dark. In hopes of a letter to-day I deferred till night, that I might write in the light. It looks so much like rain, I shall not go to town to-day, but put it off till to-morrow. Brown, this morning, is writing some Spenserian stanzas against Miss B- and me so I shall amuse myself with him a little, in the manner of Spenser.

"He is to weet a melancholy carle:

Thin in the waist, with bushy head of hair,
As hath the seeded thistle, when a parle
It holds with Zephyr, ere it sendeth fair
Its light balloons into the summer air;
Therto his beard had not begun to bloom,

No brush had touched his chin, or razor sheer;
No care had touched his cheek with mortal doom,
But new he was, and bright, as scarf from Persian loom.

"Ne cared he for wine or half-and-half;
Ne cared he for fish, or flesh, or fowl;
And sauces held he worthless as the chaff;
He 'sdeigned the swine-head at the wassail-bowl;
Ne with lewd ribbalds sat he cheek by jowl;
Ne with sly lemans in the scorner's chair;
But after water-brooks this pilgrim's soul
Panted, and all his food was woodland air;
Though he would oft-times feast on gilliflowers rare.

"The slang of cities in no wise he knew,

Tipping the wink to him was heathen Greek;
He sipped no "olden Tom," or "ruin blue,”
Or Nantz, or cherry-brandy, drank full meek
By many a damsel brave, and rouge of cheek;

Nor did he know each aged watchman's beat,

Nor in obscured purlieus would he seek

For curled Jewesses, with ankles neat,

Who, as they walk abroad, make tinkling with their feet."

This character would ensure him a situation in the establishment of the patient Griselda. Brown is gone to bed, and I am tired of writing; there is a north wind playing green-gooseberry with the trees, it blows so keen. I don't care, so it helps, even with a sidewind, a letter to me.

The fifth canto of Dante pleases me more and more; it is that one in which he meets with Paulo and Francesca. I had passed many days in rather a low state of mind, and in the midst of them I dreamt of being in that region of Hell. The dream was one of the most delightful enjoyments I ever had in my life; I floated about the wheeling atmosphere, as it is described, with a beautiful figure, to whose lips mine were joined, it seemed for an age; and in the midst of all this cold and darkness I was warm everflowery tree-tops sprung up, and we rested on them, sometimes with the lightness of a cloud, till the wind blew us away again. I tried a Sonnet on it: there are fourteen lines in it, but nothing of what I felt. Oh! that I could dream it every night.

"When lulled Argus, baffled, swooned and slept," &c.*

* See the "Literary Remains."

I want very much a little of your wit, my dear

sister- -a letter of yours just to bandy back a pun or two across the Atlantic, and send a quibble over the Floridas. Now, by this time you have crumpled up

your large bonnet, what do you wear?-a cap! Do you put your hair in paper of nights? Do you pay the Misses Birkbeck a morning visit? Have you any tea, or do you milk-and-water with them? What place of worship do you go to the Quakers, the Moravians, the Unitarians, or the Methodists? Are there any flowers in bloom you like? Any beautiful heaths? Any streets full of corset-makers? What sort of shoes have you to put those pretty feet of yours in? Do you desire compliments to one another? Do you ride on horseback? What do you have for breakfast, dinner, and supper, without mentioning lunch and bite, and wet and snack, and a bit to stay one's stomach? Do you get any spirits? Now you might easily distil some whisky, and, going into the woods, set up a whisky-shop for the monkeys! Do you and the other ladies get groggy on anything? A little so-so-ish, so as to be seen home with a lanthorn? You may perhaps have a game at Puss-in-the-corner: ladies are warranted to play at this game, though they have not whiskers. Have you a fiddle in the Settlement, or, at any rate, a Jew's-harp which will play in spite of one's teeth? When you have nothing else

to do for a whole day, I'll tell you how you may employ it first get up, and when you are dressed, as it would be pretty early, with a high wind in the woods, give George a cold pig, with my compliments, then you may saunter into the nearest coffee-house, and after taking a dram and a look at the "Chronicle," go and frighten the wild bears on the strength of it. You may as well bring one home for breakfast, serving up the hoofs, garnished with bristles, and a grunt or two, to accompany the singing of the kettle. Then, if George is not up, give him a colder pig, always with my compliments. After you have eaten your breakfast, keep your eye upon dinner, it is the safest way; you should keep a hawk's eye over your dinner, and keep hovering over it till due time, then pounce upon it, taking care not to break any plates. While you are hovering with your dinner in prospect, you may do a thousand things-put a hedge-hog into George's hat, pour a little water into his rifle, soak his boots in a pail of water, cut his jacket round into shreds, like a Roman kilt, or the back of my grandmother's stays, tear off his buttons

The following poem, the last I have written, is the first and only one with which I have taken even moderate pains; I have, for the most part, dashed off my lines in a hurry; this one I have done leisurely;

I think it reads the more richly for it, and it will I hope encourage me to write other things in even a more peaceable and healthy spirit. You must recollect that Psyche was not embodied as a goddess before the time of Apuleius the Platonist, who lived after the Augustan age, and consequently the goddess was never worshipped or sacrificed to with any of the ancient fervour, and perhaps never thought of in the old religion: I am more orthodox than to let a heathen goddess be so neglected.

(Here follows the “Ode to Psyche” already published.)

I have been endeavouring to discover a better Sonnet stanza than we have. The legitimate does not suit the language well, from the pouncing rhymes; the other appears too elegiac, and the couplet at the end of it has seldom a pleasing effect. I do not pretend to have succeeded. It will explain itself:

"If by dull rhymes our English must be chained," &c.*

This is the third of May, and everything is in delightful forwardness: the violets are not withered before the peeping of the first rose. You must let

VOL. I.

* See the "Literary Remains."

T