teach them all, in turn, to play on the spinnet: The effort was fruitless, Nature had denied the capacity :—yet, fond of poetry, they were all distinguished for reading and repeating verses with sweet and varied cadence; nor was there ever the least defect in their hearing, so far as it extended to speaking, and perceiving noises of every kind, without the pale of musical combination.

When we compare these not unfrequent instances, with that prevailing innate sensibility which enables infants to express various tunes before they can speak, it is surely in vain to deny its strength and variation, as an instinctive propensity.

It is the same with painting; the great Opie was bred up in common day-labour, amidst the mines of Cornwall, yet produced wonders with his pencil, which induced Peter Pindar, in reality Dr Woolcot, to entice him to London. The Doctor told me that he.found Opie without any other powers of mind above those of his fellow-labourers in the tin-mines; and that he continued dull and unapprehensive upon every subject except that of painting. When nature gives to a human being that strong propensity to some one art or science, which produces a Colossus in that line, his other faculties are not always proportionally strong. Poetry, indeed, seems to have this superiority over

painting and music, that, while we sometimes see a stupid man a fine performer on instruments, or a fine painter, we never see him a fine poet. We may venture to believe, that Sir Isaac Newton would not have shone as a musician, a painter, or a poet; and we know that Handel's father, who professed medicine, terrified by the propensity which enabled his son to play beautiful voluntaries at five years old, without knowing a note of music, forcibly excluded him from access to instruments and musical society during a year or two; that he had at length the good sense to withdraw this restraint, upon the remonstrance of a friend: "Your son will disgrace you as a physician, a lawyer, a divine; but he will probably acquire distinguished fame as a musician, if you indulge and cultivate his native bias.”

My dear lost Honora had a natural bent to mathematical researches, and mechanic inventions; and, though educated with versifiers, did not write verses; but I well remember when you brought us some mathematical problems to consider, she imbibed your instructions with eager pleasure, while I grew absent and weary of the subject.

Gray detested metaphysic and mathematic stu dies, and conversation; and humorously tells us, in his letters published by Mason, "As for me

i

taphysics, I am no cat, I cannot see in the dark and as for mathematics, I am no eagle, I cannot see in too much light."

It is in defence of the existence of inherent inclinations, and of the wisdom which directs them in various beings, to various objects, that I have cited these instances, since, on the subject of music, your last seems to doubt their existence.

Our young bards, Cary and Lister, Mr White and Mr Saville, continue to explore with me the poetic graces of the Botanic Garden, with delight "which grows by what it feeds upon." I had great pleasure on Wednesday, in conversing with the ingenious and generous Dr R. Darwin. We walked together to the blooming valley which you gave to beauty, and intended giving to science. Though the traces of the latter are fading fast away, the glow of the former is yet vivid, " and breathes of you."

LETTER LXIX.

HENRY CARY, Esq.

Lichfield, May 29, 1789.

NEEDLESS, I trust, is your apprehension, that Lister slackens in his allegiance to the muses In the, of late, seldom times that we have conversed together, without the restraining presence of uncongenial spirits, I have perceived no bluntness in the edge of his poetic enthusiasm; and he lately sent me a charming Miltonic sonnet on the hard and penurious lot of the untaught genius, Hamilton Reid.

The beauty of your sonnet on Mr. Hayley's excursion to Italy is considerable. If it posses sed the, in my opinion, essential characteristic of a legitimate sonnet, the Miltonic pauses, I should consider it as one of the most perfect compositions I know in that order of verse. Hope it will appear in the next Gentleman's Magazine.

Upon the design you expressed of writing a didactic epistle to young poets, I am going to speak to you with the freedom of friendship. Recollect that the subject has been exhausted by

Mr Hayley, in his great, his not-to-be-excelled work, the Epistles on Epic Poetry.

If a great writer has taken a theme, and fallen below himself in the execution; if he has ne glected to give it those advantages, of which it seems to us capable, then let us not be discouraged by any splendour of name or reputation, in the probable hope of soaring above him where he has failed to rise the height that we think attainable; but if, on the contrary, we feel that he has treated the subject in the best-possible manner, so as to render hopeless every attempt to excel him, then let us, above all other poetic errors, avoid taking a theme so pre-occupied; for if it has already received every necessary justice, and every requișite ornament; if it is already in possession of the public attention, it is in vain that we might even treat it equally well. We must excel the established work, or inevitable neglect will be the barren recompense of our labour. Besides, the attempt will always be construed into proof, that we think we have excelled the writer whose subject we chose to discuss over again; and if the world should think otherwise, it will despise our presumption. This was the rock upon which Pope split, when he gave our nation an ode upon a subject which had been so felicitously hit off by Dryden. I must ever think that, but for that