I Like every part of your poem except the parenthesis towards the conclusion. In the midst of a rapid description, or tender sentiment; or any thing that commands the attention, or attaches the heart; what is more disgustful than to have the image cut in two, for the sake of explaining a word, or removing an objection, which the reader may possibly make?

Milton and Shakespeare frequently interrupt the most lively and ardent passages—take some instances as they occur.

Upon the mention of hills in the first quotation, and of day and evening in the second and last—he knew that he had some objections to answer, and accordingly set about doing it for fear of the consequences—I wish they had remained in their full force.

You have often read the Midsummer Night’s Dream—do you recollect this passage?

Lys. Hermia, for ought that ever I could read,

Could ever hear by tale or history,
The course of true love never did run smooth;
But, either it was different in blood——

Her. O cross! too high, to be enthrall’d to low!——

Lys. Or else misgrafted in respect of years—

Her. O spite! too old, to be engag’d to young!

Lys. Or else it stood upon the choice of friends—

Her. O hell! to chuse love by another’s eye!

Lys. Or if there were a sympathy in choice—

War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it.

Read it without Hermia’s interruptions and it becomes one of the finest parts of the author—but it is miserably mangled as it stands.

You will remember that it is the improper use of the parenthesis I object to and not to the thing itself. “This figure of composition,” says a late ingenious author, “which is hardly ever used in common discourse, is much employed by the best writers of antiquity, in order to give a cast and colour to their style different from common idiom, and by Demosthenes particularly; and not only by the orators, but the poets.”

I would recommend to your consideration whether you had not better avoid giving any hint how the story of your poem is to conclude? Anticipation frequently spoils a fine incident. When Æneas is reciting to Dido what past at Troy, says he,

The first mention of the Horse’s having armed men within, should have been reserved for this place. There is something truly terrible and sublime in Æneas’s being waked by such a variety of horrid sounds, and ignorant of the cause; the reader also should have been ignorant until Pantheus explained the mystery. See the whole passage in Æn. II. beginning at the 298th verse, and if possible, forget that this went before.

One of the finest parts of Don Quixote is also spoiled by mentioning a circumstance which should have been delayed. The Knight and his ’Squire, at the close of the day, hear the clank of chains, and dreadful blows, which would have puzzled the reader as much as it frightened them, had not the author unluckily said “that the strokes were in time and measure,” which is telling us very plainly that it was a mill. The whole scene is highly pictoresque and beautiful.

If these hints will be of any service to you it will be a great pleasure to

Yours, &c.