As to the answers to Mr Erskine's book, with the rest of the voluminous receipts to wash white the ministerial Ethiops, I have no leisure to give them; however, I did read Mr Gifford's first book. He is an able sophist-but I have not lost my memory. Against the measures which, from her high and radiant prosperity, have humbled this nation to the state of unjust requisition, and of a mendicant begging shillings and halfcrowns from lacqueys and washerwomen, all that Mr Erskine has collectively laid before the public was, from time to time, brought forward by the Hampdens, Sidneys, and Russels of the minority. Mr Pitt neither did nor could refute the accusations he did not even attempt to refute them. Had Gifford's fabrications been facts, the minister would have brought them to light in his replies to the reproaches he met for rejecting the pacific advances of the French Directory, or rather, as it was then called, the National Assembly. He did not deny the existence of those wishes on the part of France, and he combated the solid arguments that proved how much it was the interest of England to entertain the same wishes, by nothing but the shallowest sophistries, and by arrogant demands to be trusted with unexamining confidence. The majority of the senate, and of the nation, did trust him; and of that trust they are

now beginning to reap the bitter, bitter fruits. If, in their pride and obstinancy, they call them sweet, much good may they do them-the hardship is upon those who would have averted those evils, and are now obliged to share them.

You clergymen, who ought to have exhorted pacific measures, have been deeply to blame in your contrary conduct; and if the dreadful and remorseless French, whose vengeance we have provoked, should revolutionize this unhappy country, the clergy will be the first to feel the dire effects of their own adjurations. This, once for all, is my political creed. I shall not be able to change your opinion, nor can you alter mine. Fruitless, therefore, is it to make the miserable situation of these kingdoms a farther theme in our letters. A few of those I best love think with you. I do not love them the less, though I wonder more and more at their infatuation.

In a lately published miscellaneous volume, by one of the first poets of this period *— a period so rich in poetic talent, so poor in poetic patronage, I met with the following inscription for a column

Southey. He is, however, strangely mistaken in his assertion, that Hampden and Falkland fell in the same place. Colonel Hampden was killed in the battle of Chaldgrave Field near Oxford, and three months after Lord Falkland fell in the battle of Newbury.-S.

at Newbury. It should, at this time, be engraven on every heart, as an antidote to the venom and helpless violence of mutual animosity on political themes.

INSCRIPTION FOR A COLUMN AT NEWBURY.

"ART thou a patriot, traveller?—on this field
Did Falkland fall, the blameless, and the brave,
Beneath a tyrant's banners!—Dost thou boast
Of loyal ardour?-Hampden perished here,
The rebel Hampden!-at whose glorious name
The heart of every noble Englishman

Beats high with conscious pride. Both uncorrupt,
Friends to their common country both, they fought,
They fell in adverse armies.-Traveller,

If with thy neighbour thou should'st not accord,
In charity remember these good men,

And quell each angry and injurious thought."

You will expect a little Lichfield news. Louisa G., the elegant, the witty, the eccentric, the agreeable, is going to marry her clerical kinsman and namesake; of silence so inflexible and solemn. These contraries in choice are not uncommonperhaps they are not unwise. Edgeworth used to say of two brilliant spirits of different sexes, "If that man and woman were to marry, they would skim the moon." One domestic sphere

would probably be too narrow to contain comfortably a couple of moon-skimmerss. Adio!

LETTER XI.

H. REPTON, Esq.

Lichfield, April 13, 1798.

WHAT reproach in the date of your last? If read aright, October. I know not how to believe that so many months have elapsed since the gay smile of Mr Repton gleamed into my parlour, a little before he favoured me with this ingenious packet, and restored the darkly able volumes of Caleb Williams.

I grant the justice of all you say concerning the design of that work. It is highly censurable;and also on the unavoidable incompetence of all legal institutions, entirely to protect the dependent and the poor from being oppressed in some way or other, by the powerful and the wealthy. Viewed on the political side, these pages are the effusion of a morbid irritability, impatient of human defect in our constitution, and libelling our laws. Considered as a delineation of character and man

ners, it has an impressive, awful, and useful moral; displaying the mischiefs, the wickedness, and misery into which the boundless indulgence of an originally noble passion, may betray an amiable and highly liberal mind.

My acquaintance with the late gallant and murdered Colonel St George; the much I have heard of him from his intimate and long associated friends, convince me that the character of Falkland is, even in these cold days of renounced enthusiasm, not out of nature. All Orlando Falkland would have been, had not disgrace blasted his course, dear St George was.

I cannot help thinking Godwin knew him, and that his talents, his excellencies, and peculiar cast of manners, suggested to this author the idea of his hero;-so exactly do we find the portrait of St George's person, genius, virtues, and singularities, in the description of Falkland, when he was serene and full of hope, at peace with himself, admired and respected by all who knew him. The slender, almost effeminate, yet graceful figure; that mixture of dignified reserve, interesting sweetness, high spirit, and varied intelligence, which so amply recompensed the want of manly features in a pale fair face; that exquisitely jealous sense of honour; that romantic elevation of intrepid sentiment, despising every danger, ca