DEAR SIR,

IF I have but little appetite for literary applause, I have not however cheated myself into mistaking a weak stomach for strength of mind, nor made a merit of an indifference which it is a misfortune to feel, and the sickliest vanity to affect. But there is a sympathy, that, in its conscious independence on person and accident, dares disclaim all individuality, and confers on us, or seems to confer, a right of demanding the same feeling from others; and to Praise, that springs up from such a root, to the buds and blossoms of such a judgment, God forbid that I should be otherwise than alive. I understand its value, my dear Sir, even from the desiderium which its rare and transient possession has left behind; and I know that, without its support, the hopes and purposes of genius sink back on the heart, like a sigh on the tightened chest of a sick man. What then should we think of those who feel the full worth of such a tribute in their own case, yet withhold it in that of others? Such is Atticus; for Mr Pope's was not the last any more than he was the first of the breed. An eager, a fervid sympathy, is an indispensable condition of his regard. The admiration of his writings is not merely his guage of men's taste-he reads it as the index of their moral character. And yet in his commendations of friend or contemporary, this same Atticus is as nice and deliberate a balancer as if his judgment were at that moment passing its ordeal before the eye of the whole world,

And to o'ercross a current, roaring loud, On the unstedfast footing of a spear. With the same comfortless discretion does he communicate to the author his opinion, grounded on the specimens of an unfinished work. The ideal of the art, or the giants who have approached nearest to its attainments, the foci of whole centuries of Nature's energies, are brought forwards-to enlighten? to enkindle? No! but to wither and dry up. The phrase is not too strong. There are different tempers in genius; and there are men richly gifted, who yet, after each successive effort of composition, lose the

inward courage that should enable them to decide rightly on the degree of their success, and who seek the judgment of an admired friend with a timid and almost girlish bashfulness. On such a temper, and in such a mood, this chilly, doubting, qualifying wiseness may check and inhibit the infant buds of power for months-nay, should the hapless wight continue so long under the spray, for the whole summer of his life! Principles of criticism drawn from philosophy, are best employed to illustrate the works of those whose fame is already a fatum among mankind, and to confirm, augment, and enlighten our admiration of the same. The living, on the other hand, ought always to be appreciated comparatively-their works with those of their contemporaries, each in its kind, and in proportion to the kind. We will not equal the wren with the nightingale in song, nor the sparrow with the eagle in flight; yet both shall take precedence of the ostrich, who can neither sing nor fly-though he manages his wings so adroitly, and so well helps out his natural prose with his analogon of poetic power, as to make no worse speed in the world's eye, and perhaps a greater figure. It should not be forgotten, too, that one characteristic beauty outweighs a score of imperfections, which latter are of importance only as far as they interfere with the effect of the former. But, above all, and as of especial interest in the case supposed, let it be considered, that for the unhatched egg the blindest admiration, if ensouled with genial warmth, is of more worth than all the mere light in the universe, though the satellites of Jupiter and Saturn should club their moonshine. Oh, what a heartless, hopeless, almost wishless barrenness of spirit, may not an affectionate and believing mind be reduced to by another, not perhaps the superior in the total sum of their gifts, but whom he has accustomed himself to idolize-because, only too conscious of the baser mixture in himself, he had separated that friend's excellencies from their dross or alloy, in the glow of his attachment, and then recast them into a whole, in the mould of

his own imagination. It is a downright Marattan, my dear Sir! a sandblast from the desert, that in its passage shrivels up the very marrow in a man's bones, like the pith in a baked quill! And then, to blend the ludicrous with the bitter, the vinegar with the gall, comes (too late!) the reflection, that our Atticus's capacity of this moral heat (if praise and sympathy may be so called), is in the inverse ratio of his disposition to radicate the same: tam capax quam maligna laudis.

I will not suppose it possible, that among our acquaintance, unknown and nameless, but not quite unconjectured friend! I will not, I say, distemper my own habit of contemplation, by recalling the practical comment, which more than one literary man's experience has supplied, on the paradox, +: i. e. that the negative is occasionally the most effective form of the positive-the silence of a supposed friend the most decisive confirmation of an enemy's slander-No! I will rather find an explanation in my own hypochondriacal fancies and fretfulness, than believe that men of original genius can play the part of luminous clouds, that retain their lustre no longer than they can conceal its source, and shine only by intercepted light. E di ris av TOITOS 4, Nóg as undus ! As to my unfriends, the Edinburgh Reviewers, they are foreign to my present purpose. The object of their articles is to prevent or retard the sale of a work, and this they seem to pursue with most inveteracy where, from the known circumstances of the author, the injury will fall heaviest: as in the case of Mr Montgomery and others, in addition to my own. Still the injury is such as ought not to affect, directly at least, the heart of a man of genius-though I have heard of one melancholy case, in which a bee from the muses' hive was stung to death by these literary hornets, who, unable to collect honey from the flowers, destroy and deform the fruits. The allegory is more perfect than I intended. For compare the criticism with the moral doctrines advanced in the 1st, 2d, or 3d volumes only, of the Edinburgh Review, and let sense and common honesty decide, whether they do not bear evidence against the writers, as men who, without power to collect, or skill to elaborate, the fair

and innocent means of gratifying the public taste, from the fancy and feeling, from the flower and fragrancy, of our natures, have shewn themselves only too well armed, and too successful in attacking and stealing away, piecemeal, the main truths and principles by which the moral being is to be fed and supported. But peace be with them-though I do not know, indeed, what right I have to wish the good lady such quarrelsome company.

But there is one class of literary besetters, who, like an ancestor of the tribe immortalized by Horace, are highly amusing to all but the unlucky patient himself; and perhaps to him too, except while under the operation. I mean your advice-mongers; whose requests to hear your last finished MSS. must be complied with, if you would not have them sorry in al companies, really sorry that they should have forfeited your regard by their sincerity. Gil Blas and the archbishop should have taught them, &c. &c.; and whose critical minimism, when the attempt is made to read the poem, too impatient to wait even for the next semicolon, might remind one of those tiny night-flies, that, as they hurry across one's book, contrive, with self and shadow, to cover a word at a time.

I trust that the purport of these remarks will not escape you. I would at all times have my feelings deduced from my opinions rather than from my professions; while the painful reluctance with which I connect the former with the individuals whose manners and conduct had raised them from opinions into experiences, and the sensation and perplexity with which I shrink from all personal recollections, have, I find, by casting a hasty glance over the preceding scrawl, beguiled me into a whimsical medley of similes and metaphors, that will probably start a doubt in your mind whether ever the masquerade eloquence of that pre-eminent figurante, Counsellor Philipps himself, presents common-place thoughts in a more lunatic variety of masks and fancy-dominos. Never mind. It is enough, if I have but conveyed the fact, that I not only feel, but appreciate, the honours I have received from you. To my warmest well-willers, you will appear to have so brimmed the cup of praise, that scarcely a rose-leaf could be added without risk of