Where the rapt Samian slept his holy slum

ber?

When free

From every earthly chain,

From wreaths of pleasure and from bonds of pain,

His spirit flew through fields above,

Drank at the source of nature's fontal number,*

And saw, in mystic choir, around him move The stars of song, Heaven's burning minstrelsy!

Such dreams, so heavenly bright,

I swear

By the great diadem that twines my hair,
And by the seven gems that sparkle there, f
Mingling their beams

In a soft iris of harmonious light,

Oh, mortal! such shall be thy radiant dreams!

*The tetractys, or sacred number of the Pythagoreans, on which they solemnly swore, and which they called παγαν αενας φυσεως, “ the fountain of perennial nature." Lucian has ridiculed this religious arithmetic very finely in his Sale of Philosophers.

This diadem is intended to represent the analogy between the notes of music and the prismatic colours. We find in Plutarch a vague intimation of this kindred harmony in colours and sounds. Όψις τε και ακοη, με τα φωνης τε και φωτος τεν άρμονιαν επιφαίνοι. De Musica.

Cassiodorus, whose idea I may be supposed to have borrowed, says, in a letter upon music to Boetius, "Ut diadema oculis, varia luce gemmarum, sic cythara diversitate soni, blanditur auditui." This is indeed the only tolerable thought in the let Lib. 2. Variar.

1er.

EPISTLE IV.

ΤΟ

GEORGE MORGAN, ESQ.

TO GEORGE MORGAN, ESQ

OF NORFOLK, VIRGINIA.*

FROM BERMUDA, JANUARY, 1804.

ΚΕΙΝΗ ΔΗΝΕΜΟΕΣΣΑ ΚΑΙ ΑΤΡΟΠΟΣ ΓΙΑ Θ'ΑΛΠΙΛΗΞ, ΑΙΘΥΙΗΣ ΚΑΙ ΜΑΛΛΟΝ ΕΠΙ ΔΡΟΜΟΣ ΗΕΠΕΩ 'ΠΙΠΟΙΣ ΠΟΝΤΩ ΕΝΕΣTHPIKTAI.

Callimach, Hymn. in Del. v. 11.

On what a tempest whirl'd us hither!†
Winds, whose savage breath could wither

*This gentleman is attached to the British con sulate at Norfolk His talents are worthy of a much higher sphere, but the excellent dispositions of the family with whom he resides, and the cordial repose he enjoys amongst some of the kindest hearts in the world, should be almost enough to atone to him for the worst caprices of fortune. The consul himself, Colonel Hamilton, is one among the very few instances of a man, ardently loyal to his king, and yet beloved by the Americans. His house is the very temple of hospitality, and I sincerely pity the heart of that stranger who, warm from the wel. come of such a board, and with the taste of such Madeira still upon his lips, ⚫ col dolce in bocca,"

eould sit down to write a libel on his host, in the true spirit of a modern philosophist. See the travels of the Duke de la Rochefoucault Liancourt, Vol. 2.

We were seven days on our passage from Norfolk to Bermuda, during three of which we were

All the light and languid flowers
That bloom in Epicurus' bowers!
Yet think not, George, that fancy's charm
Forsook me in this rude alarm.

When close they reef'd the timid sail,
When every plank complaining loud,
We labour'd in the midnight gale,

And ev❜n our haughty main-mast bow'd!
The muse in that unlovely hour,
Benignly brought her soothing power,
And, midst the war of waves and wind,
In song's elysian lap'd my mind!
She open'd, with her golden key,
The casket where my memory lays

Those little gems of poesy,

Which time has sav'd from ancient days! Take one of these, to LAIs sung,

I wrote it while my hammock swung,
As one might write a dissertation
Upon "suspended animation!"

forced to lay-to in a gale of wind.

The Driver sloop

of war, in which I went, was built at Bermuda of cedar, and is accounted an excellent sea-boat. She was then commanded by my very regretted friend Captain Compton, who in July last was killed aboard the Lilly, in an action with a French privateer. Poor Compton he fell a victim to the strange impolicy of allowing such a miserable thing as the Lilly to remain in the service so small, so crank, and unmanageable, that a well manned merchantman was at any time a match for her.