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was the custom on certain days for all the students, in turn, to read a chapter of the bible, and repeat a praver, in order to initiate them or can I assist you ?""I don't in the practice of publick speaking; know (was the reply), for I have for which purpose, in order to in- been looking two hours through all crease the audience, many of the latitudes and longitudes, and canrespectable town's-people were usu- not discover this cursed Lilliput any where!"

atlas, and seemingly disconcerted by so me want of success.-"Can't you find what you want," said he,

ally admitted. At length, it came to the turn of Alexander Meldrum, a very modest young man, and then St. Amand the poet was once in not a little remarkable for his stiff- company with a person whose hair ness and formality. The portion was black, but who had a white of scripture selected on this occa- beard. This phenomenon became sion. happened to be the 15th chap- the topick of conversation, and vater of St. Paul's Epistle to the Co- rious reasons were assigned for it ; rinthians, in which, by hastily scrap- when St. A., turning to the gentleing out the letter c, our wicked man, said, "Apparently, Sir, you candidate for holy orders, con- have worked harder with your chin tinued to render the whole passage than with your head.” He was a ludicrous-viz. Behold I show you Gourmand.

a mystery-we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be HANGED(changed) in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye at the last trump! in consequence of this New Reading, the whole Hall was instantly in a titter, which increased to a broad laugh, and discomposed the muscles of the grave and venerable Professor of plied to a barber newly set up in Divinity; when Willie, as he was then called, with much assumed gravity exclaimed A very quick execution indeed."

ANECDOTE OF PARSON PATTEN.

THIS eccentrick being, whose extravagance and oddity had become proverbial in the neighbourhood of Whitstable, where he resided, once standing in need of a new wig, he went over to Canterbury, and ap

I am, Sir, your's, respectfully,
JOHN EVANS.

FRENCH TRANSLATION.

business to make him one. The clergy were at that time held in rather more veneration by the inferiour classes than they are at present, and the young man being just going to dinner, requested the honour of his customer's company to which Patten readily consented. The French translator of Frank- After dinner a large bowl of punch lin's Correspondence has made a was produced, and the reverend true French blunder. Franklin guest joined readily in emptying it. somewhere says, "People imagined The barber then proceeded to hanthat an American was a kind of dle his measure, when Mr. Patten Yahoo." Upon this the translator desired he would desist, saying he makes the following note: "Yahoo. was determined he should not make It must be an animal. It is affirm- his wig- "Why not, reverend ed that it is the Opossum ; but I Sir," said his host; "have I done have not been able to find the word any thing to offend you ?"-“ Not Yahoo in any dictionary of Natural in the least," said Patten; "but I History"!!!This reminds us of find you are a very honest good an anecdote also founded on one of natured fellow, so I will take someSwift's admirable works :- -A gen- body else in. Had you made it you tleman saw a person poring over an would never have been paid for it.”

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TEA DRINKING IN ENGLAND. In the year 1660. Thomas Garway. in change Alley, tobacconist and coffee-man, was the first who sold and retailed tea, recommending it as a cure for all disorders And tea was not in general use so late as in 1687; for in the memorandums of the Earl of Cla rendon is registered Pere Couplet supped with me, and after sup per we had tea, which he said was really as good as any he had drank in China."

CURIOUS CLERICAL ANECDOTE.

A clergyman in the west, who had unfortunately quarrelled with his parishioners, had lately the misfortune to have a shirt stolen from the hedge where it hung to dry, and he posted hand-bills, offering a reward for the discovery of the offender. Next morning the following lines were found written at the foot of the copy stuck against the church door :

Some thief has stolen the parson's shirt,
To skin nought could be nearer ;
The parish will give five hundred pounds
To him that steals the wearer!

JEU D'ESPRIT OF MR. NORRIS,

A Mr. Norris presided at the late meeting, held in Dublin, to petition for Reform. A wit asked who this Mr. Norris was? and being told he was a hatter, replied, "I wonder that he is not a greater friend to the Crown."

PERSIAN AECDOTE. The loves of Leila and Megnoun are still proverbial in the Persian states. During their lives the Emperour once sent for Megnoun, being curious to behold a lover so renowned for constancy and truth. He asked Megnoun if it was really true that he was so passionately fond of his mistress Leila? Megnoun replied, Your Majesty need only see her to judge how fondly I love her." She was ordered into the Emperour's presence, who beheld only a meagre and very ordinary looking female. "How is this?" said the monarch; "is this the object of such ardent vows? The meanest slave in my seraglio is beautiful compared with that woman!"-" Well, Sire," said Megnoun, "judge then how dearly I must love her, since in my eyes she is more beautiful than in yours she is ugly."

DRINKING AECDOTE, ABOUT THE

TIME OF CHARLES II.'S RESTORA-
TION.

