You know what importance I attach to following strictly the last copy of the text of an author; and I do not blame you for printing in the 'Ode to Evening' 'brawling' spring; but surely the epithet is most unsuitable to the time, the very worst, I think, that could have been chosen.
I now come to Lady Winchelsea.

First, however, let me say a few words upon one or two other authoresses of your 'Specimens.' British poetesses make but a poor figure in the 'Poems by Eminent Ladies.'[114] [114] Two volumes, 1755.

_A.D._ But observing how injudicious that selection is in the case of Lady Winchelsea, and of Mrs.Aphra Behn (from whose attempts they are miserably copious), I have thought something better might have been chosen by more competent persons who had access to the volumes of the several writers.

In selecting from Mrs.Pilkington, I regret that you omitted (look at p.

255) 'Sorrow,' or at least that you did not abridge it.