they seem absolutely afraid to give the stamp of approbation to any thing in the first instance, hesitating whether it has merit or not, until they see an English review. They long seemed unconscious of the merits of two considerable works writ ten by sons of their own university, and hesitated to praise till the incense of fame arose to one from the literary altars of Cambridge*; and an English judge (Blackstone) had declared the other current coint. Swift was a satirist exactly suited to their genius, with a power of ridicule too great not to subdue any one who laughed at him: but I am not quite sure that if Pope had been an Irishman, he would have succeeded so well; his pastorals might have afforded excellent food for pastime, and I am convinced Collins and Gray, and all your ode-makers, would have been laughed down, and discouraged in the infancy of their muse. Modern Love. When Phillis found she'd lost her And that no art could keep a rover, head, lay, Swift to the cypress grove she sped; To weep and sigh her soul away: She groan'd, she rav'd, she tore her hair, And look'd the image of Despair. And thus by Florio forsaken Forsaken!-that I'll ne'er endure; fused a challenge from Anthony. weary of his life, tell him, there are The Eolian Harp. This instrument was invented by Kircher, 1649. After having been laid by, for a hundred years, it was again accidentally discovered and restored by Mr. Oswald. The lody have gained more delight in this vers of pure tones and simple melofrom all others, however skilful be little instrument, than can be drawn their combinations. Its sounds are it, and as mysterious as its source. as wild as the wind that blows upon There is a spell in them, which seems to entice away our very souls, and bewilder our whole frame. I can suck melancholy from it till my heart sinks. In the stillness of evening, how tenderly does it breathe forth its tones, till they faintly sink away into the most mysterious pauses, and melt and mingle with the air! At midnight, how often have I loved to place it at my casement, and as the wild wind swept over its chords, how have I felt my spirit loosened from myself, taking flight through the heavens on its continuous vibrations! Smollet somewhere says, that a woman in love cannot be trusted with this instrument: to a melancholy man it is equally dangerous; for what nature can withstand that, which even charms the air, and detains the breeze, sighing and lingering on its chords. Thomson and Mason seem to have enjoyed equal delight from the Eolian harp. Thomson, in one stanza is compelled to renounce his Cæsar has had the testimony of muse, when under its charm: ages to his bravery; and yet he re Hamilton's Conic Sections. † Sullivan's Lectures. Let me, ye wandering spirits of the wind, Who, as wild fancy prompts you, touch the string, er she brought thee; the pride of her parents and the garrulity of her mother will become insupportable. The gallantries of your wife will torment you with jealousy, and you will have reason to doubt the father of your reputed children. Now, young man, divine if thou canst, and chuse if thou darest." This anecdote of Socrates I give on the authority of Valerius Maximus. Socrates was probable suffering from the stings and arrows of outrageous Xantippe, he was writing under the pangs of despised love, when the young man unfortunately went to ask his opinion, and therefore it is not entitled to much respect. We agree with the wise Theognis. and acknowledge, that in the wide range of the bounties of heaven, there is no gift, bestowed on man, deserving so much thankfulness, as that of a good wife. But what do you call good? Here is the difficulty; this is the knot; this the perplexity. I cannot tell what you and other men would like, but know exactly what would please such a curious kind of being as my With many a warble wild, and artless self. I would never marry for mo air. Picture of a Wife. The wise Theognis told his countrymen, that that man was the richest and most happy, who had found an amiable and virtuous wife. Socrates, however, was of a very different opinion. A young man once consulted him to know, whether he would advise him to marry or not; to whom Socrates thus replied: "Young man, which ever of the two evils you chuse, you will most certainly have cause for repentance. If you should prefer celibacy, you will be solitary on the earth, you will never enjoy the pleasures of a parent; with thee will perish thy race, and a stranger will succeed to thy property. If you marry, expect constant, chagrin and quarrels without end. Your wife will be constantly reproaching you of the dow ney; for contracts of bargain and Sale in matters of matrimony were invented by infernals for the deep damnation of man; they are legislations of wrong, and indentures of infamy. I should like well enough that my wife might be handsome, though this is a minor consideration; for real beauty is not to be found, and I care not to be hunting for it through city and country all the days of my life. The mild lustre of Phosphor is not seen in the face of the daughters of Eve, and where is the being who sheds soft beams from her eye, like those of the planet of evening? Let her person have the form of elegance, and the sweetness of purity; her dress should be full of taste, and let her manners be those of a gentlewoman, for country simplicity is mere country awkwardness, and that I cannot away with. If her ancestors were not illustrious, I should hope that her family name might be respectable. Her disposition, I insist on this, must be gentle and soft, like the dew