That dwell before thee, like the pictures spread By Spartan matrons round the genial bed, Moulding thy fancy, and with gradual art Bright'ning the young conceptions of thy heart. In fancy now, beneath the twilight gloom, Forgive me, Forbes-and should the song de- Squares in morasses, obelisks in trees; of the 1 The "black Aspasia" of the present United States, inter Avernales haud ignotissima nymphas, has given rise to much pleasantry among the anti-democrat wits in America. 2" On the original location of the ground now allotted for the seat of the Federal City (says Mr. Weld), the identical spot on which the capitol now stands was called Rome. This anecdote is related by many as a certain prognostic of the future magnificence of this city, which is to be, as it were, a second Rome." - Weld's Travels, letter iv. 3 A little stream runs through the city, which, with intolerable affectation, they have styled the Tiber. It was originally called Goose-Creek. 4" To be under the necessity of going through a deep wood for one or two miles, perhaps, in order to see a next-door neighbour, and in the same city, is a curious and, I believe, a novel circumstance."- Weld, letter iv. The Federal City (if it must be called a city) has not been much increased since Mr. Weld visited it. Most of the public buildings, which were then in some degree of forwardness, have been since utterly suspended. The hotel is already a ruin; a great part of its roof has fallen in, and the rooms are left to be occupied gratuitously by the miserable Scotch and Irish emigrants. The President's house, a very noble structure, is by no means suited to the philosophical humility of Which second-sighted seers, ev'n now, adorn With shrines unbuilt and heroes yet unborn, Though nought but woods 4 and J- -n they see, Where streets should run and sages ought to be. And look, how calmly in yon radiant wave, The dying sun prepares his golden grave. Oh mighty river! oh ye banks of shade! Ye matchless scenes, in nature's morning made, While still, in all th' exuberance of prime, She pour'd her wonders, lavishly sublime, Nor yet had learn'd to stoop, with humbler care, From grand to soft, from wonderful to fair ;;-Say, were your towering hills, your boundless floods, Your rich savannas and majestic woods, Where bards should meditate and heroes rove, And woman charm, and man deserve her love,Oh say, was world so bright, but born to grace Its own half-organised, half-minded race 5 Of weak barbarians, swarming o'er its breast, Like vermin gender'd on the lion's crest? Were none but brutes to call that soil their home, Where none but demigods should dare to roam? Or worse, thou wondrous world! oh! doubly worse, Did heaven design thy lordly land to nurse The motley dregs of every distant clime, Each blast of anarchy and taint of crime Which Europe shakes from her perturbed sphere, In full malignity to rankle here ? its present possessor, who inhabits but a corner of the mansion himself, and abandons the rest to a state of uncleanly desolation, which those who are not philosophers cannot look at without regret. This grand edifice is encircled by a very rude paling, through which a common rustic stile introduces the visiters of the first man in America. With respect to all that is within the house, I shall imitate the prudent forbearance of Herodotus, and say, τα δε εν απορρήτω The private buildings exhibit the same characteristic display of arrogant speculation and premature ruin; and the few ranges of houses which were begun some years ago have remained so long waste and unfinished, that they are now for the most part dilapidated. 5 The picture which Buffon and De Pauw have drawn of the American Indian, though very humiliating, is, as far as I can judge, much more correct than the flattering representations which Mr. Jefferson has given us. See the Notes on Virginia, where this gentleman endeavours to disprove in general the opinion maintained so strongly by some philosophers that nature (as Mr. Jefferson expresses it) be-litties her productions in the western world. M. de Pauw attributes the imperfection of animal life in America to the ravages of a very recent deluge, from whose effects upon its soil and atmosphere it has not yet sufficiently recovered. — Recherches sur les Américains, part i. tom. i. p. 102. But hold, observe yon little mount of pines, How shall we rank thee upon glory's page? There, in those walls-but, burning tongue, forbear! So here I