Is a dispute that vastly better is From whence your scholars, when they want tick, Say, to be Attic's to be on tick, In logics he was quite Ho Panu ;* Knew as much as ever man knew. He fought the combat syllogistic With so much skill and art eristic, 1 Scaliger. de Emendat. 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, (Curiosités Inouïes, chap. i.,) who says he thinks this story of the sea-monster "carries little show of probability with it." 2 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 :-"Alcibiades mulier fuit plucherrima, quam videntes quidam discipuli Aristotelis," &c.-See Freytag Adparat. Litterar. art. 86, tom. i. The following compliment was paid to Laurentius Valla, upon his accurate knowledge of the Latin language: Nunc postquam manes defunctus Valla petivit, Pluto himself would be afraid To say his soul's his own, in Latin! That though you were the learn'd St But, as for all your warbling Delias, He own'd he thought them much sur By that redoubted Hyaloclast Who still contrived by dint of throttle. Where'er he went to crack a bottle. Likewise to show his mighty now On things unknown in physiology, Wrote many a chapter to divert us, (Like that great little man Albertus,) Wherein he show'd the reason why, When children first are heard to cry, If boy the baby chance to be, He cries O A—if girl, O E!Which are, quoth he, exceeding fair h Respecting their first sinful parents; "Oh Eve!" exclaimeth little madam, While little master cries, "Oh Adam stand.” "Græca sunt, legi non possunt," is t speech attributed to Accursius; but very unjust from asserting that Greek could not be read, that ris-consult upon the Law 6. D. de Bonor. Posses says, "Græcæ literæ possunt intelligi et legi." Libror. Rarior. Collection. Fascic. IV.)-Scipio chus seems to have been of opinion that there i tion out of the pale of Greek Literature: "Via p Graiâ pandetur ab urbe :" and the zeal of Laure domannus cannot be sufficiently admired, when his countrymen, "per gloriam Christi, per salu per reipublicæ decus et emolumentum," to study language. Nor must we forget Phavorinus, the Bishop of Nocera, who, careless of all the usual tions of a Christian, required no further eulog tomb than "Here lieth a Greek Lexicographer." 'O ravv.-The introduction of this language i poetry has a good effect, and ought to be more adopted. A word or two of Greek in a stanza wot ballast to the most "light o'love" verses. Ausor the ancients, may serve as a model: Ου γαρ μοι θέμις εστιν in hac regione μενο See for these lines the "Auctorum Censio" of Du Verdier Ronsard, the French poet, has enriched his sonne (page 29.) It is much to be regretted that Martin Luther, with all his talents for reforming, should yet be vulgar 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 under with many an excellent morsel from the Le "chère Entelechie," in addressing his mistress, equalled by Cowley's " Antiperistasis." Or Glass-Breaker-Morhofius has given an this extraordinary man, in a work, published vitreo scypho fracto," &c. 7 Translated almost literally from a passage in Secretis, &c. But 'twas in Optics and Dioptrics, Where by the doctors look'd, in common, on, Is for the eyes a great emporium, (A trick which Barbara tutor'd him in,) Our doctor thus, with "stuff"d sufficiency" Of all omnigenous omnisciency, 1 Alluding to that habitual act of the judgment, by which, notwithstanding the inversion of the image upon the retina, a correct impression of the object is conveyed to the sensorium. * 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, chiefly for his ingesuity in writing a cabalistical letter, not one word of which either they or himself could interpret See the Eloge Began (as who would not begin In which the Greeks and Romans dress'd, Eggs and altars, cyclopædias, Grammars, prayer-books-oh! 'twere tedious, (Whose writings all, thank heaven! have miss'd us,) 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. ii. epist. 4. And we know that Avicenna, the learned Arabian, read Aristotle's Metaphysics forty times over for the mere pleasure of being able to inform the world that he could not comprehend one syllable throughout them. (Nicolas Massa in Vit Avicen.