It is There is a knot of ingenious and charming females at Ludlow, in Shropshire. My friend, Miss Weston, is its leading spirit. Do not chide me, that I ventured to send a few of your delightful letters for the amusement of this little society of intelligent friends. It has been a mental repast, for which they are infinitely grateful. The sister nymphs meditate a plan to draw you into their circle, if you should realize your idea of an expedition to the classic environs of Ludlow. a very formidable ambush, believe me. With plenteous resources of wit and imagination, Miss Weston's form is graceful, and her countenance interesting. Her friends are celebrated beauties, with minds much above the common female level. I see no chance of your escape, except from the number of the assailants, which, sluicing your admiration into different channels, may prevent its flowing in a resistless torrent over your heart. It gratifies my literary ambition not slightly, that you liked me so much in my "doublet and hose," in the letters on Johnson's character, signed Benvolio. I was delighted by your recommending them to my attention, as able, eloquent, and convincing, without the least suspicion of the name or sex of their author. Nothing could be more flattering than praise, so utterly exempted from the possibility of being meant as flattery. LETTER LVI. MISS WESTON. Lichfield, March 20, 1787. RESPONDENT to your kind inquiries, I have the pleasure to tell you, that my dearest father, though weaker than ever in his limbs, and amidst the fast-fading powers of memory, has had no relapse since his dreadful epileptic seizures in December; while his affection for me seems to increase as the other energies of his mind subside. When I administer his food, his wine, and even his medicines, which indeed are few, cordial, and palatable, he looks at me with ineffable tenderness; and with an emphatic, though weak voice, "thank you, my dear child, my darling, my blessing ;" and not seldom he calls me" the light of his eyes." The sensations of melting fondness which such expressions awaken in my bosom, are of unutterable pleasure. But, alas! socn or late, we generally pay an high price for whatever has been cordial to our spirits, and sweet to our hearts. This augmented tenderness, from a parent always affectionate,-O! how will it embitter the parting hour, which I must consider as perpetually impending! I have not heard from Mrs Mompessan since we parted. She does not love her pen, and she loves me well enough to evince, that frequent epistolary intercourse is not necessary to the duration, or even the warmth of friendship. Ever delightful is her society to me. Its interest increases as years roll on. Conversing together, we recal the past, and all that made it dear. My sister, crushed in the blossom of our youth, by the pale hand of death, again lives, and speaks and moves before us, in the soft light of her serene graces; my mother, in all the energies of her high and generous spirit; my beauteous Honora, as in the golden days of her prime, when her affections were warm, and artless as her bloom; her fancy gay as her smile, her understanding clear as her eyes. Yes, it is thus that our conversations lift the veils of time. Very gratifying, dear Sophia, is the high value which you say that yourself and your intelligent friends set upon my letters. I cannot doubt your sincerity, else I should be inclined to exclaim,— "How is it that a train of reasoning can please, since it does not convince ?" Henceforth I shall be disposed to think all critical investigation useless, since a woman of your fine understanding can maintain her prejudices against a proposition so very self-evident, as that all which is worthy to please an enlightened mind, as truth of character; interest of situation; the force of imagery; the glow of description; the animation of apostrophe, and the pathos of complaint; may be almost equally well conveyed in one form of composition as in another. But if from the measure, its nature, and its arrangements, rather than from those essentials, results the material charm of the poetic science, then is that science but "as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal." I cannot resist making one more effort to convince you that you have placed your sensations to a wrong cause, and are unjust to yourself in avowing and persisting in a prejudice, which one quarter of an hour's reflection would enable you to eradicate. You have often declared a particular fondness for Lord Lyttleton's lovely monody on the death of his wife ;-yet it is a Pindaric Ode. Beattie's Minstrel also I know you love, which is also written in a species of the lyric measure. Tasting the beauty of those compositions, you prove that it is not the ode-measures which of themselves displease your ear, or perplex your attention. If Gray's Ode to the Lyre, which, charming as those poems are, is poetically superior to them both, does not charm you, since all the three are equally odes, it must be that the objects of Gray's ode are presented to the imagination; those of Lyttleton to the heart; those of Beattie's to the understanding. This difference between them would have subsisted in the same degree if each had written their poem in Pope's general measure, the ten feet couplet, which is your favourite style. Those high and picturesque graces of the art, to which you are more insensible than I can account for, do, it is certain, generally wear the lyric dress. It is therefore the nature of the objects often presented in odes, not the style of composition, which fails to interest and please you. The odes of Horace in Latin, and the odes of Akenside in English, are taken in a much lower tone than those of the Grecian Pindar, and those of our native Gray—that is, their subjects are more familiar, and common-life. I should think they would please, and at length induce you to cry out with Juliet, "What's in a name ?”—these, which are surely odes, As Pope's twin couplet." |