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the Gentleman's Magazine for September last, there is a sonnet of his to Cary and Lister. I thought it so exquisite as to believe it yours, for indeed I never saw a more beautiful one of any origin, however splendid.

Last summer I met with a subject for a Runic ode, that appeared to me very sublime, and though it had been put into verse a few years since, by a very charming poet, a friend of mine, whose name is Mathias, yet I thought not with all the effect of which, by expansion, the subject appeared to be capable. It struck me as presenting a prodigiously fine instant to the fire-tipt pencil of Wright. He thinks it does, for I sent him a copy of my poem, and he writes to me as intending to go to work with it.

Though I sicken at the idea of publishing, and have no thoughts of so great a daring at present, yet I should be glad my Runic poem had the advantage of your correcting eye, since it may possibly one day see the light. I do not, however, mean to obtrude it upon your attention, in your present situation, where a thousand more interesting objects solicit that honour. When you return to the sylvan cell, and have leisure to explore a funeral forest at midnight, with an Amazonian nymph, opening her father's tomb by ma

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gic spells, and forcing from thence an enchanted sword, which ascends in a pillar of fire from the withered hands of a warrior's corse, my muse may trip to Eartham, under Mr Selwyn's convoy, and lead you thither.

I hope the dear Romney is well, to whom I beseech you will say for me every thing that is affectionate and grateful.

Mrs Knowles passed a fortnight with me in August. She says Romney's picture of me is one of the finest portraits she ever saw. I sent for the handsomest frame London would produce. It" emblazes, with its breadth of gold," the centre of the dining-room, opposite the fire-place. I keep the one by poor Kettle, for which you know I sat at nineteen, as a foil to Titiano's, and am diverted with people taking it for my mother's picture, after they have looked at Romney's.

I hope Mr Long is well; he has my best wishes. Adieu! my dear bard, Adieu!

LETTER XLVI.

GEORGE HARDINGE, ESQ.

Lichfield, Nov. 19, 1788.

THE generous wish you express to serve the sweet, the interesting Mrs B., had drawn an immediate letter from me, could I, with gratitude, have set aside some other claims upon my pen.

It was with a pensive smile that I looked at your distinction, "his brothers," well knowing that she never knew the sweets or the protection of the parental or fraternal ties; but since these gentlemen are prosperous, and tolerably affluent, it is strangely unfeeling, that they should suffer so amiable a sister-in-law to labour for her daily bread, in a situation scarce above that of a common servant, and much more harrassing. Yet lives there one whose still more bounden duty it is to consider her as his child, so far at least as to shield her from the miseries of apprehended want, and from fatigues to which her tender degree of strength is incompetent. This one gives away two-thirds of a large income in charity—or rather alms; but gloomy stoicism, and sour-headed in

fidelity, are, amidst an ostentatious display of moral exertions, wondrous prone to neglect and defy the claims of obvious duties.

Did you hear Mr Jephson speak Mr Hayley's charming Ode on the centennial birth-day of English liberty? What would I not have given to have heard it?

I groan over the coldness of our beautiful city-to whom inanimate nature has been so bounteous, sensibility so much a niggard-where genius is neglected, and the blessings of liberty unvalued.

While the rest of the nation lifted up the voice of thanksgiving-while every neighbouring town, and even village, gave some testimony of commemorating gratitude, no flowing bowls passed round the tables of our thankless citizens :

"No festal dances-no harmonious songs!"

Do they not deserve to be transplanted from their fertile and sylvan fields,

"Into some grave and foggy air,
Where mountain-zephyr never blew;
To marshy levels, lank, and bare,
Which Pan, which Ceres never knew:
Where sleeps a pale discolour'd sea
Upon the low and reedy shore."

We have a genius of luxuriant blossom in our neighbourhood, of the name of Cary. He has a Lichfieldian friend of the same age, whose name

is Lister, and who writes verses almost as well. The following sonnet, which I think exquisite, was written and addressed to them by a self-taught bard, organist of Solihul in Warwickshire :

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To MESSRS CARY AND LISTER.

SONNET.

YET, yet your unpolluted stores with-hold,
Bright buds of genius, bursting into day!
Spite of propitious Phœbus' cheering ray,
Parnassian climes are chilling, chilling cold.
In vain ye glad th' enamour'd breeze, unfold
In vain your rich luxuriant foliage, gay
With orient hues-that, blushing, ye display
Tyre's bloom imperial, streak'd with Ophir's gold!
Nor scent, nor beauty,-trust the warning verse,
Unconscious hapless pair! shall ought avail;
Envy, th' expanding blossom's cankering curse,
Shall gnaw,-detraction's instant blight assail
Your shrinking forms, and sportive scorn disperse
Your wither'd honours to the sighing gale.

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