"I am tremendously in arrear with my letters,--except to * *, and to her my thoughts overpower me:--my words never compass them. To Lady Melbourne I write with most pleasure--and her answers, so sensible, so _tactique_--I never met with half her talent. If she had been a few years younger, what a fool she would have made of me, had she thought it worth her while,--and I should have lost a valuable and most agreeable friend. Mem. a mistress never is nor can be a friend. While you agree, you are lovers; and, when it is over, any thing but friends. "I have not answered W. Scott's last letter,--but I will. I regret to hear from others that he has lately been unfortunate in pecuniary involvements. He is undoubtedly the Monarch of Parnassus, and the most _English_ of bards. I should place Rogers next in the living list (I value him more as the last of the best school)--Moore and Campbell both _third_--Southey and Wordsworth and Coleridge--the rest, [Greek: hoi polloi]--thus:-- W. SCOTT /\ / \ / \ / \ / ROGERS.\ /----------\ / \ / \ / \ / MOORE.--CAMPBELL.\ /--------------------\ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / SOUTHEY.--WORDSWORTH.--COLERIDGE.\ /------------------------------------\ / \ / THE MANY. \ / \ /--------------------------------------------\ There is a triangular 'Gradus ad Parnassum!'--the names are too numerous for the base of the triangle. Poor Thurlow has gone wild about the poetry of Queen Bess's reign--_c'est dommage_. I have ranked the names upon my triangle more upon what I believe popular opinion, than any decided opinion of my own. For, to me, some of M * * e's last _Erin_ sparks--'As a beam o'er the face of the waters'--'When he who adores thee'--'Oh blame not'--and 'Oh breathe not his name'--are worth all the Epics that ever were composed.