We are further told that Milton, eager from this moment to discover the fair incognita, travelled, but in vain, through every part of Italy; that his poetic fervour became incessantly more and more heated by the idea which he had formed of his unknown admirer; and that it is in some degree to her, that posterity ought to feel indebted for several of the most impassioned and charming passages of "Paradise

Lost."

This anecdote has been so often related, that it has almost assumed the dignity of an historical fact; but that it is most probably the fiction of fancy, appears from the preface to the "Poesies de Madame de Surville," where similar circumstances, even to quatre vers Italiens, are related of Luis de Puytendre.

The poetical fervour of Milton is better accounted for by Miss Seward, who closes her relation of the anecdote with the following beautiful thought:

"Thrice happy wound!

Given by his sleeping graces, as the fair

Hung over them enamour'd. The desire

Thy fond result inspir'd, that wing'd them there,
Where breath'd each Roman and each Tuscan lyre,
Might haply fan the emulative flame,

That rose o'er Dante's song, and rivall'd Maro's fame."

RETURN TO SAVAGE LIFE.

A true Indian Story.

PETER ORSAQUETTE was the son of a man of consideration among the Oneida Indians, and was classed among a division of them designated by the appellation of the Wolf Tribe. At the close of the revolutionary war, he was noticed by the marquis de la Fayette, a nobleman who, to martial prowess and a noble zeal for liberty, united the most philanthropic feelings. After the successful struggle for independence had terminated, it appeared as if the marquis still aimed at the extension of further benefits to that country, towards the emancipation of which he had so materially contributed. Viewing, therefore, this young savage with peculiar interest, and anticipating the happy results to be derived from his moral regeneration, he determined, though he was scarcely twelve years old, to take him to France. He arrived at that period when Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette were still in the zenith of their glory. He was there taught every accom

plishment of a gentleman; no care was spared in giving him every necessary instruction; and to this was added the study of music, drawing, and fencing; and he danced with a grace that a Vestris could not but admire. At about eighteen, the period of his separation from a country in which he had spent his time so agreeably and so profitably, became necessary, and, laden with favours from the marquis, and the miniatures of those friends he left behind, he departed for America. He was buoyed up, perhaps, with the idea that the deep ignorance in which the nation to which he belonged was buried, as well as the Indians of the whole continent, might be dispelled by his efforts, and that he might thus become the proud instrument of the civilization of thousands. He came, soon after his arrival, to the city of Albany-not the uncivilized savage-not with any of those marks which bespoke a birth in the forest-or years spent toiling through the wilds of an uncultivated country -but possessing a fine commanding figure, an expressive countenance, and an intelligent eye, with a face scarcely indicative of the race from which he was descended. He presented, at this period, an interesting spectacle. A child of the wilderness was beheld about to proceed to the home of his forefathers, having received the brilliant advantages of a cultivated mind, and on his way to impart the benefits which civilization had given him, to the nation that owned him. It was an opportunity for the philosopher to contemplate, and to reflect on the anticipations of the future good this young Indian might be the means of producing. Shortly after he arrived in Albany, where he visited among the first families, he took advantage of governor Clinton's journey to Fort Stanwix, to make a treaty with the Indians, to return to his tribe. On the route, Orsaquette amused the company, (among whom were the French minister, count Moustiers, and several gentlemen of respectability,) by his powers on various instruments of music. At Fort Stanwix, after a long absence of several years, he found himself again with the companions of his early days, who saw and recognized him; his friends and relations had not forgotten him, and he was welcomed to his home and to his blanket.

But what occurred soon after his reception, led but to a too fearful anticipation of an unsuccessful project; for the Oneidas, as if they could not acknowledge Orsaquette, attired in the dress he appeared in before them, and thinking he had assumed it out of shame for the garb and habiliments of his ancestors, tore it from him with a fiend-like ferociousness; daubed on the very paint to which he had been so long unused, and clothed him with the uncouth garments which the tribe held sacred. Their fiery impetuosity, in the

( 1

performance of the act, showed but too well the bold stand they were about to make against the innovations they supposed Orsaquette was to be the means of introducing into their customs and manners, which, from the venerable antiquity of their structure, it would be sacrilege to destroy. The reformed savage was taken back again to his native barbarity, and, as if to complete the climax of degradation to a mind just susceptible of its own powers, was married.

From that day, he was no longer the accomplished Indian, by whom every wish of philanthropy was expected to be realized; he was no longer the instrument by whose power the emancipation of his countrymen from the thraldom of ignorance and superstition was to be effected. From the day Örsaquette was again an inmate of the forest, he was once more buried in his original obscurity,-his nation only viewed him as an equal; and even the liberal grant of the state failed of giving him that superior consideration among them, which his civilization had procured for him with the rest of mankind. The superiority acquired from instruction, which, it was expected, would have excited the emulation of all around him, became of no effect, either from the natural inferiority of the savage mind, or the predetermination of his countrymen, and, in a little time, was wholly destroyed. Orsaquette was lost! His moral perdition began from the hour he left Fort Stanwix. Scarcely three months had transpired, before intemperance had marked him for its own, and soon hurried him to the grave; and, as if the very transition had deadened all the finer feelings of his nature, the picture the marquis gave him—the very picture of his affectionate friend, he parted with.

