Puslapio vaizdai
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Nature in her then erred not, but forgot.'

Sweet, lovely Rofe, the maid, whom all admire,

The youth enamoured, and the doting

fire;

Thy texture fine, and violet-mingled hues,

Thy looks fo charming stoicks can't refufe,

Thy countless charms, conceived, but ne'er defined,

Befpeak thy imbecility of mind.

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"The petals of this flower terminate în a long tube, called by botanifts a cornucopia, boney is fecreted. Many infects are provided or born of plenty, at the end of which the with a long probofcis for the purpose of act quiring this grateful food. But this tube is fa long, that little, if any of the honey can be The virtuous man bas extracted by them."

a treafure, which the infects of vice can ne
er totally defroy. They may injure him by
detraction, gore him by the flings of ewvy and

*This flower, it feems, was made only malice, yea, they may kill the body; but bave

to be feen.

not power to kill the foul.

FOR THE ANTHOLOGY.

Mertil were to abandon me, my pipe.
Ahould found no more. Has the unex-
pected cold, which yesterday faddened
the face of nature, affected thy delicate
bofom? Come, I will give thee the
honey, which I referve for Mertil. Or
has fome cruel hand defpoiled thee of
life or of liberty? Surely in this vicini-

On reading the following Idyl, in
the "Esprit du Journaux," I
was much delighted with its
natural simplicity, and sometime
ago gave it an English dress.
It is now at your disposal.—ty there dwells no fuch barbarian.
Publish it, if you think its pe-
rusal will give your readers
pleasure; or if it meets your
disapprobation, light your segars
with it, an office to which it
would have been assigned by
myself, but for the recollection of
your miscellany.
Z.

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I No longer hear the fweet notes of the Fauvette, which fo lately lodged amid the foliage of the tufted chefnut tree. How do I regret her lofs! In the abfence of Mertil, her company was the charm of my heart. At the first fmile of Aurora, lie was wont to celebrate the mild benefit of the light, which baniflies fleep and widely diffufes joy. She fang, and the birds with emulation raised the plaufive ftrain to hail the nafcent day. When her fweet melody was heard in the woods, fhe .concealed herself, like Palemon when he has alleviated the miseries of our indigent villagers. Sometimes the called on the Nightingale and the fummons was inftantly obeyed. With what delight have I liftened to their converfe! They mingled their voices like the accents of Mertil and me, when love is our theme!

On approach of evening, when other birds had fought repofe, the was still heard by turns to figh, and coo, and warble. I love alfo to liften at the village festivals, while Mertil plays on his hautboy, after the concert of the fhepherds has ceased.

What has become of my gentle Fanvette why is thy warbling fufpended? Is thy fpoufe tired of thee? If

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The Fauvette, at these words of Aloè, hopped from a projecting branch. She flies an inftant, but foon flutters near a rich field of corn, ftops fort, ard alights on a ripe car,-it bends, the pecks and flakes it, the grains fall,the takes them in her beak and flies away. Ere he has reached home her young ones exprefs their joy at her return by their chirping and their movements. The fhepherdefs perceives them as they raise their heads from the neft.

Thou art a mother, charming Fauvette? cried fhe, then thou art happy. Thy neftlings afford thee delight, they receive thy cares and thy love. Thou doft not yet fing to them, they are too young, but thou holdest fweet converse with them and thy fpoufe, who no longer wanders from thee. Sweet bird, who fo oft haft foothed my foul in its languor, I have not forgotten the pleasures thou haft created for ine. Afford me that alfo of aiding thee in the nourishment of thy tender offspring. I will pluck the caterpillars from the lovelieft flowers, I will gather the ripe grains, and each morn will come, to depofit them at the foot of the chefnut tree...... .What, thou difdaineft my proffered fervices? Ah, I comprehend the reafon. Thy family would no longer be fo dear to thee, if another had a fhare in protecting it. Aloe will perhaps be one day a mother, her children will then be every thing to her, he will be every thing to her children. Her pipe will refound only for their amufement, the fountains of her milk will flow for their nourishment, and should thefe fources ever be exhausted, how much will it cost her to receive the fuccour of a stranger. . . . Adieu, tender and fortunate mother! Aloè has been taught by thy example, what is the will of nature: fhe knows how to fulfil it.

From the French of M. le Compte d'Albai

THE BOSTON REVIEW,

FOR OCTOBER, 1805.

Librum tuum legi & quam diligentissime potul annotavi, quæ commutanda, quæ eximenda, arbitrarer. Nam ego dicere verum assuevi. Neque ulli patientius reprehenduntur, quam qui maxime laudari merentur.-Pliny.