The Cavaliers who who were well affected to the cause of the Stuarts, were accustomed to put a crum of bread in their glasses, and say as they placed them to their lips, “I wish this Crum-well down!" But they were far exceeded by a memorable party of royalists who were accustomed to mingle their own blood with the wine; and these loyalists obtained the nick-name of ranting Cavaliers.

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Now exulting, now in anguish,

Now they swell, and now they languish.
Ever changing, ever varying,

Hoping now, and now despairing,
Highest joy, and deepest care,

HARK! what wild mellifluous mea- Love and frantick Hate are there,

sures,

Sacred souree of plenteous pleasures,

Pleasure sweeps the string along, Bat Sorrow mingles in the song.

Who now descends to lead the choir,
What mighty hand has struck the lyre?
I see! I see! for who but she
The strong energetick soul can be,

To wake a strain, to breathe a vein,
So heaven replete with harmony?
No trembler treads yon mountain's brow,
No son of song enraptures now,
The mighty mother's self descends,
Adoring nature prostrate bends;
She shakes her golden locks, she smiles,
And scatters roses round;
Her smiles Despair's disease beguiles,
And heals Affliction's wound.

She traces on the ductile sand
A circle for her airy band
And mutters many a magick sound,
That soft and solemn murmurs round;
Then waves her wand, and calls on ail
The mystick powers that rule the ball,
The shadowy shapes of dawning day,
That flutter in the noontide ray,
That haunt the gloomy midnight hour,
That court her smile, or own her power.

She paused, and swift, obedient to the
spell,

A thousand airy forms fantastick glide,
Some on the sun-beam red exulting ride,
And field, and fen, and brake, and
flowery dell,

Gave up their wandering spirits all,
Obedient to the magick call;
And first, adorned with smiling bays,
Love trod the circle's magick maze,
With eyes uproll'd, and arms enfold,
And loosely flowing locks of gold,
And as he trod with looks profound,
And gestures wild the mystick round,
He warbled forth with artless ease,
In sweet melodious cadences,
A song replete with joy and care,
Of mingled rapture and despair.
Next came a strange disordered train,
Of Pride and Pity, Peace and Pain;
Exulting Hope breathed all her fire,
Wild Ardour rushed to seize the lyre;
Fear would have sought the deep pro-
found,

But durst not disobey the sound;
Nay, melting Wo, and wrinkled Care,
And fierce anfuriate Horrour there,
Came darkly smiling, hand in hand,
To mingle with the motley band.

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How does all nature honour thee,
Oh heaven-descended Poesy!

The hill, the dale, the heath, the grove,
The voice of nature and of love;
The burning thought, the breathing line,
That melts, that thrills, all all are thine
In ev'ry shape, in ev'ry vest,
Come, welcome to a vot'ry's breast!
Come as a goddess, parent, king
I'll worship, honour, homage, bring;
A helpless weeping foundling be,
A foster dear I'll prove to thee;
Or come, a wandering harper wild,
By night and pathless plains beguil'd,
Strike at my soul for entrance fair,
And thou shalt find admittance there.

'The Poet! hallow'd, honour'd name,
The dearest, eldest child of fame,
While life remains green laurels grow,
A garland for the Poet's brow;
But oh! what greener bays shall bloom
Eternal round the Poet's tomb ?
The Fairies all shall leave their cells,
Where Love with Peace and Plenty
dwells,

The mossy cave, and sylvan grot,
To weep around the hallowed spot;
The Seasons, as they wander by,
With glittering hand, and sparkling eye,
Shall pause to gaze on spot so fair.
And strew their sweetest garlands there
Aud oft, amid the nights profound,
When solemn stillness reigns around,
The mystick musick of the spheres,
Reveal'd alone to gifted ears,
In dirges due and clear shall toll,
The knell of that departed soul.

Kentish Town; Feb. 11, 1815, 19:

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MAGAZINE:

A REPOSITORY OF ORIGINAL PAPERS, & SELECTIONS FROM
ENGLISH MAGAZINES.

Bublished every Saturday Morning, at Robinson's Circulating Library, No. 94, Baltimore-street.
AT FOUR DOLLARS A YEAR.

VOL. 1.]

BALTIMORE, SATURDAY, DEC. 19, 1818 [No. 29.

Dov' ape susurrando

THE ITALIAN BEE.

Nei mattutini alboori

From the Monthly Magazine.

Vola suggendo i rugiadosi umori.

Guarini.

