that most despicable subterfuge of an impotent objector. Charity never supposes, that all sense and knowledge are confined to a particular circle, to a district, or to a country Charity never condemns and embraces principles in the same breath; never professes to confute, what it acknowledges to be just, never presumes to bear down an adversary with confident assertions; charity does not call dissent insolence, or the want of im plicit submission a want of common respect." The esteem, the affection, the reverence which I feel for so profound a scholar, and so honest a man, as Dr. Jortin, make me wholly indifferent to the praise and censure of those, who vilify, without reading, his writings, or read them, without finding some incentive to study, some proficiency in knowledge, or some improvement in virtue. POETRY. For the Anthology. VERSES ON SPRING. DEATH went upon a solemn day Old bachelors about his court; A consult of coquettes below His coat, an usurer's velvet pall, Thus furnished out, he sent his train To take a house in Warwick-lane : The "faculty," his humble friends, A complimental message sends : 'Their president in scarlet gown Harangu'd, and welcom'd him to town. But Death had business to dispatch; As just the counterpart of his. She darted many a private glance, Nothing she thought could sooner gain him, (The ladies there must needs be rooks ;. What pride a female heart inflames! Upon thy hand his finger laid, Thy hand as dry and cold as lead, His matrimonial spirit fled; He felt about his heart a damp, That quite extinguish'd Cupid's lamp :- For the Anthology. VERSION OF THE 8TH CHAPTER OF SOLOMON'S SONG. OH that thou wert like him who drew Home I'd persuade thee to return, With me domestick bliss to prove, Where from my mother I would learn To keep thee, all the lore of love. Thy lip should rich delicious wine, When such a heaven of bliss we share,. Should sleep exhausted nature seize, Maids of Jerusalem, forbear To wake my love until he please. What stranger from the wilderness Comes leaning on her love? the maid Whom once I rais'd with chaste caress Beneath the citron's spreading shade. Within that.consecrated grove Thy parent first embrac'd her child, There first the pledge of virtuous love Gaz'd on her mother's face and smil'd. Set me a signet on thine arm, And on thy heart my image lay, The spell would drive, with potent charm, The fiend of Jealousy away. The cruel fiend, greedy as death, No art can soothe, no flattery tame; Whose eyes are burning coals, whose breathA scorching, all devouring frame. Love ever clear and constant burns, No foods can quench his heavey light; No wealth corrupt him, for he spurns The sordid mifcreant from his sight. Our little sister sweet and fair, Swell the soft buds, and they uncloses EPIGRAM. CHLOE. Chloe new-marry'd looks on men no more; Why then it's plain for what she look'd before. WALSE PARALLELS. How beautiful is night! NOW came still evening on, and twilight gray MILTON. As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night! Fallimur exemplis; temere fibi turb a scholarum Ima tuas credit permitti Scaliger iras, Quifque fuum norit modulum; tibi prime, viro rum ΓΝΩΘΙ ΣΕΑΥΤΟΝ. By Dr. Johnson. Poft Lexicon Anglicanum auctum et emendatum.) LEXICON ad finem longo luctamine tandem Gefferat et quicquid virtus, fapientia quicquid, Ut ftudiis fperem, aut aufim par effe querelis, Te fterili functum cura, vocumque falebris Alme voco, impatiens nodis metuenfque diei. Res angufta domi, et macræ penuria mentis. Non rationis opes animus, nunc parta recenfens Confpicit aggeftas, et se miratur in illis, Nec fibi de gaza præfans quod poftulat usus Summus adeffe jubet cella dominator ab arce; Non operum ferie feriem dum computat ævi, Præteritis fruitur, lætos aut fumit honores Ipfe fui judex, actæ bene munera vitæ ; Sed fua regna videns, loca nocte filentia late Horret, ubi vanæ fpecies, umbræque fugaces, Et rerum volitant raræ per inane figuræ. Quid faciam tenebrifne pigram damnare se. nectam Reftat? an accingar fludiis gravioribus audax ? Aut hoc, fi nimium eft, tandem nova lexica pos cam? TRANSLATION. From Murphy's Life of Johnson. KNOW YOURSELF. (After revifing and enlarging the English Lex. Icon, or Dictionary.) WHEN Scaliger, whole years of labour past, The drudgery of words the damn'd would know, Doom'd to write Lexicons in endless woe.