ARTICLE 64.

The Powers of Genius, a poem, in three parts. By John Blair Linn, A. M. co-pastor of the first Presbyterian church in the city of Philadelphia. Second edition, corrected and enlarged. Philadelphia, Conrad & Co.

1802.

NATURE is beauty; and her most peculiar feature, variety. The character of man is as various, as his species is numerous, and, since the creation of waters, the form of a wave was never repeated. Though we hourly discover parallels amongst our associates, there is an exquisite distinction in the very exactness of likeness; a certain inexpressible something eminently our own; a happiness derivative, as it were, from heaven. Colleges may impair, what learning cannot compensate!

Should the frequent failures of modern poesy, be attributed to the neglect of this peculiar characteristick of our nature, we beg not to be considered by the erudite as irretrievably gothick. It is difficult to conjecture wherefore, but it has latterly become the vogue to imitate any thing but nature; to filter through the pericranium the fancies of other people, in preference to cultivat ing our own. If, now a days,

you take up a communication from a correspondent, you are either enveloped in the voluminous curl of the Johnsonian peruke, or pierced through the sensorium by the tart laconism of Lavater. "Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light: for the law of writ these are the only men." It is not our inclination to

cavil at the singularities of established writers, but we wish it always recollected, that those, who follow, can necessarily never come up; and that the peculiarities, which are interesting with their originator, may be preposterous in his imitator. The oaten stop of rural poesy is surely soothing; but because Rogers, for instance, has written prettily on a ringdove, is it indispensably necessary, that our masters and misses should be descriptively ridiculous for a century to come.

The superiority of the ancients in painting, architecture, and sculpture, might possibly persuade us to conjecture, with Milton, a degeneracy in human nature. But, beside the defender of so whimsical a position, the recenter dates of Cowper and of Southey, leave us little to question the capability of the period. Inferiority to antiquity, that scarecrow of moderns, like others of the brotherhood of frightful de

meanour, is a mere imposition of stubble and straw; and it will be discovered, when children have courage for reflection, that it is rather erected to frighten praise from our neighbours, than facilitate by caution the advancement of mind. Yet nothing now, too, is admired by many, but the hoary; and the mouldiness of manuscript, like the wall-flowers and mosses of ruins, affords sentiment by barrenness and material from decay. One is hagridden, as it were,

Over hill, over dale,
Through bush, through briar,
Over park, over pale,
Through flood, through fire,

with nothing but the classicks, the classicks, the classicks! A smooth gentleman, from Alma mater, tutors you, forsooth, that this performance is classical, and that is not classical; that this metaphor is disjointed, or that metaphor articulates, and so on to the conclusion of the chapter when, probably, the sphere of your acquirements is no otherwise expanded, than by the interwise expanded, than by the interesting disclosure, that to write classically, is to write accurately.

There's not a villain dweiling in all Denmark
But he's an arrant knave.

:

Had the classicks squandered themselves on the manufacture of fac simile,the conclusion of their lives, like those of their copyists, had been the period of their fame: but nature was the fountain, from which they drank of immortality; nature, pure and unadulterated by the frosty infusions of literary empiricks. Their bodies are with the Capulets, but genius is eternal. Numerous are the flowers that bloom on the slopes of Par

nassus, various of complexion, and shifting in perfume, like the proffers of Ophelia. There are daisies, fennel, and columbines ; there are rosemaries, pansies,and rue. "There's some for you, and here's some for me.", But our posies are all senseless; forced exoticks nourished by foreign fire, painted leaves of tiffany wound on formal wire. When, oh when, shall the winter of criticism be passed and the springtide of passion return! when shall the library be deserted for the fields, and poetry ruminate in the shades, she loves to depicture! when, oh when, shall the idolatry of learning be superseded by the worship of truth! We are surfeited with the repetition of repetitions, and want opportunity for reflection; for thought is as necessary to the soul, as exercise to.. the body; and the intellect incessantly in arms is rickety for life.

imitate the chastity of the ancients Furthermore; in essaying to we have unaccountably neglected their vigour. Singularity of sentiment and audacity of figure, violent than fortunate, are the though sometimes perhaps more gifted characteristicks of the bard, The listlessness of human nature is better gratified with even the eccentricity of hyperbole,than the frigidity of correctness. We must be awakened, before we are persuaded to feel. It is a hard portion for the delicate palate of connoisseurship, yet compounded by experience and observation, belles-lettres, to be interesting, must be popular. Poetry and painting were not intended merely for the retirement of the student. They are universal ap

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