pleases me much. They seem indeed to have no ideas in common with the genuine poet. They may be useful in directing the course of the darting swallows of the poetic science, but not to prescribe the track of its eagles.

I congratulate you upon the acquisition of a new satellite * to supply the place of that which, for a time at least, has shot from your sphere +.

Extremely must I desire to read a poem which you profess to admire, and I thank you for the kind wish of procuring me that pleasure; but if you will give me a direction where it may be procured, I will send for it myself.

Dr Leyden's sweet verse has inspired me with affection for its author, and I thank you for all you say on his subject.

Mr Hayley has sent me his last publication, The Triumphs of Music. Ah! I could well have excused the present, since I cannot flatter, and am sorry to mortify. The poem is longer than The Triumphs of Temper, but it is a dull Bristol-stone compared to that bright diamond.

This strange composition is a chaos of ludicrous absurdities, on which scarce one ray of genius gleams.

* Mr Grahame, author of a poem entitled The Sabbath, mentioned with delight by Mr Scott.-S.

+ Dr Leyden.-S.

The versification is hard and jirking; the epithets generally unappropriate, and inconsist ent with each other; the metaphors ridiculouswitness one taken from the toes to illustrate kissing:

"Intoxicated friendship made a trip,

He touch'd, in blind temerity, her lip."

From this mass an apparition of a mother, and no mother, two purses, an old maiden aunt, and a parrot at prayers, pop up their heads, challenging reverence, admiration, and applause. Possibly this quiz of a poem may obtain sale and circulation amongst the methodists, on account of its eternal hymns and praying sonnets, which, like the tenets of that insane sect, caricature the fair face of genuine religion.

LETTER XXXVIII.

REV. R. FELLOWES.

Lichfield, May 22, 1805.

I TRUST you have imputed my long silence to its true cause, the continuance of my strange and dizzy malady, which, during so many months, has made writing difficult and perilous. Ably and kindly do you, on its subject, philosophize the tendency of long-continued intellectual exertion, to weaken the fibres of the brain:

"Nature's threads,

Fine, passing thought, e'en in her coarsest works,
Delight in agitation, yet sustain

The force that agitates them, not unimpair'd;
But worn by frequent impulse, to the cause

Of their best tone their dissolution owe."

It sooths me that you regret the not having sought my personal society, while only a distance of thirty miles divided us. Procrastination steals away, from time to time, our interesting purposes; till, and perhaps suddenly, unforeseen events occur, which render them unattainable, and

leave the future to reproach the past. A deep reproach for the weakness of long delay, where least I meant omission, do the years irrevocably fled make to my remaining life. I suffered circumstances, which I might have overruled, to suspend one of the dearest plans of my heart, till it sunk in the grave of friendship; a local devotion which once had been paid with ineffable delight, cannot now be paid but with

agony.

The physiognomy of the dead.--You think it likely to have connection with the moral qualities of the deceased. I cannot believe so. Without any such idea, I have often, in solemn curiosity, inquired of those who had the care of the lifeless remains of my friends and acquaintance, concerning the nature and progress of external appearance, and its dread changes on such their remains. By medical gentlemen, I have always heard them imputed solely to material causes. Since your last letter arrived, I have conversed with an intelligent army-surgeon on the subject. He assured me that stern tranquillity is invariably the character of every human countenance, so soon as the body becomes cold and stiff, whether the departed had died quietly or in distortion, in hope or in terror,—that all traces of the passions first sink in relaxation; nor do they, he said, return, when the features, as soon they do, become rigid.

He added-" I have often, a few hours after a battle, surveyed the field of the slain, and found the same vacant, dispassionate, ghastly calmness on every face. Be assured it remains indiscriminately on the countenance of the dead, till beginning putrefaction changes and distorts it."

The period at which that terrible change takes place, varies extremely, as well, you know, depending upon the nature of the previous disease, and upon the weather.

Those horrid lineaments, the mere result of dissolution, would be most unfair criterions by which to regulate our opinion of the virtues or vices of the separated spirit; or even if that opinion was balanced, to weigh a single grain towards its preponderance. Some beautiful lines of our young poet, Southey, may, I think, be applied to this theme:

"Not to the grave, not to the grave, my soul
Descend to contemplate the form beloved!

The spirit is not there

That kindled that dead eye;
That in that motionless hand

Has met thy friendly grasp !

It is but lifeless, perishable flesh
That moulders in the dust,

Air, earth, and water's ministrant particles
Now to their elements

Resolved, their uses done.