shades below: "I would rather," says Achilles, "be a hired workman, in the service of the humblest man on earth, however poor, than to bear rule over all these decaying carcasess." Virgil's is more tolerable. He informs us, that the air is more free, and the sky never clouded; that the charioteer can there drive his steed without molestation, and the wrestler battle, till the stars appear in the sky. Of all the infernal descents, one described by the French Homer, is not the least curious. He there assigns an honourble place to most of those, called great and good men.

Tu sais, lecteur, qu'en ces feux devorans
Les meilleurs rois sont avec les tyrans.
Vous y grillez, sage et docte Platon,
Divin Homere, eloquent Ciceron,
Et vous, Socrate, enfant de la sagesse,
Martyr de Dieu dans la profane Grece,
Juste Aristide et vertueux Solon,
Tous malheureux morts sans confession.

WINCKELMAN.

THIS celebrated critick and con noisseur was born in the greatest youth, he kept a school in an obpoverty and obscurity. In his of his birth; the following extract scure village on the Elbe, the place of a letter, written at Rome, to a friend at Zurich, shews strongly the contrast between the thoughts and "Let occupation of his youth. us be always as children at table, and content ourselves with what is served us, without putting our hand to the dish, and without murmuring, when little is given us. Let us play our character, whatever it may be, in the best manner we can. I formerly filled the function of schoolmaster with the greatest punctuality, and I taught the ABC to dirty, scratching children, while I was aspiring, during this recreation, to a knowledge of the beautiful, and meditating on the comparisons of Homer. I said then, as at present, peace, my heart, thy force is still greater than thy fatigues."

ARCHIMEDES.

affections to a severer purity, and an end far higher and nobler than they generally attain, is, in modern times, as the general disrelish for such writing fully evinces, almost always tame and inanimate. There creeps through every English elegy, I ever attempted to read, such a cold and lifeless languor, such a drowsy, monotonous, funeral pageant of undertaker's imagery and sobbing snivelling sentiment, that, under oath, I should hardly dare to say, I ever, at one sitting, read even the Elegy written in the Country Church Yard, from one end to the other. And yet none is readier than I, to acknowledge that Gray, whose laurels, instead of withering, are every day shooting into richer luxuriance, derives much of his fame from that popular poem.

A young lady, just opening into life, full of hope, ardent, lovely, innocent and artless, is suddenly arrested; disease fastens on her frame; the roses on her cheek sicken; her tongue, which once rivalled the mellowest warbles of the thrush, is now hardly able to articulate the last sad farewell; her eye no longer beams with love, or sparkles with intelligence, or flashes with rapture; her beauty, her vivacity, her joys, her wishes, all that could sooth her vanity, or gratify her pride, these, alas, and more than these, all her fondly cherished expectations; nay, even her serenity, which, before her health declined, was placid as the smile that dawns and brightens to seraphick beauty on an infant's cheek, is ruffled by the pangs of sickness. Such and so meagre, is the usual and perhaps the most fertile subject of elegy. Is it then strange, that elegy seldom pleases, and never delights. For my own part, and with my present opinions, Vol. V. No. XII.

4 H

I would not give the worst ode of Horace or Pindar for all the moping melancholy of all the elegies in christendom. Such an exchange would be like trucking off, in a fit of petulance, the honest and generous luxuries and enjoyments of a city life, for the turnips and trencher, the gloomy solitude, and sullen equanimity of such miserable old boobies, as, from disgust or niggardliness, sneak into retirement, and then are willing to be called, and even call, and, perhaps, sometimes fancy themselves, hermits.

COTILLONS.

