but graceful and harmonious in the first degree; and that even the most beautiful poetry is not more gratifying to my ear than the rich and finelyrounded periods of Johnson's essays.

In these, your exquisite dialogues, the critical arms of the Goliath are most ably and justly turned upon himself. Every one of the Colonel's remarks on his criticisms are so convincing, that nothing less than the weakest and most superstitious idolatry can be insensible of their truth. Indeed, I have always despised the admirers of Johnson as an equitable critic, assured that they had not strength of understanding to think, or sensibility to feel for themselves; puppets to be danced upon the intellectual wires at the whistle of a great name, and by the hand of an envious sophist.

Considering this work as an whole, I am convinced it will be of inestimable value to poetic literature. It is the kind of composition for which my heart panted. Justice did very loudly demand that the bloody inquisitor himself should bleed.

And now let me thank you for the kind notice

you have taken of my Ode on General Elliot's return from Gibraltar. The hackneyed nature of military victories; the unapproachable happiness with which you had pourtrayed the picturesque

feature of the Gibraltar defence; and, in short, self-distrust of all sorts, combated my gratitude to the truly great General for his kindness to my Relation on my account, and combated it so long as to leave me only a very few days for the composition of my poem. By the narrow straight, as to time, into which this struggle had driven me, I was deprived of the power to solicit your previous criticisms, or that of any other lettered correspondent. However, it has pleased the hero whom it celebrates; and it obtains your warm praise. Thus successful, I can never repent sending it forth to run the gauntlet of review and magazine criticism, or perhaps abuse, or to meet the frost of their faint commendations.

My kind friends, Mr and Mrs Whalley met me at Ludlow thus early, on their return from the Continent. Ludlow is the most beautiful town I ever beheld, in a country which unites the mountainous graces of the least barren part of the peak, with the rich cultivation of the midland counties. The pleasure of exploring its romantic and lovely scenery, was heightened by the consciousness of being on classic ground, beneath the ivy-mantled ruins of that castle, where the Masque of Comus had been written, and first performed; that we walked

"Amid the winding lanes, and alleys green,
Dingles, and bushy dells of that wild wood;
And scal'd with eager step the hilly crofts;
And stray'd o'er banks where fair Sabrina sits
Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,
The loose train of her amber-dropping hair
Twisting with braids of lillies."

Doubtless I have wearied you by the length of my epistle, though I sat down resolved to follow your laconic example ; but, fascinated by the consciousness of addressing you, I knew not how or when to take my hand from the paper; yet you, amid the exhaustless riches of your imagination, plead poverty of subject. But be still, thou repining heart of mine; stifle thy selfish regrets; and, with a sincere benediction on thy favourite bard, that health, peace, and fame may long be his arrest the pen thou art so prone to lead through thy mazes, governing it, as thou dost, with resistless despotism!

LETTER LXVII.

MRS STOKES.

Lichfield, July 17, 1787.

I REGRET that we did not meet at Shenton on my return from Ludlow. Nothing should have prevented it on my part, if I had not so recently seen you at Shrewsbury, where my heart rejoiced in the happiness which it felt you possessed, and which left me nothing to desire for you but its permanence.

Sophia received me with hospitality warm as your own. When dear Mr and Mrs Whalley joined us, it seemed as if we were all actuated by one spirit. You will imagine our enthusiasm over a scene, with whose graces you are so well acquainted; yet Sophia tells me you have never been at Downton Castle. We passed an whole day in that charming seclusion. The scenery consists of a deep, winding, and narrow valley, which, in several places, for many hundred yards together, is wholly occupied by the bed of the most pellucid river I ever beheld. The rocks, rising to an immense height on either hand, are

curtained by soft and luxuriant foliage, whose latest fringe dips in the stream. We pass through this valley, over terraces cut in the rocks on each side, somewhat above the mid-way of their elevation on one shore, and near the top of them on the other. From these terraces we often descend where the valley widens into opening lawns, yet secluded, and lovely as those of Juan-Fernandez, which travellers so lavishly describe, or wander along green banks, where the scenery exactly resembles the celebrated walk at Ileham. Then passing over the river by rustic bridges, we scale the rocks to their very summit on the opposite shore, and see the wood opening its soft bosom to show the river gliding before us in a long straight line of light. In other points of view, the woods also divide to disclose distant vales of less coy grace, or the stern contrast of bare and bulging mountains.

In the highest elevation of the rocks, the master of this Eden has formed a rustic grotto and cold-bath, with very exquisite taste. We penetrate the recesses of these rocks, by a narrow winding passage, which conducts us into their centre, where they form a rotunda, filled with water, except a mossy bank about a yard wide, which encircles the bath. Its water is of the most perfect clearness, though of shadowy gloom; and