POETRY. AN INSCRIPTION. Teafe, beneath the green-wood fhade re A clin'd I hate the pleafures of the fmiling day: Feariels of future ill my mind; Artlets my rural lay. How mild the feafon! while the gentle gale Wak'd from the embraces of yon opening blooms, Waits thro' the windings of the vale The freth-exhal'd perfumes." Free as he flutters, waves his filken wings Now ruitles in the fhade. So ree, thy bleflings, Peace of mind! fo free, By wealth unpurchas'd, unfeduc'd by guile, Thy pleating converie, eafy glee, And thine enchanting fmile! Oft as I wander in the graffy dale A CHARM FOR ENNUI. NATURE THE BEST PHYSICIAN. Bladud's old city, furrounded by hills, the always heads, fic oit kills, phy Lives a fam'd Jewith doctor (not one of the rabbies) Erjan the femmes couvertes to have all the head. No glafs overflow'd with her name as a toast: Though no charms her hard features were form'd to expreis, Yet her head was a proverb in luftre of drefs; When trizz'd to extent, with her jewels adorning Appear'd like a beth in a dew-fpangled morning. Thus dizen'd and stiffen'd the came from a ball, Where lords, rogues, and pimps, from the great to the fmall, Charlotte. With a fmall fquad of virgins, and many a harlot, Met to dance, play, and chatter, in honour of [their eyes The poppy-crown'd god had not long clos'd Ere the doctor's proteifion oblig'd him to rife. "Poor old Sir John Dory is at his laft breath, If your kill, my good doctor, can't bail him from death.' In great haite and darknefs he cover'd his pate, Not with his own major, but his wife's fhining [bw tete, And thus fallied forth-"Oh! I fear 'tis all hol(Quoth the doctor) good nurse, for Sir John cannot fwallow," LOND. MAG. Oct. 1783. Never liften, like Eve, to the devil Ennui. Let no gloom of your hall, no fhade of your bower Make you think you behold this malevolent power. Like a child in the dark, what you tear you will fee; Take courage, away flies the phantom Ennui. Oh! truft me, the powers both of perfon and mind To defeat this fly toe full fufficient you'll find; Should your eyes fail to kill him, with keen re partee You can link the flat boat of th' invader Ennui, Of tender complainings, though love be the theme, O beware, my fweet friends, 'is a dangerous scheme; And tho' often 'tis try'd, mark the pauvre mari Thus by friendship enclos'd in the coop of Enni. Let confidence, rifing fuch meannefs above, Drown the difcord of doubt in the mufic of love; Your duet thall thus charm in the natural key, No fharps from vexation, no flats from Ennui. But to you, happy husbands, in matters more nice The mufe, tho' a maiden, now offers advice; 322 Though Love to your lips fill with nectar his But the lark in the morn 'fcapes the demon Ex- How will my ardent foul rejoice No let me rather meet my fate, EPISTLE III. 1. C. From a Gentleman to his Lady and Daughter *. A Sage antiquarian faid 'twere high treafon To be abfent from home, but one night, in But how do the ladies when abfent behave? And preferve your chaite flame from the fmoke of I'll tell you, quoth madam, how that matter itand. : Ennui. THE SHEPHERD'S RETURN. A The glory of the rural train, Appears, in all the bloom of youth, With panting heart, and trembling pace, Of every dearest wish poffeft, What unfelt raptures fwell my breaft: REPLY. YE geds, are all my terrors vain, W. R. "You know we have promifed to keep your commands, And fo 'tis the duty of every good wife We do not, from vanity, try to reveal it, [it." in't, For thefe honeft fellows fay nothing in print nation. I wish, when thus bufied in annihilation, * See our Magazine for Auguft, 1. 129. (Of talents fo fhining, is this the rewar!!) Pray tell him one Herfchel, ý first time you meet, A farthing, fince y we have found is much bigger. If aught about phyfick the Doctor should ask, That Price, the great adept, tranfmuter of metals, SONG, By the late DUKE of DORSET. WAINS, I hate the boisterous fair, SWA Who bold atlume a manly air; Soft, unaffected, gentle be, Let her not boaft, like man, to dare With gentler fports delighted be From airs, from flights, from vapours free; From all fantastic fashions free, } My fheep, by their fhepherd forfook, Would complain the dull hours away. Alas! filly fwain, how I burn'd, Sure paffion like mine ne'er appear'd; When