Page:A happy half-century and other essays.djvu/28

 friends—instead of leaving town next day—came, and listened, and called it a "Miltonic evening." If, like Mrs. Montagu, you had a taste for letter-writing, you filled up innumerable sheets with such breathless egotisms as this:—

"I come, a happy guest, to the general feast Nature spreads for all her children, my spirits dance in the sunbeams, or take a sweet repose in the shade. I rejoice in the grand chorus of the day, and feel content in the silent serene of night, while I listen to the morning hymn of the whole animal creation, I recollect how beautiful it is, sum'd up in the works of our great poet, Milton, every rivulet murmurs in poetical cadence, and to the melody of the nightingale I add the harmonious verses she has inspired in many languages."

So highly were these rhapsodies appreciated, and so far were correspondents from demanding either coherence or punctuation, that four volumes of Mrs. Montagu's letters were published after her death; and we find Miss More praising Mrs. Boscawen because she approached this standard of excellence: "Mrs. Palk tells