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EPISTLE III.

TO THE

MARCHIONESS DOWAGER OF D--LL.

FROM BERMUDA, JANUARY, 1804.

LADY, where'er you roam, whatever beam
Of bright creation warms your mimic dream;
Whether you trace the valley's golden meads,
Where mazy Linth his lingering current leads; '
Enamour'd catch the mellow hues that sleep,
At eve, on Meillerie's immortal steep;
Or, musing o'er the Lake, at day's decline,
Mark the last shadow on the holy shrine,
Where, many a night, the soul of Tell complains
Of Gallia's triumph and Helvetia's chains;
Oh! lay the pencil for a moment by,
Turn from the tablet that creative eye,
And let its splendour, like the morning ray
Upon a shepherd's harp, illume my lay!

Yet, Lady! no-for song so rude as mine,
Chase not the wonders of your dream divine;
Still, radiant eye! upon the tablet dwell;
Still, rosy finger! weave your pictured spell;
And, while I sing the animated smiles
Of fairy nature in these sun-born isles,
Oh! might the song awake some bright design,'
Inspire a touch, or prompt one happy line,
Proud were my soul to see its humble thought
On painting's mirror so divinely caught,
And wondering Genius, as he lean'd to trace
The faint conception kindling into grace,
Might love my numbers for the spark they threw,
And bless the lay that lent a charm to you!

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The morn was lovely, every wave was still,
When the first perfume of a cedar-hill
Sweetly awaked us, and with smiling charms
The fairy harbour woo'd us to its arms. 1
Gently we stole before the languid wind,
Through plantain shades that like an awning twined,
And kiss'd on either side the wanton sails,
Breathing our welcome to these vernal vales;
While far reflected, o'er the wave serene,
Each wooded island sheds so soft a green,
That the enamour'd keel, with whispering play,
Through liquid herbage seem'd to steal its way!
Never did weary bark more sweetly glide,
Or rest its anchor in a lovelier tide!
Along the margin many a brilliant dome,
White as the palace of a Lapland gnome,
Brighten'd the wave; in every myrtle grove
Secluded bashful, like a shrine of love,
Some elfin mansion sparkled through the shade;
And, while the foliage interposing play'd,
Wreathing the structure into various grace,
Fancy would love in many a form to trace
The flowery capital, the shaft, the porch, 2
And dream of temples, till her kindling torch
Lighted me back to all the glorious days
Of Attic genius; and I seem'd to gaze
On marble, from the rich Pentelic mount,
Gracing the umbrage of some Naiad's fount.
Sweet airy being!3 who, in brighter hours,
Lived on the perfume of these honey'd bowers,
In velvet buds, at evening loved to lie,
And win with music every rose's sigh!
Though weak the magic of my humble strain
To charm your spirit from its orb again,
Yet, oh! for her, beneath whose smile I sing,
For her (whose pencil, if your rainbow wing
Were dimm'd or ruffled by a wintry sky,
Could smooth its feather and relume its dye),
A moment wander from your starry sphere,
And if the lime-tree grove that once was dear,
The sunny wave, the bower, the breezy hill,
The sparkling grotto, can delight you still,
Oh! take their fairest tint, their softest light,
Weave all their beauty into dreams of night,
And, while the lovely artist slumbering lies,
Shed the warm picture o'er her mental eyes;
Borrow for sleep her own creative spells,
And brightly show what song but faintly tells!

'Nothing can be more romantic than the little harbour of St George. The number of beautiful islets, the singular clearness of the water, and the animated play of the graceful little boats, gliding for ever between the islands, and seeming to sail from one cedargrove into another, form altogether the sweetest miniature of nature that can be imagined.

