since it does not convince ?" Henceforth I shall be disposed to think all critical investigation useless, since a woman of your fine understanding can maintain her prejudices against a proposition so very self-evident, as that all which is worthy to please an enlightened mind, as truth of character; interest of situation; the force of imagery; the glow of description; the animation of apostrophe, and the pathos of complaint; may be almost equally well conveyed in one form of composition as in another. But if from the measure, its nature, and its arrangements, rather than from those essentials, results the material charm of the poetic science, then is that science but "as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal."

I cannot resist making one more effort to convince you that you have placed your sensations to a wròng cause, and are unjust to yourself in avowing and persisting in a prejudice, which one quarter of an hour's reflection would enable you to eradicate.

You have often declared a particular fondness for Lord Lyttleton's lovely monody on the death of his wife;-yet it is a Pindaric Ode. Beattie's Minstrel also I know you love, which is also written in a species of the lyric measure. Tasting the beauty of those compositions, you prove that it is not the ode-measures which of themselves

displease your ear, or perplex your attention. If Gray's Ode to the Lyre, which, charming as those poems are, is poetically superior to them both, does not charm you, since all the three are equally odes, it must be that the objects of Gray's ode are presented to the imagination; those of Lyttleton to the heart; those of Beattie's to the understanding. This difference between them would have subsisted in the same degree if each had written their poem in Pope's general measure, the ten feet couplet, which is your favourite style. Those high and picturesque graces of the art, to which you are more insensible than I can account for, do, it is certain, generally wear the lyric dress. It is therefore the nature of the objects often presented in odes, not the style of composition, which fails to interest and please you. The odes of Horace in Latin, and the odes of Akenside in English, are taken in a much lower tone than those of the Grecian Pindar, and those of our native Gray—that is, their subjects are more familiar, and common-life. I should think they would please, and at length induce you to cry out with Juliet,

"What's in a name?"-these, which are surely odes,
To sense, and to affection, speak as plain

As Pope's twin couplet."

net.

Suffer me to make an experiment upon your supreme aversion, the measure of the legitimate sonMost 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.

“ Ar 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 love 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

I know not if this experiment will answer. 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