the introductory) passage of that particular book, or from that, which makes the most conspicuous figure in it. Had I set off with a design to write upon a gridiron, and had I actually written near two hundred lines upon that utensil, as I have upon the Sofa, the gridiron should have been my title. But, the Sofa being, as I may say, the starting-post, from which I addressed myself to the long race, that I soon conceived a design to run, it acquired a just pre-eminence in my account, and was very worthily advanced to the titular honour it enjoys, its right being at least so far a good one, that no word in the language could pretend a better.

The Time-piece appears to me, (though by some accident the import of that title has escaped you) to have a degree of propriety beyond the most of them. The book to which it belongs, is intended to strike the hour that gives notice of approaching judgment; and dealing pretty largely in the signs of the times, seems to be denominated, as it is, with a sufficient degree of accommodation to the subject.

As to the word worm, it is the very appellation which Milton himself, in a certain passage of the Paradise Lost, gives to the serpent. Not having the book at hand, I cannot now refer to it, but I am sure

of the fact. I am mistaken too, if Shakespear's Cleopatra do not call the asp, by which she thought fit to destroy herself, by the same name. But, not having read the play these five-and-twenty years, I will not affirm it. They are however without all doubt convertible terms.- A worm is a small serpent, and a serpent is a large worm. And when an epithet significant of the most terrible species of those creatures is adjoined, the idea is surely sufficiently ascertained. No animal of the vermicular or serpentine kind is crested, but the most formidable of all,

I condole with you, that you

had the trouble to ascend St. Paul's in vain, but at the same time congratulate you, that you escaped an

ague. I should be very well pleased to have a fair prospect of a balloon under sail, with a philosopher or two on board, but at the same time, should be very sorry to expose myself, for any length of time, to the rigour of the upper regions, at this season, for the sake of it. The travellers themselves, I suppose, are secured from all injuries of the weather by that fervency of spirit and agitation of mind, which must needs accompany them in their flight; advantages, which the more composed and phlegmatic spectator is not equally possessed of.

The inscription of the poem is more your own affair than any other person's. You have, therefore, an undoubted right to fashion it to your mind, nor have I the least objection to the slight alteration, that you have made in it. I inserted what you have erased for a reason, that was perhaps rather chimerical than solid. I feared, however, that the Reviewers, or some of my sagacious readers, not more merciful than they, might suspect, that there was a secret design in the wind, and that author and friend had consulted in what manner author might introduce friend to public notice, as a clergyman every way qualified to entertain a pupil or two, if peradventure any gentleman of fortune were in want of a tutor for his children. I

therefore added the words" And of his two sons only"-by way of insinuating, that you are perfectly satisfied with your present charge, and that you do not wish for more; thus meaning to obviate an illiberal construction, which we are, both of us, incapable of deserving. But the same caution not having appeared to you to be necessary, I am very willing and ready to suppose that it is not so.

I intended in my last to have given you my reasons for the compliment, that I paid Bishop Bagot, lest, knowing that I have no personal connexion with him, you should suspect me of having done it rather too much at a venture. In the first place then, I wished the world to know, that I have no objection to a bishop, quia bishop. In the second place, the brothers were all five my school-fellows, and very amiable and valuable boys they were. Thirdly, Lewis, the bishop, had been rudely and coarsely treated in the Monthly Review, on account of a sermon, which appeared to me, when I read their extract from it, to deserve the highest commendations, as exhibiting explicit proof both of his good sense, and his unfeigned piety. For these causes, me thereunto moving, I felt myself happy in an opportunity to do public honour to a worthy man, who had been publicly traduced;

and indeed the Reviewers themselves have since repented of their aspersions, and have travelled not a little out of their way in order to retract them, having taken occasion by the sermon preached at the bishop's visitation at Norwich, to say every thing handsome of his lordship, who, whatever might be the merit of the discourse, in that instance at least could himself lay claim to no other than that of being a hearer.

Since I wrote, I have had a Letter from Mr. Newton that did not please me, and returned an answer to it that possibly may not have pleased him. We shall come together again soon (I suppose) upon as amicable terms as usual. But at present he is in a state of mortification. He would have been pleased, had the book passed out of his hands into yours, or even out of yours into his, so that he had previously had opportunity to advise a measure, which I pursued without his recommendation, and had seen the poems in manuscript. But my design was to pay you a whole compliment, and I have done it. If he says more on the subject, I shall speak freely, and perhaps please him less than I have done already.

Yours, with our love to you all.

W. C.