Whores, gambles, turns a sot, and dies.
His children born to fairer doom,
In rags, pursue him to the tomb.

Apprentic'd then to masters stern,
Some real good the orphans learn;
Are bred to toil, and hardy fare,
And grow to usefulness, and care;
And, following their great-grandsire's plan,
Each slow becomes a useful man.

Such here is life's swift-circling round; So soon are all its changes found, Would you prevent th' allotment hard, And fortune's rapid whirl retard, In all your race, industrious care Attentive plant, and faithful rear; With life, th' important task begin, Nor but with life, the task resign; To habit, bid the blessings grow, Habits alone yield good below.

THE VILLAGE CLERGYMAN-FROM GREENFIELD HILL.

Where western Albion's happy clime
Still brightens to the eye of time,
A village lies. In all his round,
The sun a fairer never found.

The woods were tall, the hillocks green,
The vallies laugh'd the hills between,
Thro' fairy meads the rivers roll'd,
The meadows flower'd in vernal gold,
The days were bright, the mornings fair,
And evening lov'd to linger there.
There, twinn'd in brilliant fields above,
Sweet sisters! sported Peace and Love;
While Virtue, like a blushing bride,
Seren'd, and brighten'd, at their side.

At distance from that happy way,
The path of sensual Pleasure lay,
Afar Ambition's summit rose,
And Avarice dug his mine of woes.

The place, with east and western sides,
A wide and verdant street divides:
And here the houses fae'd the day,
And there the lawns in beauty lay.
There, turret-crown'd, and central, stood
A neat, and solemn house of God,
Across the way, beneath the shade,
Two elms with sober silence spread,
The Preacher liv'd. O'er all the place
His mansion cast a Sunday grace;
Dumb stillness sate the fields around;
His garden seem'd a hallow'd ground;
Swains ceas'd to laugh aloud, when near,
And school-boys never sported there.

In the same mild and temperate zone,
Twice twenty years, his course had run,
His locks of flowing silver spread,
A crown of glory o'er his head.
His face, the image of his mind,
With grave, and furrow'd wisdom shin'd;
Not cold; but glowing still, and bright;
Yet glowing with October light:
As evening blends, with beauteous ray,
Approaching night with shining day.

His Cure his thoughts engross'd alone:
For them his painful course was run:
To bless, to save, his only care;
To chill the guilty soul with fear;
To point the pathway to the skies,
And teach, and urge, and aid, to rise;
Where strait, and difficult to keep,
It climbs, and climbs, o'er Virtue's steep.

As now the evening of his day,
Retiring, smil'd it's warning ray;
He heard, in angel-whispers, come,
The welcome voice, that call'd him home.
The little flock he nurs'd so long,
And charm'd with mercy's sweetest song,
His heart with strong affections warm'd,
His love provok'd, his fears alarm'd-
Like him, who freed the chosen band,
Like him, who op'd the promis'd land,
His footsteps verging on the grave,
His blessing thus the Prophet gave.

"O priz'd beyond expression here,
As sons belov'd, as daughters dear,
Your father's dying voice receive,
My counsels hear, obey, and live!
"For you my ceaseless toils ye know,
My care, my faithfulness, and woe.
For
you
I breath'd unnumber'd prayers;
For you I shed unnumber'd tears;
To living springs the thirsty led,
The hungry cheer'd with living bread,
Of grief allay'd the piercing smart,

And sooth'd with balm the doubting heart;
The wayward flock forbade to roam,

And brought the wandering lambkin home.

"Then rise, and let salvation call

Your time, your thoughts, your talents all!
“For this, the sacred page explore,
Consult, and ponder, o'er and o'er;
The words of endless life discern;
The way, the means, the motives learn;
The hopes, the promises, enjoy,
That ne'er deceive, that cannot cloy;
Alarms to Guilt's obdurate mind;
Perennial bliss to Faith assign'd;
The precepts, by MESSIAH given;
His life, the image bright of Heaven:
His death, self-ruin'd man to save;
His rise, primitial, from the grave;
Beyond all other love, his love;
His name, all other names above.
All duties to be learn'd, or done,
All comforts to be gain'd, or known,
To do, to gain, unceasing strive,
The book of books explore, and live.