abient, her abfence I mourn'd, When prefent, her abfence I fear'd. But now all this folly is o'er, Since Phoebe to me has prov'd kind, I figh and I languish no more, But contentment in every thing find Full joy in her prefence I have, But her abfence now breaks not my reft; For with her dear perfon fhe gave Me her heart, to lock up in my breast. Oh! how chearful my flocks now I guide, At noon where to taite the fresh streams, Whilft I fing to the tune of Tweed Side, On the pleafanter banks of the Thames. OCCASIONAL PROLOGUE to the FOUNDLING, acted at the Theatre-Royal in York, for the benefit of the LUNATIC ASYLUM. Written by Mr. KEMBLE. FO'er Britain's ille tweet Pity calt her eyeROM the mild regions of her native sky, She caft-and Sorrow heav'd her melting breaft, As to her view pale Sickness stood confeft. Here treacherous Wafle attains her end by ftealth, And, flatt'ring, flowly faps the base of health; There Fevers thoot thro' every fwelling vein, Now fire the lawless blood, now rack the brain. Daughter of Hell, a dirur fiend than War, With hafty ftride, Plague ruthes from afar! Her favage pleafare grows on fpreading death, And parent nations orphan'd by her breath. Who fits on yonder ftone, with hollow eye And hand out-ftretch'd, imploring charity? 'Tis hungry Famine Thou thaltalk no more," Cry'd one but die, and fhame that rich man's door." Who was 't fo cry'd?-The monarch of the dead, She fpoke, and roaming Frenzy darted by, Sung to the moon of “ Margret's grimly ghost," O: Henry's broken vows, and Emma loft. Here Pity wept, and from her tears arofe A kind ASYLUM for the mad-one's woes. Hail to the wond'rous arts that can difpenfe The genial floods of renovated fente! And blettings crown your breafts who feel thefe PHILOSOPHY. ON THE ECONOMY OF THE UNIVERSE. TRANSLATED FROM THE SWEDISH OF SIR TORBERN BERGMAN, PROFESSOR AT UPSAL. W Confiderations of this kind muft certainly fuffice to humble our pride, and eradicate that prefumptuous notion that the whole of this prodigious and mafterly contrivance of the creation was undertaken and completed purely for the fake of man. This idea is juft as abfurd as the pretenfions of the Troglodytes, who maintain, that the earth was made entirely for them. But however small and inconfiderable our earth may appear under this point of view; on a clofer infpection, it proves an unfathomable abyfs, far beyond the limits of all human penetration. We are able to determine the figure, fize, and motion of the planets; to calculate the courfe of their fatellites; to weigh, as it were in a balance, the mountains of the moon, and even to mark out a path for the comets; nay, we proceed fo far as to indulge ourselves in fpeculations concerning the condition and qualities of the inhabitants of other worlds; and in the mean time are fo little acquainted with our own habitation, that we do not even know, whether there is water or land under the poles. For any thing we know, there is no animal, except man, upon our globe, who, by the contemplation of nature, is led to acknowledge a creator. For him, therefore, we may reasonably conclude, was this planet fitted up and adorned. We find, likewife, a number of traces and daily difcover new ones which fully evince, that the whole ftructure has been with the greates wifdem contrived, and with the greatest difcernment adapted to this very purpofe.-Extremes in magnitude excite our admiration, and redound to the honour of the artist who formed and produced them. What can be more magnificent, what can be a nobler fubject for contemplation, than the unmeasurable extent of the celestial fpaces? The light, that incomprehenfibly rapid and fubtle matter, which penetrates through the thickest glass, and comes in fix minutes from the fun to our earth, fo that its velocity may be eftimated at least at 1,600,000 miles in a minute, this very light, nevertheless, with all its vaft rapidity of motion, takes more than three years time to arrive at our globe, by a direct courfe from the fixed ftars: thefe luminous bodies that glow and sparkle with fuch a vivid fire being at leaft 1,150,000,000,000 miles+ diftant from us. Let us figure to ourfelves a globe, the femi-diameter of which is equal in length Swedish miles. + Viz. Swedish miles, amounting to about 6,325,000,000,000 