1 It does not appear to have been very difficult to become a philosopher amongst the ancients. A moderate store of learning, with a considerable portion of confidence, and just wit enough to produce an occasional apophthegm, seem to have been all the qualifications necessary for the purpose. The principles of moral science were so very imperfectly understood that the founder of a new sect, in forming his ethical code, might consult either fancy or temperament, and adapt it to his own passions and propensities; so that Mahomet, with a little more learning, might have flourished as a philosopher in those days, and would have required but the polish of the schools to become the rival of Aristippus in morality. In the science of nature, too, though some valuable truths were discovered by them, they seemed hardly to know they were truths, or at least were as well satisfied with errors; and Xenophanes, who asserted that the stars were igneous clouds, lighted up every night and extinguished again in the morning, was thought and styled a philosopher, as generally as he who anticipated Newton in developing the arrangement of the universe.

For this opinion of Xenophanes, see Plutarch. de Placit. Philosoph. lib. ii. cap. 13. It is impossible to read this treatise of Piu

And often, as she smiling said,

In fancy's hour, thy gentle rays Shall guide my visionary tread

Through poesy's enchanting maze. Thy flame shall light the page refin'd, Where still we catch the Chian's breath, Where still the bard, though cold in death, Has left his soul unquench'd behind. Or, o'er thy humbler legend shine,

Oh man of Ascra's dreary glades!" To whom the nightly warbling Nine A wand of inspiration gave,

Pluck'd from the greenest tree, that shades The crystal of Castalia's wave.

Then, turning to a purer lore,
We'll cull the sages' deep-hid store;
From Science steal her golden clue,
And every mystic path pursue,
Where Nature, far from vulgar eyes,
Through labyrinths of wonder flies.
'Tis thus my heart shall learn to know
How fleeting is this world below,
Where all that meets the morning light,
Is chang'd before the fall of night!"

I'll tell thee, as I trim thy fire,

"Swift, swift the tide of being runs, "And Time, who bids thy flame expire, "Will also quench yon heaven of suns.'

Oh, then if earth's united power
Can never chain one feathery hour;
If every print we leave to day
To-morrow's wave will sweep away;
Who pauses to inquire of heaven
Why were the fleeting treasures given,
The sunny days, the shady nights,
And all their brief but dear delights,
Which heaven has made for man to use,
And man should think it crime to lose?

tarch, without alternately admiring the genius, and smiling at the absurdities of the philosophers.

2 The ancients had their lucernæ cubicularis or bed-chamber lamps, which, as the emperor Galienus said, "nil cras meminere:" and, with the same commendation of secrecy, Praxagora addresses her lamp in Aristophanes. Excing. We may judge how fanciful they were, in the use and embellishment of their lamps, from the famous symbolic Lucerna, which we find in the Romanum Museum Mich. Ang. Causei, p. 127.

3 Hesiod, who tells us in melancholy terms of his father's flight to the wretched village of Ascra. Epy, was Huep. v. 251.

4 Ευτυχίαι στείχου, περικαλλέα όσσαν ιείσαι, Theog. v. 10.

5. Και μου σκήπτρον εδον, δάφνης αριθηλια όζον. Id. ν. 30.

6 Ρειν τα όλα ποταμού δίκην, 1s expressed among the dogmas of e raclitus the Ephesian, and with the same image by Seneca, in whom we find a beautiful diffusion of the thought. "Nemo est mane, qui fuit pridie. Corpora nostra rapiuntur fluminum more; quidd vides currit cum tempore. Nihil ex his quæ videmus manet. Ego ipse, dum loquor mutari ipsa, mutatus sum," &c.

That would our joys one hour delay!
Alas, the feast of soul and sense

Love calls us to in youth's bright day,
If not soon tasted, fleets away.

Ne'er wert thou form'd, my Lamp, to shed
Thy splendour on a lifeless page;
Whate'er my blushing Lais said

Of thoughtful lore and studies sage,
Twas mockery all her glance of joy
Told me thy dearest, best employ.
And, soon as night shall close the eye

Of heaven's young wanderer in the west; When seers are gazing on the sky,

To find their future orbs of rest;
Then shall I take my trembling way,
Unseen but to those worlds above,
And, led by thy mysterious ray,
Steal to the night-bower of my love.

SONG.