Where the bee at early dawn
Murmuring sips the dews of morn.
DANTE.

the political contests which agitated his country, he was expelled from it by the victorious party in 1302, and passed the remainder of his life in melancholy exile, at the courts of the petty princes of Italy, share THERE are certain periods in ing the usual fate of superiour genius the history of every country that in the dislike, or disregard, of those has arrived at a high degree of civi- who were incapable of appreciating lization, at which literature and the him. He died at Ravenna, in 1341, arts have flourished with peculiar at the court of Guido di Polenta, vigour, which genius has adorned the sovereign of that city. with her brightest splendours, and rendered illustrious to all succeeding ages. Such to Italy were the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries. In the first of these distinguished æras, Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, rise like three mighty columns, the earliest and noblest monuments of reviving taste and learning.

This brief outline of his history will account for, and excuse the gloomy and sarcastick spirit apparent in his poetry, which, though softened occasionally, by a tender and affecting melancholy, never brightens into the radiance of cheer fulness and joy. The scenes of the invisible world, divided, according to the Catholick faith, into the Dante was born at Florence, in three religions of hell, purgatory, the year 1265, of the noble family and paradise, are the subject of his of the Alighieri. Unfortunate in great work, the Divina Commedia ; love, and unsuccessful in ambition, and the theme was congenial to his his whole life was beclouded by ad- Muse. In the awful exhibition of versity and disappointment. Bea- Divine vengeance, all the power of trice Portinari, the object of his his genius is displayed; but, with earliest attachment, was torn from Milton, he has failed in the attempt him by death at the age of twenty- to give interest to the scenes of pefive, and the acrimonious temper nitence, and of celestial bliss: and of Gemma Donati, whom he after- the Purgatorio, and Paradiso, like wards married, only served to em- the Paradise Regained, though conbitter his regret for her loss. En- taining passages of great beauty, gaged by his family connexions in cannot be read with interest or plea

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sure.

The general plan of this ex traordinary production is as follows:

the starless air, like sand whirled by the mind." These mournful sounds arose from an ignoble multiThe poet supposes, that, at the tude, who had lived in the world, close of the century, in Easter- at once without guilt and without week, of the year 1300, he was lost virtue. Their punishment was of in a desert near Jerusalem, infested the same negative kind as their life by beasts of strange and ferocious had been, and they suffered not aspect. As he is flying from one of other torments than those inflicted these, he is met by the shade of by conscience. "Heaven, (savs Virgil, who informs him, that the Virgil,) hath rejected them, lest its only passage out of the wilderness, beauty should be tarnished by them; lies through the shades below, and hell is forbidden to receive whither he has a divine commission them, lest the guilty should derive to conduct him; thus, allegorically some glory from them. Disdained intimating, that the contemplation alike by justice and by mercy, the of the invisible world is the only earth retains no memorial of them. means of escape from the fury of Let us not waste our attention upon the passions. Encouraged by the them, but behold. and pass on." assurance of celestial protection, Having traversed this inglorious Dante proceeds with his friendly guide on the awful expedition, and arrives at the portal of hell, over which he reads, in dark characters, this appalling inscription;

"Through me the entrance lies to realms of woe! Through me the entrance lies to endless pain! Through me the entrance lies to gulphs below,

crowd, the poets reach the mourn ful shores of Acheron; where, pursued by divine justice, the guilty assemble from all nations of the earth, in rapid succession, like the falling leaves of autumn. Charon, as in the fables of antiquity, is em ployed in transporting them to the

Where, lost to hope and heaven, the guilty weep in opposite side; and Dante and his

vain !

Almighty justice, wisdom, power, and lave,

Ere Time began, my firm foundation laid;
Nor shall they fail when Time shall cease to move,
And all but things eternal pass away and fade.
O ye who enter here no longer hope retain !"

conductor are by him conveyed to the precincts of the infernal abyss, which is represented as a sort of vast funnel, divided into seven concentrick circles, or regions, placed one below the other; the inflictions increasing in severity as they des scend.

Confiding, however, in their divine warrant, the two poets pass the tremendous barrier, and enter the They first arrive at the abodes of infernal shade. "But here," says the sages and philosophers of the Dante, "such a dismal sound of sighs heathen world, whom the Roman and groans, and loud lamentations, church condemns to eternal punishmet my ear, that the tears started ment, because they died without into my eyes. Strange voices, hor- baptism. Their tears and lamenrid dialects, exclamations of grief, tations were not occasioned by any and bursts of rage, dull moans and piercing shrieks, with wringing of hands, mingled in dire confusion, circulated in dismal murmurs thro'

positive suffering, but by their everlasting regret of the blessedness they had lost. "Their situation, (says M. Sismondi,) resembles the pale elysium of the poets: it is a faint image of life, in which regret

The words are thus repeated in the original supplies the place of hope."

Per me si va nella città dolente

Per me si va nell 'eterno dolore

Per me si va tra la perduta gente; &c.

Inferno, canto 2. v. 1. et esq.

After the heroes of antiquity, the next they meet with in their de

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