When I first read that passage, surely very finely written; while all was yet apparent amity between Lactilla and her patroness, Miss More, I exclaimed to the person to whom I was reading it, Ah Yearsley! thou hast a proud and jealous spirit, of the Johnsonian cast. It will be difficult to oblige thee, without cancelling the obligation by the manner of conferring it. Ere I quit the subject of new-risen genius in our art, let me speak to you of the most amiable poem I have read this many a day. I should like much to converse with the youthful author. It is the junior Mr Hoole's poem, The Curate, that I mean. His description of the ceremony of ordination is charming. The subject is new, in verse, and well becomes the chaste poetic colouring he has thrown upon it. My heart went with his Edward, on his journey home. I saw the top of Snowdon in imagination, with a glow of sympathetic pleasure from the soft domestic source. Soon was this pleasure extinguished in commiserating tears. Nothing can be more sweet and pathetic than the egotism in the opening of this poem. But the lovely landscape of his parsonage in the country; how one longs to go and dine with him! From want of time, I must repress the inclination I feel to point out the numerous passages in this poem which have delighted me, while with every part I was at least pleased and satisfied. This work is the mild green of poetic writing on which the eye is gratified to dwell, without being dazzled. With the father of this young bard, the ingenious translator of Ariosto, I had once the pleasure of passing an evening at your house. The genius of such a youth must give to such a father no common degree of delight, "When to the sun, exulting, he unfolds His plumes, that with paternal colours glow.” The happiness which results to me from reflecting upon these white specks in the destiny of others, is amongst the dearest of my pleasures. It makes the blessings of my acquaintance my own. Time, as yet, has nothing weakened its force. Does Mr Hardinge write to you incessantly? His wit is brilliant, his genius considerable; but he is the most decisive, and the oftenest mistaken critic I know, his fine abilities considered. He praises your epistolary talent, and says he loves to encourage you in it. I took the liberty of ob serving, in my reply, that if he exacted of you the very frequent intercourse in which he strives to engage me, he would do you injury; intreated him to reflect, that an author's time was his or her source of profit and of fame; that where talents exist, capable of engaging the attention of the public, it was deplorable extravagance to turn them almost all into the covert channel of private letters. I protest to you his everlasting anathemas upon words, phrases, and usages of style, which are justified by the habitual practice of our finest writers, hectic me past bearing. I have great honour for his talents, his liberality, the energy of his exertions to serve the ingenious and the unfortunate; but I shall never be able long to continue our correspondence, since he will have it to be incessant. I have neither his leisure nor his facility. By the way, whence comes it, that a man so eminent, and so high in the law, a senator, an orator, a counsellor, and a judge, should have so much leisure? As it was said of poor Chatterton, I fancy he never sleeps. A Do you know Mr Christie, from Edinburgh? young physician, and a rising light in the philosophic and classic spheres, or I am much mistaken. |