*

tion so distinguished. Every line in that engrav ing bears her stamp and image, except those which, in a luckless moment, combined to attach the foot of a plough-boy to a form in every other point so beautiful. All the obligation of her establishment in the Lyceum of Langollen Vale is on my side. How could dear Miss Ponsonby speak of it as on yours and her own! I would cheerfully have given treble the cost of this engraving, for the consciousness that the similitude of the fair idol of my affections is thus enshrined.

1

Honora Sneyd, after she became Mrs Edgeworth, sat to Smart, at that time a celebrated miniature-painter. He totally missed the likeness, which Major André had, from his then inexperience in the art, so faintly, and with so little justice to her beauty, caught. Romney accidentally, and without having ever beheld her, produced it completely. Yes, he drew, to represent the Serena of the Triumphs of Temper, his own abstract idea of perfect loveliness, and the form and the face of Honora Sneyd rose beneath his pencil.

Few circumstances have proved so fortunate for the indulgence of my heart as this accidental

* Romney's picture of Serena reading by candle-light.—S.

resemblance. A fortnight since, according to my annual custom, I removed it from my sitting-room below stairs, of western aspect, to my little embowered book-room, into whose northern window the sun never looks in his ardour, though it catches partially, in summer, the golden glances of his evening beams. Thus is this beauteous resemblance my constant companion, and contributes to endear, as the bright reality endeared, in times long past, this pleasant mansion to my affections ;-and thus, whenever I lift my eyes from my pen, my book, or the faces of my companions, they anchor on that countenance, which was the sun of my youthful horizon. Another striking likeness of my lost Honora, in a paper shade, taken when she was seventeen, stands opposite my bed, and has stood there from the time she left this house, in her nineteenth year. Thus are those dear lineaments ever present to my sight, when I am beneath this roof, alike in the hours of energy and of repose, retouching the traits of memory, over which indistinctness is apt to steal, in consequence of perpetual and too intense recurrence. But for such aptness, pictures of those we love would be of little value.

Those oppressive rheumatic pains in my loins, my back, and knees, which are gradually stealing

away all the strength of my frame, oblige me to think of trying Buxton again-and the state exactions prevent my income from allowing me to take two journies this year. The cordial assurance you give me of your mutual wishes to see me in your Eden, ere the bright months pass away, stimulates my, alas! fruitless wishes to find myself in that dear adorned retirement. I rejoice that your beloved Miss Bowdler will soon visit it daily. Her society will often steal your thoughts from the lurid clouds that darken your native land. Happy for me if those imperious circumstances, which so often deride our free agency, would permit my joining the interesting party.

It gives me pleasure that you meditate for Mr Whalley, should he revisit your neighbourhood, a recompence for having coldly repressed the aspiration of his hope to have been received at Langollen. He has talents and virtues that merit this recompence-and it will increase your wish of extending it, to know that his peace is blighted by the base ingratitude and infamous unchastity of the child of his cares, whom nature had erdowed and adorned with lavish profusion, both as to beauty and genius, and whose talents his exertions had cultivated to the most dazzling extent. Often does he exclaim with Sciolto,

"O! when I think what pleasure I took in thee,
What joy thou gav'st me in thy prattling infancy,
Thy sprightly wit and early blooming beauty!—
I thought the day too short to gaze upon thee,
Why didst thou turn to folly, then, and curse me?"

This cruel disappointment has changed him much -has lamentably chilled the glow of his warm and generous mind, respecting the effusions of genius and the attainment of art. He ceases also to delight in corresponding with his distant friends. It is long since I heard from him.

I remain, dearest Madam, your ever affectionate and devoted, &c.

LETTER XVI.

EDMUND WIGLEY, ESQ.

Lichfield, June 11, 1798.

AH, Sir! I condole with you on the late dispatches from Ireland. Insurrection there grows more dark, bloody, and formidable. Desperate and cruel as that people shew themselves, I shall always think the mischiefs of their roused and

long-embittered spirit, have been drawn upon us by ministerial obstinacy, and unwise measures, together with almost all our other national dangers. If Ireland cannot be effectually subdued, I much fear her example will raise English discontent to rebellion-pitch. The distresses occasioned by the decay of trade, and by the forcible demand for soldiers, have, I am told, excited much hatred towards government amongst the lower orders of people, even in this the loyalest county in England. It is actual hardship and misery; it is co ercion upon the will, both as to life and property, and not theories, as Mr Burke idly maintains, which are the real causes by which mighty empires are overthrown. His fatal eloquence awak ened the Quixotism which has combated his phantom at the expence of incurring real dangers.

This

Have you seen an exquisite satire on the plan and on the absurdities of Darwin's supremely ingenious, but very affected poem, The Economy of Vegetation, and Loves of the Plants. sly mockery from rival genius, is entitled The Loves of the Triangles, and Allegoric Garden. It has appeared in the form of extracts in the Anti-Jacobin for last April, 16th, 23d, and for May the 7th.