Again--art thou the reverse of this--one ever choosing the bright side, ever giving the light and fairer traits of human character thine admiration--one ever looking abroad on the earth with a deep spiritual eye--to whom nature is familiar--to whom the winds, and woods, and waters are companions--one to whom the breathings of spring, the twitter of birds, the voices of infancy are a melody--one ever sending out thy fancy for imaginary bliss, exploring amid the haunts of evil for good, and tracing out the sweet attractivenesses of virtue? Thou too, I think, wilt find something pleasant and profitable, in the medley I lay before thee; and to thee I commend it with a hearty good will, trusting that thou wilt be content to pass the evil for the sake of the better, and give the writer here a kind wish for his labor in your behalf. Again--for our poets (for poets we must have, and I must defend them) let me ask, art thou one of those who look upon poetry, and the mystic profession of the poets, with contempt--one carrying a wise man’s wig on a fool’s crown--one talking of what thou hast not sense to understand--a child grasping at air? ‘Wert thou,’ in the quaint, yet rich language of Sir Philip Sidney, ‘born so near the dull-making cataract of Nilus, that you cannot hear the planet-like music of poetry; have you so earth-creeping a mind, that it cannot lift itself up to look at the sky of poetry, or rather, by a certain rustical disdain, will become such a mome as to be a Momus of poetry?’ If thou wert, take then, in his words, my hearty anathema--‘Though I will not wish unto you the ass’s ears of Midas, nor to be driven by a poet’s verses, as Bubonax was, to hang himself; nor to be rhymed to death, as is said to be done in Ireland; yet thus much curse I must send you, in the behalf of all poets; that while you live, you live in love, and never get favor, for lacking skill of a sonnet; and when you die, your memory die from the earth, for want of an epitaph.’