WHY does azure deck the sky? 'Tis to be like thy looks of blue; Why is red the rose's dye?

Because it is thy blushes' hue. All that's fair, by Love's decree, Has been made resembling thee!

Why is falling snow so white,

But to be like thy bosom fair? Why are solar beams so bright?

That they may seem thy golden hair! All that's bright, by Love's decree, Has been made resembling thee!

mêmes plaisirs." See his Vénus Physique. This appears to be one of the efforts at Fontenelle's gallantry of manner, for which the learned President is so well and justly ridiculed in the Akakia of Voltaire.

Maupertuis may be thought to have borrowed from the ancient Aristippus that indiscriminate theory of pleasures which he has set forth in his Essai de Philosophie Morale, and for which he was so very justly condemned. Aristippus, according to Laertius, held μη διαφέρειν τα ήδονην ήδονης, which irrational sentiment has been adopted by Maupertuis: "Tant qu'on ne considère que l'état présent, tous les plaisirs sont du même genre," &c. &c.

THIS tribute's from a wretched elf,
Who hails thee, emblem of himself.
The book of life, which I have trac'd,
Has been, like thee, a motley waste
Of follies scribbled o'er and o'er,
One folly bringing hundreds more.
Some have indeed been writ so neat,
In characters so fair, so sweet,
That those who judge not too severely,
Have said they lov'd such follies dearly:
Yet still, O book! the allusion stands;
For these were penn'd by female hands:
The rest alas! I own the truth-
Have all been scribbled so uncouth
That Prudence, with a with'ring look,
Disdainful, flings away the book.
Like thine, its pages here and there
Have oft been stain'd with blots of care;
And sometimes hours of peace, I own,
Upon some fairer leaves have shown,
White as the snowings of that heav'n
By which those hours of peace were given.
But now no longer- such, oh, such
The blast of Disappointment's touch! –
No longer now those hours appear;
Each leaf is sullied by a tear:

LIGHT SOUNDS THE HARP.

LIGHT Sounds the harp when the combat is over, When heroes are resting, and joy is in bloom; When laurels hang loose from the brow of the I lover,

And Cupid makes wings of the warrior's plume. But, when the foe returns,

Again the hero burns;

High flames the sword in his hand once more:
The clang of mingling arms

Is then the sound that charms,
And brazen notes of war, that stirring trumpets

pour;

Then, again comes the Harp, when the combat is

over

When heroes are resting, and Joy is in bloomWhen laurels hang loose from the brow of the lover,

And Cupid makes wings of the warrior's plume.

Light went the harp when the War-God, reclining, Lay lull'd on the white arm of Beauty to rest. When round his rich armour the myrtle hung twining,

And flights of young doves made his helmet their nest.

But, when the battle came,

The hero's eye breath'd flame:

FANNY, DEAREST.

YES! had I leisure to sigh and mourn,
Fanny, dearest, for thee I'd sigh;
And every smile on my cheek should turn
To tears when thou art nigh.
But, between love, and wine, and sleep,
So busy a life I live,

That even the time it would take to weep

Is more than my heart can give. Then bid me not to despair and pine, Fanny, dearest of all the dears!

The love that's order'd to bathe in wine, Would be sure to take cold in tears.

Reflected bright in this heart of mine,
Fanny, dearest, thy image lies;
But, ah, the mirror would cease to shine,
If dimm'd too often with sighs.
They lose the half of beauty's light,
Who view it through sorrow's tear;
And 'tis but to see thee truly bright
That I keep my eye-beam clear.
Then wait no longer till tears shall flow,
Fanny, dearest the hope is vain;
If sunshine cannot dissolve thy snow,
I shall never attempt it with rain.

THE RING.

ΤΟ

No-Lady! Lady! keep the ring :
Oh! think, how many a future year,
Of placid smile and downy wing,

May sleep within its holy sphere.

Do not disturb their tranquil dream,

Though love hath ne'er the myst'ry warm'd; Yet heav'n will shed a soothing beam,

To bless the bond itself hath form'd.

But then, that eye, that burning eye,

Oh! it doth ask, with witching power, If heaven can ever bless the tie

Where love inwreaths no genial flower?

Away, away, bewildering look,

Or all the boast of virtue's o'er; Go-hie thee to the sage's book,

And learn from him to feel no more.