the office of guarding it from extinction.-Priestess to the lamp of benevolence! Such an appointment might exalt, to some degree of dignity, the derided state of stale maidenhood.

No, indeed, not mine, the very able Johnsonian Analysis in the European Magazine. Pray inform Longinus of my disavowal.

I am glad you so warmly admire my favourite Caroline de Lichfield; that work, which abounds in situations which make curiosity gasp, admiration kindle, and pity dissolve. This novel is a unique of its kind, and neither imitates or resembles any other. We shall see plenty written in imitation of it, but they will be worthless.

I knew nothing of the publication of those sweet lines you sent me on the card inclosed in the pocket-book Mrs Hayley worked for me. It is true they have been shewn with pride and pleasure, whenever that pocket-book was noticed and admired; but I do not recollect having ever given any copy; nor would I, without their author's leave, have consented to their publication, however I might wish to shelter myself from the abuse of my writings in the European Magazine and English Review, beneath the bright and invulnerable armour of Mr Hayley's praise.

Giovanni and I often execrate together the malicious author of that invective in the Gentleman's Magazine for June, upon a certain work, which, however we might, in some respects, have wished otherwise, no more deserves such censure, than the lightnings which dart in our hemisphere, and which are not without their danger, deserve to be classed as an evil with the baneful explosions of Mount Etna.

Mrs Knowles brought hither her admirable stage-coach manuscript. The adventure was fortunately ludicrous for the amusement of her friends; but most unfortunately so, for the selfconsequence of Dr * Bamble-Bee. What admirable fun has she made of his epicurism, his spleen, and his cullibility! Adieu !

LETTER XXXIX.

THE REV. DR WARNER.

Lichfield, Oct. 13, 1786.

THE suspicion of being blandished into vanity,

has more colour on my side than on yours;

* Dr Bro-by.

since, in a friendship between an unlearned female and a man of education, knowledge, and science, it is easy to see on which side the honour lies :--but of such a design, I trust we are neither of us seriously disposed to suspect each other. There are circumstances and situations in which the minds of two people become more completely unveiled in a few hours, than they would perhaps be in more than as many years of ordinary intercourse. The thrice amiable and noble design, which you pursue with so much ardour, proves to me, that your heart is ingenuous, warm, and affectionate. It is to such that mine feels affianced.

Too justly does Mr Selwyn call this the marble age, so polished! so cold! It is sick of the disease of not admiring; and that morbid ennui is epidemic amongst us; but I think you and I are not infected. We may be subject to other maladies; but that indurated plague-spot is not upon us.

Nothing was ever more absurd, than opposing the inferior virtues of Hanway to those of Howard. I hope I am not uncharitable; but I can scarcely think the man genuinely good, who seemed to fancy his own comparatively feeble exertions, had equal right to public gratitude with those of the matchless philanthrophic hero. Han

way was too surely jealous of the expanding fame of him, whose excellence seems the most power

ful emanation of deity that was ever shed on the human spirit.

We must take care, that the wit of your friend about the monument and the statue running a race, does not transpire. Ennui would take up the

fancy with a cold smile, saunter with it to her sister Caricature, and mischief would ensue; for blighting is the effect of ridicule upon public sensibility.

Fanatics have almost always cold hearts. Mr Cowper, whose poetic talents have such glowing and creative powers, professes himself, in the Task, a contemner of all praise, which has not Deity for its exclusive object. The plain meaning of what he says on the subject is just this ;"You fools, with your jubilee for your Shakespeare, and your commemoration for your Handel! What is it to you, that one was the first poet, the other the first musician in the world? What is it to you, if one employed his talents in promoting the moral virtues, and the other in exciting the spirit of devotion? Neither of them can get you a better place in Heaven. Away, then, with your idle disinterested encomiums and honours. Praise only HIM who can permanently reward your praises." These are the maxims of

those cold-hearted devotionists, whose religion is composed of selfishness and terror. I cannot think that the oblations of such mere parasites in religion can be acceptable as those of the benevolent man, whose piety is the result of blended gratitude to his Maker, and of kindling esteem and love for whatever is great and worthy in man; who praises such efforts, without coldly pausing to consider, whether he shall get any thing by his encomiums, here or hereafter.

Since all the powers of the human mind in science and art, as well as in religion and morality, are the gift of God, to applaud and to commemorate their industrious cultivation, cannot be displeasing to their great Giver. Shall he not lend a gracious observance of such liberal and unenvying testimony of fraternal love from one created being to another? Mr Cowper bends an eagle glance upon the follies and vices of his contemporaries, and an owlish one upon their talents. and virtues. He. will be likely enough to bid his austere muse frown upon the design of such a public testimony of honour for the rare and energetic virtue of Howard.

"Yet do not thou for that, or for ought else

Of cynic opposition bate one jot

Of heart or hope!-But still bear up, and steer
Right onward!"

Farewell!