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The spirit of true law is all equity and justice. In a government based on true principles, the law is the sole sovereign of the nation. It watches over its subjects in their business, in their recreation, and their sleep. It guards their fortunes, their lives, and their honors. In the broad noonday and the dark midnight it ministers to their security. It accompanies them to the altar and the festal board. It watches over the ship of the merchant, though a thousand leagues intervene; over the seed of the husbandman abandoned for a season to the earth; over the studies of the student, the labors of the mechanic, the opinions of every man. None are high enough to offend it with impunity, none so low that it scorns to protect them. It is throned with the king, and sits in the seat of the republican magistrate; but it also hovers over the couch of the lowly, and stands sentinel at the prison, scrupulously preserving to the felon whatever rights he has not forfeited. The light of the law illumes the palace and the hovel, and surrounds the cradle and the bier. The strength of the law laughs fortresses to scorn, and spurns the intrenchments of iniquity. The power of the law crushes the power of men, and strips wealth of every unrighteous immunity. It is the thread of Daedalus to guide us through the labyrinths of cunning. It is the spear of Ithuriel to detect falsehood and deceit. It is the faith of the martyr to shield us from the fires of persecution. It is the good man's reliance-the wicked one's dread—| the bulwark of piety-the upholder of morality-the guardian of right-the distributor of justice. Its power is irresistible-its dominion indisputable. It is above us and around us, and within us--we cannot fly from its protection-we cannot avert its vengeance.

Such is the law in its essence; such it should be in its enactments; such, too, it would be, if none aspired to its administration but those with pure hearts, enlarged views and cultivated minds.

IMITATED

From the Old Provençal.

Thy lands, said she, are fair to see-thyself art tall and fair,
And in thy breast a heart doth rest that prompts to plan and dare,
And thou shalt yield to none, I ween, in prowess or in grace.
And thy right arm shall win success in warfare and in chase,
Around thee, men in awe shall bend-thy friends be firm and
true,
And old men bid their sons look on and bear themselves as you,
But thou shalt bear a heavy curse upon thy daring heart,
Mark, mark me well, young Guy, I say that curse shall not
depart.

Men may be friends to thee, I said, and women too may seek To wed thee for thy lands and pelf, and honeyed words may speak;

Do that, and I will wish for thee through life no greater smart!
It is not that thou canst not woo, for none shall breathe the lay
To softer notes, or triflings bland in sweeter accents say;
But, mark me well, young Guy, and list to this witch spell of

But if thou wedst, thou wedst a wife without a loving heart

mine-

The heart of gentle woman, Guy, it never can be thine.
Young Guy grew up, and first was he in tournament and field,
For none could draw the sword so well or mace so massive wield,
And lemans clang around him too, and hung upon his breast,
But loved him not, for on his brow the witch's spell did rest.
Sir Guy sunk to an early tomb, albeit a grey-haired man,
(For the darkest locks will whiten beneath sorrow's withering
And said, when near the glad time was to quit this weary life,
No woman spake the truth to me, but that weird and old witch

ban,)

wife.

MSS. OF TH: JEFFERSON.*

I.

MONTICELLO, Nov. 31, '10. Dear Sir:-Your third packet is received before the second had been returned. It is now inclosed, and the other shall go by the next post. I find as before nothing to correct but those errors of the copyist which you would have corrected yourself before committed to the press. If it were practicable to send me the original sheets with the translated, perhaps my equal familiarity with both languages might enable me sometimes to be of some advantage: but I presume that might be difficult and of little use, scarcely perhaps of any. I thank you for the copy of Williams. I have barely dipped into it a little enough however to see he is far short of the luminous work you are publishing. Indeed I think that the most valuable work of the present age. I received from Williams some years ago his book on the claims of authors. I found him to be a man of sound and true principles, but not knowing how he got at them, and not able to trace or develope them for others.

I believe with you, that the crisis of England is come.

