e the beauty of an eye--
And if aught you praise it by
Leave such passion in your mind,
Let my reason's eye be blind.
Mark if ever red or white
Any where gave such delight,
As when they have taken place
In a worthy woman's face.

* * * * *

"I must praise her as I may,
Which I do mine own rude way,
Sometimes setting forth her glories
By unheard of allegories "--&c.

To the measure in which these lines are written the wits of Queen
Anne's days contemptuously gave the name of Namby-Pamby, in ridicule
of Ambrose Philips, who has used it in some instances, as in the
lines on Cuzzoni, to my feeling at least, very deliciously; but
Wither, whose darling measure it seems to have been, may show, that
in skilful hands it is capable of expressing the subtilest movements
of passion. So true it is, which Drayton seems to have felt, that it
is the poet who modifies the metre, not the metre the poet; in his
own words, that

"It's possible to climb;
To kindle, or to stake;
Altho' in Skelton's rhime."[1]

[Footnote 1: A long line is a line we are long repeating. In the
_Shepherds Hunting_ take the following--

"If thy verse doth bravely tower,
_As she makes wing, she gets power;_
Yet the higher she doth soar,
She's affronted still the more,
'Till she to the high'st hath past,
Then she rests with fame at last."

What longer measure can go beyond the majesty of this! what
Alexandrine is half so long in pronouncing or expresses _labor slowly
but strongly surmounting difficulty_ with the life with which it is
done in the second of these lines? or what metre could go beyond
these from _Philarete_--

"Her true beauty leaves behind
Apprehensions in my mind
Of more sweetness, than all art
Or inventions can impart.
_Thoughts too deep to be expressed,
And too strong to be suppressed._"]

LETTERS,

UNDER ASSUMED SIGNATURES, PUBLISHED IN "THE
REFLECTOR."

* * * * *

THE LONDONER.

* * * * *

TO THE EDITOR OF "THE REFLECTOR."

Mr. Reflector,--I was born under the shadow of St. Dunstan's steeple,
just where the conflux of the eastern and western inhabitants of this
twofold city meet and justle in friendly opposition at Temple-bar.
The same day which gave me to the world, saw London happy in the
celebration of her great annual feast. This I cannot help looking
upon