estate, but he had no power til his son was of age, who is but 15 years old. My son purposes to leave us the begining (of) next week: we turn to Woburn, and from thence, if God blesse us as hitherto, to our homes at London. All my home circumstances I have laid before you, and for forraine ones I have no skil; and altho our enemies are able artists at trifling away our time, yet tis the good pleasure of God we have successe: but the long spun thread of the war is in a way, I fear, to hold longer. God, in his infinit goodnesse, prevent the rageing pestilence at Danszick spreading farther: tis time I should take som heed, my scribbling does not doe soe; but meeting at tea table is a sure stop, for I have no command of time, but what I get by rising something earlier then the most of them, if not at the breakfast upon tea, to w'h Lady Granby is come to call me, who wil ever continue very sincerely and faithfully,

my Lord gr most hamblo have an

To my Lord Bishop off Salsbury, at his palace in Salsbury.

Sir,

Dr. Jonathan Swift to Ambrose Philips.

I was surprised to find, in a letter from Mr. Steele, that you are now in London, and am at a loss whether publick or private business hath brought you over. Your coming has spoilt a letter I had half writt to send you to Copenhagen. It was not lazyness, spleen, or neglect, that made me omitt acknowledging two of yours so long; but downright sickness, which, after a year's pursuing, now I hope begins to leave me where I am, in the country, cultivating half an acre of Irish bog.

The taste you sent me of Northern eloquence is very extraordinary. They seem to have heard there is such a thing in the world as witt and sublime; and not knowing better, they supply the want of both with sounding words. That which vexes me, is the difficulty in construing their Latin, and keeping my breath so long between a relative and antecedent, or a noun and a verb. I could match you with Irish poetry, and printed Latin poetry

too, but Mr. Addison shewed it me, and can give you the best account of it.

You are a better Bickerstaff than I; for you foretold all the circumstances, how I should receive your last pacquet with the honorary memoriall of Monsieur I don't know who. My Lord Wharton gave me the letter. I went aside, and opened it, and people thronged about me to ask what it was; and I shewed it his excellency.

My heart is absolutely broke with the misfortunes of the K. of Sweden. Nothing pleased me more in the thoughts of going abroad, than some hopes I had of being sent to that court. And now, to see that poltroon Augustus putting out his manifestoes, and pretending again to Poland, after the tame submissions he made! It puts me in mind of the sick lyon in the fable: among all the insults offered him, nothing vexed him so much as the spurns of an ass.

I hope you are laying in new stocks to revive your poeticall reputation: but I am wholly in the dark about you, whether you have left the North, or are onely sent back on an embassy from the envoy. You have the best friend in the world, Mr. Addison, who is never at ease while any man of worth is not so: and Mr. Steele is alter ab illo. What says my L'd Dorset? You had not me for a councellor when you chose him for a patron. Is Coll. Hunter gone to his govern't? He is mechant homme, and has never writt to me since he came from France, and I came to Ireland. Your Coll. Worsly and I are mighty good acquaintance; he loves and esteems you much, and I am sorry that expedition did not hold.

When you write any more poetry, do me honor, mention me in it: 'tis the common request of Tully and Pliny to the_great authors of their age; and I will contrive it so, that Prince Posterity shall know I was favored by the men of witt in my time. Pray send me word how your affairs are, that I may order my manner of writing to you accordingly; and remember me sometimes in your walks up the park, and wish for me amongst you. I reckon no man is throughly miserable, unless he be condemned to live in Ireland: and yet I have not the spleen, for I was not born to it. And let me know whether the North has cool'd your Geneva flames; but you have one comfort, that the loss of the ladyes fortunes will increase her love, and assure you her person; and you may now be out of pain of your rival Monsr. le Baron. Pray write to me, and remember me, and drink my health sometimes with our friends, and believe me ever

Your most faithful and most humble Ser❜t,

Jonathan Swift.

ON AN INFANT SMILING AS IT AWOKE.

AFTER the sleep of night, as some still Lake
Displays the cloudless Heavens in reflection,
And, dimpled by the breezes, seems to break
Into a waking smile of recollection,

As if from its calm depths the morning light
Call'd up the pleasant dreams that gladden'd night:-
So does the azure of those laughing eyes

Reflect a mental Heaven of thine own;

In that illumined smile I recognise

The sunlight of a sphere to us unknown;

Thou hast been dreaming of some previous bliss
In other worlds, for thou art new to this.

Hast thou been wafted to Elysian bowers,
In some blest star where thou hast pre-existed;
Inhaled th' ecstatic fragrancy of flowers

Around the golden harps of Seraphs twisted,

Or heard those nightingales of Paradise

Pour thrilling songs and choral harmonies?