in the vallies of Languedoc, like the midnight music of romance from the battlements of Udolpho. She shall not be churlish, and peevish, and fretful, and scolding: but let her have good nature in full abundance, and kind words, looks, and smiles, plentiful and pleasant, as thick, ripe wheat in autumn. Then her mind must be cultivated. This too is essential. She must love to read; she must be able to think, and have opinions of her own. I wish that she may relish the poets of England, love the morality of Johnson, and the courtly sense of the Spectator, and that her soul may be attuned to the sweetest melody, by the wild warbling of the bard of Avon. She should read and remember the his torians of Great Britain, and know what may be easily known of her own country. Lastly, and above all, she must study the bible, be a christian, and reverence her God. New Mode of lending Money. The following is extracted from the new edition of the Works of Dr. Franklin, lately published in London: "I send you here with a bill for ten louis d'ors. I do not pretend to give such a sum. I only lend it to you. When you shall return to your Country, you cannot fail getting into some business that will in time enable you to pay all your debts. In that case, when you meet with another honest man in similar distress, you must pay me by lending this sum to him, enjoining him, to discharge the debt by a like operation, when he shall be able, and shall meet with such another opportunity. I hope it may thus go through many hands before it meet with a knave to stop its progress. This is a trick of mine for doing a good deal with a little money. I am not rich enough to afford much in good works, and so am obliged to be cunning, and make the most of a little." VOL. VIII. NO. L. It has been remarked that the friend the most ardently disposed to promote the interests of his friends, but feebly adopts his passions. This is because interest is the same with every one; but the passions only exist for him who experiences them. Every one sees at a glance what a thousand a-year is worth, and can calculate what houses and furniture, what horses and carriages, it will purchase. But the charms of a mistress make but a feeble impression on him who is not enamoured with them. He thinks but lightly of the happiness of obtaining her; and, unless he is himself in love, it requires a great la sour of the ima gination to form an idea of the pain of losing her. The principle, therefore, of interest which inspires us resides within us. We can be made to laugh only in consequence of our cheerfulness; and vexed and irritated only from our own impatience. - I AM naturally an admirer of poetry, yet I do not think it necessary to attribute to it a divine origin, or suppose that it cannot be produced without something resembling preternatural inspiration I can allow it to arise from the greatest excellency of natural disposition, or the greatest power of native genius, without exceeding the reach of what is human, or granting it any approaches to divinity, which is, I doubt, debased or dishonoured, by ascribing to it any thing that is in the compass of our action, or even comprehension. Nor can I allow poetry to be more divine in its effects than in its causes; nor any operations produced by it to be more than purely natural, or to demand any other sort of wonder than the effects of music, or of what has been called natural magic, however extraordinary any of these may have 3 appeared to minds little versed in the force of numbers or of sounds, or in speculations on the secret powers of nature. Whoever talked of drawing down the moon from heaven by verses or charms, it is most obvious, either believed not himself, or too superstitiously and foolishly believed what others have told him, whose simplicity, it may be, had been practised on by some artful poet, who, knowing the time when an eclipse would happen, told them that he could by the charm of his verses call down the moon at such an hour, and was by them thought to have performed it. When I read that fine description in Virgil's eighth eclogue of all sorts of charms and fascinations by verses, by images, by knots, by numbers, by fire, by herbs employed upon occasion of a violent passion from a jealous or disappointed love, I have recourse to the strong impression of fables and of poetry, to the easy mistakes of popular opinion, to the force of imagination, to the secret virtues of several herbs, and to the power of sounds. If the forsaken lover, in that eclogue of Virgil, had expected only from the force of her verses, or her charms, what is the burden of her song, to bring Daphnis home from the town where he was gone, and engaged in a new amour; if she had pretended only to revive an old fainting flame, or to extinguish a new one that was kindling in his breast; she might, for aught I know, have obtained her end by the power of such charms, and without other than very natural enchantments. For there is no question but true poetry may have the force to raise passions or allay them, to change or to extinguish them; to temper joy and grief; to excite love and fear; or even to turn fear into boldness, and love into indifference, and into hatred itself; and I can easily believe that the disheartened Spartans were re-animated, and recovered their lost courage, by the songs of Tyrtæus; that the cruelty and revenge of Phalaris were changed by the odes of Stesichorus into the greatest kindness and esteem; and, that as many men were passionately enamoured by the charms of Sappho's wit and poetry as by those of beauty in Phryne or Thais. For