farmers, lies in part of the valley of Soller, and in its outskirts presents some beautiful subjects for the pencil: during our stay, we lodged at the house of the Marquis del Campo Negro, whose steward and his wife, in the absence of their lord, attended to our accommodation. This house, which was rather mean, derived no advantage whatever from its being placed in so beautiful a spot of the creation: for it is approached by a lane, and its front looks upon a stony dilapidated wall. I arose with the sun to contemplate the richness of the celebrated vale of orange-trees, which is well watered by a variety of little brooks, but though very beautiful it would be much improved, in picturesque effect, if other trees relieved the rich monotony of the view. ROYAL FAMILY. Attended by an Englishman long resident at Palma as an interpreter, we had the honour of an interview with two members of the unfortunate royal family of Spain, Donna Maria Theresa de ValJabriga, and her daughter the Infanta Donna Maria Luisa de Bourbon. The former is the niece of the late Don Pedro Estuardo (Stuart) Marques di San Leonardo, a brother of the old Marshal Duke of Berwick, and who, with the consent of Charles III. was married to his youngest brother the Infant Don Louis, upon condition that she should not be acknowledged, nor the issue of the marriage entitled to any privileges. Don Louis had been bred to the church originally, was raised to the rank of cardinal, and appointed archbishop of Toledo, which he resigned on being dispensed from his vows. Soon after his death, leaving three children, a boy and two girls, it was publicly declared that the early and singular inclination, which these children had exhibited for the church, had determined his majesty to yield to their pious propensities; and accordingly the girls were placed in a convent, and the boy committed to the care of the cardinal Lorenzana, then archbishop of Toledo, and educated in the $ palace of that town, to which elevated rank he has since succeeded, and is likewise a cardinal and archbishop of Seville. On the death of the king, the eldest of the girls, as before noticed, was married to Godoy, the Prince of the Peace, the words of the patent; for the Spaniards deem it impious to say Prince of Peace, an attribute of our Saviour, though commonly called so by the English. Shortly after these nuptials, performed by the brother with royal nagnificence, a pro clamation appeared, restoring the chil dren of the late Infant Don Louis to their just rights, in which King Charles IV. endeavoured to apologize for the conduct of his father towards them, and conscquently, had Spain remained in tranquillity, the succession to the Spanish monarchy would have been as open to them, as to the other branches of the royal family, it being generally believed that the cortes, holden upon Charles the IVth. accession, had rescinded the prag matic sanction of Philip the Vth. son to Louis the XIVth. by which the crown was limited to male issue alone, and thus the females, as formerly practised in Old Spain, were admitted to an equal right. Donna Maria Theresa, and her young. est daughter, were living in great retirement in the palace of the Marquis of Sollerick, having recently made their escape under circumstances of romantic piece and enterprise, attended by a faithful priest, Michael del Puego, from Zaragoza, where the young Insauta hed been placed in a convent. The former of these two personages was a noble-looking and rather dark woman, the latter very fair and of a fine complexion. Donna Maria held the French in such abhorrence, that she avoided making use of the language as much as possible. In our presence, she took an affecting and painful review of the reverses of her fortune, and with tears said, "though politics have but little attracted my attention, I have long foreseen the subtle intentions of Buoba parte, and the overthrow of the august house to which I belong. What will he our final destiny I know not, nor can I tell where we shall be obliged to seek an asylum," here she was so affected, that she paused for a minute, and then added, "I look to Heaven, there is my only consolation!" Through the interpreter, I recommended her to seek protection in England; but the horror she entertained of so long a voyage, and the desire of remaining in any part of Spain that held out for the legitimate throne, seemed to have too full possession of her mind to induce her to attend to the recommendation. LETTERS OF ANNA SEWARD. Written between the Years 1784 and 1807. d GRAN ATX VOLUM Consists of the Life and Opinions of Miss Seward, In other words this written 1 written by herself, in the novel form of The form of biography which Miss JOHNSON'S LAST ILLNESS. I have lately been in the almost daily habit of contemplating a very melancholy spectacle. The great Johnson is here, labouring under the paroxysms of a disease, which must speedily be fatal. He shrinks from the consciousness with the extremest horror. It is by his repeatedly expressed desire that I visit him often: : yet I am sure he neither does, nor ever did feel much regard for me; but he would fain escape, for a time, in any