"When smiles the Sabbath's genial morn,
Instinctive to the Temple turn;
Your households round you thither bring,
Sweet off'ring to the SAVIOUR KING.
There, on the mercy-seat, he shines,
Receives our souls, forgets our sins,
And welcomes, with resistless charms,
Submitting rebels to his armns.
That chosen, bless'd, accepted day,
Oh never, never cast away!"

"Let order round your houses reign,
Religion rule, and peace sustain ;
Each morn, each eve, your prayers arise,
As incense fragrant, to the skies;
In beauteous groupe, your children join,
And servants share the work divine:
The voice, as is the interest, one,
And one the blessing wrestled down.

"Each toil devote, each care, and pain, Your children for the skies to train,

Allure, reprove, instruct, reclaim,
Alarm, and warn, commend, and blame;
To virtue force with gentle sway,

And guide, and lead, yourselves, the way.
Teach them, profaneness, falsehood, fraud,
Abuse to man, affronts to GOD,
All things impure, obscene, debas'd,
Tho' oft with high high examples grac'd,
To shun beyond the adder's breath,
When hissing instantaneous death;
But justice, truth, and love, to prize,
Beyond the transports of the skies."

"Teach them, that, brighter than the sun,
Th' All-searching Eye looks flaming on,
Each thought, each word, each act, descries,
And sees the guilty motives rise;
A Witness, and a Judge, that day,
Whose light shall every heart display.

you

Live what teach the heavenly SEER,
Who spake, as man ne'er spake, when here,
Taught all things just, and wise, and true
Shone a divine example too.

"To all, around, your blessings lend,
The sick relieve, the poor befriend,
The sad console, the weak sustain,
And soothe the wounded spirit's pain.
To you, think every blessing given,
To shed abroad the alms of HEAVEN,
To blunt the stings of human woe,
And build his kingdom, here below.
Let gentle Peace around you reign,
Her influence spread, her cause sustain:
To railing, answers mild return;
Let love, oppos'd to anger, burn;
Contention, ere begun, suppress,
And bid the voice of party cease.
The taleful tongue, the meddling mind,
The jealous eye, the heart unkind,
Far distant, far, from you remove;
But ope your doors to Truth and Love:
The meek esteem, the humble praise,
And Merit from her footstool raise.

"By every act of peace, and love,
Thus win your way to climes above.
In this great work, see all things strive
Nature toils that you may live:

"Lo, to aid you to the skies,
Seasons roll, and suns arise;
Promis'd, see the seed-time come,
And the harvest shouted home!

All things, in their solemn round,

Morn, with peace and beauty crown'd,
Eve, with sweet, returning rest,
Toil, with health and plenty bless'd,
Help you on the ascending road,
Pointing, leading, still to God:
Joys to endless rapture charm;
Woes, of endless woe, alarm.

"All things toil, that you may live

Rulers peace and freedom give:
Seers diviner peace proclaim,
Glorious to th' Unutter'd NAME,
Good, to guilty mortals given,
Source of endless joy to heaven.
"See the Sabbath's peaceful morn,
(Sabbaths still for you return),
Opes the Temple to your feet,
Chaunting sounds of Seraphs sweet—
Heaven unfolds, and GoD is near,
Sinners haste, and enter here—
Grace and truth, from worlds above,
Fruits of suffering, dying love,

From the SACRED SPIRIT Come, Wilder'd flocks inviting home.

66

Hark, what living music plays! Catch the themes of heavenly praise; Themes, that tune seraphic strings, Notes, the bless'd REDEEMER sings.

66 6

Rise, my sons, and hither haste! Wintry time is overpass'd. See afar the rains have flown! See immortal spring begun! Streams with life and rapture flow; Fruits with life and rapture glow; Love the door of life unbars; Triumphs crown your finish'd wars: Fondly wait impatient skies, O'er you to renew their joys.

