I hope this will do:  I tried a hundred different ways, but cannot hit upon anything better.  I am sorry to learn from Lady Beaumont, that there is reason to believe that our cedar is already perished.  I am sorry for it.  The verses upon that subject you and Lady B. praise highly; and certainly, if they have merit, as I cannot but think they have, your discriminating praises have pointed it out.  The alteration in the beginning, I think with you, is a great improvement, and the first line is, to my ear, very rich and grateful.  As to the ‘Female and Male,’ I know not how to get rid of it; for that circumstance gives the recess an appropriate interest.  I remember, Mr. Bowles, the poet, objected to the word ravishment at the end of the sonnet to the winter-garden; yet it has the authority of all the first-rate poets, for instance, Milton: 

    In whose sight all things joy, with ravishment,
    Attracted by thy beauty still to gaze.

Objections upon these grounds merit more attention in regard to inscriptions than any other sort of composition; and on this account, the lines (I mean those upon the niche) had better be suppressed, for it is not improbable that the altering of them might cost me more trouble than writing a hundred fresh ones.

We were happy to hear that your mother, Lady Beaumont, was so surprisingly well.  You do not mention the school at Coleorton.  Pray how is Wilkie in health, and also as to progress in his art?  I do not doubt that I shall like Arnold’s picture; but he would have been a better painter, if his genius had led him to read more in the early part of his life.  Wilkie’s style of painting does not require that the mind should be fed from books; but I do not think it possible to excel in landscape painting without a strong tincture of the poetic spirit.[37]

OF THE INSCRIPTIONS AT COLEORTON.

Letter to Lady Beaumont.

Grasmere, Wednesday, Nov. 20. 1811.

MY DEAR LADY BEAUMONT,

When you see this you will think I mean to overrun you with inscriptions:  I do not mean to tax you with putting them up, only with reading them.  The following I composed yesterday morning, in a walk from Brathway, whither I had been to accompany my sister.

FOR A SEAT IN THE GROVES OF COLEORTON.

    Beneath yon eastern ridge, the craggy bound
    Rugged and high of Charnwood’s forest-ground,
    Stand yet, but, Stranger! hidden from thy view,
    The ivied ruins of forlorn Grace Dieu, &c. &c.

I hope that neither you nor Sir George will think that the above takes from the effect of the mention of Francis Beaumont in the poem upon the cedar.  Grace Dieu is itself so interesting a spot, and has naturally and historically such a connection with Coleorton, that I could not deny myself the pleasure of paying it this mark of attention.  The thought of writing the inscription occurred to me many years ago.  I took the liberty of transcribing for Sir George an alteration which I had made in the inscription for St. Herbert’s island; I was not then quite satisfied with it; I have since retouched it, and will trouble you to read him the following, which I hope will give you pleasure.