and melancholy; and he lamented with a true brotherly feeling that we ever met,—­even as the sober citizen, when his son went astray upon the mountains of Parnassus, is said to have cursed wit, and poetry, and Pope. [2] I quote wrong, but no matter.  These letters I lent to a friend to be out of the way for a season; but I have claimed them in vain, and shall not cease to regret their loss.  Your packets posterior to the date of my misfortunes, commencing with that valuable consolatory epistle, are every day accumulating,—­they are sacred things with me.

Publish your Burns [3] when and how you like; it will “be new to me,”—­my memory of it is very confused, and tainted with unpleasant associations.  Burns was the god of my idolatry, as Bowles of yours.  I am jealous of your fraternizing with Bowles, when I think you relish him more than Burns or my old favorite, Cowper, But you conciliate matters when you talk of the “divine chit-chat” of the latter; by the expression I see you thoroughly relish him.  I love Mrs. Coleridge for her excuses an hundred-fold more dearly than if she heaped “line upon line,” out-Hannah-ing Hannah More, and had rather hear you sing “Did a very little baby” by your family fireside, than listen to you when you were repeating one of Bowles’s sweetest sonnets in your sweet manner, while we two were indulging sympathy, a solitary luxury, by the fireside at the “Salutation.”  Yet have I no higher ideas of heaven.  Your company was one “cordial in this melancholy vale,”—­the remembrance of it is a blessing partly, and partly a curse.  When I can abstract myself from things present, I can enjoy it with a freshness of relish; but it more constantly operates to an unfavorable comparison with the uninteresting converse I always and only can partake in.  Not a soul loves Bowles here; scarce one has heard of Burns; few but laugh at me for reading my Testament,—­they talk a language I understand not; I conceal sentiments that would be a puzzle to them.  I can only converse with you by letter, and with the dead in their books.  My sister, indeed, is all I can wish in a companion; but our spirits are alike poorly, our reading and knowledge from the selfsame sources, our communication with the scenes of the world alike narrow.  Never having kept separate company, or any “company together;” never having read separate books, and few books together,—­what knowledge have we to convey to each other?  In our little range of duties and connections, how few sentiments can take place without friends, with few books, with a taste for religion rather than a strong religious habit!  We need some support, some leading-strings to cheer and direct us.  You talk very wisely; and be not sparing of your advice.  Continue to remember us, and to show us you do remember us; we will take as lively an interest in what concerns you and yours.  All I can add to your happiness will be sympathy.  You can add to mine more;