Whose cheek is pale, whose eye-balls glare From gory selle*, and reeling steed He dash'd his carbine on the ground." I read this poem last week to a young soldier of genius, Captain Oliver, nephew to the Duchess of Ancaster. His kindling countenance always, and often his exclaiming voice, marked every beauty as I proceeded. Above all was he impressed with the picture of the regent and his train, and every striking feature there given of a crowded march. To observe the first effect of noble poetry upon a mind alive to its graces, has ever been to me a gratification on which my whole soul luxuriates.-Adieu! Selle, saddle. A word used by Spencer and other ancient writers.-S. LETTER XVII. REV. R. FELLOWES. Lichfield, Aug. 31, 1803. O SIR! the peace, the gladness, the energy of my heart and spirit have sunk in a dark gulf since I wrote to you last, never more, I think, to rise again to light, and to cheer the blank remainder of my existence. On the fatal second of this month, Mr Saville, the dearest friend I had on earth, passed, in one quarter of an hour, from apparent health and even gay vivacity, to the silence and ghastliness of death. Yes, the pure, intelligent, and amiable spirit fled, never more to animate the graceful form and expressive countenance which age could not wither, many as were the years he had known. Some threatening symptoms of water in the chest had, a few weeks before, appeared; but, by medical discipline, they seemed entirely subdued. After near a month's recovered health, he was dressing to attend a concert, whither his dearest friends had preceded him, when, after a few mi nutes imprudent stooping over his stomach, a sudden attack of impeded respiration came on, and in less than twenty minutes his dear inestimable life passed away. Thus in that short, unwarned period, was a friendship of thirty-seven years duration struck from my soul, and with it all that soothed, all that gladdened its perceptions. O! he was the last-left friend of my youth! Remembrance of all I had previously loved, and lost, leaned on his mutual recollection and tender sympathy. His intelligent smile was the sunshine of my temperate board; the emanations of his naturally-endowed mind, cultured and illuminated by a just taste for literature, and all the fine arts, threw their useful and cheering light on my intellectual pursuits; the fervors of his pure, ingenuous, and pious heart, were my encouragement in the practice of whatever rendered my character in any degree estimable; they were my stay, my consolation under each assailing misfortune; "Ah now for comfort whither shall I go? No more his soothing voice my sorrow cheers! "Tis meet that I should mourn; flow, flow ye bitter tears !” My friends assure me no death has, in any person's memory here, been so generally, so deeply lamented. Every member of his cathedral, of which more than forty years he had been the most constant attendant, and brightest ornament, both in the reading-desk and in the musical service, followed his funeral with choral honours and with deluged eyes. Scarcely were any eyes dry amongst that large concourse of people which flocked around in solemn silence. * Dear Saville was a test character;-no one ever conversed with him freely without esteem and love, except from some dark defect of head or heart in themselves, to repel the influence of that else irresistible goodness, which shone out in his open, his expressive countenance, and breathed in the varied, melodious, and interesting cadences of his voice, both in speaking and when he sung. Agony over this never to be recompensed privation has subsided in my soul, or I should rather say returns to it by seldomer paroxysms; for at first it was nearly incessant. Hopeless, nerveless melancholy has succeeded, and renders me incapable of exertion. I must entirely break off *The vicars choral in this cathedral always read the first lesson, and Mr Saville was universally allowed the finest pos sible reader of the Scriptures.-S. my immense correspondence. It has become so extensive and complicated as to require a large portion of cheerful industry to discharge its duties, even at seldom intervals, to the individuals of which it was composed. Each friend must therefore accept one farewell letter, and then consider me as 66 free among the dead, like unto them that are wounded and lie in the grave, who are out of remembrance and cut away from the earth." I cannot, however, be so utterly absorbed in selfish woe, though cureless, as to leave wholly unnoticed your last interesting letter; yet permit me previously to thank you for your truly admirable and recent publication*. Its reasoning is demonstrative, amiable in its philanthropy, and faithful to the rectitude of the deity, since God cannot be unjust, expecting to reap where he has not sowed. Natural, touching, and tender, is your description of the feelings which thrilled your bosom on quitting the curacy of Harbury, and your six years tended flock;-and O! how true is your observation, that we must lose comforts ere we become conscious in what degree they had contributed to our happiness! I thought I had esti * A Supplement to the Picture of Christian Philosophy; a work by the same author.-S. |