s caught the sound,
And all her list'ning sons around
In awful silence stood.

XII.
Reclaim'd her wild licentious youth,
Confess'd the potent voice of Truth,
And felt its just controul.
The Passions ceas'd their loud alarms,
And Virtue's soft persuasive charms
O'er all their senses stole.

XIII.
Thy breath inspires the Poet's song
The Patriot's free, unbiass'd tongue,
The Hero's gen'rous strife;
Thine are retirement's silent joys,
And all the sweet engaging ties
Of still, domestic life.

XIV.
No more to fabled names confin'd;
To Thee supreme, all perfect mind,
My thought direct their flight.
Wisdom's thy gift, and all her force
From thee deriv'd, Eternal source
Of Intellectual Light!

XV.
O send her sure, her steady ray,
To regulate my doubtful way,
Thro' life's perplexing road:
The mists of error to controul,
And thro' its gloom direct my soul
To happiness and good.

XVI.
Beneath her clear discerning eye
The visionary shadows fly
Of Folly's painted show.
She sees thro' ev'ry fair disguise,
That all but Virtue's solid joys,
Is vanity and woe.

[Facsimile of the music to "The Ode to Wisdom" (verse 14).]

LETTER XI

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE FRIDAY MIDNIGHT.

I have now a calmer moment. Envy, ambition, high and selfish resentment,
and all the violent passions, are now, most probably, asleep all around
me; and shall now my own angry ones give way to the silent hour, and
subside likewise?--They have given way to it; and I have made use of
the gentler space to re-peruse your last letters. I will touch upon
some passages in them. And that I may the less endanger the but-just
recovered calm, I will begin with what you write about Mr. Hickman.

Give me leave to say, That I am sorry you cannot yet persuade yourself
to think better, that is to say, more justly, of that gentleman, than
your whimsical picture of him shews you so; or, at least, than the
humourousness of your natural vein would make one think you do.

I do not imagine, that you yourself will say, he sat for the picture
you have drawn. And yet, upon the whole, it is not greatly to his
disadvantage. Were I at ease in my mind, I would venture to draw a much
more amiable and just likeness.

If Mr. Hickman has