That I have so long defer’d answering your very obliging letter has been altogether owing to the following cause. I proposed sending you a Saxon ode, accompanied with a Latin literal and an English free version; the former done by my very learned friend Mr. Lye, from out of whose curious collections I transcribed both it and the original. But, having left it with him to give it a revise, he has unfortunately mislaid both the original and copy, so that, although he has for this month past occasionally endeavour’d to recover them, he has not been able to succeed. As soon as they emerge from the immense ocean of his papers, you may depend upon receiving this curious specimen of Saxon poetry. In the mean time I would not defer any longer returning you thanks for the curious and valuable contents of your letter. I admire your Welsh ode very much; it contains a large portion of the sublime. The images are very bold and animated, and poured forth with such rapidity, as argues an uncommon warmth of imagination in the bard, whose mind seems to have been so filled with his subject, and the several scenes of the war appear to have so crowded in upon him, that he has not leisure to mark the transitions with that cool accuracy, which a feebler genius would have been careful to have done. It is one continued fiery torrent of poetic flame, which, like the eruptions of Etna, bears down all opposition. You must pardon me if I think your critical friend quite mistaken in his remarks on this ode. He confounds two species of poetry as distinct and different as black and white. Epic poetry delights in circumstance, and it is only in proportion as it is circumstantial that it has merit; the very essence of it (as its name implies) is narration. So a narrative, devoid of all circumstances, must be very jejune, confused, and unsatisfactory. But here lies the great art of the epic poet,—that he can be minute and circumstantial without descending from the sublime, or exciting other than grand and noble ideas. Thus, when Homer describes the stone, which Diomede threw at Æneas, had be only told us in general terms, that it was a large one, — Ο δε χερμαδιον λαθε χειρι Τυδειδης, μεyα ερyον,— had he stopped here, as many an inferior poet would have done, should we have had so great an idea of the hero’s strength or vigour, as when he adds the following particular and striking circumstances? — Ο ου δυω y' ανδρε φεροιεν, Οιοι νυν Βροτοι εισ, ο δε μιν ρεα παλλε και οιος. Iliad E. 1.304.