Colonel Barry lately appeared amongst us, but instantly fleeted away. I was delighted to perceive that he had exchanged the languor of indisposition for the sprightliness of health. Adieu!

LETTER XXVI.

GEORGE HARDINGE, ESQ.

Lichfield, June 11, 1788.

How hopeless is it for you and me to dispute about style, when you think Johnson's detestable, and I think it matchless in grace and beauty, as well as in strength! Suffer me, however, to call to your recollection, that, on the sole ground of his superior eloquence, he is considered, by nine parts out of ten in the learned world, as one of the first writers of his age.

His dictionary is

confessed an affair of memory; his criticisms are monsters of sophistry, prejudice, and envy; his poetry, charming as it is, has been excelled by several of his contemporaries; his learning by several; but his language, his best prose language, by If you like, upon paper, the no-style no

none.

thingness of polite conversation better, I cannot help it; but then let us never talk about diction. Adieu!

LETTER XXVII.

COURT DEWES, Esq.

Lichfield, June 17, 1788.

REGRET, and the anxious perplexities of business, have done you a great deal of mischief, dear Sir, and my inmost heart deplores an influence so injurious; but, as you tell me that neither your appetite or rest suffer materially, I flatter myself, that the idea of a dangerous decline is but a gloomy vision, which a little time shall disperse.

You will regain your spirits I trust; and then Miss Port must be a fortunate young woman, in the protection of such a friend and monitor.

Amidst a scantiness of leisure, which recent indisposition has still farther abridged, I have lately amused myself with building more than 200 rhymes, upon a gothic foundation, which it amazes me that Gray did not take, in addition to his Runic Odes; since, however inferior my superstruc

ture to the similar ones of his, the basis appears to me far more sublime than even the descent of Odin; and it presents the finest possible moment to Mr Wright's fire-tipt pencil.

Talking of odes, are you not charmed with the last Birth-day? It appears to me far the noblest and the most interesting ever born to that hackneyed subject. The new one of Collins, so lately emerged from the oblivion into which it had fallen, also delights me. It is on the Highland superstitions, and is, I think, in his best

manner.

I have just read, for the first time, the base, ungentlemanlike, unmanly abuse of Mrs Piozzi, by that Italian assasin, Barretti. The whole literary world should unite in publicly reprobating such venomed and foul-mouthed railing. It ap pears in a magazine, infamous for the admission of abusive strictures on the writings of eminent people.

Your niece, Louisa, is a sweet child. She begged to see your last letter, and returned it to me with eyes overflowing with tears, the precious earnest of a feeling and grateful heart. May they be the last she sheds on your account during very many ensuing years!I am always, &c.

LETTER XXVIII.

GEORGE HARDINGE, ESO."

Lichfield, June 19, 1788.

I THOUGHT you in earnest, and wrote in the first impulse of vexation over the idea of losing my manuscript.

The careless ease of your disappointing replies to my repeated demands for three papers, sent to you on the condition that they should be returned, made me ready enough to imagine you meant to serve me so again. If I injured you, forgive mé !

There is not much wonder that you think me irritable. All my correspondents would be of your opinion on that subject, were they to treat my requests with the same gay indifference.

You tell me I am not so meek as I might afford to be, without prejudice to my, as you call them, genius and talents. It has been observed, that where the imagination glows, the temper is seldom placid. Certain it is, my indignations are apt to kindle, at every appearance of people presuming upon the superiority of their situation:

"I have a soul disdaining contumely,

A guiltless spirit, that provokes no wrong,

Nor, from a monarch, would endure it, offer'd."

On a review of my past life, I have oftener found reason to regret the placability than the warmth of my disposition.

Writing in an irritated moment, perhaps every thing I said had a tinge of the prevailing vexation more than I was myself aware of. Certain it is, that I did not mean to reject your criticisms petulantly; two or three of them I design to adopt, and told you so.

Perhaps, however, in my most tranquil mood, I should have expressed my ever-during wonder at your verbal antipathies, and which seem to me utterly unaccountable. If you recollect, you will find that I never objected to a word or mode of expression in your compositions, without assigning the reason of that objection. That ought always to be done, to render criticism of use; and where it is done, few are more open to conviction, more acknowledging, than myself; all my other literary friends will bear that testimony of me. But, having made the grace, harmony, and elegance of the English language my long and particular study, I am not likely to adopt objections blindly.