equal to your friend's William and Helen. A fine contrast is formed by the two knights, under whose allegoric representation is meant Cruelty and Mercy. Dryden's Theodore and Honoria is the source of this, and perhaps of all the retributory spectres, with which, of late, the press has teemed,-but the Chace is of infinitely juster moral than Dryden's poem. The lady's fault, whose terrible fate was shewn to the warned Honoria, seems to have been only a too proudly expressed disdain of a lover she did not like. Surely every woman may be allowed her negative! That is a cause finely pleaded in Don Quixotte, by Marcella, when she bends from a rock, looking down on the body of her lover, who had obstinately died because she could not love him. It would be hard if one was to have one's bowels torn out once a-week, for ever and ay, by blood-hounds, for bridling coldly at an unpleasant and importunate suitor. Earl Walter's crime deserved the punishment it met. How he stands blasted in the wood alone, amid the terrible silence which succeeds to the loud and remorseless clamour of his vanished hunters and dogs! Whatever Burger may do, I am certain Mr Scott writes finely. The Triumph of Constancy has sweet and novel traits, given by your friend with the freedom and the fire of genius;-but there is something ludicrous in the canine consolation for the perfidy of a charming woman. It piques the pride of the ladies not a little. And now, like music, sweetest in its close, Mr. Scott's original poem comes full upon my acknowledgment. It enchants me. Its softer features vie with the loveliest passages in Ossian, and its terrible graces with those of the German muse. The day and my scanty leisure would fail me, were I to attempt pointing out all the beauties of Glenfinlas, they are so thickly sown. of Your friend preserves that fine characteristic of the poetry of his country, the local stamp on the scenery. Ascertained locality gives an interest to scenic description, which can never belong to a mere mountain, a valley, wood, or stream which may be anywhere, or nowhere. Dr Blair says Ossian-It is the hill of Cromla; the blue waves of Ullin; the storms of the sea of Malmor; the reeds of the lake of Lego. So, in Mr Scott's poem, it is the dell of Glenfinlas, the sullen brook Moneira; the bog of Lulan; the rocks of Colin say. The grand poetic excellencies of Glenfinlas shake verbal objections to air, or I would observe, that, in the tenth verse, Glenfinlas Glen grates the ear by inharmonious alliteration, and fatigues it by the too near repetition of the same syllable. It might be altered easily. There are a few other little neglects of the same sort; but, to readers of sensibility, they are lost in the poetic blaze of the poem. The thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth stanzas, are original description, and beautiful in the very first degree. I ought to have observed, on my earliest mention of this poem, that it makes fortunate use of the Highland superstition, second-sight. The picture drawn by Lord Ronald, and afterwards by the huntress of the then stern and melancholy seer, when he was gay and enamoured, forms another fine contrast. The thirty-first verse is supremely fine. The abrupt departure of Lord Ronald, in contempt of the warning, is striking,— "And call'd his dogs and gay withdrew." The return of the dogs, their howl of lament and crouching position, is an exquisite picture. I think I have seen something like it in Ossian, but the symptoms of their change from sorrow to terror, are original description, and we shudder beneath it; and the self-awakened harp!-how it thrills us! The half-opened door, and stealing-tip-toe entrance of the seeming beauteous huntress, has a sweet effect. She is the most natural beauty that poetry has painted, with her chilled complexion and drenched garments. By the simple action of bending to wring her wet hair over the embers, she is brought distinctly to the eye. Her transformation from a fair huntress to a fiend of witchcraft, on the temptation being resisted, is grandly sublime-and so is the remainder of the poem, till the three last stanzas, which are sweetly pathetic. Three times has the name of Scott adorned the poetic annals of England, since the year 1757. At that period, a Mr Scott of Amwell published four beautiful elegies on the four seasons;-of moral elegies they stand next in merit to Gray's Country Churchyard. Another Scott published a poem, much admired on its first appearance, entitled, The Day of Judgment; and also a monody on the death of his wife, that passed not away without its fame. I confess, however, that neither of them impressed or became dear to me like the writings of his namesake; they enrich the supplementary volumes to Dodsley's Collection. This verse is from the earlier Scott's poetry: "O, human life, how mutable, how vain! A sunny island in a stormy main! A speck of azure in a cloudy sky!" The powers of this third Scott rise a bolder flight than those of his first namesake, and wholly eclipse those of his second. I remain, Sir, &c. LETTER XXXIII. REV. T.S WHALLEY. Lichfield, March 7, 1799. I FIND your tragedy is announced for speedy representation. It would give me great pleasure to see it performed before an audience sensible of its merit, and liberal of applause; but my health and strength are too unequal to the hurries of London, for me to dare encountering them. My next pleasure would be to learn its success, and quietly to explore its pages. Even of that pleaI have every sure I fear the enjoyment is remote. trust in your powers; but the present age Egyptian taskmaster to the tragic dramatist. It calls for Shakespearean viands, yet will not allow the use of those poetic ingredients which compos ed them. Thus plays are produced, of which may be said what Madam Sevigné has recorded of her is an |