(when he will allow his sense to prevail over
his sectarian principles) a better writer. When he was writing his
"Rimini," I was not the last to discover its beauties, long before it
was published. Even then I remonstrated against its vulgarisms; which
are the more extraordinary, because the author is any thing but a
vulgar man. Mr. Hunt's answer was, that he wrote them upon principle;
they made part of his "_system!!_" I then said no more. When a man
talks of his system, it is like a woman's talking of her _virtue_. I
let them talk on. Whether there are writers who could have written
"Rimini," as it might have been written, I know not; but Mr. Hunt is,
probably, the only poet who could have had the heart to spoil his own
Capo d'Opera.

With the rest of his young people I have no acquaintance, except
through some things of theirs (which have been sent out without my
desire), and I confess that till I had read them I was not aware of
the full extent of human absurdity. Like Garrick's "Ode to
Shakspeare," _they "defy criticism_." These are of the personages who
decry Pope. One of them, a Mr. John Ketch, has written some lines
against him, of which it were better to be the subject than the
author. Mr. Hunt redeems himself by occasional beauties; but the rest
of these poor creatures seem so far gone that I would not "march
through Coventry with them, that's flat!" were I in Mr. Hunt's place.
To be sure, he has "led his ragamuffins where they will be well
peppered;" but a system-maker must receive all sorts of proselytes.
When they have really seen life--when they have felt it--when they
have travelled beyond the far distant boundaries of the wilds of
Middlesex--when they have overpassed the Alps of Highgate, and traced
to its sources the Nile of the New River--then, and not till then,
can it properly he permitted to them to despise Pope; who had, if not
_in Wales_, been _near_ it, when he described so beautifully the
"_artificial_" works of the Benefactor of Nature and mankind, the
"Man of Ross," whose picture, still suspended in the parlour of the
inn, I have so often contemplated with reverence for his memory, and
admiration of the poet, without whom even his own still existing good
works could hardly have preserved his honest renown.

I would also observe to my friend Hunt, that I shall be very glad to
see him at Ravenna, not only for my sincere pleasure in his company,
and the advantage which a thousand miles or so of