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therefore shall not prolong my letter, except by kind remembrances to Dr S. and the little ones.

LETTER XXXII.

MR NEWTON.

Jan. 16, 1791.

I WRITE to you, thus early on the receipt of yours, beneath the impression of a severe shock from the sudden death, in my presence, of my darling little dog, by the breaking, as is supposed, of the aneurism in her throat, which had never seemed to have given her the least annoyance till the minute in which it destroyed her. Her life had been a three year's rapture, so cloudless had been her health, so gay was her spirit, so agile her light and bounding frame, so pleasurable her keen sensibilities. How I miss her, constant and sweet companion as she was, it is not in every heart to conceive, or, conceiving it, to pity.Giovanni laments her not less fondly; and her fate left no eye unwet in my little household. Her loss has spread the gloom of silence through this large mansion, so thinly tenanted, that per

petually rung with the demonstrations either of her joy or guardian watchfulness. Her incessant affection for me, her gentleness and perfect obedience, occur hourly to my remembrance, and "thrill my heart with melancholy pain."

My ingenious, learned, and benevolent neighbour, Mr Green, whose poetic talents are admirable, sent me the ensuing enchanting stanzas, the day after I lost the beautiful, the clean, the sensible, the beloved little creature.

To MISS SEWARD ON THE DEATH OF her FAVOURITE LAP-DOG SAPPHO.

CEASE, gentle maid, to shed the frequent tear,
That dims the lustre of thy beamy eyes;
Grief, and her tempting luxuries forbear,
Nor longer heave those unavailing sighs.

Say, shall that heart, with noblest passions warm,
Where friendship and her train delight to rest,
That mind, where sense and playful fancy charm,
By fond extremes of pity sink oppress'd?

What though thy favourite, with her parting breath,
Implor'd thy succour in a piercing yell,
And seem'd to court thy kind regards in death,

As at thy feet, in mortal trance, she fell :

What though, when fate's resistless mandate came,
Thy friendly hand was stretch'd in vain to save,
Yet can that hand bestow a deathless fame,

And plant unfading flowers around her grave.

Then let thy strains in plaintive accents flow,
So shall thy much-loved Sappho still survive;
So shall her beauties shine with brighter glow,
And in thy matchless verse for ages live.

Thus, if perchance the splendid amber folds,
Some tiny insect in its crystal womb,
While its rare form the curious eye beholds,
The insect shares the glories of its tomb.

Severe has been the breath of this rugged winter;-I hope it spreads no lasting blight in your domestic comforts. I have been much out of health through its icy progress, and obliged to throw myself upon medical assistance. Within this month my disorder has given way to the skill of my physicians; but Mr Saville, the disinterested, the humane, still suffers seizures in his stomach, of an uncommon, and surely of an alarming nature. Heaven send they may be transient, and, in its mercy, restore to health a life so valuable! Adieu!

LETTER XXXIII.

DAVID SAMWELL, ESQ.

Jan. 19, 1791.

YOUR last confirms my good opinion of your taste, by the dislike it expresses to that rumbling, straining, tumid mass of incongruous metaphor, and incomprehensible ideas, the Della Cruscan poems; though, like our view of one of the Derbyshire smelting mills, as we journey by it, a bright flash now and then streams through the black and powdery gloom.

The late Thomas Warton's compositions, of every kind, are infinitely dear to me. No man ever was, or probably ever will again be, so deeply learned in English poetry; and I have long been convinced, that there is no poetry, of any age or country, so well worth investigation. His preface and notes to Milton's Juvenile Works, convict Dr Johnson of ignorance, as well as of arrogance, concerning the subject upon which he stalked forth as the infallible decider in those boasted and ever-erroneous Lives; while that preface, and those notes of Warton's, contain

passages which, in luminous beauty of idea, grace of expression, and harmony of period, oratory knows not to excel.

Our opinions are entirely in unison concerning the fashionable bravura-music. Equally do I despise it, and the false taste which, overlooking all the nobler powers and graces of that charming science, calls for difficulty and miracles from the regions of distortion.

Your poetical prophecy over the slave-purchasers is very striking and noble. It resembles, but not servilely, Pope's solemn anathema against

"The mean deserter of his brother's blood."

I hope to introduce to you, this spring, a friend of mine; who, if his health permits, will be then in London-a being eminently worthy the friendship of every feeling heart. Adieu!

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