Complain'd of a pain in his thigh; He made a great noise, although sore 'gainst his will, For he thought he was going to die. The Surgeon was sent for, and shortly he Who told Sam to cease all his pother, This thigh, said the surgeon, is not at all lame, Well then, replied Sam 'tis the other. THE ROSE-By Mr. Fox. The rose, the sweetly blooming rose, Ere from the tree tis torn, Is like the charm which beauty shows, In life's exulting morn. But ah! how soon its sweets are gone, So when the eve of life comes on, Then since the fairest form that's made, Let each possess what NE'ER will fadeThe beauty of the mind. See my Auld Fiddle, ance sae good, Nae mair, alas! on her I'll play What though she was of winsome frame, She breath'd beneath his clumsy feet, Not Robin Burns, nor that glib chield May minstrels a' the kestral hate And mock and jeer him air and late, May his ass-lugs be ever found Deaf to the harmony of sound, May fighting cats wi' elritch screams, And howling dogs disturb his dreams; May discord deave him night and day, And corbies sing his fun'ral lay, While my auld fiddle, though she's lame, Like chiefs of yore, shall hear her fame. The following curious anagram on Napoleon Bonaparte, not being generally known it is worthy notice. "Bona rapta pone Leno," which expresses, even to a letter, "you rascal, lay down the stolen goods." LITERARY INTELLIGENCE. An Italian Ode, composed lately by Mr. Da Ponte, on the present situation of this country, was so well received in London, that 40,000 copies were sold in less than eight days. Sanazzaro, a poet of the 15th century, received 6000 dollars, as a present, from the republick of Venice, for Latin verses, which perhaps were not more elegant than those of Mr. Da Ponte. this charming poet met with the good fortune of Sanazzaro, he would not now have been under the necessity of procuring a bare subsistence in the city of New-York, by teaching young children their A, B, C. Had LAW INTELLIGENCE. SHERIFF'S COURT, Wednesday, April 17. LYNE . HAMILTON. The plaintiff, who is a hosier in Oxfordstreet had paid his addresses to a Miss Wade, the daughter of a respectable tradesman at Lambeth, and afterwards married her. The defendant had also been a suitor with the same lady, and entertained hopes of succeeding, when he was supplanted by. the plaintiff, which circumstance became the ground of animosity between the parties. On several occasions the defendant had openly insulted the plaintiff, but by the interference of friends they appeared to be reconciled; until meeting accidentally during the last autumn, at the Horse and Groom publick-house, near Kingston; the old topick was renewed, and as they had been sacrificing to the Jolly God, the most impassioned language occurred. The defendant, who is described as a muscular man, exercised his horsewhip on the plaintiff, in a most unmerciful manner; struck him a violent blow in the face with his fist, and was only restrained from proceeding to further violence by the servants of the house. After these facts had been proved, the Jury returned a verdict of 201. damages. The price of The Port Folio is Six Dollars per annum, to be paid in advance. Printed and Published, for the Editor, by SMITH & MAXWELL, NO. 28, NORTH SECOND-STREET. (NEW SERIES) BY OLIVER OLDSCHOOL, ESQ. Various, that the mind of desultory man, studious of change and pleased with novelty, may be indulged-Cowp, Vol. VI. Philadelphia, Saturday, August 27, 1808. No. 9. ORIGINAL PAPERS. For The Port Folio. TRAVELS. LETTERS FROM GENEVA AND FRANCE. Written during a residence of between two and three years in different parts of those countries, and addressed to a lady in Virginia. (Continued from page 121.) My Dear E. ONE of the most agreeable excursions we have made, has been to the glaciers of Savoy, which Coxe and other travellers have rendered familiar to you by name, but which no description can convey an adequate idea of. I will simply give you an account of the impression they made upon us, but without entering into particulars which have been so frequently repeated. You must now open a map of Savoy, and observe the course of the Arve, which the road is governed by from Geneva to Chamouni. The towns men tioned by Coxe are such as he describes them. The country is wild and savage; little spots of good land appear well cultivated, in places that seem almost inaccessible; and what we should call, in America, the low grounds of the river, are, in general, an accumulation of very fine soil. But in some places, a great deal of injury appears to have been occasioned by the ungovernable fury of the water, which now and then reassumes, like Providence, in a moment, what it had been ages in bestowing. If we may judge by analogy, the far greater part of this extensive valley of the Arve was formerly a chain of lakes, and one in particular, is known to have been near Servoz. In the center of this lake, stood, on a craggy island, the castle of St. Michel, and a few miles below was the little town of St. Denys, not far, in all. probability, from where the pent des chevres is placed on the map. Could an inhabitant of those days R air, the singular appearance of which will never be effaced from my imagination, we entered the valley of Chamouny, a valley so often described, that I can conceive your being better acquainted with it than with the Calf-pasture, or the Shenandoe. The Arve runs along the middle and on either side the banks, which rise by a very rapid slope, are diversified by various sorts of produce, till they become too steep, or too barren, to be cultivated. Houses and villages are thickly scattered, and every thing bespeaks plenty and good husbandry, while the glaciers, which, like enormous icicles, are protruded down the sides of the be called to life again, how great would his be astonishment, at the change