THE Cotillon, or under-petticoat dance, received its name from that garment, which, to the exclusion of others was appropriated to its use. It is painful to observe that the ladies of Boston, are so far backward in the ranks of fashion, that, on those days of battle array, when they are drawn up to near and warm engagements, they have not yet ventured to assume their uniform. Is there no one of sufficient publick spirit to stand forward, and, like Ulysses, throwing off her useless rags, assume the majesty and simplicity of the Cotillon. An objection, indeed, may be raised, that, provided the external finery be removed, the expected substitute would not appear: that fashion has long since deprived a lady's person of that useless incumbrance. Without pretending to enter into the merits of this objection, or to decide, whether the garment, next but one to the skin, whatever be its quality and texture, be not the one in question, we would, with all humility, beg leave to inquire, whether Mrs. Cruft, and Miss Brown, and Mrs.

and Miss, &c. ad infinitum, are not sufficient to supply any demand, which this town and its vicinity can create. Away with such frivolous evasions.

ALGEBRA AND SOAP.

THERE may appear, to most readers, to be very little connection between these two things, and I am not going to prove the contrary; but I have joined them together, to illustrate this position, that those inventions, we never make any use of ourselves, we never should have discovered, had we accompanied. the globe, from its first revolution, till the present day. If this position be true, algebra would not have owed its existence to me, and Mathesis would never have found out the art of making soap.

LAUDES CANTABRIGIÆ.

THOUGH naturally more dispos ed to admire, than to envy, I confess, I often feel this passion excited by the fair retreats of a college graduate. Our college does not yet furnish the enviable privileges of the English ones; our fellowships are not fat, and our professorships, at least some of them, are not sinecures; but there is still much room for indulgence. Who cannot but envy the sweet sociability of a class, refined, not by the contact of common intercourse, but of classick research; the contemplation of ancient heroes softens their manners, and theirs are those nights, which a brilliant orator has styled "refec

tions of the Gods; delightful, because spent

.......not in toys, and lust, and wine, But search of deep philosophy, Wit, eloquence, and poesy: Arts that I loved, for they, my friend, were thine.

Those, who, like me, are enamoured alike of collegiate scenes and authors, will be pleased with an application of

HORACE, Lib. 2, Ode 6. Septimi, Gades aditure mecum, et Cantabrum indoctum, &c.

To J. B.

Dear Jac. did pence attend my quill, Farfamed for dinners, cooked with skill, I'd pass my days in Boston still,”

That literary town;

But forced by fate to douse my peak,
I've often wished with thee to seek
A seat in Cambridge, snug and sleek,
And set me quiet down.

There fair and softly lulled to rest
An Alma Mater's downy breast,
With cares of fame nor pelf distrest,
Of sleep we'd take our fill;
O'er Greek and Latin gently snorė,
Relieve with wine our arid lore,
And try, when streams Parnassian pour,
To drive a mutual quill.

There, haply, loosed from griping elaw,
Of physick thou, and I of law,
The lot propitious each may draw
To fill tutorial chair.
No wayward wife shall scold and weep,
No brawling babies break our sleep,
Nor busy female dare to sweep

The learned cobwebs there.
What though they lure to sad surprize
With rising breasts, and rolling eyes;
Convinced we know the seeming guise,

And shun the shining woe. And then, when Clotho cuts my twine, Thy hand shall weave the serious line, A drop of ink, and one of brine, Shall say, in sacred peace, recline

The student's bones below.

Gentlemen,

As you have published a translation of a French memoir, I offer for your miscellany the following extract from a manuscript journal by an English traveller. The English are not easily pleased with other nations, and they have many reasons to be satisfied with their own; but it may not be absurd to inquire, whether some of their travellers, who travel to publish, do not sometimes, speak of countries they visit, in a way to ensure a sale by gratifying the prejudices of those, who remain at home. I cannot pretend to say how far Weld, Parkinson, or Thomas Ashe, Esq. have been ́influenced in this way; but I think the person, whose manuscript has fallen in my way, has probably read, if he has not imitated these authors. I cannot say exactly, who or what he was, but from some hints, in the manuscript, I should conjecture that he was an English agent, and that he had previously passed some years in India, where he had originally gone as a writer, or in some other subaltern employment, in the civil service of the East India Company. Extract from the Journal of an English traveller,addressed to his friend.

