this place will be as salutary to Clarissa With true affection and esteem, LETTER XXVIII. Saturday, Dear Sir, I bless God I am much better, and am sorry you are not at leisure to be well by coming to these waters Our disorders are of the same kind. My friends at Chelsea are most obliging and good people. My best wishes and respects when you see them. I heartily wish Mrs. Liston well; and thank you for my little acquaintance with her. I long to see you, and to talk over Clarissa, and Cib. ber, but design staying during the fair weather. When you send the next proof, pray send the two sheets now to b, wrought off. My best service to Mrs. Richardson and her little family; and I shake the hands of my Shakespearian friends. As 'tis a time of year in which nothing can be published, the world has no cause as yet to complain.- -My next paper finishes. God preserve your bealth, and indulgence to, dear sir, Your truly affectionate servant, E. YOUNG. LETTER XXIX. Dear Sir, Wellwyn, May 3, 1747. Mr. Grover, in a late letter, told me he designed to come with you to Well wyn, but that the loss of his mother prevented it. This made me take it for granted you designed to come. Miss Lee, who has talked with Mrs. Richardson, intimates the contrary. Mr. Grover's concern wants amusement. Your quitting tar-water demands steel in its room; since Wellwyn has steel, and is a new place to Mr. Grover, Wellwyn is a perfect refuge to you both, putting me quite out of the case. Mr. Grover told me in his letter that you was exceeding good; not designing it, I suppose, as an article of news. But the best have their faults, and the wisest their errors; if therefore you favour me not with your company, or givs satisfactory reason for the con trary, I shall charge you with both. Most truly your affectionate E. YOUNG. In a fortnight's time the Chalybeate season begins. My humble service to Mr. Grover. P.S. Since I writ my letter, a poor lady with a cancerous breast called on me. Some time ago (having seen prior, several of that kind that had been relieved, and some cured by tar water,) I advised her to drink it; she has drank it nine weeks, and is now frighted ont of her wits, because it has occasioned a bloody discharge. But I hope, on the contrary, that it is a good symptom; for how should a load of peccant matter be carried off without a discharge? I beg you to tell the case to your neighbour, and my fellow-critic on Clarissa, Mr. the surgeon, and desire to know his opinion in the matter. As he is a surgeon of great repute, and has drank tar water himself, he must be a competent ble service to him, and let him know he'll judge in the case. Please to give my hum greatly oblige me, if he will speak out in this very compassionate case. LETTER XXX. Wellwyn, May 17th, 1747. I thank you for the hopes of seeing you here; and if you consider how few are the joys of age, you will not think I flatter you when I say, I greatly rejoice at it. Nor am I very sorry for the mul tiplicity of business of which you seem to complain; it is profit, credit, and health. As for the request you are pleased to make me, about Clarissa, if I am better qualified for it than yourself, you may command my utmost in it. Nor is this: a present, but a debt; I ask a much greater favour of you, in correcting the press for me as to the octavo edition. With true solicitude for your better health, and ardent wishes for your welfare in every shape, I am, dear Sir, very affectionately, your humble servant, E. YOUNG. Miss Lee joins my best wishes and service to you and yours. I beg my very hearty respects to Mr. Freke, and a thousand thanks for his kind advice, which is followed. Extracts 2 Extracts from the Portfolio of a Man of Letters. EGYPTIAN TEMPLES. the place now called the Roodee, on which it was interred with all due pomp in inhabitants of Chester, HE knowledge of the mechanical an extraordinary degree, and applied it to the extraction and conveyance of the immense masses which composed their monuments. The chapels of Sais and Butos are formed of single stones, cut from the rocks of the Elephantine; and those enormous masses, of which the weight of each is several millions of pounds, were transported to the distance of six hundred miles. Operations of such vast magnitude, however unimportant their objects, shew at least the greatness of the physical and moral powers of the Egyptians at this early period of the world, and of what greater things they might have been capable, had their minds been employed in more useful directions. JOHN WADLOCK, a native of Scotland, born at Dundee, was a famous mathematician in the reign of James V. He was a Franciscan or Grey Friar, and was for some time Provincial of that order. He resided for the most part at St. Andrew's, in the Grey Friars' monastery. THE ROODEE AT CHESTER. The Roodee is remarkable for being the place of interment of an image of the Virgin Mary, with a very large cross, in the year 946. The place of residence of this pious lady was in a Christian Temple at Hawarden, in Flintshire, where in those days of superstition, they used to offer up their orisous to the idol. To her they applied for relief under every affliction, till at last it happened while they were on their knees invoking her, the