s over, any thing but friends.

"I have not answered W. Scott's last letter,--but I will. I regret to
hear from others that he has lately been unfortunate in pecuniary
involvements. He is undoubtedly the Monarch of Parnassus, and the most
_English_ of bards. I should place Rogers next in the living list (I
value him more as the last of the best school)--Moore and Campbell both
_third_--Southey and Wordsworth and Coleridge--the rest, [Greek: hoi
polloi]--thus:--

W. SCOTT
/\
/ \
/ \
/ \
/ ROGERS.\
/----------\
/ \
/ \
/ \
/ MOORE.--CAMPBELL.\
/--------------------\
/ \
/ \
/ \
/ \
/ \
/ \
/ SOUTHEY.--WORDSWORTH.--COLERIDGE.\
/------------------------------------\
/ \
/ THE MANY. \
/ \
/--------------------------------------------\

There is a triangular 'Gradus ad Parnassum!'--the names are too numerous
for the base of the triangle. Poor Thurlow has gone wild about the
poetry of Queen Bess's reign--_c'est dommage_. I have ranked the names
upon my triangle more upon what I believe popular opinion, than any
decided opinion of my own. For, to me, some of M * * e's last _Erin_
sparks--'As a beam o'er the face of the waters'--'When he who adores
thee'--'Oh blame not'--and 'Oh breathe not his name'--are worth all the
Epics that ever were composed.

"* * thinks the Quarterly will attack me next. Let them. I have been
'peppered so highly' in my time, both ways, that it must be cayenne or
aloes to make me taste. I can sincerely say that I am not very much
alive _now_ to criticism. But--in tracing this--I rather believe, that
it proceeds from my not attaching that importance to authorship which
many do, and which, when young, I did also. 'One gets tired of every
thing, my angel,' says Valmont. The 'angels' are the only things of
which I am not a little sick--but I do think the preference of _writers_
to _agents_--the mighty stir made about scri