When I wrote the first two lines, I thought I had engaged in a hazardous enterprise: for thought I, should my poetical vein be as dry as my prosaic, I shall spoil the sheet, and send nothing at all: for I could on no account endure the thought of beginning again. But I think I have succeeded to admiration, and am willing to flatter myself, that I have even seen a worse impromptu in the news papers.

Though we live in a nook, and the world is quite unconscious that there are any such beings in it as ourselves, yet we are not unconcerned about what passes in it. The present awful crisis, big with the fate of England, engages much of our attention. The action is probably over by this time, and though we know it not, the grand question is decided, whether the war shall roar in our once peaceful fields, or whether we shall still only hear of it at a distance. I can compare the nation to no similitude more apt, than that of an antient castle, that had been for days assaulted by the battering ram. It was long before the stroke of that engine made any sensible impression, but the continual repetition at length communicated a slight tremor to the wall, the next, and the next, and the next blow encreased it. Another shock puts the whole mass in motion, from the top to the

foundation; it bends forward, and is every moment driven farther from the perpendicular; till at last the decisive blow is given, and down it comes. Every million that has been raised within the last century, has had an effect upon the constitution, like that of a blow from the aforesaid ram, upon the aforesaid wall. The impulse becomes more and more impor tant, and the impression it makes is continually augmented; unless therefore something extraordinary intervenes to prevent it-you will find the conse quence at the end of my simile.

Yours,

W. C,

LETTER IX.

you

To the Revd. WILLIAM UNWIN,

As I promised you verse, if

would send me a frank, I am not willing to return the cover without some, though, I think, I have already wearied you by the prolixity of my prose.

Here followed his poem, the Lilly and the Rose,

I must refer you to those unaccountable gad→ dings and caprices of the human mind, for the cause of this production; for in general, I believe, there is no man who has less to do with the ladies' cheeks than I have: I suppose it would be best to antedate it, and to imagine that it was written twenty years ago, for my mind was never more in a trifling butterfly trim, than when I composed it, even in the earliest my life. And what is worse than all this, I have translated it into Latin. But that some other time.

parts of

LETTER X.

Yours,

W. C.

To the Revd. WILLIAM UNWIN.

MY DEAR WILLIAM,

How apt we are to deceive ourselves where self is in question: you say I am in your debt, and I accounted you in mine: a mistake to which you must attribute my arrears, if indeed I

owe you any, for I am not backward to write where the uppermost thought is welcome.

I am obliged to you for all the books you have occasionally furnished me with: I did not indeed read many of Johnson's Classics-those of established reputation are so fresh in my memory, though many years have intervened since I made them my companions, that it was like reading what I read yesterday over again; and as to the minor Classics, I did not think them worth reading at all—I tasted most of them, and did not like them-it is a great thing to be indeed a poet, and does not happen to more than one man in a century. Churchill, the great Churchill, deserved the name of poet-I have read him twice, and some of his pieces three times over, and the last time with more pleasure than the first. The pitiful scribbler of his life, seems to have undertaken that task, for which he was entirely unqualified, merely because it afforded him an opportunity to traduce him. He has inserted in it but one anecdote of consequence for which he refers you to a novel, and introduces the story, with doubts about the truth of it. But his barrenness as a biographer I could forgive, if the simpleton had not thought Himself a judge of his writing, and under the erro

neous influence of that thought, informs his reader that Gotham, Independence, and the Times, were catchpennies. Gotham, unless I am a greater blockhead than he, which I am far from believing, is a noble and beautiful poem, and a poem with which I make no doubt the author took as much pains, as with any he ever wrote. Making allowance (and Dryden perhaps, in his Absalom and Architophel stands in need of the same indulgence) for an unwarrantable use of scripture, it appears to me to be a masterly performance. Independence is a most animated piece, full of strength and spirit, and marked with that bold masculine character, which I think is the great peculiarity of this writer. And the Times (except that the subject is disgusting to the last degree) stands equally high in my opinion. He is indeed a careless writer for the most part, but where shall we find in any of those authors, who finish their works with the exactness of a Flemish pencil, those bold and daring strokes of fancy, those numbers so hazardously ventured upon, and so happily finished, the matter so compressed, and yet so clear, and the colouring so sparingly laid on, and yet with such a beautiful effect? In short, it is not his least praise that he is never guilty of those faults as a writer,