poet Rogers, and offers to assist your cause in any way that he possibly can.

I

I shall conclude my letter by sending you a few lines from the last Literary Gazette, respecting the establishment of the new Royal Literary Institution, which is designed to give protection, encouragement, and honour to genius. It may suggest something useful, and show you what a cheering prospect there is before you.

"It is remarkable how little the higher literature has mingled itself in the disturbances of late years. The country has been in great agitation; the minor agents of mischief have been busied in dismantling, fragment by fragment, the constitution; the war on morals and the healthful allegiance of the English mind, has been desperate and unrelaxing; it has come, like the battle of the Trojans with its tumultuous array, trampling and triumphing to the very trench: but no magnificent Champion has been roused from his indolence, and come forth; no Achilles has flung down his idle lyre, and shouted and turned the day. The battle has been nobly fought in the senate, great ability has been united with great zeal, and there it has conquered. But the true place of combat is without the walls of the legislature. It is in the fields, the market-places, and highways, and dwellings of the multitude. And this battle must be fought, not by the sword, nor even by the tongue; but

by the pen. The few poets who have taken a part in the heat of the day, have been on the disaffected side; and have, to the disgust of all good men, and the disgrace of their art, levelled their chief attacks at the individual, to whom duty and feeling should have offered their first homage.......There is no exaggeration in this belief of the potency of even the gentler literature. History is crowded with the examples of the wonders of popular poetry; factions have been beaten down, and thrones sustained by its vigour. In all the great commotions of states, the presence of literature has instantly been felt...... What mute, inglorious Miltons may be summoned from the mountain and the valley!”

That you may be soon acknowledged one of these Miltons, and receive that high patronage which now seems preparing for you, is the sincere and ardent wish of

Your constant friend,

J. ALLPORT.

LETTER XCVIII.

L Cottage.

DEAR FRANK,

I AM sure you will greatly rejoice, when I tell you that I have received twenty pounds through Mr. Britton, voted to me by the members of the Literary Society. Why then there are noble characters yet left in the world, who feel and act like men ; -nay, like the Saviour of men himself, who when on earth went about doing good, and healing all manner of sickness, and all manner of diseases.

Mr. Britton says, in his letter to Mr. Allport, that he will also try to obtain some favourable reports of my poem in some of the reviews. I have endeavoured to express, but O, how feebly! my eternal acknowledgments to these numerous friends, whom Providence has so wonderfully raised up for me: but there is no language that can possibly do justice to my feelings; for I, who have met with so little kindness, and so much contempt and cruelty through all the weary pilgrimage of my life, am overwhelmed with astonishment, with thankfulness to God, and gratitude to man,-gratitude which never to the

latest hour of my existence can be obliterated from the tablets of my memory.

It is in the contemplation of some of my friends, to re-purchase the copyright of my poem from P and M, as they consider that the work will now have an extensive sale, and be of considerable advantage to me. This I shall leave to their judgment. But is it not strange that I hear nothing from those publishers?

Mr. Allport tells me in the same letter by which I received the twenty-pound note, "I am much pleased, I assure you, with your Tragedy. I have taken some pains and time to compare it with copious extracts given in the Literary Gazette of yesterday from Barry Cornwall's, about which there has been lately such fine puffing. Mrs. A. has done the same with me, and we are decidedly in favour of yours; which, if we have any competency of judgment, exceeds the other far in interest. I have sent it to two of my female friends, great admirers of poetry, who eulogize its merits highly."

I am happy to hear that you are daringly copying one of the first pictures in the gallery of the Louvre,-Titian's Holy Family. That you may be highly successful, is the earnest wish of

Your faithful friend,

SYLVATICUS.

LETTER XCIX.

From Mr. M-- to Sylvaticus.

DEAR SIR,

Strand, London.

I have received two letters from your excellent friend, the Rev. Mr. Allport, which contain the best of all possible proofs that you have some zealous friends interesting themselves in your behalf. By an order on Mr. A.'s banker, I have received 107., which he requests may be applied in advertising your Tragedy and Poem. This shall, of course, be done the moment you furnish me with the prices, dates of publication, &c.; for, although you speak as if I were already instructed on this head, I do not remember to have received any directions of the kind.

As you appear so anxious to have my opinion of your tragedy, I will endeavour to give it without bias. I read the MS. with attention before it was sent to Mr. Elliston, and I recollect that, when he returned it, he complimented the author on its being classically written, but