Parnassus ; its subject a mistake of his sculp tor. IMPROMTU BY MR HAYLEY. Ye gods, cried a bard, with a classical oath, Who had orderd the bustos of Pope and of Prior; They might properly honour that queen of the lyre : O Jove, he exclaim'd, if I wielded thy thunder, I wou'd frighten the sculptor who ruins my hope, 1 He has sent me a NEWTON instead of a Pope. 3 1 In the wonders of nature Sir Isaac was vers'd, But, alas ! with the NiNE he had little alliance, He ne'er sounded woman, that much deeper science. But old astronomer! 'tis not thy post! The meek modest sage thus petition'd to stay : “ Dear irascible bard, be a little more just, Nor thy sculptor accuse of a careless transaction, In the shape of a cold and insensible hust, I am drawn to thy house by the laws of attraction. * Her picture by Romney. Tho' sages and bards judge but ill of a brother, While matter incumbers the spirit of each, When they soar out of human infirmity's reach. E’en on canvas thy Seward has virtue to draw A philosopher's soul from the regions of bliss, All the secret sublime of the starry abyss. Then on me, I beseech you, this charge to confer; Of Seward's attendants I justly am one : Whose fancy has all the rich hues of the sun." LETTER VII. WILLIAM HAYLEY, Esg. Lichfield, March 15, 1785. ABSORBED by considerations yet more interesting than even your beautiful writings, I believe my last letter made no comment upon the agreeable hope, extended in the epistle to which it replied, viz. that of seeing a new emanation from our bright fountain of poetic light. Till I feel more assured hope of your restoration to health, I shall look forward to the gratification of this curiosity in that sort of languor with which a sick man expects his friend to undraw his curtains, after he has been told that morning is arisen in all the summer's glory. Cruel! Why would you not send me the trimming epigram upon the mitred pedant, who has so despicably criticized your Sargent's beauteous dramatic poem? Not less welcome to me is the gall than the honey of Mr Hayley's pen, since sure I am, that when it flows, it is the hand of justice which lifts the flood-gates. Beattie commends, and calls the indignation generous, with which we smile over the chastisement of the malevolent. Miss Weston has sent me a most interesting extract from a letter lately received from Mr Whalley, and dated December 1784. There is no resisting the temptation of copying it here for your amusement. “ I have this month visited the celebrated fountain of VAUCLUSE. It is the fullest, purest, and most beautiful source imaginable. So serenely does it sleep in a vast cavern, at the foot of a lofty rock, that not one intruding breath ruffles its azure surface, even while it is sending out an hundred limpid streams from its secret and immeasureable depth. These streams gush out from beneath a shelving bed of buge mossy |
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