made choice of such new works as he intended to publish for the next twelvemonth. As I wandered along the streets, disconsolately reflecting on the continued miseries modern genius is doomed to endure, I unexpectedly met Mr. K, an enterprising young man, whom I had frequently met at Messrs. P. and M's. He informed me that he was about to commence bookseller, in partnership with a gentleman who had plenty of money; that they intended to publish a literary periodical, and should be glad to engage me as a constant contributor, and likewise to purchase any work I had in hand, or might at any future period produce. This, you will say, my friend, was like a gleam of sunshine through the storm, a deliverance to the shipwrecked sailor, a reprieve to the condemned prisoner! He almost instantly agreed to purchase my Poem and Tragedy; for which he was to pay a certain sum in advance; and I was also to receive a third share of the profits, I placed the MSS. in his hands, and received eleven pounds as a first payment, with which I once more con amore returned to L, in full confidence of receiving, whenever I wanted it, the residue left in his hands. Thus you see, my dear friend, that although my school, through the designs of an unjust and unmerited enemy, is almost wholly taken from me, Providence has, after many fresh and severe trials, saved me from despair, and unexpectedly restored me to my happy home, and the affectionate arms of my beloved family. I am, Yours sincerely, O MY FRIEND, LETTER XC. L Cottage. THE bitterness of misery again is mine, and the cup of unutterable anguish overflows! Month after month has past away, but neither letter nor noney have 1 been able to obtain from that deceiver K. since my return to L. Surely a decree has gone forth against me, that nothing which I do shall prosper; that no attempt of mine to gain an honourable maintenance for myself and family shall succeed! I have lost all confidence in Heaven, and seem marked out as an object for the shafts of Divine displeasure! One only last resource is left me on earth, and that is death! Yes, my friend, a speedy death! that I may escape the slow pangs of dying by hunger, and the still more excruciating agonies of seeing my little family perish with want before my eyes! To whom can I appeal for pity? No one in this county, however blest with power, authority, and riches, has ever bestowed one single smile of encouragement on my long and toilsome efforts to attain that honest fame, which attends the successful sons of the Muses; or taken any more notice of me or my poetic effusions, than of the moonlight hootings of the cloistered owl, or the midnight baying of the cottager's dog! To whom can I look for mercy, when all the leading men of literature, the dispensers of justice in those courts where the Arts, the Sciences, and the Muses stand for judgment, have closed upon me the avenues to public notice, and haughtily disdained to admit a single word respecting my epic poem into their sublime pages!* No, Frank to me there seems neither hope nor mercy left on earth. Solemnly, I think this is the last time you will ever hear from your wretched friend. When I am dead, and this poor aching heart shall cease to beat, O, if possible, do justice to my memory. God eternally bless you; and O, that you may never, never feel the agonies which I endure! My wife, my aged mother!-O, I shall quickly drag her gray hairs with sorrow to the grave. And what will become of my dear boy? Is there no heart that will have mercy on him, when I am gone? Must A Doctor of Divinity, an ornament to the Church, of the soundest erudition and refined taste, wrote a review on my epic poem for the British Critic, but it was refused insertion. he feel the gripe of hard-hearted parish officers ? must he be driven forth at his tender years to earn a scanty crust by the sweat of his brow? he whom I had hoped to live to see blest with learning and talent? he whom I so tenderly doated on? O, that those whom I love should suffer for my misfortunes; that I should be compelled to entail yet deeper afflictions upon them! Surely the measure of my sufferings must be full! O, that I could speak to you but for one short hour! It cannot be, - Mine is no romantic passion, that hurries me to the blood-drenched precipice of suicide. No: it is misery, deep, lasting misery, beyond the darkness of which I see no dawning ray, no hope of relief but in the grave! I may say with Ossian, "Why dost thou awake me, O gale? It seems to say, I am covered with the drops of heaven. The time of my fading is near, and the blast that shall scatter my leaves, To-morrow shall the traveller come; he that saw me in my beauty shall come: his eyes shall search the field, but they will not find me." I can write no more. My child! my mother! I am wild, lost! God have mercy on me! what, O, what shall I do! Adieu, adieu ! |