Poor youth! we cannot refrain from letting a tear fall to thy memory. In the downfal of our high-raised expectations, you stand before us, as a melancholy though forcible illustration, that "our thoughts, our morals, and our most fixed belief, are consequences of our place of birth." How short was the period of thy return! Scarcely had we, in suffering our imaginations the fullest freedom, looked into futurity, and unveiled a picture, in the contemplation of which our hearts had expanded;-scarcely had we, at the sight, enjoyed a noble feast,-before the picture itself is destroyed, leaving behind only a few recollections of its vivid colours. To him, the short-lived pleasures of the world "passed like fleeting dreams." One day, a civilized Indian, proud of the awakened faculties of his mind-the next, an unrecognized wreck of his former self!

APOLOGUE AFTER THE MANNER OF THE RIGHTS OF MAN.

Ar the time, when the prosecution of Paine's Rights of Man had given them a celebrity and a circulation, which they would otherwise never have obtained, a better method was resorted to for combating the principles of the work, by turning them into ridicule. This was done by Mr. (afterwards baron) Smith, who published in the Dublin Freeman's Journal, the following smart Apologue.

RIGHTS OF WATERS.

A Fable.

Intended as a Companion to Paine's Fable of the Rights of Man. Flumina: quid rides? Mutato nomine, de te

Fabula narratur.-HOR.

From that famed well my watery precepts glide,
Where Naiad Truth is stated to reside.

Laugh not, ye wild Reformists; those who view
My streams with care, will see reflected—you.

IN I know not what century after the flood, (the reader can look into Blair's tables of chronology,) a spirit of tumult and philosophy is said to have moved upon the face of the waters. Rivers, which (could it be from the want of all reflection?) had been quietly gliding within their banks for ages, now discovered themselves to be in such a state of depravity, as required a recurrence to first principles for its cure; and Rights of Waters were making a rapid progress through the globe. It was argued, that this confinement within banks was a restraint which they had heedlessly imposed upon themselves, contrary to the liberal intentions of Nature. They were created fountains, with equal natural rights; and deemed it expedient to go back to their sources, as the only means of accurate investigation. They could not see why some particles of water should be thrust down by others no better than themselves, Their forerunners, it was true, had been submitting to this coercion time out of mind. But what was this to them? The rights of living waters must not be thus controlled and sported away. (1) Divisions of water, into lakes and rivers, springs and puddles, they unanimously decried, as mere artificial and aristocratical distinc

(1) Paine's fable of the Rights of Man.

tions; and pushed their researches to that early period, when water came from the hands of its Maker. What was it then? Water. Water was its high and only title. (2)

Now, a rumour went, that in the days of Noah, a great aquatic revolution had taken place; when all things were reduced to a philosophic level; beneath the sanction of which precedent, it was agreed on by the rivers, that they would not any longer be imprisoned within banks, nor driven headlong in one direction, at the arbitrary will of fountains, but would shed their last drop in asserting the rights of

waters.

Obscure as to his origin, (3) ungovernable in his temper, and a leveller in principles, Nilus led the way, and Egypt was covered with an inundation. Every cultivated inequality was overwhelmed, and all distinctions levelled to uniformity. Nature was supposed to have resumed her rights, and Philosophy admired the grand simplicity of ruin! When, lo! the tide of tumult ebbed, and eminences were seen to get their heads above water. The party was daily continuing to gain ground, and all things tended to a counter revolution. What had first been deemed the effort of enlightened virtue, was now looked on as the rush of vulgar and inconsiderate violence. What originally seemed calculated to promote the views of Nature, was now seen to be directed in opposition to her will; while events had, in the mean time, been suggesting her omnipotence that to combat her was dangerous, and to conquer her impossible. (4)

Such was the result, and the moral of this enterprise. His forces all subdued-impoverished and languid, the baffled Nile retreated to his channel, after having, by his hostile descent, reluctantly served and strengthened the landed interests of Egypt; though, like the commotions of the Seine, (5) this also produced monsters. (6)

(2) "If we proceed on, we shall at last come out right. We shall come to the time when man came from the hands of his Maker. What was he then? Man; Man was his high and only title."-Paine's Rights of Man.

(3) Arcanum Natura caput non prodidit ulli;

Nec licuit populis parvum te, Nile, videre.-LUCAN.

(4) Expellas licet-usque recurrit.

(5) An allusion to the consequences of the then recent French revolution.

(6) The mud deposited by the Nile was supposed to engender monsters.