Boston-Being now landed in this town, I have resolved to note down without method, such circumstances and observations as may occur to me, with a hope that their perusal may sometimes recall a distant friend,

Having seen India, and once more bid adieu to Old England, and crossed the Atlantick ocean, I am resolved to look at objects as they present themselves, without prejudice; though the comforts and conveniences, which an Englishman leaves behind him, when he quits his country, and for which he cannot find even tolerable substitutes in any other, are sufficient to depress the most ardent curiosity, and seem inconsist ent with that spirit of restlessness, and design of travel, that are so common to Englishmen.

This town is called, I know not why, the capital of New-England. Alas! how different from the capital of Old England. They are just laying the foundation of a statehouse, which I should judge must be a stupid building.* Some of the houses in State street, which is the principal street, have railings on the top of them, for drying clothes, which gives them a curious appearance.†

Their meat, poultry and vegeta

A man must possess considerable ingenuity, to judge of a building from its foundation; if the writer had seen it in its finished state, he would have shrunk from giving any opinion about it.-ED.

By force of habit, people grow insensible to what is most remarkable, Few people in Boston have noticed this appearance, which must have been striking, as it is mentioned in the same way, by Weld, one of the most intelligent English tourists in our country, and is almost the only observation he makes upon Boston.--ED.

bles, are inferiour in both size and flavonr to those of England, but the quality out of the question, are rather cheaper in price. This inferiority is attempted to be concealed by a greater variety of dishes, than is common at our tables. They boast a great deal of their fish, but I know of none that can be compared to a Thames salmon. Their port wine is so bad, that it is impossible to drink it, and I have followed the general custom of drinking Madeira. Indeed I have found my countrymen generally, who are vefond of port in England, prefer drinking Madeira here.

ry

Many of their customs have appeared to me very uncouth; my residence has been so short, that I have not been able to remark them all, but I must mention one which struck me as very strange, and which I think would seem so to the ladies of our acquaintance. One evening a lady who lodges in the same house with me, and who was going in full dress to a ball, ordered the servant to get her a hack." I could not help exclaiming at this, and asked her, if she was going to make use of a hack? She blushed, and said, she had no other way of going. If the evening had been bad, I do not kuow how she would have managed.*

The battle of Bunker's-Hill was fought in the neighbourhood of this town, and I was particularly induced to visit it, from col. Mac Donald's description of it, in his preface to the translation of the field service of the French Infantry, he says that "the British though incumbered

* This is one of those mistakes which lively travellers are apt to fall into. In England, a back is a name given only to a horse; and instead of our abbreviation, go call me a back, they say, go call me a coach.

with their knapsacks, and three days provisions, ascended Bunker's-Hill, in the most sultry weather, and stormed the enemy's works, defended by three times their number." The hill is opposite the town, and only a narrow river to cross; and after taking the hill and destroying the works, it was intended that their army should return into the town; this arrangement, therefore, was singularly preposterous, and even cruel towards our brave soldiers, and I am surprised the commanding officer was not reprimanded for a measure, that must have occasioned great part of the loss on that day. In this con test, as on every other occasion, the bravery, valour, generosity, benev olence, liberality, and charity of the British were eminently shewn.

These people are the vainest in the world; they are always prating about their science and literature; and yet, you may believe me, I have not found a single individual, who can speak the modern Persian, or even the Hindostanee, while there is not one of the Company's servants, who has resided only ten years in India, but can speak one or the other of the languages of India with tolerable fluency.

Montreal-I have made my journey hither, in a vehicle, called a sleigh, which is drawn with great rapidity. The snow was three feet in depth over the whole country, which appeared to me poorly and thinly cultivated. At a town, called Andover, I was much shocked, on finding that there were two persons insane in the town where I stopped, and I was told, there were as many in several other houses. What a dreadful calamity, that the

The writer is needlessly angry with the British officers, as their troops were not encumbered in the way he supposer.