That friend, the spirit of my theme
Extracting for your ease,
Will leave to me the dreg, in thoughts
Too common; such as these."

By the same lady I was enabled to say, in her own words, that
Young's unbounded genius appeared to greater advantage in the
companion than even in the author; that the Christian was in him a
character still more inspired, more enraptured, more sublime, than
the poet; and that, in his ordinary conversation--

"--letting down the golden chain from high,
He drew his audience upward to the sky."

Notwithstanding Young had said, in his "Conjectures on Original
Composition," that "blank verse is verse unfallen, uncursed--verse
reclaimed, re-enthroned in the true language of the gods;"
notwithstanding he administered consolation to his own grief in this
immortal language, Mrs. Boscawen was comforted in rhyme.

While the poet and the Christian were applying this comfort, Young
had himself occasion for comfort, in consequence of the sudden death
of Richardson, who was printing the former part of the poem. Of
Richardson's death he says--

"When heaven would kindly set us free,
And earth's enchantment end;
It takes the most effectual means,
And robs us of a friend."