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of my own weakness. Like those who have surveyed the moon by glasses, I can only tell of a new and shining world above us, but not relate the riches and glories of the place.'. ... Fortune has, indeed, but rendered justice to so much excellence, in setting it so high to publick view; or rather Providence has done justice to itself, in placing the most perfect workmanship of heaven, where it may be admired by all beholders. Had the sun and stars been seated lower, their glory had not been communicated to all at once; and the Creator had wanted so much of his praise, as he had made your condition more obscure; but he has placed you so near a crown, that you add a lustre to it by your beauty. You are joined to a prince who only could deserve you; whose conduct, courage, and success in war, whose fidelity to his royal brother, whose love for his country, whose constancy to his friends, whose bounty to his servants, whose justice to merit, whose inviolable truth, and whose magnanimity in all his actions, seem to have been rewarded by heaven by the gift of you. You are never seen but you are blest; and I am sure you bless all those who see you.'.... Thus, madam, in the midst of crowds, you reign in solitude; and are adored with the deepest veneration, that of silence. It is true, you are above all mortal wishes; no man desires impossibilities, because they are beyond the reach of nature. Το hope to be a god, is folly exalted into madness; but by the laws of our creation, we are obliged to adore him, and are permitted to love him at human distance. It is the nature of perfection to be attractive, but the excellency of the object refines the nature of the Vol. III. No. 1.

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love. It strikes an impression of awful reverence; it is indeed that love which is more properly a zeal than passion. It is the rapture which anchorites find in prayer, when a beam of the Divinity shines upon them; that which makes them despise all worldly objects; and yet it is all but contemplation. They are seldom visited from above; but a single vision so transports them, that it makes up the happiness of their lives.'. ... But all my praises are but as a bull-rush cast upon a stream; if they sink not, it is because they are borne up by the current, which supports their lightness; but they are carried round again, and return on the eddy where they first began. I can proceed no farther than your beauty,and even on that too I have said so little, considering the greatness of the subject, that, like him who would lodge a bowl upon a precipice, either my praise falls back by the weakness of the delivery, or stays not on the top, but rolls over, and is lost on the other side.'

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Of tempefts, and the dangers of the deep, And paufe at times, and feel that we are fafe;

Then liften to the perilous tale again,
And, with an eager and fufpended foul,
Woo Terror to delight us;..but to hear
The roaring of the raging elements,
To know all human kill, all human
strength,

Avail not; to look round, and only fee The mountain wave incumbent, with its weight

Of bursting waters, o'er the reeling bark,.. O God, this is indeed a dreadful thing!.. And he who hath endured the horrour,

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He comes himself in arms!.. Lincoya heard,

As he had raised his arm to strike a foe, And stayed the stroke, and thrust him off, and cried,

Go, tell the tidings to thy countrymen, Madoc is in the war! Tell them his God Hath fet the White King free! Astonishment

Seized on the Azteca; on all who heard, Amazement and difmay; and Madoc

now

Stood in the foremost battle, and his fword,..

His own good sword,. . flashed, like the fudden death

Of lightning, in their eyes.

The King of Aztlan Heard and beheld, and in his noble heart Heroick hope arofe. Forward he moved, And, in the fhock of battle, front to front,

Encountered Madoc. A strong statur

ed man

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And fo he stood, guarding his thighs and legs

His breast and shoulders also, with the length

Of his broad fhield.

Oppofed in mail complete, Stood Madoc in his ftrength. The flexible chains

Gave play to his full mufcles, and difplayed

How broad his fhoulders, and his ample breast.

Small was his fhield, there broadeft where it fenced

The well of life, and gradual to a point Leffening; fteel-ftrong, and wieldy in his grafp,

It bore thofe blazoned eaglets, at whose fight,

Along the Marches, or where holy Dee Through Ceftrian pastures rolls his

tamer ftream,

So oft the yeoman had, in days of yore, Curfing his perilous tenure, wound the horn,

And warden, from the castle-tower, rung

out

The loud alarum-bell,heard far and wide. Upon his helm no sculptured dragon fate, Sate no fantastick terrors; a white plume Nodded above, far-feen, floating like foam On the war-tempeft. Man to man they stood,

The King of Aztlan and the Ocean Chief.

Faft, on the intervening buckler, fell The Azteca's stone faulchion. Who hath watched

The midnight lightnings of the fummer storm,

That, with their aweful blaze, irradiate heaven,

Then leave a blacker night? fo quick, fo fierce,

Flashed Madoc's fword, which, like the
ferpent's tongue,
Seemed double, in its rapid whirl of light.
Unequal arms! for on the British shield
Availed not the ftone faulchion's brittle

edge,

And the golden buckler, Madoc's fword

Bit deep. Coanocotzin faw, and dropt The unprofitable weapon, and received His ponderous club,.. that club, beneath whofe force,

Driven by his father's arm, Tepollomi Had fallen fubdued,.. and fast and fierce he drove

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He cleft Coanocotzin's helm; exposed The monarch stood;..again the thunder-stroke

Came on him, and he fell... The multitude

Forgetful of their country and themfelves,

Crowd round their dying King. Madoc, whose eye

Still followed Urien, called upon his men, And, through the broken army of the foe, The maffy weight on Madoc. From Preft to his rescue.

his shield,

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THE BOSTON REVIEW,

FOR JANUARY, 1806.

