CHAPTER XI.
1797—1799.
Among his correspondents at this time on various, though unimportant topics, were Bindley, Cumberland, Sir George Beaumont, Lord Harrington, Duke of Portland, and a few others. Some obscure writers “pressed by difficulties” seek subscriptions for their distress, or opinions upon forthcoming works. Some have “high opinions of your learning, your worth, and your benevolent nature, which have been entertained by the ‘mighty dead,’ and by many of the most wise and virtuous of the living.” One is from an unfortunate Navy chaplain, who has sold off every book and rag he possessed for the means of subsistence:—“I have no resource, sir, for bread but in Providence and my pen. I possess no official or other stated income. I am old. Neither my age, my indigence, nor inclination allow of a return to a sea life. My few relations of fortune are far as India from me. My only alternative is to beg or to starve.”
I extract this specimen of prosaic misery in contrast to another from a rapt poet—flighty as the wildest who has trodden Parnassus—who seeks “an inheritance on the Elysian heights”—“an asylum in
