land, in Variety, are mine. I could not resist the author's solicitations for a couple of papers. The rest of them, which are chiefly sprightly, appear to me much in the style of the Spectators; easy, playful, sometimes witty, and alway humorous, when humour is attempted. I have not seen a line of P.'s since his strange Ode to the great Howard.

I do not wonder that the Regent was rejected in Ireland, through indignation to see it celebrated, and extolled above the glorious compositions of their, in this day, matchless Jephson.

There is little wonder that your brother should often fall into silent and pensive musings, after the doubtless painful sacrifice he has made. I love and esteem him for the generous indulgence he has ever shewn to your wishes.

I am much interested in your account of the theatres, and still more am I grateful for your kind wish of seeing me in town; but habit makes me more and more a recluse, at least, so far as to inspire a consciousness of wanting spirits to encounter those fatiguing hurries, in which my extended connections always involve me when I am

in London. While my dearest father lives, all ideas of such an excursion are out of the question.

I am afraid there is no hope of the king's life, though it is an event so much to be wished. A course of strict abstemiousness from early youth, with the late appearance of gouty symptoms, made him a most improper subject for Cheltenham waters. They have destroyed him.

Miss Charlotte Rogers is with me at present, and is the most improved young woman imaginable, as to mental qualifications. Since Mrs Stokes's marriage, Charlotte has learnt the value of her sister's talents and information, which are certainly of a very superior class, and has availed herself of them.

We met, in the Dean's Walk yesterday, that vain and flitting piece of learned insanity, Dr S—. He came sailing along in a bombazeen gown and cassoc, at two o'clock on a week day. "Lord! what's that?" exclaimed Charlotte, when we first spied him at some distance; his floating black sleeves, swelled out by the high wind-" It is certainly a black angel." On his near approach, "How do you do, Dr S-?” "In mourning for George the Third, double mourning for George the Fourth-died last Monday night—physicians,

apothecaries, ministers, all deserted him-made an epitaph in the chaise-hear it:

"The ill he did,-(Then conceitedly turning his head away, and twirling his hand,) he did not mean;

The good he did (action ditto) he meant; And thus, when virtues intervene, ·

The worst advices (action ditto) have the best intent."

He then sailed away before us, without saying another word, and has this morning been preaching a funeral sermon for the king.-How mad is all this! Adieu.

LETTER XLVIII.

REV. T. S. WHALLEY.

Lichfield, Nov. 27, 1788.

RESTING on your permission, not to struggle violently for that leisure, of which a thousand less interesting employments have robbed me, your charming little letter has not yet been acknowledged, but it has very, very often been read. How many delightful things does it breathe!— wit, humour, gaiety, affection. Its paragraph,

so characteristic of Cary's mind and manners, I have copied for many of my correspondents, in the hope, that so striking a portrait of the young author, may increase their interest in his publication. You see that his sonnets are out.

You will rejoice to hear, that, by unwearied diligence, in reading slowly aloud, and by speaking deliberately, Lister's articulation has grown so much firmer, that his parents have released him from the shrine of Plutus, and intend to send him to the university.

Giovanni rejoices in Mrs Whalley's good opinion, in her health, in yours, and in that of his floral representatives.

I have too much confidence in the congeniality of our taste, to feel any apprehension of violating sincerity, when I shall descant, with enthusiasm, on the charms of those sylvan glades, which you are rearing

"On the champaign head

Of the steep mountain."

More and more the leading inhabitants of our little city surprise me by their insensibility. Cold as they have ever been towards genius in every line, could you have believed they would have been senseless to the blessings of freedom; that,

while the voice of glad commemoration resounded over all the nation, it should be hushed as midnight at Lichfield? Was it not "an opaque of nature and the soul?" Have you seen the rival odes by our illustrious bards on this great centennial anniversary? Mr Hayley's contains one image of never-excelled sublimity; and the egotism with which Mr Mason opens, is thrice happy. The Epistle from Mary to William was a juvenile work, written before "Mr Hayley's ear for musical numbers had attained its perfection. But one passage in it, the anathema against the boasted Gallic Ship, the Rising Sun, is picturesque poetry, in its highest possible perfection— nor are any of Pope's lines more richly harmoniAdieu !

ous.

LETTER XLIX.

MR WESTON OF SOLIHUL.

Lichfield, Dec. 8, 1788.

AMIDST the much which gratifies me in the

late letters of my friend, I am half angry at his