There was a knight, a valiant knight, his style was Guy de What will be its issue it is vain to prophecy; so many

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thousand contingencies may turn up to affect its direction. Were I to hazard a guess, it would be, that they will become a military despotism. Their recollections of the portion of liberty they have enjoyed will render

* In the work edited by Mr. T. J. Randolph entitled "Memoirs, Correspondence, and Miscellanies from the papers of Thomas

An old witch wife he forced to strife, with woman's sword--the Jefferson," there are several letters addressed to the late Col.

tongue;

And that the hag, in anger harsh, put on the boy a spell,

That he "alas and well-a-day" till death remembered well.

Duane of Philadelphia. The following which are not in that, and which it is believed have not appeared elsewhere, are now published from the original MSS.

if these successes do not lead us too far into the navy mania, all will be well. But when are to cease the severe lessons we receive by land, demonstrating our want of competent officers? The numbers of our countrymen betrayed into the hands of the enemy by the treachery, cowardice or incompetence of our high officers, reduce us to the humiliating necessity of acquiescing in the brutal conduct observed towards them.

force necessary to retain them under pure monarchy. | Europe that the English are not invincible at sea. And Their pressure upon us has been so severe and so unprincipled that we cannot deprecate their fate, though we might wish to see their naval power kept up to the level of that of the other principal powers separately taken. But may it not take a very different turn? Her paper credit annihilated, her precious metals must become her circulating medium. The taxes which can be levied upon her people in these will be trifling in comparison to what they could pay in paper money. Her navy then will be unpaid, unclothed, unfed. Will such a body of men suffer themselves to be dismissed and to starve? Will they not mutiny, revolt, embody themselves under a popular Admiral, take possession of the Western and Bermuda Islands, and act on the Algerine system? If they should not be able to act on this broad scale, they will become individual pirates and the modern Carthage will end as the old one has done. I am sorry for her people, who are individually as respectable as those of other nations. It is her government which is so corrupt, and which has destroyed the nation. It was certainly the most corrupt and unprincipled government on earth. I should be glad to see their farmers and mechanics come here; but I hope their nobles, priests and merchants will be kept at home, to be moralized by the discipline of the new government.

The young stripling whom you describe, is probably as George Nicholas used to say, 'in the plenitude of puppyism! Such coxcombs do not serve even as straws to show which way the wind blows.

Alexander is unquestionably a man of an excellent heart and of very respectable strength of mind: and he is the only sovereign who cordially loves us. Bonaparte hates our government because it is a living libel on his. The English hate us because they think our prosperity filched from theirs. Of Alexander's sense of the merits of our form of government, of its wholesome operation on the condition of the people, and of the interest he takes in the success of our experiment, we possess the most unquestionable proofs: and to him we shall be indebted if the rights of neutrals to be settled whenever peace is made shall be extended beyond the present belligerents, that is to say, European neutrals; as George and Napoleon of mutual consent and common hatred against us would concur in excluding us. I thought it a salutary measure to engage the powerful patronage of Alexander at conferences for peace, at a time when Bonaparte was courting him; and altho' circumstances have lessened its weight, yet it is prudent for us to cherish his good dispositions, as those alone which will be exerted in our favor when that occasion shall occur. He like ourselves sees and feels the atrociousness of both belligerents. I salute you with great esteem and respect.

Col. Duane.

II.

TH: JEFFERSON.

MONTICELLO, Sept. 18, '13. Dear Sir-Repeated inquiries on the part of Senator Tracy what has become of his book, (the MS. I last sent you,) oblige me to ask of you what I shall say to him.

I congratulate you on the brilliant affair of the Enterprize and Boxer. No heart is more rejoiced than mine at these mortifications of English pride and lessons to

When during the last war I put Governor Hamilton and Major Hay into a dungeon and in irons for having themselves personally done the same to the American prisoners who had fallen into their hands, and was threatened with retaliation by Philips then returned to N. York, I declared to him I would load ten of their Saratoga prisoners (then under my care and within half a dozen miles of my house) with double irons for every American they should misuse under pretence of retaliation: and it put an end to the practice. But the ten for one are now with them. Our present hopes of being able to do something by land seem to rest on Chauncey• Strange reverse of expectations, that our land force should be under the wing of our little navy. Accept the assurance of my esteem and respect.

Genl. Duane.

TH: JEFFERSON.

SONNET. TO ZANTE.

BY E. A. POE.

