reflections on what constitutes imprisonment; with all these verses I am much pleased; and with one of the lines I am charmed:

"And strolls the Crusoe of the lonely fields."

Besides that line, there is only one couplet of the whole composition which impressed me strongly enough to remain on my memory. It is in the description of the thunder-storm in the night; and the lines are admirable.

"The farmer wakes, and sees, with silent dread,
The angry shafts of Heaven gleam round his bed."

That appears to my eye the only very strong poetic ray which illuminates this pleasing, but, surely, not very fine poem. That masterly couplet excepted, who that recollects Thomson's or Chatterton's still grander description of a thunderstorm, can think very highly of this in the Farmer's Boy? Behold Chatterton's Thunder-storm.

"The sun was gleaming in the midst of day, Dead was the air, and all the welkin blue, When from the south arose, in drear array,

An heap of sable clouds, of sullen hue,

And their dark train on towards the woodland drew;
Shrouding, at once, the sun's delightful face,

And the black tempest swell'd and gathered round apace.

The gather'd storm is ripe ;-the big drops fall,
The sun-burnt meadows smoke, and drink the rain.
Th' approaching ghastliness the herd appal,
And the full flock are driving o'er the plain.
Dash'd from the clouds the waters fall amain;
The horizon gapes !-the yellow lightning flies,
And the hot fiery steam in the wide flashing dies.

Hark! how the sullen thunder's grumbling sound
Comes slowly on, and then, loud rattling, clangs,
Shakes the high spire; and still, though spent and drown'd,
Upon the shrinking ear of terror hangs.

The winds are up, trees writhing as in pangs;

Again the lightnings flash, the thunder roars,

And from the full clouds burst the pattering stony showers.”

Bloomfield's description of hay-making, reminds me of one in a juvenile poem of mine. I am tempted to insert a part of it here*.

On page 68th of the Farmer's Boy, there is a strangely mistaken epithet-thus: "In earliest hour of dark unhooded morn." A dark morn is hooded, not unhooded. Of such a morning Milton says,

"Kerchief'd in a comely cloud,

While rocking winds are piping loud."

Coz White has lately, he tells me, enjoyed the

* See the first volume of the author's poems, lately published by Mr Scott.

happiness of your society, and the honour of an introduction, through you, to Dr Parr. Oh, envied, Attic hours! Adieu!

LETTER LIV.

WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESQ.

Lichfield, July 9, 1800.

Aн, honoured friend, tidings of your filial deprivation reached me at Buxton. Prepared as I was for the event, I, shuddering, lamented the extinction of your dearest hope. Be assured of my true sympathy. It is all that helpless friendship can rationally offer. Time and intellectual exertion have balms in store for even such wounds, deep as they are; but the trite arguments of consolation have them not to infuse.

And now, turning from a sad and hopeless theme, permit the expression of my fervent thanks for the too generous present of your new poem. For your interest's sake, I had rather you should have abstained from every present of a work so expensive, which I should gladly have purchased the instant I knew it was published. My grati

tude had been earlier avowed, had I not been ill since it arrived; a fortnight's prisoner within doors, beneath cloudless skies, nor yet emancipated in these hours of bloom.

The Epistles on Sculpture admirably widen the circle of your Encyclopedian Muse, which enriches the literary fane of Britain with poetic celebration of the arts and sciences; traces their progress, and recals the just claims of their professors from the oblivious shadows of time.

I hope you will proceed to the future consummation of your avowed purpose; that sorrow, which spreads so dense a veil upon your hopes and affections,

"Will yet be found all powerless to eraze

Those shadowy forms, whose every precious trace
By science hoarded, and to fancy dear,

The muses, with expecting smile, revere,

While yet in genius' plastic soul they rest,
Folded, like future gems, in nature's breast *."

And will you pardon me if true solicitude for your future fame, induces me to hint my wish, that when this meditated composition shall be rising under your hands, you would pay more attention to the too frequent recurrence of certain

Epistles on Sculpture.

epithets? With you, who have such perfect command of language, it must be owing to carelessness merely, that the words dear, fond, sweet, are so very often repeated in the rich poem before me. Envy, which delights in calling the notice of the public to the smallest specks on poetic snow, will perhaps be busy on this subject in the reviews. You might as well sweep these little sticks and straws from the polished surface of your verse, since the trouble of doing it is trifling.

Forgive me also, if I express my jealousy for our matchless Shakespeare, beneath my observance of your silence respecting him, when you combat the envious, arrogant, and unjust assertion of Montesquieu and Winckleman, " that the English labour under a natural incapacity to excel in the fine arts." You oppose, singly, the instance of Milton. Shakespeare and Milton are names that were never before divided, when an enlightened Englishman boasts, with patriotic exultation, of the poetic glory of his country.

Milton, great as he was, is surely not the greatest English poet, since he divides the palm of excellence with Homer; while the thinly-peopled stage, and comparatively cold declamation of the Athenian and Greek drama, leave Sophocles, Eschylus, and Euripides no pretence to share the meed of