POETICAL EPISTLE FROM MRS. HOFLAND. 317

are so just, that we venture to insert it here. The "Dial" mentioned in the first line, was written in 1807.*

Mrs. Hofland to James Montgomery.

66

Harrogate.

"The Dial you send, is most beauteous I grant,
But it is not, my friend, just the dial I want ;
Give me the light shadow that pointed your hours,
When life was a lawn all enamelled with flowers,
Where the pure stream of Fancy ran rapid and clear,
And fed the bright summer that bloomed thro' the year;
Give me youth's blushing roses, as painted by you,
When seen thro' a medium more lovely than true;
Ere the world's chilling frost on your bosom had played,
And involved its best wishes, best hopes, in a shade ;
Obscured the sweet vision, romantic as bright,
And sunk the gay morning in premature night.
Those clouds are all vanished, but long must remain
The flow'rets of fancy drenched deep with their rain.
Tho' lovely, tho' fragrant, so sad, so deprest,
They harrow the bosom that loves them the best.

O man, all benignant! O Poet divine!

If the tears of thy Muse with such lustre can shine,

That the soul which has seen them once melt in her eye,

Finds its sweetest emotion in sympathy's sigh;

What bliss must that moment of rapture inspire,
When hope, love, and ecstacy waken the lyre?
And memory, to temper delirium sublime,
Throws round it the mellowing mantle of Time.
If e'er to the spirit of man there was given
This sacred illusion, this day-dream of Heaven,
It surely was thine; when, elastic as air,
Untouched by affliction, unfettered by care,
Unknown to the minions of malice and guile,
Unknown to the world, that can torture and smile;

* Works, p. 282.

In the lovely retreat where true Piety roves,
With Science her handmaid, thro' sanctified groves,
'T was thine the first breezes of morn to inhale,
And sweep the first dew-drops that spangle the vale,
Pierce thro' the deep thicket and seek the green glade,
Where tranquil solemnity dwelt in the shade.
What then were thy feelings, O exquisite boy?

When rapt with devotion, when trembling with joy,
From the light blade of grass just impearled by the dawn,
To the radiant archangel by seraphim drawn,

All earth and all heaven to thy view were unclosed,
And futurity's bard on religion reposed;

While thrilling with transport, while kindling with fire,
Drank deep of her spirit, and hallowed the lyre;
Thou only canst sing this aurora of youth,
The halo of Genius! -the day star of Truth!
Canst wake that fine sense so transcendently dear,
When speechless delight is expressed by a tear.

"B. H."

CHAP. XXXVIII.

1812.

LETTER FROM SOUTHEY.

FROM ROSCOE AND MONTGOMERY.
VINCIAL DISTURBANCES. EDITORIAL RESPONSIBILITIES.
SPIES. -RIOTING IN SHEFFIELD.

PRO

POLITICAL MONTGOMERY IN A MOB.LETTER FROM SOUTHEY. - IGNATIUS MONTGOMERY AND HIS FAMILY. -THE POET IN THE METROPOLIS. MAY MEETINGS. LECTURES BY CAMPBELL AND COLERIDGE. MISS BENGER. -CONVERSATION.-EXHIBITION OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY.-CHANTREY. "ODE ON EDUCATION.". THE "MEDITERRANEAN.”

SONNET FROM PETRARCH.

THE poet in his study, recasting his story of the "World before the Flood"-the politician, compelled to listen to the sounds of party strife, and to be made acquainted with the scenes and sources of social distress -the Christian believer, exercised by spiritual conflicts, which "to be known, must be felt," are the three characters in which Montgomery entered upon "the battle of life" this year. But amidst all this, there came pleasant voices and welcome letters of genuine friendship; seldom unsympathising, and happily not often sad.

Robert Southey to James Montgomery.

"MY DEAR MONTGOMERY,

"Keswick, Jan. 2. 1812.

"You talk of yourself and of me in terms of comparison upon which I must not comment, lest you should

be as much pained by the comment as I am by the text. Let that pass. If I had not admired your poetry, and felt it, and loved it, and loved you for its sake, I should not so often have thought of you, and spoken of you, and determined to see you, nor have broken through the belt of ice at last.

“You wish me a sounder frame, both of body and mind, than your own. My body, God be thanked! is as convenient a tenement as its occupier could desire. When you see me you will fancy me far advanced in consumption, so little is there of it; but there has never been more: and though it is by no means unlikely (from family predisposition) that this may be my appointed end, it is not at all the more likely because of my lean and hungry appearance. I am in far more danger of nervous diseases, from which nothing but perpetual self-management, and the fortunate circumstances of my life and disposition, preserve me. Nature gave me an indefatigable activity of mind, and a buoyancy of spirit which has ever enabled me to think little of difficulties, and to live in the light of hope; these gifts, too, were accompanied with an hilarity which has enabled me to retain a boy's heart to the age of eight-andthirty: but my senses are perilously acute-impressions sink into me too deeply and at one time ideas had all the vividness and apparent reality of actual impressions to such a degree, that I believe a speedy removal to a foreign country, bringing with it a total change of all external objects, saved me from imminent danger. The remedy, or, at least, the prevention, of this is variety of employment; and that it is that has made me the various writer that I am, even more than the necessity of pursuing the gainful paths of literature. If I fix my attention, morning and evening, upon one subject, and if my latest evening studies are of a kind to interest me deeply, my rest is disturbed and broken; and those bodily derangements ensue that indicate great nervous susceptibility. Experience having taught me this, I fly from one thing to another, each new train of thought neutralising, as it were, the last; and thus in general

:

LETTER FROM SOUTHEY.

321

maintain the balance so steadily, that I lie down at night with a mind as tranquil as an infant's.

"That I am a very happy man I owe to my early marriage. When little more than one-and-twenty, I married under circumstances as singular as they well could be— and, to all appearances, as improvident; but from that hour to this, I have had reason to bless the day. The main source of disquietude was thus at once cut off; I had done with hope and fear upon the most agitating and most important action of life, and my heart was at rest. Several years elapsed before I became a father; and then the keenest sorrow which I ever endured was for the loss of an only child, twelve months old. Since that event I have had five children, most of whom have been taken from me. Of all sorrows these are the most poignant; but I am the better for them, and never pour out my soul in prayer without acknowledging that these dispensations have drawn me nearer to God.

"But I will not pursue this strain too far. The progress of my mind through many changes and mazes of opinion, you shall know hereafter; and the up-hill work which I have had in the world-up-hill, indeed, but by a path of my own choosing, and always with the conviction that I was gaining the ascent, as well as toiling for it. Something I must say, while there is yet room for it, concerning the 'World before the Flood.' You say that you are about to begin it again: before you do this, reconsider during one half-hour, what doubtless you have considered long ago,whether it would not be better to make the Flood itself the termination of the poem, which would render no other alteration of the story [necessary], as far as I understand it, than that of relating the assumption of Enoch in the person of a narrator instead of your own. It seems to me you

would gain a grandeur and even a unity beyond what your present design affords. My intention was to assume Burnett's theory [of the Deluge], a book almost unequalled for its power of imagination, and to have connected Whiston's with it. I have conceived a youth, the bosom friend of Japhet,