DR. ERASMUS DARWIN'S LIFE. 191 



a change which would have remedied the defect. 

 Thus : 



" Dread was the dream that in the midnight air 



Clasped with its dusky wing my aching head, 

 While to " &c., &o. 



" Hence not only the grammatic error would have 

 been done away, but the grating sound produced by the 

 near alliteration of the harsh dr in * dread dream ' 

 removed, by placing those words at a greater distance 

 from each other. 



" This alteration was, for the same reason, rejected. 

 The doctor would not spare the word hovering, which 

 he said strengthened the picture ; but surely the image 

 ought not to be elaborately precise, by which a dream 

 is transformed into an animal with black wings." * 



Then Mrs. Pole got well, and the doctor wrote more 

 verses and Miss Seward more criticism. It was not for 

 nothing that Dr. Johnson came down to Lichfield. 



In 1780 Colonel Pole died, and his widow, still 

 young, handsome, witty, and for those days rich, 

 was in no want of suitors. 



" Colonel Pole," says Miss Seward, " had numbered 

 twice the years of his fair wife. His temper was said to 

 have been peevish and suspicious ; yet not beneath 

 those circumstances had her kind and cheerful atten- 

 tions to him grown cold or remiss. He left her a 

 jointure of 600Z. per annum, a son to inherit his estate, 

 and two female children amply portioned. 



* Memoirs,' &c., p. 120. 



