and my exultations to my own breast; having no words that can in any degree do them justice. It is indeed a most charming picture, and an exact copy of Sir Joshua's; and I am envied the possession of it by every one who sees it. Mr Smith has outdone himself on the occasion; I am exceedingly obliged to him.

"Your Grace will perhaps remember, that at Gordon Castle there was some conversation about Petrarch. Knowing that it was the custom of his age to write gallant verses; and conjecturing, from other circumstances, that his passion for Laura was not so serious a business as his French biographer pretends, I happened to say, that there was some reason to think, that he wrote his Italian sonnets as much to display his wit as to declare his passion. I have since made some discoveries in regard to this matter, which amount to what follows:

"That Petrarch's passion for the lady was so far sincere, as to give him uneasiness, appears from an account of his life and character, written by himself in Latin prose, and prefixed to a folio edition of his works, of which I have a copy, printed in the year 1554. But that his love was of that permanent and overwhelming nature, which some writers suppose, or that it continued to the end of his life, (as a late writer affirms) there is good reason to doubt, upon the same authority. Nay, there is presumptive, and even positive evidence of the contrary; and that he was less subject, than most men can pretend to be, to the tyranny of the "Winged "Boy."

"The presumptive evidence is founded on the very laborious life which he must have led in the pursuits of literature. His youth was employed in study, at a time when study was extremely difficult, on account of the scarcity of books and of teachers. He became the most learned man of his time; and to his labour in transcribing several ancient authors, with his own hand, we are indebted for their preservation. His works, in my edition of them, fill 1455 folio pages, closely printed; of which the Italian Sonnets are not more than a twentieth part: the rest being Latin Essays, Dialogues, &c. and an epic poem in Latin verse, called "Africa," as long as "Paradise Lost." His retirement at Vaucluse, (which in Latin he calls Clausa) was by no means devoted to love and Laura. "There," says he, in the account of his life above mentioned," almost all the works I ever published were completed, or

66 begun, or planned: and they were so many," these are his words, "that even to these years they employ and fatigue me." In a word, Petrarch wrote more than I could transcribe in twenty years; and more than I think he could have composed, though he had studied without intermission, in forty. Can it be believed, that a man of extreme sensibility, pining, from twenty-five to the end of his life, in hopeless love, could be so zealous a student, and so voluminous a writer?

"But more direct evidence we have from himself, in his own account above mentioned, of his life, conversation, and character. I must not translate the passage literally, on account of an indelicate word or two; but I shall give the sense of it: "In my youth "I was violently in love; but it was only once; and the passion was ❝ honourable, or virtuous; and would have continued longer, if the "flame, already decaying, had not been extinguished by a death, "which was bitter indeed, but useful." And a little after he says: "Before I was forty years of age, I had banished from my mind 66 every idea of love, as effectually as if I had never seen a woman." He adds some things, in a strain of bitterness, execrating the belle passion, as what he had always hated as a vile and a disgraceful servitude.

"In the above passage, your Grace will observe, that Petrarch does not name his mistress. This, if we consider the manners of that age, and the piety and good sense of Petrarch, may make us doubt whether Laura was really the object of his passion. I had this doubt for a little while: but Hieronymo Squarzafichi, a writer of that age, and the author of another Latin Life of Petrarch, prefixed to the same edition of his works, positively says, that the name of the lady whom the poet loved was Lauretta, which her admirer changed to Laura. The name, thus changed, supplies him with numberless allusions to the laurel, and to the story of Apollo and Daphne. Might not Petrarch, in many of his sonnets, have had an allegorical reference to the poetical laurel, which was offered him at one and the same time by deputies from France and from Italy; and with which, to his great satisfaction, he was actually crowned at Rome with the customary solemnities? In this view, his love of fame and of poetry would happily coincide with his tenderness for Laura, and give peculiar enthusiasm to such of his thoughts as might relate to any one of the three passions.

"But how, you will say, is all this to be reconciled to the account given by the French author of that Life of Petrarch, which Mrs Dobson has abridged in English?

"I answer: First, That Petrarch's own account of his life, in serious prose, is not to be called in question: and, Secondly, That to a French biographer, in a matter of this kind, no degree of credit is due. I have seen pretended lives, in French, of Horace, Tibullus, Propertius, &c. in which there was hardly one word of truth; the greatest part being fable, and that sort of declamation which some people call sentiment. And your Grace knows, that no other character belongs to the "Bellisarius" and "Incas of Peru" by Marmontel. The French life of Petrarch I consider in the same light; and that what is said of his manuscript letters and memoirs, is no better than a job contrived by the bookseller, and executed by the author."

LETTER CLVII.

JOHN SCOTT* TO DR BEATTIE.

Ratcliff-cross, London, 10th May, 1782.

