nothing here but one another, hear nothing but the clock that tells our
woes; the vine shall grow, but we shall never see it," &c. Is not the
last circumstance exquisite? I mean not to lay myself open by saying
they exceed Milton, and perhaps Collins, in sublimity. But don't you
conceive all poets after Shakspeare yield to 'em in variety of genius?
Massinger treads close on their heels; but you are most probably as well
acquainted with his writings as your humble servant. My quotations, in
that case, will only serve to expose my barrenness of matter. Southey in
simplicity and tenderness, is excelled decidedly only, I think, by
Beaumont and F. in his [their] "Maid's Tragedy" and some parts of
"Philaster" in particular, and elsewhere occasionally; and perhaps by
Cowper in his "Crazy Kate," and in parts of his translation, such as the
speeches of Hecuba and Andromache. I long to know your opinion of that
translation. The Odyssey especially is surely very Homeric. What nobler
than the appearance of Phoebus at the beginning of the Iliad--the lines
ending with "Dread sounding, bounding on the silver bow!"

I beg you will give me your opinion of the translation; it afforded me
high pleasure. As curious a specimen of translation as ever fell into my
hands, is a young man's in our office, of a French novel. What in the
original was literally "amiable delusions of the fancy," he proposed to
render "the fair frauds of the imagination!" I had much trouble in
licking the book into any meaning at all. Yet did the knave clear fifty
or sixty pounds by subscription and selling the copyright. The book
itself not a week's work! To-day's portion of my journalising epistle
has been very dull and poverty-stricken. I will here end.

Tuesday Night.

I have been drinking egg-hot and smoking Oronooko (associated