toads at the bottom of our ditches, as dirty too, as loathsome and as empoisoned. Yet, behold the justice of Heaven! while, for inscrutable reasons, they are permitted to operate as a literary plague, in every unclean form of Life-makers, Historians, Memoir-men, Pamphleteers, and Paragraphists, amidst all the intellectual property and plenty of the land a land flowing with the milk and honey of true genius

our

literary Canaan they usually die of famine; not unfrequently, indeed, destroyed by an excess of their own gall. Alas! you are no stranger to them on the Continent. Even the profound Lavater and the interesting Zimmerman, have had their share. How many hundred of the miscreant animalcula have viprously crept into the wreathes of our British Bards, banquetted on the beauties of which they were formed, but died like the bloated fly amidst the sweets;

most important that appertains to any empire, you will consider but as passing tributes to particular authors as the topic of the moment makes it necessary for me to anticipate a part of what I have long had in reserve,

And, is it not exulting, to see how that which is immortal, triumphs over that which is corrupt? The spoiler perishes, the wreath remains; the one is swept like the atom away, and of the other not a laurel leaf shall ultimately be injured.

Delightful ZIMMERMAN! tender, empassi oned Soliloquist, endearing Sage, virtuous man! How often do thy just and generous reflections animate, or soothe me! how often does thy high and ennobling sense of Genius, and thy proud scorn of its daring yet impotent foes warm my assenting heart! more especially, when I observe little minds, "drest in a petty, brief authority," wreaking their malice upon great

ones.

You, Baron, have the happiness to enrol ZIMMERMAN amongst your friends: his virtues, and the sentiments which describe them, are familiar to you. I cannot have a doubt but the subsequent passage, so apposite to what has been just said, is amongst the treasures of your memory.

"The invectives of the vulgar and the in

dignation of the critics, are wreak'd in vain. against celebrated names, and against all those who liberally imitate them. Why, say each of them to the laughing blockhead, would you expound the meaning of all that I write, since my finest strokes, congealing in your mind, produce only such frigid ideas? Who are you? by what title do you claim to be keeper of the archives of folly, and arbiter of the public taste? Where are the works by which you are distinguished? When, and where, have you been announced to the world? how many superior characters do you reckon among the number of your friends? What distant country is conscious that such a man exists? Why do you continually preach your nil admirari? Why do you strive to depreciate every thing that is good, great and sublime, unless it be from a sense of your own littleness and poverty? You seek the approbation of the weak and giddy multitude, because no one else esteems you: and despise a fair and lasting fame, because you can do nothing that is worthy of honest praise; but, THE NAMES YOU ENDEA

VOUR TO RIDICULE SHALL BE REMEMBERED WHEN YOUR'S WILL BE FORGOTTEN!"

Letters of gold would be too poor for the sentence that closes this animated apostrophe. But it is presented to a rich mind, which knows how to feel and to enshrine it.

LETTER XVI.

FAKENHAM, August 23, 1798.

THE remarks which ended the last Letter,

have kept my mind in the same train of thought during the remainder of my ride, even from the flowery and fruitful spot where I began them; and before I give you any account of this place, You will feel nothing loath, I trust, in permitting me to go somewhat farther into the subject.

The CRITICISM of English Literature, can only be of less importance than the LITERA TURE itself; or, will it not be more correct to say, it forms a part of that Literature! The subject, it is true, has been often discussed as a SCIENCE in a very masterly manner. It has been part even of our school learning, and we U

VOL. IV.