"Are you naked? here behold Robes of light, and crowns of gold! Famish'd? an eternal feast' Weary? everliving rest! Friendless? an ALMIGHTY FRIEND! Hopeless? transports ne'er to end! "Children, penitents, arise; Hasten to your native skies: Your arrival all things sing; Angels meet you on the wing; Saints with fairer beauty shine; Brighter years in heaven begin; Round the SUN, that lights the skies, More refulgent glories rise.'

16

Thus, O my sons! MESSIAH's voice
Allures to never dying joys.

That voice of endless love receive;
Those counsels hear, obey, and live.

"Thus, from the climes beyond the tomb If GoD permit my soul to come, Again my little flock to view,

To watch, and warn, and quicken you,
With transport shall my bosom glow,
To see each house an heaven below,
My sons ambitious of the skies,
And future saints, and angels rise.
And O, what brighter bliss shall bloom,
To hail you victors o'er the tomb;
To guide you, all th' unmeasur'd way,
And welcome to the gates of day;
To hear your blessed Euge sound,
And see th' immortals smile around;
To stand, to shine, by you confess'd
Your friend, your earthly saviour bless'd;
To mingle joys, all joys above,
And warm with ever-bright'ning love!"

He spoke. The filial tear around,
Responsive, trickled to the sound;
He saw their hearts to wisdom won,
And felt his final duty done-
"JESUS! my soul receive"-he cried,
And smil'd, and bow'd his head, and died.

ANN ELIZA BLEECKER.

ANN ELIZA, the youngest daughter of Mr. Brandt Schuyler, was born in the city of New York in October, 1752. "Though in her early years," her admiring biographer remarks, "she never displayed any partiality for school, yet she was passionately fond of books, insomuch that she read with propriety any book that came to hand long before the time that children in common pass their spelling-books."

In the year 1769 she married Mr. John J. Bleecker, of New Rochelle, and removed with him to Poughkeepsie where they resided a year

molasses, which was kept for weeks in a churn, as swill is saved for hogs. I found it, however, after a little use, very eatable; and supper soon became my best meal. The table company consisted of the master of the house, Mr. Jacob Suydam, an old bachelor, a young man, a shoemaker of the name of Rem Hagerman, married to Jacob's niece, who, with a mewling infant in her arms, never failed to appear. A black boy, too, was generally in the room, not as a waiter, but as a kind of enfant de maison, who walked about or took post in the chimney corner with his hat on, and occasionally joined in the conversation. It is probable, that but for us, he would have been placed at the table; and that it had been the custom before we came. Certain it is, that the idea of equality was more fully and fairly acted upon in this house of a British subject than ever I have seen it practised by the most vehement declaimers for the rights of man among ourselves. It is but fair, however, to mention, that I have never been among our transcendent republicans of Virginia, and her dependencies. But notwithstanding some unpleasant circumstances in our establishment, every member of the family, the black fellow, to whom we had been the cause of some privations, excepted, was exceedingly courteous and accommodating. Rem Hagerman, and Yonichy, his wife, gave themselves no airs; nor was our harmony with uncle Jacob ever interrupted, but on a single occasion, when, soured a little by I know not what provocation, he made a show of knocking down Forrest with a pair of yarn stockings he had just drawn from his legs, as he sat in the chimney-corner one evening preparing for bed. It was, indeed, but an offer, though it might, for aught I know, have amounted to an assault in law, as Jacob was not so far from the person menaced, but that the feet of the stockings, if held by the other extremity, and projected from an extended arm, might possibly have reached him; and a pair of long-worn yarn stockings, might, from daily alluvian, have acquired somewhat of the properties of a cudgel. But moments of peevishness were allowable to our host; since, though we had for some time been consuming his provisions, he had never seen a penny of our money, and it was somewhat doubtful, to say the truth, whether he ever would; for, considering the contractors for our boarding liable for it, we never thought of paying it ourselves.