Fair isle, that from the fairest of all flowers
Thy gentlest of all gentle names dost take,
How many memories of what radiant hours
At sight of thee and thine at once awake!
How many scenes of what departed bliss!
How many thoughts of what entombed hopes!
How many visions of a maiden that is

No more no more upon thy verdant slopes!
No more!-alas, that magical sad sound
Transforming all! Thy charms shall please no more—
Thy memory no more!
Accursed ground
Henceforth I hold thy flower-enamelled shore,
O, hyacinthine isle! O, purple Zante,
Isola d'oro! Fior di Levante!

PHILOSOPHY OF ANTIQUITY.

NO. II.

Manû petimus cœlum temerariâ.

We have seen that Pythagoras was a traveller; that he had passed over the greater part of the "terra veteribus nota." It is true by many authors he is said not to have passed beyond Egypt. In modern times this opinion has been supported by Lempriere. How far he travelled cannot now be ascertained, nor is it desirable otherwise than a mere gratification of curiosity, that it should be. We judge him not by his pretensions, but by what he has done for the cause of human science.

Lempriere says, from Egypt he came to Samos;

there particularly did he wish to open his school; to his | matics, Pythagoras appears to have imbibed the current countrymen was he most willing to impart those secret physical theories. So deeply was he impressed of the stores of wisdom that he had so laboriously striven for, importance of numbers, that he imagined all nature rcand so honorably gained. His wishes were disappointed, gulated by them, or as he expressed himself, "things and his want of success offers a painful corroboration of are an imitation of numbers," which he divided into that famed maxim, that "no one is a prophet in his na- (artioi) equal and (perittoi) unequal. Unity is the printive land." ciple of the first, duality of the latter. Unity he assumed as his emblem of completeness, as the number corresponding to the Deity in the physical world, as the representative of the sun, and in his moral code it stood for virtue.

He was again a wanderer in the islands of the Ægean, and on the main land of Greece. At the court of Leon of Achaia he first assumed the title of philosopher. The occasion of his assuming it, as handed down to us, I think by Aulus Gellius, is one of the most delicious morsels of the gossip of antiquity now in our posses

sion.

Duality is a result of unity and is incomplete. It is the emblem of imperfection, and is in all things the opposite of unity. By combinations of the unity and duality, were formed the tetrachys, in which all nature's course was traced. It seems to me, that in this opposition of the good and the bad, of absolute perfection and

of the system, and see embodied the good and evil genii of the Arab tale.

Pythagoras, like his predecessors, considered the world as an harmonious whole, (its very name was kosmas, or order,) sub-divided into imperfect parts, according to his tetrachys, each revolving around a common centre, and following harmonic laws. From their motion he

Leon, struck with admiration at his universality of knowledge, asked him which of all arts did he prefer? Pythagoras answered after this fashion: "No art or trade, oh king, do I follow; to none of them do I sub-its contrary, we find enough to prove the oriental origin ject myself, but my business is the art of arts-philosophy." And to the king's question, "What sort of thing is this philosophy?" he is reported to have answered: "Life is like unto an Olympic game. And as there are who visit Elis, some to contend for the victory for glory's sake, and some for the prize alone, and others who come to ply their trades, and more whose object is to watch the contest, so in life, chiefs and warriors strug-derived "the music of the spheres." The central five, gle for the ascendancy, merchants and artizans sell their wares, and some few look on as spectators, study the wayward theory, despising the animal contest of the one, and the trickery of the other; yet as the bee of Hybla extracts sweet honey from the rankest weed, they draw useful morals and sound wisdom from the attentive observance of the actions of each. These morals and wisdom are philosophy, and the spectators are its votaries."

I know not if memory furnishes aright either the anecdote or its author; but all will admit its truth to whomsoever it belongs.

the sun, he called the watch-house of Jove-the most perfect thing in the physical world, the source of heat, and first cause of all vitality. The stars, according to his theory, are emanations of the sun, and are divinities. The soul of man, adopting the Promethean fable, is likewise an emanation of the sun. Man's soul is therefore divine. Here, by his confusion of God and Sol, we see what will induce us to believe, that during his captivity at the court of Cambyses, he became acquainted with the doctrines of the Guebres of Persia, and mingling them with the divine Judaical idea of the Godlike origin of at least one portion of man's exist ence, he formed so wonderful an Eclecticism for the age which he lived.

