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"O! take me to your haunts again,

The rocky spring, the greenwood's shade!"

Autumn is now gilding them with her last smiles. Adieu!

LETTER LXXIV.

WM. HAYLEY, Esq.

Lichfield, Oct. 6, 1787.

THE teazing demon of petit ill-luck, which so frequently presides over my speeches, has, it seems, raised a mist over your recollection also; so that you cannot direct my search where to find, amid the bright mazes of your compositions, that beautiful compliment you certainly have somewhere paid to our great architect. Thus am I doomed to the vexation of having excited the most flattering of all ideas in the breast of an amiable man, without the possibility of gratifying it.

A friend in Shropshire has lately shewn me the wonders of Colebrooke Dale. We passed a fine autumnal day in exploring the features of that scene, where we find, in such uncommon union,

the dusky, noisy, assiduous, and indeed stupendous efforts of art, with romantic nature;-where the Cyclops usurp the dwellings of the Naiads and Dryads, and drown, with their dissonance, the woodland song; light their blazing fires on each of the many hills, and, with their thick black smoke, shroud, as with a sable crape, the lavish woods and fantastic rocks; sully the pure waters of the Severn, and dim the splendour of the summer's sun; while the shouts of their crouding barges, and the clang of their numerous engines, din through every winding of the valley. In short, we there saw a town, noisy and smouldering, and almost as populous as Birmingham, amidst sylvan hills, lofty rocks, and meandering waters. You have heard of the lately-discovered bituminous fluid, distilling through the subterraneous cliffs. We found the iron bridge very stupendous in the art of its construction, and very beautiful in the grace and lightness of its appearance—but it is represented so exactly in the prints, as to leave the eye little to acquire by actual contemplation.

I am become acquainted with Mr and Mrs Piozzi. Dr Johnson told me truth when he said she had more colloquial wit than most of our literary women. It is indeed a fountain of perpe tual flow; but he did not tell me truth when he asserted that Piozzi was an ugly dog, without

particular skill in his profession. Mr Piozzi is an handsome man, in middle life, with gentle, pleasing, and unaffected manners, and with very eminent skill in his profession. Though he has not a powerful or fine toned voice, he sings with transcending grace and expression.

Dr Darwin's Botanic Garden is contracted for with the booksellers, and we may expect its appearance next spring. Splendid and charming as is this poem, yet, written upon the, I think, mistaken system, that nothing which is not imagery should find a place in poetry, the incessant profusion of ornament will perhaps be a disadvantage to the work in general, as to the pleasure and attention it has, from the genius of its author, so just a right to expect every reader will feel and express. The Botanic Garden is a string of poetic brilliants, and they are of the first water; but the eye will be apt to want the intersticial black velvet to give effect to their lustre.

Ah! my dear bard, I would to Friendship, that I might find your letters less the reverse in their infrequency to the pictures of the Botanic Garden, kindred as they are to them in the brightest tints of imagination.

LETTER LXXV.

F. N. C. MUNDY, ESQ*.

Lichfield, Oct. 10, 1787.

I CANNOT help once more intruding on your attention, with my thanks that you have granted a request which I had set my heart on obtaining. My gratitude will not brook delay, even though my heart yet trembles from yesterday's storm; another dangerous attack on the life of my dear aged father; but danger, for the present, is once again passed away.

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A perusal of the posthumous works of that sweet suffering saint, Miss Bowdler, has pleased me much. If they contain no great resplendence of genius, nor curious novelty of ideas, we yet feel our hearts and our understandings serenely warmed and gratified by the effusions of a pure, a gentle, a cultivated mind, which throws a soft, agreeable, and useful light over every subject on which it descants.

* This Gentleman, author of the Poem on Needwood Forest, is still alive, and resides at Mark-eaton, near Derby.1810.

So your learned pedant asserted, that nothing could be more absurd than the idea, in Gray's Welch Bard, that the victorious army of Edward were alarmed, and that one of its chiefs stood entranced, at the voice of an old man from a rock. He who could talk thus of Gray's Old Man, must have an imagination dull as that of an old woman, whose youth had been occupied in making pies and puddings, and nursing rickety children. He an admirer of Shakespeare! Whip me such critics, and such admirers, round Parnassus, O ye muses!

Your other dogmatist, who declared that nothing was so easy as to write well in rhyme, like the fox contemplating the high-hung grapes, speaks lightly, but not sincerely, of a treasure which he finds himself unable to obtain. The use of rhymes must necessarily increase the difficulty of writing in measure; and when it is remembered that the great critic, Cicero, tried, in vain, to write good poetry, we find the asserted ease of the art presumptuous and ridiculous, because evi dently false. Merely to jingle common-place ideas in rhyme, may be easy enough; but to make fine sense, animated and appropriate description, and beautiful imagery, recline gracefully on that Procrustean bed, is about as easy as to compose music like Handel or Hedyen, and to paint like Reynolds, Romney, and Fuzeli.

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