As to the Erse fragments,* you judged very rightly, that, amidst the applause they were sure of receiving from the world, they would not fail to afford me a very peculiar satisfaction. I am indeed unfeignedly thankful for the early copy you sent me, and for the ingenious letter which accompanied them. It seems, indeed, from à former version of them by the same translator, (which Mr Gray, the poet, received from him, and shewed my friend Percy,) that he has taken pretty considerable freedoms in adapting them to the present read. er. I do not in the least disapprove of this; knowing by experience, that trivial amendments in these old compositions often render them highly striking, which would be otherwise quite neglected. And surely, under all the infirmities of age, they may be said to have an absolute claim to some indulgencies of this kind. I presume the editor follows the same model of translation in what he is now going to publish. I would wish him particularly attentive to the melody of his cadences, when it may be done without impeachment of his fidelity. The melody of our verse has been perhaps carried to its utmost perfection; that of prose seems to have been more neglected, and to be capable of greater than it has yet attained. It seems to be a very fa, vourable era for the appearance of such irregular poetry. The taste of the age, so far as it regards plan and

Give us our wildness and our woods, our huts and caves again!"

I know not how far you will al low the distinction or the principle on which I build my remark, name. ly, that the taste of the present age is somewhat higher than its genius. This turn, you see, favours the work the translator has to publish, or has published already. Here is indeed pure original genius! The very quintessence of poetry; a few drops of which, properly managed, are enough to give a flavour to quartbottles. And yet one or two of these pieces (the first, for instance, together with the second) are undoubt. edly as well planned as any ode we find in Horace.

I have perused the Gentle Shepherd with all imaginable pleasure; and here again am indebted to you, sir, for the assistance of your glossary. Tis rare to find a poem of this length, where simplicity of sentiment and of language are so very well sustained. The metre is generally musical; and the old Scottish words form an admirable kind of Doric. Good sense, expressed naturally, in a phrase easy, perspicuous, and not wholly void of ornament, seems the talent of

Ramsay, whose taste in composition was perhaps more remarkable than his genius; and in whom greater fire and invention would certainly have deprived his readers of the Gentle Shepherd.

And now, having thanked you for the Scotch snuff, (better than any I ever tasted before,) I come to ask, whether you have any old Scotch ballads, which you would wish preserved in a neat edition. I have occasioned a friend of mine to publish a fair collection of the best old English and Scotch ballads; a work I have long had much at heart. Mr Percy, the collector and publisher, is a man of learning, taste, and indefatigable industry; is chaplain to the Earl of Sussex. It so happens, that he has himself a folio collection of this kind of MSS.; which has many things truly curious, and from which he selects the best. I am only afraid that his fondness for antiquity should tempt him to admit pieces that have no other sort of merit. However, he has offered me a rejecting power, of which I mean to make considerable use. He is encouraged in his undertaking by Sam. Johnson, Garrick, and many persons of note, who lend him such assistance as is within their power. He has brought Mr Jo. Warton (the poetry professor) to ransack the Oxford lib. raries; and has resided and employed six amanuenses to transcribe from Pepys's Collection at Cambridge, consisting of five volumes of old ballads in folio. He says justly, that it is in the remote parts of the kingdom that he has most reason to expect the curiosities he wants-that in the southern parts fashion and novel

ty cause such things to be neglected. Accordingly he has settled a correspondence in Wales, in the wilds of Staffordshire and Derbyshire, in the West Indies, in Ireland, and, if he can obtain your assistance in Scotland, hopes to draw materials from the whole British empire. He tells me there is, in the collection of Mag. Coll. Libr. a very curious collection of antient Scottish songs and poems, he thinks not published or known: many of Dumbar, Maitland of Lethington, and one allegorical poem of Gawain Douglas, too obsolete for his collection; and one yet more obsolete, called Peebles in the Play,' mentioned in Christ's Kirk on the Green. He met Mr Gray in the university library, who is going to write the Hist. of English Poetry. But, to put an end to this long article! his collection will be printed in two or three small octavos, with suitable decorations; and if you find an opportunity of sending aught that may be proper for his insertion, I think I can safely answer for his thankfulness as well as my own.