society, from the terrible idea of his approaching dissolution. I never would be awed by his sarcasms, or his frowns, into acquiescence with his general injustice to the merits of other writers; with his na tional or party aversions; but I feel the truest compassion for his present sufferings, and fervently wish I had power to Telieve them. A few days since I was to drink tea with him, by his request, at Mrs. Porter's. When I went into the room, he was in deep but agitated slumber, in an arm- Upon the servant entering to announce DR. JOHNSON. The old literary Colossus has been some time in Lichfield. The extinction, A confirined dropsy in our sphere, of that mighty spirit apIt is melanproaches fast. deluges the vital source. choly to observe with what terror he contemplates his approaching fate. The religion of Johnson was always deeply tinctured with that gloomy and servile superstition which marks his political opinions. He expresses these terrors, and justly calls them miserable, which thus shrink from the exchange of a diseased and painful existence, which gentler human beings consider as the allrecompensing reward of a well-spent life. Yet have not these humiliating terrors by any means subdued that malevolent and envious pride, and literary jealousy, which were ever the vices of his heart, and to which he perpetually sacrificed, and continues to sacrifice, the fidelity of representation, and the veracity of decision. His memory is considerably impaired, but his eloquence rolls on in its customary majestic torrent, when he speaks at all. My heart aches to see It is not improhim labour for his breath, which he draws with great effort indeed. bable that this literary comet may set " where it rose, and Lichfield receive his comprehensively benevolent as his genius pale and stern remains. DR. DARWIN, Almost five years are elapsed since Dr. Darwin left Lichfield. A handsome young widow, relict of Colonel Pool, by whom she had three children, drew from us, in the hymeneal chain, our celebrated physician, our poetic and witty friend. The doctor was in love like a very Celadon, and a numerous young family are springing up in consequence of a union, which was certainly a little unaccountable; not that there was any wonder that a fine, graceful, and affluent, young woman, should fascinate a grave philosopher; but that a sage of no elegant external, and sunk into the vale of years, should, by so gay a lady, be preferred to younger, richer, and handsomer, suitors, was the marvel; especially since, though lively, benevolent, and by no means deficient in native wit, she was never suspected of a taste for science, or works of imagination. Yet so it was; and she makes her ponderous spouse a very attached, and indeed devoted, wife! The poetic philosopher, in return, transfers the amusement of his leisure hours, from the study of botany and mechanics, and the composition of odes and heroic verses, to fabricating riddles and charards! Thus employed, his mind is somewhat in the same predicament with Hercules's body, when he sat amongst the women, and handled the distaff. Dr. Darwin finds himself often summoned to Lichfield; indeed, whenever symtoms of danger arise in the diseases of those whose fortunes are at all competent to the expence of employing a distant physician. When I see him, he shall certainly be informed how kindly your ladyship enquires after his welfare, and that of his family. His eldest son by his first wife, who was one of the most enlightened and charming of women, died of a putrid fever, while he was studying physic at Edinburgh, with the most sedulous attention, and the most promising ingenuity. His second is an attorney at Derby, of very distinguished merit, both as to intellect and virtue;and your play-fellow, Robert, grown to an uncommon height, gay and blooming as a morn of summer, pursues medical studies in Scotland, under happier auspices, I hope, than his poor brother. was comprehensive, the excess of unqua lified praise, now poured upon his tomb, had been deserved. Unhappily for his own peace, as for the posthumous fame of our English classics, his adherence to truth was confined to trivial occurrences, and abstract morality, his generosity to giving alms, his sincerity to those he hated, and his devotion to the gloom of religious terror. Truth, from Dr. John son's lip, yielded to misrepresentation in his rage of casting rival-excellence into shade. That generosity, which loves to place exalted genius and virtue in their fairest point of view, was a stranger to Dr. Johnson's heart. His violent desire of life, while he was continually expatiating upon its infelicity, the unphilosophic and coward horror with which he shrunk from the approach of death, proved that his religion was not of that amiable spe cies, which smooths the pillow of the dying man, and sheds upon it the light of religious hope. If the misleading force of his eloquence had not blighted the just pretensions of others, both to moral and intellectual excellence, I should not regret to see Johnson's character invested with this ideal splendour; since I always thought it for the interest of morality and literature, to believe exalted