Or veteran oak, like those remember'd well, Whether I trace the tranquil moments o'er For pure and brightening comments on the dead! Her sails are full, though the wind is still, And there blows not a breath her sails to fill! Oh! what doth that vessel of darkness bear? There lieth a wreck on the dismal shore Where, under the moon, upon mounts of frost, Yon shadowy bark hath been to that wreck, To Deadman's Isle, in the eye of the blast, Oh! hurry thee on--oh! hurry thee on, TO THE BOSTON FRIGATE.' ON LEAVING HALIFAX FOR ENGLAND, OCTOBER 1804. Νόστου προφασις γλυκερου. WITH triumph this morning, oh Boston! I hail The stir of thy deck and the spread of thy sail, For they tell me I soon shall be wafted, in thee, To the flourishing isle of the brave and the free, And that chill Nova-Scotia's unpromising strand❜ Is the last I shall tread of American land. Well-peace to the land! may the people at length, Know that freedom is bliss, but that honour is strength; That though man have the wings of the fetterless wind, Of the wantonest air that the north can unbind, We were thirteen days on our passage from Quebec to Halifax. and I had been so spoiled by the very splendid hospitality with which my friends of the Phaeton and Boston had treated me, that I was but ill prepared to encounter the miseries of a Canadian ship. The weather, however, was pleasant, and the scenery along the river delightful. Our passage through the Gut of Canso, with a bright sky and a fair wind, was particularly striking and romantic. Commanded by Captain J. E. Douglas, with whom I returned to England, and to whom I am indebted for many, many kindnesses. In truth, I should but offend the delicacy of my friend Douglas, and, at the same time, do injustice to my own feelings of gratitude, d.d I attempt to say how much I owe to him. Sir John Wentworth, the Governor of Nova-Scotia, very kindly allowed me to accompany him on his visit to the college which they have lately established at Windsor, about forty miles from Halifax, and I was indeed most pleasantly surprised by the beauty and fertility of the country which opened upon us after the bleak and rocky wilderness by which Halifax is surrounded. I was told that, in travelling onwards, we should find the soil and the scenery improve, and it gave me much pleasure to know that the worthy Governor has by no means such an inamabile regnum » as I was, at first sight, inclined to believe. Yet if health do not sweeten the blast with her bloom, Farewell to the few I have left with regret, When they've asked me the manners, the mind, or the mien Of some bard I had known, or some chief I had seen, I told them each luminous trait that I knew, Shall recur to their ear, they 'll recal me the same I have been to them now, young, unthoughtful, and blest, Ere hope had deceived me or sorrow depress'd! But, DOUGLAS! while thus I endear to my mind The elect of the land we shall soon leave behind, That the faint coming breeze will be fair for our flight, Not a tract of the line, not a barbarous shore, That I could not with patience, with pleasure explore! But see! the bent top-sails are ready to swellTo the boat-I am with thee-Columbia, farewell! TO LADY H ON AN OLD RING FOUND AT TUNBRIDGE-WELLS. Tunnebrige est à la même distance de Londres que Fontainebleau l'est de Paris. Ce qu'il y a de beau et de galant dans l'un et dans l'autre sexe s'y rassemble au temps des eaux. La compagnie," etc. etc.-See Mémoires de Grammont, seconde partie, chap. iii. TUNBRIDGE-WELLS, August, 1805. WHEN Grammont graced these happy springs, And Tunbridge saw, upon her Pantiles, BUT, whither have these gentle ones, Instead of wise encomiastics I promised that I would give the remainder of this poem, but, as my critics do not seem to relish the sublime learning which it contains, they shall have no more of it. With a view, however, to the edification of these gentlemen, I have prevailed on an industrious friend of mine, who has read a great number of unnecessary books, to illuminate the extract with a little of his precious eradition. Polymaths, and Polyhistors, With him as eyes as brightly turned upon The angel's 3 were on Hieronymus, Saying, 't was just as sweet to kiss her-oh! Far more sweet than reading Cicero! 1 Mamurra, a dogmatic philosopher, who never doubted about any thing, except who was his father. Nulla de re unquam praterquam de patre dubitavit.—In vit. He was very learned-. Là dedans (that is, in his head, when it was opened) le Punique hearte le Persan, l'Hébreu choque l'Arabique, pour ne point parler de la mauvaise intelligence du Latin avec le Grec, etc.-See l'His toire de Montmaur, tom. ii, page 91. 2 Bombastus was one of the names of that great scholar and quack Paracelsus. # Philippus Bombastus latet sub splendido tegmine Aureoli Theophrasti Paracelsi,» says Stadelius de circumforanea Literatorum vanitate.