pause-and now, dear Hume, we part : Midst bears and yankees, democrats and frogs, While loftier souls command, nay, make their And sovereign man can condescend to see fate, Thy fate made thee and forc'd thee to be great. Now look, my friend, where faint the moonlight falls On yonder dome, and, in those princely halls, - On a small hill near the capitol there is to be an equestrian statue of General Washington. * In the ferment which the French revolution excited among the democrats of America, and the licentious sympathy with which they shared in the wildest excesses of jacobinism, we may find one source of that vulgarity of vice, that hostility to all the graces of life, which distinguishes the present demagogues of the United States, and has become indeed too generally the characteristic of their countrymen. But there is another cause of the corruption of private morals, which, en The throne and laws more sovereign still than he. LINES WRITTEN ON LEAVING PHILADELPHIA. Τήνδε την πολιν φίλος SOPHOCL. Edip. Colon. v. 768. ALONE by the Schuylkill a wanderer rov'd, Oh Nature, though blessed and bright are thy rays, In a smile from the heart that is fondly our own. Nor long did the soul of the stranger remain Unblest by the smile he had languish'd to meet; Though scarce did he hope it would soothe him again, Till the threshold of home had been prest by his feet. But the lays of his boyhood had stol'n to their ear, name; couraged as it is by the government, and identified with the interests of the community, seems to threaten the decay of all honest principle in America. I allude to those fraudulent violations of neutrality to which they are indebted for the most lucrative part of their commerce, and by which they have so long infringed and counteracted the maritime rights and advantages of this country. This unwarrantable trade is necessarily abetted by such a system of collusion, imposture, and perjury, as cannot fail to spread rapid contamination around it. And they told him, with flattery welcome and dear, That they found in his heart something better than fame. Nor did woman -oh woman! whose form and whose soul Are the spell and the light of each path we pur sue; Whether sunn'd in the tropics or chill'd at the pole, If woman be there, there is happiness too : Nor did she her enamouring magic deny,- Like them did it soften and weep at his song. Oh, blest be the tear, and in memory oft May its sparkle be shed o'er the wand'rer's dream; Thrice blest be that eye, and may passion as soft, As free from a pang, ever mellow its beam! The stranger is gone-but he will not forget, When at home he shall talk of the toils he has known, To tell, with a sigh, what endearments he met, Rushing, alike untir'd and wild, Through shades that frown'd and flowers that smil'd, Flying by every green recess One only prayer I dare to make, As onward thus my course I take ;— Oh, be my falls as bright as thine! May heaven's relenting rainbow shine Upon the mist that circles me, As soft as now it hangs o'er thee! Hark! I hear the traveller's song, As he winds the woods along ;Christian, 'tis the song of fear; Wolves are round thee, night is near, And the wild thou dar'st to roamThink, 'twas once the Indian's home!! Hither, sprites, who love to harm, Where the pale witch feeds her snakes, Hither bend ye, turn ye hither, Eyes that blast and wings that wither! Cross the wand'ring Christian's way, Lead him, ere the glimpse of day, Many a mile of mad'ning error, Through the maze of night and terror, Till the morn behold him lying On the damp earth, pale and dying. Mock him, when his eager sight Seeks the cordial cottage-light; Gleam then, like the lightning-bug, Tempt him to the den that's dug For the foul and famish'd brood Of the she-wolf, gaunt for blood; Or, unto the dangerous pass O'er the deep and dark morass, Where the trembling Indian brings Belts of porcelain, pipes, and rings, Tributes, to be hung in air, To the Fiend presiding there! + Then, when night's long labour past, Wilder'd, faint, he falls at last, Sinking where the causeway's edge Let the bull-toad taint him over, TO THE HONOURABLE W. R. SPENCER. FROM BUFFALO, UPON LAKE ERIE. Nec venit ad duros musa vocata Getas. THOU oft hast told me of the happy hours Bright without effort, resting while it shines, -- There still, too, roam those other souls of song, With whom thy spirit hath commun'd so long, That, quick as light, their rarest gems of thought, By Memory's magic to thy lip are brought. 