And right anon, as I the day espied,
No longer would I in my bed abide,
But into a wood that was me fast by,
I went forth alone myself boldily,

And held my way down by a brooke's side,

Till I came to a land of white and green,
So fair an one had I never in been ;
The ground was green powder'd with daisy,
The flowris and the groves alikie,.
All green and white was nothing ellis seen.

There sat I down among the fair flowris,
And saw the birds tripping out of their bowris;
There as they roosted them had all night,
They were so joyful of the dayis light,
They began of May for to do honoris."

Thus closes a description which has, in truth, none of that local appropriation attributed to it by Mr Urry. It is alike suited to every scene through which runs a brook. The daisies do nothing for the appropriation, since every English turf at least has its daisies. The land, therefore, of white and green can present no peculiar spot. We know not, from such expressions, whether the place described be a hill, a valley, a field, a forest, or a glen. This indistinctness, this total want of local discrimination, renders poetic landscape very defective. Since the time of Chaucer, its duties have been better understood. Milton's and Thom

son's landscapes are so distinct, that the painter might draw from them as readily as from Nature herself; while, before the poetic imagination, they rise discriminate and complete in all the tints of their season. Nor less accurate is the scenicpainting of our best modern poets. The scene they delineate lives in their verse. I confess, however, there is one very picturesque line in my quotation from the old bard:

“And saw the birds tripping out of their bowris."

It is an image that strongly, as well as beautifully, marks the hour of summer's dawn.

Ah! what an hour of pleasantness and prime is that in this sultry period!-but, weary and oppressed with the heats of the preceding day, the leaden mace of sleep lies too heavy on our lids to permit us to look on the half-opened eyes of the morning, or to view the sun

"While yet his dewy radii slope to earth,
And all the kindling landscapes of the east
Rise gemm'd to meet his beams."

LETTER XVIII.

MISS PONSONBY.

Lichfield, June 19, 1798.

I HOPED to have acknowledged my loved Miss Ponsonby's last, and very kind letter, in an hour when the reply might have commenced with those glad gratulations that my heart longs to utterbut the felicity is at present denied me. The rest of many of my nights has been disturbed by the dread those sanguinary tidings inspired, which arrived from Ireland since I wrote to Lady Eleanor, and many a heartache has sickened the awaking hour.

To attain lettered ease and tranquillity of spirit, you fled together, in early youth, from the otherwise inextricable mazes of connection. The resolution and constancy with which the plan has been pursued through nineteen years, rendered it, as I thought, invulnerable to any long-enduring care, sorrow, or solicitude, while life and health were mutually lent you. Often have I said to myself, picturing the little Eden,

"If e'er content deign'd visit mortal clime,
That is her place of dearest residence."

But, alas! civil war is an omnipresent fiend, whose baleful influence penetrates every seclusion, the inhabitants of which have dependence on, or connection with the country it ravages. Yet be comforted, my dear and honoured friends, and repose upon the hope that Lord Cornwallis and his armies will crush this horrid, this murderous rebellion!-that when valour, generalship, and numbers have unstrung its sinews, he will be commissioned to extend that concession to the just claims of the people, which may do away all invidious distinction between catholic and protestant, dissenter and churchman; the tyrannic exertion of which has been the cause of all the assassinations, the woes, and dangers to both islands, that have been the bitter fruits of bad policy and injustice on one hand, and of wicked and unbridled revenge on the other.

Amiable Mrs St George-Where is she?Not in Ireland, I hope.

Since I closed the last sentence, I have read to-day's paper. Thank God it enables me to congratulate on the better aspect of the deplored contest. Yes, the smiles of hope are

at this instant relumining the countenance of my friends. O may their soft cheering light be permanent!

I remain, &c.

LETTER XIX,

REV. T. S. WHALLEY.

Lichfield, July 3, 1798.

You complained, when you wrote to me, of recent indisposition. The ardours of last month must have been trying to the degree of weakness which accompanies convalescence; but the pure gales of your mountain would temper the flames of its days, and heavy sultriness of its nights, and, I trust, you have ere this time regained your strength. I congratulate you upon the state of an health, which, well I know, is dearer to you than your own. Very long may that, and all your other comforts, be continued, and mitigate, more and more yet every day, one bosom-woe, for which I often sigh!-but I will not dwell on the cruel theme.