supposes the differences of human intellect to be the mere effect of
organization. She begged to know my opinion. I attempted to carry it off
with a pun upon organ; but that went off very flat. She immediately
conceived a very low opinion of my metaphysics; and, turning round to
Mary, put some question to her in French,--possibly having heard that
neither Mary nor I understood French. The explanation that took place
occasioned some embarrassment and much wondering. She then fell into an
insulting conversation about the comparative genius and merits of all
modern languages, and concluded with asserting that the Saxon was
esteemed the purest dialect in Germany. From thence she passed into the
subject of poetry; where I, who had hitherto sat mute and a hearer only,
humbly hoped I might now put in a word to some advantage, seeing that it
was my own trade in a manner. But I was stopped by a round assertion,
that no good poetry had appeared since Dr. Johnson's time. It seems the
Doctor has suppressed many hopeful geniuses that way by the severity of
his critical strictures in his "Lives of the Poets." I here ventured to
question the fact, and was beginning to appeal to names, but I was
assured "it was certainly the case." Then we discussed Miss More's book
on education, which I had never read. It seems Dr. Gregory, another of
Miss Benjey's friends, has found fault with one of Miss More's
metaphors. Miss More has been at some pains to vindicate herself--in the
opinion of Miss Benjey, not without success. It seems the Doctor is
invariably against the use of broken or mixed metaphor, which he
reprobates against the authority of Shakspeare himself. We next
discussed the question, whether Pope was a poet? I find Dr. Gregory is
of opinion he was not, though Miss Seward does not at all concur with
him in this. We then sat upon the comparative merits of the ten
translations of "Pizarro," and Miss Benjey or Benje advised Mary to take
two of them home; she thought it might afford her some pleasure to
compare them _verbatim_; which we declined. It being now nine o'clock,