In which all modern bards agree, Are they but senseless stones and blocks? DESCRIPTION OF AN AUTHOR'S BED-CHAMBER. WHERE the Red Lion staring o'er the way, The morn was cold, he views with keen desire THE FOLLOWING LETTER, ADDRESSED TO THE PRINTER OF THE ST JAMES'S CHRONICLE, APPEARED IN THAT PAPER IN JUNE, MDCCLXVII. SIR, As there is nothing I dislike so much as newspaper controversy, particularly upon trifles, permit me to be as concise as possible in informing a correspondent of yours, that I recommended Blainville's Travels, because I thought the book was a good one, and I think so still. I said, I was told by the bookseller that it was then first published; but in that, it seems, I was misinformed, and my reading was not extensive enough to set me right. * Another correspondent of yours accuses me of having taken a ballad I published some time ago, from one by the ingenious Mr Percy. I do not think there is any great resemblance between the two pieces in question. If there be any, his ballad is taken from mine. I read it to Mr Percy some years ago; and he (as we both considered these • The Friar of Orders Gray. "Reliq. of Anc. Poetry." Vol. I. Book 2. No. 18. |