` POEMS RELATING TO AMERICA. ΤΟ FRANCIS, EARL OF MOIRA, GENERAL IN HIS MAJESTY'S FORCES, MASTER-GENERAL OF MY LORD, It is impossible to think of addressing a Dedication to your Lordship without calling to mind the well-known reply of the Spartan to a rhetorician, who proposed to pronounce an eulogium on Hercules. "On Hercules!" said the honest Spartan, "who ever thought of blaming Hercules?" In a similar manner the concurrence of public opinion has left to the panegyrist of your Lordship a very superfluous task. I shall, therefore, be silent on the subject, and merely entreat your indulgence to the very humble tribute of gratitude which I have here the honor to pre period of time which my plan of return to afforded me, in travelling through a few States, and acquiring some knowledge of habitants. The impression which my mind receive the character and manners of these repu suggested the Epistles which are written f city of Washington and Lake Erie. How was right, in thus assuming the tone of a against a people whom I viewed but as a and a visiter, is a doubt which my feeli not allow me time to investigate. All I to answer for is the fidelity of the pictur I have given; and though prudence mig dictated gentler language, truth, I think have justified severer. I went to America with prepossessions means unfavorable, and indeed rather in many of those illusive ideas, with respe purity of the government and the primitiv ness of the peoplc, which I had early im my native country, where, unfortunately, tent at home enhances every distant ten and the western world has long been looke retreat from real or imaginary oppression short, the elysian Atlantis, where persecut ots might find their visions realized, and be w by kinared spirits to liberty and repose. these flattering expectations I found mys pletely disappointed, and felt inclined to America, as Horace says to his mistre tentata nites." Brissot, in the preface to hi observes, that "freedom in that country i to so high a degree as to border upon a nature;" and there certainly is a close THE principal poems in the following collection were written during an absence of fourteen months from Europe. Though curiosity was certainly not the motive of my voyage to America, yet it hap-imation to savage life, not only in the pened that the gratification of curiosity was the only advantage which I derived from it. Finding myself in the country of a new people, whose infancy had promised so much, and whose progress to maturity has been an object of such interesting speculation, I determined to employ the short 1 This Preface, as well as the Dedication which precedes it, were prefixed originally to the miscellaneous volume en which they enjoy, but in the violence spirit and of private animosity which resu it. This illiberal zeal imbitters all socia course; and, though I scarcely could he selecting the party whose views appeare the more pure and rational, yet I am sor titled "Odes and Epistles," of which, hitherto, relating to my American tour have formed a part. 2 Epistles VI., VII., and VIII. serve that, in asserting their opinions, they both assume an equal share of intolerance; the Demo crats, consistently with their principles, exhibiting POEMS RELATING TO AMERICA a vulgarity of rancor, which the Federalists too often are so forgetful of their cause as to imitate. The rude familiarity of the lower orders, and indeed the unpolished state of society in general, would neither surprise nor disgust if they seemed to flow from that simplicity of character, that honest ignorance of the gloss of refinement, which may be looked for in a new and inexperienced people. But, when we find them arrived at maturity in most of the vices, and all the pride of civilization, while they are still so far removed from its higher and better characteristics, it is impossible not to feel that this youthful decay, this crude anticipation of the natural period of corruption, must repress every sanguine hope of the future energy and greatness of America. I am conscious that, in venturing these few remarks, I have said just enough to offend, and by no means sufficient to convince; for the limits of a preface prevent me from entering into a justification of my opinions, and I am committed on the subject as effectually as if I had written volumes in their defence. My reader, however, is apprized of the very cursory observation upon which these opinions are founded, and can easily decide for himself upon the degree of attention or confidence which they merit. The With respect to the poems in general, which occupy the following pages, I know not in what manner to apologize to the public for intruding upon their notice such a mass of unconnected