and, in one instance, a repetition, was the consequence. Nothing, however, so bad as in the edition of 1820, where a long poem, The Lament of Mary Queen of Scots, was by mistake altogether omitted. Another unpleasantness arose from the same cause; for, in some instances, notwithstanding repeated charges to the printer, you have only two Spenserian stanzas in a page (I speak now of the last edition) instead of three; and there is the same irregularity in printing other forms of stanza.

You must indeed have been fond of that ponderous quarto, The Excursion, to lug it about as you did. In the edition of 1827 it was diligently revised, and the sense in several instances got into less room; yet still it is a long poem for these feeble and fastidious times. You would honour me much by accepting a copy of my poetical works; but I think it better to defer offering it to you till a new edition is called for, which will be ere long, as I understand the present is getting low.

A word or two about Collins. You know what importance I attach to following strictly the last copy of the text of an author; and I do not blame you for printing in the Ode to Evening 'brawling' spring; but surely the epithet is most unsuitable to the time, the very worst, I think, that could have been chosen.

I now come to Lady Winchelsea. First, however, let me say a few words upon one or two other authoresses of your Specimens. British poetesses make but a poor figure in the Poems by Eminent Ladies. But observing how injudicious that selection is in the case of Lady Winchelsea, and of Mrs. Aphra Behn (from whose attempts they are miserably copious), I have thought something better might have been chosen by more competent persons who had access to

the volumes of the several writers. In selecting from Mrs. Pilkington, I regret that you omitted (look at p. 255) Sorrow, or at least that you did not abridge it. The first and third paragraph are very affecting. See also Expostulation, p. 258: it reminds me strongly of one of the Penitential Hymns of Burns. The few lines upon St. John the Baptist, by Mrs. Killigrew (vol. ii. p. 6), are pleasing. A beautiful Elegy of Miss Warton (sister to the poets of that name) upon the death of her father, has escaped your notice; nor can I refer you to it. Has the Duchess of Newcastle written much verse? her Life of her Lord, and the extracts in your book, and in the Eminent Ladies, are all that I have seen of hers. The Mirth and Melancholy has so many fine strokes of imagination, that I cannot but think there must be merit in many parts of her writings. How beautiful those lines, from 'I dwell in groves,' to the conclusion, 'Yet better loved, the more that I am known,' excepting the four verses after 'Walk up the hills.' And surely the latter verse of the couplet,

The tolling bell which for the dead rings out; A mill where rushing waters run about;

is very noticeable: no person could have hit upon that union of images without being possessed of true poetic feeling. Could you tell me anything of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu more than is to be learned from Pope's letters and her own? She seems to have been destined for something much higher and better than she became. A parallel between her genius and character and that of Lady Winchelsea her contemporary (though somewhat prior to her) would be well worth drawing.

And now at last for the poems of Lady Winchelsea. I will transcribe a note from a blank leaf of my

own edition, written by me before I saw the scanty notice of her in Walpole. (By the by, that book has always disappointed me when I have consulted it upon any particular occasion.) The note runs thus: "The Fragment, p. 280, seems to prove that she was attached to James II, as does p. 42, and that she suffered by the Revolution. The most celebrated of these poems, but far from the best, is The Spleen. The Petition for an absolute Retreat, and the Nocturnal Reverie, are of much superior merit. See also for favourable specimens, p. 156; On the Death of Mr. Thynne, p. 263; and p. 280 Fragment. The Fable of Love, Death, and Reputation, p. 29, is ingeniously told.' Thus far my own note. I will now be more particular. P. 3 Our Vanity, &c., and p. 163 are noticeable as giving some account from herself of her authorship. See also, p. 148, where she alludes to The Spleen. She was unlucky in her models, Pindaric Odes and French Fables. But see p. 70, The Blindness of Elymas, for proof that she could write with powers of a high order when her own individual character and personal feelings were not concerned. For less striking proofs of this power, see p. 4, 'All is Vanity,' omitting verses 5 and 6, and reading 'clouds that are lost and gone,' &c. There is merit in the two next stanzas; and the last stanza towards the close contains a fine reproof for the ostentation of Louis XIV, and one magnificent verse,

Spent the astonished hours, forgetful to adore. But my paper is nearly out. As far as 'For my garments,' p. 36, the poem is charming; it then falls off; revives at p. 39, Give me there: p. 41, &c., reminds me of Dyer's Grongar Hill: it revives p. 47 towards the bottom, and concludes with sentiments worthy of

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the writer, though not quite so happily expressed as other parts of the poem. See pages 82, 92, Whilst in the Muses' paths I stray;' p. 113. The Cautious Lovers, p. 118, has little poetic merit, but is worth reading as characteristic of the author. P. 143, 'Deep lines of honour,' &c., to 'maturer age.' P. 151 if shortened, would be striking; p. 154 characteristic; p. 159 from 'Meanwhile, ye living parents,' to the close, omitting 'Nor could we hope," and the five following verses; p. 217 last paragraph; p. 259 that you have; pages 262, 263; p. 280. Was Lady W. a R. Catholic? p. 290. And to the clouds proclaim thy fall;' p. 291 omit 'When scatter'd glow-worms,’ and the next couplet. I have no more room. Pray, excuse this vile scrawl.

Ever faithfully, yours,

LETTER TO DYCE

(MAY, 1830)

W. W.

Rydal Mount, Kendal, May 10, 1830.

MY DEAR SIR,

My last was, for want of room, concluded so abruptly, that I avail myself of an opportunity of sending you a few additional words free of postage, upon the same subject.

I observed that Lady Winchelsea was unfortunate in her models-Pindarics and Fables; nor does it appear from her Aristomenes that she would have been more successful than her contemporaries, if she had cultivated tragedy. She had sensibility sufficient for the tender parts of dramatic writing, but in the stormy and tumultuous she would probably have

failed altogether. She seems to have made it a moral and religious duty to control her feelings lest they should mislead her. Of love, as a passion, she is afraid, no doubt from a conscious inability to soften it down into friendship. I have often applied two lines of her drama (p. 318) to her affections:

Love's soft bands,

His gentle cords of hyacinths and roses,
Wove in the dewy spring when storms are silent.
By the by, in the next page are two impassioned
lines spoken to a person fainting :

Then let me hug and press thee into life,
And lend thee motion from my beating heart.

From the style and versification of this, so much her longest work, I conjecture that Lady Winchelsea had but a slender acquaintance with the drama of the earlier part of the preceding century. Yet her style in rhyme is often admirable, chaste, tender, and vigorous, and entirely free from sparkle, antithesis, and that overculture, which reminds one, by its broad glare, its stiffness, and heaviness, of the double daisies of the garden, compared with their modest and sensitive kindred of the fields. Perhaps I am mistaken, but I think there is a good deal of resemblance in her style and versification to that of Tickell, to whom Dr. Johnson justly assigns a high place among the minor poets, and of whom Goldsmith rightly observes, that there is a strain of ballad-thinking through all his poetry, and it is very attractive. Pope, in that production of his boyhood, the Ode to Solitude, and in his Essay on Criticism, has furnished proofs that at one period of his life he felt the charm of a sober and subdued style, which