it is not only beauty that inspires love, but love gives beauty to the object that excites it; and if the passion be strong enough, let it arise from what it may, there is always beauty enough in the person who inspires it. Nor is it any great wonder that such force should be found in poetry, since in it are assembled all the powers of eloquence, of music, and of painting, which are all allowed to make such strong impressions upon human minds. How far men have been affected with all or any these needs little proof or testimony; the examples have been sufficiently known in Greece and in Italy, where some have fallen absolutely in love with the beauties of works of art produced by painters or statuaries, and even painters themselves have become violently enamoured with some of their own productions, and doated on them as on a mistress or fond child. To this some allusion seems to be made by the Italians, in the distinction they make of pieces done by the same hand, into those produced con studio, con diligenza, or con amore, of which the last are always the most excellent. But no more instances of this kind are necessary than the stories related and received by the most authentic ancient writers of the two Grecian youths, one of whom ventured his life to be locked up all night in a temple, that he might admire and embrace a statue of Venus there set up, and there designed for another kind of adoration; the other pined away and died, in consequence of being prevented from perpetually gazing on, admiring, and embracing a statue at Athens. The powers of music are either felt or known by all men, and are allowed to act in a most extraordinary manner on the passions, and even the frame and constitution of the body; to excite joy and grief, to give pleasure and pain, to compose disturbed thoughts, to assist and heighten devotion, and even to cure such diseases as affect the nerves, or the more subtle and delicate parts and fluids of the body. We need not have recourse to the fables of Orpheus or Amphion, or the power of their music upon beasts and fishes; it is enough that we find the charming of serpents, and the cure or assuagement of possession by an evil spirit, attributed to it in sacred writ. As to the force of eloquence which so often raised and appeased the violence of popular commotions, every person must be convinced of and acknowledge it, when he considers Cæsar, the greatest man of his age, and possessed of the most powerful mind, taking his seat on the tribunal, full of hatred and revenge, and with a determined reso lution to condemn Ligarius; yet by the force of Cicero's eloquence, in an oration for his defence, by degrees changing countenance, turning pale, and becoming so agitated, that some papers he held fell out of his hand, as if he had been terrified with words, who never feared an enemy in the field; till, at length, all his anger changing into clemency, he acquitted the brave criminal instead of condemning him. Now, if the strength of these three mighty powers be united in poetry, we need not wonder that such virtues and such honours have been attributed to it, that it has been thought to be inspired, or has been called divine; and yet I think it will not be disputed that the force of wit and of reasoning, and sublimity of conceptions and expressions, may be found in poetry as well as in oratory; the life and spirit of representation or picture as much as in painting; and the force of sounds, as well as in music; and how far these natural powers together may extend, and to what effects, even such as may be mistaken for supernatural or magical, I leave to be considered by those who are inclined to such speculations, or who, by their natural conformation and ge nius, are in some degree disposed to receive such impressions. For my part, I do not wonder that the famous Dr. Harvey, when he was reading Virgil, should sometimes throw the book down on the table, and say he had a devil; nor that the learned Meric Cassaubon should feel such pleasure and emotions as he describes, on reading some parts of Lucretius; that so many should shed uncontroulable tears at some tragedies of Shakspeare, and others experience the most violent agitation on reading or hearing some excellent pieces of poetry; nor that Octavia sank down in a swoon at the recital made by Virgil of the celebrated verses allusive to the death of Marcellus, in the sixth book of the Æneid. This is, no doubt, sufficient to evince the powers of poetry, and show on what were founded those ancient opinions which ascribed it to divine inspiration, and attributed to it so great a share in the effects of sorcery or magic. But as the old romances seem to lessen the honour of true prowess and valour in their knights, by giving such a part in all their chief adventures to enchantment; so the true excellence and just esteem of poetry seem rather debased than exalted by attributing to it a preternatural origin and powers. among the northern nations grew to be so strong and so general, that about five or six hundred years ago, all the Runic poetry was condemned, and the characters in which it was written forbidden to be used, by the zeal of bishops, and even by orders and decrees of state; which has greatly injured or rather caused the irrecoverable loss of the history of those northern kingdoms, the seat of our ancestors in the western parts of Europe. This opinion The more true and natural source of poetry may be discovered by observing to what god this inspiration was ascribed by the ancients. This was Apollo, or the Sun, esteemed by them the god of learning in ge |