Perchance all breathing life is but an essence
From the great Fountain Spirit in the sky,
And thou hast dreamt of that transcendant presence
Whence thou hast fall'n, a dew-drop from on high,
Destined to lose, as thou shalt mix with earth,
Those bright recallings of thy heavenly birth.

We deem thy mortal memory not begun,-
But hast thou no remembrance of the past;

No lingering twilight of a former sun,

Which o'er thy slumbering faculties hath cast Shadows of unimaginable things,

Too high or deep for human fathomings?

Perchance, while reason's earliest flush is brightening
Athwart thy brain, celestial sights are given;
As skies that open to let out the lightning
Disclose a transitory glimpse of Heaven;
And thou art wrapt in visions, all too bright
For aught but Cherubim, and Infant's sight.
Emblem of heavenly purity and bliss,-

Mysterious type which none can understand,
Let me with reverence approach to kiss

Limbs lately touch'd by the Creator's hand:-
So awful art thou, that I feel more prone
To claim thy blessing than bestow mine own.

H.

FAMILIAR TRANSLATION OF HORACE AND LYDIA.

Horace. Lydia, whilst thou wert only mine,

Nor any younger favourite cull

Toy'd with that soft white neck of thine,
I envied not the Great Mogul!

Lydia. Ere Chloe had thy heart estranged,
And Lydia held thee all her own;
She would not bliss like this have changed,
To mount the Queen of Sheba's throne!

Horace. To Chloe, now my bosom's queen,
My life, nay e'en my death I vow,
Her dearer life from harm to screen,
Would Fate the substitute allow!

Lydia. Young Calais woos me, nothing loth
To share in all his amorous joy:-
Had I two lives, I'd give them both,
Would Fate but spare my darling boy!

Horace. What if, this folly just worn out,

I'd buckle on my ancient chain?
Turn Chloe to the right-about,
And beckon Lydia back again?

Lydia. Though he were fair as any star,
Thou, rough and fickle as the sea;
Yet be it still my constant prayer,
To live, and love, and die with thee!

I

H. M.

SONNET.

ON A LANDSCAPE BY MR. HOFLAND.

YOUNG world of peace and loveliness, farewell!
Farewell to the clear lake; the mountains blue;
The grove, whose tufted paths our eyes pursue
Delighted; the white cottage in the dell

By yon old church; the smoke from that small cell
Amid the hills slow rising; and the hue
Of summer air, fresh, delicate, and true,
Breathing of light and life, the master spell.
Work of the poet's eye, the painter's hand,
How close to nature art thou, yet how free
From earthly stain! The beautiful, the bland,
The rose, the nightingale resemble thee;
Thou art most like the blissful fairy-land
Of Spencer, or Mozart's fine melody.

ON GERMAN CRITICISM.

It was our lot, when we entered the world some five-andtwenty years ago, to have brought with us a little code of taste in matters of literature, collected from the perusal of models that we were then taught to believe had been formed upon the true and undeviating principles of human nature. We allude to the compositions of the best eras of antiquity, and to those productions of the last two or three centuries, by which the authors, in the spirit of noble composition, have rescued the genius of their respective times, and countries, from the imputation of degeneracy. Whenever those works proposed to us examples of what was instructive, or affecting, or admirable, in the form of fictitious representations, we followed the fortunes of the heroes of the story with the deepest interest, because we could, without an effort, comprehend the full measure of their claims upon our sympathy. All the finer passages of the epic narratives of antiquity are appeals to the natural emotions of the human breast. The love of country-the anguish of exile-the vicissitudes of great dynasties-heroic intrepidity in battle and in council the instincts of natural piety-the endearments of friendship and the sorrow that can never weep enough, when the objects are no more;-these, and the long train of the other social and political affections, are the elements of poetic excitement, which those masterly productions bring in happy combination before us and as long as man retains that mysterious faculty of delighting to identify himself in imagination with the fortunes and feelings of others, no matter how far removed by time and space, or how strong his assurance that the whole is but an unsubstantial fable, he will lend himself to the illusion, he will take pleasure in accompanying the personages of Grecian and Roman story, through every variety of sentiment and situation; and, adopting all their emotions, because he recognises them as his own, feel as intensely for the fictitious events of twenty or thirty centuries ago, as for the joys or calamities of the passing hour. Nor is it merely in such passages of those immortal works, as present us with scenes, to which we might be ourselves exposed, that we fully apprehend, and participate in, the passions of the actors. In the recital of scenes of wonder, as of ordinary occurrences, the foundation still is human nature, operating according to principles, known and authenticated, from time immemorial. The Sixth Æneid, for instance, is a beautiful and scientific illustration of the forms, which the ordinary phenomena of our nature would assume, if submitted to new, and, in point of fact, impossible modes of excitement. In the conduct and language of the Trojan adventurer, during his passage through the realms of eternity, and still more in that of the VOL. I. No. 4.-1821.

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