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Written on Good Friday, 1809.
[By Joseph Blockett.]

"Muse of sorrow, heavenly guest,
Come, possess my aching breast!
Quick my trembling hand inspire
To touch with skill the hallowed lyre;
The hallowed lyre, whose strains impart
Comfort to the bleeding heart.

Alas! see where, in manhood's bloom,
A victim to the dreary tomb,

The parent's hope profoundly sleeps;
And see; oh see! what parent weeps:
Weeps o'er the plant he reared with pride;

Which scarcely blossomed e'er it died.

"Come then, soother sweet of grief,
Muse of sorrow, bring relief.
From thy solitary cell
Kindred notes of passion swell;
Notes, like Gilead's balmy power,
To assuage the anguished hour.

"But what sounds are those I hear,
Hovering on my listening ear?
Sure some heavenly minstrel brings
Solace from celestial strings:
Yes, I see, in yonder cloud
An angel strikes his harp aloud,
And with strains of soothing peace
Bids the muse of sorrow cease.

"Now, methinks I hear it say,
Haste, my brother! haste away
From a world of various wo,
From the shades of death below.
Hasten, soaring spirit, blest,
Hasten to thy brother's breast.

"Hark! the kindred shade replies, As through yielding air it flies,

Yes, my brother, yes, I come Exulting o'er the rayless tomb: Summoned to an equal seat, Cherub may a cherub greet.

"Yet, what means this hollow moan?
Ah! it is my parent's groan

Hovering round me in my flight
To the azure fields of light.

"Cease then; cease, fond parents dear!
Check, ah! check the tender tear.
Soon our transports ye will share,
And, in realms of purer air,
Meet the rich award of heaven,
Which to suffering worth is given."

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Domestick Farewell to Summer. Sweet Summer hours, farewell!

And every sylvan shade; The upland wood, the sheltered dell, And deep romantick glade; Already Autumn, pacing nigh, Bisplays his golden pageantry.

No more the lengthened day
To heedless ramble woos;
Nor twilights (growing softly gray)
Eve's crimson beams suffuse.
Night draws her hasty curtain round,
And shades the half-forbidding ground.

With fond regretting eye,

The fading charms I view: Earth's variegated livery,

And heaven's refulgent blue;
But not for these, however dear,
I drop the softly poignant tear.

The genii of the Spring,
That people every brake,
Haunting low glen, and grassy ring,
My fancy cannot wake;
The spirit of the past pervades
Your wild, your consecrated shades.

'Tis this on every bark,

Some phantom bliss inscribes;
This animates the covert dark,
With pleasure's airy tribes:
Loves wild, domestick, playful, sweet,
That know nor chill, nor feverish heat.

With you, sweet scenes are fled,
Affection's happiest hours:
The garland that adorns her head,

Is wreathed of feeble flowers;
And Winter's blast, or Summer's ray,
May sweep, or scorch their bloom away.

Dear moments, ere ye fly,

Nor trace nor vestige leave,
Once more in vision meet my eye,
Let me one glimpse retrieve;
'Ere woods are green another year,
How altered may your forms appear!

Then that same checkered shade,
That mossy green recess;
That primrose bank, that forest glade,
In nature's newest dress:

May flaunt and bloom-but still in vain;
Their joy, alas! is memory's pain.

Beneath the billock green,
One loved companion laid;

Would change with magick touch the

scene,

To dark and horrid shade! Joyless, forlorn, repulsive, drear, Would every lonely walk appear.

The gently sighing gale,

No musick could convey; Hushed, every songster of the vale, Still, every dancing spray: To sorrow's ear, to sorrow's eye, Formless and mute does beauty lie!

The spirit of the past,

O'er each deserted seene,
Hovering, amid the dreary blast,
Would seek the hillock green;
And melancholy moanings fling,
Upon the shuddering ear of Spring.

Then joy's ecstatick train,
The merry elfin throng:
And childhood dancing o'er the plain,
Or forest shades along;

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Would grief, the sorceress, dispel
From wood, and brake, and haunted dell.

Or armed with ruthless spear,
And penetrating lance,

The rallying squadrons would appear,
Embattled to advance;

With subtle dart of finest pain,
Would every pang recall again.

