Were none put brutes to call that soil their home, But hush!-observe that little mount of pines, Cast off their monarch, that their mob might reign! How shall we rank thee upon Glory's page? While warmer souls command, nay, make their fate, Now turn thine eye where faint the moonlight falls O'er lake and marsh, through fevers and through fogs, On a small hill near the capitol, there is to be an equestrian statue of General Washington. In the ferment which the French revolution excited among the democrats of America, and the licentious sympathy with which they shared in the wildest excesses of jacobinism, we may find one source of that vulgarity of vice, that hostility to all the graces of life, which distinguishes the present demagogues of the United States, and bas While I, as oft, in witching thought shall rove THE SNAKE. 1801. My love and I, the other day, Within a myrtle arbour lay, When near us from a rosy bed, A little snake put forth its head. «See,» said the maid, with laughing eyes— << Yonder the fatal emblem lies! Never did moral thought occur In more unlucky hour than this; For oh! I just was leading her, To talk of love and think of bliss. I rose to kill the snake, but she In pity pray'd, it might not be. «No,» said the girl-and many a spark Flash'd from her eyelid, as she said it << Under the rose, or in the dark, One might, perhaps, have cause to dread it; But when its wicked eyes appear, And when we know for what they wink so, One must be very simple, dear, To let it sting one-don't you think so?»> LINES, WRITTEN ON LEAVING PHILADELPHIA. τηνδε την πολιν φίλως Ειπων επαξια γαρ. SOPHOCL. OEdip. Colon. v. 758. ALONE by the Schuylkill a wanderer roved, And he gazed on its flowery banks with a sigh! Oh Nature! though blessed and bright are thy rays, In a smile from the heart that is dearly our own! become indeed too generally the characteristic of their countrymen. -But there is another cause of the corruption of private morals, which, encouraged as it is by the government, and identified with the interests of the community, seems to threaten the decay of all honest principle in America. I allude to those fraudulent violations of neutrality to which they are indebted for the most lucrative part of their commerce, and by which they have so long infringed and counteracted the maritime rights and advantages of this country. This unwarrantable trade is necessarily abetted by such a system of collusion, imposture, and perjury, as caunot fail to spread rapid contamination around it. With a bright meteor-braid, Which, like an ever-springing wreath of vine, A thousand clustering blooms of light, When at home he shall talk of the toil he has known, Lay lovely, as when first the Syrens sung To tell, with a sigh, what endearments he met, As he stray'd by the wave of the Schuylkill alone! THE FALL OF HEBE. A DYTHYRAMBIC ODE.I 'T WAS on a day When the immortals at their banquet lay; Though I call this a Dithyrambic Ode, I cannot presume to say that it possesses, in any degree, the characteristics of that species of poetry. The nature of the ancient Dithyrambic is very imperfectly known. According to M. BURETTE, a licentious irregularity of metre, an extravagant research of thought and expression, and a rude embarrassed construction, are among its most distinguishing features. He adds, Ces caractères des dityrambes se font sentir à ceux qui lisent attentivement les Odes de Pindare.-Mémoires de l'Acad. vol. x. p. 306. And the same opinion may be collected from SCHMIDT'S Dissertation upon the subject. But I think, if the Dithyrambics of Pindar were in our possession, we should find that, however wild and fanciful, they were by no means the tasteless jargon they are represented, and that even their irregularity was what BOILEAU calls un beau désordre. CHIABRERA, who has been styled the Pindar of Italy, and from whom all its poetry upon the Greek model was called Chiabreresco (as CRESCIMBENI informs us, lib. i, cap. 12) has given, amongst his Vendemmie, a Ditbyrambic, all' uso de' Greci: it is full of those compound epithets which, we are told, were a chief character of the style (συνθέτους δε λέξεις εποιουν. SUID. Διθυραμβοδιδ.); such as Briglindorato Pegaso Nubicalpestator. But I cannot suppose that Pindar, even amidst all the license of dithyrambics, would ever have descended to ballad-language like the following: Bella Filli, e bella Clori Non più dar pregio a tue bellezze e taci, Che se Bacco fa vezzi alle mie labbra Fo le fiche a' vostri baci. esser vorrei Coppier, E se troppo