2 This is an illusion which, to the few who are fanciful enough to indulge in it, renders the scenery of Bermuda particularly interesting. In the short but beautiful twilight of their spring evenings, the white cottages scattered over the islands, and but partially seen through the trees that surround them, assume often the appearance of little Grecian temples, and fancy may embellish the poor fisherman's hut with columns which the pencil of Claude might imitate. I had one favourite object of this kind in my walks, which the bospitality of its owner robbed me of, by asking me to visit him. He was a plain good man, and received me well and warmly, but I never could turn his house into a Grecian temple again.

3 M. GEBELIN says, in his Monde Primitif, Lorsque Strabon crut que les anciens théologiens et poetes plaçaient les Champs Elysées dans les lales de l'Océan Atlantique, il n'entendit rien à leur doc- Ariel. Among the many charms which Bermuda has for a poetic trine. M. GEBELIN's supposition, I have no doubt, is the more cor- eye, we cannot for an instant forget that it is the scene of SHAKrect: but that of STRABO is, in the present instance, most to my pur-SPEARE's Tempest, and that here be conjured up the delicate Ariel, *

pose.

who alone is worth the whole heaven of ancient mythology.

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Upon its shining side, the mystic notes

Of those entrancing airs1

The Genii of the deep were wont to swell,

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With the bright treasure to my choral sky, Where she, who waked its early swell, The syren, with a foot of fire,

When Heaven's eternal orbs their midnight music roll'd! Walks o'er the great string of my Orphic Lyre, 5

Oh! seek it, wheresoe'er it floats;

And, if the power

Of thrilling numbers to thy soul be dear,
Go, bring the bright shell to my bower,
And I will fold thee in such downy dreams,
As lap the spirit of the seventh sphere,

When Luna's distant tone falls faintly on his ear! 2
And thou shalt own,

That, through the circle of creation's zone,
Where matter darkles or where spirit beams;
From the pellucid tides, 3 that whirl
The planets through their maze of
To the small rill, that weeps along

Murmuring o'er beds of pearl;

song,

In the « Histoire naturelle des Antilles, there is an account of some curious shells, found at Curaçoa, on the back of which were lines, filled with musical characters so distinct and perfect, that the writer assures us a very charming trio was sung from one of them. On le nomme musical, parce qu'il porte sur le dos de lignes noiratres pleines de notes, qui ont une espèce de clé pour les mettre en chant, de sorte que l'on dirait qu'il ne manque que la lettre à cette tablature naturelle. Ce curieux gentilhomme (M. du Montel) rapporte qu'il en a vu qui avaient cinq lignes, une clé, et des notes, qui formaient un accord parfait. Quelqu'un y avait ajouté la lettre, que la nature avait oubliée, et la faisait chanter en forme de trio, The author adds, dont l'air était fort agréable. Chap. 19, art. 11. a poet might imagine that these shells were used by the Syrens at

their concerts.

According to CICERO, and his commentator, MACROBIUS, the lunar tone is the gravest and faintest on the planetary heptachord. Quam ob causam summus ille cœli stellifer cursus, cujus conversio est concitatior, acuto et excitato movetur sono; gravissimo autem hic lunaris atque infimus. Somn Scip. Because, says MACROBIUS, spiritu ut in extremitate languescente jam volvitur, et propter angustias quibus penultimus orbis arctatur impetu leniore convertitur.. In Soma. Scip. lib. a, cap. 4. It is not very easy to understand the ancients in their musical arrangement of the heavenly bodies. See

PTOLEM. lib. 3.

LEONE HEBREO, pursuing the idea of ARISTOTLE, that the heavens are animal, attributes their harmony to perfect and reciprocal love. • Non pero manca fra loro il perfetto e reciproco amore : la causa principale, che ne mostra il loro amore, è la lor amicizia armoniaca e la concordanza, che perpetuamente si trova in loro. Dialog. 2. di Amore, p. 58. This reciproco amore of LEONE is the photos of the ancient EMPEDOCLES, who seems, in his Love and Bate of the Elements, to have given a glimpse of the principles of attraction and repulsion. See the fragment to which I allude in LAERTIES, Άλλοτε μεν φιλότητι, συνερχομεν. κ. τ. λ. Lib. 8, cap. 2,

D. 12.

3 LEUCIPPES, the atomist, imagined a kind of vortices in the hea

Or guides around the burning pole

The winged chariot of some blissful soul!6

While thou!

