Monthly, which was then esteemed more decisive, being less satisfactory, he determined to appeal to lord Lyttelton. Accordingly, he sent to this nobleman a letter, dated January 21, 1763, under the assumed name of William More, begging his lordship's opinion of his poem, "which,” he tells him, "was the work of a young man, friendless and unknown; but that, were another edition to have the honour of lord Lyttelton's name at the head of a dedication, such a pleasure would enable him to put it in a much better dress than what it then appeared in." He concluded with requesting the favour of an answer to be left at Seagoe's coffee-house, Holborn. This letter he consigned to the care of his brother in London, who was to send it in his own hand, and call for the answer. The whole was the simple contrivance of a young man, unacquainted with the real value of the favour he solicited, and who, perhaps, had no very distinct ideas of his own expectations from it.

But before he could receive any answer, his affairs became so deranged that, although he experienced many instances of friendship and forbearance, it was no longer possible to avert a bankruptcy; and, suspecting that one of his creditors intended to arrest him for an inconsiderable debt, he was reduced to the painful necessity of leaving his home, which he did in the month of April, and reached London on the eighth day of May. Here, for some time, he remained friendless and forlorn, reflecting, with the utmost poignancy, that he had, in all probability, involved his family and friends in irremediable distress. Among other schemes which he hoped might eventually succeed in relieving his embarrassments, he appears to have now had some intentions of going to Jamaica, but in what capacity, or with what prospects, he perhaps did not himself know. There was, however, no immediate plan so easily practicable, by which he could expect, at some distant period, to satisfy his creditors; and the consciousness of this most painful of all obligations, was felt by him in a manner which can be conceived only by minds of the nicest honour and most scrupulous integrity.

While in this perplexity, he was cheered by a letter from lord Lyttelton, in which his lordship assured him, that he thought his genius in poetry deserved to be cultivated, but would not advise the re-publication of his poem without considerable alterations. He declined the offer of a dedication, as a thing likely to be of no use to the poet, as nobody minded dedications;" but suggested that it might be of some use if he were to come and read the poem with his lordship, when they might discourse together upon what he thought its beauties and faults. In the meantime, he exhorted Mickle to endeavour to acquire greater harmony of versification: and to take care that his diction did not loiter into prose, or become hard by new phrases, or words unauthorized by the usage of good authors. Whatever may be thought of lord Lyttelton's subsequent conduct, it cannot be denied that this letter was condescending and friendly; and it is certain, that his lordship readily and zealously performed what he had undertaken.

In answer, Mickle informed his lordship of his real name, and inclosed the elegy of Pollio for his lordship's advice. This was followed by another kind letter from lord Lyttelton, in which he gave his opinion, that the correction of a few lines would make it as perfect as any thing of that kind in our language, and promised to point out its faults when he had the pleasure of seeing the author. An interview accordingly took place, in the month of February, 1764, when his lordship, after receiving him with the utmost politeness and affability, begged him not to be discouraged at such difficulties as a young author must naturally expect, but to cultivate his very promising poetical powers: and, with his usual condescension, added, that he would become his schoolmaster. Other

interviews followed this very flattering introduction, at which Mickle read with him the poem on Providence, and communicated his plan for treating more fully a subject of so much intricacy, intimating that he had found it necessary to discard the philosophy of Pope's ethics.

His ideas on this subject, although not very clear, are thus explained in one of his letters to lord Lyttelton. "What is called God's moral government of the world may be reduced to a few general classes, which may be represented each by a particular fable, and however contrary to common practice, such fable, as was no way out of nature, seemed most proper to me, only heightening it by laying the scene in the east. In the speech of the angel, I thought once to avail myself of the philosophy of Mr. Pope's ethics, but found his system, if I rightly understood it, not clearly compatible with the real miseries that human wisdom cannot foresee, nor human virtue prevent and that there are such must be owned. That in the scale of being there must be such a rank as man in his present condition seems to want proof, and is much further than Mr. Locke goes, who only asserts the probability of a scale of gradation above us; nor, were it granted, is it a satisfactory method to solve the complaint of the sufferer. And though the argument drawn from man's blindness, and that hope is its own reward, may prove the duty of submission, it seems but ill fitted to beget a cheerful resignation. I have mentioned these, my lord, to show what scheme I would wish for: one that owned there was sometimes to virtue woe,' though it affirmed,

The broadest mirth unfeeling folly wears,

Less pleasing far than virtue's very tears.

A scheme that considered the individual in the moral world in a manner analogous to what is said of every seed in the natural, that it contains a perfect plant in itself. I never intended to run into discussions."

But, as in order to render his talents as soon productive as possible he had now a wish to publish a volume of poems, he sent to his noble friend that on Providence, Pollio, and an Elegy on Mary Queen of Scots. This produced a long letter from his lordship, in which, after much praise of the two former, he declined criticising any part of the Elegy on Mary, because he wholly disapproved of the subject. He added, with justice, that poetry should not consecrate what history must condemn, and in the view his lordship had taken of the history of Mary, he thought her entitled to pity, but not to praise. In this opinion Mickle acquiesced, from convenience if not from conviction, and again sent his lordship a copy of Providence with further improvements, hoping probably that they might be the last, but he had the mortification to receive it back from the noble critic so much marked and blotted, that he began to despair of completing it to his satisfaction. He remitted therefore a new performance, the Ode on May Day, begging his lordship's opinion" if it could be made proper to appear this spring (1765) along with the one already approved."

Whether any answer was returned to this application, we are not told. It is certain no volume of poems appeared, and our author began to feel how difficult it would be to justify such tardy proceedings to those who expected that he should do something to provide for himself. He had now been nearly two years in London, without any other subsistence than what he received from his brothers, or procured by contributing to some of the periodical publications, particularly the British and St. James's Magazines. All

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