Dark lay her eyelid's jetty fringe
Upon that cheek whose roseate tinge
Mix'd with its shade, like evening's light
Just touching on the verge of night.
Her eyes, though thus in slumber hid,
Seem'd glowing through the ivory lid,
And, as I thought, a lustre threw
Upon her lip's reflecting dew, -
Such as a night-lamp, left to shine
Alone on some secluded shrine,
May shed upon the votive wreath,
Which pious hands have hung beneath.

Was ever vision half so sweet!

Think, think how quick my heart-pulse beat,
As o'er the rustling bank I stole;
Oh! ye, that know the lover's soul,
It is for you alone to guess,

That moment's trembling happiness.

A STUDY FROM THE ANTIQUE.

BEHOLD, my love, the curious gem
Within this simple ring of gold;
'Tis hallow'd by the touch of them
Who liv'd in classic hours of old.

Some fair Athenian girl, perhaps,

Upon her hand this gem display'd, Nor thought that time's succeeding lapse Should see it grace a lovelier maid. Look, dearest, what a sweet design! The more we gaze, it charms the more; Come-closer bring that cheek to mine, And trace with me its beauties o'er.

Thou seest, it is a simple youth

By some enamour'd nymph embrac'd —Look, as she leans, and say in sooth,

Is not that hand most fondly plac'd?

Upon his curled head behind

It seems in careless play to lie,' Yet presses gently, half inclin'd

To bring the truant's lip more nigh.

Oh happy maid! too happy boy!

The one so fond and little loath,

1 Somewhat like the symplegma of Cupid and Psyche at Florence, in which the position of Payche's hand is finely and delicately exsive of affection. See the Museum Florentinum, tom. ii. tab. 13,44 There are few subjects on which poetry could be more in

The other yielding slow to joy

Oh rare, indeed, but blissful both. Imagine, love, that I am he,

And just as warm as he is chilling; Imagine, too, that thou art she,

But quite as coy as she is willing:

So may we try the graceful way

In which their gentle arms are twin'd, And thus, like her, my hand I lay Upon thy wreath'd locks behind: And thus I feel thee breathing sweet, As slow to mine thy head I move; And thus our lips together meet,

And thus, and thus, I kiss thee, love,

- λιβανάτω είκασεν, ότι απολλυμένον ευφραίνει.

ARISTOT. Rhetor. lib. iii. cap. 4.

THERE's not a look, a word of thine,
My soul hath e'er forgot;
Thou ne'er hast bid a ringlet shine,
Nor giv'n thy locks one graceful twine
Which I remember not.

There never yet a murmur fell

From that beguiling tongue, Which did not, with a ling'ring spell, Upon my charmed senses dwell,

Like songs from Eden sung.

Ah! that I could, at once, forget
All, all that haunts me so-
And yet, thou witching girl,- and yet,
To die were sweeter than to let

The lov'd remembrance go.

No; if this slighted heart must see

Its faithful pulse decay,
Oh let it die, rememb'ring thee,
And, like the burnt aroma, be
Consum'd in sweets away,

"Twas thus in the shade of the Calabash-Tree, With a few, who could feel and remember like me, The charm that, to sweeten my goblet, I threw Was a sigh to the past and a blessing on you.

Oh! say, is it thus, in the mirth-bringing hour, When friends are assembled, when wit, in full flower,

Shoots forth from the lip, under Bacchus's dew, In blossoms of thought ever springing and new — Do you sometimes remember, and hallow the brim Of your cup with a sigh, as you crown it to him Who is lonely and sad in these valleys so fair, And would pine in elysium, if friends were not there!

Last night, when we came from the Calabash-
Tree,

When my limbs were at rest and my spirit was free,
The glow of the grape and the dreams of the day
Set the magical springs of my fancy in play,
And oh, such a vision as haunted me then
I would slumber for ages to witness again.
The many I like and the few I adore,

The friends who were dear and beloved before,
But never till now so beloved and dear,
At the call of my fancy, surrounded me here;
And soon,-oh, at once, did the light of their smiles
To a paradise brighten this region of isles;
More lucid the wave, as they look'd on it, flow'd,
And brighter the rose, as they gather'd it, glow'd.
Not the valleys Heraan (though water'd by rills
Of the pearliest flow, from those pastoral hills,'
Where the Song of the Shepherd, primeval and wild,
Was taught to the nymphs by their mystical child,)
Could boast such a lustre o'er land and o'er wave
As the magic of love to this paradise gave.

brary:" but there certainly are not materials for such a work. The island, since the time of its discovery, has experienced so very few vicissitudes, the people have been so indolent, and their trade so limited, that there is but little which the historian could amplify into importance; and, with respect to the natural productions of the country, the few which the inhabitants can be induced to cultivate are so common in the West Indies, that they have been described by every naturalist who has written any account of those islands.

