Do you know that among much that I admire
in the characters and manners of those great folks whom I have now the
honour to call my acquaintances, the Oswald family, there is nothing
charms me more than Mr. Oswald's unconcealable attachment to that
incomparable woman. Did you ever, my dear Syme, meet with a man who
owed more to the Divine Giver of all good things than Mr. O.? A fine
fortune; a pleasing exterior; self-evident amiable dispositions, and
an ingenuous upright mind, and that informed, too, much beyond the
usual run of young fellows of his rank and fortune: and to all this,
such a woman!--but of her I shall say nothing at all, in despair of
saying anything adequate: in my song I have endeavoured to do justice
to what would be his feelings, on seeing, in the scene I have drawn,
the habitation of his Lucy. As I am a good deal pleased with my
performance, I, in my first fervour, thought of sending it to Mrs.
Oswald, but on second thoughts, perhaps what I offer as the honest
incense of genuine respect, might, from the well-known character of
poverty and poetry, be construed into some modification or other of
that servility which my soul abhors.
R. B.
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