desiro Deh fossi lo Bottiglier. Rime del CHIABRERA, part. ii, p. 352. This is a Platonic fancy; the philosopher supposes, in his Tmæus that, when the Deity had formed the soul of the world, he proceeded to the composition of other souls; in which process, says PLATO, he made use of the same cup, though the ingredients he mingled were not quite so pure as for the former; and having refined the mixture with a little of his own essence, he distributed it among the stars, which served as reservoirs of the fluid. Taut' ELTE και παλιν επί τον πρότερον κρατήρα εν ώ την του παντος ψυχην κεραννύς έμισγε, κ. τ. λ. a We learn from THEOPHRASTUS, that the roses of Cyrene were particularly fragrant. Ευοσμοτατα τα δε τα εν Κυρήνη ρόδα. Of dimpled Hebe, as she wing'd her feet Up The empyreal mount, To drain the soul-drops at their stellar fount; ' And still, As the resplendent rill Flamed o'er the goblet with a mantling heat, Her graceful care Would cool its heavenly fire In gelid waves of snowy-feather'd air, Such as the children of the pole respire, In those enchanted lands Where life is all a spring and north winds never blow! But oh! Sweet Hebe, what a tear And what a blush were thine, When, as the breath of every Grace Along the studded sphere, With a rich cup for Jove himself to drink, Amid the liquid sparkles of the morn! Upon a diamond shrine! The wanton wind, Which had pursued the flying fair, And sweetly twined Its spirit with the breathing rings Of her ambrosial hair, Soar'd as she fell, and on its ruffling wings (Oh wanton wind!) Heraclitus (Physicus) held the soul to be a spark of the stellar essence: Scintilla stellaris essentia.-MACROBIUS, in Somn. Scip. lib. i, cap. 14. The country of the Hyperboreans; they were supposed to be placed so far north that the north wind could not affect them ;— they lived longer than any other mortals; passed their whole time in music and dancing, etc. etc. But the most extravagant fiction related of them is that to which the two lines preceding allude. It was imagined that instead of our vulgar atmosphere, the Hyperboreans breathed nothing but feathers! According to HERODOTUS and PLINY, this idea was suggested by the quantity of snow which was observed to fall in those regions; thus the former, Tz wy птερа еixαζοντας την χιονα τους Σκύθας τε και τους περιοίκους δοκέω λεγειν.—HERODOT. lib. iv, cap. 31. Orio tells the fable otherwise see Metamorph. lib. xv. Mr O'Halloran, and some other Irish Antiquarians, have been at great expense of learning to prove that the strange country, where they took snow for feathers, was Ireland, and that the famous Abaris was an Irish Druid. Mr Rowland, however, will have it, that Abaris was a Welshman, and that his name is only a corruption of Ap Rees! 3 I believe it is SERVIUS who mentions this unlucky trip which Hebe made in her occupation of cup-bearer; and HOFFMAN tells it after him: Cum Hebe pocula Jovi administrans, perque lubricum minus caute incedens, cecidisset, revolutisque vestibus in short, she fell in a very awkward manner, and though (as the Encyclopéd istes think) it would have amused Jove at any other time, yet, as he happened to be out of temper on that day, the poor girl was dismissed from her employment. Fell glowing through the spheres, Now, with a humid kiss, Of heaven's illumined lyre, 3 That whisper from the planets as they roll, Descending through the waste of night, The child of day, Within his twilight bower, Lay sweetly sleeping On the flush'd bosom of a lotos-flower; 4 The arcane symbols of this ceremony were deposited in the cista, where they lay religiously concealed from the eyes of the profane. They were generally carried in the procession by an ass; and hence portat mysteria.-See the Divine Legation, book ii, sect. 4. the proverb, which one may so often apply in the world, asinus In the Geoponica, lib. ii, cap. 17, there is a fable somewhat like this descent of the nectar to earth. Εν ουρανῳ των θεών εντ χουμένων, και του νεκταρος πολλού παρακειμένου, ανασκιρτηται χορεια τον Έρωτα και σύσσεισαι τῷ πτέρω του κρατήρος την βασιν, και περιτρέψαι μεν αυτόν το δε νεκταρ εις την γην εκχυθέν, κ. τ. λ. See Autor, de Re Rust, edit. Cantab. 1704. 3 The constellation Lyra. The astrologers attribute great virtues to this sign in ascendenti, which are enumerated by PONTANO, in his Urania: ----Ecce novem cum pectine chordas 4 The Egyptians represented the dawn of day by a young boy seated upon a lotos. Είτε Αιγυπτους έωρακως αρχήν ανατολής παιδιου νεογνού γράφοντας επί λωτῳ κατ CoμEVO. PLUTARCH. περί του μη χραν εμμετρ See also his treatise de Isid. et Osir. Observing that the lotos showed its head above water at sun-rise, and sank again at his setting, they conceived the idea of consecrating it to Osiris, or the sun. This symbol of a youth sitting upon a fotos, is very frequent on the Abraxases, or Basilidian stones.