strongly than that love for improbable romance, and strange extravagant fiction, which has so long burdened the press with all the garbage of distempered imaginations. In the early ages of Christianity, when the genius of Greece was declining, its latest moments were marked by such reveries of dotage and imbecility. To that period may be referred those numberless insipid romances, of which time has preserved us enough to make us easy at the loss of the rest; and of which we may pronounce, with the exception, perhaps, of the pastorals of Longus, and the Ethiopicks of Bishop Heliodorus, that their brain-sick absurdities are only to be equalled by those of our modern novels and romances.

This puerile nonsense is not confined to novels; it is the chief characteristick of our most popular poetry. Instead of chastely adorning the pure deities of antiquity, we are become Egyptian idolaters, and worship nothing but monsters! spectres flit around the deserted bowers of the muses, and the region of classick enchantment is overrun with devils and hobgoblins.

We confess ourselves old-fashioned enough to prefer the levities of a Horace, or even the philosophick badinage of a Chaulieu, to all the terrares, magicos, sagas, &c. which some "sweet creatures of bombast" have

conjured up from Heywood and Wanley; and we refer their admirers to D'Alembert's explication of the systeme figure, prefixed to the Encyclopedie, where they will find such productions classed under their proper

head. "La Poesie a ses monstres comme la Nature; il faut mettre de ce nombre toutes les productions de l'imagination dereglee."

Thus far, upon the general objects of our paper. We feel a proportionate zeal on every humbler subject, in which the studies or pleasures of the town are interested; and accordingly, one of our principal departments shall be devoted to free and unbiassed criticism on the merits of publick dramatick performances. The necessity of such a review, conducted without malice or venality, has long been seriously felt and acknowledged. With this conviction we undertake the task; and in the words of the illustrious Roman annalist, "sine ira et studio, quorum causas procul habemur.”

We may now and then venture our remarks upon the light and passing publications of the day; but we pledge ourselves not to aspire beyond trifles. Learning and science must go of course to the reviewers, while we shall content ourselves with such summer productions as may be read one fine evening, and criticised the next. Sometimes, indeed, we may come after the reviewers, and indulge a smile at their sapient decisions. When we find them, with other pursuers of literature, attempting to restore that parade of index erudition which has long gone to sleep with Dutch commentators on our shelves, and was only fit for those ages when a man's understanding was measured by the lumber of his library, we may be allowed to exclaim with Shakspeare's Gremio, "Oh, this learning! what a thing it is!" and resolve to use the little "writing and reading that comes by nature" to us, in ridiculing pedantry, and laughing at dogmatists.

With respect to news, we shall leave all foreign intelligence to the ingenious editors of the daily prints, whose manufacture supplies more than enough for the consumption of all our craving politicians. We shall, however, reserve a page for curious domestick information; and the an

nals of fashionable life shall frequently claim our attention. How much the intrigues and gallantries of the great may tend to illustrate the general history of a period, is easily understood from all the French memoirs ; and though our women are not yet such Aspasias in politicks, there is quite enough of talent among them to render their egaremens very interesting. We shall therefore record, oh Fashion!" noctu quid facias ineptiarum."

Such is the Prospectus of the PicNic. We omit those minute particulars which relate to the mechanical part of the undertaking. On the

price of the papers we have yet to consult our Printer; and with respect to the number of their pages, we shall make them "in the fashion of stirrup-leathers," like Friar John's prayers, and "shorten or lengthen them as we think proper.'

MISCELLANY.

The following poem is a great curiosity. It is the production of the celebrated Charles Yorke, who was so nobly distinguished for his genius and eloquence, and who immediately after his elevation to the Lord High Chancellorship perished prematurely, in consequence of a sensibility too acute to bear the reproaches of a malignant faction. He was a most accomplished scholar, a very eloquent oratour, a dextrous logician and an honourable man. His political principles, to a loyal adherence of which he fell a sacrifice, were admirable. He was one of the King's Friends, and had he braved the insolence of Sedition and Rebellion, he would have been a most formidable opponent to that pernicious party, who in the years 1768, 1769 and 1770, as well as at other periods, produced so much mischief in England. The ensuing lines written by Mr. YORKE, at a juvenile Age, reflect lustre upon his taste and talents, they have been

* Rabelais.

thought worthy by EDMUND BURKE, to be transmitted to posterity. This is enough, independently of their intrinsick merit, to gain them a conspicuous place in this Journal. Ode to the Honourable Miss Yorke, (afterwards Lady Anson) on her copying a Portrait of Dantè by Clorio. By her Brother, the late Honourable Charles Yorke, Esq.

To lend a poet's fame thy friendly aid; Fair artist! well thy pencil has essay'd Great Dante's image in thy lines we trace; And while the Muses train thy colours grace,

The Muse propitious on the draught shall

smile,

Nor, envious, leave unsung the gen'rous toil.

Picture and Poetry just kindred claim, Their birth, their genius, and pursuits the

same;

Daughters of Phoebus and Minerva, they From the same sources draw the heavenly

ray.

Whatever earth, or air, or ocean breeds,
Whatever luxury or weakness needs;
All forms of beauty Nature's scenes dis-
close,

All images inventive arts compose;
What ruder passions tear the troubled
breast,

What mild affections sooth the soul to rest, Each thought to Fancy magick numbers raise

Expressive picture to the sense conveys. Hence in all times with social zeal conWho blend the tints, and who attune the spire, lyre.

See! in reviving Learning's infant dawn, Ere yet in precepts from old ruins drawn, Sham'd the mock ornaments of Gothick taste,

New artists form' each Grecian bust replac'd;

Ere Leo's voice awak'd the barb'rous age, Oppress'd by monkish law, and Vandal

rage:

See! Dantè, Petrarch, through the darkness strive,

And Giotto's pencil bid their forms survive!