As the Low Dutch are a people little known in Pennsylvania, and more especially, as it is my avowed intention to advert to the character of the time, this sketch of their domestic economy and manners may not be thought impertinent. In a word, from what I saw of them on Long Island, I was led to consider them as a people, quiet and inoffensive beyond any I had seen; such, from whom no enthusiastic efforts, either of good or evil tendency, were to be looked for; who were neither prolific of Catos nor Catilines; and who, had they been the sole occupants of this great continent of ours, would still have been colonists, and never known what it was to be independent republicans. Their religious, like their other habits, were unostentatious and plain; and a silent grace'

Mrs. GRANT, in her "Memoirs of an American Lady." speaking of the state of religion among the settlers about Albany, says, "Their religion, like their original national character, had in it little of fervor or enthusiasm; their manner of performing religious duties was regular and decent, but calm, and to more ardent imaginations might appear mechanical. None ever doubted of the great truths of revelation, yet few seemed to dwell on the result with that lively delight which devotion produces in minds of keener sensibility. If their piety, however, was without enthusiasm, it was also without bigotry; they wished others to think as they did, without showing rancour or contempt towards those who did

before meat, prevailed at the table of Jacob Suydam. When we were all seated, he suddenly clasped his hands together, threw his head on one side, closed his eyes, and remained mute and motionless for about a minute. His niece and nephew followed his example; but with such an eager solicitude that the copied attitude should be prompt and simultaneous, as to give an air of absurdity to what might otherwise have been very decent. Although little of the vernacular accent remained on the tongue of these people, they had some peculiarities in their phraseology. Among these, instead of asking you to sit, or sit down to table, they invited you to sit by; and this I even observed in General Schuyler, when I was at Lake George. It might be asked by a stickling New Yorker, if "sit by" is not as proper, and even more so, than sit down," which, in strictness, is a redundancy.

ORATORY.-FROM NOTES OF A DESULTORY READER.

Ben Jonson thus speaks of the eloquence of Lord Bacon: "There happened in my time one noble speaker (Lord Verulam) who was full of gravity in his speaking. His language, where he could spare or pass by a jest, was nobly censorious. No man ever spake more neatly, more prestly, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness in what he uttered. No member of his speech but consisted of his own graces. His hearers could not cough or look aside from him without loss. He commanded where he spoke; and had his judges angry or pleased at his devotion. The fear of every one that heard him was, lest he should make an end."

This is certainly high praise; but there has been no time or place, perhaps, in which eloquent men have not appeared, upon whom some of their cotemporaries might not be disposed to pass an equally Lord Bolingbroke has been extolled as unrivalled: lofty panegyric. The parliamentary oratory of so, in later times, have been the speeches of Lords Chatham and Mansfield by their respective friends; and still more recently, those of Burke, Pitt, Fox, Sheridan, Erskine, and Curran.

It seems to be matter of just regret, that we have no method of perpetuating the merit of those who have excelled in this captivating art. The genius of the writer is displayed in his works; that of the painter in his pictures; that of the composer of music in the note-book which records the "concords of sweet sounds," of which he has been the eliciter or combiner. But, if even the words of the orator are preserved, his manner, his voice, his tones, his looks, his gestures, are lost to future ages; and the circumstances which constitute the essence of his art, his action, never go down to posterity. Hence it is that the comparative excellence of Demosthenes and Cicero, and that of the other great names which have been mentioned, cannot be estimated; and for the same reason, no scale can be established whereby to determine the relative merits of the "well graced actors," of past times with those of the present, or one with the other, of those who have left the scene. Whether, therefore, with due allowance for national manners and tastes, Le Kain and Clairon of the French stage, were superior to Garrick and Siddons of the English; or whether Betterton, the paragon of his day, was superior, or in any degree comparable to Garrick, the paragon of his, must ever remain a mere matter of conjecture, as probably it

not. In many individuals, whose lives seemed governed by the principles of religion, the spirit of devotion seemed to be quiescent in the heart, and to break forth in exigencies; yet that monster in nature, an impious woman, was never heard of among them."

would be of dispute were they all alive and marshalled for comparison before the most exquisitely refined audience that ever crowded a theatre.