-See MONTFAUCON, tom. ii, planche 158, and the Supplément, etc. tom. ii, lib. vii, chap. 5. The ancients esteemed those flowers and trees the sweetest upon which the rainbow had appeared to rest: and the wood they chiefly burned in sacritices, was that which the smile of Iris had consecrated. -PLUTARCH. Sympos. lib. iv, cap. 2, where (as Vossius remark.) xatovat, instead of xzhoust, is undoubtedly the genuine readin -See Vossics for some curious particularities of the rainbow, De Ori gin. et Progress. Idololat, lib. iii, cap. 13. No, no, be happy-dry that tear- Though the whole world may freeze around thee, Which, bright, within the crystal's sphere In liquid purity was found, Though all had grown congeal'd around; pure, I was soft, was brilliant still! 1 This alludes to a curious gem, upon which Claudian has left us some pointless epigrams. It was a drop of pure water inclosed within a piece of crystal.-See CLAUDIAN. Epigram. de Chrystallo cui aqua inerat. ADDISON mentions a curiosity of this kind at Milan; he also says, It is such a rarity as this that I saw at Vendôme in France, which they there pretend is a tear that our Saviour shed over Lazarus, and was gathered up by an angel, who put it in a little crystal vial and made a present of it to Mary Magdalen.-ADDISON'S Remarks on several Parts of Italy. HYMN OF A VIRGIN OF DELPHI, AT THE TOMB OF HER MOTHER. On! lost, for ever lost!-no more To hymn the fading fires of day! In holy musings shall we roam, Through summer's glow and winter's gale, To bear the mystic chaplets home! 'T was then my soul's expanding zeal, By Nature warm'd and led by thee, In every breeze was taught to feel The breathings of a deity! Guide of my heart! to memory true, Thy looks, thy words, are still my ownI see thee raising from the dew Some laurel, by the wind o'erthrown, Shall flourish on the Delphic shrine! Though sunk awhile the spirit lies, A viewless hand shall cull it thence, To bloom immortal in the skies!» Thy words had such a melting flow, And spoke of truth so sweetly well, They dropp'd like heaven's serenest snow, And all was brightness where they fell. Fond soother of my infant tear! Fond sharer of my infant joy! When meeting on the sacred mount, And danced around Cassotis' fount; As then, 't was all thy wish and care That mine should be the simplest mien, My lyre and voice the sweetest there, My foot the lightest o'er the green; So still, each little grace to mould, Around my form thine eyes are shed, Arranging every snowy fold, tread! And guiding every mazy Flow, Plistus, flow! thy murmuring wave Shall never drop its silvery tear Upon so pure, so blest a grave, 'The laurel, for the common uses of the temple, for adorning the altars and sweeping the pavement, was supplied by a tree near the fountain of Castalia: but upon all important occasions, they sent to Tempe for their laurel. We find in PAUSANIAS, that this valley supplied the branches of which the temple was originally constructed; and PLUTARCH says, in his Dialogue on Music, The youth who brings the Tempic laurel toDelphi is always attended by a player on the flute, Αλλα μην και την κατακομίζοντι παιδί την Τεμπικήν δαφνην εις Δελφους παρομαρτει αυλητης. RINGS AND SEALS. Ώσπερ σφραγιδες τα φιλήματα. Go!" said the angry, weeping maid, The charm is broken!-once betray'd, Oh! never can my heart rely On word or look, on oath or sigh. I took the ring-the scal I took, And then the ring-my love! recal How many rings, delicious all, His arms around that neck have twisted, Twining warmer far than this did! Where are they all, so sweet, so many? Oh! dearest, give back all, if any! While thus I murmur'd, trembling too I saw a smile relenting rise TO MISS SUSAN B--CKF——D. I MORE than once have heard, at night, Who seem'd, like thee, to breathe of Heaven! There are gardens, supposed to be those of King Solomon, in the neighbourhood of Bethlehem. The friars show a fountain, which they say is the sealed fountain' to which the holy spouse in the Can ticles is compared and they pretend a tradition, that Solomon shut up these springs and put his signet upon the door, to keep them τor his own drinking MANDELL's Travels. See also the Notes 10 Mr Good's Translation of the Song of Solomon. |