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our jarring world for so many ages, there would not be some danger of relapsing into barbarism? and finally, whether it is not as rational for a man that cultivates letters, either as a subject of philosophy or a matter of taste, to begin with the beginning, and in a manner to grow up with the language from its infancy, in the in the leading-strings of Latian lore, to its present vigour and maturity, as for a mathematician to begin with his axioms, or a natural philosopher with his laws of matter and motion?

I take it for granted that nature is right, and even when we cannot give a reason for her determinations, it would be unreasonable, not to say impious, to call them in question. On this ground we assert the importance of classical learning, and do not scruple to tell our Goths, that in attempting to abolish it they make war upon good sense, and, as far as in them lies, lay waste the fairest provinces of the intellectual world. I do not insist upon the custom of opening the scene of education with a Latin grammar; for bad customs sometimes become inveterate, and maintain themselves much longer than is either for the credit or advan

sanctions his undertaking, but kindles within his breast an enthusiasm that treads on classick ground, that listens to the Orphean lyre, and bows with grateful homage to the ancient

muse.

It seems they have, many ages before he drew his breath, provided for his improvement and his happiness, and thereby bespoke his veneration and filial attachment; and he gladly recognizes the claim, and generously resolves that the lapse of time and the difference of language shall, in proportion to the difficulty which they throw in his way, prove the sincerity with which he cultivates it. Distance of time, like distance of place, gives a softness and solemnity to objects naturally great, which leave a great deal to the imagination, and dispose us to expect more than common pleasure in an immediate access to them; and so the remoteness of ancient authours, and even their obscurity, has charms to the real student.

The shade of departed friends often recurs to the imagination, and sometimes, as has been supposed, to the sight of their survivors.

The attachments seem immortal, and dissolution strangely enhances the endearment: And may we not imagine that something of the same kind takes place between living genius and those distinguished characters, who at a great distance of time have held the lamp of science to a benighted world? The ardour with which their works are studied not only excites admiration, but a sort of affection which is fain to try itself in all the attitudes of personal intercourse, however visionary. Hence an unwearied application to whatever might assist the conception of their sentiments and character, and even their voice and features.

tage of mankind. But I say that a youth who loves letters, and is conscious of those fine feelings which vibrate to the accents of truth, and attach themselves to mental accommodations, regards the monuments of Grecian and Roman literature, with a veneration, almost religious, and fondly anticipates a dignified satisfaction in an immediate acquaintance with them. The secrecy in which they are withdrawn from vulgar notice has something sacred in it, and an intimacy with them is rated the higher, as being the privilege only of those bouyant spirits, who, in the ardour of literary ambition, mount to those heights of enlightened antiquity, I dont know whether I shall have when the native effusions of genius the assent of very general experience, savoured strongly of inspiration. The but to me, the use of a language no very consciousness of such an ambi- longer spoken has pleasures of a sintion implies an affinity to those fa-gular and an enchanting nature. The thers of literature, that not only perception of meaning, by certain ar

tificial combinations of figures or letters, independently of sound, is a sort of deciphering that calls forth a variety of ingenious effort, and continually repays the pains of investigation, by discoveries the most entertaining and interesting to an inquisitive mind. I cant help reflecting upon the wonderful contrivance whereby ideas are perpetuated; whereby a piece of manufacture that we call a book, becomes the faithful depository of intellectual treasures, amassed many ages ago, and retaining the distinctive characters of their several authours; more especially am I disposed to admire their unperishable excellence, when I recollect, that they emerged to celebrity after a long deathlike oblivion during the dark ages, like some rivers, which sink, and after pursuing their viewless course for many a league, burst forth anew, to perpetuate their name and their usefulness, until lost in the sea.

Should I be proud of an intimacy with persons of high station, and very dignified character? However my fortune might be advanced by such an accident, 1 should not hesitate to prefer the privilege of listening to the sages of antiquity, and imbibing their sentiments, as conceived and expressed by themselves, to the most flattering partiality of a contemporary, however great he might be: and, although my wishes might never be gratified, an enthusiasm of this sort has been the exciting cause of so much literary excellence, in numberless instances, that an extinction of it would augur very unfavourably to learning in general. To conclude:

The classical writers of antiquity have so large a share in modern compositions of any real merit, that even those who either cannot, or will not read them, ought to feel themselves under obligations to them for those very works whereby they would have them superseded. This conduct in a man of letters is ungrateful, at the same time that we could not excuse it in any others, but in consideration of what they themselves would think

still more opprobrious; for the most of men would more patiently suffer their moral principles to be called in question than their understandings.

