This island, guarded from profane approach
    By mountains high and waters widely spread,
    Gave to St. Herbert a benign retreat, &c. &c.

I ought to mention, that the line,

    And things of holy use unhallowed lie,

is taken from the following of Daniel,

    Strait all that holy was unhallowed lies.

[37] Memoirs, vol. i. pp. 360-3.

I will take this occasion of recommending to you (if you happen to have Daniel’s poems) to read the epistle addressed to the Lady Margaret, Countess of Cumberland, beginning,

    He that of such a height hath built his mind.

The whole poem is composed in a strain of meditative morality more dignified and affecting than anything of the kind I ever read.  It is, besides, strikingly applicable to the revolutions of the present times.

My dear Lady Beaumont, your letter and the accounts it contains of the winter-garden, gave me great pleasure.  I cannot but think, that under your care, it will grow up into one of the most beautiful and interesting spots in England.  We all here have a longing desire to see it.  I have mentioned the high opinion we have of it to a couple of my friends, persons of taste living in this country, who are determined, the first time they are called up to London, to turn aside to visit it; which I said they might without scruple do, if they mentioned my name to the gardener.  My sister begs me to say, that she is aware how long she has been in your debt, and that she should have written before now, but that, as I have, latterly, been in frequent communication with Coleorton, she thought it as well to defer answering your letter.  Do you see the Courier newspaper at Dunmow?  I ask on account of a little poem upon the comet, which I have read in it to-day.  Though with several defects, and some feeble and constrained expressions, it has great merit, and is far superior to the run, not merely of newspaper, but of modern poetry in general.  I half suspect it to be Coleridge’s, for though it is, in parts, inferior to him, I know no other writer of the day who can do so well.  It consists of five stanzas, in the measure of the ‘Fairy Queen.’  It is to be found in last Saturday’s paper, November 16th.  If you don’t see the Courier we will transcribe it for you.  As so much of this letter is taken up with my verses, I will e’en trespass still further on your indulgence, and conclude with a sonnet, which I wrote some time ago upon the poet, John Dyer.  If you have not read the ‘Fleece,’ I would strongly recommend it to you.  The character of Dyer, as a patriot, a citizen, and a tender-hearted friend of humanity was, in some respects, injurious to him as a poet, and has induced him to dwell, in his poem, upon processes which, however important in themselves, were unsusceptible of being poetically treated.  Accordingly, his poem is, in several places, dry and heavy; but its beauties are innumerable, and of a high order.  In point of Imagination and purity of style, I am not sure that he is not superior to any writer in verse since the time of Milton.