And Time, who bids thy flame expire, Will also quench yon heaven of suns!»> Oh then, if earth's united power panses to enquire of Heaven Pleasure! thou only good on earth!! One little hour resign'd to theeOh! by my Lais' lip, 'tis worth The sage's immortality! Then far be all the wisdom hence, And all the lore, whose tame control Would wither joy with chill delays! Alas! the fertile fount of sense, At which the young, the panting soul Drinks life and love, too soon decays! Sweet Lamp! thou wert not form'd to shed Thy splendour on a lifeless pageWhate'er my blushing Lais said Of thoughtfel lore and studies sage, 'T was mockery all-her glance of joy Told me thy dearest, best employ !2 And, soon as night shall close the eve Of Heaven's young wanderer in the west; When seers are gazing on the sky, To find their future orbs of rest; Then shall I take my trembling way, Unseen, but to those worlds above, And, led by thy mysterious ray, Glide to the pillow of my love. Calm be her sleep, the gentle dear! Nor let her dream of bliss so near, 1 ARISTIPPUS considered motion as the principle of happiness, in which idea he differed from the Epicureans, who looked to a state of repose as the only true voluptuousness, and avoided even the too lively agitations of pleasure, as a violent and ungraceful derangement of the senses. 2 MAUPERTUIS has been still more explicit than this philosopher. in ranking the pleasures of sense above the sublimest pursuits of wisdom. Speaking of the infant man, in his production, he calls him, une nouvelle créature, qui pourra comprendre les choses les plos sublimes, et ce qui est bien au-dessus. qui pourra goûter les mêmes plaisirs.-See his Venus Physique. This appears to be one of the efforts at Fontenelle's gallantry of manner, for which the learned President is so well ridiculed in the Akakia of VOLTAIRE. MAUFERTUIS may be thought to have borrowed from the ancient ARISTIPPUS that indiscriminate theory of pleasures which he has set forth in his Essai de Philosophie Morale, and for which he was so very justly condemned, ARISTIFFUS, according to LAERTIUS, held un dia dei Te ádovav úðavns, which irrational sentiment has been adopted by MACPERILIC: «Tant qu'on ne considère que l'état présent, tous les plaisirs sout du même genre,s etc. etc. Till o'er her check she thrilling feel My sighs of fire in murmurs steal, And I shall lift the locks that flow Unbraided o'er her lids of snow, And softly kiss those sealed eyes, And wake her into sweet surprise! Or if she dream, oh! let her dream Of those delights we both have known, And felt so truly, that they seem Form'd to be felt by us alone! The murmur'd sounds so dear to love' Oh! I shall gaze till even the sigh That wafts her very soul be nigh, And, when the nymph is all but blest, Sink in her arms and share the rest! Sweet Lais! what an age of bliss In that one moment waits for me! Oh sages!— think on joy like this, And where's your boast of apathy? TO MRS. BL-H-D. WRITTEN IN HER ALBUM. Τούτο δε τι εστι το πότον; πλανή, έφη. Cebetis Tabula. THEY that Love had once a book say (The urchin likes to copy you), Where all who came the pencil took, And wrote, like us, a line or two. 'T was Innocence, the maid divine, Who kept this volume bright and fair, And saw that no unhallow'd line, Or thought profane, should enter there. And sweetly did the pages fill With fond device and loving lore, And every leaf she turn'd was still More bright than that she turn'd before! Beneath the touch of Hope, how soft, And trembling close what Hope began. A tear or two had dropp'd from Grief, But, oh there was a blooming boy, Who often turn'd the pages o'er, And wrote therein such words of joy, As all who read still sigh'd for more! And Pleasure was this spirit's name, Where blest he wooes some black Aspasia's grace, And dreams of freedom in his slave's embrace!1 In fancy now beneath the twilight gloom, And look, how soft in yonder radiant wave, Of weak barbarians, swarming o'er its breast, The black Aspasia, of the present ********* of the United States, inter Avernales haud ignotissima nymphas, has given rise to much pleasantry among the anti-democrat wits in America. 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 capitel 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. 