One condition however I made, that, if they should not have the good manners to write, "I thank you, madam, for your poem," he would never more request me to obtrude my compositions upon titled insolence. They had not the civility to make the least acknowledgment.

My heart (I own it is in some respects a proud one) swelled with indignation;-not at the neglect, for I felt it beneath my attention, and had expected it, but because I had been obliged to give them reason to believe that I desired their notice.

My life against sixpence, the duke of Richmond would receive a letter from me in the same man ner. Ah! a soul like lord Heathfield's, attentive to intellectual exertions in the closet of the studious, as in the field of honour, and generous enough to encourage, and throw around it the lustre of his notice, is even more rare than his valour and military skill. I wish his lordship to see this letter. It will explain to him the nature of those convictions, and of those feelings, which must be powerful indeed, ere I could hesitate a moment to follow his advice, though but insinuated, on any subject. My devoted respects and good wishes are his, as they are yours, not periodically, but constantly.

LETTER XLI.

ANNA SEWARD TO MISS WESTON,

Lichfield, April 15, 1788.

YOUR letter, dear Sophia, is full of entertaining matter, adorned with the wonted grace and viva.

city of your style. For the payment of such debts our little city is not responsible.

I ought, however, to speak to you of an extraordinary being who ranged amongst us during the winter, since he bears your name, amongst us little folk, I mean, for he was by no means calculated to the meridian of our pompous gentry; though, could he once have been received into their circle, they would perhaps have endured his figure and his profession, and half forgive the superiority of his talents, in consideration of his extreme fondness for every game at cards, and of his being an admirable whist-player

The profession of this personage is music, organist of Solihull in Warwickshire; in middle life; his height and proportion mighty slender, and well enough by nature, but fidgeted and noddled into an appearance not over prepossessing; nor are his sharp features and very sharp little eyes a whit behind them in quizzity. Then he is drest-ye gods, how he is drest!—in a salmon-coloured coat, satin waistcoat, and small-clothes of the same warm auroratint; his violently protruded chitterlin, more luxuriant in its quantity, and more accurately plaited, than B. B.'s itself, is twice open hemmed.

That his capital is not worth a single hair he laments with a serio-comic countenance, that would make a cat laugh-and, in that ingenuousness with which he confesses all his miserable vanities, as he emphatically calls them, be tells us that he had frizzed off the scanty crop three thousand years ago.

This loss is however supplied by a wig, for the perfection of which he sits an hour and a half every

day, under the hands of the frizzeur, that it may be plumed out like a pigeon upon steady and sailing flight-and it is always powdered with marechall,

"Sweet to the sense, and yellow to the sight."

A hat furiously cocked and pinched, too small in the crown to admit his head, sticks upon the extremest summit of the full-winged caxon.

His voice has a scrannel-tone-his articulation is hurried, his accent distinguished by Staffordshire provinciality; and it is difficult to stand lis bow with any discipline of feature. He talks down the hours, but knows nothing of their flight; eccentric in that respect, and Parnassian in his contempt of the precision of eating-times as Johrson himself.

Now look on the other side the medal. His wit, intelligence, and poetic genius, are a mine; and his taste and real accuracy in criticism enable him to cut the rich ore they produce brilliant.

He knows of every body, and has read every thing. With a wonderfully retentive memory, and familiar with the principles of all the sciences, his conversation is as instructive as it is amusing; for his ideas are always uncommon and striking, either from absolute originality, or from new and happy combination.

His powers of mimicry, both in singing and speaking, are admirable. Nobody tells a humorous story better; but, in narrating interesting facts, his comments, though always in themselves worth attention, often fatigue by their plenitude, and by the suspense in which we are held concerning the principal events.

The heart of this ingenious and oddly compounded being, is open, ardent, and melting as even female-tenderness; and we find in it a scrupulous veracity, and an engaging dread of being intrusive. He has no vices, and much active virtue. For these good dispositions, he is greatly respected by the genteel families round Solihull, and (for his comic powers doubtless) his society is much sought after by them.

Hither while he staid in Lichfield did he often come. Indeed I found myself perpetually seduced, by his powers of speeding time, to give up more of that fast-fleeting possession to him than I could conveniently spare.

Our first interview proved, by mistake, embarrassing and ridiculous. Mr. Dewes being upon a visit to me, he and I were soberly weighing, in our respective balances, the quantity of genius that enriched the reign of Anne, and the liberal portions of it that our own times may boast.

It was evening, the grey hour, that "flings half an image on the straining sight." Comparing the dead and the living, by other light than that of candles, we had not called for them.

In bolts our servant Edward, who had seen as indistinctly as I was about to see. « Madam, here's young Mr. Weston,"-" Indeed!" exclaimed I, and starting up, rushed towards the personage who followed him, crying out, "Dear Joe, I am vastly glad to see you." "My name is Joseph Weston, madam." The devil it is, thought I; for the voice, and the accompanying wriggle with which he bowed very low, were not our Joe's voice or bow.

"Lord bless me, sir,” said I, drawing back, “I have a friend of your name, for whom, in this dusky hour, I took you." He then told me that he had lately passed an evening with Mr. Saville, who had kindly assured him I should pardon an intrusion which had been the wish of years.

From that period, October last, Weston has been much in Lichfield, where genius and merit are, to the generality of its inhabitauts, as dust in the balance against inferior station and exterior inelegance. Yet within these walls, and at our theatre, this finical but glowing disciple of the muses, passed many animated hours.

He has the theatric mania upon him, in all its ardour. The inclosed very ingenious prologue he taught Roxwell, who has a fine person and harmonious voice, to speak very delightfully.

I by no means think with you on the general abuse of the higher powers of mind, or respecting their proving injurious to the happiness of their possessor. I have generally, though not always, found, that where there is most genius there is most goodness; and the inexhaustible sources of delight that, closed to common understandings, are open to elevated ones, must inevitably tend to give them a superior degree of happiness.

Johnson's Tour to the Hebrides has been long too much my admiration, in point of elegance, for me to think with you, that the letters from Scotland, in Mrs. Piozzi's publication, however charming, are to be named with it in the strength or in the graces of style.

So miss P

can now say with Eloisa

"Rise Alps between us, and whole oceans roll.”