Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 011.djvu/566

 In short at every thing—her sister showed
 * The counterpart in temper, soft, sedate,

Easily impress'd, and her mind's current flowed
 * More equable, and for her rural state

Much she had thought, though nothing had she owed
 * To the world's art—now to a grassy seat

Like an automaton the youth they led, And the brunette ran off for fruit and bread.

—The gentleman to whom I addressed the following letter, having taken no notice of it; I conclude (mistakes or miscarriage out of the question) he is wroth against me for only discharging the duties, by himself often solicited, of a very old friendship; and as, in such a mood of mind, misconceptions of my letter may get abroad, I appeal to you, for the sake of public as well as individual justice, to honour it with insertion in The New Monthly Magazine.

—Thanks for the MS. two first acts of your new play; but do you really wish my opinion?—Am I to speak out in earnest? or are all your ardent demands for my criticism, like those of the archbishop to his dear enfant Gil Blas? You are so peremptory, however, that come what may come, I must tell you the blessed truth; therefore, dear old friend, burn those two acts. They will never do. People will say, if you persist in them, that the author gives proof of the dotage, (your pardon, but you know I only quote,) of which a royal academician, and others, had delicately accused the licenser. Put them up, at least, if you do not light your cigar with them; tie a little string round them, and fling them into a corner of your deepest drawer, and don't look at them again till we meet.

How is all this, George? what have you been at? in what steeped your brains? or have you wrung them so hard, that they are only fit for hanging out to dry, like a sunday shirt, of old, under the hands of our esteemed washerwoman?—The "Law of Java" was bad enough, as the booksellers know to their cost; a thin mixture of maudlin sentiment and melodrama; but your embryo play!—take my advice, my good fellow, about it.

Can it be that your late religious turn, while it laudably inspires the reforming course you take with all other authors, destroys your own powers as an author? And is sunday-reading and psalm-singing necessarily at war with poetical spirit in the same person? I suspect so, and exhort you to look about you; beware of drivel, and twaddle, and the sonorousness of mere cant. I own I thought the last set of pious people you introduced me to, rather dangerous: even in your official capacity, such violent though good-hearted enthusiasts may injure you. I see no objection, indeed, to your recent change, particularly at your time of life, and after such a life; it is decorous, and becomes a little elderly gentleman in a Christian country; but every thing still in reason, my dear deputy-licenser; impossibilities are not expected from even the most perfect of us; and you are not