DR. ERASMUS DARWIN'S LIFE. IQI 



a change which would have remedied the defect. 

 Thus : 



" Dread was the dream that in the midnight air 



Clasped with its dusky wing ray aching head, 

 While to " &e., &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 Jwveringr, 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 Lichfleld. 

 ****** 



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. 