As each receding year

On life's horizon fades:

Thus faint and tremulous with fear, I scan the coming shades.

O! untried moments! on your wing,
What latent terrours do ye bring?

Where points your foremost dart?
Who fated to destroy?

Tell me, what gayly throbbing heart,
Now warm with life and joy,
'Ere summer gild another sky,
Beneath the valley's clod shall lie!

Yet why explore the maze,

For mortals ne'er designed? Heaven spreads a cloud upon its ways, In pity to mankind:

And ignorance and hope bestows,
To cheat the future of its woes.

Cease, inconsiderate eye,
Thine impotent employ;
And, as successive moments fly,
Their passing smiles enjoy;
To day, with all its bliss is mine,
To morrow, pitying beaven, be thine.

CAROLINE.

From Mr. Dallas's Novel of Percival. Three matchless properties combine To make the female form divine; Idalian properties, above, Distinguished in the queen of love. But though of high celestial fame, Among the Gods they have no name, Unvocal speak to sense divine, As here to us in CAROLINE.

Observe the raptured eye, that tells What charm in due proportion dwells.

Proportion, which the art can give
To make the very marble live;
Traces the neck, the shoulder, waist,
The foot, the ancle, justly placed:
Men call it SYMMETRY divine,
But Gods shall name it CAROLINE.

How spirit animates each feature
Of a lively, blooming creature!
O'er all the face its spells arise,
But chiefly eloquent the eyes;
Thence fly the secrets of the heart
Thence lovers wordless vows impart:
While thus EXPRESSION we define,
The Gods shall call it CAROLINE.

Come forth, Euphrosyne! I see

The charm that crowns the matchless three:

'Tis on that nether lip, and now

It darts across that farther brow;
Now to thy bosom sweeps the loves,
And now beneath thy steps it moves:
'Tis GRACE, as worded by the Nine;
Call it, ye Gods, your CAROLINE.

But should the immortals now descend,
And for strict grammar rules contend,
Calling Dan Priscian to affirm
That each idea claims a term;
Do thou, Moonides, arise!
Improve the language of the skies;
Then, when the Gods the three combine,
They'll call the union CAROLINE.

LITERARY INTELLIGENCE.

☛ COMMUNICATIONS for this head, from authors and booksellers, post paid, will be inserted free of expense. Literary advertisements will be printed upon the covers at the usual price.

Articles of literary intelligence, inserted by the booksellers in the UNITED STATE6' GAZETTE, will be copied into this Magazine without further order.

RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS.

By the Booksellers, Philadelphia, Published-Nine Letters to Dr. Sey. bert, Representative in Congress for the City of Philadelphia, on Subjects relative to the Renewal of the Charter of the Bank of the United States. By M. Carey. Price 37 1-2 cents.

By Conrad, and Co. Philadelphia, Published-Paragraphs on Banks. By Erick Bollman. Price 37 1-2 cents.

By E. Sargeant, New-York, Republished-Universal Biography; containing a Copious Account, Critical and Historical, of the Life and Character, Labours and Actions of Eminent Persons of all ages and countries, conditions and professions; arranged in alphabetical order. By J. Lempriere, D. D. author of The Classical Dictionary.

By Elliott and Crossy, New York, Published-The Novelist, No. 5. Containing the Lady of the Lake. By Walter Scott, Esq. Price 75 cents.

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Edward Earle, and Co.

Examinations, a Complete Series of AnaWill very shortly publish-Anatomical tomical Questions, with Answers. The answers arranged so as to form an elementary system of anatomy; and intended as preparatory to examinations at the SurTables of the Bones, Muscles, and Argeons' Hall. To which are annexed, teries.

John Tiebout, New York,

Progress, &c. By John Bunyan, in an Proposes republishing-The Pilgrim's octavo form; with a large type, on fine paper-with six elegant copper plates.

SELECT REVIEWS,

FOR FEBRUARY, 1811.

FROM THE MONTHLY REVIEW.

The Remains of Henry Kirke White, of Nottingham, and late of St. John's College, Cambridge; with an Account of his Life. By Robert Southey. 4th Edition, corrected. 2 vols. 12mo. 14s. Boards. 1808.

