SIR,

To the Author of the Mirror.

AS you treat much of politeness, I wish you would take notice of a particular sort of incivility, from which one suffers, without being thought intitled to complain.

at all.

66

I mean that of never contradicting one

I have come lately from my father's in the coun. try, where I was reckoned a girl of tolerable parts, to reside for some time at my aunt's in town. Here is a visitor, Mr. Dapperwit, a good-looking young man, with white teeth, a fine complexion, his cheeks dimpled, and rather a little full and large at bottom; in short, the civilest, most complying sort of face you can imagine. As I had often taken notice of his behaviour, I was resolved to minute down his discourse the other evening at tea. The conversation began about the weather, my aunt observing, that the seasons were wonderfully altered in her memory. Certainly, my lady," said Mr. Dapperwit, "ama"zingly altered indeed."-" Now I have heard my "father say, (said I) that is a vulgar error; for that it 86 appears from registers kept for the purpose, that "the state of the weather, though it may be differ❝ent in certain seasons, months, or weeks, preserves (6 a wonderful equilibrium in general."-" Why, to "be sure, Miss, I believe, in general, as you say; “but, talking of the weather, I hope your lady"ship caught no cold at the play t'other night; we 66 were so awkwardly situated in getting out."" Not "in the least, Sir; I was greatly obliged to your "services there."" You were well entertained, I "hope, my lady." Very well, indeed I laughed "exceedingly; there is a great deal of wit in "Shakespeare's comedies; 'tis a pity there is so "much of low life in them."-" Your ladyship's cri

"ticism is extremely just; every body must be struck "with it."—" Why now, I think, (said I again) that "what you call low life, is nature, which I would "not lose for all the rest of the play."-" Oh! "doubtless, Miss; for nature Skakespeare is inimi"table; every body must allow that.". "What do 66 you think, Sir, (said my cousin Betsy, who is a "piece of a poetess herself) of that monody you "were so kind as to send us yesterday?"-" I never "deliver my opinion, Ma'am, before so able a judge, "till I am first informed of hers."-"think it the "most beautiful poem, Sir, I have read of a great "while."—"Your opinion, Ma'am, flatters me ex"tremely, as it agrees exactly with my own; they are, I think, incontestibly the sweetest lines.""Sweet they may be, (here I broke in): I allow "them merit in the versification; but that is only ❝one; and, with me, by no means the chief, requi"site in a poem; they want force altogether.' "Nay, as to the matter of force, indeed it must be "owned."-" Yes, Sir and unity, and propriety, "and a thousand other things; but, if my cousin "will be kind enough to fetch the poem from her "dressing-room, we will be judged by you, Mr. "Dapperwit."" Pardon me, ladies, you would not have me be so rude.

"Who shall decide when doctors disagree?"

And, with that, he made one of the finest bows in the world.

If all this, Sir, proceed from silliness, we must pity the man, and there's an end on't; if it arise from an idea of silliness in us, let such gentlemen as Mr. Dapperwit know, that they are very much mistaken. But if it be the effect of pure civilitypray inform them, Mr. MIRROR, that it is the most

NOTHING has a greater tendency to elevate and affect the heart than the reflection upon those personages who have performed a distinguished part on the theatre of life, whose actions were attended with important consequences to the world around them, or whose writings have animated or instructed mankind. The thought that they are now no more, that their ashes are mingled with those of the meanest and most worthless, affords a subject of contemplation, which, however melancholy, the mind, in a moment of pensiveness, may feel a secret sort of delight to indulge. “Tell her,” says Hamlet," that "she may paint an inch thick; yet to this she must ¢ come at last."

When Xerxes, at the head of his numerous army, saw all his troops ranged in order before him, he burst into tears at the thought, that, in a short time, they would be sweeped from the face of the earth, and be removed to give place to those who would fill other armies, and rank under other generals.

Something of what Xerxes felt, from the consideration that those who then were, should cease to be, it is equally natural to feel from the reflection, that all who have formerly lived have ceased to live, and that nothing more remains than the memory of a very

few who have left some memorial which keeps alive their names, and the fame with which those names are accompanied.

But serious as this reflection may be, it is not so deep as the thought, that even of those persons who were possessed of talents for distinguishing themselves in the world, for having their memories handed down from age to age, much the greater part, it is likely, from hard necessity, or by some of the various fatal accidents of life, have been excluded from the possibility of exerting themselves, or of being useful either to those who lived in the same age, or to posterity. Poverty in many, and “disastrous chance" in others, have chill'd the "genial current of the soul," and numbers have been cut off by premature death in the midst of project and ambition. How many have there been in the ages that are past, how many may exist at this very moment, who, with all the talents fitted to shine in the world, to guide or to instruct it, may, by some secret misfortune, have had their minds depressed, or the fire of their genius extinguished?

I have been led into these reflections from the perusal of a small volume of poems which happens now to lie before me, which, though possessed of very considerable merit, and composed in this country, are, I believe very little known. In a well-written preface, the reader is told, that most of them are the production of Michael Bruce; that this Michael Bruce was born in a remote village in Kinross-shire, and descended from parents remarkable for nothing but the innocence and simplicity of their lives: that, in the twenty-first year of his age, he was seized with a consumption, which put an end to his life.

Nothing, methinks, has more the power of awakening benevolence, than the consideration of genius thus depressed by situation, suffered to pine in obscurity and sometimes, as in the case of this unfortunate

young man, to perish, it may be, for want of those comforts and conveniencies which might have fostered a delicacy of frame or of mind, ill-calculated to bear the hardships which poverty lays on both. For my own part, I never pass the place, (a little hamlet, skirted with a circle of old ash-trees, about three miles on this side of Kinross) where Michael Bruce resided; I never look on his dwelling-a small thatched house, distinguished from the cottages of the other inhabitants only by a sashed window at the end, instead of a lattice, fringed with a honeysuckle plant, which the poor youth had trained around it ;-I never find myself in that spot, but I stop my horse involuntarily; and looking on the window, which the honeysuckle has now almost covered, in the dream of the moment, I picture out a figure for the gentle tenant of the mansion; I wish, and my heart swells while I do so, that he were alive, and that I were a great man to have the luxury of visiting him there, and bidding him be happy.- -I cannot carry my readers thither; but, that they may share some of my feelings, I will present them with an extract from the last poem in the little volume before me, which, from its subject, and the manner in which it is written, cannot fail of touching the heart of every one who reads it.

A young man of genius, in a deep consumption, at the age of twenty-one, feeling himself every moment going faster to decline, is an object sufficiently interesting; but how much must every feeling on the occasion be heightened, when we know that this person possessed so much dignity and composure of mind, as not only to contemplate his approaching fate, but even to write a poem on the subject!

In the French language there is a much-admired poem of the Abbé de Chaulieu, written, in expectation of his own death, to the Marquis de la Farre, lamenting his approaching separation from his friend.