When now maturer growth fair Science knew,

* Giotto was the scholar of Cimabue, and the first painter of any genius that appeared in Italy. He worked at Florence : was the contemporary of Dantè and Petrarch, whose pictures he drew, and with whom he lived in friendship.

Zeuxis is said to have studied Homer with particular attention. He always read such parts of his poems, as were best suited to the subject he had in hand, before he took up his pencil.

Julio Romano, the disciple and favourite of Raphael, was said to have a peculiar majesty in his compositions. He was the best scholar of the modern painters, and a diligent reader of Virgil, and the greatest poets.

+ Julio Clovio lived 200 years after Dantè. The portrait of Dantè, here mentioned, represents him in a melancholy posture in the fore-ground, looking back on Florence, whence he was banished during the commotions in that state, in which he bore the highest offices. Clovio's great work is a book of drawings, to be seen at this day in the Florentine gallery, the subjects of which are all taken from Dantè's poem on hell, purgatory, and heaven.

Intent his figure on the can vas glow'd:
To Dante's fame the grateful colours flew,
And wreaths of laurel bind his honour'd
brow.

Thou too, whom Nature and the Muse inspire,

List'ning the poet's lore hast caught his fire;

With so much spirit ev'ry feature fraught,
Clovio might own this imitated draught;
And Dante were he conscious of the praise,
Would sing thy labours in immortal lays ;
His melancholy air to gladness turn'd,
Nor longer his unthankful Florence
mourn'd;

Fair & Beatrice's charms would lose their force,

No more her steps o'er heav'n direct his

Vol. V.

No. 21.

For The Port Folio.

TRAVELS.

LETTERS FROM GENEVA AND FRANCE.

Written during a residence of between two and

three years in different parts of those countries, and addressed to a lady in Virginia. (Continued from page 311.)

LETTER XVII.

My dear E-,

OUR stay was too short to enable us even to take a superficial view of this celebrated city; we ascended the hill however, which overhangs it, and enjoyed one of the finest prospects we had beheld in France; two navigable rivers embracing, as they approach the sides of a noble city, with a well cultivated country, and a view of the Alps surmounted by Mont Blanc.

Near the spot we stood on were the remains of a Roman amphitheatre, and below was the city, in which I could trace the vestiges of civil war and

jacobinical fury: the streets and bridges were, however, crowded with carriages and people, and the imagination was thus in some measure consoled for the horrours of past time by the appearances Fortunately for the present inhabiof present plenty and tranquillity. tants of Lyons, the articles they have been so long in the habit of manufacturing, are of light carri age, and have been gradually brought into use by that return towards monarchy, and to the manners of a court which is now so obvious. On leaving Lyons, we followed, for a time, the direction of the Rhone, the stream of which, soon became too shallow for navigation in any but small boats, but there were evident marks of its rising at times far beyond its present limits, and extending its ravages to a great dis tance. It was not like the Garonne, the emblem of a gracious and bounteous sovereign, benefiting even by his occasional ex

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cesses; but of a tyrant, herce, violent and unjust, exceeding at times all bounds, bearing off every thing before him, and then sinking again into insignificance and inutility. Quitting shortly after the direction of the Rhone, we found ourselves in a country not unlike the little Cantons of Switzerland, and reminding me very much at times of the narrow vallies and high mountains on the road from Staunton to the Sweet Springs. There were several circumstances, however, which created a very striking contrast between the back parts of Virginia, and the neighbourhood of Nanthua, where we stopped for the night; every slip of low ground, which was capable of cultivation, became a vineyard in miniature in the hands of these industrious people: no spot of good earth, even though not larger than the Spring-hill at Belvoir, remained neglected, and it was sometimes difficult to imagine, how the husbandman was ever able to reach this species of hanging garden: in addition to this difference in point of prospect, there were the houses of the peasantry, either collected in villages, or scattered along the face of the mountain, and in one spot there was a church on a projecting rock almost perpendicularly above us. The roads too were good though steep, and when we arrived at our inn, which was not until ten at night, instead of a miserable ordinary, the haunt of gamblers, there was a good fire in a comfortable room, and instead of an old fowl pulled from the roost by a drowsy negress, there was a supper of all that could be desired, and we were waited upon by the well-behaved, well-dressed and handsome daughters of the house. Nothing, as I have al

ready observed, has proved so contrary to our expectation, as the goodness of the inns in France, and the civility of the innkeepers; their floors are not always as clean as one could wish; and we have been more than once shocked at

the appearance of two or three stout men officiating as chambermaids, but their beds were invariably good. As to the individuals whom we met with on the road, or in towns, or at the theatre, I do not remember one instance of their behaving rudely, or even impolitely to us; and the circumstance of our being foreigners, which seemed as well known at first sight, as if written upon our foreheads, appeared everywhere a claim to kindness and respect. Of the revolution, and its effects, I have said nothing, except where the siege of Lyons irresistibly drew me from my purpose, not only from the difficulty of gaining information on a subject which has so cruelly divided the minds of men, but from a desire to acquire some better knowledge of the subject before I ventured to record my opinions, even in this transitory manner: I will only say, that I believe the revolution to have been favourable to the peasantry and small landholders throughout France, that as to its effects upon the administration of justice and upon literature, I believe it to have been favour able to the first, in appearance only, and to the last in part, and that I have reason to think, it has been extremely prejudicial to good morals, and fatal to commerce.

We are now, on the thirteenth of October, arrived at the last day's journey, as you must per ceive, if you have traced us on the map: it was with mingled sensations that I felt myself approaching Geneva. You know through