of your sentiments, and opinion of the books you peruse: you have no idea how beneficial this would be to yourself; and that you are able to do it, I am certain. One of the greatest impediments to good writing, is the thinking too much before you note down. This, I think, you are not entirely free from. I hope that, by always writing the first idea that presents itself, you will soon conquer it; my letters are always the rough first draft -of course there are many alterations: these you will excuse.

I have written most of my letters to you in so negligent a manner, that, if you would have the goodness to return all you have preserved sealed, I will peruse them, and all sentences worth preserving I will extract and return.

You observe, in your last, that your letters are read with contempt. Do you speak as you think? You had better write again to Mr. Be

tween friends, the common forms of the world, in writing letter for letter, need not be observed; but never write three without receiving one in return, because, in that case, they must be thought unworthy of answer.

We have been so busy lately, I could not answer yours sooner. Once a month, suppose we write to each other. If you ever find that my correspondence is not worth the trouble of carrying on, inform me of it, and it shall cease.

*

HENRY KIRKE WHITE.

P. S.-If any expression in this be too harsh, excuse it-I am not in an ill humour, recollect.

You don't know how I long to hear how your declamation was received; and "all about it," as we say in these parts. I hope to see it when I see its author and pronouncer. Themistocles, no doubt, received due praise from you for his valour and subtlety, but I trust you poured down a torrent of eloquent indignation upon the ruling principles of his actions and the motive of his conduct; while you exalted the mild and unassuming virtues of his more amiable rival. The object of Themistocles was the aggrandizement of himself; that of Aristides the welfare and prosperity of the state. The one endeavoured to swell the glory of his country; the other to promote its security, external and internal, foreign and domestic. While you estimated the services which Themistocles rendered to the state, in opposition to those of Aristides, you of course remembered that the former had the largest scope for action, and that he influenced his countrymen to fall into all his plans, while they banished his competitor, not by his superior wisdom or goodness, but by those intrigues and factious artifices which Aristides would have disdained. Themistocles certainly did use bad means to a desirable end: and, if we may assume it as an axiom, that Providence will forward the designs of a good, sooner than those of a bad man, whatever inequality of abilities there may be between the two characters, it will follow that, had Athens remained under the guidance of Aristides, it would have been better for her. The difference between The

mistocles and Aristides seems to me to be this: that the former was a wise and a fortunate man; and that the latter, though he had equal wisdom, had not equal good fortune. We may admire the heroic qualities and the crafty policy of the one, but to the temperate and disinterested patriotism, the good and virtuous dispositions of the other, we can alone give the meed of heart-felt praise.

I only mean by this, that we must not infer Themistocles to have been the better or the greater man, because he rendered more essential services to the state than Aristides, nor even that his system was the most judicious; but only that, by decision of character, and by good fortune, his measures succeeded best.

The rules of composition are, in my opinion, very few. If we have a mature acquaintance with our subject, there is little fear of our expressing it as we ought, provided we have had some little experience in writing. The first thing to be aimed at is perspicuity. That is the great point, which, once attained, will make all other obstacles smooth to us. In order to write perspicuously, we should have a perfect knowledge of the topic on which we are about to treat, in all its bearings and dependencies. We should think well, beforehand, what will be the clearest method of conveying the drift of our design. This is similar to what painters call the massing, or getting the effect of the more prominent lights and shades by broad dashes of the pencil. When our thesis is well arranged in our mind-and we have predisposed our arguments, reasonings, and illustrations, so as they shall all conduce to the object in view, in regular sequence and gradation-we may sit down, and express our

ideas in as clear a manner as we can, always using such words as are most suited to our purpose, and when two modes of expression, equally luminous, present themselves, selecting that which is the most harmonious and elegant.

It sometimes happens that writers, in aiming at perspicuity, overreach themselves, by employing too many words, and perplex the mind by a multiplicity of illustrations. This is a very fatal error. Circumlocution seldom conduces to plainness; and you may take it as a maxim, that when once an idea is clearly expressed, every additional stroke will only confuse the mind, and diminish the effect.

When you have once learned to express yourself with clearness and propriety, you will soon arrive at elegance. Every thing else, in fact, will follow as of course. But I warn you not to invert the order of things, and be paying your addresses to the graces when you ought to be studying perspicuity. Young writers, in general, are too solicitous to round off their periods, and regulate the cadences of their style. Hence the feeble pleonasms, and the idle repetitions, which deform their pages. If you would have your compositions vigorous and masculine in their tone, let every word TELL; and when you detect yourself polishing off a sentence with expletives, regard yourself in exactly the same predicament with a poet who should eke out the measure of his verses with 'titum, titum, tee, sir." So much for style

*

HENRY KIRKE WHITE.

Henry Kirke White to Mr. Robert Southey, the Editor of his Works.

I CAN now inform you that I have reason to be. lieve my way through college is clear before me. From what source I know not, but through the hands of Mr. Simeon I am provided with £30 per annum; and while things go on so prosperously as they do now, I can command £20 or £30 more from my friends, and this, in all probability, until I take my degree. The friends to whom I allude are my mother and brother.

My mother has, for these five years past, kept a boarding-school in Nottingham; and, so long as her school continues in its present state, she can supply me with £15 or £20 per annum, without inconvenience; but should she die, (and her health is, I fear, but infirm,) that resource will altogether fail. Still, I think, my prospect is so good as to preclude any anxiety on my part; and perhaps my income will be more than adequate to my wants, as I shall be a Sizar of St. John's, where the college emoluments are more than commonly large.

In this situation of my affairs, you will perhaps agree with me in thinking that a subscription for a volume of poems will not be necessary; and certainly that measure is one which will be better avoided, if it may be. I have lately looked over what poems I have by me in manuscript, and find them more numerous than I expected; but many of them would, perhaps, be styled mopish and mawkish, and even misanthropic, in the language of the world; though from the latter sentiment, I