I send a sigh with ev"ry glance, Or drop a softer tear; Hard fate! no further to advance, And yet to be so near.
So Moses from fair Pysga"s height, The land of promise ey"d: Surveyed the region of delight, He saw, came down, and di"d.
Then oh! my Fair, descend to bless, And soothe those sorrows in my breast!
My heart"s desponding into grief, Thy healing balm can give relief!
[[For sources, see the end of the final (3rd) installment.]]
AN ADDRESS TO THE VOTARIES OF POESY.
+By James De-La-Cour.+
Oh! come my friends, who like with me to rove, The flow"ry mountain, and the laurel grove; Where G.o.d Apollo guards the limpid fount, And the glad muses climb the vocal mount; You whom the voice invites to taste their charms, Whom verse transports, and tuneful fancy warms; Before you press the syrens to your heart, Attend a while the precepts I impart.
First let your judgment for your fancy chuse, Of all the nine, the most unblemish"d muse; Soft yet sublime, in love yet strictly cloy, p.r.o.ne to be grave, yet not averse to joy; Where taste and candour, wit and manners meet, Bold without bombast, daring but discreet; Correct with spirit, musical with sense, Not apt to give, nor slow to take offence; First to commend when others thoughts are shown, But always last delighted with her own.
When this is done, let nature be your guide, Rise in the spring, or in the river glide; In every line consult her as you run, And let her Naids roll the river on: Unless to please our nice corrupted sense, Art be call"d in, and join"d with vast expence; Then rivers wander thro" the vale no more, But boil in pipes, or spout thro" figur"d ore; The neighb"ring brooks their empty channels mourn, That now enrich some artificial urn.
Thus ever suit your numbers to your theme, And tune their cadence to the falling stream; Or shou"d the falling stream incline to love, Let the words slide, and like its murmers move: Poor were the praise to paint the purling rill, To make it music is the muses skill; Without her voice the spring runs silent by, Dumb are the waters, and the verse"s dry; While chill"d with ice the cool waves creep along, And all the fountain freezes in the song.
ANACREONTIC.
Found in an old Drawer in the Repositories of a Person deceased.
O G.o.d of Sleep! since we must be Oblig"d to give some hours to thee; Invade me not whilst the full bowl Glows on my cheek, and warms my soul.
Be that the only time to rest, When I no wine, no joys can taste: Short, very short, then, be thy reign, For I"m in haste to live again.
But oh! if melting in my arms, The nymph belov"d, with all her charms, In some sweet dream should then surprise, And grant what waking she denies; Gentle slumber! prithee stay, Slowly, slowly bring the day.
Let no rude noise my bliss destroy, For sweet delusion"s real joy.
NEW-YORK: _+Printed by THOMAS BURLING, Jun. & Co. No. 115, Cherry-street.+-- +Subscriptions+ for this +Magazine+ (at 6s. per quarter) are taken in at the Printing-Office, and at the Circulating Library of Mr. J. FELLOWS, No. 60, +Wall-Street+._
_UTILE DULCI._
THE NEW-YORK WEEKLY MAGAZINE; or, Miscellaneous Repository.
+Vol. II.+] +Wednesday, March 29, 1797.+ [+No. 91.+
TRUE GENUINE SENTIMENT.
True genuine sentiment may be so connected with the virtue of action, as to bestow on it its brightest l.u.s.tre, and its most captivating graces.
And enthusiasm under these circ.u.mstances is so far from being disagreeable, that a portion is indispensibly necessary in an engaging woman; but it must be of the heart, not of the senses.--It must grow up with the feeling mind, and be cherished by a virtuous education, not compounded of irregular pa.s.sions and artificially refined by books of unnatural fiction, and improbable adventure.
But this dangerous merit cannot be too rigidly watched, as it is very apt to lead those who possess it into inconveniencies from which less interesting characters are happily exempt.
Strong sensibility may carry a very amiable temper into the most alarming extremes.---The taste of those so actuated are pa.s.sions. They love and hate with all their hearts, and scarcely suffer themselves to feel a reasonable preference, before it strengthens into a violent attachment.
When an innocent girl of this open, trusting, tender heart, happens to meet with one of her own s.e.x and age, whose address and manners are engaging, she is instantly seized with an ardent desire to commence a friendship with her. She feels the most lively impatience at the restraint of company and the decorums of ceremony.--She longs to be alone with her--longs to a.s.sure her of the warmth of her tenderness, and generally ascribes to the fair stranger all the good qualities she feels in her own heart, or rather all those which she has met with in her reading, dispersed in a variety of heroines.--She is persuaded that her new friend unites them all in herself, because the carries in her prepossessing countenance the promise of them all.
If hints of her defects are given, she mistakes the voice of discretion.
At first she listens to them with a generous impatience, and afterwards with a cold and silent disdain, and despises them as the effect of prejudice, misrepresentation, or ignorance.
Yet this trusting confidence, this honest indiscretion, is, at this early period of life, as amiable as it is natural; and will, if wisely cultivated, produce at its proper season, fruits infinitely more valuable than all the guarded circ.u.mspection of premature, and therefore artificial prudence. Nay, if the younger part of the s.e.x are sometimes deceived in the choice of a friend, they enjoy even then an higher degree of satisfaction than if they never trusted--For to be always clad in the burthensome armour of suspicion is more painful and inconvenient, than to run the hazard of suffering, now and then, a transient injury.
These observations chiefly respect the inexperienced; for it is a certainty that women are capable of as faithful and as durable friendship as any of the other s.e.x. They can enter not only into all the enthusiastic tenderness, but into all the solid fidelity of attachment.
RIDICULE.
The fatal fondness for indulging a spirit of ridicule, and the injurious and irreparable consequences which sometimes attend the too severe reply, can never be condemned with more asperity than it deserves. Not to offend is the first step towards pleasing. To give pain is as much an offence against humanity as against good-breeding; and surely it is as well to abstain from an action because it is sinful, as because it is impolite.
A man of sense and breeding will sometimes join in the laugh, which has been raised at his expence by an ill natured repartee; but if it was very cutting, and one of those shocking sorts of truths, which, as they scarcely can be pardoned even in private, ought never to be uttered in public, he does not laugh because he wishes to conceal how much he is hurt; and will remember it, as a treat of malice, when the whole company should have forgotten it as a stroke of ridicule.
Even women are so far from being privileged by their s.e.x to say unhandsome or cruel things, that it is this very circ.u.mstance which renders them intolerable. When the arrow is lodged in the heart, it is no relief to him who is wounded to reflect, that the hand which shot it was a fair one.
THE VICTIM OF MAGICAL DELUSION; _OR, INTERESTING MEMOIRS OF MIGUEL, DUKE DE CA*I*A._ Unfolding Many Curious Unknown Historical Facts.
_Translated from the German of Tsc.h.i.n.k._
(Continued from page 299.)
It gave me great pleasure to have found out a mean through which I could influence you and the Marquis at once, and guide both of you to one mark. I feared, however, the Marquis of F-------- would discover my artifices, and for that reason recommended him to the King by a third person, for the transaction of affairs which removed him far enough from us.
Duke. Infernal villainy! execrable wretch!----But no, your deeds contradict your profession. No, Alumbrado, human art cannot produce miracles like yours. Did not nature herself obey you?
Alumbrado. Your imagination only obeyed me. The idea of the miraculous had been instilled in your mind already, and I had nothing else to do but to strengthen it, in order to get possession of the confidence which Hiermanfor had enjoyed. I thought it, however, prudent to use a different method. He founded his supernatural power on the occult sciences, and I on religious mysteries.