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Ye Nymphs, to Venus be due honours paid,
Or Love on you his potent darts shall try.
Hence with your threats, the smiling Muses said,
The idle boy we studious maids defy.

Vanity.

He knows little of vanity," says an eminent writer, "who does not know that it is omnivorous; that it has no choice in its food; that it is fond to talk even of its own faults and vices, as what will excite surprise and draw attention, and what will pass at worst for openness and candour. It was this abuse and perversion which vanity makes even of hypocrisy, which has driven J. Rousseau to record a life not so much as chequered or spotted here and there with virtues, or even distinguished by a single good action."-Maxims, Opinions, &c. of the late Edm. Burke, esq; v. 2, 1815.

From the same, on the Writings and Designs of Rousseau.

"Mr. Hume told me, that he had from Rousseau himself the secret of his principles of composition. That acute and eccentric observer bad perceived, that, to strike and interest the public, the marvellous must be produced; that the marvellous of the heathen mythology had long lost its effect; that giants, magicians, fairies, and heroes of romance

which succeeded, had exhausted the portion of credulity which belonged to their age; that now nothing was left to a writer but that species of the marvellous which yet might be produced, and with as great an effect as ever, though in another way, that is, the marvellous in life, in manners, in characters, and in extraordinary situations, giving rise to new and unlooked-for strokes in politics and morals."

Gray the Poet.

We are surprised that so accurate a scholar and sublime a poet, as Gray must be esteemed by all the lovers of poetry, should write two such couplets as follow:

Gay Hope is theirs, by Fancy fed,

Less pleasing when possess'd.

This elliptical expression exceeds poetic licence: the object of hope is less pleasing when possessed, no doubt; but can it be said so of hope itself? Again,

This the force of Erin hiding,
Side by side as proudly riding.

Triumphs of Owen.

That a man of genius, as Gray was, should describe a ship as hiding instead of containing her troops, is wonderful, except he wanted a rhyme.

A Singular Critique.

The late Gilbert Wakefield, critic and politician, has made the following panegyric on Mr. P. Knight's poem, "The Landscape:" "A poem which the elegant and ingenious author, by a few lectures on versification, relative to modes of expression too undignified for poetry, and from a languishing imbecility of numbers, would soon polish into greater excellence."- Wakefield's Notes on Pope, epist. iv. page 321. To send a gentleman mature in age to learn his prosody and his poetic phraseology, and to improve the vigour of his numbers, seems one of the day-dreams of that learned, ingenious, and very eccentric writer.

Biography and History well distinguished.

Dryden, whether he treated his subject in verse or prose, loved to sport in the regions of a lively and picturesque fancy. Speaking of history, he says, "There you are conducted only into the rooms of state; here (in biography) you are led into the private lodgings of the hero.* You see him in his undress, and are made familiar

The reader will here recollect an acute and well-known saying, that "no man is a hero to his valet de chambre."

with his most private actions and conversations. You may behold Scipio and Lælius gathering cockle-shells on the shore, Augustus playing at bounding stones with boys, and Agesilaus riding on a hobby-horse among his children."-Life of Plutarch. See Malone's edition of Dryden's

Prose Works, vol. iii. 8vo.

Translators.

Dryden was always at the head of these second-hand poets; and the superior genius, which shone forth in an epic poem, did not forsake him in the translation even of an epigram.

Cheronean Plutarch, to thy deathless praise
Does martial Rome this grateful statue raise;
Because both Greece and she thy fame have shar'd,
(Their heroes written, and their lives compar'd.)
But thou thyself couldst never write thy own,
Their lives have parallels, but thine has none.
From the Greek of Agathias, and supposed to have been
inscribed on a statue of Plutarch at Rome.

Crowded Tables.

In large parties," as they are called, little of society is to be enjoyed. Your next neighbour in such a crowd must prove your entertainer or your tormentor. Plutarch, in his Symposiacs, has a very singular and amusing passage relative

to this subject. "The rule I would follow is, to fit the persons, who sit near each other, in such a manner, as the wants of each may be supplied. Next to one who is willing to instruct, I would place one that is desirous of instruction; next a morose guest, I would seat a good-tempered one; next a talkative old man, a patient youth; next a boaster, a man of jest and jeering."

Why Young Men love Tragedies, and Men
advanced in Life prefer Comedies.

This question is very forcibly and philosophically resolved by an excellent French critic: "A man at thirty will prefer the tragedies of Racine to the comedies of Moliere, because his passions are still directing him to relish their representations, so well imitated by that tragedian. On the contrary, a man at sixty will prefer the comedies of Moliere, because they bring to his recollection many scenes which he has passed through with observation on them, or perhaps been himself an actor in many, which the excellent comedian has copied so happily."-Reflexions Critiques, par l'Abbé du Bos, vol. i. section 49.

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