for, but I know what would be fit for him. Is the plea of 'not recollecting' such prominent facts to be admitted? Mr Bowles has been at a public school, and as I have been publicly educated also, I can sympathise with his predilection. When we were in the third form even, had we pleaded, on the Monday morning, that we had not brought up the Saturday's exercise, because we had forgotten it,' what would have been the reply? And is an excuse, which would not be pardoned to a schoolboy, to pass current in a matter which so nearly concerns the fame of the first poet of his age, if not of his country? If Mr Bowles so readily forgets the virtues of others, why complain so grievously that others have a better memory for his own faults? They are but the faults of an author; while the virtues he omitted from his catalogue are essential to the justice due to a man.

Mr Bowles appears, indeed, to be susceptible beyond the privilege of authorship. There is a plaintive dedication to Mr Gifford, in which he is made responsible for all the articles of the Quarterly. Mr Southey, it seems, 'the most able and eloquent writer in that Review,' approves of Mr Bowles's

publication. Now it seems to me the more impartial, that notwithstanding that the great writer of the Quarterly' entertains opinions opposite to the able article on Spence,1 nevertheless that essay was permitted to appear. Is a review to be devoted to the opinions of any one man? Must it not vary, according to circumstances, and according to the subjects to be criticised? I fear that writers must take the sweets and bitters of the public journals as they occur, and an author of so long a standing as Mr Bowles might have become accustomed to such incidents; he might be angry, but not astonished. I have been reviewed in the Quarterly almost as often as Mr Bowles, and have had as pleasant things said, and some as unpleasant, as could well be pronounced. In the review of The Fall of Jerusalem, it is stated that I have devoted 'my powers, etc. to the worst parts of Manicheism;' which, being interpreted, means that I worship the devil. Now, I have neither written a reply, nor complained to Gifford. I believe that I observed, in a letter to you, that I thought that the critic might have praised Milman without finding it necessary to abuse 1 V. Q. Review, vol. 16, Oct. 1816.

me;' but did I not add, at the same time or soon after, (apropos of the note in the book of Travels), that I would not, if it were even in my power, have a single line cancelled on my account in that nor in any other publication? Of course, I reserve to myself the privilege of response when necessary. Mr Bowles seems in a whimsical state about the author of the article on Spence. You know very well that I am not in your confidence, nor in that of the conductor of the journal. The moment I saw that article, I was morally certain that I knew the author 'by his style.' You will tell me that I do not know him: that is all as it should be; keep the secret, so shall I, though no one has ever intrusted it to me. He is not the person whom Mr Bowles denounces. Mr Bowles's extreme sensibility reminds me of a circumstance which occurred on board of a frigate, in which I was a passenger and guest of the captain's for a considerable time. The surgeon on board, a very gentlemanly young man, and remarkably able in his profession, wore a wig. Upon this ornament he was extremely tenacious. As naval jests are sometimes a little rough, his brother officers made occasional allusions to this delicate appendage

to the doctor's person. One day a young lieutenant, in the course of a facetious discussion, said, 'Suppose now, doctor, I should take off your hat.'-'Sir,' replied the doctor, 'I shall talk no longer with you; you grow scurrilous." He would not even admit so near an approach as to the hat which protected it. In like manner, if any body approaches Mr Bowles's laurels, even in his outside capacity of an editor, 'they grow scurrilous.' You say that you are about to prepare an edition of Pope; you cannot do better for your own credit as a publisher, nor for the redemption of Pope from Mr Bowles, and of the public taste from rapid degeneracy.

VI

A LETTER TO A FRIEND OF ROBERT BURNS. BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.1

ΤΟ

JAMES GRAY, ESQ.,2 EDINBURGH.

DEAR SIR,-I have carefully perused the Review of the Life of your friend Robert Burns, which you kindly transmitted to me; the author has rendered a substantial service to the poet's memory; and the annexed letters are all important to the subject. After having expressed this opinion, I shall not trouble you

1Occasioned by an intended republication of the account of the life of Burns, by Dr Currie and of the selection made by him from his letters. London : Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, Paternoster-row, 1816.'

2 Afterwards the Rev. Jas. Gray, formerly schoolmaster at Dumfries, and an old friend of Burns. He died in (1830) in India, whither he had gone as the first British tutor ever appointed to the charge of an Indian Prince.

3 A Review of the Life of Robert Burns, and of various criticisms on his character and writings, by Alexander Peterkin, 1814. (W.)

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