an Indian chief, when rehearsing his feats of war, and then retiring, the exhibition is continued by others who dare to step forth and strive to excel each other to gain the attention of the favourite female."

W.

THE MONITOR No. II.-FOR THE PORT FOLIO.

TURNPIKE ROADS.

IT is a subject of the most serious regret to every friend of this country, that turnpike stock generally averages an income below legal interest, and less than most of our other public stocks. This threatens to extinguish, or at least very materially to impair the spirit that has existed in favour of those useful undertakings, turnpikes. In a country affording such an endless variety of modes of employing money advantageously, it would be insanity to expect that any very considerable number of our citizens would devote the large sums necessary to establish these roads, unless there were a reasonable prospect of advantage from them.

The unproductiveness of turnpike stock arises from the very great expense originally incurred in the formation of the roads, and from the Constant large disbursements requisite to keep them in repair. As to the first item, although I believe there might generally be great savings made, yet I shall for the present wave any examination of that part of the business, and confine myself wholly to the repairs.

I venture to suggest a plan by which this grand object might be effected, at, probably, less than half the present expense. Perhaps I deceive myself, as most projectors do, and overrate the advantages of my scheme. Of this the public will judge.

Although it is very unfashionable to cite proverbs, yet I cannot resist the temptation to take one as my text. It is homely and housewifely, but contains a vast deal of sound sense-A stitch in time saves nine. This is applicable to all human affairs, and to none more than the present subject of discussion...

According to the prevailing system, when a road is finished, all concern of it is abandoned, till it has become so completely damaged, as to call loudly for the most expensive repairs. This is the radical error, which creates a vertex to swallow up se large a proportion of the tolls.

Instead of this wretched mode, I propose that the roads be divided among a certain number of persons, hired at moderate wages, whose duty it shall be to examine their parts respectively every day, and to repair any spot that may require it, as soon as it is damaged, though ever so slightly.

I am not prepared to say what extent of a road each individual might be able to keep in good order. But I am strongly inclined to believe, if there were deposits of stone and gravel placed at suitable distances, that an industrious man, provided with a cart, a yoke of oxen, a rolling stone, and all the other necessary apparatus, would find little difficulty in attending to eight or ten miles. This, however, is a point on which experience alone can determine correctly.

That this management would produce a vast saving to the partics concerned, and render turnpiking much more lucrative, I feel the fullest confidence.

The neglect of the side or summer roads, is another capital error. They can be preserved in good order, or repaired, at a much less expense than the turnpikes. And it is so much more pleasant to travel on them, and so much less destructive to horses' shoes, as well as to the tire of wheels, that when they are fit for travelling, they are almost exclusively used.

During eight months of the year, the summer roads might be kept almost constantly in repair, at a very small expense. This would very much diminish the use, and consequently the destruction of the turnpike. The summer road is very soon damaged. Four or five carriages of burden passing immediately after or during a heavy fall of rain, make a rut, wherein the rain lodges. It is constantly increasing till the road becomes somewhat impassable. It is then shunned, and the turnpike alofe is travelled. Hence it is not an extravagant calculation to suppose that the expense of keeping the turnpike in repair in certain places, where the summer road is generally bad, is a third more than would be necessary under proper regulations.

If the summer roads be easily damaged, they are likewise, as I have said, easily mended. A little labour, seasonably applied, would, after the rain has been evaporated, repair even the worst places. It should be the duty of the persons of whom I recommend the appointment, to pay prompt attention to these roads as soon as the weather clears up; to fill up all ruts; and to run the rolling stone over the whole, so as to invite the travellers back to the use of them. This is the stitch in time.

One word more. I am informed by men of experience and skill, that when the stones used in making turnpikes are of different degrees of hardness, they wear each other out, and the road is not by any durable, as when they are all of the same kind.

preans so

It excites astonishment in any reflecting mind, to see the unaccountable insanity that too frequently pervades the conduct of communities and collections of men, any one of whom would be ashamed at the exhibition of a fourth part of the folly in his own private affairs. Perhaps a more striking instance of this kind can hardly be produced, than is displayed by the powerful and reputable state of Pennsylvania, in the custody of her public records. All the papers, documents, and records of the land office, on which the titles to property to the amount of millions of dollars rest, have been for years kept at Lancaster, in miserable apartments, the risk of conflagration whereof is much more than what the insurance offices term doubly hazardous. For 2, 3, or 4000 dollars a fire-proof building might be erected, which would afford all the necessary security, and prevent a calamity, which, if it occurs, cannot be completely remedied for half a million.

The same culpable neglect prevails, I am informed, in most of the counties of the state: and the error does not exclusively belong to Pennsylvania. It extends far and wide throughout the Union.

Philadelphia makes an equal display of misplaced economy. The papers belonging to all the public offices here, are by no means guarded with the proper degree of care. Those who are interested in the titles of city property-in wills or mortgages recorded, or in any of the papers deposited in those offices, would, on an examination of the wings of the state-house, feel the most serious apprehensions. Philadelphia requires a fire-proof building to preserve the public books and papers, equally with the borough of Lancaster; and it is to be hoped the subject will speedily occupy the attention of those whose province it is to make the necessary provision.

DEFENCE OF SOUTHEY'S THALABA.