which has taken place! The poor dismantled remains of St. Michel are no longer on an island. The lake disappeared by the sudden failure of the mound which supported it, and the waters, in their retreat, swept away the town and all its inhabitants. It must have been a horrible catastrophe, and as unexpected as it was irresistible. For an hour or two from Servoz (for in this country they count by hours and not by miles) the road has more the appearance of stairs, badly cut in the rock, than of a mean of communication in carriages. Even the char-àbanc, of which I send you a draw-mountains they belong to, create a ing, is with difficulty dragged along. To the right is a steep, impending rock, to the left is a precipice, with the Arve bursting his way, from one obstacle to another, at the bottom. The opposite side rises abruptly, to a very great height, and almost perpendicularly; and yet, not far from the summit, I observed a man mowing. The spot which was to reward his industry, seemed less than a quarter of an acre: it lay, like an island, amid a waste of barren rocks, and was so steep, that had he lost his foot-hold, he must have fallen into a chasm of at least 2000 feet. It would surely be no difficult matter to collect as many colonists as one pleased, in a country like this, who would cheerfully consent to remove to any part of the United States, from the wilds of Savoy, or of Jura; these last are very little known to travellers, and have been well and eloquently described by Mr. Lequinio. At a very small distance from the part of the road, where we saw the man mowing, as it were, in the contrast with the beauties of vege tation, which exceeds all I ever beheld, in novelty and in magnificence. Hitherto, the inhabitants of Savoy, though frequently in possession of a fertile soil, had appeared a poor, dispirited, and miserable race; and the shepherdesses of the Alps had looked more like gipsies than those elegantly rural forms, which the genius of painting had bestowed upon them. But in the valley of Chamouny, the race of man seemed improved, and it was in the midst of all that could delight the mind, that we arrived at the Priory, on the evening of the second day. Our company was not quite the same as in the journey through the south of France. We had the addition of your uncle and brother, of the little Genevan, and of the stout Swiss nurse, who has the charge of her, and who, wearing a gold cross, by way of ornament, was very much afraid of being taken for a Catholick, and a Savoyarde. Of dangers on the road we experienced none, but we passed fre quently where dangers had been; as over the beds of torrents, which bear every thing before them, when swelled with the melting of the snows, and under the brow of mountains, from which masses of rock had often fallen, to the great terrour of the neighbourhood. Savoy has had its portion of sufferings during the French Revolution. The clergy was everywhere despoiled of their property, and everywhere the object of cruelty, and oppression. The churches and chapels were converted to some profane use, and the poor parish priests were hunted out and pursued from one hiding-place to another. Yet did not these good men desert their flocks; for five years, that religion was an object of persecution, they persevered in attempting to fulfil their duty and had all the merit of the first Christians in the times of Nero or Dioclesian. I have lately seen two very fine pictures on this subject. The one represents the curate as performing divine service at the foot of a rock, in a remote valley, during the persecution, and the other as returning to his parish, after the concordat between the French Government and the Pope. In this last he is represented as surrounded by the old and the young. "He for God only, they for God in him." As a wellbeloved friend and parent, who returns, after a long absence, to the bosom of a family. A group of clowns are in the act of raising the the of the comcross, mayor mune is explaining the blessed change which has taken place, and an old couple, who seem too weak with age, to stand up, and who may fer. * These pictures were painted by Top have been borne to the church door, and seated there by their children, have an expression on their countenance, which religion alone could give rise to; it seems as if a ray from heaven had come to gild the last moments of their existence. Surely, such subjects are far more worthy the talents of an artist than a market for cattle, or for hogs, or the drunken boors and alehouse joys of the Flemish school. The gentry of Savoy have suffered almost as much as the clergy; they have been treated as emigrants, for remaining attached to a cause, which they would have been despised for quitting, and have been ruined by fines and confiscations, while a new race of people, like the new race of noxious insects and reptiles who are called into existence by the putridity of our rice-fields, when the water is withdrawn, has risen to opulence. and to distinction, in their place. At Salenches, I was looking at the castle, and asked a person who came up, the name of the propri It has been confiscated, he said, and sold for assignats, and now belongs to the barber, who used formerly to shave Monsieur le Baron. The moonlight view from Chamouny is extremely sublime. At a small distance, appears Mont Blanc, at the perpendicular height, above the valley, of upwards of 12,000 feet, and to the left is a range of lofty eminences, the lowest of which, would, in any other situation, command the admiration of travellers. etor. The next morning, at an early hour, we proceeded to ascend a mountain, which is on the opposite side of the valley to the Montanvert, each of us mounted on a mule, and each accompanied by a guide on foot: these guides are a race of active, intelligent, good-humour |