An important rôle in this philosophy was performed by demons, but the prime mover of all things was God and (ha-te) his will. Pythagoras first ennobled the idea of the Deity, by attributing to it the moral properties of truth and good will to his creatures.

His sojourn at Phlius was not long, and once more he returned to Samos. He opened successfully a pub-in lie school of philosophy, and occasionally retiring to a lovely and beautiful cave with his chosen friends and favorite scholars, he imparted with all the mystery of an eastern priest to his bands of Neophytes, those truths which the laws of his land, and the opinions of the age, rendered it impossible and impolitic for him to discourse of in public.

The mystery with which his Esoterics were taught, has caused some to rank him among impostors; but may it not be, that this apparent mystery results from the exaggeration of the excluded crowd. Samos he was forced to quit, and Crotona in Magna Grecia had the honor of furnishing him an asylum.

From this time his history is that of the country he had adopted. His pupils became revolutionists in government, and it seemed to be the fate of the founder of the first sect, to be forced at the expense of personal inconvenience, to extend his fame and promulgate his doctrines. Exiled from Crotona, Metaphontum received him, and there death relieved him from the persecution of his enemies. He is said to have taken refuge from a popular commotion in a temple, and there to have died of starvation in the third year of the sixty-eighth Olympiad. (Vide Porphyrius and Jamblichius.)

The soul is an emanation of the Deity, therefore it cannot perish. What then becomes of it? As an answer to this question, he adopted the Metempoychosis. What transitions he is said to have believed his own soul to have undergone, is in every one's mouth. From his confounding God with the sun, it was necessary for him to believe the soul material.

To him we are indebted for the first Psychological analysis, which is this: 1st. reason, or (nous); 2d. intelligence, or (phrenes)—the seat of these two is in the brain; 3d and last, the appetites (thumos) which exist in the breast.

Perhaps by this analysis he benefitted mankind more than by all of his doctrines, physical, political and musical (for he was said to have been the inventor of stringed instruments). It was the first attempt of man to quit the external world for that of thought.

Pythagoras, though teaching himself all branches of knowledge, had no pupil who resembled him in univer

In the east, that alma mater of astronomy and mathe-sality of pursuit; each devoted himself to a particular

VOL. III.-5

die,

study, and assumed a name in accordance with it. They | Still though earth claims its own, and our bodies must seem to have proceeded on the division of labor system, and doubtless they were indebted to it for much of their success. We have now gone through with his doctrines; and with an enumeration of his most celebrated pupils and followers, will close this paper.

Yet our spirits must live! these death shall defy!
And the many bright spots in fond memory's waste,
And the blessings of those whose kind friendships we

taste

F. S.

VERBAL CRITICISMS, &c.

We know but few of the deductions of the philoso- These from the heart's tablet, may ne'er be effaced! phers of the old Pythagorean school, and all their ideas were but deductions from the tenets of their master. These philosophers are Aristeus of Crotona, successor and son-in-law of Pythagoras; Telcanges and Menesarchus, the latter his son; Alemaon of Crotona, a naturalist and physician; Hippo of Rhegium, and Hippasus of Metapontum, which two last leaned towards the doctrines of Thales, and those of the Eleatic school; Epicharmus of Cos, the comic writer, and perhaps Ocellus, Lucanus and Timeus, from the country of the Locri Epizephyrii. Among the Pythagoreans of later times, we may enumerate Arehytas of Tarentum, and Philolaus of Crotona, who attained great celebrity for his system of astronomy, and was the first of his school to compose a written treatise. (Vide Jamblicus for the female votaries of Pythagoras.)

The doctrines of Pythagoras had a vast influence over the most eminent philosophers of Greece, over Plato particularly, by the road it had opened to thought by the direction of his views and choice of his objects. (In later times, they attributed to the old Pythagoreans all that Plato, Aristotle and others after them had writAnd to this heterogeneous mass of opinions, they added crowds of superstitious ideas. (Vide Tenneman, Schlegel and Tiedeman.)

ten.

