part, so exquisite that I like not to see aught of meaner matter mixed
with it. Forgive my petulance and often, I fear, ill-founded criticisms,
and forgive me that I have, by this time, made your eyes and head ache
with my long letter; but I cannot forego hastily the pleasure and pride
of thus conversing with you. You did not tell me whether I was to
include the "Conciones ad Populum" in my remarks on your poems. They are
not unfrequently sublime, and I think you could not do better than to
turn 'em into verse,--if you have nothing else to do. Austin, I am sorry
to say, is a _confirmed_ atheist. Stoddart, a cold-hearted, well-bred,
conceited disciple of Godwin, does him no good. His wife has several
daughters (one of 'em as old as himself). Surely there is something
unnatural in such a marriage.

How I sympathize with you on the dull duty of a reviewer, and heartily
damn with you Ned Evans and the Prosodist! I shall, however, wait
impatiently for the articles in the "Critical Review" next month,
because they are _yours_. Young Evans (W. Evans, a branch of a family
you were once so intimate with) is come into our office, and sends his
love to you. Coleridge, I devoutly wish that Fortune, who lias made
sport with you so long, may play one freak more, throw you into London
or some spot near it, and there snug-ify you for life. 'Tis a selfish
but natural wish for me, cast as I am on life's wide plain, friendless,"
Are you acquainted with Bowles? I see by his last Elegy (written at
Bath) you are near neighbors,--_Thursday_.

"And I can think I can see the groves again;" "Was it the voice of
thee;" "Turns not the voice of thee, my buried friend;" "Who dries with
her dark locks the tender tear,"--are touches as true to Nature as any
in his other Elegy, written at the Hot Wells, about poor Kassell, etc.
You are doubtless acquainted with it,