key, which naturally present themselves, banish the painful sympathies, and sooth the spirits in people who, from certain corporal organization, have a native sensibility of musical combinations. Without that conformation, which enables them easily to catch and to express melodies, no strength of understanding, no philosophic research, will empower them to become acquainted with the real effects of music upon the passions. Even where this favourable conformation exists, it is yet necessary to acquire some practical knowledge of the science, at least to live in habits of attending to the ideas and feelings excited by the artful mixtures and transitions of harmony, ere we can justly appreciate its powers.

I may, without presumption, speak upon this subject, who have studied the science of music with some assiduity, nearly twenty years.

Upon Dr R. Darwin's theory, we find that there are concords and discords in colours. If I understand him right, his discovery leads him to suppose that it might be eligible, instead of listening to the Allegro and Il Penseroso, exquisitely heightened by Handel's music, to procure the professors to set the landscapes, and history groups of our best painters; that is, to compose music, which may be performed while they are exhibited, and that shall express or describe their

But those who have felt

characteristic features. the enchanting result of music united, as from the earlier ages, with poetry, will never endure the divorce of this connexion, coeval with the birth of both, in favour of the third science, Painting— no, not even those who had rather see a fine picture than read a fine poem.

Allow me to confess also a little dissentient feeling upon the assertion, that poetry admits of few abstract terms. Poetry that is merely imaginative and picturesque may not. If we find few abstract terms in the Rape of the Lock, we find a profusion of them in the sublimer Essay on Man. Their nervous and condensing power seems to me peculiarly adapted to serious poetry, to that species of the art which addresses at once the understanding and the fancy. Johnson's best prose, so justly admired, strikes me as highly poetic, from his habit of using abstract expressions, which at once elevate his language, and compress his sense. He somewhere observes, " Imposition is not less frequent in the cottage of indigence, than in the mart of wealth. Truth is not greater, where elegance is less." I apprehend Addison would have expressed that observation somehow thus: "The inhabitants of cottages are as much disposed to impose and over-reach as wealthy people. Hu

man creatures are not the more honest for being poor."

It appears to me that the Addisonian sentence, taking nothing in the abstract, could not be translated into any thing like poetry, though it might be put into rhyme-while Johnson's easily becomes ethic poetry, and would, from his pen, have been such poetry as his admirable imitation of the 10th satire of Juvenal. My hasty attempt shall not make so proud a claim,

Disgrac'd alike by imposition's stealth,
The cot of indigence, the mart of wealth;
No pledge of faith can squalid garbs express,
Truth is not more where elegance is less.

The superior facility with which verse impresses itself on the mind, in comparison with prose, makes it a better vehicle for the axioms of moral philosophy, at least according to experience, and the opinion of all former writers. Whatever is impressive, or elevated, or witty, becomes the poetic dress, though it may not be picturesque.—In

stances:

"His sword the brave man draws,

And asks no omen but his country's cause,

May I, or noble life, or death obtain,

Death, ill-exchang'd for bondage, or for pain."

"O let not man be proud, but firm of mind,
Bear the best humbly, and the worst resign'd."

"Passions like elements, tho' born to fight,
Yet mix'd and soften’d, in mankind unite;
The lights and shades, whose well-according strife
Make all the strength, and colour of our life."

"These gifts to man the laws of God ordain,
These gifts he grants who grants the pow'r to gain;
With these celestial wisdom calms the mind,

And makes the happiness she does not find."

"What gave great Villiers to th' assassin's knife?
What fix'd disease on Harley's closing life?
What murder'd Wentworth, and what exil'd Hyde,
By king's protected, and to king's allied?"
What, but their wish indulg'd, in courts to shine,
And power too great to keep or to resign?"

There is no imagery in these sentences-but surely Parnassus has its philosophers and moralists as well as its painters. The aphorisms would do in prose, but they would not so deeply impress the memory. I have obtained more clear and accurate ideas of what constitutes the beauty of rural scenery, from Mason's English Garden, than any prose tract could have given me. And Akenside, our mutual favourite you will recollect that his poetry is professedly philosophic. Resting my defence of philosophy and science, as proper sub

jects for poetry, under the shadow of his ample and splendid wing, I remain, dear Sir, your's sincerely.

LETTER LXVII.

COURT DEWES, Esq.

Lichfield, May 3, 1789.

THANK you for gratifying my curiosity concerning the circumstances of a connection formed by a charming young lady, so near, and so dear to yourself. The bride and groom were so good as to call upon me in their road through Lichfield to Hagley. It gives me pleasure to find that your new nephew is the brother of one of the most engaging men I know. With Mr George Waddington I passed two months, in the summer 1777, beneath the hospitable roof of very old friends of mine, in Yorkshire, to whose eldest son he was then private tutor. You will find him learned and ingenious; the erudition of colleges, with the politeness of courts at least, such he then was or such I fancied him-but years, as they pass, sometimes shed rust upon graces; and