member fome fufficiently bald poetry, with the reading of which 1 taxed your patience when I was quartered at *Huntingdon, I believe? May I be hanged, drawn, and quartered, if I did not, at the time I wrote it, know as well as yourself how many years you were older than I! But I well knew you were not acquainted with my age; which, by thofe lines, I hoped to conceal from you. Then I thought, if you should suspect or come to know I was younger than you, that though the idea (as you will fee, unless you have committed them to the flames they merit) turns, in fact, upon our being born in the fame year, on the fame day almoft-yet, that you might take it to turn upon the circumftance of our birthdays happening almoft together; and fo overlook, in confidering the nearness of our birthdays, the difparity of our ages. But it's useless to say a word more to me on this fubject—all you pointed out I fee-and I am determined. Remember Ninon. You are not quite old enough to be my mother. *See Letter XVII The Editor cannot but obferve, that if Mr. H. had not, in this fubfequent letter, by the mereft accident in the world, explained thofe lines, they would have thrown an unjust suspicion of fuppofititiousness on this whole volume, and few people would have be. lieved those letters to have been genuine, from one of which it was fo clear that H. was fo very ignorant of Mifs 's age. By the day after to-morrow I hope to be able to tell you your bufinefs is done.-Of that fong which I gave you fome time ago, and with which you are often kind enough to treat me, I have discovered the author. You know what I mean "When your beauty appears, &c." It was written by the elegantly-fimple Parnell. Let me to-day fsend you another, which, as I never heard you fing it, I fuppofe you have never seen-otherwise, from what I know of your taste, it must have been your favourite. The moans of the foreft after the battle of Flodden-field. I have heard a lilting, at the ewes milking, A' the laffes 'lilting before break of day ; At Lilting] Singing chearfully, with a brisk lively air, in a ftyle peculiar to the Scots; whofe mufic, being compofed for the bagpipe, jumps over the difcordant notes of the 2d and 7th, in order to prevent the jarring which it would otherwife produce with the drone or bass, which constantly founds an octave to the key note. Hence this kind of compofition is commonly ftiled a Scotch lilt. A'] All.Ilka] Each. Loning] Lane; a word ftill in use in the northern parts. The word green is peculiarly emphatical; grown over with grafs, by not being frequented. • Bughts At bughts in the morning, nae blythe lads are scorning, Our laffes are lonely, and dowie, and wae : Nae daffing, nae gabbing, but fighing and fobbing. In har' at the fhearing, nae swankies are jeering, Dool and wae fa' the order-fent our lads to the border! The English for once by a guile won the day: The flowers of the foreft, that fhone aye the foremost, The pride of our land now ligs cauld in the clay! We'll ha' nae mair lilting, at the ewes milking, Our women and bairns now fit dowie and wae: There's nought heard but moaning in ilka green loning, Since the flowers of the foreft are weeded away. • Bughts] Circular folds, where the ewes are milkedScorning] Bantering, jeering. tary. Dowie] Dowly, foliWae] Full of woe or forrow. Daffing] WagGabbing] Jeftingly prating, talking gibble-gabble. Leglin] Can, or milking-pail.-Swankies] Swains. Banfters] Bandsters, binders-up of the fheaves. Lyard] Hoary: being all old men.A preaching] A preaching in Scotland is not unlike a country fair. Fleetching] Fawning, flattering.Glooming.] Glimmering, twilight.-Do you remember Chatterton's note on glommed, in my letter about him? Dool] Dolour, førrow, Wae fa'] Woe befal, evil betide.-' Ligs] Lies.' LET 24th February, 1779. Since we parted yesterday I have thought a good deal of what we talked about. Though I did not promife to write to you till to-morrow, I take up my pen you see this morning. The business that is to forward our marriage (which can alone make me happy, and remove that melancholy you obferve) cannot be done till the evening-so I may as well spend this morning in talking to you upon paper. The manner in which you account for the felf-deftruction of that most wonderful boy Chatterton is phyfical, I affure you, as well as fenfible. Tiffot, in his Effay on the Diseases incident to Literary Perfons, starts fome ideas very much like yours, only they are wrapped up in harder words. You fhall fee: When the mind, long time occupied, has forcibly impressed an action upon the brain, the is unable to reprefs that forcible action. The fhock continues after its caufe; and, re-acting upon the mind, makes it experience ideas which are truly delirious: for they no longer answer to the external impreffions of objects, but to the internal difpofition of the brain, fome parts of which are now become incapable to receive the new movements tranfmitted to it by the fenfes. The The brain of Pafchal was so vitiated by paffing his life i ¡ in the laborious exercises of study, thought, and imagi> nation, that certain fibres, agitated by inceffant motion, >made him perpetually feel a sensation which feemed to be excited by a gulph of fire fituated on one fide of him; and his reafon, overpowered by the diforder of his nerves, could never banish the idea of this fiery abyfs. Spinello painted the fall of the rebel angels, and gave fo fierce a countenance to Lucifer, that he was ftruck with horror himself; and during the remainder of his life, his imagination was continually haunted by the figure of that dæmon, upbraiding him with having made his portrait so hideous. Gafpar Barlæus, the orator, poet, and phyfician, was not ignorant of these dangers. He warned his friend Hughens against them: but, blind with regard to himself, by immoderate studies he fo weakened his brain, that he thought his body was made of butter, and carefully fhunned the fire, left it should melt him; till at last, worn out with his continual fears, he leapt into a well. Peter Jurieu, fo famous in theological dispute, and for his Commentary on the Apocalypfe, difordered his brain in fuch a manner that, though he thought like a man of sense in other respects, he was firmly perfuaded his frequent fits of the cholic were occafioned by a conftant engagement between seven horfemen who were shut up in his belly. There have been many instances of literary perfons who thought themselves metamorphofed into lanterns; and who complained of having loft their thighs. No one can deny that Chatterton must have gone through as much wear and tear of the imagination as any perfon Tiffot mentions. But I would give a good deal, were it poffible for me never |