have felt, that it is the poet who modifies the metre, not the metre the poet; in his own words, that

*A long line is a line we are long repeating. In the Shepherd's Hunting take the following

"If thy verse doth bravely tower,
As she makes wing, she gets power;
Yet the higher she doth soar,
She's affronted still the more,
'Till she to the high'st hath past,

Then she rests with fame at last."

What longer measure can go beyond the majesty of this! What Alexandrine is half so long in pronouncing or expresses labor slowly but strongly surmounting difficulty with the life with which it is done in the second of these lines? or what metre could go beyond these from Philarete

"Her true beauty leaves behind
Apprehensions in my mind

Of more sweetness, than all art
Or inventions can impart.
Thoughts too deep to be express'd,
And too strony to be suppress'd."

15

LETTERS.

MR. REFLECTOR.-I was born under the shadow of St. Dunstan's steeple, just where the conflux of the eastern and western inhabitants of this two-fold city meet and jostle in friendly opposition at Temple-bar. The same day which gave me to the world saw London happy in the celebration of her great annual feast. This I cannot help looking upon as a lively omen of the future great good-will which I was destined to bear toward the city, resembling in kind that solicitude which every Chief Magistrate is supposed to feel for whatever concerns her interests and well-being. Indeed, I consider myself in some sort a speculative Lord Mayor of London: for though circumstances unhappily preclude me from the hope of ever arriving at the dignity of a gold chain and Spital Sermon, yet thus much will I say of myself in truth, that Whittington with his Cat (just emblem of vigilance and a furred gown) never went beyond me in affection which I bear to the citizens.

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