genius good as great, and, in a considerable degree, exempt from human depravity; such be ref having a natural tendency to inspirit the pursuit of excellence, and give force to the precept of the moralist. since he has industriously laboured to expose the defects, and defame the vir tues and talents, of his brethren in the race of literary glory, it is sacrificing the many to an individual, when, to exalt him, truth is thus involved, and hid in hyperbolic praise. But O England not less ungrateful than partial is this thy boundless incense. Investing the gloomy devotion and merely pecuniary donations of Johnson with the splendour of faultless excellence, thou sacrificest an hecatomb of characters, most of them more amiable, and some of them yet greater in points of genius, to his manes! BOSWELL. Mr, Boswell has applied to me for Johnsonian records for his life of the despot. If he inserts them unmutilated, as I have arranged them, they will con tribute to display Johnson's real chu raeter to the public; that strange come If Dr. Johnson's heart had been as pound of great talents, weak and absurd CHARACTER OF JOHNSON." 1 prejudices, prejudices, strong, but unfruitful, devotion; intolerant fierceness; compassi onate munificence, and corroding envy; I was fearful that Mr. Boswell's personal attachment would have scrupled to throw in those dark shades which truth cum mands should be employed in drawing the Johnsonian portrait; but these fears are considerably dissipated by the style of Mr. Boswell's acknowledgments for the materials I had sent him, and for the perfect impartiality with which I had spoken of Johnson's virtues and faults, He desires I will send him the minutes I made at the time of that, as he justly calls it, tremendous conversation at Dilly's, between you and him, on the subject of Miss Harry's commencing quaker. Boswell had so often spoke to me, with regret, over the ferocious, reasonless, and unchristian, violence of his idol that night, it looks impartial beyond my hopes, that he requests me to arrange it. I had omitted to send it in the first collection, from my hopelessness that Mr. Boswell would insert it in his life of the Colossus. Time may have worn away those deep-indented lines of bigot fierceness from the memory of the bio grapher, and the hand of affection may not be firm enough to resolve upon en graving them. O! yes, as you observe, dreadful were the horrors which attended poor Johnson's dying state. His religion was certainly not of that nature which sheds comfort on the death-bed pillow. I be lieve his faith was sincere, and therefore could not fail to reproach his heart, which had swelled with pride, envy, and hatred, through the whole course of his existence. But religious feeling, on which you lay so great a stress, was not the desideratum in Johnson's virtue. He was no cold moralist; it was obedience, meekness, and universal benevolence, whose absence from his heart, driven away by the turbulent fierceness and jealousy of his unbridled passions, filled with so much hor. For the darkness of the grave. Those glowing aspirations in religion, which are termed enthusiasm, cannot be rationally considered as a test of its truth. Every religion has had its martyrs. I verily believe Johnson would have stood that trial for a system to whose precepts he yet disdained to bend his proud and stubborn heart. How different from his was the death-bed of that sweet exccllence, whom he abused at Dilly's, by the name of the "odious wench!" BOSWELL CONTINUED. in Lichfield. I did not find him quite Mr. Boswell lately passed a few days so candid and ingenuous on the subject of Johnson, as I had hoped from the style of his letters. He affected to distinguish in the despot's favour, between envy and literary jealousy. I maintained, that it was a sophistic distinction without a real difference. Mr. Boswell urged the unlikelihood that he, who had established his own fame on other ground than that of poetry, should envy poetic reputation, especially where it was posthumous; and seemed to believe that his injustice to Milton, Prior, Gray, Collins, &c. proceeded from real want of taste for the higher orders of verse, his judge ment being too rigidly severe to relish the enthusiasms of imagination. Affection is apt to start from the impartiality of calling faults by their proper names. Mr. Boswell soon after, una wares, observed that Johnson had been galled by David Garrick's instant success, and long eclat, who had set sail with himself on the sea of public life; that he took an aversion to him on that account; that it was a little cruel in the great man not once to name David Gar rick in his preface to Shakespeare! and base, said I, as well as unkind. Garrick! who had restored that transcendent author to the taste of the public, after it had recreantly and long receded from him; especially as this restorer had been the companion of his youth. He was galled by Garrick's prosperity, rejoined Mr. Boswell. Ah! said I, you now, unawares, cede to my position. If the author of the Rambler could stoop to envy a player, for the hasty splendour of a reputation, which, compared to his own, however that might, for some time, be hid in the night of obscurity, must, in the end, prove as the meteor of an hour to the permanent light of the sun, it cannot be doubted, but his injustice to Milton, Gray, Collins, Prior, &c. pro ceeding from the saine cause, produced that levelling system of criticism," which lifts the mean, and lays the mighty low." Mr. Boswell's comment upon this obser vation was, that dissenting shake of the head, to which folk are reduced, when they will not be convinced, yet find their stores of defence exhausted. Mr. B. confessed his idea that Johnson was a Roman Catholic in his heart.