Letters of Anna Seward, 
Which his biographer has so indiscreetly, 
80 inipuliiely, recorded ; nor beveath the 
lying assertion, that Gray was a dull fel- 
low, and that there are* but eight good 
lines in all his poetry. I hear Mason 
fares no better in the second volume. 
Dark and envious calumniator ! 
{ both Llane Mr. Boswell, and won- 
der at him for the wanton, because un- 
necessary, inroads which a number of 
those records must make upon the feel- 
ings of many. But for them, his work 
had been of great value indeed. Enter- 
taining, in the first degree, it certainly 
is; and, with the most commendable 
precision, exhibits the events of his life 
through all their series and changes. It 
contains a prodigious mass of colloquial 
wit and humour, which were certainly 
unrivalled, Let it, however, be remem- 
bered, that, to produce their eclipsing 
and resistless power, many things com- 
bined, which a wise and generous mind 
would not, for its own peace and health, 
consent to feel, even to possess that un- 
equalled talent; viz. spleen, envy, bound- 
less laughtiness, and utter callousness to 
~all the mental sensibilities of others. I 
am of Si. Paul’s mind, who says, where 
these things nor alms nor prayers 
constitute goodness. 
© Say theu, whose thoughts at humble fame 
ity repine, ¢ 
Shall Johnson’s wit with Juinson’s spleen be 
. thine ?” 
es 
~ 
oe Cal _ MRS, KNOWLES, ; 
” Mrs. Knowles, the witty and the elo- 
Pete as ainougst us, on a week’s visit, 
Since you left Lichfield. She made 
flaming eulogiums upon French anarchy, 
which she calls ‘freedum, and uttered no 
less vehement philippics against every 
thing which pertains to monarchy. For 
myself, I have ever loved and venerated 
‘the cause of liberty; and wished every 
restraint upon power which can be con- 
sistent with that order, and those links 
of. subordination. which bind, in one 
agreeing whole, the necessarily various 
degrees and. employments of eivilized 
life; but I every day grow more and 
more sick of that mischievous oratory 
which ferments and diffuses the spirit of 
‘sedition. In ‘the name of peace and 
comfort, let those who are dissatisfied 
with a government, in which their lives 
and properties are secure, which is great 
‘and revered in the eyes of every neigh- 
ebouring nation ; against which no sword 
is drawii, and to whose commerce every 
port is open; Jet thei goto America, 
onTuLy Myc, No, 215, 
i. 
where they may be quiet, or to Frances 
where their energies may have ample 
scope; butlet them not attempt to muddy 
the at present silver currents of our pros« 
perity. he 
I do not yet wish that the blood-thirsty 
invadérs of unhappy France may succeed 5 
nor do [at all apprehend that they cata 
be victorious. At the king’s deposition 
I felt very indignant; but if, as it now 
seems to eppear, be was secretly plotting 
with the invaders, he deserves his fate, 
and justifies those who have abjured him, 
Surely we shall have the wisdom to pers 
sist in our neutrality. Ill as the French 
have, in many respects, acted, distracted 
as are their councils, and impotent as ap 
present seem their laws, there is danger 
that the worst consequences would ensue 
to us should we arm against them; that 
the contagion of ideal liberty might in- 
fect our troops, as it has infected those 
of the Austrians and Prussians, Paine’s 
pernicious and impossible system of 
equal rights, is calculated.to captivate 
and dazzle the vulgar; to make them 
spurn the restraints of legislation, and to 
spread anarchy, murder, and ruin, over 
the earth, 
MRS. DELANY AND DR. PARR. 
_ In this interesting*® scene of friendship, 
literature, and the arts, | have been in- 
troduced to that intellectual luminary, 
Dr. Parr, and to the celebrated hortus 
siccus of Mrs. Delany, contained in ten 
immense folios, eech enriched with an 
hundred floral. plants, representing, in 
Cut paper, of infinitely various dyes, the 
finest flowers of our own aud every other 
climare, from the best specimens that 
the field, the garden, the greenhouse, and 
the conservatory, could furnish; ‘and 
with a fidelity and vividness of colouring, 
which shames the needle and the pencil, 
The moss, the films, the farina, every, 
the minutest, part, is represenved with 
matchless delicacy. It. was at the! age 
of seventy-five that this prodigy of female 
genius invented her art, and pave it that 
fast perfection which makes imitation 
hopeless. Alwaysa tine painter, and not 
ignorant of the arts of chemistry, she her- 
self dyed her papers from whence the 
new creation arose. Of this astonishing 
work Dr. Darwin has given a most erro- 
neous description in his splendid poeme | 
He ought not to have taken sucht liberty. 
1t represents Mrs. Delany asa mere ars 
tificial hower-maker, using wires and wax, 
# The seat of Court Dewes, esq. near 
Stratford-upon-Avon, 
40 and 
