a Sunday morning, and departing in the afternoon, he frustrated the wish of our inhabitants to have welcomed, with public eclat, the restorer of the nation's glory. Captain Cayleur and Mr Vernon accompanied his lordship. The former is a graceful young gentleman, strongly resembling the brave unfortunate André. It gives me pleasure that my neighbour, Mr Vernon, stands so high in Lord Heathfield's esteem. He has considerable talents and exertion; and the warm, and entirely voluntary praise of so great and good a man, proves that they have been, at least of late years, directed to noble purposes. Nor did Lord H. wait for my intended mention of you. We had not been ten minutes together before he entered upon a theme so agreeable, declaring his high opinion of your professional merit, of your domestic virtues; adding, " his wife will be a happy woman, and she deserves him." My father had not sufficiently recovered from a recent epileptic fit for me to venture introducing him to my noble guest. Greatly was I disappointed that he could not have the happiness of paying his respects to one, whose name he al ways mentions with a tear glistening in his dear eyes. I had presented all my publications to Lord Heathfield, elegantly bound. He would not suffer his aid-de-camp to carry the book to the inn, but held it in his own hand, as he walked through our streets. I know your friendship will take a lively interest in these little circumstances, which do me so much honour. The public critics are so venal, or so partial; so perpetually suffer their publications to be the channel through which private malice may transmit its venom; so often render their venality notorious by extolling the most worthless composi- . tions, that I feel it impossible to be flattered by their praise, should they extend it to my writings; which is very improbable, as I know I am not in their favour. Since, therefore, I could not be gratified by their applause, yet might be hecticked by their abuse, I never look into any review; and advise every author, who cannot stoop to bribe these gentry, to follow my example in that respect. Thus shutting my ears to the critical owls, hooting in the darkness of anonymous spleen, I can say nothing to the stricture you allude to in the Monthly Review. I have just received an high, and most ingenious compliment in verse, upon the ode to Elliot, which, by what you say, I conclude the Monthly Review abuses. It is from Mr Mundy of Marton, author of Needwood Forest, the best local poem in this language, and contains a sovereign balm for review abuse, if I permitted it to approach near enough to wound me. I thank you for the tribute of love and esteem paid by Mr de Crosne to the virtues of your General. Crosne must be a good man. It is a degree of virtue next to that of doing great and glorious actions, to love those whose performance of them has been inimical to our interest, whether generally or individually. Farewell. LETTER LXXI. MR W. NEWTON, THE PEAK MINSTREL. Lichfield, Sept. 26, 1787. I AM very sorry for your declining health, and broken and perturbed rest. Perhaps your energies, the united force of your manual and mental industry bears too hard upon the vital springs. Let me intreat you to acquire a taste for the sweets of tender indolence, when there are no indispensable demands upon your attention. Have you seen the poems of the Scotch peasant Burns? They abound with the irregular fires of genius whenever they describe rural scenery, or the customs and characters of village-life. We find that he has looked at Nature, in her wild-and rustic operations, with his own eyes, and he is particularly happy in his winter landscapes. But when he grows sentimental he has little that is new, and his plagiarisms are notorious. There is great originality in the allegoric ode which personifies a Caledonian muse; but he says there was about her "A hair-brain'd sentimental trace." How a The line is specked as a quotation. sentimental trace should be hair-brained, which means wild, giddy, unthinking, there can be no guess. Mr Hayley thus replies to my inquiring after his opinion of Burns's compositions—“ I admire the Scotch peasant, but do not think him superior to your poetical carpenter." From the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, a young prodigy in science and literature, of the name of Christie, brightened with his society a sullen evening of this summer. Scotland produces more of these early enthusiasts in the arts and in knowledge than England, or than, perhaps, 'any other nation. High of spirit, patient of toil, and emulous of fame, they travel far and wide, and do their country honour in every part of the world, as soldiers, statesmen, legislators, historians, philosophers, and poets: "As from their own clear north, in radiant streams, LETTER LXXII. GEORGE HARDINGE, ESQ. Lichfield, Oct. 1, 1787. I AM enchanted with your last letter of so much joyous wit;-circumstances so truly burlesque ;— characters so singularly marked ;-pathetic narration, with an awakening portion of horror in the conclusion; and, perhaps welcomer than all the |