For the foul and famish'd brood
Of the she-wolf, gaunt for blood!
Or, unto the dangerous pass
O'er the deep and dark morass,
Where the trembling Indian brings
Belts of porcelain, pipes, and rings,
Tributes, to be hung in air

To the Fiend presiding there *!
Then, when night's long labour past,
Wilder'd, faint he falls at last,
Sinking where the cause-way's edge
Moulders in the slimy sedge,
There let every noxious thing
Trail its filth and fix its sting;

"We find also collars of porcelain, tobacco, ears of maize, skins, &c. by the side of difficult and dangerous ways, on rocks, or by the side of the falls; and these are so many offerings made to the spirits which preside in these places." See Charlevoix's Letter on the Traditions and the Religion of the Savages of Canada.

Father Hennepin too mentions this ceremony; he also says, "We took notice of one barbarian, who made a kind of sacrifice upon an oak at the Cascade of St. Antony of Padua, upon the river Mississippi." See Hennepin's Voyage into North America.

Let the bull-toad taint him over,
Round him let musquitoes hover,
In his ears and eye-balls tingling,
With his blood their poison mingling,
Till, beneath the solar fires,

Rankling all, the wretch expires!

ΤΟ

MRS. HENRY T-GHE,

ON READING HER

"PSYCHE."

1802.

TELL me the witching tale again,
For never has my heart or ear
Hung on so sweet, so pure a strain,
So pure to feel, so sweet to hear!

Say, Love! in all thy spring of fame, When the high heaven itself was thine;

When piety confess'd the flame,

And even thy errors were divine!

Did ever Muse's hand, so fair,

A glory round thy temples spread? Did ever lip's ambrosial air

Such perfume o'er thy altars shed?

One maid there was, who round her lyre

The mystic myrtle wildly wreath'd—
But all her sighs were sighs of fire,

The myrtle wither'd, as she breath'd !

Oh! you,

that love's celestial dream,

In all its purity, would know,

Let not the senses' ardent beam

Too strongly through the vision glow!

Love sweetest lies, conceal'd in night,
The night where heaven has bid him lie;
Oh! shed not there unhallow'd light,

Or, PSYCHE knows, the boy will fly *!

* See the story in Apuleius. With respect to this beautiful allegory of Love and Psyche, there is an ingenious idea suggested 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,

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 trac'd!

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;

and

without reserve, of the Dea Syria, and Isis and Osiris ; 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 Psyche. They say "Petrone fait un recit de la pompe nuptiale de ces deux amans (Amour et Psyche). Deja, dit-il, &c. &c." The Psyche of Petronius, however, is a servant-maid, and the marriage which he describes is that of the young Pannychis. See Spon's Recherches curieuses, &c. Dissertat. 5.

* Allusions to Mrs. T-ghe's poem.

+ Constancy.