My Lord,

XXXVIII. Letter to Lord Spencer.

Thetford, May 28, 1827. Since I had the pleasure of sending to your Lordship the Dissertation on the most Celebrated Roman Poets by Mr. Addison, I have accidentally discovered in my small collection of books the following Work:

"Poems on Several Occasions. With a Dissertation upon the Roman Poets. By Mr Addison. London, printed for E. Curll in Fleet Street, 1719. 8o."

The Dissertation is attached at the end of the Poems, and has the following title :

"A Dissertation upon the most Celebrated Roman Poets. Written originally in Latin by Joseph Addison Esq. made English by Christopher Hayes Esq. London, printed for E. Curll in Fleet Street. 1718."

This edition is the one which I mentioned to your Lordship as being in Dr Parr's Library, and in his copy the Poems are not prefixed.

The book belonged to Mr Park the Antiquarian, who has prefixed some MS. notices, though they do not apply to the Dissertation upon the Roman Poets, except that in a loose paper, which is not in Mr Park's hand, there is a list of the different editions of Addison's Writings, and there I find these words:

"Poems and Dissertations, 1719, 8ò. 1776. “Dissertation on Roman Poets 1718. 8o. 1720. 1725. 1736."

But there is no mention of the Discourse on Ancient and Modern Learning. I have the honour to be, my Lord,

your Lordship's most obedient humble Servant,

To the Right Hon. Earl Spencer.

E. H. BARKER.

XXXIX. The Negro and the Fish.

"A negro about to purchase a fish visited a shop, where seve

ral were exposed for sale; but suspecting that one, which he intended to buy, was not altogether as fresh as he could wish, he presumed either to dissipate or confirm his suspicions by applying it to his nose. The fishmonger, conscious that it would not bear much examination, and fearing that other customers might catch the scent, exclaimed in a surly tone. How dare you to smell my fish?' 'Me no smell, me only talking to him, massa.' 'And what were you talking to him about?' 'Me ask him, massa, what the best news at sea?' And what reply did he make you?' 'Oh, massa, he say he know no news, as he have not been there these 3 week." St. James's Chronicle, Dec. 13, 1827.

XL. ON THE USE OF THE HISSING LETTER IN COLLINS AND POPE.

"To what I have formerly said of his writings may be added, that his diction was often harsh, unskilfully laboured, and injudiciously selected. He affected the obsolete, when it was not worthy of revival; and he puts his words out of the common order, seeming to think, with some later candidates for fame, that not to write prose is certainly to write poetry. His lines commonly are of slow motion, clogged and impeded with clusters of consonants. As inen are often esteemed, who cannot be loved, so the poetry of Collins may sometimes extort praise, when it gives little pleasure." Dr. Johnson.

But wherefore need I wander wide

To old Ilissus' distant side,

Deserted stream, and mute?

Collins's Ode to pity.

Its southern site, its truth complete

Ibid.

The buskin'd Muse shall near her stand,

And sighing

Ibid.

Thou to whom the world unknown,

With all its shadowy shapes is shown,
Who seest, appall'd, the unreal scene.
Ode to Fear.

Wrapt in thy cloudy veil, th' incestuous Queen
Sigh'd the sad call her son and husband heard,
When once alone it broke the silent scene.

Ibid.

O thou, whose spirit most possest

The sacred seat of Shakespeare's breast

Ibid.

Thy babe or Pleasure's, nurs'd the powers of song.

Still 'midst the scatter'd states around,
Some remnants of her strength were found.

Ibid.

With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing.

Ode to Evening:

To breathe some soften'd strain.

Whose numbers, stealing through thy dark'ning vale,

May not unseemly with its stillness suit,

As musing slow

Ibid.

From the above examples it should seem that Collins had a sort of partiality for the hissing letter, and I am inclined to think that it sounded somewhat musically in his ear. This appears to have been also the feeling of Pope, who on two or three occasions has introduced the letter s, where he designed the lines to flow most sweetly.

"Having thus far shewn that blank verse has many advantages over rhyme; and that it leaves the poet infinitely more at large with respect to the sense, the sound, and the expres

sion, I shall conclude this part of my subject with a remark on the ill effect, in our language, from the prevalence of that hissing consonant the s. The Greeks, we are told, had such an aversion to this letter, that they called it the savage, the impure letter: if this were so in a language rich in vowels, what must it be in one so overcharged with consonants as ours? When the necessity of a rhyme throws the governing verb in a period into the present time, all the other verbs through that period must follow the lead: thus

Is it for thee the lark ascends and sings?

Joy tunes his voice,--joy elevates his wings.
Essay on Man.

Here, instead of the melting warble of a lark, we have the dissonant hissing of a serpent. Should it be said to this that these are objections, rather to the nature of our language, than to the art of the poet, I answer it may be so, while it is under the servitude of rhime; but, why should we prefer that mode of versification, which aggravates the imperfections of our own language, and prevents our imitating or adopting the beauties of others? To pursue these reflections minutely, would be to descend from the character of a critic to that of a grammarian: I shall therefore content myself with observing that it is a fault, to suffer any one letter to take possession of the ear, or to govern entirely the sound of the verse: unless, where the alliteration is brought in aid of the sense; in which case it may sometimes become a beauty; but certainly it is not a beauty in the following instance:

Or,

Each chief his sev'nfold shield display'd,

And half-unsheath'd the shining blade.

By the hero's armed shades,

Glitt'ring thro' the gloomy glades.

Ode on St. Cecilia's Day.

In a less careful versifier such effects might be imputed to negligence; but here, I doubt, they were designed as beauties. When the habit of playing with sounds is once admitted into poetry, it branches out into innumerable triflings. We cannot,

in this case, be too much on our guard against the force of example. The reputation of a writer makes even his errours fashionable; we naturally imitate those, whom we admire; and when we cannot assume their graces, we adopt their foibles." "I allow you that in these lines (of Shakespeare) there is a general agreement between the sound, or rather, between the movement of the verse, and the idea which it conveys. The necessity of this distinction will appear from hence, that the movement of a verse may be good, and the sound at the same time may be faulty:-as,

Music her soft assuasive voice applies.

Ode on St. Cecilia's Day. There is a continued hiss through this line." D. Webb's Remarks on the Beauties of Poetry, Lond. 1762. pp. 27. 33. To me it is clear that the hissing letter sounded sweetly in the ears of Pope and of Collins.

Thetford, June 20, 1828.

E. H. Barker.

XLI. EPITAPH ON SIR UVEDALE PRICE.

Successful Death hath thrown the dice,
And won the pearl of matchless price.
A time was measured, which the man,
Who scanned all else, could never scan.
Among the foremost of his sex,
His active mind was circumflex,
His piercing intellect acute;
But now his accents all are mute,
All are for ever vanished, save
One which he holdeth still, the grave.

His feet have reached the final goal,

And death's paramiac crowns the whole.

Sent to me by H. S. Boyd Esq. in May, 1830.