luckless and ill-judged attempt, no person of any taste for the true excellence of our art, would have hesitated a moment to pronounce Pope a greater poet than Dryden. I believe also, that Milton, whose superiority to Dryden none deny, would have failed to rival the Ode on St Cecilia's day, had he contested the theme, so that Pope's inferiority on that one subject ought not to be brought, though it so often is brought, as a proof of a genius inferior to Dryden's. I am sure his Eloisa to Abelard excels every epistle of Dryden's, in a greater degree than Dryden's Ode excels his. Addison was guilty of the same folly in attempting to rival Pope's splendid translation, and he added despicable meanness to that folly, when he made Tickel father his translation, for the purpose of deciding publicly in its favour against that of Pope,-an attempt which met the disgrace it deserved. An open, ingenuous contest, had been only presumption; but his conduct in that affair was too base for the practice of a noble mind, and would amply have justified satire far more rough and indignant than it received from the bard he had injured.

Shenstone committed an error of judgment, though not of heart, when he employed his muse upon the Choice of Hercules; already enriched and adorned to the utmost by the imagination of

Lowth, whose beautiful Spenceric ode on that fable is one of the brightest stars in Dodsley's Galaxy.

As to P.'s ode to Howard, it is veritable the clown tumbling after harlequin; with an infinitely greater inferiority to Hayley's, than Pope's ode is inferior to Dryden's; than Addison's translation of the first book of Homer to Pope's; than Shenstone's allegory to Lowth's.

With taste and sensibility like yours, very warm admiration of Rousseau is inevitable; but I am sorry to see you so dazzled by the splendours of his eloquence, as not to perceive that little sound morality is to be found amidst his glittering maze of paradoxes. Remember, my dear Cary, the distrust, misanthropy, and wretchedness into which his subtle refinements betrayed his own spirit, and beware of adopting them with too implicit ve

neration!

I read his Emile some twenty years ago. As every thing from his pen must be exquisitely ingenious, I would reperuse it if I had leisure to read for amusement merely, or if I were likely to be engaged in the education of youth; since, however wild, impracticable, and absurd it must be to reduce his entire system to practice, many useful hints may doubtless be taken from it. I wish that you would put the volume in your pocket

that contains the Savoyard curate's confession of faith, when next you come to Lichfield.

You make me long to re-examine that, for its traces are almost wholly faded away from

my me

mory.

Adieu !

LETTER LXX.

MRS COTTON.

Lichfield, June 15, 1789.

My dear Mrs C., your friend, Mr Jerningham, honours me in the poetic present he sends. It consists of his last publication, Enthusiasm, and a smaller poem which passed the press in 1786— originally written in the Album, at his brother's seat in Norfolk. It contains characters of highly tinted panegyric on the present Lady Jerningham, and on his mother, the late Lady; and it breathes a tender and agreeable spirit of local partiality. This gentleman is a very pleasing writer; a feeling heart, and an elegant imagination, seem to preside, with united influence, over his pen. Hence it is, that he succeeds much best in pathetic subjects. There are fine passages in the Enthusiasm ;

enduring the consciousness of any thing which may look like the coldness of neglect!This ter ribly fashionable arbitration of disputes !—Alas, how pregnant is it with apprehension, regret, and misery to relations and to friends!-but it is in vain to lament, to moralize upon the subject.

I have expressed to you my perfect conviction, resulting from having long considered the subject, that the exclusion of the imperfect rhyme must be an inevitable and great disadvantage to any poetic writer. You must be sensible that all our best poets, except Hayley, both of the past and the present age, retain it. The judicious, and not too licentious mixture, relieves my ear, instead of jarring upon it; producing a spirit and grandeur of sound, unknown to the unvaried and cloying sweetness of the always-perfect jingle.

You avowed yourself under the influence of a contrary prejudice, beneath which the variety and elevation of Mr Hayley's numbers have, as I at least fancy I can discern, suffered diminution. Therefore is it that I exult to find you, in this poem, getting loose from these self-imposed fetters.

It is flattering to find our sentiments upon any subject in unison with theirs whose abilities we respect. Before I received your last, I had expressed to Miss Williams all you expressed to me concerning her poem on the Slave Trade; the

pleasure its many excellencies afforded me; its pathos; its accuracy; the high degree of genius shining out in its original and happy similies; my wonder at a choice of measure, which appeared to me the most unfavourable that could have been selected for a subject of that nature. I have heard from her since, but she takes no notice of my objection. In one respect this dear glowing daughter of Apollo is an uncomfortable correspondent. She writes to me in turn, but she does not answer my letters. I could not do thus to a friend, unless I felt a pretty sovereign contempt for their abilities and opinions.

You and I agree perfectly about the genius and grace of Helen's compositions. I forget if I ever spoke to you about Mrs C. Smith's everlasting lamentables, which she calls sonnets, made up of hackneyed scraps of dismality, with which her memory furnished her from our various poets. Never were poetical whipt syllabubs, in black glasses, so eagerly swallowed by the odd taste of the public...

I have begun Mrs Piozzi's Travels, and though, not yet reached the middle of the first volume, have already met with several interesting, amusing, and ingenious observations; but I feel astonished and disgusted at the corruption of her style, loaded with idioms, and, as her Johnson used to