1 "The Five Confederated Nations (of Indians) were settled along the banks of the Susquehannah and the adjacent country, until the year 1779, when General Sullivan, with an army of 4000 men, drove them from their country to Niagara, where, being obliged to live on salted provisions, to which they were unaccustomed, great numbers of them died. Two hundred of them, it is said, were buried in one grave, where they had encamped."— Morse's American Geography. The alligator, who is supposed to lie in a torpid state all the winter, in the bank of some creek or pond, having previously swallowed a large number of pine-knots, which are his only sustenance during the time. 3 This was the mode of punishment for murder (as Charlevoix tells us) among the Hurons." They laid the dead body upon poles at the top of a cabin, and the murderer was obliged to remain several days together, and to receive all that dropped from the carcass, not only on himself but on his food." 4 "We find also collars of porcelain, tobacco, ears of maize, skins, &c. by the side of difficult and dangerous ways, on rocks, or by the side of the falls; and these are so many offerings made to the spirits which preside in these places." See Charlevoix's Letter on the Traditions and the Religion of the Savages of Canada. Father Hennepin too mentions this ceremony; he also says, "We took notice of one barbarian, who made a kind of sacrifice upon an oak at the Cascade of St. Antony of Padua, upon the river Mississippi.". See Hennepin's Voyage into North America. 1 But here, alas! by Erie's stormy lake, All that creation's varying mass assumes Of grand or lovely, here aspires and blooms; Bold rise the mountains, rich the gardens glow, Bright lakes expand, and conquering 'rivers flow; But mind, immortal mind, without whose ray, This world's a wilderness and man but clay, Mind, mind alone, in barren, still repose, Nor blooms, nor rises, nor expands, nor flows. Take Christians, Mohawks, democrats, and all From the rude wig-wam to the congress-hall, From man the savage, whether slav'd or free, To man the civiliz'd, less tame than he,"Tis one dull chaos, one unfertile strife Betwixt half-polish'd and half barbarous life; Where every ill the ancient world could brew Is mix'd with every grossness of the new; Where all corrupts, though little can entice, And nought is known of luxury, but its vice! Is this the region then, is this the clime To heads that meditate and hearts that feel? Yet, yet forgive me, oh ye sacred few, Whom late by Delaware's green banks I knew; Whom, known and lov'd through many a social eve, 'Twas bliss to live with, and 'twas pain to leave. 3 1 This epithet was suggested by Charlevoix's striking description of the confluence of the Missouri with the Mississippi. "I believe this is the finest confluence in the world. The two rivers are much of the same breadth, each about half a league; but the Missouri is by far the most rapid, and seems to enter the Mississippi like a conqueror, through which it carries its white waves to the opposite shore, without mixing them afterwards it gives its colour to the Mississippi, which it never loses again, but carries quite down to the sea.". Letter xxvii. 2 Alluding to the fanciful notion of "words congealed in northern air." 3 In the society of Mr. Dennie and his friends, at Phila Not with more joy the lonely exile scann'd Long may you loathe the Gallic dross that runs Through your fair country and corrupts its sons; Long love the arts, the glories which adorn Those fields of freedom, where your sires were born. If neither chain'd by choice, nor doom'd by fate Believe me, Spencer, while I wing'd the hours Where Schuylkill winds his way through banks of flowers, Though few the days, the happy evenings few, delphia, I passed the few agreeable moments which my tour through the States afforded me. Mr. Dennie has succeeded in diffusing through this cultivated little circle that love for good literature and sound politics, which he feels so zealously himself, and which is so very rarely the characteristic of his countrymen. They will not, I trust, accuse me of illiberality for the picture which I have given of the ignorance and cor. ruption that surround them. If I did not hate, as I ought, the rabble to which they are opposed, I could not value, as I do, the spirit with which they defy it; and in learning from them what Americans can be, 1 but see with the more indignation what Americans are. |