one should be Homer, must prefer the discriminated and sublime descriptions of a score of heroes, who, Hector, Priam and Telemachus, excepted, are not much else beside heroes, to Shakespeare's masterly display of every character, every situation, and every scene in many-coloured life;-where all the subtle gradations between wisdom and folly, vice and virtue, are marked with super-human skill;—where imagery rises in sublimity which was never excelled, and where sense and sentiment are given with force that has not been equalled. To Shakespeare! who when he had exhausted real creation, drew imaginary existence, with its enchanters, witches, ghosts, moon-calf monsters, and dapper elves, in traits, of whose justness we have such intuitive conviction, as to establish their classes in our mind, distinctly as we can arrange those of lions and wolves, serpents and monkies.

If the works of two great poets were to be exempted, he who should name Homer, splendid bard as he is, for one of the two, must prefer the gay polytheism of the Pagan mythology, to the grandeur and moral purity of the deistic system, blended with that of the Christian;-the domains of Pluto to the superb horrors of the Satanic regions; the small landscapes of the Grecian shores and seas, scattered over the Iliad and Odys

sey, to the ampler delineation of the forests of Comus;-L'Allegro's peopled scenery ;-Il Penseroso's lonely haunts;—the gardens of Eden;the glories of Creation;-the six days works of God.

We heard, when I had the honour of being your guest, another assertion, curious as Smith's was pedantic—but less extraordinary, as it harmonizes so much better with the abilities of the assertor, that doughty son of Themis, who, whenever he smiled, crumpled up his broad face like an half-toasted pikelet-he, you know, maintained that Peter Pindar's serious verses stampt him the first poet of his day!!!-And since I came home, a youth of the pragmatic tribe, from Derby, pronounced that Mrs O'Neal's sweet little Ode, to the Poppy, thirty-six lines out of its number, forty-four, being beautiful, the next six poor, and the closing lines common-place, outweighed, in poetic merit, all the odes which have been written within these fifty years.-Veil your bonnets to the lady, Gray, Mason, Hayley, Chatterton, Burns, Coldridge, and Southey! Thus,

"While some are wildered in the maze of schools,
Some it makes coxcombs, Nature meant but fools."

I have been fortunate enough in procuring ano

ther copy of Romney's *Serena, which I mentioned to you as having accidentally formed a perfect similitude of my lost Honora Sneyd's face and figure, when she was serenely perusing the printed and unimpassioned thoughts of others. To the varying glories of her countenance, when she was expressing her own, or listening to the effusions of genius, no pencil could do justice. But that sweet, that sacred decency, that reserved dignity of virgin grace, which characterized her look and air, when her thoughts were tranquil, live in this dear portrait, while the turn of the head and neck, and every feature, reflect hers, as in a mirror.

The plate is now become so scarce, that fortune has singularly favoured my attempts. It was procured in the country, and will be sent to London to be framed ere it travels to Langollen. The lively interest which you have each taken in her idea, excites my fervent wish that you should behold her as she was, in a lovely work of art, which recals her image

"From the dark shadows of o'erwhelming years,
In colours fresh, originally bright.”

Yes, I am ambitious that her form should be en

* His profile Serena, reading by candle-light.-S.

shrined in the receptacle of grace and beauty, and appear there distinctly as those of Lady E. Butler and Miss Ponsonby, are engraven on the memory and on the heart of their faithful, &c.

LETTER III.

COLONEL DOWDESWELL, of Shrewsbury.

Lichfield, Nov. 30, 1797.

I THANK you for the always wakeful remembrance of your annual present. It arrived in taintless preservation the day of my return from Birmingham; whither I had been allured by a generous concert, every professional man performing gratis, in honour of the gallant Duncan's victory, and for the benefit of the women and children, widowed and orphanized, alas! by the obstinacy of Dutch resistance. Great part of the music was appropriate and good, and the band was numerous and able. Mr Saville's "Rule Britannia," chorussed at once by the full orchestra and brilliant audience, produced the most sublimely exhilarating effect, and was encored. As he had other songs, which called forth all his

noble energies of voice and expression, I feared their effect upon his precarious health might be too trying; happily my fear proved vain.

During the last ten months, eighty French prisoners have resided in Lichfield, with the wisest quietness-with the most uncomplaining patience. On their first arrival, and indeed long afterwards, they could not pass our streets without being brutally reviled by our populace; but they reviled not again. Though several of the officers were men of graceful manners and enlightened minds, yet by no family of this city, mine and the Simpsons excepted, were they in the smallest degree noticed. So little impression did compassion for their fate, or the involuntary testimony that could not be withheld to their unoffending the indurated hearts of our manners, make upon affluent gentry. The Simpson family and myself strove to cheer, by kindness and a little hospitable attention, the bitter hours of their exile.

On Monday a sad edict arrived from our government, which sent them away the next morning on foot, and under a convoy of cavalry, beneath these severely wintry skies, to pass the freezing nights of their cruel journey on coverless straw; and, on its close, to find themselves in an unwholesome jail at Liverpool, destitute of all the comforts of existence. This dire lot is undoubt