He shewed me an old ballad in his folio MS., under the name of Adam Carr: three parts in four coincide so much with your Edom of Gordon, that the former name seems to me an odd corruption of the latter. His MS. will, however, tend to enrich Edom of Gordon with two of the prettiest stanzas I ever saw, beside many other improvements. He has also a MS. of Gill Morrice, called in his copy Childe Morice. Of this more another time. I must at present take my leave. Should you see Mr (Douglas) Hume, Mr Alexander, or Dr Robertson, I desire my

best respects to them. And should you see my good Lord Alemoor and Mr. Professor Smith, I beg you would please to assert how unfeignedly I am their servant. I hope to muster up sufficient assurance, even now, to acknowledge by letter their acceptable presents of books; however the fire of gratitude was not less intense for having lain concealed and produced no blaze. I have many more Scotch friends whom I wish to particularize; but these, if I am not mistaken, live in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh. I am, dear sir, your most obliged humble servant,

WILL. SHENSTONE.

I will endeavour to procure and send you a copy of Percy's translation of a genuine Chinese novel,* in four small vols., printed months ago, but not to be published before winter.

To Mr MacGowan.

To Matthew Sharpe of Hoddam, Esq. near Dumfries, North Britain.

MY DEAR SIR,-I am informed, that such a popular clamour has been raised against me in Edinburgh, on account of scepticism, heterodoxy, and other hard names, which confound the ignorant, that my friends find some difficulty in working out the point of my professorship, which once appeared so easy. Did I need a testimonial for my orthodoxy, I should certainly appeal to you; for you know that I always imitated Job's friends, and defended the cause of Providence, when you attackt it, on account of the headachs you felt

after a debauch. But, as a more par ticular explication of that particular seems superfluous, I shall only apply to you for a renewal of your good offices with your nephew, Lord Tinwal, whose interest with Yetts and Allan may be of service to me. There is no time to lose; so that I must beg you to be speedy in writing to him or speaking to him on that head. A word to the wise. Even that is not necessary to a friend such as I have always esteemed and found you to be.

I live here very comfortably with the Marquis of Annandale, who, I suppose you have heard, sent me a letter of invitation, along with a bill of 1001. about two months ago. Every thing is much better than I expected from the accounts I heard after I came to London. For the secrecy with which I stole away from Edinburgh, and which I thought necessary for preserving my interest there, kept me entirely ignorant of his situation: My lord never was in so good a way before. He has a regular family, honest servants, and every thing is managed genteelly and with economy; he has entrusted all his English affairs to a mighty honest friendly man, Captain Vincent, who is cousin-german to the Marchioness. And, as my lord has now taken so strong a turn to solitude and repose as he formerly had to company and agitation, 'tis to be hoped that his good parts and excellent dispositions may at last, being accompanied with more health and tranquillity, render him a comfort to his friends, if not an ornament to his country. As you live in the neighbourhood of the Marchioness, it may give her a pleasure to hear these particulars. I am,

primitive simplicity of manners. deed, taking all that his different zquaintances have said of him top ther, he seems to be one of the mit amiable characters that I ever r with.

My lord, this uncommonly work and good man, cut off from all the usual methods of providing for hir self by his blindness, (which, by way, was the only thing that hinde ed him from being made Greek p fessor in the university of Aber a year or two ago) is now in the 34 year of his age, with scarce 1: year certain to maintain him; and s of his friends tells me, in a letter, tha so moderate an income as 30l. a y

Bifleet, Jan. 11th, 1755.

MY LORD,-Your lordship may possibly have heard of a strange phenomenon that appeared in the learned world last summer; a poet, who, though blind from his infancy, has got a knack of talking of colours and describing visible objects, and that sometimes much better than many others have done who have always enjoyed the use of their eyes. And yet this is one of the least valuable of his excellencies: all that know Mr Blacklock (for that is his name) speak of his many virtues in the highest strains, of the sweetness of his temper, his patience and contentedness under poverty, and all his other misfortunes; his industry in acquiring a great mastery in the Greek, Latin, and French languages, and a good share of knowledge in all the branches of erudition, except the mathematics; and his retaining, after all these acquisitions, the greatest modesty and humility, together with the strictest love of virtue, and a mere

happy.

Mr Dodsley, to whom a vole of his poems was sent from Ed burgh, (in which university some a his friends helped to maintain him upwards of 12 years,) was so strick with the character, wants, and the a rits of the man, that he soon fel a the thought of proposing a subscrip tion for his poems, in order to a him towards purchasing an annuity for his life, at least near that very moderate income which would make him so happy; and on his commut cating his design to me, I was i much moved too, that I promised write a little account of the man and his poems, to make him somewhat more known in this part of our islan

This account was published ward the beginning of November last; and Mr Dodsley's propos (for a guinea, large paper, and hal guinea the small toward the ch of the same month.

a

I then went to town, where (2 fortnight's solicitation) I had th pleasure of paying in above 50 su scriptions the day before I came