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 hous, 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 pale, through which a common rustic stile introduces the visitors 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 απορρητα. The private buildings exhibit the same characteristic display of arropant 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. The picture which Berrow 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 JEPPERSON 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) belittles her productions in the western world. M. DE PAL w attributes the imperfections 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.-See his Recherches sur les Americains, part. i. tom. i. p. 102. Were none but brutes to call that soil their home, But hush'-observe that little mount of pines, Cast off their monarch, that their mob might reign! How shall we rank thee upon Glory's page? While warmer souls command, nay, make their fate, Now turn thine eye where faint the moonlight falls Thus let us meet, and mingle converse dear Oh Nature! though blessed and bright are thy rays, O'er Lake and marsh, through fevers and through fogs, Yet faint are they all to the lustre that plays Midst bears and vankees, democrats and frogs, ↑ On a small hill near the capitol, there is to be an equestrian statue of General Washington. In the ferment which the French resolution excited among the democrats of America, and the 1 centicus sympathy with which they shared in the wildest excesses of jacobinism, we may find one source of that sularity of vice, that hostilts to all the graces of life, which distinguishes the present de merues of the United States, and has In a smile from the heart that is dearly our own! in Anterica. become indeed to generally the characteristic of their countrymen mark Nor long did the soul of the stranger remain But the lays of his boyhood had stolen to their ear, And they loved what they knew of so humble a name, And they told him, with flattery welcome and dear, That they found in his heart something sweeter than fame! Nor did woman-oh woman! whose form and whose soul Nor did she her enamouring magic deny, That magic his heart had relinquish'd so long, Like eyes he had loved was her eloquent eye, 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 his wandering dream! Oh! 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, As he stray'd by the wave of the Schuylkill alone! THE FALL OF HEBE. A DITHYRAMBIC ODE. 'T was on a day When the immortals at their banquet lay; Though I call this a Dithyrambie Ode, I cannot presume to say that it possesses, in any degree, the characteristics of that species of poetry. The nature of the ancient Dithyrambic is very imperfectly koown. According to M. BERETTE, a licentions irregularity of metre, an extravagant research of thought and expression, and a rude embarrassed construction, are among its most distinguishing features. He adds, « Ces caractères des dityrambes se font sentir à ceux qui lisent attentivement les Odes de Pindare..-Mémoires de l'Acad. vol. 1, p. 306. And the same opinion may be collected from Scamir's Dissertation upon the subject. But I think, if the Dithyrambics of Pindar were in our possession, we should find that, however wild and fanciful, they were by no means the tasteless jargon they are represented, and that even their irregularity was what BOILEAU calls un beng désordre.. CHIARRERA, who has been styled the Pindar of Italy, and from whom all its poetry upon the Greek model was called Chiabreresco (as CanSCIMBENI informs us, lib. i. cap. 12), has given, amongst his Vendemmie, a Dithyrambic, all' uso de' Greci it is full of those compound epithets which, we are told, were a chief cha racter of the style (σύνθετους δε λέξεις εποίουν. SUID. Διθυραμβοδίδ.): such as The bowl Sparkled with starry dew, The weeping of those myriad urns of light, Soft odorous clouds, that upward wing their flight (Where they have bathed them in the orient ray, All must be luxury, where Lyæus smiles' Were crown'd With a bright meteor-braid, Which, like an ever-springing wreath of vine, A thousand clustering blooms of light, And all the curtains of the deep, undrawn, Languish'd upon her eyes and lip, Now in his arm, In blushes she reposed, And, while her zone resign'd its every charm, To shade his burning eyes her hand in dalliance stole, This is a Platonic fancy; the