* Yes, you had cause, great Genius, to repent; "You loft good days that might be better spent; You well might grudge the hours of ling'ring pain, And view your learned labours with difdain. To you were giv'n the large expanded mind, The flame of genius, and the tafte refin'd. "Twas yours on eagle wings aloft to foar, And amidit rolling worlds the Great Firft Caufe explore; To fix the æras of recorded time, And live in ev'ry age, in ev'ry clime ; Record the chiefs, who propt their country's caufe; Who founded empires, and establish'd laws; And the world's ample volume was your own. Yet warn'd by me, ye pigmy wits, beware, Nor with immortal Scaliger compare. For me, though his example ftrike my view, Oh! not for me his footsteps to pursue. Whether first nature, unpropitious, cold, This clay compounded in a ruder mould ; Or the flow current, loit 'ring at my heart, No gleam of wit or fancy can impart ; Whate'er the caufe, from me no numbers flow, No vifions warm me, and no raptures glow. A mind like Scaliger's, fuperiour ftill, No grief could conquer, no misfortune chill. Though for the maze of words his native fkies He feem'd to quit, 'twas but again to rife; 'To mount once more to the bright fource of day, And view the wonders of th' ætherial way. The love of fame his gen'rous bosom fir'd; Each science hail'd him, and each muse inspir'd. For him the fons of learning trim'd the bays, And nations grew harmonious in his praise. My task perform'd, and all my labours o'er, I feek at midnight clubs, the focfal band; Where Comus revels, and where wine infpires, 1 I mourn all night, and dread the coming day. *See Scaliger's epigram on the fame fubje&t, communicated, without doubt, by Dr. Johnson, Gent. Mag. 1745, p. 8. THE BOSTON REVIEW, FOR APRIL, 1806. Neque ulli patientius reprehenduntur quam qui Librum tuum legi & quam diligentissime potui annotavi, quæ commutanda, quæ eximenda, arbitrarer. Nam ego dicere verum assuevi. maxime laudari merentur.-Pliny. ARTICLE 1. [Concluded.] Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Vol. I. 1805. 4to. pp. 564. PART II. PHYSICAL PAPERS. I. Observations upon an hypothesis for solving the phenomena of light, with incidental observations, tending to shew the heterogeneous ness of light, and of the electrick fluid, by their intermixture, or union, with each other. By James Bowdoin, Esquire, President of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The celebrated Dr. Franklin observed, that he was much in the dark about light. And it must be acknowledged, that, notwithstand ing the great progress we have made in opticks, many difficulties still remain relative to the nature of light, or the manner in which vision is produced. It is well known, that modern philosophers have proposed two hypotheses for the purpose of explaining this point. In one, adopted by Huygens, Euler, and some others, an extremely subtile, elastick fluid is supposed to penetrate all bodies, and to fill all space; and vibrations,being excited in it by the action of luminous bodies, are propagated to the eye, and produce in that organ the sensation of vision in the same manner, as pulsations of air produce in the organ of hearing the sensation of sound. According to the other hypothesis, maintained by Sir Isaac Newton and others, light consists of particles of matter, extremely minute, which being projected or thrown off from luminous bodies in every direction by a repulsive force, and reflected by opaque bodies, produce the sensation of vision by impulse on the eye. The hypothesis, on which the author of this Memoir remarks, is contained in some queries, proposed by Dr Franklin, and is in substance the same as the former of the two preceding; to which the observations may be considered as objections, or arguments in favor of the other. In one part of the reasoning in form of queries relative to the pro duction of light in various instances by motion, on supposition that the hypothesis of vibration is true, more seems to be assumed than is granted in the hypothesis. It does not appear to be inferable from Dr. Franklin's statement, nor from any other, that we recollect to have seen, that every kind and degree of motion in the elastick fluid is sup posed or admitted to be productive of the sensation of vision; does this seem to be a necessary consequence. In the theory of sound, though the vibratory agency of the air is clearly ascertained, yet it is not supposed that every kind and degree of motion in the air produces the sensation of sound. nor The author's ideas respecting the heterogeneousness of light and |