Orford, or could even hear his style or title with

out hesitation.]

XVIII.

DEAR SIR,

Berkeley-square, April 11, 1794.

I HAVE carefully gone through your MSS. with great delight and, with the few trifling corrections that I have found occasion to make, I shall be ready to restore them to you whenever it shall be convenient to you to call for them; for I own I find them too valuable to be trusted to any other hand.

As I hope I am now able to begin to take the air, I beg you not to call between eleven and two, when you would not be likely to find me at home. Your much obliged humble servant,

My house is so full of pictures, that I could not place a new one without displacing some other; nor is that my chief objection; I am really much too old now to be hunting for what I may have few moments to possess; and as the possessor of the picture you mention values it highly, I am not

tempted to visit what would probably be very dear. The lady represented does not strike my memory as a person about whom I have any knowledge, or curiosity; and I own I have been so often drawn to go after pictures that were merely ancient, that now, when I am so old, and very infirm, and go out very little, you will excuse me if I do not wait on you, though much obliged to you for your proposal. I cannot go up and down stairs without being led by a servant. It is tempus abire for me :

lusi satis.

Yours most sincerely,

ORFORD.

EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS.

I. Farce.

"Mr. O'KEEFE has brought our audiences to bear with extravagance; and were there not such irresistible humour in his utmost daring, it would be impossible to deny that he has passed even beyond the limits of nonsense-but I confine this approbation to his Agreeable Surprise. In his other pieces there is much more untempered nonsense than humour. Even that favourite performance I wondered that Mr. Colman dared to produce."

II. Dramatic Characters.

This is

"YOUR remark, that a piece full of marked characters would be void of nature, is most just. so strongly my opinion, that I thought it a great fault in Miss Burney's Cecilia, though it has a thousand other beauties, that she has laboured far too much to make all her personages talk always in character whereas, in the present refined or depraved state of human nature, most people endeavour to conceal their real character, not to display it. A professional man, as a pedantic fellow

of a college, or a seaman, has a characteristic dialect; but that is very different from continually letting out his ruling passion."

III. Song-writing.

"I HAVE no more talent for writing a song, than for writing an ode like Dryden's or Gray's. It is a talent per se, and given, like every other branch of genius, by Nature alone. Poor Shenstone was labouring through his whole life to write a perfect song-and, in my opinion at least, never succeeded -not better than Pope did in a St. Cecilian ode. I doubt not whether we have not gone a long, long way beyond the possibility of writing a good song. All the words in the language have been so often employed on simple images (without which a song cannot be good), and such reams of bad verses have been produced in that kind, that I question whether true simplicity itself could please now. At least, we are not likely to have any such thing. Our present choir of poetic virgins write in the other extreme. They colour their compositions so highly with choice and dainty phrases, that their own dresses are not more fantastic and romantic. Their nightingales make as many divisions as Italian singers. But this is wandering from the subject: and while I only meant to tell you what I could not do myself, I am telling you what others do ill."

IV. Poetic Epochs.

"I WILL yet hazard one other opinion, though relative to composition in general. There are two periods favourable to poets-a rude age, when a genius may hazard any thing, and when nothing has been forestalled. The other is, when, after ages of barbarisin and incorrection, a master or two produce models formed by purity and taste. Virgil, Horace, Boileau, Corneille, Racine, Pope, exploded the licentiousness that reigned before them. What happened? Nobody dared to write in contradiction to the severity established; and very few had the abilities to rival their masters. Insipidity ensues : -novelty is dangerous :—and bombast usurps the throne, which had been debased by a race of Faineants."

V. Criticism.

"IT is prudent to consult others before one ventures on publication-but every single person is as liable to be erroneous as an author. An elderly man, as he gains experience, acquires prejudices too: nay, old age has generally two faults-it is too quick-sighted into the faults of the time being, and too blind to the faults that reigned in his own youth; which having partaken of, or having admired, though injudiciously, he recollects with complaisance."