LETTER XI. MRS HAYLEY. August 29, 1790. My dear Madam, I am happy to hear that Mr Hayley's excursion has been delightful to him, and gratified by the kind wishes of your last for my recovery. A few days respite from violent oppression on my breath, induced me to venture one morning's performance at Birmingham. Perhaps a vaporish idea, that it might be the last time I should have an opportunity of hearing the sublime Messiah, increased the desire of this excursion. The thick air of Birmingham sat heavy on my lungs; but the dawn of a morning, fortunately cool, enabled me to enjoy the highest possible intellectual feast, with little alloy from corporal uneasiness. The oratorio was finely performed, though I never can like to hear it opened by a woman, even when that woman is Mara. The female tones want majesty for that solemn recitative. Not daring to trust my animalities with the intense heats of the theatre, I went instantly to my excellent friend Lady Carhampton's pretty retreat, two miles from Birmingham. There she lives, dispensing the pleasures of hospitable kindness, and the blessings of attentive and extensive charity, after a life of splendour, deeply embittered by filial ingratitude. I was received by herself and her friend, with that animated welcome which can alone render absence from home desirable to a being so domestic as myself. Adieu. Yours. LETTER XII. REV. PETER HOMER. Oct. 5, 1790. SIR, I thank you for your poetical present, the translations from Metastasio. They are a valuable little work; deserve a larger type, a greater expence of paper, and an higher price. They are often correct and elegant in their expression, and tuneful in their numbers. Permit me, Sir, to express my surprise and regret, that the ear which constructed such lovely, such exquisite, such never-exceeded lines as the following, should often fall immeasurably beneath their excellence : "O, fool! that I should strive the seas to sow, For sure she trusts the sun, and sows the sea, We can scarce believe that the author of them should endure the stiff inversion, the harsh cadence, and, forgive if I say, inelegant construction of so large a portion of the verses;-should address the subject of his eulogy in the second and third person promiscuously, nay, even in the same sentences. It is a liberty which our correct poets never take. I wish that you, who can write so well, would use the same discipline with your muse, that I have endeavoured to use with mine, and then she would not talk of a lady "teaching her tress to flow," instead of her tresses. You were not aware that this license of expression, trivial as it may seem, is obnoxious to the most ludicrous idea; that it irresistibly presents to the imagination a bald head, from which one solitary lock depends. You bespeak my candour. Candour has always to me appeared to consist in being ingenuous. What says Prior, when he describes the should-be of artists' conduct to each other! " Piqued by Protogenes' fame Prepar❜d to censure and commend; When an author, like yourself, shews that he can write finely, and yet frequently writes ill, it is the interest of envy to praise indiscriminately; that he may continue to mix the sullying drop with his gold so largely, as to rob his fame of its currency. I am, Sir, your obliged and obedient servant. LETTER XIII. MRS MARTIN. Oct. 27, 1790. I CONGRATULATE you upon the effects of your tansy tea; and hope it will continue its Lucinian powers. Perhaps you are not enough an heathen to understand the epithet-to know that Lucina is the goddess of child-bearing, whose protection it was usual to invoke in the days of Paganism. Your caro sposo, who brought me this fruit ful intelligence, looked very well, though his step was not perfectly militaire. Seeing him since you have seen him, and leaving you, as he did, in a but recovering gout, you will be glad to hear of his good looks. My health is considerably better since my excursion into Shropshire. I ventured to one of the morning music festivals at Shrewsbury, and heard Mr Saville open the Messiah with a pathos, an energy, and a grace that none ever excelled, and which I never heard equalled. Our little city is about to lose its celestial characteristic of neither marrying, nor being given in marriage. The torch of Hymen has already blazed for Lord Donegall, as the papers have shewn you;-for Mrs Swinfen's sister, amiable and lovely Miss Ford, who has married Lord Colville's eldest son. You remember my poor father's apartment.— I have stained the paper a light green, and ornamented it with fine prints, in handsome frames. It is the pleasantest winter-room in the house, where many are pleasant;-but the sun looks on this at noon, and gilds it on through the winter day. Adieu! dear Mrs M., may you have a little longer health, succeeded by a comparatively little portion of pain, and crowned with a little living |