimate as elegant.

You speak, and beautifully do you speak, of indignities and gross insults committed upon the