The Politest Scholars and the ablest Critics have differed widely in their opinion of the merits, or demerits of the Muse of SOUTHEY. That he is a man of Genius and a Poet of great sensibility, we are by no means disposed to deny; moreover, in a spirit of the most liberal candor, we declare distinctly, that Mr. S. is incomparably a wiser man, and a more correct and elegant writer now, than he was some years ago. From the most accurate authority, we have good reason to believe that his character has materially changed; and that, however disposed to quarrel with, or laugh at him once, we have no inclination

VOL. II.

now to assail with vehemence, either his principles, or his poetry. Of late he has written much which reflects lustre upon his heart and his understanding. In his Chronicle of the Cid, we discern the plainest proofs of his attentive perusal of the Bible, and a very pleasing copy of the sublime simplicity of its style. But of the innovations, which, he has hazarded in his “ Thalaba," we doubt somewhat of the propriety. This our readers will readily allow to be very natural, when they reflect, that we are orthodox believers in the creed of the High Church of Criticism. Every scholar remembers the powerful onset made against Southey's light troops by the tremendous charge of the Edinburgh Review. The strongest defence is by H. K. WHITE, a spirited and gallant, if not a successful volunteer. The ensuing paper is perfectly well written, and if we may not concede to the argument, we must commend its ingenuity. EDITOR.

La rime est une esclave, et ne doit qu'obéir.

BOILEAU.

EXPERIMENTS in versification have not often been successful. Sir Philip Sydney, with all his genius, great as it undoubtedly was, could not impart grace to his hexameters, or fluency to his sapphics. Spenser's stanza was new, but his verse was familiar to the ear, and though his rhymes were frequent even to satiety, he seems to have avoided the awkwardness of novelty, and the difficulty of unpracticed metres. Donne had not music enough to render his broken couplets sufferable, and neither his wit nor his pointed satire were sufficient to rescue him from that neglect, which his uncouth and rugged versification speedily superinduced.

sensation

In our times, Mr. Southey has given grace and melody to sore of the Latin and Greek measures, and Mr. Bowles has written rhyming heroics, wherein the sense is transmitted from couplet to couplet, and the pauses are varied with all the freedom of blank verse, without exciting any of ruggedness, or offending the nicest ear. But these are minor efforts: the former of these exquisite poets has taken a yet wider range, and in his "Thalaba the Destroyer," has spurned at all the received laws of metre, and framed a fabric of verse altogether his own.

An innovation so bold as that of Mr. Southey, was sure to meet with disapprobation and ridicule. The world naturally looks with suspicion on systéms, which contradict established principles, and refuse to quadrate with habits, which, as they have been used to, men are apt to think cannot be improved upon. The opposition which has been made to the metre of Thalaba is, therefore, not so much to be imputed to its want of harmony, as to the operation of existing prejudices; and it is fair to conclude that, as these prejudices are softened by usage, and the strangeness of novelty wears off, the

peculiar features of this lyrical frame of verse, will be more candidly appre ciated, and its merits more unreservedly acknowledged.

Whoever is conversant with the writings of this author, will have observed and admired that greatness of mind and comprehension of intellect, by which he is enabled on all occasions to throw off the shackles of Habit and Prepossession. Southey never treads in the beaten track; his thoughts, while they are those of nature, carry that cast of originality, which is the stamp and testimony of genius. He views things through a peculiar phasis, and while he has the feelings of a man, they are those of a man almost abstracted from mortality, and reflecting on and painting the scenes of life, as if he were a mere spectator, uninfluenced by his own connexion with the objects he surveys. To this faculty of bold discrimination, I attribute many of Mr. Southey's peculiarities as a poet. He never seems to inquire how other men would treat a subject, or what may happen to be the usage of the times; but filled with that strong sense of fitness, which is the result of bold and unshackled thought, he fearlessly pursues that course which his own sense of propriety indicates.

It is very evident to me, and, I should conceive, to all, who consider the subject attentively, that the structure of verse, which Mr. Southey has promulgated in his Thalaba, was neither adopted rashly nor from any vain emulation of originality. As the poet himself happily observes, "It is the arabesque ornament of an Arabian tale." No one would wish to see the Joan of Arc in such a garb; but the wild freedom of the versification of Thalaba accords well with the romantic wildness of the story; and I do not hesitate to say, that, had any other known measure been adopted, the poem would have been deprived of half its beauty, and all its propriety. In blank verse it would have been absurd; in rhyme insipid. The lyrical manner is admirably adapted to the sudden transitions and rapid connexions of an Arabian tale, while its variety precludes tedium, and its full, because unshackled cadence, satisfies the ear with legitimate harmony. At first, indeed, the verse may appear uncouth, because it is new to the ear; but I defy any man who has any feeling of melody, to peruse the whole poem without paying tribute to the sweetness of its flow, and the gracefulness of its modulations.

In judging of this extraordinary poem, we should consider it as a genuine lyric production; we should conceive it as recited to the harp, in times when such relations carried nothing incredible with them. Carrying this idea along with us, the admirable art of the poet will strike us with tenfold conviction, the abrupt sublimity of his transitions, the sublime simplicity of his manner, and the delicate touches by which he connects the various parts of his narrative, will then be more strongly observable, and we shall in particular, remark the uncommon felicity with which he has adapted his versification; and in the midst of the wildest irregularity, left nothing to shock the ear, or offend the judgment.