Oh, son of earth! what dream shall rise for thee; Beneath Hispania's sun,

Thou 'It see a streamlet run,

Which I have warm'd with dews of melody; 7
Listen!-when the night wind dies

Down the still current, like a harp it sighs!
A liquid chord is every wave that flows,
An airy plectrum every breeze that blows!8
There, by that wondrous stream,
Go, lay thy languid brow,

I HERACLIDES, upon the allegories of HOMER, conjectures that the idea of the harmony of the spheres originated with this poet, who, in representing the solar beams as arrows, supposes them to emit a peculiar sound in the air.

In the account of Africa which D'ABLANCOURT has translated there is mention of a tree in that country, whose branches when shaken by the hand produce very sweet sounds. Le même antear (ABENZEGAR) dit, qu'il y a un certain arbre, qui produit des gaules comme d'o.ier, et qu'en les prenant à la main et les branlant, elles font une espèce d'harmonie fort agréable, etc. etc.-L Afrique de MARMOL.

Alluding to the extinction, or at least the disappearance, of some of those fixed stars, which we are taught to consider as suns, attended each by its system. DESCARTES thought that our earth might formerly have been a sun, which became obscured by a thick inc-astation over its surface. This probably suggested the idea of a central fire.

4 PORPHYRY says, that PYTHAGORAS held the sea to be a tear.Ty Sadattav μev exalet etvat daxpuoy. De Vit. And some one else, if I mistake not, has added the Planet Saturn as the source of it. EMPEDOCLES, with similar affectation, called the sea the sweat of the earth: topot T5775. See RITTERSuestes upon PORPHYRY, Num. 4..

The system of the harmonised orbs was styled by the ancients the Great Lyre of Orpheus, for which Lucian accounts, de Aupn ἑπτακιτος εουτα την των κινουμένων αέρων άρμονιαν GUVEбxλλto. x. T. λ. in Astrolog.

6 Διειλε ψυχας ισαρίθμους τους αςροις, ένειμε 9' ένας ην προς έκασον, και εμβίβασας ΩΣ ΕΙΣ ΟΧΗΜΑ.

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"This musical river is mentioned in the romance of Achilles Tatius. Emet пotaμov ην δε ακούσαι θέλης του ύδατος λaλoutos. The Latin version, in supplying the hiatus which is in the original, has placed the river in Hispania. In Hispania quoque fluvius est, quem primo aspectu, etc. etc.

These two lines are translated from the words of Achilles Tatius. Eav yap ολιγος ανεμος εις τας δίνας εμπεση, το μεν

vens, which he borrowed from ANASAGORAS, and possibly suggested ύδωρ ὡς χορδη κρούεται. το δε πνευμα του ύδατος πλήκτρον γίνεται. το ρευμα δε ὡς κιθαρα λαλει. Lib. 2.

to DESCARTES.

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And I will send thee such a god like dream,
Such-mortal! mortal! hast thou heard of him, '
Who, many a night, with his primordial lyre,
Sate on the chill Pangæan mount, 3
And, looking to the orient dim,
Watch'd the first flowing of that sacred fount,

From which his soul had drunk its fire! Oh! think what visions, in that lonely hour, Stole o'er his musing breast!

What pious ecstasy 4

Wafted his prayer to that eternal Power,
Whose scal upon this world imprest 5
The various forms of bright divinity!

Or, dost thou know what dreams I wove,
'Mid the deep horror of that silent bower, 6
Where the rapt Samian slept his holy slumber?
When, free

From every earthly chain,

From wreaths of pleasure and from bonds of pain,
His spirit flew through fields above,

Drank at the source of Nature's fontal number. 7
And saw,
in mystic choir, around him move
The stars of song, Heaven's burning minstrelsy!
Such dreams, so heavenly bright,

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EPISTLE IV.

