you dropt the fheephook from my trembling hand, whilft thou reclining on my trouble breaft, in broken accents told me thou didst love. O Lycas! faidft thou, Lycas! I-—I love thee! witness ye peaceful groves and folitary fountains; for oft have heard the foft complaints I made; and you, ye flowers that I have bedewed with tears. O Chloe! how enraptured is thy fwain! yes, love's a bleffing words cannot exprefs. This fpot be confecrated then to love. I'll plant young rofe trees round about this elm. Around its trunk the fcammony fhall grow, adorned with flowers of purplefpotted white. Here I will gather all the fweets of spring; the piony and lily here fhall blow. I'll go and cull in meads and verdant fields the purple violet, and sweet-fcented pink, and all the sweetest shrubs and plants that grow. Of these I'll form a little grove of flowers, breathing perfumes; and round it will I turn the nighbouring ftream, to form an Isle, to which a fence of thorns I'll raife befide, to keep the goats and sheep from browzing here. "Come then ye plaintive turtles, hither come, who live in love, and coo beneath my elm. Hither ye little birds, too, come away, and count your mates beneath the rofe-tree's thorn. And you, ye vagrant butterflies, fo gay, here sport on beds of flowers, embrace, and vent your tranfports. "Then fhall the fhepherd, as he paffes by, and scents the fweet perfumes that fill the air, cry out, "What goddess "claims this confecrated place? Is it to Venus facred? or hath Diana decked it out fo fine, to flumber here when "wearied with the chace?" In the above piece Mr. Gefner has made near approaches to the beautiful fimplicity of Theocritus. The invention of gardens, a fubject which we do not remember to have seen treated before, is accounted for very naturally; and the images of paftoral love and innocence are happily conceived. The author has made the invention of the lyre, and of finging, the fubject of another of thefe efflays. The firft hint for the lyre he obferves, with more than poetical probability, was caught from the twang of a bowftring, and the art of finging was firft derived from the imitation of birds. Both these events are very poetically introduced, and love and innocent enthufiafm are made the principal agents. We doubt not that this little account of thefe juvenile performances of Mr. Gefner will excite in our readers a curiofity to fee the whole. Of the tranflation we have likewife given fufficient fpecimens. Occafional Occafional thoughts on the ftudy and character of claffical authors, on the courfe literature, and the prefent plan of a learned education with fome incidental comparisons between Homer and Offian. 8vo. 2 s. Richardfon. HE author of these thoughts is a literary fceptic of the fame ftamp with the author of the Reflections on learning, but his fcepticism is of a lefs dangerous tendency. He combats received opinions with the eagernefs of Baker, but with unequal force. He is always wordy, but feldom clear. Sometimes, however, his opinions are well founded. The infufficiency of that fyftem of education which is followed in our schools must be obvious to all who have got clear of pedantic prejudices. There is fomething, likewife, in his obfervations on an age of ornament. Then, fays he, "the aim of every one will be rather to exhibit the little he knows with fhew and oftentation, than to examine into the principles on which it is founded. For this purpofe the grand object of his attention will be language. The men of learning, at such a time, will be, ftrictly speaking, men of letters; inftead of laying in a flock of ufeful knowledge, they will fill the ftorehoufes of fcience with nothing but idioms and phrafes; and in working upon these fiimfy materials, will the chief ingenuity of thefe artifts be fhewn. Words will be derived from words, and books will be made from books-Men will write upon Homer and Ariftotle; but they will not write nor think upon nature. It is here then that we may expect to be entertained with every trick which can be played with words-we fhall fee them cut and moulded into a thoufand different fhapes, exhibiting to our view a hatchet or a handfaw, an egg or a pyramid. And this not by any intrinfic meaning, but in plain outward form; as if people thought this was the only way in which a combination of letters could poffibly represent a material object." "In fact, whatever reference to real exiftence the firft inventors of letters or characters might have, and whatever resemblance to natural objects the fymbols they devifed might bear, fo as to be an eafy means of bringing the appearance of things to our victo, inftead of things themfelves; this in time gradually wears off, and as language is refined, words ceafe to be regarded as the reprefentatives of things; and are so far from carrying the mind on to any farther contemplation, that they rather invite it to stop at them alone; forming, as it I 4 were, were, a fpecious kind of fkreen between us and nature; which we muft either throw down, or turn our eyes fome other way, if we would obtain a true view of things. And the more exquifite the painting on this fkreen appears, the more it will attract our regard, and the lefs likely fhall we be to divorce ourfelves from it to look on the rougher and lefs polifhed face of nature. They too whofe bufinefs it is to beautify this fplendid picce of patchwork; to difpofe their gaudy purple colouring in the moft ftriking point of view; muft be fo intirely taken up with this employment, that it is not to be fuppofed, they can have much opportunity, if they had inclination, to bestow their attention on more ufeful purposes." The author, whether he might intend it or not, has given us an