of your selections, I disclaim them utterly. I met you in the lists as knights used to meet each other in the tournament,-nothing doubting your skill in the contest, or your perfect honour. What appeared to me partiality to foreigners in your tract, induced me to take up the gauntlet for the talents of my countrymen. You support your preference of Bossuet to our best English sermon-writers with so much beautiful writing, and with so many just observations, that I dare believe our men of genius in that line may improve by your documents; though all which I think the dull drones of divinity will get by you is the laugh of their congregation. You imp the wings of the eagles; but, in hustling up the owls, I think the sun, at which you point, may blind them wofully. Many a doughty doctor, and many a pompous prelate, will be found in the latter class.

What you tell me about the exclusion of compositions by English masters from the high-life concerts, only proves that the same infatuation prevails in that science amongst our great people, as in poetry amongst our academicians. It is the English mania to prefer the productions of foreigners to those of our own country. I see you are not acquainted with the beautiful compositions in music, which exist for the honour of

England. You have had no opportunity of hearing them, banished as they dully are from the fashionable concerts. So was Shakespeare banished our stage from the gay Gallic reign of Charles the Second, till the talents and resolution of Garrick restored him. So have been, and so still are, the great English poets from our universities, to the infinite detriment of the understanding and taste of our students, since superior to the Greek, Roman, and Tuscan bards, are the bards of Britain, in every line but of the epic, and even there our Milton equals Homer, and transcends Virgil. The good Lord Lyttleton, to the honour both of his head and heart, had patriot taste in the science he cultivated, as the following lines from his wildly beautiful Monody on his Lucy

evince:

"With you she search'd the wit of Greece and Rome;
And all that in her latest days,

To emulate her ancient praise,
Italia's happy genius cou'd produce;
And what the Gallic fire,
Bright sparkling, could inspire,
By all the graces tempered and refin❜d ;
Or what in Britain's isle

Most favour'd with your smile,

The powers of reason and of fancy join'd
To full perfection have conspir'd to raise."

* The Muses.

I hope you, who are of the elect, will, at least, with Lord Lyttleton, subscribe to that prefer

ence.

A few words more on the subject of music.— However weak a single exception, or even two or three exceptions, may be to obviate what is given us as a general rule, yet surely exceptions, numerous as those I brought in my former letter, and which are yet only a small portion of what exist, may render its validity at least questionable. Probably you have never heard the beautiful passages in Ossian, which are set as glees by Calcot, since you say you have not heard, at the fine people's concerts, these ten years, a single glee composed by an Englishman. O folly and affectation, how wide is your dominion! The Ossianic glees are ravishing; and, above all their brethren,

"Peace to the souls of the heroes!"

is most ravishing. I confess the beauty of Converso's

"When all alone my pretty love was playing;"

but Morley has several, in exactly the same style, and of equal charm. I would answer for pro

ducing an hundred glees from my own recollection, all by Englishmen, and all of original melody and correct harmony.

When I was a girl, it was the fashion for the fine people to abuse Handel as heavy, coarse, and tiresome. Our king, by instituting the commemorations, rescued his fame. If I was Prince of Wales, I would give concerts, from which every foreign composition should be interdicted; and glees should be performed there, that must awaken the cold dead ear of prejudice itself into life and enthusiasm. But it is time to close my controversy, for the clock has struck that hour which Burns, with equal humour and fancy, calls the key-stone of night's black arch. Addio!

LETTER LXIII.

MRS CHILDERS of Yorkshire.

Lichfield, April 29, 1801.

Ан, my friend, I have a sad account to give you of my situation, and of my hopes of ever being able to accept your kind invitation to Cantley. Too much reason have I to apprehend a

total loss of all ability to travel. You know that the strength of my youth was blighted by the accident which broke the patella of my right knee, though I obtained the power of walking on even ground, without perceptible lameness; but I remained, through life, subject to the constantly impending danger of falling. Frequent have been those falls, producing temporary pain and confinement, but generally a few days restored me to the usual level of my, at best, feeble exertion. On the 27th of last month, deceived by an imperfect moonlight, I fell with violence down steps into the street, after paying an evening visit. Then, alas! it was, that I so violently sprained the muscles and tendons of my, till then, uninjured left knee, as to reduce it to an equal degree of weakness with that which is broken. Unable to stand, I was carried by two men from my sedan to my bed; which my surgeon ordered I should not leave till the swelling and discoloration subsided. He flattered me that, since nothing was absolutely broken, a fortnight or three weeks would repair the mischief. When, at the four days expiration, I was got up, I found I had utterly lost all power of rising from my bed, or chair, even though a very high one, without the assistance of two people; and also of ascending or descending stairs. Hitherto time, in whose name lavish pro