philosopher supposes, in his Timau that, when the Deity had formed the soul of the world, he proceeded to the composition of other souls; in which process, says PLATO, he made use of the same eup, though the ingredients be mingled were not quite so pure as for the former, and having refined the mixture with a little of his own essence, he istributed it among the stars, which served as reservoirs of the fluid. Ταυτ' είτε και παλιν επι τον πρότερον κρατήρα εν ᾧ την του παντος ψυχην κεράνους έμιση 4, κ. τ. λ. We learn from THEOPHRASTes, that the roses of Cyrene were particularly fragrant. Ευοσμοτατα τα δε τα εν Κυρήνη ρόδα. Of dimpled Hebe, as she wing'd her feet Up The empyreal mount, To drain the soul-drops at their stellar fount;' And still, As the resplendent rill Flamed o'er the goblet with a mantling heat, Her graceful care Would cool its heavenly fire In gelid waves of snowy-feather'd air, Such as the children of the pole respire, In those enchanted lands 2 Where life is all a spring and north winds never blow! But oh! Sweet Hebe, what a tear And what a blush were thine, When, as the breath of every Grace Along the studded sphere, With a rich cup for Jove himself to drink, Raising its amorous head In lapse of loveliness, along the azure skies!3 Amid the liquid sparkles of the morn! The wanton wind, Which had pursued the flying fair, Its spirit with the breathing rings Of her ambrosial hair, Soar'd as she fell, and on its ruffling wings (Oh wanton wind!) 1 Heraclitus (Physicus) held the soul to be a spark of the stellar essence. • Scintilla stellaris essentia.-MACROBIUS, in Somn. Scip. lib. i. cap. 14. The country of the Hyperboreans; they were supposed to be placed so far north that the north wind could not affect them; they lived longer than any other mortals; passed their whole time in music and dancing, etc. etc. But the most extravagant fiction related of them is that to which the two lines preceding allude. It was imagined that instead of our vulgar atmosphere, the Hyperboreans breathed nothing but feathers! According to HeaopoTUS and PLINY, this idea was suggested by the quantity of snow which was observed to fall in these regions, thus the former : Τα ὧν πτερα εικάζοντας την χιονα τους Σκύθας τε και τους περιοίκους δοκεω λέγειν. - Ηεκουοr. lib. iv. cap. 31. Orty tells the fable othersise See Metamorph. lib. xv. Mr O'Halloran, and some other Irish Antiquarians, have been at great expense of learning to prove that the strange country, where they took snow for feathers, was Ireland, and that the famous Abaris was an Irish Druid, Mr Rowland, however, will have it, that Abaris was a Welshman, and that his name is only a corruption of Ap Rees! 31 believe it is Servius who mentions this unlucky trip which Hebe made in her occupation of cup-bearer, and HoFFMAN tells it after him Cum Hebe pocula Jovi administrans, perque lubricam minus caute incedens, cecidisset, revolutisque vestibuss-in short, she fell in a very awkward manner, and though (as the Encyclopedistes think) se would have amused Jove at any other time, yet, as he happened to be out of temper on that day, the poor girl was dismissed from her employment. Fell glowing through the spheres, New perfumes of delight, Now, with a humid kiss, It thrill'd along the beamy wire Of heaven's illumined lyre,3 That whisper from the planets as they roll, Descending through the waste of night, The child of day, Within his twilight bower, On the flush'd bosom of a lotos-flower;4 1 The arcane symbols of this ceremony were deposited in the rista, where they lay religiously concealed from the eyes of the profane. They were generally carried in the procession by an ass; and hence the proverb, which one may so often apply in the world, asinas portat mysteria,See the Divine Legation, book ií. sect. 4. 2 In the Geoponica, lib. i. cap. 17. there is a fable somewhat like this descent of the nectar to earth. Ev oupavce TORT SET ενώ χουμένων, και του νεκταρος πολλού παρακειμένου, ανασκίρτησαν χορεία του Έρωτα και συσπείσαι το πτερα του κρατήρος την βάσιν, και περιτρέψαι μετ αυτόν το δε νεκταρ εις την γην εκχυθεν, κ. τ. λ. — See Autor. de Re Rust. edit, Cantab, 1704. The constellation Lyra. The astrologers attribute great victimes to this sign in ascendenti, which are enumerated by PONTANO, 18 h Urania: ➖➖➖➖ Ecce novem cum pectine chordas |