character, of which, in some of its leading features, the prototype may not be found in Shakespeare.

The Creator dispenses intellect in extreme inequality, and with countless shades of difference in degree; and though modern philosophers, maintaining hypotheses against the incessant decisions of experience, assert otherwise, yet He as certainly frames the mind and bodily organs, for the attainment of excellence in some one science or art, which it could not attain in any other.

And it has not unfrequently occurred to my reflections, that, in every science and art, and again in each separate branch of that science and art, He destines, in some only one, in others a very few, to acquire the last limit, or highest summit of its excellence, which human powers can acquire. Thus Newton stands on the extremest bound of astronomic acquirement; Shakespeare in approachless greatness and lustre in dramatic poetry; Homer and Milton in the epic,-for Virgil, graceful, and polished, and skilful as he is, yet loses, in enormous plagiarism from Homer, all just claim to equality with either of them; Gray, in the lyric, though he is much more nearly approached by Collins, Mason, Chatterton, and by Coleridge in his sublime Ode to the Departing Year, than are the other instanced poets on their

eminence. In painting, Michael Angelo, the three Caraccis, and Raphael, seem to have thus excelled their rivals in the historic style; Poussin, Claude, and Salvator in the landscape. While in music, when it marries immortal verse, and then only is it truly sublime, Handel stands approachless as Shakespeare himself in grandeur and variety.

But then I cannot agree that any of these have plucked, root and branch, all the flowers and fruits in their different walks, reducing those who follow them to barren dulness, or gauze-veiled plagiarism.

Painting has certainly made great progress in this kingdom during the present century; so also have the manual arts, lighted on their way by modern philosophy;—and, as to poetry, I perceive, on the whole, no marked degeneracy from the last century in any line, excepting only the serious drama; the degeneracy there, with the single exception of Jephson, is indeed deplorable. In the epic Southey's Joan of Arc approaches, in genius, nearer the Paradise Lost than any other epic attempt in our language.

The feeble efforts of the tragic muse, in this day, I am inclined to impute entirely to the inconsistent fastidiousness of modern criticism, and to the false taste it has generated. He who,

without servile imitation, was to venture, as Jephson did venture, to take Shakespeare's style for his model, would be hooted, as Jephson was hooted, from public credit and just admiration, by the public critics.

Were it possible to produce such plays now as Cymbeline, the Tempest, or As You Like It, what chance would they have of applause from the reviewers, of endurance from a modern au dience?-and yet, strange paradox! while a writer is not allowed to assume Shakespeare's daring privileges of style, his mixture of great and mean characters, such as human life produces, and which, therefore, the dramatist should copy;-. his mixture of grand and familiar language, his bold and perpetual use of metaphor; his custom of making adjectives into verbs, &c., the modern play is always brought into comparison with Shakespeare's by the reviewers, for the purpose of disgracing it.

I have always perceived this withering injustice, and have therefore never attempted to write a tragedy.

You have, doubtless, observed that Providence, wise, and, on the whole, equal in its gifts to the general mind, supplies in number what it may withhold in degree, as to genius, in most sciences. The poetic writers, contemporary with Spencer,

Shakespeare, and Milton, were not only few in number, but those few as much inferior to the poets of this century, Dryden perhaps excepted, as its best poets are inferior to Shakespeare and Milton. How much greater, as lyric poets, are Collins, Gray, Mason, the boy Chatterton, Hayley, and Coleridge, than Cowley; how much greater> as an epic poet, is young Southey to the maturer Davenant; as satirists, Pope, Dr Johnson, and Cowper, compared to Donne; in pastoral, Shenstone and Burns, than Gay and Philips; the four last, indeed, though not contemporaries, were of the same century.

In philosophy, if we have not a Newton, who else of his day equalled Priestley, Darwin, and Herschel, in natural and scientific discoveries? In her former historians, England finds none so justly her boast as Hume, Robertson, and Gibbon; nor amongst her serious essayists, strength and eloquence, that equal Aikin, Barbauld, and Johnson.

Lo! into what length has my zeal for the just claims of my country in the undiminished genius of her sons, led me! but I think I have been guided by no ignis-fatuus. Adieu!

6

LETTER XXXI.

MISS PONSONBY.

Lichfield, Jan. 24, 1799.

I HAVE to thank you, dearest ladies, for a very beautiful but too costly present. This ring and seal in one, this Apollo's head and lyre, makes an admirable impression. It is a fine gem, and rich and elegant is the circlet for the finger. As your gift, it possesses value,

Mr S. desires me to make his grateful acknowledgment for the elegant testimony he has received of Lady E. Butler and Miss Ponsonby's regard, who increase the happiness of all on whom they smile, and confer distinction wherever they

esteem.

Frequent are the periods in which I grieve for the lost tranquillity of your hearts, and in which I deplore the cause. This forcing the scheme of union upon Ireland, against the general inclina