before the fame of them is published in this unilluminated region. This is no small loss to me, who have a great deal of time to devote to study. It obliges me to employ my attention very frequently upon productions from which it is difficult to glean any useful knowledge amidst rude heaps of barbarous language and uninteresting events.
I suppose by this time Hussey and Burgh are resettled in the Temple. I saw them both in Dublin, and have in my possession a stronger proof than I ever saw before, of the poetical genius of the former. With all his irregularities, and with his many hasty and undigested sallies, there is an original softness and elegance of sentiment in him that I never found in Hammond or even in his master, Tibullus. He has sometimes, too, a strength and beauty of expression, particularly striking in him who is in general inattentive to the dress of his thoughts. I fear he is too volatile to apply very assiduously to any study, unless it be of poetry; and a man of imagination, possessed of a passion for the Nine, should never be licentious in the indulgence of either, if he means to be deeply learned in the intricacies of law. Such is the severe tax upon the ingenious of your profession.
I received this morning a long letter from our friend Southwell, which you may imagine was no small comfort to me in my retreat. This may possibly induce one of your humanity to lose no time in following his example, though I am in hopes when your next arrives I shall enjoy it in perfect sanity of body as well as mind, which the remains of a sore throat prevent me from enjoying at present. I fear Tom is not yet so near the verge of matrimony as I imagined him to be some time ago. There are circumstances that may perhaps totally prevent, or at least procrastinate, his hoped-for union. I think you had better say nothing to him on the subject in your letters, as I know he is uneasy when he thinks or is put in mind of it. It has given me much more material concern that his constitution is not what I could wish it were. . . . .
The difference that subsisted for some time between his family and Lord Southwell, contributed at intervals to make him unhappy; and after the reconciliation took place, the