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however congenial to the feelings of our nature, is in itself unreasonable: while it is impossible to conceive any thing more melancholy than the early dissolution of him who has lived just long enough to feel within him the highest intellectual endowments, and a full conviction that a prolonged life could alone be want ing to his attainment of a permanent and honourable reputation. The interesting subject of the volumes before us has bequeathed to us the most unquestionable proofs, not only of rare powers of mind, but of a disposition so gentle, amiable, bene.

VOL. V.

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volent, and pious, that our regret for the loss of these talents and quali ties is enhanced by the persuasion that they would have been zealously employed in promoting the happiness, the virtue, and all the best interests of his fellow-creatures.

He was bora in 1785, at Nottingham. His father, by trade a butcher, designed to bring him up to his own business, but was dissuaded from this intention by his mother, who quickly discovered, and carefully cultivated, the talents of her remarkable offspring. From his earliest years, he was a most persevering and ambitious student; and, though not so perfectly regular in his school exercises as to gain the favour of

his instructers, his desultory lei6 Awas devoted to the acquisition

richer and more diversified stores ofing and science, than many reach y constant attention during a life devoted to study. At the age of seventeen, he was placed, as a clerk, in the office of Messrs. Coldham and Enfield, attornies at Nottingham, and town-clerks to the corporation; the latter, we believe, the son of the late ingenious and amia

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ble Dr. Enfield. The indulgence of these humane and judicious masters . still allowed him many opportunities for pursuing his former studies, for increasing his stock of general information, and for improving his mind by elegant literature. He had access also to a good library: but he was unremittingly assiduous in his attention to the duties assigned to him, and (according to a letter from Mr. Enfield) particularly ready in acquiring the knowledge of them, as well as very useful in carrying them into execution. During several years he had been, and still continued to be, a favoured correspondent of some periodical publications, which hold out a laudable encouragement to the exertion of youthful minds, by offering books, medals, and other prizes, to the writers of the best essays on particular theses. The success of these smaller productions tempted him, in conformity to the advice of his friends, to prepare a volume of poems for the press, before he had completed his eighteenth year; in hopes that this publication might, either by its sale, or the notice which it might excite, enable him to prosecute his studies at college, and fit himself for the church:" for though he was still attached to the legal profession, and had even indulged the hope of one day rising to the degree of a barrister, an unfor. tunate and growing deafness destroyed all these views of advancement; " and his opinions, which at one time inclined to deism, had now taken a strong devotional bias."

This advice to publish, though undoubtedly conceived in the spirit of kindness, does not appear to us to display judgment equal to its good intention, Few are the circumstances under which we can deem it beneficial for a boy of seventeen to exhibit himself as a poet to the publick eye. At that age of sensibility, the powers of imagination should rather be repressed than encouraged, in one who is destined for a grave and laborious profession.

The regular prosecution of severe moted; and though an ingenious studies should by all means be proyouth can perhaps never be persua ded entirely to refrain from verse making, it is surely going far enough to connive at this as the occasional diversion of his leisure, without retion for his serious hours. The lite commending it as a proper occupa rary character ought in no degree to be staked on the crude composi tions of an unformed mind, however promising. On the one hand, the vanity of successful authorship may naturally beget a dislike for legiquiescence in the degree of profitimate labour, and a too easy acciency and celebrity which has been already attained: while, on the other, the mortification of publishing a work that failed to obtain praise might produce a still more fatal effect, by plunging the half-expanded faculties in listless and irrational despair.

ble genius directs the youthful mind Where powerful and uncontrollato poetry, it will naturally seize on all those animating objects which stir the spirits and fascinate the ardent imagination, at that happy period: but, when the muse is courted rather from a general love of poetry and belles lettres, than from the inspiration of high poetical talent, a certain round of ideas is extremely apt to fill up the whole compass of

the

unvaried song. Churchyard scenes and cypress groves at the dreadful noon of night, silence, and egotism, with overpowering darkness, solitude, contemplation, melancholy, and fast approaching death-such is the funereal train that walks in sad procession round the sleepless pillow of the sentimental bard. Without insisting on the perfect exhaustion which this kind of poetry has undergone, particularly in our own language, let us consider, for a moment, what probable benefit familiar employment to a boy first can be expected from its supplying starting into active life. If such feel

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