THE LAPSE OF YEARS.
'Tis sweet, sadly sweet on the long lapse of years,
To muse at still eve-on life's smiles and its tears;
To live o'er again each oft forgot scene,

"Of a majority." This is a phrase which many of our newspaper editors are fond of using in an improper manner-thus: "We learn by a gentleman who came on last night, that in A. county, Squash, our candidate for Congress, received two hundred and three of a majority; but, that in B. county Mango had two hundred and five of a majority; C. county is to be heard from, which we fear has gone against us." Instead of saying "a majority of two hundred and three," and "a majority of two hundred and five." This corruption is unaccountable and inexcusable.

"Tri-weekly." This Americanism has, I fear, become too firmly established to be eradicated. Newspaper publishers, whose papers appear three times a week, call them "the tri-weekly papers:" but tri-weekly cannot mean thrice a week, but once in three weeks, just as tri-ennial means once in three years. The proper expression, if one must be coined, would be ter-weekly, which would convey the idea the publishers intend to convey by tri-weekly.

A writer in a Magazine published in the city of New York in the year 1818, notices with censure, "a very uncouth and inaccurate form of speech," which he says,

66

has lately crept into our language." He describes it to consist "in improperly using a noun in the nominative or objective case, where the clause itself in which the noun is used or some other noun stands in sense and ought to stand in grammatical construction as the nomi

And to think too how chequered life's pathway hath native or objective." From a number of examples given

been;

It is sweet to remember the gay sportive joy,
That gladdened our heart ere it caught earth's alloy;
When the rich perfumed flowers that scented the grove,
First taught our young hearts, nature's beauties to love:
When from the bright heavens, at noon and at even,
We caught the first glimpses of God and of Heaven!
And when we first merged on life's turmoil and strife,
And we shared in those cares with which it is rife ;
How dim seemed above us those bright sunny skies,
Which erst beamed on our hearts, and gladdened our
eyes!

by him of this vicious usage, the following are selected : "1. The possession of the goods was altered by the owner taking them into his own custody." (Marshall on Insurance."

"The meaning of the writer certainly is not that the owner was the means by which the possession of his goods was altered, but that his taking them into his own custody, was so. In grammatical construction, however, the language expresses the former meaning and no other."

"2. In consequence of the king of Prussia invading Saxony and Bohemia, the Aulic council voted his con

And to think on those loved ones, now aye from us duct to be a breach of the public peace. (Edinb. Ency." torn,

Whose friendships long lost oft make the heart mourn;
Whose hearts were our sanctuary, and whose love, it
seemed given,

To cheer us on earth, and direct us to heaven!
They are gone! but their memory, yet is most dear,
And we hallow it oft with affection's still tear!
But soon ruthless time shall hurry us too,
From all that we love, and that now meets our view;

"The fact which the historian intended to state, is in substance, that in consequence of the invasion of Saxony and Bohemia by the king of Prussia, the Aulic council voted, &c. But according to the grammatical purport of the sentence as it now stands, the words "invading Saxony and Bohemia," express merely an incidental circumstance, which might have been thrown into a parenthesis or a distinct clause: and the whole sentence might, without any material alteration of the sense as

"3. The secretary wearing a sword and uniform, was a circumstance which added greatly to his natural awkwardness. (Notices of Mr. Hume.”

"The meaning expressed by the words is that the Secretary (who happened indeed to wear a swoid and uniform,) was himself the circumstance which added to his own natural awkwardness. The fact intended to be communicated is that his wearing a sword, &c. was that circumstance."

expressed by the writer, be paraphrased thus: "In con- | the future author for this art, and its cultivation, was sequence of the king of Prussia who, by the bye had doubtless owing his sensibility to the beautiful in the invaded Saxony, &c., the Aulic council voted his con- natural world. He was designed for the law, and studuct to be a breach of the public peace." If the para- died under eminent professors, history and philosophy phrase is nonsense, it is the nonsense of the original. forming also a part of his studies; but in poetry he was his own teacher, at least he drew instruction for himself from the rich fountains of antiquity. Anacreon and Horace were constantly in his hands; he amused his leisure hours by translating fragments from Homer and Pindar, and took an active part in the translation of Anacreon by a gifted countryman. This joint version was printed, but without his knowledge, in 1746. Three years after, he published a small collection of lyrics, which he had previously submitted to the judgment of his friend Gleim. In the elaborate biography prefixed to his works, an amusing account is given of his platonic attachment to the sister of an intimate friend, and the letters and poems addressed to the object of his love, till her final marriage with another. Uz himself never married; perhaps on account of his early disappointment, though his own excuse was that he was unable to maintain a wife till too old to get one. He afterwards formed a sentimental friendship for a lady, whom he celebrates in his poems under the name of Chloe.