-He used to fight the devil every night with a broad-sword, to the no small terror of his pupil Oporinus, who has recorded the circumstance. (See OPORIN. Vit. apud Christian. Gryph. Vit. Select, quorundam Eruditissimorum, etc.) Paracelsus had but a poor opinion of Galen. My very beard (says be in his Paragrænum) has more learning in it than either Galen or Avicenna. The angel who scolded St Jerom for reading Cicero, as GRATIAN tells the story, in his concordantia discordantium Caxonum, and says that for this reason bishops were not allowed to read the Classics, . Episcopus Gentilium libros non legat.»-Distinc. 37. But Gratian is notorious for lying-besides, angels have got no tongues, as the illustrious pupil of Pantenes assures us: Ovy dis quid TAWIA, ούτως εκείνοις ή γλώττα ουδ' αν οργανα τις των pawns ayyshots.-CLEM. ALEXAND. Stromat. Now, how an angel could scold without a tongue, I shall leave the angelic Mrs to determine. 4 The idea of the Rabbins about the origin of woman is singular. They think that man was originally formed with a tail, like a monkey, but that the Deity cut off this appendage behind, and made woman of it. Upon this extraordinary supposition the following reflection is founded:-- If such is the tie between women and men. When scarce there happen'd any frolics A cold and loveless son of Lucifer, Who woman scorn'd, nor knew the use of her, (Which Dagon, whether He or She, Or any doctor of the rabble is! Zeal so strong for gamma, delta, That, all for Greek and learning's glory, 4 He nightly tippled « Græco more,» From whence your sholars, when they want tick, 1 SCALIGER, de Emondat. Tempor.--Dagon was thought by others to be a certain sea-monster, who came every day out of the Red Sea to teach the Syrians husbandry.-See JACQUES GAFFAREL'S CLriosités inouies, chap. 1. He says he thinks this story of the seamonster carries little show of probability with it. I wish it were known with any degree of certainty whether the Commentary on Boethius attributed to Thomas Aquinas be really the work of this angelic Doctor. There are some bold assertions hazarded in it for instance, he says that Plato kept school in a town called Academia, and that Alcibiades was a very beautiful woman whom some of Aristotle's pupils fell in love with: Alcibindes mulier fuit pulcherrima, quam videntes quidam discipuli Aristotelis, etc.-See FREYTAG. Adparat. Literar. art. 86. tom. 1. The following compliment was paid to Laurentius Valla, upon his accurate knowledge of the Latin language: Nunc postquam manes defunctus Valla petivit, Since Val arrived in Pluto's shade, His nouns and pronouns all so pat in, To ask even what's o'clock in Latin! These lines may be found in the Actorum Censio of DU VERDIER (page 29), an excellent critic, if he could have either felt or understood any one of the works which he criticises. 4 It is much to be regretted that Martin Luther, with all his talents for reforming, should yet he vulga enough to laugh at Camerarius for writing to him in Greek. Master Joachim (says he) has sent me some dates and some raisins, and has also written me two letters in Greek. As soon as I am recovered, I shall answer them in Turkish, that he too may have the pleasure of reading what he does not understand.-— « Græca sunt, legi non possunt is the ignorant spee h attributed to Accursius, but very unjustly-far from asserting that Greek could not be read, that worthy juris-consult upon the Law 6. D. de Bonor. Possess, expressly says, Græcæ literæ possunt intelligi et legi,s (Vide Nov, Libror, Rarior. Codection, ¦ Fasciculi IV.)-Scipio Carteromachus seems to think that there is no salvation out of the pale of Greek literature: Via prima salutis Graia pandetur ab urbe. And the zeal of Laurentius Rhodomannus cannot be sufficiently admired, when he exhorts his countrymen, per gloriam Christi, per salutem patriæ, per reipublice decus et emolumentum, to study the Greek language. No must we forget Phavorinus, the excellent Bishop of No era, who, careless of all the usual commendations of a Christian, required no farther eulogium on his tomb iban « Here lieth a Greek Lexicographer." In logics, he was quite Ho Panu!1 That though you were the learned Stagyrite, As thus-the Doctor's house did harbour a He taught this maid his esoterica, Or how they placed the medius terminus, In this their logical prælusion, But, as for all your warbling Delias, He own'd he thought them much surpass'd Likewise to show his mighty knowledge, he, 10 Пx. -- The introduction of this language into English poetry has a good effect, and ought to be more universally adopted. A word or two of Greek in a stanza would serve as ballast to the most light o' love" verses. Ausonius, among the ancients, may serve as a model: Ου γαρ μοι θέμις εςιν in hac regione μενοντι RONSARD, the French poet, has enriched his sonnets and odes with many an exquisite morsel from the Lexicon. His Cière Ent techie, in addressing his mistress, is admirable, and can be only matched by COWLEY's Antiperistasis. The first figure of simple syllogisms, to which Barbara belongs. together with Gelarent, Darii, and Ferio. 