The second volume is all criticism;
wherein he demonstrates to the entire satisfaction of the literary
world, in a way that must silence all reply forever, that the pastoral
was introduced by Theocritus and polished by Virgil and Pope; that Gray
and Mason (who always hunt in couples in George's brain) have a good
deal of poetical fire and true lyric genius; that Cowley was ruined by
excess of wit (a warning to all moderns); that Charles Lloyd, Charles
Lamb, and William Wordsworth, in later days, have struck the true chords
of poesy. Oh, George, George, with a head uniformly wrong and a heart
uniformly right, that I had power and might equal to my wishes; then
would I call the gentry of thy native island, and they should come in
troops, flocking at the sound of thy prospectus-trumpet, and crowding
who shall be first to stand in thy list of subscribers! I can only put
twelve shillings into thy pocket (which, I will answer for them, will
not stick there long) out of a pocket almost as bare as thine. Is it not
a pity so much fine writing should be erased? But, to tell the truth, I
began to scent that I was getting into that sort of style which Longinus
and Dionysius Halicarnassus fitly call "the affected."
C. L.
XXVI.
TO MANNING.
_August_ 22, 1800.
Dear Manning,--You need not imagine any apology necessary. Your fine
hare and fine birds (which just now are dangling by our kitchen blaze)
discourse most eloquent music in your justification.
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