But it is further to be remarked, that there is a fashion in these things, as in all others that are the objects of taste; and that what is called a new school is nothing more than a new fashion, which puts down an old one. They who will not accede to this, but insist that every innovation is an improvement, are advocates for human perfectibility, or at least for man's continued progression towards perfection-a doctrine in which, however well disposed to acquiesce in the orthodoxy of new schools, and new modes, and new fashions, I must profess myself a sceptic. Hence, though I might be disposed to believe that Garrick was a better actor than any of his predecessors, that belief would not be at all founded on the circumstance of his coming after them. This celebrated performer has indeed the credit of correcting some of the acknowledged errors of the English stage, particularly the starch and formal manner of its declamation; and a similar reform, we are told by Marmontel, was, through his suggestion, effected by Clairon in France. But there may be room for doubting whether, by Garrick, the innovation was not carried too far, since it has been said, that the poetry of English tragedy, from the adoption of his manner, has been utterly disregarded through an extreme sedulity to copy nature: For, without recurring to Voltaire's strong illustration of neanmoins je porte les culottes, I take it for granted it will be ceded; that tragedy should be written in verse, and that the heroes of this sort of drama should continue to mouth heroics, the natural propensity of human beings to hold discourses in humble prose notwithstanding.

NOVELS.

No one, I believe, reads less for the sake of a story than myself; of course, I am but a poor novel reader, and never complain that Tristram Shandy has no story at all. In a book I look for thought, sentiment, language, humour, wit, and sometimes instruction; if it has these I care little for the tale; though no doubt where this is the main object it ought to be a good one. But, of all things, in a novel or play, I hate a series of perplexities and cross accidents; for which reason, however admiring Miss Burney's talent for painting life and drawing characters, I always get out of patience with her at the winding up of her plots, as then it is she never fails to pelt her poor hero or heroine with a tempest of unforeseen and distressing occurrences. When the reader, good easy man or woman, fancies that all difficulties at length are over, and is ready to join in congratulations with the wedding guests, already invited or about to be invited, there comes a frost, a nipping frost, and the already opening buds of connubial felicity are thrown back to undergo the process of a new vegetation.

But, of all productions, the most monstrous in my eyes are those in which fiction is engrafted on history. Let me have fact or fable, but not a preposterous mixture of both. There are many, however, who think differently, and I am by no means disposed to impugn the correctness of their opinion. Let each enjoy his own. De gustibus non est disputandum.

TIMOTHY DWIGHT.

THE first American ancestor of Timothy Dwight came from Dedham, England, to Dedham, Massachusetts, in 1637. Five generations intervened when the poet and theologian of the name was born, in the oldest male line, at Northampton, Mass., May 14, 1752. His father was a mer

Bright

Timothy Quizst

chant of the town and a graduate of Yale; his mother was the third daughter of the metaphysician Jonathan Edwards-so Dwight came in regular succession to his future reputation, and he probably owed much of it directly to this lady, for he received his early education at home. His mother taught him the alphabet in one lesson, and he read the Bible when he was but four years of age. Latin he studied by himself at six, and would have been ready for college at eight, had not his school been discontinued when he came home to learn his favorite studies of geography and history from his mother. He entered Yale College when he was thirteen, in 1765, where for the first two years, it is said by one of his biographers, that, "through the folly of youth much of his time was misspent," a statement which is explained by an intimation from another biographer that gambling was a vice of the place, and that Dwight, though he played for amusement and never for money, let the sport engross too much of his time. At fifteen, however, he took up study in earnest, occupying fourteen hours a day with his books. He was graduated in 1769, and for two years was a teacher at New Haven, still continuing his studies. He then became a tutor in his college when he was nineteen, and began the composition of his poem the Conquest of Canaan. It was finished within three years, though not published till the conclusion of the Revolutionary war gave literature a hearing in 1785, when it appeared with a dedication to Washington. It was reprinted by J. Johnson, in London, in 1788. Dwight taught mathematics, rhetoric, and oratory, in the college for six years. His theme on taking his mastership of arts, was The History, Eloquence, and Poetry of the Bible, an oration, which was published at the time,*

A Dissertation on the History, Eloquence, and Poetry of the Bible, delivered at the Public Commencement at New Haven. New Haven: Thos. & Sam. Green. 1772. 8vo. pp. 16.