Redde the _Ruminator_--a collection of Essays, by a strange, but able,
old man [Sir Egerton Brydges] [8], and a half-wild young one, author of
a poem on the Highlands, called _Childe Alarique_ [9].
The word "sensibility" (always my aversion) occurs a thousand times in
these Essays; and, it seems, is to be an excuse for all kinds of
discontent. This young man can know nothing of life; and, if he
cherishes the disposition which runs through his papers, will become
useless, and, perhaps, not even a poet, after all, which he seems
determined to be. God help him! no one should be a rhymer who could be
any thing better. And this is what annoys one, to see Scott and Moore,
and Campbell and Rogers, who might have all been agents and leaders, now
mere spectators. For, though they may have other ostensible avocations,
these last are reduced to a secondary consideration.----, too,
frittering away his time among dowagers and unmarried girls. If it
advanced any _serious_ affair, it were some excuse; but, with the
unmarried, that is a hazardous speculation, and tiresome enough, too;
and, with the veterans, it is not much worth trying, unless, perhaps,
one in a thousand.
If I had any views in this country, they would probably be parliamentary
[10].
But I have no ambition; at least, if any, it would be _aut Caesar aut
nihil_. My hopes are limited to the arrangement of my affairs, and
settling either in Italy or the East (rather the last), and drinking
deep of the languages and literature of both.
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