There listening, Lady! while thy lip hath sung But soft-the tinges of the west decline, And the smooth glass-snake, gliding o'er my way, di anime beate."-Pietro della Valle, Part. Second. Lettera 16 da i giardini di Sciraz. 1 When I arrived at Chippewa, within three miles of the Falls, it was too late to think of visiting them that evening, and I lay awake all night with the sound of the cataract in my ears. The day following I consider as a kind of era in my life, and the first glimpse which I caught of those wonderful Falls gave me a feeling which nothing in this world can ever excite again. From the clime of sacred doves,1 Then, when I have stray'd awhile Where the gold-thread' loves to creep, 1 The departed spirit goes into the Country of Souls, where, according to some, it is transformed into a dove." Charlevoix, upon the Traditions and the Religion of the Savages of Canada. See the curious Fable of the American Orpheus in Lafitau, tom. i. p. 402. 2" The mountains appear to be sprinkled with white stones, which glistened in the sun, and were called by the Indians manetoe aseniah, or spirit-stones "-Mackenzie's Journal. 3I was thinking here of what Carver says so beautifully in his description of one of these lakes: "When it was calm and the sun shone bright, I could sit in my canoe, where the depth was upwards of six fathoms, and plainly see huge piles of stone at the botton, of different shapes, some of which appeared as if they had been hewn; the water was at this time as pure and transparent as air, and my canoe seemed as if it hung suspended in that element. It was impossible to look attentively through this limpid medium, at the rocks below, without finding, before many minutes were elapsed, your head swim and your eyes no longer able to behold the dazzling scene." 4 Après avoir traversé plusieurs isles peu considérables, nous en trouvâmes le quatrième jour une fameuse, nommée l'isle de Manitoualin.-Voyages du Baron de Lahontan, tom. i. lett. 15. Manataulin signifies a place of Spirits, and this Island in Lake Huron is held sacred by the Indians. To Colonel Brock, of the 49th, who commanded at the Fort, I am particularly indebted for his kindness to me during the fortnight I remained at Niagara. Among many 5" The Wakon-bird, which probably is of the same pleasant days which I passed with him and his brother-offi- species with the bird of paradise, receives its name from the cers, that of our visit to the Tuscarora Indians was not the ideas the Indians have of its superior excellence; the Waleast interesting. They received us in all their ancient cos-kon-bird being, in their language, the Bird of the Great tume; the young men exhibited, for our amusement, in the Spirit."-Morse. race, the bat-game, etc. while the old and the women sat 6 The islands of Lake Erie are surrounded to a consider in groups under the surrounding trees, and the picture alto-able distance by a large pond-lily, whose leaves spread gether was as beautiful as it was new to me. thickly over the surface of the lake, and form a kind of bed for the water-snakes in summer. 2 Anburey in his travels, has noticed this shooting illumination which porpoises diffuse at night through the St. Lawrence. Vol. í. p. 29. 3 The glass-snake is brittle and transparent. 7 "The gold-thread is of the vine kind, and grows in swamps. The roots spread themselves just under the surface of the morasses, and are easily drawn out by handfuls Cull from thence a tangled wreath, Oft when hoar and silvery flakes To the land where spirits rest! Thus have I charm'd, with visionary lay, The lonely moments of the night away; And now, fresh day-light o'er the water beams! Once more embark'd upon the glittering streams, Our boat flies light along the leafy shore, Shooting the falls, without a dip of oar Or breath of zephyr, like the mystic bark The poet saw, in dreams divinely dark, Borne, without sails, along the dusky flood,^ While on its deck a pilot angel stood, They resemble a large entangled skein of silk, and are of a bright yellow."-Morse. I L'oiseau mouche, gros comme un hanneton, est de toutes couleurs, vives et changeantes: il tire sa subsistence des fleurs comme les abeilles; son nid est fait d'un coton trèsfin suspendu à une branche d'arbre.-Voyagés aux Indes Occidentales, par M. Bossu. Second Part, lett. xx. 280. 2 Emberiza hyemalis.-See Imlay's Kentucky, page 3 Lafitau wishes to believe, for the sake of his theory, that there was an order of vestals established among the Iroquois Indians; but I am afraid that Jacques Cartier, upon whose authority he supports himself, meant any thing but vestal institutions by the cabanes publiques" which he met with at Montreal. See Lafitau, Mœurs des Sauvages Americains, etc. tom. i. p. 173. 4 Vedi che sdegna gli argomenti umani; Che l'ale sue tra liti si lontani. Vedi come 'I ha dritte verso 'l cielo And, with his wings of living light unfurl'd, Yet oh! believe me, in this blooming maze So heavenly calm, as when a stream or hill, A sister's idol and a nation's pride! When thou hast read of heroes, trophied high, IMPROMPTU, AFTER A VISIT TO MRS. OF MONTREAL. 