does not often occur in poetry. So neither does the subject which I handle. Every subject has its own terms, and religious ones take theirs with most propriety from the scripture. Thence I take the word grace. The sarcastic use of it in the mouths of infidels I admit, but not their authority to proscribe it, especially as God's favour in the abstract has no other word, in all our language, by which it can be expressed.

Page 150.—Impress the mind faintly, or not at all.-1 prefer this line, because of the interrupted run of it, having always observed, that a little unevenness of this sort, in a long work, has a good effect, used I mean, sparingly, and with discretion.

Page 127.-This should have been noted first, but was overlooked. Be pleased to alter for me thus, with the difference of only one word, from the alteration proposed by you

We too are friends to royalty. We love

The king who loves the law, respects his bounds,

And reigns content within them.

You observed probably, in your second reading, that I allow the life of an animal to be fairly taken

away, when it interferes either with the interest or convenience of man. Consequently snails, and all reptiles, that spoil our crops, either of fruit or grain, may be destroyed, if we can catch them. It gives me real pleasure that Mrs. Unwin so readily under stood me. Blank verse, by the unusual arrangement of the words, and by the frequent infusion of one line into another, not less than by the style, which requires a kind of tragical magnificence, cannot be chargeable with much obscurity, must rather be singularly perspicuous to be so easily comprehended. It is my labour, and my principal one, to be as clear as possible. You do not mistake me, when you suppose, that I have great respect for the virtue that flies temptation. It is that sort of prowess, which the whole train of scripture calls upon us to manifest, when assailed by sensual evil, Interior mischiefs must be grappled with. There is no flight from them. But solicitations to sin, that address themselves to our bodily senses, are, I believe, seldom conquered in any other way.

I can easily see that you may have very reasonable objections to my dedicatory proposal. You are a clergyman, and I have banged your order. You are a child of alma mater, and I have banged her too.

Lay yourself, therefore, under no constraints, that I do not lay you under, but consider yourself as perfectly free.

With our best love to you all, I bid you heartily farewel. I am tired of this endless scribblement. Adieu !

the justness of your remarks, on the subject of the truly Roman heroism of the Sandwich islanders. Proofs of such prowess, I believe, are seldom exhibited by a people, who have attained to a high degree of civilization. Refinement, and profligacy of principle, are too nearly allied to admit of any thing so noble ; and I question whether any instances of faithful friendship like that, which so much affected you

in the behaviour of the poor savage, were produced even by the Romans themselves, in the latter days of the empire. They had been a nation, whose virtues it is impossible not to wonder at. But Greece, which was to them, what France is to us, a Pandora's box of mischief, reduced them to her own standard, and they naturally soon sunk still lower. Religion in this case seems pretty much out of the question. To the production of such heroism, undebauched nature herself is equal. When Italy was a land of heroes, she knew no more of the true God, than her cicisbèos and her fiddlers know now; and indeed it seems a matter of indifference, whether a man be born under a truth, which does not influence him, or under the actual influence of a lie; or if there be any difference between the cases, it seems to be rather in favour of the latter for a false persuasion, such as the Mahometan for instance, may animate the courage, and furnish motives for the contempt of death, while despisers of the true religion are punished for their folly, by being abandoned to the last degrees of depravity. Accordingly we see a Sandwich islander sacrificing himself to his dead friend, and our Christian seamen and mariners, instead of being imprest by a sense of his generosity, butchering him with a persevering cruelty

that will disgrace them for ever: for he was a defenceless, unresisting enemy, who meant nothing more than to gratify his love for the deceased. To slay him in such circumstances was to murder him, and with every aggravation of the crime that can be imagined.

I am again at Johnson's, in the shape of a poem in blank verse; consisting of six books, and called The Task. I began it about this time twelvemonth, and writing sometimes an hour in a day, sometimes half an one, and sometimes two hours, have lately finished it. I mentioned it not sooner, because almost to the last, I was doubtful whether I should ever bring it to a conclusion, working often in such distress of mind, as, while it spurred me to the work, at the same time threatened to disqualify me for it. My bookseller, I suppose, will be as tardy as before. I do not expect to be born into the world till the month of March, when I and the crocusses shall peep together. You may assure yourself that I shall take my first opportunity to wait on you. I mean likewise to gratify myself by obtruding my muse upon Mr. Bacon.

you.

Adieu, my dear friend! We are well, and love

W. C.