3 Because the three propositions in the mood of Barbara are universal affirmatives.-The poet borrowed this equivoque upon Barbara from a curious Epigram which MesCRENIUS gives in a note upon bis Essays de Charlataneria Eruditor m. In the Niptice Peri patetica of Caspar Barlaus, the reader will find some facetious applications of the terms of logic to matrimony, CRAMBE's Treatise on Syllogisms, in Martinus Scriblerus, is borrowed chi-fly from the Nupthe Peripatetica of BARLKUS. 4 Or Glass-Breaker.-Monnories bas given an traordinary man, in a work published 1682. fracto, etc. account of this exDe vitreo crypho Wherein he show'd the reason why, Oh Eve! exclaimeth little madam, While little master cries Oh Adam!* In point of science astronomical, Were by the Doctors looked, in common, ou, Is for the eyes a great emporium, To which these noted picture stealers Send all they can and meet with dealers. The brain, he said, show'd great good-breeding; Our doctor thus with stuff'd sufficiency. 'This is translated almost literally from a passage in Albertus de Secretis, etc.-I have not the book by me, or I would transcribe the words. Alluding to that habitual act of the judgment, by which, not withstanding the inversion of the image upon the retina, a correct impression of the object is conveyed to the sensorium. 1 Under this description, I believe, « the Devil among the Scholars may be included. Yet Leibnitz found out the uses of incomprehensibility, when he was appointed secretary to a society of philosophers at Nuremberg, merely for his merit in writing a cabalistical letter, one word of which neither they nor himself could interpret. See! the Eloge Historique de M. de Leibnitz, l'Europe Savante. People in all ages have loved to be puzzled. We find CICERO thanking Atticus for having sent him a work of Serapion, ex quo (says he) quidem ego (quod inter nos liceat dicere) millesimam partem vix intelligo, -Lib. 2, epist. 4. And we know that Avicen, the learned Arabian, read ARISTOTLE'S Metaphysics forty times over, for the supreme pleasure of being able to inform the world that he could not comprehend one syllable throughout them.-NICOLAS MOSSA in Vit. Avicen. * The tatter'd rags of Grammars, prayer-books-oh! 't were tedious, Not the scribbling bard of Ptolemy, (Whose writings all, thank Heaven! have miss'd us), E'er fill'd with lumber such a ware-room As this great porcus literarum !> FRAGMENTS OF A JOURNAL.' FROM FREDERICKSBURGH, VIRGINIA, JUNE 2. I've had this week, over ruts and ridges,3 Made of a few uneasy planks, 4 In open ranks, Like old women's teeth, all loosely thrown Occoquan-the Heavens may harbour us! These fragments form but a small part of a ridiculous medley of prose and doggerel, into which, for my amusement, I threw some of the incidents of my journey. If it were even in a more rational form, there is yet much of it too allusive and too personal for publication. Having remained about a week at NewYork, where I saw Madame Jerome Bonaparte, and felt a slight shock of an earthquake (the only things that particularly awakened my attention), I sailed again in the Boston for Norfolk, from whence I proceeded on my tour to the northward, through Williamsburgh, Richmond, etc. At Richmond there are a few men of considerable talents. Mr Wickham, one of their celebrated legal characters, is a gentleman whose manners and mode of life would do honour to the most cultivated societies. Judge Marshall, the author of Washington's Life, is another very distinguished ornament of Rihmond. These gentlemen, I must observe, are of that respectable, but at present unpopular, party, the Federalists. 3 What Mr Weld says of the continual necessity of balancing or trimming the stage, in passing over some of the wretched roads in America, is by no means exaggerated. The driver frequently had to call to the passengers in the stage, to lean out of the carriage, first at one side, then at the other, to prevent it from oversetting in the deep ruts with which the road abounds! Now, gentlemen, to the right;' upon which the passengers all stretched their bodies half way out of the carriage, to balance it on that side. Now, gentlemen, to the left; and so on."-WELD's Travels, letter 3. 4 Before the stage can pass one of these bridges, the driver is obliged to stop and arrange the loose planks, of which it is composed, in the manner that best suits his ideas of safety: and, as the planks are again disturbed by the passing of the coach, the next travellers who arrive have of course a new arrangement to make. Mahomet (as Sale tells us) was at some pains to imagine a precarious kind of bridge for the entrance of Paradise, in order to enhance the pleasures of arrival: a Virginian bridge, I think, would have answered his purpose completely. |