LETTERS. 201 



up an intimacy, which began very agreeably for me, and 

 has been suffered to decay with regret. 



I am not able to do justice to your unfortunate friend 

 Gill, I knew him only superficially, and yet I saw enough 

 of his unassuming modesty, and simplicity of manners, to 

 feel a conviction he had a valuable heart. The verses 

 on the other side are perhaps beneath mediocrity ; they 

 are, sincerely, the work of thirty minutes this morning, 

 and I send them to you with all their imperfections on 

 their head. 



Perhaps they will have sufScient merit for the Notting- 

 ham paper; at least their locality will shield them a 

 little in that situation, and give them an interest they 

 do not otherwise possess. 



Do you think calling the Naiads of the fountains 

 " Nymphs of Pa;on'' is an allowable liberty ? The al- 

 lusion is to their healthy and bracing qualities. 



The last line of the seventh stanza contains an appa- 

 rent j>Zeouas?n, to say no worse of it, and yet it was not 

 written as such. The idea was from the shriek of 

 Death (personified), and the scream of the dying man. 

 * * * * 



ELEGY. 



Occasioned hy the Death of Mr GiU, ivho iras droivned in the 

 river Trent, U'hile bathing, 9th August 1SC2. 



Hk sunk — th' impetuous river roll'd along, 

 The sullen wave betray'd his dying breath ;* 



And rising sad the rustling sedge among. 



The gale of evening touch'd the chords of death. 



* This line may appear somewliat obscure. It allades to the last 

 bubbling of the Tvaier, after a person has sunk, caused by the final 

 expiration of the r.ir from the Inngs; inhalation by introducing the 

 water produces suffocation. 



