Comparative view," I shall ceryou with my remarks such as they I have just received from my gentleman, that horrid summons in the book of Revelations"That time shall be no more!" The little collection of sonnets have some charming poetry in them. If indeed I am indebted to the fair author for the book, and not, as I rather suspect, to a celebrated author of the other sex, I should certainly have written to the lady, with my grateful acknowledgments, and my own ideas of the comparative excellence of her pieces. I would do this last, not from any vanity of thinking that my remarks could be of much consequence to Mrs. Smith, but merely from my own feelings as an author, doing as I would be done by. No. No. XCVIII. To MRS. DUNLOP 8th Aug. 1790. DEAR MADAM, AFTER a long day's toil, plague, and care, I sit down to write to you. Ask me not why I have delayed it so long? It was owing to hurry, indolence, and fifty other things; in short, to any thing-but forgetfulness of la plus aimable de son sexe. By the bye, you are indebted your best courtesy to me for this last compliment, as I pay it from my sincere conviction of its truth-a quality rather rare in compliments of these grinning, bowing, scraping times. Well, I hope writing to you will ease a little my troubled soul. Sorely has it been bruised to-day! to day! A ci-devant friend of mine, and an intimate acquaintance of yours, has given my feelings a wound that I perceive will gangrene dangerously ere it cure. He has wounded my pride! No. No. XCIX. To MR. CUNNINGHAM. Ellisland, 8th August, 1790, FORGIVE me, my once dear, and ever dear friend, my seeming negligence. You cannot sit down and fancy the busy life I lead. I laid down my goose feather to beat my brains for an apt simile, and had some thoughts of a country grannum at a family christening; a bride on the market-day before her marriage; * * ; a tavern keeper at an election-dinner; &c. &c.-but the resemblance that hits my fancy best, is that blackguard miscreant, Satan, who roams about like a roaring lion, seeking, searching whom he may devour. However, tossed about as I am, if I choose (and who would not choose) to bind down with the crampets of attention the brazen foundation of integrity, I may rear up the superstructure perstructure of Independence, and, from its daring turrets, bid defiance to the storms of fate. And is not this a "consummation devoutly to be wished?" "Thy spirit, Independence, let me share; Thy steps I follow with my bosom bare, Nor heed the storm that howls along the sky!" Are not these noble verses? They are the introduction of Smollet's Ode to Independence: If you have not seen the poem, I will send it to you. How wretched is the man that hangs on by the favours of the great! To shrink from every dignity of man, at the approach of a lordly piece of self-consequence, who, amid all his tinsel glitter and stately hauteur, is but a creature formed as thou art and perhaps not so well formed as thou art-came into the world a puling infant as thou didst, and must go out of it as all men must, a naked corse.* * The preceding letter explains the feelings under which this was written. The strain of indignant invective goes on some time longer in the style which our Bard was too apt to indulge, and of which the reader has already seen so much. E. |