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Librum tuum legi & quam diligentissime potui annotavi, quæ commutanda, quæ eximenda, ar bitrarer. Nam ego dicere verum assuevi. Neque ulli patientius reprehenduntur, quam qui maxime laudari merentur.--Pliny.

ARTICLE 1.

Memoirs of the American Academy Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Vol. I. 1785. 4to. pp. 568.

It is honourable to Massachusetts, that in the year 1780, in the midst of the memorable war, which terminated in the establishment of the independence of the United States, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences was incorporated by her enlightened legislature. According to the act of incorporation, "The end and design of the institution of the academy is, to promote and encourage the knowledge of the antiquities of America, and of the natural history of the country; and to determine the uses to which the various natural productions of the country may be applied; to promote and encourage medical discoveries, mathematical disquisitions, philosophical inquiries and experiments; astronomical, meteorological and geographical observations; and, improvements in agriculture, arts, manufactures and commerce; and in fine, to cultivate every art and science, which may tend to advance the interest, honour, dignity and happines of a free, independent and virtuous people."

In prosecuting the object of their institution, the Society has presented to the publick in this volume, the first fruits of their learned labours. The time, that has elapsed since the publication, will not, we hope, render a review of the contents useless nor uninter

esting. To the Memoirs is prefixed the act of incorporation; and also the statutes of the Academy, a list of members, and donors with their respective benefactions. Then follows A PHILOSOPHICAL DISCOURSE, publickly addressed to the Academy by their first Presi dent, the honourable JAMES BowDOIN, Esq. on his first election to that office.

The learned and excellent president, after some remarks on the social affections, and their operation in forming societies of various descriptions, observes, in the spirit of true philosophy, with respect to the American Philosophical Society, which had been previously formed, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, "it is hoped, that, as optic glasses, by collecting the solar rays, do assist and strengthen the corporeal sight, so the two societies, by concentring in a proper focus the scattered rays of science, may aid and invigorate the intellectual: benefiting by their productions, not only the communities, in which they are respectively instituted, but America and the world in general: both together resembling some copious river, whose branches, after refreshing the neighbouring region, unite their waters for the fertilizing a more extensive country.”

He afterward takes a cursory view of the antiquities of America, and of natural history, two of the subjects, to which the inquiries of the Academy are particularly directed by the act of incorporation;

notices the benefits, which the publick has derived from Harvard College; pays a tribute of gratitude to the generous benefactors of that institution, and addresses to their disembodied spirits the effusions of a heart, strongly impressed with a view of the great and extensive good, arising from their donations. Looking forward to the end of a century from the declaration of independence, he gives a character of the Academy, to which he hopes it will then be entitled in the pages of some eminent American historian.

The liberal spirit, that animates the society,appears in the following extract. "As the society is formed on the most liberal principles,and is of no sect or party in philosophy, it wide extends its arms to embrace the sons of science of every denomination,and wheresoever found; and with the warmth of fraternal affection invites them to a philo sophical correspondence: and they may be assured, their communications will be esteemed a favour, and duly acknowledged by the Society."

This discourse appears to flow from a mind, correct, reflecting, well informed; and from a heart, warm with benevolence, patriotism, love of science, and engaged in promoting the best interests of society. PART I.

ASTRONOMICAL AND

MATHEMATICAL PAPERS.

I. A method of finding the altitude and longitude of the nonagesimal degree of the ecliptic; with an appendix, containing calculations from corresponding astronomical observations, for determining the dif ference of meridians between Harvard-Hall, in the University of Cambridge, in the commonwealth of Massachusetts, and the royal observatories at “eenwich and Paris,

By the Rev. Joseph Willard, president of the University, and corresponding secretary of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Previous knowledge of the altitude and longitude of the nonagesimal degree of the ecliptick is requisite in determining the diurnal parallaxes of the heavenly bodies, belonging to the solar system, in latitude and longitude. Such parallaxes are necessarily used in de. ducing the longitude of places from corresponding observations of solar eclipses, as well as in various other astronomical calculations. The late learned and excellent president of our university has, in this memoir, given a method of finding the altitude and longitude of the nonagesimal degree, which he thinks is not only different from, but to him easier, if not shorter than any other, with which he was acquainted. The method is explained with perspicuity, and illustrated by an example and suitable figures; and may be easily understood by those, who are acquainted with the stereographick projection of the sphere, and spherick trigonometry.

In the appendix, rules are given for calculating the difference of meridians from corresponding ob, servations of solar eclipses; and they are exemplified in determining the longitude of Cambridge from the celebrated royal observatories of Greenwich and Paris. Of the calculations by solar and lunar tables, in which Mayer's were used, it was deemed sufficient to publish merely the results, or particular elements, requisite in the subsequent parts of the process. The principles and rules, stated in the appendix, are well exemplified. It was evidently the intention of the author to render this method of finding longitude

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