1827.
MY DEAR SIR, You will have no pain to suffer from my sincerity.

With a safe conscience I can assure you that in my judgment your verses are animated with true poetic spirit, as they are evidently the product of strong feeling.

The sixth and seventh stanzas affected me much, even to the dimming of my eye and faltering of my voice while I was reading them aloud.

Having said this, I have said enough; now for the _per contra_.
You will not, I am sure, be hurt, when I tell you that the workmanship (what else could be expected from so young a writer ?) is not what it ought to be; even in those two affecting stanzas it is not perfect: 'Some touch of human sympathy find way, And whisper that though Truth's and Science' ray With such serene effulgence o'er thee shone.' Sympathy might whisper, but a '_touch_ of sympathy' could not.

'Truth's and Science' ray,' for the ray of truth and science, is not only extremely harsh, but a 'ray _shone_' is, if not absolutely a pleonasm, a great awkwardness: 'a ray fell' or 'shot' may be said, and a sun or a moon or a candle shone, but not a ray.