"ACCEPT my best thanks for thy very kind and acceptable letter. I am now happy enough to be able to say, that I have

* John Scott of Amwell, near Ware, in Hertfordshire, was, as this letter indicates, one of the people called Quakers; a poet of no mean genius, as his Eclogues, Elegies, Odes, and other pieces which have been collected and published, amply testify. His two longest works are, "Amwell," a descriptive poem, and an "Essay on Painting." He was not less distinguished by the blameless simplicity of his manners, than by the warmth of his friendship, and the activity of his benevolence. Though bred to no profession, he was far from leading a life of idleness or inactivity; but while he amused himself with poetry and gardening, of which he was uncommonly fond, he employed much of his time in works of public utility in the vicinity of his residence. He published a pamphlet full of good sense and philanthrophy, entitled, "Observations on the Present State of the Parochial and "Vagrant Poor." He frequently interfered in their distresses, and was ever ready to stand forward as the arbitrator of differences among his neigh

finished my volume of " Poems." I shall wait, with some anxiety, for my friend's opinion of some of the contents, particularly the "Oriental Eclogues," the "Mexican Prophecy," and the " Essay on Painting;" for on these, as far as I can trust my own judgment, I think must much depend the rank I may be allowed to hold as a poet. I should like also to know which of the smaller odes most obtained my friend's approbation. The "Essay on Painting" was an after-thought; it was begun when the previous part of the book was printed, and finished in about five weeks; it was, therefore, a hasty, though I hope not an incorrect, performance. I had designed (as I mention in the introduction) something of this kind long before Hayley's "Epistle to Romney" appeared, but had laid it aside. Happening to write a few lines on the subject, with an intent to introduce them into another poem, where I afterwards found them not easy introducible, and thinking them too good to be lost, I determined on the work in question, where I knew they would appear with propriety. Thus, from very small, and indeed unforeseen circumstances, things of some importance often arise. I endeavoured, as much as possible, to avoid the same ground that Hayley had trodden. On Landscape he had said little; I had therefore room to expatiate. On Portrait he had said much; and I was necessitated to say something; but even there I wished

bours. In general, he seems to have imitated the philanthrophy of that well-known character, "The Man of Ross." Dr Beattie, with whom, among other literary persons, he had become acquainted, and between whom a similarity of taste had produced an intimate friendship, alludes, in one of his letters,† to this part of Mr Scott's character: "I am astonished,” say Dr Beattie, "at the activity of your mind, and the versatility "of your genius. It is really amazing, that one and the same person should, " in one and the same year, publish the most elegant poems, and a Digest "of Laws relating to the Highways.' Go on, Sir, in your laudable resolu"tion of delighting and instructing mankind, of patronizing the poor, and "promoting the public weal."

This amiable man died of a putrid fever at London, the 12th December, 1783, in the fifty-fourth year of his age.

See a well-written life, and critical remarks on his works, by Dr Anderson, prefixed to his poems in the "British Poets," Vol. XI. p. 717.

+ In 1778, with a friendly zeal, he undertook the defence of his friend Dr Beattie, from an anonymous attack in "The Gentleman's Magazine" for January, in a letter in the same Maga. zine for March following, to which he signed his name, and received Dr Beattie's acknowledge

ments on the occasion.

not to imitate, but rather to rival, my predecessor. Hayley's piece has great merit, but is tedious from its length and inequality. That kind of rhyming prose, used by Dryden in his earlier works, seems coming much into fashion; but I am clear it must be a vicious taste that gives it encouragement. For the couplet versification, we have no better model than that of Pope; or if that can be at all improved, it must be by a sparing use of Dryden's manner in what (notwithstanding I have the authority of Johnson against me) I do not hesitate to call the best poetry he ever wrote, his "Tales" and "Fables." Another vicious mode of composition seems also to be gaining ground, which, if adopted, will almost absolutely destroy the distinction between two species of writing, which should be ever kept separate, rhyme and blank verse: I mean, breaking the lines of couplets; or, in other words, running the sense too much from one line to another. This is countenanced by one very good poet, Meikle, translator of the "Lusiad," who, in a fine poem, entitled " Almada-hill," has practised it to an excess, and by that means injured his poetry. I am told Mason is about a translation of Fresnoy's "Poem on Painting." The original, as far as I can judge, reads flat and dry. Dryden's prose version does not mend it. What charms Mason's poetical powers may bestow upon it, I do not pretend to determine. There is more in expression than we are often aware of. The same thought in different language will disgust or delight us. So just is the axiom of Pope,

“True wit.* is nature to advantage dressed;

"What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed."

"I believe I mentioned in a former letter, that I had seen Bryant on the "Rowleyan Controversy," and that Dean Mills had published a pompous quarto edition of the author. Both these gentlemen have been completely answered, in a very good and decisive pamphlet, by Mr Thomas Warton; and Mills has been most severely ridiculed in an archaiological epistle. This is an excellent performance of the serio-humorous kind: it is pretty

* I should rather have said true poetry; or indeed good composition of any species.