TO GEORGE MORGAN, ESQ.

OF NORFOLK, VIRGINIA.1 FROM BERMUDA, JANUARY, 1804.

Κείνη δ' ηνεμόεσσα και Άτροπος, δια θ' αλιπληξ, αι θύτης και μαλλον επιδρομος πεπερ ίπποις, ποντω ενεςηρίκται.

CALLIMACH. Hymn. in Del. v. 11.

On what a tempest whirl'd us hither! 2
Winds, whose savage breath could wither
All the light and languid flowers
That bloom in Epicurus' bowers!
Yet think not, George, that Fancy's charm
Forsook me in this rude alarm.
When close they reef'd the timid sail,
When, every plank complaining loud,
We labour'd in the midnight gale,

And even our haughty main-mast bow'd!
The muse, in that unlovely hour,
Benignly brought her soothing power,
And, 'midst the war of waves and wind,

In songs elysian lapp'd my mind!
She open'd, with her golden key,

The casket where my memory lays

Those little gems of poesy,

Which time has saved from ancient days! Take one of these, to LAIS sung,

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SWEETLY 3 you kiss, my LAIS dear! But, while you kiss, I feel a tear,

› ERATOSTHENES, telling the extreme veneration of Orpheus for Apollo, says that he was accustomed to go to the Pangæan mountain at day-break, and there wait the rising of the sun, that he might be the first to hail its beams. Ejerpoμevos tε TXS VUXTOS, κατά την έωθινην επί το όρος το καλούμε τον Παγ γαιον, προσέμενε τας ανατολας, ίνα ίδη τον Ήλιον dispositions of the family with whom he resides, and the cordial πρωτον. Καταφέρισμ. 24.

• There are some verses of ORPHEUS preserved to us, which contain sublime ideas of the unity and magnificence of the Deity. As those which JUSTIN MARTYR has produced:

Ούτος μεν χαλκείον ες ουρανον εστήρικται Xpuseroy eve Spovw, x. v. λ. Ad Græc. cohortat.

It is thought by some, that these are to be reckoned amongst the fabrications which were frequent in the early times of Christianity. Still it appears doubtful to whom we should impate them; they are too pious for the Pagans, and too poetical for the Fathers.

In one of the Hymns of ORPHECS, he attributes a figured seal to Apollo, with which he imagines that deity to have stamped a variety of forms upon the universe.

⚫ Allading to the cave near Samos, where Pythagoras devoted the greater part of his days and nights to meditation and the mysteries of his philosophy. Jamblick, de Vit. This, as HOLSTENIUS remarks, was in imitation of the Magi.

? The tetractys, or sacred number of the Pythagoreans, on which they solemnly swore, and which they called 22 asynov puses, the fountain of perennial nature.» LUCIAN has ridicaled this religious arithmetic very finely in his Sale of Philosophers. *This diadem is intended to represent the analogy between the notes of music and the prismatic coloars. We find in Plutarch a vague intimation of this kindred harmony in colours and sounds. Opts TE KHI XOY, μeta povns TE XXI portos Try appoviav επιφαίνουσι. De Musica.

CASSIODORUS, whose idea I may be supposed to have horrowed, says, in a letter upon music to Boetius, Ut diadema oculis, varia luce gemmarum, sic cythara diversitate soni, blanditur auditai. This is indeed the only tolerable thought in the letter. Lib. 2, Variar.

This gentleman is attached to the British consulate at Norfolk. His talents are worthy of a much higher sphere, but the excellent

repose he enjoys amongst some of the kindest hearts in the world, should be almost enough to atone to him for the worst caprices of fortune. The consul himself, Colonel Hamilton, is one among the very few instances of a man, ardently loyal to his king, and yet beloved by the Americans. His house is the very temple of hospitality, and I sincerely pity the heart of that stranger who, warm from the welcome of such a board, and with the taste of such Madeira still upon his lips, col dolce in bocca, could sit down to write a libel on his host, in the true spirit of a modern philosophist, See the Travels of the DUKE DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULT LIANCOURT,

vol. 2.