inftance in the above paffage of that kind of writing which he condemns. What a multitude of words has he employed to tell us that too much ornament makes us lofe fight of nature! There is fome humour in the following paragraph, and poffibly there may be alfo in it fome truth. "I have often amufed myfelf with confidering the wonderful analogy which I am confident might be discovered to obtain in thele matters; fo that the fame age which gives into ornament in drefs and architecture; which tortures nature into quaint fhapes in their gardens; fhould uniformly be found to play the fame pranks with their food, both of body and mind and I have not the leaft doubt with myself, but that fyllogifins and mince-pies, prædicaments and folomon gundy, forced meat and fchool-divinity would appear, on due inquiry, to be exactly coæval." As most of thefe occafional thoughts feem to depreciate the ancient claffic writers, and were ultimately intended, as we fhall foon have occafion to observe, to raise one name on the ruins of another, we shall confider thofe arguments that more immediately tend to that purpofe. The following obfervations on the defects of ancient languages must not pafs uncenfured. "Whoever examines them with any accuracy will find that all ancient languages are extremely defective in this refpe&t, that their words are only figns of very general and inderminate ideas. In Hebrew this perhaps might be extended even to verbs and nouns; but in Greek and Latin it is oblervable chiefy in epithets, or the names of qualities. On this account ancient poefy, and indeed all other ancient writings writings whatever (if we except only a few trifling distinctions in logic) are and neceffarily muft be conveyed in very indistinct and indefinite terms: fo that the fize and shape of any object, or at least its peculiar marks and features must in all fuch defcriptions be fet before us in a very vague and confused manner. Their writing like their painting at fuch times, is either all of one colour with only fome general variations of white and black, light and fhade; or the colours and figures, through a want of accuracy, run into each other, and are fo blended together, that all diftinction of the different parts and bounds is entirely loft. "This neceffary imperfection, though it may not be fo fenfibly felt in the fublime, to which it is not perhaps altogether unfuitable, in all the fofter fpecies of poetry, where a more delicate penciling is required, where certain minute strokes and touches are the leading characters, must be an essential lofs." The author would have done well to inform us to what æra he would have these observations on the defects of ancient languages confined. If he would impute them to the claffical ages, he muft, notwithstanding his pretenfions to the contrary, have a very fuperficial knowledge of the expreffive power of the ancient languages. "In all the fofter fpecies of poetry, where a delicate penciling is required, where certain minute ftrokes and touches are the leading characters," in all the nice difcriminations of paffion, fentiment, character and defcription the works of the illuftrious ancients are eminently fine; their languages therefore could not in this refpect be deficient. Perhaps a paffage or two from their writings may be more fatisfactory obferve then the following, Μελαν ομμα γοργον εσω, Τοδ ̓ ἀπ ἐλπιδος ΚΡΕΜΑΤΑΙ, Ροδίνην δ', όποια μῆλον, Χνοϊην ποιει παρείην. ΕΡΥΘΗΜΑ δ' ώς ΑΙΔΟΥΣ Δύνασαι βαλειν, ποίησον. Το δε χείλος, εκ ετ' οιδα Τινι μοι τρόπῳ ποιήσεις. ΑΠΑΛΟΝ, ΓΕΜΟΝ ΔΕ, ΠΕΙΘΟΥΣ. EXETWO Εχέτω δ', όπως εκείνη, ΤΟ ΛΕΛΗΘΟΤΩΣ συνοφρυν Are the marks and features in thefe defcriptions fet before us in a very vague and confused manner"? Is "the painting either all of one colour, with only some general variations of white and black, light and fhade"? Are the colours and figures, through a want of accuracy, run into each other"? and are they fo blended together, that all distinction of the different parts and bounds is intirely loft"? Who does not fee the injuftice of these affertions?-But it is a fine thing to have a few terms ready to draw off upon occafion! How fmoothly runs the declamatory ftream! how eafily the words. fall into their order; where if they stand full and fair, their truth is never difputed! However, as we have produced paffages from an ancient writer that make againft this occafional and, let us add, fuperficial thinker's objections to the ancient languages, we must, in juftice to him, give admiffion to what he has quoted in favour of his opinion. "Perhaps (fays he) an inftance which juft now occurs to me may more fully explain my meaning. It is one, which, I am fure, will not be thought difadvantageous to ancient poetry: I KNOW NOT, indeed, whether a more favourable one could be felected. In the eleventh book of the Eneid, where Virgil is defcribing the funeral-obfequies of the young unhappy Pallas; amongst other circumftances, all finely imagined, he throws in that moft ftriking one of the dead warrior's horfe; whose part, in this mournful fcene, is fet before us in the two following beautiful lines, "Poft bellator equus, pofitis infignibus, Æthon, "It lachrymans, guttifque humectat grandibus ora.” This, if ought ever was, muft undoubtedly be reckoned true poetry, and juft painting. The poet is not contented with barely telling us that Ethon wept, or, as the hiftorian says of Cæfar's horfes, "quod ubertim fleret ;" but with an enumeration of particulars, adds -guttifque humectat grandibus ora! I am far from meaning to infinuate that there is the leaft defect in this pafiage: perhaps any thing more minute might have funk the dignity of the circumftance. But if the reader will only juít |