LETTER XXIII. MRS SNEYD. Lichfield, Oct. 2, 1798. I AM much concerned to hear from Mrs Mallet, that your recovery is yet incomplete, and that you are ordered to Cheltenham. You must pass through Lichfield. If, in the meantime, your convalescence advances more rapidly than was expected when Mr Sneyd wrote to Mrs Mallet, I trust you will exchange the purpose of trying Cheltenham springs in favour of your native air, and stay beneath my roof to the last hour your inclination shall dictate, or your plans per mit. My pen has melancholy tidings to convey-the death of my long-valued friend, Mrs Mompessan, -hence these epistolary symbols of mourning. She, dear soul, put on its raiments for my sister, my mother, and my father;-it is meet that I wear them for her. The event took place the 24th of last month. It was a great surprise as well as shock to me, since I received a letter from her, when I was at Buxton, dated August 15th, which spoke cheerily of her health in general, though it confessed an increase of her old asthmatic complaint. Since that period, it seems, a dropsy in the chest came on, and deprived her acquaintance of a most delightful and instructive companion; those who loved her, of a fervently attached friend; and the poor of her village of a generous protectress, attentive to all their wants, and interested in their welfare. Death never chilled a warmer heart, or translated a spirit of more spotless integrity. While life is given me, I shall cherish her memory. Mr Newton has put an immense sponge upon Dr Falconer's reproach to his miserism. He has vested L. 20,000 stock, from the three per cents., in trustees hands, for the purpose of building twenty houses, as habitations for clergymen's widows, or aged unmarried daughters, whose income may not exceed L. 30 per annum. These houses are to form an handsome approach to the west front of our cathedral; to commence on the spot where cousin White's house now stands, extending down the gullet, which will be widened to admit carriages to pass each other, which at present they cannot do. The tenements are to be gothicized, and endowed with a salary of L. 40 per ann. to each inhabitant. My cousins will be grieved to quit the beloved and cheerful old mansion, in which they were born, and passed the smiling years of a social and happy youth. I feel for them much, and you will feel for them, since you, as well as myself, have ever cherished local impressions, and know how the connected images of pleasures past impart their stamp and semblance to the scenes amid which they sprung. And poor Mr Archdeacon Leigh, he too "Fears no more the heat of the sun, Nor the furious winter's rages.” He does not pass away unregretted. I believe he had an excellent heart, and I am sure he had very entertaining talents. Of late years his manners towards me, always obliging, wore great semblance of increased regard. Mr Saville deplores his loss, for to him Mr Leigh's conduct was ever and invariably that of a paternal friend. Belmont looked spitefully lovely, as we bowled round your mountain, that golden Sunday morning on which we left you; and so looked the little Gothic hypocrite* at the bottom of the hill, who feeds chickens while she pretends to reform The pouty-house, formed and painted like a Gothic ཆུཏིhtཎྞམཱདྷི Adieu! we shall meet in a few days, and happily, I trust, from the advanced state of your recovery. LETTER XXIV. Rev. H. J. TODD, on receiving his edition of Milton's Comus. Lichfield, Oct. 19, 1798. I THANK you, Sir, for the literary present with which you have honoured me. This rich edition of Comus will be dear to every mind, susceptible of local impressions, and interested in those circumstances which are connected with the pursuits, feelings, and compositions of illustrious genius, who wish to see them cleared from the dark shadows of time. The unwearied energy of your researches has removed those shadows. All who delight in tracing a great author to his sources, and in observing the congeniality between exalted minds, where resemblance of thought and expression is, from its slightness, perhaps rather coincident than imitative, will not only read, but often recur to your ingenious and learned volume. Such readers will honour the author for his extensive knowledge of English poetry, and for the discriminating justice of his critical remarks. They will be grateful to him for the valuable additions he has made to the affluence of Mr T. Warton's poetic illustrations. Your preface to this happily elaborate compilation is admirable. The triumph of classic vanity over his better judgment, often betrayed Milton into Pagan allusions in the Paradise Lost, highly improper in a poem whose subject was of such consecrated sanctity. In Lycidas, he has so finely managed, and so sweetly apologized for the mixture of mythology, that he converts a fault into a beauty;— but it is not so in that local anachronism in Comus, where the attendant spirit would endow the Severn with the properties of Pactolus. In Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess, Amoret's votive address to the river is surely much more beautiful from its accurate simplicity, however that in Comus may excel it in the grandeur of harmonic numbers. Fletcher's is doubtless an imitation of the similar invocation in the yet older poet, Brown, whom, rather than Fletcher, I should think Milton imitated; but Fletcher, in his imitation of the same writer, has shewn a more |