It is often asserted by the trans-Atlantic politicians that this little colony deserves more attention from the mother-country than it receives, and it certainly possesses advantages of situation, to which we should not be long insensible, if it were once in the hands of an enemy. I was told by a celebrated friend of Washington, at New York, that they had formed a plan for its capture towards the conclusion of the American War; "with the intention (as he expressed h.mself) of making it a nest of hornets for the annoyance of British trade in that part of the world." And there is no doubt it lies so conveniently in the track to the West Indies, that an enemy might with ease convert it into a very harassing impediment.

The plan of Bishop Berkeley for a college at Bermuda, where American savages might be converted and educated, though concurred in by the government of the day, was a wild and useless speculation. Mr. Hamilton, who was governor of the island some years since, proposed, if I mistake not, the establishment of a marine academy for the instruction of those children of West Indiana, who might be intended for any nautical employment. This was a more rational idea, and for something of this nature the island is admirably calculated. But the plan should be much more exten

Oh magic of love! unembellished by you, Hath the garden a blush or the landscape a hue ? Or shines there a vista in nature or art, Like that which Love opes thro' the eye to the heart?

Alas, that a vision so happy should fade! That, when morning around me in brilliancy play'd, The rose and the stream I had thought of at night Should still be before me, unfadingly bright; While the friends, who had seem'd to hang over the stream,

And to gather the roses, had fled with my dream.

But look, where, all ready, in sailing array, The bark that's to carry these pages away, Impatiently flutters her wing to the wind, And will soon leave these islets of Ariel behind. What billows, what gales is she fated to prove, Ere she sleep in the lee of the land that I love! Yet pleasant the swell of the billows would be, And the roar of those gales would be music to me. Not the tranquillest air that the winds ever blew, Not the sunniest tears of the summer-eve dew, Were as sweet as the storm, or as bright as the foam Of the surge, that would hurry your wanderer home.

THE

STEERSMAN'S SONG,

WRITTEN ABOARD THE BOSTON FRIGATE 28TH APRIL

WHEN freshly blows the northern gale,

And under courses snug we fly; Or when light breezes swell the sail.

And royals proudly sweep the sky;

sive, and embrace a general system of education; which would relieve the colonists from the alternative to which they are reduced at present, of either sending their sons to England for instruction, of intrusting them to colleges in the states of America, where icess. by no means favourable to Great Britain, are very sedulously inculcated.

The women of Bermuda, though not generally handsome, have an affectionate languor in their look and manner, which is always interesting. What the French imply by their epithet mas seems very much the character of the young Bermudian girls — that predisposition to loving, which, without being awakened by any particular object, diffuses itself through the general manner is a tone of tenderness that never fails to fascinate. The men of the island, I confess, are not very civilised; and the old philosopher, who imagined that, after this life, men would be changed into mules, and women into turtle-doves, would find the metamorphos in some degree anticipated at Bermuda.

1 Mountains of Sicily, upon which Daphnis, the first inventor of bucolic poetry, was nursed by the nymphs. See the lively deserije tion of these mountains in Diodorus Siculns, lib. iv. *Hpava yas up? κατά την Σικελίαν εστιν, &ς τον καλλει, κ. τ. λο

2 A ship, ready to sail for England.

3 I left Bermuda in the Boston about the middle of April, in corepany with the Cambrian and Leander, aboard the latter of which was the Admiral, Sir Andrew Mitchell, who divides his year betwee Halifax and Bermuda, and is the very soul of society and good-forlowship to both. We separated in a few days, and the Boston, after a short cruise, proceeded to New York.

"But flow for all, through nation, rank, and sect, "Free as that heaven its tranquil waves reflect. "Around the columns of the public shrine "Shall growing arts their gradual wreath intwine, "Nor breathe corruption from the flow'ring braid, "Nor mine that fabric which they bloom to shade. "No longer here shall justice bound her view, "Or wrong the many, while she rights the few; "But take her range through all the social frame, "Pure and pervading as that vital flame "Which warms at once our best and meanest part, "And thrills a hair while it expands a heart!"