"If any one can doubt the justice of these strictures, he may bring them to a very simple and decisive test, by substituting pronouns for nouns in each of the passages cited. Thus: The possession of one's goods is altered by him taking them into his own custody." "The Aulic council voted the king's conduct to be a breach of the public peace, in consequence of him invading Saxony." "He wearing a sword and uniform, was a circumstance which added to his natural awkwardness.”

This awkward usage has since the year 1318 been received with such general favor, that it is impossible to go through a book of any considerable size without meeting with it. The last book I have read, Capt. Basil Hall's Schlop Hainfeld, abounds with instances. Here are a few:

"As difficulties might arise however on the score of her being a Protestant, or from the castle being no longer in the possession of the family, she thought it prudent," &c. &c. Page 43.

"Instead of the estate being put up for public sale, it was quietly arranged that the next heirs, two nephews, should come at once into possession." Page 47.

"All the German world know that so far from Sunday being kept holy as respects travelling, it is universally selected as the fittest day in the whole week for that purpose." Page 118.

"Old Joseph, however, who was a good Catholic, thinking I suppose it might do no harm to give his mistress's soul a chance, took advantage of my back being turned, and stuck a lighted candle into the old lady's hand a few minutes before she breathed her last." Page 192.

JOHANN PETER UZ.

BY MRS. E. F. ELLETT.

In Romhild, he composed his best productions; several poetical letters, odes and songs, and the "Sieg des Liebesgottes," a mock heroic poem in four cantos, which has been praised by contemporary critics as a most valuable addition to German literature. The letters are on various subjects, and addressed to different individuals. The didactic poem, “ Die Kunst stets frohlich zu scyn,” printed in 1760, has striking passages, which recommend moderation in desires, and set forth the pleasures of knowledge, and the advantages of patience and confidence in the providence of God, and a belief in the immortality of the soul, as so many means of promoting the happiness of this life. Harmonious and poetical expression, united with truth and vigor, is unanimously accorded to the compositions of Uz. His best poems are of an instructive and philosophical cast, and if they want the brilliant fancy and captivating imagery of other writers, they possess solid merit enough to entitle their author to the gratitude and veneration of his countrymen.

The death of this poet, calm and quiet as his life, took place on the twelfth of May 1796.

The Victory of Cupid, (Der Sieg des Liebesgottes) his principal poem, is analogous in design and in style to Pope's Rape of the Lock, though not, as was erroneously stated by the publisher in one edition, an avowed imitation of that production. Its descriptions are picturesque and its satire is happy. Cupid is represented as incensed by the coldness of Selinda, a rural maiden, who, protected from the shafts of the boy-god by an attendant sprite, has the presumption to defy his power. The fair coquette has two lovers in her train, who, mortified by her insensibility to their devotion, prefer their complaints against her to Love himself. Cupid resolves to vanquish the lady, who has the boldness to

Some account of this clever writer, and of his works, so little known in this country, may not be unwelcome to the readers of this Magazine. He was born at Anspach, on the third of October 1720. His father, whom he lost early, was a goldsmith, and supported 1 imself by his trade; yet notwithstanding the humble origin and occupation of his parents, the subject of our article was educated with care, and manifested, even in child-resist his sway, and for this purpose enters Lesbia's hood, his disposition to painting and poetry. The talent for painting, indeed, was hereditary in his family; many of his relations being eminent artists, and his brother devoted to it as a profession. To the taste of

garden in pursuit of her, where he finds her with a numerous company. His arrows are turned aside from her breast by the watchful spirit, who is meant to personate the vanity of woman; and the offended deity is

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