carpenter not having securely fastened her, she very unpolitely fell on the head of the governor of the castle's wife, Lady Trawst, the effect of which was immediately fatal. For this offence the goddess was indicted and tried by a special jury, who, after a wise and solemn trial, found her guilty of wilful murder, and she received sentence of death. One juror proposed hanging, another drowning, till from motives of fear, being a goddess, they agreed not to take her life, but banish her, leaving her on the sands of the river, from whence, the waters, not paying much respect to her sacred person, she was carried away by the tide and drowned. Her body was the next day found near large stone erected over the grave, (of which a vestige still remains as a memento of the ignorance of those days), whereon appeared the following inscrip tion: The Jews their gods did crucify, The Hardeners theirs did drown, Cause with their wants she'd not comply, And lies under this cold stone. LEONARDO DA VINCI. In the Ambrosian Library at Milan; is the famous book of Mechanics; the drawings by Leon. da Vinci, are pasted upon large imperial paper; there are 399 leaves, and 1750 drawings, all undoubted originals, with remarks and explanations, written with his left hand backward, but which one reads easily with a glass they have for that purpose. BAKER'S CHRONICLE. Amongst the men of note in the time of Richard the First, are recorded in this Chronicle, Daniel Morley, a great mathematician; and Robert de Bello Foco, an excellent philosopher. In the time of Edward I. lived Thomas Bungey, a friar minor, an excellent ma thematician. In the reign of Edward II. is mention ed Robert Perscrutator, born in Yorkshire, a black friar, and a philosopher, or rather a magician. Under the reign of Edward III. are recorded Walter Burley, a doctor of divinity, brought up in Merton College, Oxford, who wrote divers excellent treatises in natural and moral philosophy, which remain in estimation to this day; and who for the great fame of his learn ing, had the honour to be one of the instructors of Edward the Black Prince -John Killingworth, an excellent phi sopher, astronomer, and physician. In the reign of Henry VI. lived, Ro bert Balsacke, who wrote a book De Re Militari. The In Edward the Fourth's reign, we meet with Johannes de Monte Regio, a great astronomer.-Purbachius and Blanchinus, also eminent astronomers. three last-mentioned persons being fo reigners, the time when they lived should rather have been mentioned. In the reign of Henry VII. ved George Rippley, a Carmelite friar of Boston, who wrote divers treatises in U 2 the the mathematics; and after his death was accounted a necromancer.-Augustinus Niphus, Jacobus Faber, Stapulensis, and Pighius, philosophers, also lived at this time. In the reign of Queen Mary, lived Robert Record, a doctor of physic, who wrote a book of arithmetic. PRETENDED FRAGMENT OF PETRONIUS. M. Marchena, a Spaniard, attached to the French army of the Rhine, composed, in 1800, a libertine song, in the manner of Villegas. His superior officer reproved him for the composition. Ile said in excuse, that it was a translation from Petronius; affected to transcribe the piece of text containing it, and showed about the extract. To continue the joke, he printed this forged passage under the title of Fragmentum Petroni, ex Bibliotheca S. Galli antiquissimo MS. excerptum, nunc primum in lucem editum; gallice vertit, ac notis perpetuis illustravit, Lallemandus S. Theologie doctor. 12mo. Such was the elegance of the Latinity, and the ingenious aptness with which an apparent solution of continuity in the text of Petronius was remedied by the interpolation, that many learned men, and among others a German Jena reviewer, have been imposed on by it. The tone of pleasantry, adopted in the preface and notes, ought however to have put the commentator on his guard. HARWOOD ON THE CLASSICS. Harwood's View of the various Editions of the Greek and Roman Classics, was in 1793, at Venice, translated into Italian by Mauro Boni and Bartolomeo Gamba. These translators have indicated various omissions and imperfections, which would render their notes a valuable supplement to future editions. Harwood says, his book was translated into French, which does not appear to be true: he might have said it was translated into German, by Alter, in 1778. AN INDUSTRIOUS AUTHOR. J. P. Buchoz died in 1807; he printed at Paris in 1802, a catalogue of his various publications, which are chiefly known from that list, in which are spe cified, in folio 99 volumes, in quarto in octavo 7 71 but still remarkable for the display of a courageous industry not to be repressed by dispraise, by expense, or by neglect. SPIDERS. The sexton of the church of Saint Eustace at Paris, amazed frequently to find a particular lamp extinct early, and yet the oil consumed, sat up several nights during the summer of 1732, in order to discover the cause. At length he detected a spider of surprising size, which came down the cord to drink the oil. A A still more extraordinary instance of the same kind, occurred during the year 1751, in the cathedral of Milano. vast spider was observed there, which fed on the oil of the lamps. M. Moraud, of the Academy of