Oh golden dream! what soul that loves to scan The bright disk rather than the dark of man, That owns the good, while smarting with the ill, And loves the world with all its frailty still, What ardent bosom does not spring to meet The generous hope, with all that heavenly heat, Which makes the soul unwilling to resign The thoughts of growing, even on earth, divine! Yes, dearest friend, I see thee glow to think The chain of ages yet may boast a link Of purer texture than the world has known, And fit to bind us to a Godhead's throne.

But, is it thus? doth even the glorious dream
Borrow from truth that dim, uncertain gleam,
Which tempts us still to give such fancies scope,
As shook not reason, while they nourish hope?
No, no, believe me, 'tis not so-
ev'n now,
While yet upon Columbia's rising brow
The showy smile of young presumption plays,
Her bloom is poison'd and her heart decays.
Even now, in dawn of life, her sickly breath
Burns with the taint of empires near their death;
And, like the nymphs of her own with'ring clime,
She's old in youth, she's blasted in her prime.'

Already has the child of Gallia's school
The foul Philosophy that sins by rule,
With all her train of reasoning, damning arts,
Begot by brilliant heads on worthless hearts,
Like things that quicken after Nilus' flood,
The venom'd birth of sunshine and of mud, -
Already has she pour'd her poison here
O'er every charm that makes existence dear;

1 "What will be the old age of this government, if it is thus early decrepit!" Such was the remark of Fauchet, the French minister at Philadelphia, in that famous despatch to his government, which was intercepted by one of our cruisers in the year 1794. This curious memorial may be found in Porcupine's Works, vol. i. p. 279. It remains a striking monument of republican intrigue on one side, and republican profligacy on the other; and I would recommend the perusal of it to every honest politician, who may labour under a moment's delusion with respect to the purity of American patriotism.

2 "Nous voyons que, dans les pays où l'on n'est affecté que de l'esprit de commerce, on trafique de toutes les actions humaines et de toutes les vertus morales."- Montesquieu, de l'Esprit des Lois, liv. xx. chap. 2.

9 I trust I shall not be suspected of a wish to justify those arbitrary steps of the English government which the colonies found it

Already blighted, with her black'ning trace, The op'ning bloom of every social grace, And all those courtesies, that love to shoot Round virtue's stem, the flow'rets of her fruit.

And were these errors but the wanton tide
Of young luxuriance or unchasten'd pride;
The fervid follies and the faults of such

As wrongly feel, because they feel too much;
Then might experience make the fever less,
Nay, graft a virtue on each warm excess.
But no; 'tis heartless, speculative ill,
All youth's transgression with all age's chill;
The apathy of wrong, the bosom's ice,
A slow and cold stagnation into vice.

Long has the love of gold, that meanest rage,
And latest folly of man's sinking age,
Which, rarely venturing in the van of life,
While nobler passions wage their heated strife,
Comes skulking last, with selfishness and fear,
And dies, collecting lumber in the rear,-
Long has it palsied every grasping hand
And greedy spirit through this bartering land;
Turn'd life to traffic, set the demon gold
So loose abroad that virtue's self is sold,
And conscience, truth, and honesty are made
To rise and fall, like other wares of trade.*

Already in this free, this virtuous state, Which, Frenchmen tell us, was ordain'd by fate, To show the world, what high perfection springs From rabble senators, and merchant kings,Even here already patriots learn to steal Their private perquisites from public weal, And, guardians of the country's sacred fire, Like Afric's priests, let out the flame for hire. Those vaunted demagogues, who nobly rose From England's debtors to be England's foes," Who could their monarch in their purse forget, And break allegiance, but to cancel debt," Have prov'd at length, the mineral's tempting hue, Which makes a patriot, can unmake him too. Oh! Freedom, Freedom, how I hate thy cant! Not Eastern bombast, not the savage rant Of purpled madmen, were they number'd all From Roman Nero down to Russian Paul,

Eo necessary to resist; my only object here is to expose the selfish motive of some of the leading American demagogues.

4 The most persevering enemy to the interests of this country, amongst the politicians of the western world, has been a Virginian merchant, who, finding it easier to settle his conscience than har debts, was one of the first to raise the standard against Great Britain, and has ever since endeavoured to revenge upon the wh country the obligations which he lies under to a few of its mer chants.

