LETTER XXXVI.

MRS M. Powys.

March 6, 1792.

I was erroneously informed that you were at the Abbey when Mrs Powys died. It is well to have been spared the personal contemplation of a scene so mournful; and it is comfortable that your final visit left friendly and pleasing impressions upon your mind. I am glad also that a sum, by no means inconsiderable, devolves to you upon an event little imagined to be so near.

Bodily indisposition, and anxiety of mind, deepened to me the glooms of this rigid winter. Ah! my dear friend, you would at present inquire after Giovanni in London in vain. Very alarming symptoms of declining health obliged him to break his engagments there this Lent. His physicians ordered him to Bath. He grows gradually, though slowly better, for those strengthening waters;-but his health is far from being re-established. The managers at Covent-Garden entreat permission still to continue his name on their lists -assure him of being favoured, to his utmost

wish, as to the pressure of musical business, if he will but appear in the orchestra. This is very flattering to his professional fame; but it would be madness to abandon those salutary springs ere they have more fully restored the health he has lost. That restoration is of the utmost conseqence to his daughter and her children, on whose exquisitely tender indulgence their support depends; and scarce less is it material to those friends who possess and know how to value the happiness of his society.

You, who are conscious of what long duration my esteem for him has been, will imagine my solicitude for his safety-the only remaining friend in my vicinity who participated the social and interesting pleasures of my youthful days, or with whom I can beguile and enliven the vapid hours of a much-deprived existence, by recalling their animated perceptions, habits, and associates,

"From the dark shadows of o'erwhelming years."

Poor Lovel Edgeworth! O, how dear, though personally unknown to me-he, too, I am informed, fades away again fast. I know Dr Darwin has an ill-divining spirit as to the event of his disease. O, life! how does thy general uncertainty embitter the best blessings thou canst in

dividually bestow! That your pleasing young friend and pupil has shaken off, by Dr R. Darwin's assisting skill, the nervous fiends which annoyed her, I sincerely rejoice.

In despite of all those Powyssian vestiges which the dear old Abbey has, by this time, for ever lost, its walls, its apartments, its lawns, and its bowers, must always to me breathe a portion of resemblance to its beloved former inhabitants, and to interesting periods long passed and gone. Adieu, Adieu!

LETTER XXXVII.

TO DR DOWNMAN of Exeter, on his presenting to me his Poems.

March 15, 1792.

SIR,-I think myself honoured and obliged by the poetic present you have sent me, and by the gratifying and elegant sonnet which precedes its treasures. Your muse is no stranger to me. I have read, with delight, more than once, the poem, Infancy, by Dr Downman of Exeter. It is an excellent didactic composition, in which the

most material instructions are conveyed, through flowing numbers, and adorned by the picturesque

graces.

These love elegies remind me of Hammond,

and, like his, they must interest every feeling and affectionate heart. Shall I confess that I like the introduction the least of any thing in this pleasing collection. Verse is, in its very nature, artful; though, what should be its essence, poetry, that is, the metaphors, allusions, and imagery, are the natural product of a glowing and raised imagination. There may be verse without poetry, and poetry without verse; but when the genuine bard assumes these fetters, which custom has prescribed him, surely no elegance, no ornament, is beneath his care, which may contribute to embellish them.

Our best poetry is frequently alliterative, viz. Milton's, Dryden's, Pope's, Gray's, &c. and I am told the Greek and Latin classics use alliterations lavishly. A fine ear for the construction of numbers naturally falls into it. To such the avoiding it must be the effect of care and art, much more than its occasional use.

If, by "The doubled epithet of monstrous length," is meant the compound epithet, that is one of the nerves of our science, enabling us to condense our sense, which must increase its

of

force. If it means the using two or more adjectives to one substantive—that also, from the pen genius, and when they are in climax, often produces admirable effects.

Pardon the freedom of this expostulation in defence of a practice you reprobate, and believe me much pleased to see Hygeia presenting the name of Downman to the Muses for their lists, in addition to those of Akenside, Armstrong, Garth, and Darwin.

I am, Sir, &c.

LETTER XXXVIII.

MRS HAYLEY.

' March 19, 1792.

Ан! yes, dear Mrs Hayley, there has been but too much cause for apprehension from the nature of our friend's complaints, which the Bath waters alleviate, without, as yet, removing them.

Comfortless has this rigid and dreary winter proved to me. Not a week passed away without bringing me apprehension, grief, or illness; while the sable banner of death waved about our city