LETTER CXVII.

To the Reyd. WALTER BAGOT.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

Weston, Jan. 4, 1791.

You would long since

have received an answer to your last, had not the wicked Clerk of Northampton delayed to send me the printed copy of my annual dirge, which I waited to enclose. Here it is at last, and much good may it do the readers!

I have regretted, that I could not write sooner, especially because it well became me to reply as soon as possible to your kind inquiries after my health, which has been both better and worse since I wrote last. The cough was cured, or nearly so, when I received your Letter, but I have lately been afflicted with a nervous fever, a malady formidable to me above all others, on account of the terror and dejection of spirits, that in my case always accompany it. I even look forward, for this reason, to the month now current, with the most miserable apprehensions; for in this month the distemper has twice seized me. I wish to be thankful however to the sovereign Dis

penser both of health and sickness, that, though I have felt cause enough to tremble, he gives me now encouragement to hope that I may dismiss my fears, and expect, for this January at least, to escape it.

The mention of quantity reminds me of a remark that I have seen somewhere, possibly in Johnson, to this purport, that the syllables in our language being neither long nor short, our verse accordingly is less beautiful than the verse of the Greeks or Romans, because requiring less artifice in its construction. But I deny the fact, and am ready to depose on oath, that I find every syllable as distinguishably and clearly, either long or short, in our language, as in any other. I know also, that without an attention to the quantity of our syllables, good verse cannot possibly be written, and that ignorance of this matter is one reason, why we see so much, that is good for nothing. The movement of a verse is always either shuffling or graceful, according to our management in this particular, and Milton gives almost as many proofs of it in his Paradise Lost as there are lines in the poem. Away, therefore, with all such

unfounded observations! I would not give a farthing

for

many bushels of them-nor you perhaps for this Letter. Yet, upon recollection, forasmuch as I know you to be a dear lover of literary gossip, I think it possible, you may esteem it highly. Believe me, my dear friend, most truly yours,

W. C.

LETTER CXVIII.

To JOHN JOHNSON, Esqr.

Weston, Jan. 21, 1791.

I know, that you have already

been catechized by Lady Hesketh on the subject of your return hither, before the winter shall be over, and shall therefore only say, that, if you can come, we shall be happy to receive you. Remember also, that nothing can excuse the non-performance of a promise, but absolute necessity! In the mean time, my faith in your veracity is such, that I am persuaded you will suffer nothing less than necessity to prevent it. Were you not extremely pleasant to us, and just

the sort of youth, that suits us, we should neither of us have said half so much, or perhaps a word on the subject.

I have

Yours, my dear Johnny, are vagaries that I shall never see practised by any other, and, whether you slap your ancle, or reel as if you were fuddled, or dance in the path before me, all is characteristic of yourself, and therefore to me delightful. hinted to you indeed sometimes, that you should be cautious of indulging antic habits and singularities of all sorts, and young men in general have need enough of such admonition. But yours are a sort of fairy habits, such as might belong to Puck or Robin Goodfellow, and therefore, good as the advice is, I should be half sorry should you take it.

This allowance at least I give you. Continue to take your walks, if walks they may be called, exactly in their present fashion, till you have taken orders! Then indeed, forasmuch as a skipping, curvetting, bounding divine might be a spectacle not altogether seemly, I shall consent to your adoption of a more grave demeanour.

W. C.

LETTER CXIX.

To SAMUEL ROSE, Esqr.

The Lodge, Feb. 5, 1791.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

My Letters to you are

all either petitionary, or in the style of acknowledgments and thanks, and such nearly in an alternate order. In my last, I loaded you with commissions, for the due discharge of which I am now to say, and say truly, how much I feel myself obliged to you; neither can I stop there, but must thank you likewise for new honours from Scotland, which have left me nothing to wish for from that country; for my list is now, I believe, graced with the subscription of all its learned bodies. I regret only that some of them arrived too late to do honour to my present publication of names. But there are those among them, and from Scotland too, that may give an useful hint perhaps to our own universities. Your very handsome present of Pope's Homer has arrived safe, notwithstanding an accident, that befel him by the way. The Hall-servant brought the parcel from Olney, resting it on the pommel of the saddle, and his horse