-I have heard him, said he, uniformly defend ات fend the cruel executions of that dark bigot, Queen Mary." HANNAH MORE. Miss More's poems have spirit and genius, but contain an affected and pedantic display of knowledge and erudi tion, especially the Bas bleu. In the Florio we find, many brilliant passages; many just and striking observations, and some admirable portraits in satiric traits. Not Hayley himself has drawn a modern bean better. Florio is the rival of Filligree, in the Triumphs of Temper, with sufficient difference to avert the charge of plagiarism from the female author; -but the versification in Florio is, at times, strangely inharmonious, often alliterating with the hardest consonants, and sometimes disgraced by vulgarism: instances, "For face, no mortal cou'd resist her." And, "He felt not Celia's powers of face." These face-expressions put me in mind of an awkward pedantic youth, once resident, for a little time, at Lichfield. He was asked how he liked Miss Honora Sneyd. "Almighty powers!" replied the oddity, "I could not have conceived that she had half the face she has Honora was finely rallied about this in puted plenitude of face. The oval elegance of its delicate and beauteous con tour, made the exclamation trebly absurd. How could Miss More so apply a phrase, always expressive of effrontery? and how could so learned a lady suffer the pleonasm of the following line to escape her pen? * With truth to mingle fables feign'd." The character of Celia is pretty, but in the satirical strokes lie all the genius of the work. As for the Bas bleu.You have heard ne sigh after the attainment of other languages with hopeless yearning; yet I had rather be ignorant of them, as I am, if I thought their acquisition would induce me to clap my wings and crow in Greek, Latin, and French, through the course of a poem which ought to have been written in an unaffected and unmingled English. I am diverted with its eulogies on Garrick, Mason, and Johnson, who all three hated each other so heartily. Not very pleasantly, I trow, would the two former have sat in the presence of Old Cato, as this poem oddly terms the arrogant Johnson, surrounded by the worshipful and worshipping Blue Stocking.-Had the cynic lived to hear his Whig-title, Cato, I could fancy him saying to the fair author, "You had better have called me the first Whig, Madam, the father of the tribe, who got kicked out of Heaven for his republican principles." To the lady president herself, I fancy the cynic would not now, were he living, be the most welcome guest, since the publication of Mr. Boswell's Tour. Miss More puts him to bed to little David. Their mutual opiates are pretty powerful, else her quondam friend, Garrick, would not thank her for his companion;—but misery, matrimony, and mortality, make strange bed-fellows. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. So France has dipt her lilies in the living streams of American freedom, and bids her sons be slaves no longer. In such a contest, the vital sluices must be wastefully opened-but few English hearts, I hope, there are, that do not wish victory may sit upon the swords that freedom has unsheathed. MOLLY ASTON. It is very true, as you observe, Johnson appears much more 'amiable as a domestic in his letters to Mrs. man, Thrale, than in any other memorial which has been given us of his life and manners; but that was owing to the care with which Mrs. Piozzi weeded them of the prejudiced and malevolent passages on characters, perhaps much more essentially worthy than himself, were they to be tried by the rules of Christian charity. I do not think with you, that his ungrateful virulence against Mrs. Thrale, in her marrying Piozzi, arose from his indignation against her on his deceased friend's account. Mr. Boswell told me Johnson wished and expected to have married her himself. You ask who the Molly Aston was, whom those letters mention with such passionate ten derness? Mr. Walmsley, my father's predecessor in this house, was, as you have heard, Jolmson's Mecenas, and this lady, his wife's sister, a daughter of Sir Thomas Aston, a wit, a beauty, and a toast. Johnson was always fancying himself in love with some princess or other. His wife's daughter, Lucy Por ter, so often mentioned in those letters, was his first love, when he was a schoolboy, under my grandfather, a elergymah, vicar of St. Mary's, and master of the free-school, which, by his scholístic ubility, was high in fanie, and thronged with pupils, from some of the first gentle. men's families in this and the adjoining counties, |