trifles, such a world of epicurean atoms as I have here brought in conflict together. To say that I have been tempted by the liberal offers of my bookseller, is an excuse which can hope for but little indulgence from the critic; yet I own that, without this seasonable inducement, these poems very possibly would I never have been submitted to the world. glare of publication is too strong for such imperfect productions: they should be shown but to the eye of friendship, in that dim light of privacy which is as favorable to poetical as to female beauty, and serves as a veil for faults, while it enhances every ebarm which it displays. Besides, this is not a period for the idle occupations of poetry, and times de the present require talents more active and more efal Few have now the leisure to read such trifles, and I most sincerely regret that I have had the leisure to write them. ΤΟ LORD VISCOUNT STRANGFORD. ABOARD THE PHAETON FRIGATE, OFF THE AZORES, M MOONLIGHT. SWEET Moon! if, like Crotona's sage, 2 And write my thoughts, my wishes there; And all my heart and soul would send How little, when we parted last, I thought those pleasant times were past, To gather bliss from all we knew. When, mingling lore and laugh together, And turn'd the leaf with Folly's feather. And yet, 'twas time;-in youth's sweet days, Oh! she awaked such happy dreams, * See the foregoing Note, p. 160. writing upon the Moon by the means of a magic mirror. Pythagoras; who was supposed to have a power of See BAYLE, art. Pythag. That not Verona's child of song, Even now delusive hope will steal Amid the dark regrets I feel, Soothing, as yonder placid beam Pursues the murmurers of the deep, And lights them with consoling gleam, And smiles them into tranquil sleep. Oh! such a blessed night as this, I often think, if friends were near, How we should feel, and gaze with bliss Upon the moon-bright scenery here! The sea is like a silvery lake, And o'er its calm the vessel glides Gently, as if it fear'd to wake The slumber of the silent tides. Hath hung its shade on Pico's height,2 Now, could I range those verdant isles, Invisible at this soft hour, And see the looks, the beaming smiles, And see the blushing cheek it shades,— Oh! I should have full many a tale, To tell of young Azorian maids. May cradle every wish to rest) Those madrigals, of breath divine, Which Camoens' harp from Rapture stole And gave, all glowing warm, to thine.* Oh! could the lover learn from thee, And breathe them with thy graceful tone, Such sweet, beguiling minstrelsy Would make the coldest nymph his own. But, hark!—the boatswain's pipings tell "Tis time to bid my dream farewell: Eight bells-the middle watch is set; Good night, my Strangford !-ne'er forget 1 Alluding to these animated lines in the 44th Carmen of Catullus: Jam mens prætrepidans avet vagari, A very high mountain on one of the Azores, from which That, far beyond the western sea Is one, whose heart remembers thee. STANZAS. Θυμος δε ποτ' εμος με προσφώνει ταδε Γίνωσκε τανθρωπεια μη σεβειν αγαν ESCHYLL. F A BEAM of tranquillity smiled in the west, The storms of the morning pursued us n And the wave, while it welcomed the mome Still heaved, as remembering ills that w Serenely my heart took the hue of the hou Its passions were sleeping, were mute as And the spirit becalm'd but remember'd the As the billow the force of the gale that I thought of those days, when to pleasure My heart ever granted a wish or a sigh When the saddest emotion my bosom had Was pity for those who were wiser than I reflected, how soon in the cup of Desire The pearl of the soul may be melted aw How quickly, alas, the pure sparkle of fire We inherit from heav'n, may be quenc clay; And I pray'd of that Spirit who lighted th That Pleasure no more might its purity So that, sullied but little, or brightly the s I might give back the boon I had borr him. How blest was the thought! it appear'd as Had already an opening to Paradise sho As if, passion all chasten'd and error forgi My heart then began to be purely its o I look'd to the west, and the beautiful sky Which morning had clouded, was c more: "Oh! thus," I exclaim'd, "may a heave "Shed light on the soul that was darken the island derives its name. It is said by some t as the Peak of Teneriffe. I believe it is Guthrie who says, that the in the Azores are much addicted to gallantry. T sertion in which even Guthrie may be credited. 4 These islands belong to the Portuguese. |