Sciences, has described this spider, and furnished a drawing of it. His words are: Le corps, couleur de suie, arrondi, terminé en pointe, avec le dos et les pattes velues, pesoit quatre livres. This spider, of four pounds weight, was sent by M. de Stainville to the Emperor of Austria, and placed in the Imperial Museum. Who has seen it? Is it not a mutilated scorpion? A TIME TO READ AND A TIME TO WRITE. There are moments, says Mathon de la Cour, when the mind feels at peace, and is disposed, like a calm sea, to reflect distinctly all external impressions. This is the time to read. There are other moments, when the mind is agitated, when it begins to billow, when the objects of its contemplation lose their ori ginal proportions, and become colossal, or vivid, or condensed, as heaves the dancing wave. This is the time to com pose. DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. The Abbé Raynal suggested as a prizequestion, whether the discovery of America had been useful to the human race. M. Crignon, of Orleans, wrote a responsive dissertation on the subject, in the form of a dialogue between Columbus and Las Casas. The final award is couched in the concluding sentence of Las Casas: "However advantageous to commerce may have been the discovery of America, I cannot think it so to the human species. at large; since it has occasioned the exportation of Negroes, and the depopulation of the New World." ORIGINAL 1814.] [ 145 ] ORIGINAL POETRY. AN EPISODE TO THE BALLAD OF CHEVY CHACE. And flew to where her Edwin lay, His bleeding wounds to close. COM'ST thou from Chevy's luckless She found him pale: his ghastly eyes chase, Say, hast'ning shepherd, say " Such were the words that curb'd the speed From a young virgin's fault'ring lips Wan as the moon, her grief-pale cheek; The trembling maiden's look"From Chevy's fatal wood I come, And Chevy's blood-stain'd brook." "And thou hast heard the battle's da, The clashing weapons jar, The hunting horns that bellow now To drown the shrieks of war? "Heardst thou the gray-wing'd arrows hiss, The cross-bows twanging sound, The barbed spears, whose whirring haste Strikes deep the deadly wound? "Heardst thou the coursers' snorting rage, Their foamy bits that champ, And on the maimed hunters' corse Precipitately stamp ? "Heardst thou the dying yeomen groan, The mangled fallen yell? Then thou hast heard the notes of woe "Then thou hast seen the conflict dire, An hour ago the air was hush'd, My terrors to assuage. To drag the prisoner's chain. - "In ev'ry castle would I seek; "Edwin! 's my brother, maid, and lives, Tho' wounded, on yon moor. In motionless repose. "Edwin!" with piercing voice she call'd She call'd, but call'd in vain. Then on his lifeless corse she sank, SONNET. By JOHN MAYNE. O! HOW I love the prattling of that child, Frisking so blithely in the nurse's hand, Fair as her face who first in Eden smil'd, The hope of glory when thy course is o'er ! Blest hope for thee, just op'ning into bloom! Thrice blessed hope for me, fast hast'ning to the tomb ! rose, Diffuse their scent, and deck the rural shade. Soon peep the Morning's rays above the hill; The dew-drops with reflected beauties glow; The mist dispels that gather'd o'er the rill, And its pure streams the mossy pebbles show. Scarce does a murmuring echo reach my ear, Wafted by gentle airs that hardly move; The leaf nor rustles, nor disturbs the tear Of dewy morn, that quivering plays above: Unheard the din of towns,---the hammer's noise-- The busy orgies---and the pomp of things; Remov'd afar those scenes, my soul enjoys That inward peace a Sabbath only brings. Nought but the low of cattle as they wind Along the summit of the verdant lawn; Or bleat of flocks that leave the vale behind, To breath the air enliven'd by the dawn. Nought but the matin bell from yonder walls, O'erhung with ivy, and inclin'd by time, As the slow peal to meditation calls, Arrests the fancy by recurrent chim ΟΙ Here, while I sit, let Contemplation lend Her utmost aid to soothe the troubled thought; Ye worldly sinews of the mind unbend, What sordid passions led my mind astray; Ambition rul'd;-I felt, I own'd its power, And burn'd to prove its all-attracting sway. Delightful seem'd the passing breath of fame, The bust of Genius circled with its bays; How blest to earn the tribute of a name, The dear-bought tribute of a mortal's praise! But now 'tis Sabbath, and vain fancies fly, Quick as yon orb dispels the mists of night; Bright as its rays, Truth beaming from on high Discloses nobler prospects to the sight. Then, Contemplation, come---the world resign'd, Fairest of nymphs, this day I'll dwell with thee; Disperse, ye cares that overcloud my mind, The Sabbath dawns, and peace shall shine While the evening shower retires, EPIGRAM. From the German of Lessing. ADAM awhile in Paradise Enjoy'd his novel life. Jove caught him napping; in a trice His rib was made a wife. Poor father Adam, what a guest! This most unlucky dose EPIGRAM, FROM THE GERMAN. Written under a Drawing of Judith: JUDITH great Holoferness killing, How could she hold the man so cheap? Why she was young, and fair, and willing, And he lay by her fast asleep. EPIGRAM. From the German of Goethe. ER fickleness you harshly scan, The stream falls. HE |