We were seven days on our passage from Norfolk to Bermuda, during three of which we were forced to lay-to in a gale of wind. The Driver sloop of war, in which I went, was built at Bermuda of cedar, and is accounted an excellent sea-boat. She was then commanded by my very regretted friend Captain Compton, who in July last was killed aboard the Lilly, in an action with a French privateer. Poor Compton! he fell a victim to the strange impolicy of allowing such a miserable thing as the Lilly to remain in the service; so small, crank, and unmanageable, that a well-manned merchantman was at any time a match for her.

This epigram is by PACLES SILENTIABICS, and may be found in the Analects of BRUNCK, vol. 3, p. 72. But as the reading there is somewhat different from what I have followed in this translation, I shall give it as I had it in my memory at the time, and as it is in HEINSIes, who, I believe, first produced the epigram. See his Poemata.

Που μεν εστι φιλημα το Λαίδος· ήδυ δε αυτών
Ηπιοδινητων δακρυ χεείς βλεφάρων,

Και πολυ κιχλίζουσα σοβείς ευβοστρυχον αιγλην
Ημετέρα κεφαλην δημον ερεισάμενη.

82

Bitter as those when lovers part,
In mystery from your eye-lid start!
Sadly you lean your head to mine,
And round my neck in silence twine,
Your hair along my bosom spread,
All humid with the tears you shed!
Have I not kiss'd those lids of snow?
Yet still, my love, like founts they flow,
Bathing our cheeks, whene'er they meet-
Why is it thus? do tell me, sweet!
Ah, LAIS! are my bodings right?
Am I to lose you' is to-night

Our last-go, false to Heaven and me!
Your very tears are treachery.

SUCH, while in air I floating hung,

Such was the strain, Morgante mio!

The Muse and I together sung,

With Boreas to make out the trio.

But, bless the little fairy isle!

How sweetly, after all our ills, We saw the dewy morning smile

Serenely o'er its fragrant hills! And felt the pure elastic flow Of airs, that round this Eden blow With honey freshness, caught by stealth Warm from the very lips of health!

Oh! could you view the scenery dear,

That now beneath my window lies, You'd think that Nature lavish'd here

Her purest wave, her softest skies, To make a heaven for Love to sigh in, For bards to live and saints to die in! Close to my wooded bank below,

In glassy calm the waters sleep, And to the sun-beam proudly show

The coral rocks they love to steep!'
The fainting breeze of morning fails,
The drowsy boat moves slowly past,
And I can almost touch its sails

That languish idly round the mast.
The sun has now profusely given
The flashes of a noontide heaven,
And, as the wave reflects his beams,
Another heaven its surface seems!
Blue light and clouds of silvery tears
So pictured o'er the waters lie,
That every languid bark appears

To float along a burning sky!
Oh! for the boat the angel gave1

To him, who in his heaven-ward flight,

Μυρομενην δ' εφίλησαν τα δ' ὡς δροσερης απο πηγής,
Δάκρυα μεγνυμένων πιπτε κατα στομάτων
Ειπε δ' ανειρομένῳ, τινος ούνεκα δακρυα λείβεις ;
Δείδια μη με λιπης είτε γαρ ορκαπαται.

The water is so clear around the island, that the rocks are seen beneath to a very great depth, and, as we entered the harbour, they appeared to us so near the surface, that it seemed impossible we should not strike on them. There is no necessity, of course, for heaving the lead, and the negro pilot, lookin; down at the rocks from the bows of the ship, takes her through this difficult n vigation, with a skill and confidence which seem to astonish some of the oldest sailors.

