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LETTER XCV.

MRS STOKES.

March 26, 1790.

ALAS, my dear friend, your letter, that so kindly rejoiced in a supposed existence, which, amidst all its dimness, was thrice precious to my heart, arrived when that existence had everlastingly ceased.

Long as the dart of death had been shook over the head of my dearest father, I could not see it descend without agony. Time is the great assuager. Already has it begun to give some degree of cheerfulness to my resignation; at least during those hours in which much and various business presses upon my attention, and when a number of my neighbours are calling upon me in succession, and while these vernal suns are gilding every object with hues so lively. Yet find I many minutes in these days, in which I regretfully miss those tender cares which, in their exertion, were so sweet to my spirit, when I protected, sustained, and comforted the dear Helpless, and

tempered the air to my shorn lamb. Alas! no longer does the kiss I used to imprint upon his aged forehead, as he slept, shed its balm over my own rest-no longer does intelligence that he lives, and lives exempt from pain, inspirit my uprising. Those pleasures are gone for ever; yet their recollection proves my best cordial.

Glad am I that the demons of disease have been expelled from your dwelling, and that your lovely infants delight you by their expanding ge

nius.

I perfectly recollect how pleasing I thought the tone of Dr Stokes's voice in our first interviewyet, certainly, nothing can be more unlike those of my dear, long lost Honora. Strange that Mrs Butt should think them similar! Though of magical persuasion, they were the reverse of your husband's, which always take a very high key. Honora's tones were so uncommonly low, that, when she was reading any thing querulously plaintive, she could not raise them to the requisite key-yet, like the murmurs of an Eolian harp, they sunk into the soul.

I am gratified that you and Dr Stokes, and Mr Butt, like my sonnet from the Italian, on the destruction of Catania and Syracuse; also that you

twain think with me on the subject of the two great bards, between whose urns differing opinions have created rivalry. But, my dear Mrs Stokes, in this literary dispute between myself and a man of unquestionable and considerable genius, I wonder to see you lay stress on a circumstance so adventitious as the difference of rank between us. While I lament the strength of Mr Weston's prejudices, and blush for the wild enthusiasm of his partiality to myself, I am conscious, from all I have seen, from all I learn of him from others, who have known him long and thoroughly, that he has a warm, generous, and honest heart. Surely that elevating treasure of the bosom, and the consciousness of illuminated talents, qualifies an Englishman to lift up his brow, and to tell himself that, according to the claims of ceremonial precedence, he stands on even ground with any companion, or with his opponent, in any controversy. For my part, I acknowledge I feel no other real superiority but that which virtue and talents give. Were Handel living, I should approach and address him with much more awe than any merely-good sort of body upon the throne of England. People, who have themselves no intellectual superiorities, may be expected to contend for the idle claims of acci

dental distinctions. Chance may give them wealth enough to purchase titles, if they do not already possess them; but it is not in possibility to give them talents;—but you, my dear Mrs Stokes, you! to derive the title of gentleman from birth, from wealth, or the nature of a profession?-that you should so prostitute that name! which, in the vocabulary of good sense, can mean, and only mean, a man of gentle manners!

I grant you Weston is an insane dreamer, to talk in raptures of nonentities-but as to the liberty taken in praising a woman's person in print, I never knew that considered as impertinence, were she an empress; while there would be both indelicacy and impertinence in those praises, were they uttered to her in private.

mean.

And pardon me also about the comparison between him and Newton; as to their genius I Weston is a volatile character, all openness, ardour, glow; but, though he has odd singularities, is far, very far, from being a man of effrontery. Then he has wit and humour," that set the table in a roar," and an imagination more creative, more warm and sublimated, than the meek, modest, and very ingenious bard of the Peak-hills. They are both miracles-but Weston holds the torch of genius higher; indeed he

has had greater advantages, a Latin education, and having been always in genteel society.

Adieu! and believe me always yours.

END OF VOLUME SECOND.

Printed by G. Ramsay & Co.
Edinburgh, 1810.

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