M. L.

PORTRAIT PAINTING. "Whoever is delighted with his own picture, cannot derive his pleasure from that of another. Every man is always present to himself, and has, therefore, little need of his own remembrance*, nor can desire it, but for the sake of those whom he loves, and by whom he hopes to be remembered. This use of the art is a natural and reasonable consequence of affection; and though like other huwith pride; yet, even such pride is man actions, it is often complicated more laudable than that by which palaces are covered with pictures, which, however excellent, neither

imply the owner's virtue nor promote

it."

* Which he can always find in a mirror.

ORIGINAL POETRY.

For The Port Folio.

MR. OLDSCHOOL,

Whether I am seized with a confirmed cacöethes scribendi, or only infected with a gentle metro-mania, or whether these disorders materially differ; or whether there are any such, I leave it you to decide. I state my case thus: My poetical temperament had subsided to a peaceful sort of blank-verse humour, and I was gently rocking myself to sleep, with some dozen of the milk and water strains of Haley, when your paper of -I forget the date-was brought in by a friend, and upon opening it the "Imitation of the 16th Ode of Anacreon," that I sent you some weeks since, stared me full in the face. I always had, from a stripling, a natural love of seeing myself in print; and whether I scribbled son

nets for the young ladies, or advertisements for the barber in the village newspaper, I always, as I said before,. felt a kind of congratulatory palpitation on reading them over, which I hardly ever failed to do, by the time they were in proof sheet. But to come to the point, I caught up the paper and read over the imitation once or twice, with the most profound admiration; but whether of you, or of myself, I foresee our mutual modesty will not let us agree upon Though, to say the truth, Mr. Oldschool, I felt my gratitude not a little excited by your condescension in printing me; the result is, a violent poetical furor seized me: after the first paroxysms of which, had subsided, and I had written myself down into a gentle pastoral disposition, I produced the following

Translation of the 19th Carmen of Horace.

TO LYDIA.

LYDIA.

Calais, blooming Thurian boy,
Oft woo's me to the nuptial joy
Son of Ornithus-and in sooth,
My eye ne'er view'd a sweeter youth:
Fates! every other bliss destroy
Ere harm my blooming Thurian boy!

HORACE.

Oh Lydia! gentle Lydia! list!
And turn on me, those eyes I've kiss't,
What if my vagrant heart returns,

And kindlier constant for thee burns?
And Hymen in his rosy bands
(As Love our hearts) shall bind our hands,
And Chloe's love and Chloe's charms
Are all forsaken for thy arms?

LYDIA.

Though brighter than the glittering star
That twinkles in the west afar,
Were Calais' charms; and you more light
And fickle than the birds of flight:
And your temper more erratick
Than the blust'ring Adriatick:
In your arms I'd happier lie,
And sweetly live and sweetly die!

Portland, April 8.

Forgive, dear sir, the folio of rhotomontade at the beginning of this

Dialogue between Horace and Lydia. translation, and view this production

HORACE.

While Lydia's bosom beat for me,
Nor any other youthful he
Had dared his ardent arms entwine
About that snowy neck of thine,
Then happier I-more sweetly blest-

LYDIA.

Prithee, rest:
Before your heart inconstant stray'd,
And Chloe lov'd-the Cretan maid:
And Lydia left--for Chloe's fame,
(Lydia, of no ignoble name!).
Then Lydia's bosom beat for thee,
Nor sigh'd for other youthful he.

HORACE.

But Cretan Chloe's charms inspire!
Sweet mistress of the trembling lyre!
'Tis she who chants the witching strains
That softly sooth us from the plains,
Ye gods! how willing would I die,
On her sweet breast to heave one sigh!

with the same kindness you exerted towards my other piece; but if with all the allowances you can make, or fancy, for a younker who has just "'gan bathe his baby quill” in the rills of Helicon, a modest youth withal-if with all these, you find the lines inadmissable, just turn the leaf and kindly write the epitaph of my poetical life-somehow thus:

Hic jacet-G. Scriblerus-born in the sunshine of the P. F. of March 1808, and criticised to death by the Editor thereof on the April succeeding as the fire kindles, have mercy on his remains!!