'Twas but for a moment-and yet in that time What we had not the leisure or language to speak, T WRITTEN ON PASSING DEADMAN'S ISLAND,' IN Yon shadowy bark hath been to that wreck To Deadman's Isle, in the eye of the blast, Oh! hurry thee on-oh! hurry thee on TO THE BOSTON FRIGATE,2 Well-peace to the land! may the people, at length, Know that freedom is bliss, but that honour is strength; That though man have the wings of the fetterless wind, Of the wantonest air that the north can unbind, When they've ask'd me the manners, the mind, or the mein Of some bard I had known, or some chief I had seen, I told them each luminous trait that I knew, stream Of America's empire should pass, like a dream, I have been to them now, young, unthoughtful, and blest, Ere hope had deceiv'd me or sorrow deprest! But, DOUGLAS! while thus I endear to my mind ON LEAVING HALIFAX FOR ENGLAND, OCT. 1804. The elect of the land we shall soon leave behind, We were thirteen days on our passage from Quebec to Halifax, and I had been so spoiled by the very splendid hospitality, with which my friends of the Phaeton and Boston had treated me, that I was but ill prepared to encounter the miseries of a Canadian ship. The weather, however, was pleasant, and the scenery along the river delightful. Our passage through the Gut of Canso, with a bright sky and a fair wind, was particularly striking and romantic. 2 Commanded by Captain J. E. Douglas, with whom I returned to England, and to whom I am indebted for many, many kindnesses. In truth, I should but offend the delicacy of my friend Douglas, and, at the same time, do injustice to my own feelings of gratitude, did I attempt to say how much I owe him. I can read in the weather-wise glance of thine eye, There is not a bleak isle in those summerless seas, Where the day comes in darkness, or shines but to freeze, Not a tract of the line, not a barbarous shore, shrin'd; Where the smile of a father shall meet me again, And the tears of a mother turn bliss into pain; Where the kind voice of sisters shall steal to my heart, And ask it, in sighs, how we ever could part!— But see-the bent top-sails are ready to swellTo the boat-I am with thee-Columbia, farewell! 3 Sir John Wentworth, the Governor of Nova Scotia, very kindly allowed me to accompany him on his visit to the College, which they have lately established at Windsor, about forty miles from Halifax, and I was indeed most plea-ling onwards, we should find the soil and the scenery imsantly surprised by the beauty and fertility of the country prove, and it gave me much pleasure to know that the wor which opened upon us after the bleak and rocky wilderness thy Governor has by no means such an "inamabile regnum" by which Halifax is surrounded. I was told that, in travel- as I was, at first sight, inclined to believe. TO LADY H ON AN OLD RING FOUND AT TUNBRIDGE-WELLS. Tunbridge-Wells, August, 1805. WHEN Grammont grac'd these happy springs And Tunbridge saw, upon her Pantiles, The merriest wight of all the kings That ever rul'd these gay, gallant isles; Like us, by day, they rode, they walk'd, That woman then, if man beset her, And husbands not the least alarm'd! And lords show'd wit, and ladies teeth. As-"Why are husbands like the Mint ?" Because, forsooth, a husband's duty Is just to set the name and print That give a currency to beauty. "Why is a garden's wilder'd maze Like a young widow, fresh and fair?” Because it wants some hand to raise The weeds, which "have no business there!" And thus they miss'd and thus they hit, And now they struck and now they parried, While others of a pun miscarried. That Grammont gave this forfeit ring, Or punning ill, or-some such thing; Through many a branch and many a bough, The snowy hand that wears it now. All this I'll prove, and then-to you Oh, Tunbridge! and your springs ironical, To dedicate the important chronicle. Their mantles to your modern lodgers, Let no pedantic fools be there, For ever be those fops abolish'd, And, Heaven knows! not half so polish'd. But still receive the mild, the gay, The few, who know the rare delight Of reading Grammont every day, And acting Grammont every night! ΤΟ NEVER mind how the pedagogue proses, Oh! never must smell of the lamp. Old Cloe, whose withering kisses Have long set the loves at defiance,. But for you to be buried in books- Read more than in millions of pages! Better light than she studies above, In Ethics-'tis you that can check, In a minute, their doubts and their quarrels ; And 'twill soon put an end to their morals. Your Arithmetic only can trip When to kiss and to count you endeavour; When you swear that you'll love me for ever Thus you see what a brilliant alliance A course of more exquisite science And, oh!