a conjecture that superior beings are blest with a Beneath his plantain's ancient shade, renew nobler exercise of this faculty. SWEET MEMORY, wafted by thy gentle gale, The friends of Reason, and the guides of Youth, When Joy's bright sun has shed his evening-ray, And Hope's delusive meteors cease to play; When clouds on clouds the smiling prospect close, Still through the gloom thy star serenely glows: Like yon fair orb, she gilds the brow of night With the mild magic of reflected light. The beauteous maid, who bids the world adieu, Oft of that world will snatch a fond review; Oft at the shrine neglect her beads, to trace Some social scene, some dear, familiar face: And ere, with iron tongue, the vesper-bell Bursts through the cypress-walk, the convent-cell, Oft will her warm and wayward heart revive, To love and joy still tremblingly alive; The whisper'd vow, the chaste caress prolong, Weave the light dance and swell the choral song; With rapt ear drink the enchanting serenade, And, as it melts along the moonlight-glade, To each soft note return as soft a sigh, And bless the youth that bids her slumbers fly. But not till Time has calm'd the ruffled breast, Are these fond dreams of happiness confest. Not till the rushing winds forget to rave, Is Heaven's sweet smile reflected on the wave. From Guinea's coast pursue the lessening sail, And catch the sounds that sadden every gale. Tell, if thou canst, the sum of sorrows there; Mark the fix'd gaze, the wild and frenzied glare, The racks of thought, and freezings of despair! But pause not then-beyond the western wave, Go, view the captive barter'd as a slave! Crush'd till his high, heroic spirit bleeds, And from his nerveless frame indignantly recedes. Yet here, even here, with pleasures long resign'd, Lo! MEMORY bursts the twilight of the mind. Her dear delusions soothe his sinking soul, When the rude scourge assumes its base control; And o'er Futurity's blank page diffuse The full reflection of her vivid hues. "Tis but to die, and then, to weep no more, Then will he wake on Congo's distant shore; The simple transports that with freedom flew; Ah! why should Virtue fear the frowns of Fate? But most we mark the wonders of her reign, When the blithe son of Savoy, journeying round But can her smile with gloomy Madness dwell? Say, can she chase the horrors of his cell? Each fiery flight on Frenzy's wing restrain, And mould the coinage of the fever'd brain? Pass but that grate, which scarce a gleam supplies, But, as he fondly snatch'd the wreath of Fame, Awake, arise! with grateful fervor fraught, Who acts thus wisely, mark the moral Muse, But the fond fool, when evening shades the sky, Ah! who can tell the triumphs of the mind, And, with a brother's warmth, a brother's smile, But these pure joys the world can never know; When age has quench'd the eye, and closed the ear, Oft at the silent, shadowy close of day, Still nerved for action in her native sphere, So through the grove the impatient mother flies, And ask the shatter'd hero, whence his smile? Hail, noblest structures imaged in the wave! Time's sombrous touches soon correct the piece, Hast thou through Eden's wild-wood vales pur- Each mountain scene, majestically rude; Thus, with the manly glow of honest pride, As the stern grandeur of a Gothic tower When the hush'd grove has sung his parting lay; So oft the finer movements of the soul, High on exulting wing the heath-cock rose (27) Through morn's grey mist its melting colors gave; Light as the breeze that brush'd the orient dew, Hence away, nor dare intrude! Far from the busy world she flies, Florio had gain'd a rude and rocky seat, She left the cave, nor mark'd the stranger there; Florio, with fearful joy, pursued the maid, Yet here Remembrance, sweetly-soothing Power! Long by the paddock's humble pale confined, But why the tale prolong?