they appear much disposed to dissect and anatomize any trip or slip I may have made.-But who's afraid? Ay! Tom! Demme if I am. I went last Tuesday, an hour too late, to Hazlitt's lecture on Poetry; got there just as they were coming out, when all these pounced upon me :- Hazlitt, John Hunt and Son, Wells, Bewick, all the Landseers, Bob Harris, aye and more.

I think a little change has taken place in my intellect lately; I cannot bear to be uninterested or unemployed, I, who for so long a time have been addicted to passiveness. Nothing is finer for the purposes of great productions than a very gradual ripening of the intellectual powers. As an instance of this - observe - I sat down yesterday to read "King Lear" once again: the thing appeared to demand the prologue of a sonnet. I wrote it, and began to read. (I know you would like to see it.)

ON SITTING DOWN TO READ KING LEAR ONCE AGAIN.

O golden-tongued Romance with serene lute!
Fair plumed Syren! Queen! if far away!
Leave melodizing on this wintry day,
Shut up thine olden volume, and be mute.
Adieu! for once again the fierce dispute,
Betwixt Hell torment and impassioned clay,
Must I burn through; once more assay
The bitter sweet of this Shakspearian fruit.
Chief Poet! and ye clouds of Albion,
Begetters of our deep eternal theme,
When I am through the old oak forest gone,
Let me not wander in a barren dream,
But when I am consumed with the Fire,

Give me new Phoenix-wings to fly at my desire.

So you see I am getting at it with a sort of determination and strength, though, verily, I do not feel it at this moment: this is my fourth letter this morning, and I feel rather tired, and my head rather swimming—so I will leave it open till tomorrow's post.

I am in the habit of taking my papers to Dilke's and copying there; so I chat and proceed at the same time. I have been there at my work this evening, and the walk over the Heath takes off all sleep, so I will even proceed with you.

Constable, the bookseller, has offered Reynolds ten guineas a sheet to write for his magazine. It is an Edinburgh one, which Blackwood's started up in opposition to. Hunt said he was nearly sure that the "Cockney School" was written by Scott; so you are right, Tom! There are no more little bits of news I can remember at present.

I remain, my dear brothers, your affectionate brother,

No. 4.

JOHN.

HAMPSTEAD, February 16, 1818.

MY DEAR BROTHERS:

When once a man delays a letter beyond the proper time, he delays it longer, for one or two reasons; first, because he must begin in a very common-place style, that is to say, with an excuse; and secondly, things and circumstances become so jumbled in his mind, that he knows not what, or what not, he has said in his last. I shall visit you as soon as I have copied my poem all out. I am now much

beforehand with the printers; they have done none yet, and I am half afraid they will let half the season by before the printing. I am determined they shall not trouble me when I have copied it all. Hazlitt's

last lecture was on Thomson, Cowper, and Crabbe.
He praised Thomson and Cowper, but he gave
Crabbe an unmerciful licking. I saw Fazio the
first night; it hung rather heavily on me. I am in
the high way of being introduced to a squad of
people, Peter Pindar, Mrs. Opie, Mrs. Scott. Mr.
Robinson, a great friend of Coleridge's, called on
me. Richards tells me that my poems are known
in the west country, and that he saw a very clever
copy of verses headed with a motto from my sonnet
to George. Honours rush so thickly upon me that
I shall not be able to bear up against them. What
think you-
- am I to be crowned in the Capitol? Am
I to be made a Mandarin ? No! I am to be in-
vited, Mrs. Hunt tells me, to a party at Ollier's, to
keep Shakspeare's birth-day. Shakspeare would stare
to see me there. The Wednesday before last,
Shelley, Hunt, and I wrote each a sonnet on the
river Nile: some day you shall read them all. I
saw a sheet of " Endymion," and have all reason to
suppose they will soon get it done; there shall be
nothing wanting on my part. I have been writing,
at intervals, many songs and sonnets, and I long to
be at Teignmouth to read them over to you; how-
ever, I think I had better wait till this book is off
my mind; it will not be long first.

Reynolds has been writing two very capital articles, in the "Yellow Dwarf," on Popular Preachers. Your most affectionate brother,

JOHN.

No. 5.

HAMPSTEAD, February 21, 1818.

MY DEAR BROTHERS:

I am extremely sorry to have given you so much uneasiness by not writing; however, you know good news is no news, or vice versa. I do not like to write a short letter to you, or you would have had one long before. The weather, although boisterous to-day, has been very much milder, and I think Devonshire is not the last place to receive a temperate change. I have been abominably idle ever since you left, but have just turned over a new leaf, and used as a marker a letter of excuse to an invitation from Horace Smith. I received a letter the other day from Haydon, in which he says his "Essays on the Elgin Marbles" are being translated into Italian, the which he superintends. did not mention that I had seen the British Gallery; there are some nice things by Stark, and "Bathsheba," by Wilkie, which is condemned. I could not bear Alston's "Uriel."

I

The thrushes and blackbirds have been singing me into an idea that it was spring, and almost that leaves were on the trees. So that black clouds and boisterous winds seem to have mustered and collected in full divan, for the purpose of convincing me to the contrary. Taylor says my poem shall be out in a month. * The thrushes are singing now as if they would speak to the winds, because their big brother Jack-the Spring-was not far off. I am reading Voltaire and Gibbon,

although I wrote to Reynolds the other day to prove reading of no use. I have not seen Hunt since. I am a good deal with Dilke and Brown; they are kind to me. I don't think I could stop in Hampstead but for their neighborhood. I hear Hazlitt's lectures regularly: his last was on Gray, Collins, Young, &c., and he gave a very fine piece of discriminating criticism on Swift, Voltaire, and Rabelais. I was very disappointed at his treatment of Chatterton. I generally meet with many I know there. Lord Byron's fourth canto is expected out, and I heard somewhere, that Walter Scott has a new poem in readiness. I have not yet read Shelley's poem: I do not suppose you have it yet at the Teignmouth libraries. These double letters must come rather heavy; I hope you have a moderate portion of cash, but don't fret at all, if you have not-Lord! I intend to play at cut and run as well as Falstaff, that is to say, before he got so lusty.

*

*

I remain, praying for your health, my dear brothers,

Your affectionate brother,

No. 6.

JOHN.

HAMPSTEAD, April 21, 1818.

MY DEAR BROTHERS:

I am certain, I think, of having a letter to-morrow morning; for I expected one so much this morning, having been in town two days, at the end