it; so that we must be content, I fear, with the inscription as it
stands below. As you mention that the first copy was mislaid, I will
transcribe the first part from that; but you can either choose the Dome
or the Abbey as you like.

Ye lime-trees, ranged before this hallowed urn,
Shoot forth with lively power at Spring's return;
And be not slow a stately growth to rear
Of pillars, branching off from year to year,
Till ye have framed, at length, a darksome aisle,
Like a recess within that sacred pile
Where Reynolds, 'mid our country's noblest dead,
In the last sanctity of fame is laid, &c. &c.

I hope this will do: I tried a hundred different ways, but cannot hit
upon anything better. I am sorry to learn from Lady Beaumont, that there
is reason to believe that our cedar is already perished. I am sorry for
it. The verses upon that subject you and Lady B. praise highly; and
certainly, if they have merit, as I cannot but think they have, your
discriminating praises have pointed it out. The alteration in the
beginning, I think with you, is a great improvement, and the first line
is, to my ear, very rich and grateful. As to the 'Female and Male,' I
know not how to get rid of it; for that circumstance gives the recess an
appropriate interest. I remember, Mr. Bowles, the poet, objected to the
word ravishment at the end of the sonnet to the winter-garden; yet it
has the authority of all the first-rate poets, for instance, Milton:

In whose sight all things joy, with _ravishment_,
Attracted by thy beauty still to gaze.

Objections upon these grounds merit more attention in regard to
inscriptions than any other sort of composition; and on this account,
the lines (I mean those upon the niche) had better be suppressed, for it
is not improbable that the altering of them might cost me more trouble
than writing a hundred fresh ones.

We were happy to hear that your mother, Lady Beaumont, was so
surprisingly well. You do not mention the school at Coleorton. Pray how
is Wilkie in health, and also as to progress in his art? I do not doubt
that I shall like Arnold's picture; but he would have been a better
painter, if his genius had led him to _read_ more in the early part of
his life. Wilkie's style of painting does not require that the mind
should be fed from books; but I do not think it possible to _excel_ in
_landscape_ painting without a strong tincture of the poetic
spirit.[37]

O