I am obliged to you, Sir, for the volume of Erse poetry — all of it has merit; but I am sorry not to see in it the six descriptions of night, with which you favoured me before, and which I like as much as any of the pieces.  I can, however, by no means agree with the publisher, that they seem to be parts of an heroic poem; nothing to me can be more unlike.  I should as soon take all the epitaphs in Westminster Abbey, and say it was an epic poem on the History of England.  The greatest part are evidently elegies; and though I should not expect a bard to write by the rules of Aristotle, I would not, on the other hand, give to any work a title that must convey so different an idea to every common reader.  I could wish, too, that the authenticity had been more largely stated.  A man who knows Dr. Blair’s character, will undoubtedly take his word; but the gross of mankind, considering how much it is the fashion to be sceptical in reading, will demand proofs, not assertions.

I am glad to find, Sir, that we agree so much on the Dialogues of the Dead; indeed, there are very few that differ from us.  It is well for the author, that none of his critics have undertaken to ruin his book by improving it, as you have done in the lively little specimen you sent me., Dr. Brown has writ a dull dialogue, called Pericles and Aristides, which will have a different effect from what yours, would have.  One of the most objectionable passages in lord Lyttelton’s book is, in my opinion, his apologizing for ’the moderate government of Augustus.  A man who had exhausted tyranny in the most lawless and Unjustifiable excesses is to be excused, because, out of weariness or policy, he grows less sanguinary at last!

There is a little book coming Out, that will amuse you.  It is a new edition of Isaac Walton’s Complete Angler,. full of anecdotes and historic notes.  It is published by Mr. Hawkins,(76) a very worthy gentleman in my neighbourhood, but who, I could wish, did not think angling so very innocent an amusement.  We cannot live without destroying animals, but shall-we torture them for our sport—­sport in their destruction?(77) I met a rough officer at his house t’other day, who said he knew such a person was turning Methodist; for, in the middle of conversation, he rose, and opened the window to let out a moth.  I told him I did not know that the Methodists had any principle so good, and that I, who am certainly not on the point of becoming one, always did so too.  One of the bravest and best men I ever knew, Sir Charles Wager, I have often heard declare he never killed a fly willingly.  It is a comfortable reflection to me, that all the victories of last year have been gained since the suppression of the bear garden and prize-fighting; as it is plain, and nothing else would have made it so, that our valour did not, singly and solely depend upon, those two universities.  Adieu.!

(75) Now first collected.

(76) Afterwards Sir John Hawkins, Knight, the executor and biographer of Dr. Johnson.-E.