has so long and with such distinction served his country in a diplomatick capacity; Mr. Porter, an eminent Russian merchant; the late Dr. William Robertson, the historian; the late venerable Lord Monboddo,well known as an amiable enthusiast in Grecian literature; Mr. Dugald Stuart, that most learned, ingenuous,and modest of the members of the Scottish universities; Mr. Professor Christison, and many others, the most eminent for virtue, rank, and talents. Amidst so many publick duties, Mr. Dalzell's application to private studies was indefatigable. The composition and continual improvement of his lectures, with the compilation of his Collectanea or Avaxixta cost him prodigious pains and labour. His correspondence with Heyne and other men of learning abroad, encroached a good deal upon his hours of leisure. He has enriched the volumes of the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh with a variety of interesting communications in biography or on subjects of erudition. He was the editor of the posthumous Sermons of his fatherin law, the learned and judicious Dr. John Drysdale. He gave a value to Chevalier's Description of the Plain of Troy, by translating and illustrating it. His application was, indeed, far too intense : but so very much was his heart in his studies and his official duties, that no tender suggestions of his friends, no counsels of his physi cians, could divert him from them. He was in stature among the tallest of the middle size; his complexion was fair; his aspect mild, sweet, and unavoidably interest. ing; there was peculiar power of ingenuous expression in the modest, almost timid, serenity of his blue eye; his features were plump and full, but without heaviness or grossness; his address, in accosting a stranger, or in the general course of conversation, was singularly graceful, captivating, and yet unpresuming. He took little exercise, but in occasional walks in the King's Park, which was the rural scene the most easily accessible from his residence in the college. An attick propriety, a golden moderation, seemed to pervade all his habits in common life. He was eminently temperate, yet hospitable and convivial. In the tenderest connexion of domestick life he was truly fortunate, having married the eldest daughter of the Rev. Dr. John Drysdale, a lady whose temper, taste, good sense, accomplishments, and turn of manners, were entirely in unison with his own. She survives, with the children of their marriage, to mourn his premature loss. Ergo Quintilium perpetuus sopor Urget! cui pudor, et justitiæ soror, Incorrupta fides, nudaque veritas, Quando ullum invenient parem ? Multis ille quidem flebilis occidit Nulli flebilior quam mihi—. London, Jan. 1807. For the Anthology. PROFESSOR LUZAC. [The following letter, from a gentleman of high respectability, residing in Holland, was addressed to the late President of the United States. It contains the relation of an event of the most afflictive nature to the friends of humanity, of freedom, and of virtue. To the people of New-England, who recollect with reverence and affection the pilgrimage of their parents, the city of Leyden was a spot, peculiarly interesting; and to all those, who know any thing of the American Revolution, and feel any attachment to its principles, the name and character of JoHN LUZAC will ever be dear and venerable. He descended from one of those virtuous and persecuted families, which,in the reign of Louis the 14th, took refuge in Holland from the violence of that religious fanaticism, which will forever disgrace the annals of that prince. Educated to the profession of the law, and highly distinguished in its practice at an early period of his life, he had for many years relinquished these forensick pursuits to discharge the duties of Professor of the Greek Language and History at the University of Leyden. He had also been the principal editor of the Leyden Gazette, a paper equally celebrated for the elegance of its composition, for the accuracy of its narratives, and for the comprehension, penetration, boldness, and correctness of its political views. In the following letter the voice of ardent and sorrowing friendship speaks the language of strict and unexaggerated truth. There are men of louder fame, and more extensive influence yet remaining; but the civ ilized world cannot produce a man, uniting that assemblage of qualities, necessary to form a profound classical scholar, an accomplished statesman, and a virtuous and honourable man, in more perfect harmony, than was exhibited in the character of JOHN LUZAC] JOHN ADAMS, Esq. SIR, INTIMATELY Connected in a disinterested friendship of many years with Mr. JOHN LUZAC, Professor at Leyden, who often confided to me the marks of esteem he received from you, his respected friend, as well as of the immortal Washington, I now take the mournful task to announce to you his death, in a dreadful manner, by the explosion of a barge with gunpowder, that laid, contrary to the laws, in the centre of the city of Leyden,... the two-thirds and best part of which is ruined by the force of it, which is to be conceived by the quantity, being thirty thousand weight. His house is dashed to pieces; his children were saved before it fell down. His absence from thence, of about five minutes, makes it almost certain, that he was, at the fatal time, at the place. where the barge laid. Thousands perished with him, and the town is a heap of rubbish. The churches and a considerable number of houses threaten to fall, and are taking down to prevent more mischief. This catastrophe took place on the 12th instant, at four o'clock in the afternoon. Not fifty houses are left, without being damaged. Mr. Luzac, great by his profound learning, by his unrelenting assiduity and labour, and by his incorruptible honesty, was reckoned to be the greatest, deepest, and most virtuous politician in Europe. Neglected by the intriguing herd, they did him all the evil they dared; they feared his piercing eye, and wounded him in the dark. He disdained and withstood them on all points. His enemies were those of his unhappy country, whose fall he tried to prevent; but his voice was stifled, his principles calumniated, the spirit of party, of ambition, of selfinterest, and intrigue prevailed, and his country was ruined. Even those, whom he had instructed and fed, became his oppressors. The more he was ill-treated and persecuted, the greater he became in the eyes of those, that saw him act ;—that were sensible of his virtue, of his wisdom, of his merit ;-the greater he became in the eyes of the Almighty God, whom he always fervently served, and who, judging him to have fulfilled the hard task he had given him, took him home in a moment....to everlasting felicity! He left to his friends three sons; the eldest, of about eighteen years of age, bred under the parental eye in the school of wisdom and learning, promises to become the successor of his great father's merits. The second of 14, and the youngest of 10 years, promise both also well. They entered early in the school of adversity, having lost a few months ago their tender and beloved mother by an apoplexy, very suddenly and very unexpectedly. He left them, with his great example, a moderate fortune, and the benevolence of his friends and admirers, deeply wounded by his loss. Full of respect to you, Jan. 17th, 1807. P.S. I inclose this to my friends, Messrs. James & Thomas H. Perkins of Boston, desiring them to forward it to you, and after they calculate it to be in your hands, to have it placed in one of the best newspapers; as America is yet the country where such a man can be duly appreciated. which bear the stamp of classical elegance and correctness, should be left to moulder on our shelves. Our sickly appetite is too much cloyed with sweetmeats to relish substantial food. Hence our standard authors are no longer read by the profound criticks of the day; and the whimsical novelties of lyrical ballad-mongers and trifling sommetteers are preferred to the majesty of Milton, the vigour of Dryden, and the brilliant sense and correct harmony of Pope. Armstrong is among those bards, whom Johnson, from caprice, or prejudice, or forgetfulness, has excluded from his list of English poets. And yet I will venture to affirm, that The Art of preserving Health is inferiour to no didactick poem in any language, with the sole exception of the Georgics, the most perfect production of the most finished of poets, to which it bears a very striking resemblance. Virgil divides his poem into four books, which treat respectively of ploughing, planting, cattle, and bees. On each of these sub jects he selects the best precepts, and intersperses the whole with beautiful descriptions and interesting episodes, adorned with the most polished and harmonious versification. Armstrong, in like manner, divides his poem into the same number of books, which treat respectively of four circumstances, on which health greatly depends; viz. air, diet, exercise, and the passions. The whole poem is animated with poetical description, and written in a style truly chaste, terse, and classical. The fever and ague one would scarcely think capable of poetical embellishment. But observe what the hand of a master can effect! |