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Suffer me to make an experiment upon your supreme aversion, the measure of the legitimate sonnet. Most of the stanzas in your darling monody by Lyttleton, are capable of forming a distinct sonnet in the Miltonic numbers, and in the manner of Petrarch's, who wrote chiefly in that metre, though his fame as a poet has augmented through so many ages.

FIRST SONNET.

"AT length have I escap'd each human eye,
Escap'd from every duty, every care,

That in my mournful thoughts might claim a share,
Importunate; arrest the bursting sigh,

Or force my tears their flowing stream to dry!

Screen'd by these cypress shades from every glare

Of evening lustres, that so vainly fair

Gild the green valley; let me now supply,
Beneath this lone retreat, which sorrow needs,
All that may give my burden'd heart relief,
And suffer it to pour its tide of grief;
Of grief, alas! that other grief exceeds

Far as love's tender throb, and vivid glow,
Transcend in joy's fine zest all other joys below."

SECOND SONNET.

"O! Shades of Hagley! where is now your boast?
Your bright inhabitant for ever flown;
Your once delighted master left alone,
And all the interest of your graces lost!
You she preferr'd to all that dazzles most,

In scenes where pleasure rears her gilded throne,
The eye of thoughtless beauty; charm'd to own
That your coy dells, and flowery vales engross'd
Her raptur'd choice; while every passion there
From the recesses of her spotless breast

She chas'd, save those the gentlest, and the best,
Devotion high, and admiration fair

Of God, and nature, with the soft desires

That wedded lové augments, maternal love inspires."

THIRD SONNET.

"O'er the known vale I rove, with many a sigh,
To find the footsteps of my vanished bride,
Where oft we stray'd, 'mid evening's rosy pride,
In converse sweet, and with admiring eye

Beheld the summer sun go down the sky.

Nor in the wood, nor by the fountain's side,
Nor where its soft loquacious waters glide
Along the valley, can I now descry

One trace of Lucy;-yet, O! heavy hour!

All desolate of heart, I just discern,

Dim gleaming through yon thicket, the grey tower,

Silent and solemn, which protects her urn;

That pale memorial of those matchless charms,

That gave an heaven of love to these now widow'd arms."

I know not if this experiment will answer. I had not time to do it justice by polishing higher. It is an extempore experiment, and I grant that this measure, being of more difficult construction, is less calculated for an heart in the paroxysms of tender anguish, than the wilder Pindarics in which Lyttleton warbled. Tell me, however, with ingenuousness, if this alteration in the construction of the verse, has divested the ideas of their pathos. If you shall tell me that it has, I shall believe your prejudice against the sonnet at least unconquerable; and weary you no more with my labours for your poetical conversion.

You object to Ossian from its often appearing to you bombastic. That bombast may be often found in the Ossianic volumes is certain.-Macpherson doubtless extended the fragments he collected far beyond their original limits. I always conclude the bombast to be his own, the sublime to be Ossian.

You desire a specimen of the celebrated George Hardinge's style of letter-writing. I insert, for that purpose, the copy of a very short one, which I received from him lately. You will, I think, confess that it is at once singular and brilliant, and that his flattery is not common-place, ecce!

"A charming letter from you, this instant received. Bless you for it. A letter once in two

mouths, then, is to be my utmost hope. Well I embrace your two months with their

"Sweet, reluctant, indolent delay."

No epithets in Milton, to be sure! Come; I must at last confess your contention in their favour triumphant, from the proofs you produce of their frequency on the pages of that verse demi-god. You write like an angel, and I would go to the end of the world for a lock of your hair; and so pray send me one at the two months' end-and let me carry off your picture by force from Rom

ney.

"It's rather impudent, after all, that you should be so eloquent, so able, yet so feminine, so touching. It is not fair ;-you ought to be an elephant, and you are a charming woman, dear to me as any one of your enchanting sex, though I never saw you but once; exactly an hundred and nine years ago. Farewel, Urganda!”

LETTER LVII.

MRS COTTON.

Lichfield, March 23, 1787.

You misunderstood me if, in speaking of the refined, the learned and eloquent Mr

S

union with a woman of such mere common-life talents, you thought I meant that happiness was confined to people of exalted intellect. So far from asserting that idea, I am inclined to believe those the happiest who mutually plod on in the narrow circle of every-day minds, and adopt prejudices for principles. No; I said, and I still think it ill for married happiness, where the abilities, acquirements, and pursuits are very unequal. Rochefoucault says, we cannot long love those by whom we are despised, or for whom we feel any degree of contempt. Something very like contempt must arise where the disparity is extreme, and the pursuits wholly dissimilar. My life has not been very short, or by any means unobservant. Many miseries have I witnessed consequent upon intellectual inequality, where people have a great deal of time for companionable purposes. Where.

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