English. length to this space; it will certainly be of an enormous fize; but the distance from its furface to the moft remote heavenly body must be ftill much greater. By means of a good telescope we difcover on a little fpot of the heavens more ftars than we can fee in the whole firmament with the naked eye; it is probable, however, that there are a great many more, which we are not able to defery with the best glaffes. Let us now again turn our thoughts to our own habitation, and its minuteft products. An ore, a metal, a cryftal excites our admiration; but ftill more does a plant, when with due attention we confider, how from a fmall feed it grows out of the earth; and after having thrown out ftalks and leaves, at length produces flowers and fruits. But the fubjects of the animal kingdom most of all attract the attention of a reafonable being. They poffefs many more properties than plants, and thofe of a fuperior kind; they are endowed with the power of voluntary motion, and by means of one or more external fenfes, are capable of difcerning the bodies that furround them. Of thefe animals the ftructure of the fmaller, which are, neverthelefs, often invested with uncommon powers, feems to us more artificial than that of the larger fort. Nature, perhaps, produces with the fame cafe animals and ftones, finall organized bodies ad large ones; but, according to our manner of conceiving things, the former is infinitely more difficult than the latter. Who is there that does not admire a watch of the fize of a pea more than a large town clock: fuppofing both of them to go equally right? In fact, it feems as if Nature wrought entirely according to our conceptions (a). Her great and principal end is to produce animals, and the fe in fo much the greater number, the fmaller they are (a). Thoufands of millions of infects, fo final as almoft to escape our fight, when aided by the bet magnifying glaffes, fwarm round about us in the earth, in the waters, and in the air; and who can tell the number of those 375 which, exifting in every part of the terraqueous globe, are yet by their extreme minutenefs concealed from our view. All these are furnished with members, circulating juices, one or more organs of fenfe, and other inftruments of life and motion. Is not the imagination bewildered as much in the contemplation of thefe fmaller parts of the creation, as in the wide expanse of the heavens? And that the inconfiderable bulk of the smallest of them may not caufe them to be unheeded and forgotten, the most important offices in the economy of Nature are allotted thema), whereby they obtrude them felves as it were on our notice, and compel us to have a more intimate acquaintance with them. In fine, throughout all Nature it is fo ordered, that every creature gets its fubfiftence in proportion to its diligence; and the more faithfully it performs the duties of its vocation, the more it thrives and profpers; fo that diligence is conftantly rewarded, and negligence incets with its due punishment." The innumerable fwarms of animals with which the earth is covered require maintenance and fupport. If they fubfifted upon each other, this goodly theatre of the univerfe would be converted into a hideous charnelhoufe, or a gloomy den of ravenous beats. there are only fome few animals of As things are now ordered, prey, which ferve to confume the corrupt and putrid carcafes; to carry off the fick, maimed, and infirin, and to creafing beyond the limits requifite in prevent one fpecies of animals from inthe economy of nature. And that even these may not exert a too immoderate fhare of violence, Nature has bestowed on this kind of animals a great degree of indolence, with a power of bearing hunger for a long time; hence they feldom go out in queft of prey, but when urged by extreme neceflity. In fact, it is, the vegetable kingdom that is more particularly appropriated to the maintenance of animals. in this department, too,. of Nature's works we find a number of variations and (4) 211. The fections here referred to are to be found in our illuftrious author's" PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY;" a work highly efteemed on the continent: and to which the ellay now prefented to the public is prefixed, by way of Introduction. (4) $207. |