perance will amalgamate with the propensities of your new character. Your account of your health gave me great pleasure. Bating that minute and ridiculous scrupulosity which generally defeats its own ends, I don't think you can pay too great attention to that object. I have enjoyed this summer a greater exemption from bodily complaints than I remember to have enjoyed long before. I attribute it in a great measure to the freedom from anxiety, and the even flow of tranquil pleasure, which my mind has, more than usually, maintained. But I must soon expect to have this gentle course broken, though I trust but lightly. We are to inoculate our little boy next month; and though I believe there is little to be dreaded from the disease at his age, yet it is impossible to be wholly free from terror where there is the shadow of a danger to so cherished an object, much less from anxiety when one dearer than one's self is to suffer its pangs. Write to me soon, and tell me what you have been doing, and what you intend to do. A visit to me will, I hope, be allowed to occupy some blank spot in your winter's plan, if it has not already filled. up its allotted place. Believe me, Your affectionate friend, soon. TO WALTER BIRCH, Esq. MY DEAR BIRCH, Abbots-Bromley, December 11, 1797. I am delighted with the hopes of seeing you so If it should be convenient to you to come to me the week after next, that time will suit me very well. You will not be the less welcome for having taken orders, as I begin to find my theological as well as my poetical vein running rather low, and shall be glad of the opportunity of drawing for assistance on a yet unbroken mine. In your criticism on my Ode I see and acknowledge with gratitude the "animum censoris honesti." It will induce me in future to place myself under the same wholesome severity, before publication shall have made that severity in some measure useless. As we shall meet so soon I add nothing more, except my entreaties that you will extend your visit beyond the narrow limits which you threaten to prescribe to it. Adieu. Your faithful H. F. CARY. Having thus noticed the few events of his life that are worthy of record during the year 1797, we may now attend him to his study : : January 5 and 6. Read Hayley's Life of Milton. A warm but injudicious vindication of the poet's character from the violent and illiberal aspersions of Johnson. The accounts of two Italian dramas, in the Appendix, from whence Milton might have first conceived the idea of writing Paradise Lost, are curious; but perhaps there might be found some old English dramas or moralities, that might furnish equal grounds for this sort of conjecture. This, however, is mere supposition. January 11 to 13. Read the Lives of Rafaelle and Michelagnolo in Vasari. 14. Read Thomson's Castle of Indolence, with Jane. 15. Proceeded in the Voyage du Jeune Anacharsis, with Jane, and read to vol. ii., p. 21. 16. Translated Dante, Purgatorio, part of the first canto. Continued Anacharsis to p. 41, with Jane. 17. Continued Dante, and finished canto i. of the Purgatorio. Read L'Isola Disabitata of Metastasio, a little piece, in which the writer displays his usual art, by making a very common story in a high degree interesting. Continued Anacharsis to p. 63, with Jane. 18. Continued Anacharsis to p. 95, with Jane. 19. Read Milton's Sonnets and Tractate on Education, with Jane. 20. Continued Anacharsis to p. 126, with Jane. 21. Read the second book of De Lille's Jardins, and continued Anacharsis to p. 153, with Jane. 22. Continued Anacharsis to p. 182, with Jane. January 23. Proceeded in translating Dante, Purgatorio, canto ii. Continued Anacharsis to p. 221, with Jane. 24. Proceeded in Dante, Purgatorio, canto ii. Continued and finished De Lille's Jardins, and read Mason's English Garden, with Jane. On the whole, I prefer the work of the French poet, as more complete, and giving more satisfactory rules respecting the art it treats of, than that of the English poet. 25. Finished canto ii. of the Purgatorio. 26. Began Burke on the Sublime and Beautiful, and read to Part ii., with Jane, 27. Continued Burke to Part iii., with Jane. 28. Proceeded in Dante, Purgatorio, canto iii. 30. Proceeded in Dante, Purgatorio, canto iii. Continued Burke to Part v., with Jane. 31. Continued and finished Burke on the Sublime and Beautiful, and read Miss Seward's Monody on Major André, with Jane.-The system of Burke appears to be founded in nature and truth, though erroneous in some of its details, and defective even in its general view. The Platonic idea of mental beauty is too entirely excluded. Perhaps Burke, in his wonderful range of knowledge, has never visited the writings of Plato. Feb. 1. Continued Anacharsis to p. 271, with Jane. 2. Began the Supplices of Eschylus, and read to line 608. Continued Anacharsis to p. 285, with Jane. 3. Continued Anacharsis to p. 304, with Jane. February 4. Finished the Supplices. Anxiety for the fate of the suppliants is strongly kept up throughout this play, and their terror forcibly painted. The mind at last is left in a disagreeable state of doubt as to the event. Continued Anacharsis to p. 334, with Jane. 5. Read the first canto of Falconer's Shipwreck. 6. Finished the Shipwreck, a little epic poem, rendered pleasing by the truth of its narrative, its brevity, and language generally animated and sometimes poetical, though too much disfigured by seaterms. Its unfortunate author was lost twentyseven years ago in a voyage to the East Indies. The Aurora frigate, in which he sailed, it is feared, perished by fire, with all her crew. Continued Anacharsis to p. 350, with Jane. Proceeded in Dante, Purgatorio, canto iii. 7. Finished the second volume of Anacharsis, with Jane. 8. Began the third volume of Anacharsis, and read to p. 60, with Jane. 9. Continued Anacharsis to p. 97, with Jane. Read Garth's Dispensary. 10. Continued Anacharsis to p. 137, with Jane. 11. Continued Anacharsis to p. 170, with Jane. Began the Panathenaic of Isocrates. 13. Continued Anacharsis to p. 223, with Jane. Continued the Panathenaic. 14. Finished the Panathenaic. This oration, written, as Isocrates himself declares, toward the con |