imitation of Pindar I have ever feen. I don't know whether I can affent to your criticifm on the word replete, that it is never ufed in a good fenfe. Were it left to me, I would use it in no fenfe. It has but little meaning. It was never naturalized in converfation, or in profe, and I think makes no figure in verse.

I have another prefent of value to thank you for, your effay on the Law of Bailments. To own the truth, your name to the advertisement made me impatient, and I had fent for it and read it before. It appears to me to be clear, juft, and accurate, I mean as clear as the fubject will permit. My want of law language, and perhaps of a legal understanding, made me feel great difficulty in following you through your very ingenious diftinctions and confequences, of which I thought I could perceive the folidity. I foretell that this will be your last work. For the future your business and the public will allow you to write no more.

Though I fear it will not be confiftent

with your employment in Westminster-Hall, I cannot help telling you, that for as many days as you can spare between this time and the meeting of parliament you will find a warm bed, and a hearty welcome at Chilbolton. Mrs. Shipley and her daughters defire their compliments, and join in the invi

Since I received your obliging letter an interval of fix months has elapfed, but in all that interval, I have either been deeply engaged in profeffional labours, or confined by illnefs: I have enjoyed no reft. At this moment I am flowly recovering from a fevere inflammatory diforder; yet your letter and your fine fonnets have remained conftantly on my mind, and I now take up my pen to thank you most warmly for the pleafure which they have given me. I hope my

friend Watfon has feen the noble wreath of

laurel which

your

animated mufe has woven

for him. I entreat you to fend me the two

others, which I long to fee.

which were printed of the

The few copies

Latin ode are fo

difperfed, that I have not one for myself, and would print a few more, if a learned friend of mine had not engaged to publish it with notes, hiftorical and critical, for want of which, it is in fome parts obfcure. You may depend on receiving one of the firft copies that can fee the light, and my feven Arabian poets will wait upon you as foon as the European dreffes are finished. I take the liberty to enclose an ode compofed without preparation, and almost without any premeditation: it is the work of a few hours. In truth, when I attended the wedding, I had no thought of writing, but the young ladies would not hear of an excufe: you must therefore make all due allowance for poetry by compulfion.

Mr. JONES to Lord ALTHORP.

January 5, 1782.

O la bella cofa il far niente! This was my exclamation, my dear Lord, on the 12th of last month, when I found myself, as I thought, at liberty to be a rambler, or an idler, or any thing I pleased: but my mal di gola took ample revenge for my abuse and contempt of it, when I wrote to you, by confining me twelve days with a fever and

:

quinfey and I am now fo cramped by the approaching feffion at Oxford, that I cannot make any long excurfion. I enclofe my tragical fong of "a fhepherdefs going," with Mazzanti's music, of which my opinion at prefent is, that the modulation is very artificial, and the harmony good, but that Pergolefi (whom the modern Italians are fuch puppies as to undervalue) would have made it more pathetic and heart-rending, if I may compofe fuch a word. I long to hear it fung by Mrs. Poyntz. Pray prefent the enclosed, in my name, to Lady Althorp. I

hope that I fhall in a short time be able to think of you, when I read these charming lines of Catullus*:

And soon to be completely blest,

Soon may a young Torquatus rise;
Who, hanging on his mother's breast,
To his known sire shall turn his eyes,
Out-stretch his infant arms awhile,
Half ope his little lips and smile.

(Printed Translation.)

What a beautiful picture! can Dominichino equal it? How weak are all arts in comparison of poetry and rhetoric! Instead however of Torquatus, I would read Spencerus. Do you not think that I have dif covered the true ufe of the fine arts, namely, in relaxing the mind after toil? Man was born for labour; his configuration, his paffions, his reftlefsnefs, all prove it; but labour would wear him out, and the purpose of it

* The original is quoted by Mr. Jones :

Torquatus volo parvulus,

Matris è gremio suæ

Porrigens teneras manus,
Dulce rideat ad patrem,
Semi-hiante labello.