tionate: with an intense desire to excel in his profession, he has always been distinguished for his liberality towards his professional competitors; and his conduct on the whole through life has been marked by an amiable and uniform discretion,

REPLY TO THE "REMARKS ON Addison's CRITICISM OF THE SEVENTH BOOK OF PARADISE LOST."

It is with some diffidence that I attempt to exonerate such a poet as MILTON from the charges of "irreverence" and "littleness" which have been brought against him by a writer in the last Analectic Magazine. I venture, however, upon this sacred ground, as I can support my arguments by examples drawn from the same sublime source which has furnished his antagonist. This antagonist seems to have embraced the opinion, that nothing which is minute can be sublime-and contrasts the use to which the "golden compasses" were appropriated with the simple mandate by which light was created. It is not necessary to resort to "Paradise Lost" to find a contrast equally striking.

"And God said, Let there be light; and there was light." "And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden." Both of these passages are found in the same page of sacred writ; and, together with many others of similar import, fully justify Milton in the description which he has given of the formation of the earth, by representing the Creator as often executing in detail his own Almighty decrees.

"Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the bills in a balance?"

"Who hath shut up the sea with doors? I made the cloud the garment thereof; and thick darkness the swaddling

band for it-and brake up for it my decreed place-and set bars and doors, and said,

"Hitherto shalt thou come, but no farther-and here shall thy proud waves be stayed."

Is there not a beautiful coincidence between this passage and the following lines from Milton,

"And said—thus far extend-thus far thy bounds-·

This be thy just circumference, O world!"

But the text which Milton seems to have had particularly in his view, and which he has amplified without weakening, is that contained in the twenty-seventh verse of the eighth chapter of Proverbs.

"When he prepared the heavens, I was there-when he set a COMPASS upon the face of the depth-when he gave to the sea his decree-when he appointed the foundations of the earth."

These quotations from scripture are of themselves a complete answer to the accusation of your correspondent, and give to the effusions of our great poet "the sanction of eternal truth." C.

Franklin county, Kentucky.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF LIEUTENANT W. W. SMITH,

[Communicated.]

WILLIAM WALLACE SMITH was born near Morristown, New Jersey, on the 12th of November, 1795. His father was a merchant of respectability, and died in the year 1804.

Young Smith, while a boy, evinced a strong predeliction. for a military life, and gave early indications of talents.

At the age of fourteen he was appointed a cadet, and placed at the military academy at West Point, where he made a rapid progress in his studies.

When little more than sixteen years of age, he was promoted to the rank of a second lieutenant in the regiment of light artillery.

Soon after the declaration of war, he received orders to join the northern army. He was present at the capture of fort George; and while the army was stationed there, distinguished himself on several occasions. His merit did not escape the notice of his superiors. He was about this time (the summer of 1813) promoted to the rank of a first lieu

tenant.

At the battle of Williamsburgh, on the 11th November, 1813, he had the command of the piece of artillery which fell into the hands of the enemy. The official reports* bear tes timony of the gallantry which he displayed on that occasion.

It has been ascertained from several officers who were

in the engagement, that although advised to abandon his battery, when the army were about to retire from the field, he declared that he would never leave the piece as long as he was able to discharge it; and in pursuance of this heroic resolution, actually fired it off himself, (after losing nearly all his men,) until he was mortally wounded and taken prisoner.

He was removed to a farm house near the field of battle. Sanguine hopes were for some time entertained by his friends that he would recover, but unfortunately for his family, and perhaps for his country, he expired on the 2d of December, 1813-at the age of eighteen.

He displayed great firmness during his illness; and evinced, as the following letter will show, that to the last of his life, the love of his country continued to be his ruling passion.

• Extract from general Boyd's official letter, dated November 12th, 1813.

"When the artillery was finally directed to retire, having to cross a deep, and except in one place (to artillery) impassable ravine, one piece was unfortunately lost. The fall of its gallant commander, lieutenant Smith, and most of his men, may account for this accident. In the death of this young man the army has lost one of its most promising officers.??

Extract of a letter from lieutenant Smith to one of his sisters,

written a very short time before his death.

"I am sorry to find (by your last letter) that your anxiety for my safety should induce you to express a wish to see me removed from the scene of danger; for although you are a female, it ought to be your pride to see me risk (and even sacrifice) my life for my country. I confess that I am ambitious of fame, but I have no desire to seek death: should it however be my fate to fall in battle, such a death will perhaps rescue my humble name from oblivion."

Extract of a letter from colonel Fenwick, of the light artillery, to one of lieut. Smith's brothers, dated December, 1813. "I condole with you for the loss of your brother. He was dear to me, and was a youth of great promise. He fell too soon in the field of honour. Fame will record his worth,

and I will cherish his memory."

SELECT REVIEWS.

Headlong Hall. 12mo. pp. 216. 1816.

[From the Eclectic Review.]

It is truly refreshing to meet with a production of chaste and genuine humour. Our satirists are for the most part of that saturnine complexion, that forbids their relaxing into the easy hilarity which characterizes the pleasantry of Goldsmith or of Addison; while our professed comic writers seem to have no other notion of humour than that of caricature or broad farce. Some of our writers exhibit in their attempts to be facetious, an appearance analogous to the Sardonic grimace; and others, in their ursine capers, betray only a desperate determination to be droll, contrary to the irreversible decree of nature. We ought now, perhaps, to proceed to investigate, why our language presents so few specimens of humourous writing, and how far language, climate, and manners, may operate in characterizing the national productions in this respect, determining the solemn irony of Cervantes, and prompting the sparkling mirthful satire of Le Sage, or the keen sarcastic ridicule of Swift. We might then show what rank such compositions hold in the scale of literature; and trace the decline of this species of wit to the French revolution, or the income tax, or some other obvious political cause. But these discussions, tempting as they are, being such as, did we occupy the rank of Quarterly Journalists, we should feel it our bounden duty to exhaust in a preliminary dissertation, must now, owing to our narrow limits and the press of business, be unavoidably postponed; and we shall at once introduce our readers to Headlong Hall, the seat of Harry Headlong, esq. of the ancient and honourable Welsh family of the Headlongs, of the Vale of Llanberris, in Caernarvonshire.

The lord of the mansion has assembled a select party of London literati, to share the hospitalities of Christmas. Among them, the leading personages are Mr. Foster, (quasi Owarng, from pass and go,) the perfectibilian; Mr. Escot, (quasi es oxorov in tenebras, scilicet intuens), the deteriorationist; Mr. Jenkison (aev ežov, semper ex æqualibus), the statuquo-ite; and the rev. Doctor Gaster (scilicet racrap, Venter, et preterea nihil).