ΤΟ HIS SERENE HIGHNESS THE DUKE OF MONTPENSIER, ON HIS Portrait of the Lady Adelaide F=rb=s. Donington Park, 1802. To catch the thought, by painting's spell, The silent story of the mind; Her evening blushes, ere they fade! And these, oh Prince! are richly thine! Yet, yet, when Friendship sees thee trace, The sweet memorial of a face On which her eye delights to rest; While o'er the lovely look serene, The smile of peace, the bloom of youth, The eye, that tells the bosom's truth; She feels the value of thy art, Than critic taste can ever feel! THE PHILOSOPHER ARISTIPPUS.* ΤΟ A Lamp which was given him by Lals. DULCIS CONSCIA LECTULI LUCERNA. “Он! love the Lamp" (my Mistress said), "Beside thy Lais' lonely bed "Has kept its little watch of light! "Full often has it seen her weep, "And fix her eye upon its flame, It was not very difficult to become a philosopher amongst the ancients. A moderate store of learning, with a considerable portion of confidence, and wit enough to produce an occasional apophthegm, were all the necessary qualifications for the purpose. The principles of moral science were so very imperfectly understood that the founder of a new sect, in forming his ethical code, might consult either fancy or temperament, and adapt it to his own passions and propensities; so that Mahomet, with a little more learning, might have flourished as a philosopher in those days, and would have required but the polish of the schools to become the rival of Aristippus in morality. In the science of nature too, though they discovered some valuable truths, yet they seemed not to know they were truths, or at least were as well satisfied with errors; and Xenophanes, who asserted that the stars were igneous clouds, lighted up every night and extinguished again in the morning, was thought and styled a philosopher, as generally as he who anticipated Newton in developing the arrangement of the universe. For this opinion of Xenophanes, see Plutarch de Placit. Philosoph. Lib. ii. Cap. 13. It is impossible to read this treatise of Plutarch, without alternately admiring the genius, and smiling at the absurdities of the philosophers. "Till, weary, she has sunk to sleep, "Oft has it known her cheek to burn "Whene'er those darling eyes shall read "Of things sublime, of nature's birth, "Of all that's bright in heaven or earth, Oh! think that she, by whom 'twas given, "Adores thee more than earth or heaven!" Yes dearest Lamp! by every charm The heaving bosom, partly hid, By these, by all that bloom untold, I'll love my little Lamp of gold, My Lamp and I shall never part! And often, as she smiling said, In fancy's hour, thy gentle rays Through poesy's enchanting maze! Thy flame shall light the page refin'd, 1 1 The ancients had their lucernae cubiculariae or bedchamber lamps, which as the Emperor Galienus said "nil cras meminere; and, with the same commendation of secrecy, Praxagora addresses her lamp in Aristophanes, Ezzλys. We may judge how fanciful they were, in the use and embellishment of their lamps, from the famous symbolic Lucerna, which we find in the Romanum Museum Mich. Ang. Causei, p. 127. 2 Hesiod, who tells us in melancholy terms of his father's flight to the wretched village of Ascra. Εργ. και Ημερ. v. 251. 3 Εννυχια στειχον, περικαλλεα όσσαν ιείσαι. Theog. v. 10. 4 Και μοι σκηπτρον εδον, δαφνης εριθήλεα οζον. Ιὰ ν. 30. 5 Рew Ta olα noтаμov dizηy, as expressed among the dogmas of Heraclitus the Ephesian, and with the same image by Seneca, in whom we find a beautiful diffusion of the thought. "Nemo est mane, qui fait pridie. Corpora nostra rapiuntur fluminum more; quidquid vides, currit cum tempore. Nihil ex his quae videmus manet. Ego ipse, dum loquor mutari ipsa, mutatus sum," &c. I'll tell thee, as I trim thy fire, "Swift, swift the tide of being runs, Then far be all the wisdom hence, And all the lore, whose tame control At which the young, the panting soul Of thoughtful lore and studies sage, To find their future orbs of rest; Of those delights we both have known, Form'd to be felt by us alone! 1 Aristippus considered motion as the principle of happiness, in which idea he differed from the Epicureans, who looked to a state of repose as the only true voluptuousness, and avoided even the too lively agitations of pleasure, as a violent and ungraceful derangement of the senses. 2 Maupertuis has been still more explicit than this philosopher, in ranking the pleasures of sense above the sublimest pursuits of wisdom. Speaking of the infant man, in his production, he calls him, "une nouvelle créature, qui pourra comprendre les choses les plus subliet ce qui est bien au-dessus, qui pourra goûter les mêmes plaisirs." See his Vénus Physique. This appears to be one of the efforts at Fontenelle's gallantry of manner, which the learned President is so well ridiculed in the Akakia of Voltaire. mes, for Maupertuis may be thought to have borrowed from the ancient Aristippus that indiscriminate theory of pleasures which he has set forth in his Essai de Philosophie Morale, and for which he was so very justly condemned. Aristippus, according to Laërtius, held un Siaprosiv Te dovηv ýdorns, which irrational sentiment has been adopted by Maupertuis: "Tant qu'on ne considère que l'état présent, tous les plaisirs sont du même genre," &c. &c. And I shall mark her kindling cheek, The murmur'd sounds so dear to love! In that one moment waits for me! ΤΟ MRS. BL-H-D. WRITTEN IN HER ALBUM. Τουτο δε τι εστι το ποτον; πλανη, εφη. Cebetis Tabula. THBY say that Love had once a book Or thought profane should enter there. And sweetly did the pages fill With fond device and loving lore, And every leaf she turn'd was still More bright than that she turn'd before! Beneath the touch of Hope, how soft, Which Love had still to smooth again! And so it chanc'd, one luckless night The honey from the leaf to drink, And Fancy's emblems lost their glow, What Love himself had lately trac'd! Of all the pages spoil'd by Pleasure, I know not if this tale be true, But thus the simple facts are stated; Since Love and you are near related! 'Tis evening now; the heats and cares of day In twilight dews are calmly wept away. The lover now, beneath the western star, And fills the ears of some consenting she With puffs and vows, with smoke and constancy! Where blest he wooes some black Aspasia's grace, In fancy now, beneath the twilight gloom, they see, 1 The "black Aspasia" of the present *********** of the United States, "inter Avernales haud ignotissima nymphas" has given rise to much pleasantry among the anti-democrat wits in America. 2 On the original location of the ground now allotted for the seat of the Federal City (says Mr. Weld) the identical spot on which the capitol now stands was called Rome. This anecdote is related by many as a certain prognostic of the future magnificence of this city, which is to be, as it were, a second Rome." Weld's Travels, Letter iv. 3 A little stream runs through the city, which, with intolerable affectation, they have styled the Tiber. It was originally called Goose-Creek. 4 "To be under the necessity of going through a deep wood for one or two miles, perhaps, in order to see a next-door neighbour, and in the same city, is a curious, and, I believe, a novel circumstance." Weld, Letter iv. The Federal City (if it must be called a city) has not been much increased since Mr. Weld visited it. Most of the public buildings, which were then in some degree of forwardness, have been since utterly suspended. The Hotel is already a ruin; a great part of its roof has fallen in, and the rooms are left to be occupied gratuitously by the miserable Scotch and Irish emigrants. The President's House, a very noble structure, is by no means suited to the philosophical humility of its present possessor, who inhabits but a corner of the mansion himself, and abandons the rest to a state of uncleanly desolation, which those who are not philosophers cannot look at without regret. This grand edifice is encircled by a very rude pale, through which |