and would ten times more disgrace a modern writer, who has not his excuses to plead. All I contend for, and it is a point on. which I have the suffrage of most ingenious men, that his best language, being more copious, easy, glowing, bold, and nervous, than that of perhaps any other writer, is the best model of poetic language to this hour; and will remain so "to the last syllable of recorded time;" that his bold licenses, when we feel that they are happy, ought to be adopted by other writers, and thus become established privileges; and that present and future English poets, if they know their own interest, will, by using his phraseology, prevent its ever becoming obsolete.

Amid the hurry in which I wrote last, my thankless pen made no comment upon the welcome information you had giyen, that Mr. Wyatt liked me a little. Assure yourself I like him a great deal more than a little. There's fine style for you! Next to benevolent Virtue, thou, Genius, art my earthly divinity. To thy votaries, in every line, I look up with an awe-mixed pleasure which it is delicious to feel.

When he was first introduced to me, the glories of our Pantheon rushing on my recollection, my heart beat like a love-sick girl's, on the sight of her inamorato:

"A diff'rent cause, says Parson Sly,

The same effect may give."

I am glad you like Hayley's countenance. How have I seen those fine eyes of his sparkle, and melt, and glow, as wit, compassion, or imagination had the ascendance in his mind!

Mrs. Hardinge seems to have as much wit as

yourself; the conversational ball must be admirably kept up between you. One of your charaċteristic expressions about her is as complete a panegyric as ever man made upon woman. "She is of all hours." If it is not in Shakspeare, and I do not recollect it there, it is like, it is worthy of his pen.

About the Herva of my friend Mathias, we are for once in unison; but you are not half so candid as I am. Ever have you found me ready to acknowledge the prosaism of many lines which you have pointed out in my most favourite poets. I sent you some of my late friend's and your idol, Davies, which you could not but feel were unclassical, and inelegant in the extreme; yet no such concession have you made to those instances.

I have frequently mentioned Cowper's Task to you; but you are invincibly silent upon that subject. Have I not reason to reproach? How should an enthusiast in the art she loves bear to see her friend thus coldly regardless of such a poet as Cowper, while he exalts Davies above a Beattie, an Hayley; above the author of Elfrida and Caractacus!-for said not that friend, that no modern poet was so truly a poet as Davies?

He who can think so, would, I do believe, peruse, with delectable stoicism, a bard who should now rise up with all the poetic glories that lived on the lyres of Shakspeare and Milton. "If ye believe not Moses and the Prophets, neither shall ye be persuaded by me, though one arose from the dead;"--and so much at present for prejudice and criticism.

As for the last sentence in your letter, my friend,

Į meddle not with politics;—yet confess myself delighted with our juvenile minister, of whom, I trust, we may say of his political, as well as natural life, for many years to come,

"Our young Marcelius was not born to die."

Adieu!

LETTER XL.

ANNA SEWARD TO CAPTAIN SEWARD*.

Dec. 7, 1787.

Is it possible that lord Heathfield should not see the impropriety of my presuming to intrude upon the duke of Richmond's attention with an interference, by request, in military promotions, since I can scarcely be said to have the shadow of a personal acquaintance with his Grace?

My father's present state, the almost utter loss of all his intellectual faculties, is known. Did he possess them, impertinent surely would be an acknowlegment from him, that he supposed the duke meant any thing more than a polite compliment, by giving the name of obligation to the civility of ordering our servants to make up a bed for him during three nights, and to prepare a bason of gruel for him in the morning, before he went to the field. This was literally all he could be prevailed upon to accept beneath this roof, when, in his years of bloom, he united the occupation of Mars to the form of Adonis. I was then a green

*This respectable character is still alive, aud resident at Southampton.-1810.

girl, "something between the woman and the child," nor have I ever since beheld the duke of Richmond. Though I so perfectly remember him, it is more than probable that he remembers not me; and it would be more than impertinent to presume that I could have interest with him.

As to incurring obligations, I should be very glad thus to incur them from the duke for your advantage; but observation, and indeed the revolt I have always myself felt from officious recommendation, invariably proved to me that it injures instead of promoting the interests of the recommended. His grace would certainly be disgusted by my seeming to suppose that any mention I could make of a relation, or friend, could operate in their favour. Disgust has a withering influence upon patronage. What is it I could say, that has a shadow of probability to enhance the duke's good opinion of a military man?—that man already recommended to him by lord Heathfield, the greatest general existing, whose praise ought to be the passport to martial honours and emolument. An attempt of this sort from me would be just as likely to be of use, as if, had I been in Gibraltar during the siege, and when our artillery was pouring on the enemy, I had thrown a bonfire-squib into the mouth of a forty-pounder to assist the force of the explosion.

And, lest it should be apprehended that my poetic reputation might give some degree of consequence to my request, Mr. Hayley, who is the duke's near neighbour, has told me that his Grace had no fondness for works of imagination. The race of Mæcenas is extinct in this period.

When my dear father was in his better days, he lived on terms of intercourse and intimacy with the marquis of Stafford. Lord Sandwich and my father, in their mutual youth, had been on the continent together, with the affection of brothers. On my publishing the Monody on André, he desired me to present one to each of these lords, expressing an assured belief that the work of an old friend's daughter would not be unacceptable.

I, who ever thought that men of rank have seldom any taste for intellectual exertion, which serves not some purpose of their own interest; and feeling an invincible repugnance to paying attentions, which are likely to be repulsed with rude neglect, strongly, warmly, and even with a few proud tears, expostulated against the intrusion. My father never knew that great world, with which, in his youth, he had much intercourse. Frank, unsuspecting, inattentive to those nice shades of manners, those effects, resulting from trivial círcumstances, which develope the human heart, he judged of others by his own ingenuous disposition. Benevolent, infinitely good-natured, and incapable of treating his inferiors with neglect, he thought every kindness, every civility he received, sincere,-every slight shown either to himself or others, accidental.

Thus he would persist in the idea that these lords would be gratified by such a mark of attention to them; and that I should receive their thanks.I, who had been so much less in their society, knew them better; that such little great men are as capable of impoliteness as they are incapable of taste for the arts;-but my obedience was insisted upon.