A thousand thanks, my dear sir, for the loan of the Journal, which I have perused with the greatest interest.* A more superstitious age would certainly have believed him possessed of the art magic, so completely does he continue to force attention and sympathy wherever he pleases. He says, “I have lately repeopled my mind with Nature.” Oh why, when so alive to the charms of outward nature, will he not open his mind to the beauty which swells around us and within us, and need only to be desired to be manifest in brighter glory than ever adorned the fresh rising of the sun from the Eastern ocean. Why shut his heart to the tide of gentle affection, where, more clearly than on the waters of his favourite lake, the face of heaven is reflected. Then he provokes me with fancying himself hated. Good God! did he know how many have with breathless interest watched his steps, grieved for him, praised him, and where they could not, turned aside their eyes like the patriarch’s pious son, that they might not look upon his frailties, he would never return all this with misanthropy. Oh no, he would learn that many are all, nay more than all, they seem. But I always forget myself when I think of our greatest genius. Therefore I will hasten to thank you for the two dramas. The French one amuses me, the other does so for a different reason. A glorious triumph to the Laureate!
