my youthful memory, though I was not, five minutes ago, certain from what source I received the conviction.

"When the subject has no intrinsic dignity it must owe its attractions to artificial embellishment, and may catch at all the advantages which the art of writing can supply. He that, like Pliny, sends his friend a portion for his daughter, will, without Pliny's eloquence, find means of securing gratitude and acceptance; but he that has no present to make but a garland, a ribbon, or some petty curiosity, must endeavour to recommend it by his manner of bestowing the trifle. Trifles always require exuberance of ornament; the building which has no strength can be valued only for the grace of its decoration. The pebble must be polished with care which hopes to be valued as a diamond, and words ought to be of select elegance when they are to supply the place of things." Vol. V. No. 152. This paper is very able throughout. It is, I see, on the construction of familiar letters, and opposes the trite and false maxim, that they should invariably preserve what is called an easy conversational manner. Johnson more justly maintains, that as no subject, decent and moral, ought to be precluded from our familiar letters to our friends, so their style

should rise or fall with the nature of that subject; elegantly playful, or seriously eloquent, as suits it best.

You continue to speak of the inflated style of modern poetry—and surely with demonstrable injustice, since we have no right to take its character from those ephemeral versifiers, which, in every age, and every country, have proved the insufficience of their claim to be styled poets. Never, since Shakespeare's time to the present hour, did England want a number of metrical writers, fully competent to give honour and credit to the national poetry; to preserve from all just condemnation its general character. Neither has Scotland wanted them, from the period of Allan Ramsay and Thomson. Ireland, with a few exceptions, was ever, and still remains, a barren soil for the Parnassian fruits.

It is well for your patience that my silences are of involuntary length, since my pen is so ungovernably excursive. I always intend to confine myself to a single half-sheet; but thought rises upon thought, and baffles a resolve, which was prudent respecting my health, provident of my own time, and merciful towards yours. So much for free agency. Adieu!

Your sincere and obliged friend.

LETTER XLVII.

MRS JACKSON, in Edinburgh.

Lichfield, June 3, 1806.

I AM most sorry for those cruel circumstances in your destiny, which, through so many years, suspended our correspondence; comforted, however, that the full flowing affluence, from which the misconduct of others, and some too generous indiscretions of your own, had cast you, now, after severe distresses, rises to a decent competence, satisfying your ever moderate wishes as to the comforts of life. That you are indebted to filial duty for that blessing, must render it doubly sweet; and doubly have you deserved it by your exemplary duty to your own mother.

I thank you for the solicitude you express to hear that the perilous disposition to a dizziness, which throws every thing into chaos around me, is softened. I hope I may say, with truth, that its force is abated. Earlier had I told you so, but for my request to Mr Scott, the poetic luminary of your northern region, that he would send my long letter of the 25th of last March

for your perusal. It was full on the subject of my health. Soon I hope to reply to his acknowledgment of that scroll; in which acknowledgment he mentions his purpose to call upon you, and cultivate your society.

I please myself with the thought that the purpose is, ere this time, accomplished. He is an admirable creature, as well in his heart as in his genius and various knowledge. If my health was not utterly incompetent to so long a journey, I should not be able to resist his pressing invitation to scenes which, in my estimation, are so highly, so dearly classical; and whose right to be so estimated, the charming poetry of himself and his satellites has so largely augmented; but now in these beloved precincts, I must, perforce, even if it were not by inclination," set up my life-enduring rest."

Mr and Mrs Whalley came to me on the 14th of last month, on a few days visit. Time has not dimmed the radiance of our friend's countenance, nor chilled the warmth of his heart; nor yet, with all the aid of bitter experience, subdued the insane violence of his belligerent politics. He brought me your long expected volume*.

* Dialogues on the Doctrine and Duties of Christianity, for the Instruction of the Young, by Mrs John Jackson, published 1806.-S.

I find them an ingenious commentary on the Scriptures, for the use of young people, which, as they are in so few instances dialogue, but rather reader and commentator, I should therefore have better liked that as their title. Dialogue has, to me, always implied mutual investigation, reasoning and argument, doubt and solution.

Those who know not the author of these books, will be impressed in her favour by the preface and introduction, while those who do know her, will meet in them the genuine effusions of her talents, and the modesty with which she bears them.

Your volumes quote Sir Isaac Newton and Bishop Horne. By your not noticing the hostility of the latter to the former, I apprehend that you do not know how strenuously it existed. A few years back, I met with the Life of Horne, Bishop of Norwich, and extracted from it the following curious passages, little calculated to inspire respect for his wisdom.

"He was persuaded that the system of divinity in the Scriptures is explained and attested by their account of created nature; that the Mosaic cosmogony is true; that the Bible, in virtue of its originality and inspiration, is fitter to explain all other books than any book to explain it; that literature was hostile to Christianity, and to a