3 In KIRCHER'S Ecstatic Journey to Heaven, Cosmiel, the genius of the world, gives Theodidactus a boat of asbestos, with which

Sail'd, o'er the Sun's ethereal wave,

To planet-isles of odorous light! Sweet Venus, what a clime he found Within thy orb's ambrosial round!' There spring the breezes, rich and warm,

That pant around thy twilight car; There angels dwell, so pure of form, That each appears a living star! These are the sprites, oh radiant queen! Thou send'st so often to the bed Of her I love, with spell unseen,

Thy planet's brightning balm to shed; To make the eye's enchantment clearer, To give the cheek one rose-bud more, And bid that flushing lip be dearer,

Which had been, oh! too dear before!

But, whither means the Muse to roam?
'T is time to call the wanderer home.
Who could have ever thought to search her
Up in the clouds with Father Kircher?
So, health and love to all your mansion!
Long may the bowl that pleasures bloom in,
The flow of heart, the soul's expansion,
Mirth, and song, your board illumine!
Fare
you well-remember too,
When cups are flowing to the brim,
That here is one who drinks to you,
And, oh!—as warmly drink to him.

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he embarks into the regions of the sun. Vides (says Cosmiel hanc asbestinam naviculam commoditati tuæ præparatam. kinerar. 1, dial. 1, cap. 5. There are some very strange fancies in this work of Kircher.

When the genius of the world and his fellow-traveller arrive at the planet Venus, they find an island of loveliness, full of odours and intelligences, where an els preside, who shed the cosmetic influence of this planet over the earth; such being, according to astrologers, the vis influxivas of Venus. When they are in this part of the heavens, a casuistical question occurs to Theodidactus, and be asks Whether baptism may be performed with the waters of Venus? An aquis globi Veneris baptismus institui possit? to which the genius answers, Certainly.

2 This idea is FATHER KIRCHER'S. Tot animatos soles dixisses. Itinerar, i, dial. 1, cap. 5.

I cannot warn thee! every touch,

That brings my pulses close to thine, Tells me I want thy aid as much,

Oh! quite as much, as thou dost mine!

Yet stay, dear love-one effort yet-
A moment turn those eyes away,
And let me, if I can, forget

The light that leads my soul astray!

Thou say'st that we were born to meet,
That our hearts bear one common seal,-

Oh, lady! think, how man's deceit

Can seem to sigh and feign to feel!

When o'er thy face some gleam of thought,
Like day-beams through the morning air,
Hath gradual stole, and I have caught
The feeling ere it kindled there :

The sympathy I then betray'd,

Perhaps was but the child of art; The guile of one who long hath play'd With all these wily nets of heart.

Oh! thou hast not my virgin vow!

Though few the years I yet have told, Canst thou believe I lived till now

With loveless heart or senses cold?

No-many a throb of bliss and pain,
For many a maid, my soul hath proved;
With some I wanton'd wild and vain,

While some I truly, dearly loved!

The cheek to thine I fondly lay,

To theirs hath been as fondly laid; The words to thee I warmly say,

To them have been as warmly said.
Then scorn at once a languid heart,

Which long hath lost its early spring;
Think of the pure bright soul thou art,
And-keep the ring, oh! keep the ring.
Enough-now, turn thine eyes again;
What, still that look and still that sigh!
Dost thou not feel my counsel then?
Oh! no, beloved!-nor do I.

While thus to mine thy bosom lies,

While thus our breaths commingling glow, 'T were more than woman to be wise, "T were more than man to wish thee so!

Did we not love so true, so dear,

This lapse could never be forgiven; But hearts so fond and lips so near

Give me the ring, and now-Oh heaven!

ΤΟ

ON SEEING HER WITH A WHITE VEIL AND A RICH GIRDLE.

Μαργαριται δηλουσι δακρυων ροου.
Ap. Nicephor. in Oneirocritico.

Put off the vestal veil, nor, oh!
Let weeping angels view it;
Your cheeks belie its virgin snow,
And blush repenting through it.

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