free and friendly conversation, our intellectual powers are more animated, and our spirits act with a superior vigour in the quest and pursuit of unknown truths. There is a sharpness and sagacity of thought, that attends conversation, beyond what we find while we are shut up reading and musing in our retirements. Our souls may be serene in solitude, but not sparkling, though perhaps we are employed in reading the works of the brightest writers. Often has it happened, in free discourse, that new thoughts are strangely struck out, and the seeds of truth sparkle and blaze through the company, which in calm and silent reading would never have been excited. By conversation, you will both give and receive this benefit; as flints, when put into motion, and striking against each other, produce living fire on both sides, which would never have risen from the same hard materials in a state of rest.
STELLA'S BIRTHDAY.
ALL travellers at first incline
Where'er they see the fairest sign;
And if they find the chambers neat,
And like the liquor and the meat,
Will call again, and recommend
The Angel inn to ev'ry friend.
What though the painting grows decay'd,
The house will never lose it's trade!
Nay, though the treach'rous tapster Thomas
Hangs a new angel two doors from us,
As fine as dauber's hands can make it,
In hopes that strangers may mistake it,
We think it both a shame and sin,
To quit the true old Angel inn.
Now this is Stella's case, in fact:
An angel's face a little crack'd;
(Could poets, or could painters, fix
How angels look at thirty-six!)
This drew us in at first to find
In such a form an angel's mind;
And ev'ry virtue now supplies
The fainting rays of Stella's eyes.
See, at her levee, crowding swains,
Whom Stella freely entertains,
With breeding, humour, wit, and sense;
And puts them to but small expense;
Their minds so plentifully fills,
And makes such reasonable bills,
So little gets for what she gives,
We really wonder how she lives!
And, bad her stock been less, no doubt
She must have long ago run out.
Then who can think we'll quit the place
When Doll hangs out a newer face;
Or stop and light at Chloe's head,
With scraps and leavings to be fed ?
Then, Chloe, still go on to prate
Of thirty-six, and thirty-eight;
Pursue your trade of scandal-picking,
Your hints, that Stella is no chicken:
Your innuendoes, when you tell us,
That Stella loves to talk with fellows:
And let me warn you to believe
A truth for which your soul should grieve;
That, should you live to see the day
When Stella's locks must all be gray,
When age must print a furrow'd trace
On ev'ry feature of her face;
Though you, and all your senseless tribe,
Could art, or time, or nature bribe,
To make you look like beauty's queen,
And hold for ever at fifteen;
No bloom of youth can ever blind
The cracks and wrinkles of your mind;
All men of sense will pass your door,
And crowd to Stella at fourscore.
THERE is in souls a sympathy with sounds:
And, as the mind is pitch'd, the ear is pleas'd
With melting airs or martial, brisk or grave:
Some chord in unison with what we hear
Is touch'd within us, and the heart replies.
How soft the music of those village bells,
Falling at interval upon the ear
In cadence sweet! Now dying all away,
Now pealing loud again, and louder still,
Clear and sonorous, as the gale comes on;
With easy force it opens all the cells
Where mem'ry slept. Wherever I have heard
A kindred melody the scene recurs,
And with it all it's pleasures and it's pains.
Such comprehensive views the spirit takes,
That in a few short moments I retrace
(As in a map the voyager his course)
The windings of my way through many years.
Short as in retrospect the journey seems,
It seem'd not always short; the rugged path,
And prospect oft so dreary and forlorn,
Mov'd many a sigh at it's disheart'ning length;
Yet feeling present evils, while the past
Faintly impress the mind, or not at all,
How readily we wish time spent revok'd,
That we might try the ground again, where once
(Through inexperience as we now perceive)
We miss'd that happiness we might have found!
Some friend is gone, perhaps his son's best friend,
A father, whose authority, in show
When most severe, and must'ring all it's force,
Was but the graver countenance of love;
Whose favour, like the clouds of spring, might low'r,
And utter now and then an awful voice,
But had a blessing in it's darkest frown,
Threat'ning at once and nourishing the plant.
We lov'd, but not enough, the gentle hand
That rear'd us. At a thoughtless age, allur'd
By ev'ry gilded folly, we renounc'd
His shelt'ring side, and wilfully forewent
That converse, which we now in vain regret.
How gladly would the man recal to life
The boy's neglected sire! A mother, too,
That softer friend, perhaps more gladly still,
Might he demand them at the gates of death.
Sorrow has, since they went, subdu’d and tam'd
The playful humour; he could now endure
(Himself grown sober in the vale of tears),
And feel a parent's presence no restraint.
But not to understand a treasure's worth,
Till time has stol'n away the slighted good,
Is cause of half the poverty we feel,
And makes the world the wilderness it is.
BUT lo! disclos'd in all her smiling pomp,
Where Beauty onward moving claims the verse
Her charms inspire: the freely flowing verse
In thy immortal praise, O form divine,
Smooths her mellifluent stream.
The regal dome, and thy enliv'ning ray
The mossy roofs adore: thou, better sun!
For ever beamest on th' enchanted heart
Love, and harmonious wonder, and delight
Poetic. Brightest progeny of Heav'n!
How shall I trace thy features? Where select
The roseate hues to emulate thy bloom?
Haste then, my song, through Nature's wide expanse,
Haste then, and gather all her comeliest wealth.
Whate'er bright spoils the florid Earth contains,
Whate'er the waters, or the liquid air,
To deck thy lovely labour. Wilt thou fly
With laughing Autumn to th' Atlantic isles,
And range with him th' Hesperian field, and see,
Where'er his fingers touch the fruitful grove,
The branches shoot with gold; where'er his step
Marks the glad soil, the tender clusters grow
With purple ripeness, and invest each hill
As with the blushes of an ev'ning sky?
Or wilt thou rather stoop thy vagrant plame,
Where, gliding thro' his daughter's honour'd shades,
The smooth Penéus from his glassy flood
Reflects purpureal Tempe's pleasant scene?
Fair Tempe! haunt belov'd of sylvan pow'rs,
Of nymphs and fauns; where, in the golden age,
They play'd in secret on the shady brink
With ancient Pan: while round their choral steps
Young hours and genial gales with constant hand
Show'r'd blossoms, odours, show'r'd ambrosial dews,
And spring's Elysian bloom. Her flow'ry store
To thee nor Tempe shall refuse; nor watch
Of winged Hydra guard Hesperian fruits
From thy free spoil. O bear then, unreprov'd,
Thy smiling treasure to the green recess,
Where young Dione stays. With sweetest airs
Entice her forth to lend her angel form
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