114 TO SELINA. 



and invaluable discoveries were bachelors" now if 

 he will be good enough to make out a list of all ba- 

 chelors, from the time of William the Conqueror down- 

 wards, who have done any thing great in literature, 

 science or art for the intellectual advancement or moral 

 improvement of their species, I will undertake to find 

 one married man and one married woman for each in- 

 dividual in his list equally entitled to high rank in art, 

 science or literature, and the last pair in my schedule 

 shall be Mrs. Somerville and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 



In the notices to Correspondents in one of your num- 

 bers it is stated that the " bachelor" is a married man 

 and has his quiver full of young ones ; this I take to 

 be a bit of a bounce of your own, although I shrewdly 

 suspect that he would have no objection to the holy 

 bonds of matrimony and would not quarrel with the 

 honours of paternity ; indeed I fancy that he is paying 

 his addresses to some young lady at present, whom 

 he propably had the misfortune to offend one evening, 

 by spilling a dish of tea on her frock, when he wanted 

 to whisper something pretty into her ear, and which so 

 discomposed the fair one that she refused the custom- 

 ary kiss at parting and the bachelor full of choler 

 hied to his writing desk and penned the paper on his 

 " Blessedness" which appeared in your Museum. 



I dare say, now after all he would have no ob- 

 jection to say with me that he who does not know how 

 to appreciate woman is UNWORTHY OF BEING THE SON 

 OF A WOMAN. 



THEOBALD. 



Exmoor. 



TO SELINA. 



The brightest passage of life's prime is o'er, 

 The fairest prospect of its day-spring fled ; 



And Memory, in her still and thoughtful hour, 

 Will mourn them, like a weeper o'er the dead. 