-if a fellow like me May confer a diploma of hearts, EXTRACT FROM "THE DEVIL AMONG ΤΙ ΚΑΚΟΝ Ο ΓΕΛΩΣ, Chrysost. Homil. in Epist. ad Hebræos The instant I have got the whim in, With eyes as brightly turn'd upon him, as 1 Mamurra, a dogmatic philosopher, who never doubted about any thing, except who was his father. "Nulla de re unquam præterquam de patre dubitavit." In vit. He was very learned-"Là dedans, (that is, in his head when it was opened,) le Punique heurte le Persan, l'Hébreu choque l'Arabique, pour ne point parler de la mauvaise intelligence du Latin avec le Grec," etc. See l'Histoire de Montmaur, tom. ii. page 91. 2 Bombastus was one of the names of that great scholar and quack Paracelsus. "Philippus Bombastus latet sub splendido tegmine Aureoli Theophrasti Paracelsi," says Stadelius de circumforanea Literatorum vanitate.-He used to fight the devil every night with the broad-sword, to the no small terror of his pupil Oporinus, who has recorded the circumstance. (Sec Oporin. Vit. apud Christian. Gryph. Vit. Select. quorundam Eruditissimorum, etc.) Paracelsus had but a poor opinion of Galen. "My very beard (says he in his Paragrænum) has more learning in it than either Galen or Avicenna." allowed to rend the Classics. 46 A cold and loveless son of Lucifer, Who woman scorn'd, nor knew the use of her, A branch of Dagon's family, (Which Dagon, whether He or She, Is a dispute that vastly better is Or any doctor of the rabble is! In languages,' the Polyglots, Were one-and-seventy fools to him! That, all for Greek and learning's glory," From whence your scholars, when they want tick 1 Scaliger. de Emendat. Tempor.-Dagon was thought by others to be a certain sea-monster, who came every day out of the Red Sea to teach the Syrians husbandry. See Jacques Gaffarel's Curiosités inouies, Chap. i. He says he thinks this story of the sea-monster "carries little show of probability with it." 2 I wish it were known with any degree of certainty whether the Commentary on Boethius, attributed to Thomas Aquinas, be really the work of this Angelic Doctor. There are some bold assertions hazarded in it: for instance, he says that Plato kept school in a town called Academia, and that Alcibiades was a very beautiful woman whom some of Aristotle's pupils fell in love with. "Alcibiades mulier fuit pulcherrima, quam videntes quidam discipuli Aristote lis," etc.-See Freytag. Adparat. Litterar. Árt. 86. tom. i. Valla, upon his accurate knowledge of the Latin language: 3 The following compliment was paid to Laurentius Nunc postquam manes defunctus Valla petivit, Non audet Pluto verba Latina loqui. Since Val arrived in Pluto's shade, His nouns and pronouns all so pat in, To ask even "what's o'clock" in Latin! These lines may be found in the Auctorum Censio of Du 3 The angel, who scolded St. Jerom for reading Cicero, Verdier (page 29,) an excellent critic, if he could have either as Gratian tells the story in his Concordantia discordantium felt or understood any one of the works which he criticises. Canonum, and says that for this reason bishops were not 4 It is much to be regretted that Martin Luther, with all 'Episcopus Gentilium libros his talents for reforming, should yet be vulgar enough to non legat.-Distinct. 37. But Gratian is notorious for ly-laugh at Camerarius for writing to him in Greek. "Master ing-besides, angels have got no tongues, as the illustrious Joachim," says he, "has sent me some dates and some raipupil of Pantenus assures us. OuX' WE KHI TOT, OUTs sins, and has also written me two letters in Greek. As soon EXSIVOIS MAWTTα' ouf' av opgave Tis dar cosas. as I am recovered, I shall answer them in Turkish, that he too -Clem. Alexand. Stromat. Now, how an angel could may have the pleasure of reading what he does not underscold without a tongue, I shall leave the angelic Mrs. stand."-"Græca sunt, legi non possunt," is the ignorant speech attributed to Accursius; but very unjustly-far from to determine. 4 The idea of the Rabbins about the origin of woman is asserting that Greek could not be read, that worthy jurissingular. They think that man was originally formed with consult upon the law 6. D. de Bonór, possess. expressly says, a tail, like a monkey, but that the Deity cut off this appen-Græca literæ possunt intelligi et legi." (Vide Nov. Lib dage behind, and made woman of it. Upon this extraordi- ror. Rarior. Collection. Fasciculi IV.)-Scipio Carteromanary supposition the following reflection is founded: If such is the tie between women and men, chus seems to think that there is no salvation out of the pale of Greek literature: "Via prima salutis Graia pandetur ab urbe." And the zeal of Laurentius Rhodomannus cannot be sufficiently admired, when he exhorts his countrymen "per gloriam Christi, per salutem patriæ, per reipublica decus et emolumentum," to study the Greek language, Nor must we forget Phavorinus, the excellent Bishop of Nocera, who, careless of all the usual commendations of a Christian required no further eulogium on his tomb than "Here lieth la Greek Lexicographer." |