5 See Porcupine's account of the Pennsylvania Insurrection in 1794. In short, see Porcupine's works throughout, for ample ecTOboration of every sentiment which I have ventured to express. It saying this, I refer less to the comments of that writer than to the occurrences which he has related and the documents which he ha preserved. Opinion may be suspected of bias, but facts speak for themselves.

Could grate upon my ear so mean, so base,
As the rank jargon of that factious race,
Who, poor of heart and prodigal of words,
Formed to be slaves, yet struggling to be lords,
Strut forth, as patriots, from their negro-marts,
And shout for rights, with rapine in their hearts.

Who can, with patience, for a moment see The medley mass of pride and misery, Of whips and charters, manacles and rights, Of slaving blacks and democratic whites,' And all the piebald polity that reigns In free confusion o'er Columbia's plains? To think that man, thou just and gentle God! Should stand before thee with a tyrant's rod O'er creatures like himself, with souls from thee, Yet dare to boast of perfect liberty; Away, away-I'd rather hold my neck By doubtful tenure from a sultan's beck, In climes, where liberty has scarce been nam'd, Nor any right but that of ruling claim'd, Than thus to live, where bastard Freedom waves Her fustian flag in mockery over slaves; Where-motley laws admitting no degree Betwixt the vilely slav'd and madly freeAlike the bondage and the licence suit,

The brute made ruler and the man made brute.

But, while I thus, my friend, in flowerless song, So feebly paint, what yet I feel so strong, The ills, the vices of the land, where first Those rebel fiends, that rack the world, were nurst, Where treason's arm by royalty was nerv'd,

Moulding thy fancy, and with gradual art Bright'ning the young conceptions of thy heart?

Forgive me, Forbes - and should the song destroy

One generous hope, one throb of social joy,
One high pulsation of the zeal for man,
Which few can feel, and bless that few who can,-
Oh! turn to him, beneath whose kindred eyes
Thy talents open and thy virtues rise,
Forget where nature has been dark or dim,
And proudly study all her lights in him.
Yes, yes, in him the erring world forget,
And feel that man may reach perfection yet.

ΤΟ

THOMAS HUME, ESQ. M.D.

FROM THE CITY OF WASHINGTON.

Διηγήσομαι διηγήματα ίσως απιστα, κοινωνα ὧν πεπονθα ουκ έχων. XENOPHONT. EPHES. Ephesiac. lib. v.

"Tis evening now, beneath the western star
Soft sighs the lover through his sweet segar,
And fills the ears of some consenting she
With puffs and vows, with smoke and constancy.
The patriot, fresh from Freedom's councils come,
Now pleas'd retires to lash his slaves at home;
Or woo, perhaps, some black Aspasia's charins,
And dream of freedom in his bondsmaid's arms.

In fancy now, beneath the twilight gloom,

serv'd

Thou, calmly lull'd in dreams of classic thought,
By bards illumin'd and by sages taught,
Pant'st to be all, upon this mortal scene,

That bard hath fancied or that sage hath been.
Why should I wake thee? why severely chase
The lovely forms of virtue and of grace,
That dwell before thee, like the pictures spread
By Spartan matrons round the genial bed,

1 In Virginia the effects of this system begin to be felt rather seriously. While the master raves of liberty, the slave cannot but eatch the contagion, and accordingly there seldom elapses a month without some alarm of insurrection amongst the negroes. The accession of Louisiana, it is feared, will increase this embarrassment; as the numerous emigrations, which are expected to take place, from the southern states to this newly acquired territory, will consideratly diminish the white population, and thus strengthen the proportion of negroes, to a degree which must ultimately be ruinous. 2 The "black Aspasia" of the present** of the United States, inter Avernales haud ignotissima nymphas, has Ten rise to much pleasantry among the anti-democrat wits in America.

"On the original location of the ground now allotted for the west 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 eity, which is to be, as it were, a second Rome.". - Weld's Travels,

letter IT.

Where tribunes rule, where dusky Davi bow,
And what was Goose-Creek once is Tiber now:-
This embryo capital, where Fancy sees
Squares in morasses, obelisks in trees;
Which second-sighted seers, ev'n now, adorn
With shrines unbuilt and heroes yet unborn,
Though nought but woods and J- -n they see,
Where streets should run and sages ought to be.

4 A little stream runs through the city, which, with intolerable affectation, they have styled the Tiber. It was originally called Goose-Creek.

5 "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 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