château at Richelieu, he sacrificed its symmetry to preserve the room in which he was born.

Mémoires de Mlle. de Montpensier.

An attachment of this nature is generally the characteristic of a benevolent mind; and a long acquaintance which the world cannot always extinguish it.

To a friend," says John Duke of Buckingham, "I will expose my weakness: I am oftener missing a pretty gallery in the old house I pulled down than pleased with a saloon which I built in its stead, though a thousand times better in all respects. See his Letter to the D. of Sh.

This is the language of the heart, and will remind the reader of that good-humoured remark in one of Pope's letters "I should hardly care to have an old post pulled up that I remembered ever since I was a child. POPE'S Works, VIII, 151.

Nor did the poet feel the charm more forcibly than his Editors. See HURD'S Life of Warburton, 51, 99.

The elegant author of Telemachus has illustrated this subject, with equal fancy and feeling, in the story of Alibée, Persan. See Recueil de Fables composées pour l'éducation d'un Prince.

14 Why great Navarre, &c.

That amiable and accomplished monarch, Henry the Fourth of France, made an excursion from his camp, during the long siege of Laon, to dine at a house in the forest of Folambray, where he had often been regaled, when a boy, with fruit, milk, and new cheese, and in revisiting which he promised himself great pleasure.

Mémoires de SULLY, tome 11, p. 381.

15 When Diocletian's self-corrected mind—

Diocletian retired into his native province, and there

amused himself with building, planting, and gardening. His answer to Maximian is deservedly celebrated. He was solicited by that restless old man to re-assume the reins of government, and the Imperial purple. He rejected the temptation with a smile of pity, calmly observing, "that if he could shew Maximian the cabbages which he had planted with his own hands at Salona, he should no longer be urged to relinquish the enjoyment of happiness for the pursuit of power.

16

Gibbon, II, 175.

Say, when ambitious Charles renounc'd a throne

When the emperor Charles V had executed his memorable resolution, and had set out for the monastery of St. Justus, he stopped a few days at Ghent, says his historian, to indulge that tender and pleasant melancholy which arises in the mind of every man in the decline of life on visiting the place of his nativity, and viewing the scenes and objects familiar to him in his early youth.

ROBERTSON'S Hist. IV, 256.

17 Then did his horse the homeward track descry.

The memory of the horse forms the ground-work of a pleasing little romance of the twelfth century, entitled, Lai du Palefroi vair. See Fabliaux ou Contes du XII. et du X111. siecle, IV, 195.

Ariosto likewise introduces it in a passage full of truth and nature. When Baiardo meets Angelica in the forest,

Che in Albracca il servía già di sua mano.

ORLANDO FURIOSO, cant. I, 75,

18 Sweet bird thy truth shall Harlem's walls

attest

During the siege of Harlem, when that city was reduced to the last extremity, and on the point of opening its gates to a base and barbarous enemy, a design was formed to relieve it; and the intelligence was conveyed to the citizens by a letter which was tied under the wing of a pigeon.

THUANUS, lib. LV, c. 5.

The same messenger was employed at the siege of Mutina, as we are informed by the elder Pliny. Hist. nat. X, 37• ́

19 Hark! the bee, &c.

This little animal, from the extreme convexity of her eye, cannot see many inches before her.

ANALYSIS

OF THE SECOND PART.

THE Memory has hitherto acted only in subservience

to the senses, and so far man is not eminently distinguished from other animals: but, with respect to man, she has a higher province, and is often busily employed when excited by no external cause whatever. She preserves, for his use, the treasures of art and science, history and philosophy. She colours all the prospects of life: for we can only anticipate the future by concluding what is possible from what is past. On her agency depends every effusion of the Fancy, whose boldest effort can only compound or transpose, augment or diminish the materials which she has collected and retained.

When the first emotions of despair have subsided, and sorrow has softened into melancholy, she amuses with a retrospect of innocent pleasures, and inspires that noble confidence which results from the consciousness of having acted well. When sleep has suspended the organs of sense from their office, she not only supplies the mind with images, but assists in their combination. And even in madness itself, when the soul is resigned over to the tyranny of a distempered imagination, she revives past perceptions, and awakens the train of thought which was formerly most familiar.

Nor are we pleased only with a review of the brighter passages of life; events, the most distressing in their immediate consequences, are often cherished in remembrance with a degree of enthusiasm.

22

ANALYSIS OF THE SECOND PART.

But the world and its occupations give a mechanical impulse to the passions which is not very favourable to the indulgence of this feeling. It is in a calm and well-regulated mind that the Memory is most perfect; and solitude is her best sphere of action. With this sentiment is introduced a Tale, illustrative of her influence in solitude, sickness, and sorrow. And the subject having now been considered, so far as it relates to man and the animal world, the Poem concludes with a conjecture that superior Beings are blest with a nobler exercise of this faculty.