Dear PSYCHE! many a charmed hour,

Through many a wild and magic waste,
To the fair fount and blissful bower*
Thy mazy foot my soul hath traced!

Where'er thy joys are number'd now,
Beneath whatever shades of rest,

The Genius of the starry brow†

Has chain'd thee to thy Cupid's breast;

gested by the senator BUONAROTTI, in his Osservazioni sopra alcuni frammenti di vasi antichi. He thinks the fable is taken from some very occult mysteries, which had long been celebrated in honour of Love; and he accounts, upon this supposition, for the silence of the more ancient authors upon the subject, as it was not till towards the decline of Pagan superstition that writers could venture to reveal or discuss such ceremonies; accordingly, he observes, we find Lucian and Plutarch treating, without reserve, of the Dea Syria, and Isis and Osiris; and APULEIUS, who has given us the story of Cupid and Psyche, has also detailed some of the mysteries of Isis. See the Giornale di Litterati d'Italia, tom. xxvii. articol. 1, See also the Observations upon the ancient Gems in the Museum Florentinum, vol. i. p. 156.

I cannot avoid remarking here an error into which the French Encyclopédistes have been led by M. Spon, in their article Psyché. They say, "Petron fait un récit de la pompe nuptiale de ces deux amans (Amour et Psyché). Déjà, dit-il," etc. etc. The Psyche of PETRONIUS, however, is a servantmaid, and the marriage which he describes is that of the young Pannychis. See SPON's Recherches curieuses, etc. dissertat. 5.

* Allusions to Mrs. T-GHE's poem. + Constancy,

Whether above the horizon dim,

Along whose verge our spirits stray
(Half sunk within the shadowy brim,
Half brighten'd by the eternal ray), *
Thou risest to a cloudless pole!

Or, lingering here, dost love to mark
The twilight walk of many a soul
Through sunny good and evil dark ;

Still be the song to PSYCHE dear,
The song, whose dulcet tide was given
To keep her name as fadeless here
As nectar keeps her soul in Heaven!

IMPROMPTU,

UPON LEAVING SOME FRIENDS.

O DULCES COMITUM VALETE COETUS!

CATULLUS.

No, never shall my soul forget

The friends I found so cordial-hearted;

* By this image the Platonists expressed the middle state of the soul between sensible and intellectual existence.

Dear shall be the day we met,

And dear shall be the night we parted!

Oh! if regrets, however sweet,

Must with the lapse of time decay, Yet still, when thus in mirth you meet, Fill high to him that's far away!

Long be the flame of memory found
Alive within your social glass,
Let that be still the magic round
O'er which oblivion dares not pass!

EPISTLE VIII.

ΤΟ

THE HONOURABLE W. R. SPENCER.