Epitaph, on William Shaw, an Attorney.
Here lies William Shaw,

An attorney at law;

If he is not blest,

What will become of all the rest?

The price of The Port Folio is Six Dollars per annum, to be paid in advance.

Printed and Published, for the Editor, by SMITH & MAXWELL, NO. 28, NORTH SECOND-STREET.

[merged small][merged small][graphic]

Various, that the mind of desultory man, studious of change and pleased with novelty, may be indulged-Cowp.

Vol. V.

Philadelphia, Saturday, June 25, 1808.

For The Port Folio.

TRAVELS.

ORIGINAL PAPERS.

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 389.)
LETTER XXV.

My dear E,

you

AS have Dr. Moore's travels upon the shelves of your bookcase, you may now turn to what he says of Geneva, and observe, in particular, his description of the Sunday-night societies, into which the whole town, and particularly the female part of it is divided, from the opulent matron of seventy, to the little semstress, who trips along in her spencer, with her ridicule suspended from her arm, and the profits of many a week's labour bestowed upon some ornament on her person. a society becomes by the admission of new members, at length too nu

If

No. 26.

merous to meet any longer with conveniency, it is either dissolved, or it is separated into two or more portions, each of which, like the parts of the Polypus, shoots out a new head, and becomes a perfect society: the boys have also their societies, and when of a proper age, and on certain conditions, are admitted into those of the young ladies the men of an advanced age have their circles, where, "Wise through time, and narrative through age" they meet, and regulate the affairs of Europe, or descending into the garden, if the circle is provided with one, they "Lean on the wall and bask before the sun." There are also family societies, in which on certain days, and generally once a week, the old and the young of one connexion meet, a custom of all others I admire, and which is particularly essential here, where the different ages are so much, upon all other occasions, in the habit of living or of at best passing their

sense,

time apart from each other: it is a pity, that with all their good ,the people of Geneva, should have suffered the very trifling circumstance of living on the hill, or at the foot of it, to be a source of odious distinction, and that from this, or some other such imaginary scale of rank in society, there should have sprung a degree of animosity which has been more than once attended with very serious consequences one of their exiled citizens, who of all others afterwards contributed with the most virulence to the humiliation of his native country, and who is suspected by many of having entertained worse views, had been repulsed in a proposal he made of placing his daughter in a society of young persons, who lived a little higher up the hill: he was a man of genius and of knowledge, but of strong passions having embarked in the French revolution, he foresaw the probability of that unjust fate which had swept away so many, and having resolved, in case he should be brought before the revolutionary tribunal, to put an end to himself before the mock sentence could be passed, he resolutely executed his pose, and his wife as resolutely performed the promise she had made of not surviving him. Their object was to preserve their property from confiscation for the sake of their daughter, nor can we refuse them our admiration; one may truly say with the Latin poet, that there are many who remain inglorious for want of an historian. But I can conceive your impatience all this time to know what I think of the ladies of Geneva, and that you have as many questions to ask upon the occasion as Mrs. Tabitha Bramble put to aptain Lismihago: I cannot how

pur

ever, you should recollect, be supposed to be half as well informed as the captain was, for it has been by no means my fate to be as well circumstanced for that purpose. I can tell you, however, that there are few that can be called handsome, but numbers who have an animated, pleasing, cheerful air, and something better than beauty in their faces: they are generally below your size, wear rouge universally after marriage, but so as to imitate nature, and dress themselves to advantage; if I might venture however to make an observation on their appearance in publick, it would be to regret, that they attach so much importance to a certain fullness of form about the bosom: they deserve our thanks no doubt, as Addison somewhere says of the ladies in his time, for the courage with which they brave the inclemency of the weather in order to give us a sample of their beautiful persons. It is surprising that they should be led by the influence of fashion to adopt a style of dress, so much at variance with that great attention to decorum, which so generally distinguishes them. As they are well and virtuously brought up, we may presume that they make good wives; there is nowhere indeed a greater appearance of domestick happiness, than at Geneva, and the inhabitants still retain the very pretty custom of annexing the wife's name to the husband's. In a place where science is so diffused, and men of learning are at the same time men of the world, the conversation of the ladies naturally assumes more of a scientifick turn than with us in America, and society so far gains by it; but I could have wished that somewhat more of ancient simplicity had been retained, and

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