the language of truth and of nature. The change is, in my opinion, injudicious too in this respect, that an aged bard has much less need of a patron and a protector than a young one. I have thus given you, with much freedom, my opinion of both the pieces. I should have made a very ill return to the compliment you paid me, if I had given you any other than my genuine sentiments. It will give me great pleasure to hear from you when you find leisure; and I beg you will believe me ever, dear Sir, yours, &c. No. No. CXXVI. To MISS DAVIES. It is impossible, Madam, that the gonerous warmth and angelic purity of your youthful mind can have any idea of that moral disease under which I unhappily must rank as the chief of sinners; I mean a torpitude of the moral powers, that may be called a lethargy of conscience. In vain remorse rears her horrent crest, and rouses all her snakes: beneath the deadly-fixed eye and leaden hand of Indolence, their wildest ire is charmed into the torpor of the bat, slumbering out the rigours of winter in the chink of a ruined wall. Nothing less, Madam, could have made me so long neglect your obliging commands. Indeed I had one apology-the bagatelle was not worth presenting. Besides, so strongly am I interested in Miss D's fate and welfare in the serious business of life, amid its chances and changes; that to make her the subject of a silly ballad, is downright mockery of these ardent feelings; 'tis like an impertinent jest to a dying friend. Gracious Gracious Heaven! why this disparity be tween our wishes and our powers? Why is the most generous wish to make others blest, impotent and ineffectual-as the idle breeze that crosses the pathless desart? In my walks of life I have met with a few people to whom how gladly would I have said—“ Go, be happy! I "know that your hearts have been wounded by "the scorn of the proud, whom accident has 66 placed above you or worse still, in whose "hands are, perhaps, placed many of the com"forts of your life. But there! ascend that "rock, Independence, and look justly down on "their littleness of soul. Make the worthless "tremble under your indignation, and the fool"ish sink before your contempt; and largely impart that happiness to others, which, I am "certain, will give yourselves so much pleasure 66 to bestow!" 66 Why, dear Madam, must I wake from this delightful reverie, and find it all a dream? Why, amid my generous enthusiasm, must I find myself poor and powerless, incapable of wiping one tear from the eye of pity, or of adding one comfort to the friend I love!-Out upon the world! say I, that its affairs are administered so ill! They talk of reform;-good Heaven! what a reform would I make among the sons, and even the the daughters of men!-Down, immediately, should go fools from the high places where misbegotten chance has perked them up, and through life should they skulk, ever haunted by their native insignificance, as the body marches accompanied by its shadow.-As for a much more formidable class, the knaves, I am at a loss what to do with them: had I a world, there should not be a knave in it. But the hand that could give, I would liberally fill; and I would pour delight on the heart that could kindly forgive and generously love. Still the inequalities of life are, among men, comparatively tolerable-but there is a delicacy a tenderness, accompanying every view in which we can place lovely Woman, that are grated and shocked at the rude, capricious distinctions of fortune. Woman is the blood-royal of life: let there be slight degrees of precedency among them-but let them be ALL sacred.-Whether this last sentiment be right or wrong, I am not accountable; it is an original component feamy mind. ture of No. Ellisland, 17th December, 1791. MANY thanks to you, Madam, for your good news respecting the little floweret and the mother-plant. I hope my poetic prayers have been heard, and will be answered up to the warmest sincerity of their fullest extent; and then Mrs. Henri will find her little darling the representative of his late parent, in every thing but his abridged existence. I have just finished the following song, which, to a lady the descendant of Wallace, and many heroes of his truly illustrious line, and herself the mother of several soldiers, needs neither preface nor apology. Scene |