arts of composition, for which your nature and habits have qualified you; and do not lower yourself to a level with transcribers and mere bibliographers. Though a few London book-worms may not like your work so well, be assured the public will like it much better.

While I thus indulge in unsought advice to you, I cannot refrain from touching on another point. Among all the periodical publications, which have any concern with criticism, there is one which characterizes yours, and which I warn you to preserve. You stand independent; you are known to be actuated only by a pure and disinterested love of your subject; and you stand free therefore from all suspicion of sophistry, and corrupt praise or blame. If you take a single step, or enter into a single connection, which will destroy that confidence, your work is lost. Whoever differs from you now, knows at least that the opinions you convey to the public are honest.

Since the days of Ritson, there has been a fashion of admitting claims to a high reputation on the mere grounds of industry, without a particle of taste, or feeling; and still less of genius! Were the materials of Ritson transferred to another work, every thing would be transferred: transfer all the materials of Warton, and the best part of him still remains! Do not therefore run a race with such

men as Ritson; but exert your own faculties; and

upon,

is

we care not whether the book write you thirty or three hundred years old! But you are idle, very idle! You seem never to write, except when your feelings are touched:

"Facit indignatio versum !"

It has been often observed, that there are many little functions in literature level to very common capacities, and acquirements; but of which the public will not easily endure the performance by any but those who are qualified to do better things. It will not easily suffer persons to enter the domains of Parnassus, and adorn themselves with faded flowers, which have been reared, and cropped, and thrown away by their superiors! It generally turns with neglect from such pretenders! Let me entreat you then to rely upon yourself; move "right onward," unfatigued and undismayed; throw your mind upon your page; give us more such articles as those on the Douglas cause; and do not be persuaded that it is a mere question relative to a single family, of which all the interest has long since faded away. As long as it is curious to balance moral probabilities, and develope the hidden movements of human conduct; as long as it is instructive to study the display of all the powers of many strong and cultivated minds on those principles of

evidence, which have been among the primary objects of their professional labours, such discussions must abound both with amusement and information! SENEX.

P. S. As this is a miscellaneons paper, permit me to enclose the following lines by a young friend, for insertion in your pages.

Written at Barnard Castle, Co. Durham, in
December, 1803.

"The rising sun for me in vain

Arrays in gold the mountain's crest;
And gleaming o'er the humid plain
With crimson tinges ocean's breast:
His spreading beams, though rob'd in light,
No more their wonted joys bestow;
They cannot chace the eternal night,
That clouds my soul with endless woe.

The promise of my youth is fled;

The life-blood curdles round my heart;
The opening buds of hope are shed,
And death alone can ease impart.
Ah! why did Heaven impress my mind
With feelings still to rapture true;
Yet leave unpitying fate to bind
Affection's germs with funeral

K

yew

The starry eve, the new-born day,
Alike have lost their power to charm;
Nor can e'en Beauty's proud display
Again this frozen bosom warm.
Clos'd is my heart to all but her,
Who first awoke its slumb'ring fires;
Whose image all my thoughts prefer,
And will, till life itself expires."

To this the Editor takes the opportunity of adding the following sonnet by a friend, written immediately after reading "The Wild Irish Girl."

"Oh! had my soul, when first with wild hope fill'd
And love's delusions danc'd my awaken'd heart,
As Beauty's witchery did its spells impart ;
Oh! had my soul, when every feeling thrill'd
With new-born joys that fate too quickly kill'd,
Met thee, Glorvina, and with thee been blest!
My days had flown caressing and caress'd,
And every anxious throb been sweetly still'd.

Thine airy harp had sooth'd my bosom's woe;

And as thy wild notes swell'd the trembling strings, Rapture's full chord had taught my heart to glow With grateful incense to the King of kings! But Heav'n forbade! and soon must sorrow's gloom Enshroud its victim in the silent tomb."

October 30, 1807.

N° XX.

On the Sonnets of Milton, with a Translation of one of his Italian Sonnets.

THERE are few persons, I presume, among those who are in the habits of exercising their mental faculties, exempt from occasionally suffering an unconquerable lassitude and imbecility, the effect perhaps of over exertion, and often of great anxiety and fatigue. On such occasions the assistance of eminent friends, which is at all times highly acceptable, becomes doubly gratifying. It is therefore with more than common satisfaction, that at a moment when my spirits are low, and my humble talents more than commonly weak, I am enabled to communicate a very excellent translation of an Italian Sonnet of Milton by the learned and poetic editor of that poet's Paradise Regained.

Milton's Fourth Sonnet, " Diodati, io te'l
diro &e."

Translated from the Italian.

"Yes, Diodati, wonderful to tell,

Ev'n I- the stubborn wretch, who erst despis'd