THE PONDERER. No. 15.

Non vulgi acclamationes ambio, nec contemptus metuo ; sola mihi placet Veritas.

CICERO.

"I court not the acclamations of the multitude, nor dread its contempt: the only object of my supreme affection is Truth."

SIR,

TO THE PONDERER.

THE gratification I derived from the perusal of

your essay upon the advantages resulting from the study of topography, has induced me to offer you my warmest thanks; while at the same time you will permit me to observe, that the pleasing picture you delineate, in your brief notice of the eminent characters which adorned my native city during the fifteenth century, amply entitles you to the gratitude of your fellow-citizens. It would appear, indeed that the literary character of Bristol was in that period at its acmé; and its subsequent declension must be entirely ascribed to the destruction of the Kalendaries' Library, which was unfortunately burnt, with all its records and MSS. about the year 1466.

Soon after the perusal of your essay, and while I was yet warm with the impressions it had made upon my mind, I met with a passage in the letters of Anna Seward, just published in six volumes, which appear to me to form an interesting addition to your essay; and with this view, I transcribe it for your use, accompanied with such observations as appear to arise from her remarks, or to give additional information respecting their subjects.

It is necessary to observe, that the letter is dated from Lichfield, February 1, 1786, and addressed to the Rev. J. S. Whalley, then on the Continent. After some observations on "The Task" of the amiable, but unhappy Cowper, whom she denominates a "sarcastic misanthropist," from the gloomy system of religious belief he is perpetually inculcating, she proceeds"But Bristol seems the soil where poetic plants, of wonderful strength and luxuriance, spring up amidst the weeds and brambles of vulgar life. The Milk-Woman's [Mrs. Yearsley's] celebrity must have reached you across the seas. She is said to have behaved most ungratefully to her humane and energetic patroness, Miss H. More. Inflexible moral honesty, stern uncomplaining patience, that silently endured the bitterest evils

of want, are recorded by the pen of that celebrated lady in the anecdotes she formerly gave of this muse-born wonder. Her writings breathe a gloomy and jealous dignity of spirit. Great delicacy was required in the manner of conferring obligation on a mind so tempered. Miss More's letter to Mrs. Montague, prefixed to Lactilla's first publication, struck me with an air of superciliousness towards the being she patronized; and the pride of genius in adversity revolted. So, in a similar situation, would surly Samuel Johnson have spurned the hand, that after it had procured him the bounty of others, sought to dictate to him as to its use; and that resentment, which in her is universally execrated, would, coming down to us now as a record of his emerging talents, have been generally excused, and probably, with whatever little reason, admired. I should not wonder, if this sudden reverse of public esteem should send this kindred spirit of the unfortunate Chatterton's to attend his manes in the dreary path of suicide."*

Happily the apprehension expressed in the last sentence of this extract, was entirely unfounded. That genuine dignity of character,

* Letters of Anna Seward, vol. 1. page 121.

which enabled Mrs. Yearsley to drink the cup of poverty even to its very dregs, without one obtrusive murmur, accompanied her in every situation of her chequered life, enabled her to soothe its various ills with the resources of genius, and finally to breathe her last sigh in peace, in the bosom of her family. "The object upon which the gods look with admiration," says an ancient philosopher," is a great mind struggling with adversity."

The productions of Mrs. Yearsley, like those of Dermody, Burns, and Chatterton, are characterised by an inequality of composition, which is occasionally transcendently great, and sometimes degradingly little. This inequality is, perhaps, inseparable from uneducated genius, and is the origin of that surprise and admiration, with which such compositions are usually perused. Mrs. Yearsley's poems contain some valuable gems, which I have been informed a gentleman of Bristol is collecting, with a view of presenting them to the world in a small volume, to which, it is said, he intends to prefix a memoir of this extraordinary woman. The faults which have been ascribed to her were, perhaps, inseparable from the stern dignity of her character; but I am sure you will agree with me, that the aberrations

of departed genius are sacred to every benevolent mind.

After the extract already given, Miss Seward proceeds to notice Bryant, a tobacco-pipe-maker, who had also attracted considerable notice at this period, by effusions in rhyme, which have long since sunk in oblivion. "From a blind alley of the same distinguished city," says my author, " a third illiterate genius has started up, with powers little inferior to Lactilla's. He sets his compositions to pleasing, though wild, airs of his own. The world, however, refuses to celebrate and protect him as it did her-sheltering its contempt under declamations upon the ingratitude of the milk-woman." Upon this passage I shall only observe, that the inferiority of Bryant to Mrs.. Yearsley is so great, that a comparison would never have suggested itself, except from the circumstance of their appearing in the same city, and nearly at the same time. The latter part of the passage is also incorrect, for the subscribers. to Bryant's pamphlet were numerous, and the profits enabled him to commence the business of a bookseller, in London. Of his subsequent history I am altogether ignorant.

I shall only add, Sir, that during the last and present ages, Bristol has also produced literary