-His only child, Had won his soul; and rapturous Fancy shed But ah! few days had pass'd, ere the bright vision fled! Their shifting sail dropt gently from the cove, And still the mitred window, richly wreathed, And now the moon had dimm'd with dewy ray For ever would the fond enthusiast rove, With Julia's spirit, through the shadowy grove; Gaze with delight on every scene she plann'd, Kiss every flow'ret planted by her hand. Ah! still he traced her steps along the glade, When hazy hues and glimmering lights betray'd Half-viewless forms; still listen'd as the breeze Heaved its deep sobs among the aged trees; And at each pause her melting accents caught, In sweet delirium of romantic thought! Dear was the grot that shunn'd the blaze of day; She gave its spars to shoot a trembling ray. The spring, that bubbled from its inmost cell, Murmur'd of Julia's virtues as it fell; And o'er the dripping moss, the fretted stone, Each scene of bliss reveal'd, since chaos fled, There thy bright train, immortal Friendship, soar; No more to part, to mingle tears no more! And, as the softening hand of Time endears The joys and sorrows of our infant-years, So there the soul, released from human strife, Smiles at the little cares and ills of life; Its lights and shades, its sunshine and its showers; As at a dream that charm'd her vacant hours! Oft may the spirits of the dead descend To watch the silent slumbers of a friend; To hover round his evening-walk unseen, And hold sweet converse on the dusky green; To hail the spot where first their friendship grew, And heaven and nature open'd to their view! Oft, when he trims his cheerful hearth, and sees A smiling circle emulous to please; There may these gentle guests delight to dwell, And bless the scene they loved in life so well! Oh thou! with whom my heart was wont to share From Reason's dawn each pleasure and each care; With whom, alas! I fondly hoped to know The humble walks of happiness below; If thy blest nature now unites above An angel's pity with a brother's love, Still o'er my life preserve thy mild control, Correct my views, and elevate my soul; Grant me thy peace and purity of mind, Devout yet cheerful, active yet resign'd; Grant me, like thee, whose heart knew no disguise, Whose blameless wishes never aim'd to rise, To meet the changes Time and Chance present, With modest dignity and calm content. When thy last breath, ere Nature sunk to rest, Thy meek submission to thy God express'd; When thy last look, ere thought and feeling fled, A mingled gleam of hope and triumph shed; What to thy soul its glad assurance gave, Its hope in death, its triumph o'er the grave? The sweet Remembrance of unblemish'd youth, The still inspiring voice of Innocence and Truth! Hail, MEMORY, hail! in thy exhaustless mine From age to age unnumber'd treasures shine! Thought and her shadowy brood thy call obey, And Place and Time are subject to thy sway! Thy pleasures most we feel when most alone; The only pleasures we can call our own. Lighter than air, Hope's summer-visions die, If but a fleeting cloud obscure the sky; If but a beam of sober Reason play, Lo, Fancy's fairy frost-work melts away! But can the wiles of Art, the grasp of Power, Snatch the rich relics of a well-spent hour? These, when the trembling spirit wings her flight, Pour round her path a stream of living light; And gild those pure and perfect realms of rest, Where Virtue triumphs, and her sons are blest! NOTES. Note 1, page 2, col. 2. Up springs, at every step, to claim a tear. Note 2, page 3, col. 1. Awake but one, and lo, what myriads rise! When a traveller, who was surveying the ruins of Rome, expressed a desire to possess some relic of its ancient grandeur, Poussin, who attended him, stooped down, and gathering up a handful of earth shining with small grains of porphyry, "Take this home," said he, " for your cabinet; and say boldly, Questa è Roma Antica." Note 3, page 3, col. 1. The church-yard yews round which his fathers sleep. Every man, like Gulliver in Lilliput, is fastened to some spot of earth, by the thousand small threads which habit and association are continually stealing over him. Of these, perhaps, one of the strongest is here alluded to. When the Canadian Indians were once solicited to emigrate, "What!" they replied, "shall we say to the bones of our fathers, Arise, and go with us into a foreign land?" Note 4, page 3, col. 1. So, when he breathed his firm yet fond adieu. See Cook's first voyage, book i, chap. 16. Another very affecting instance of local attachment is related of his fellow-countryman Potaveri, who came to Europe with M. de Bougainville.-See les Jardins, chant ii. Note 5, page 3, col. 2. So Scotia's Queen, etc. Elle se leve sur son lit, et se met à contempler la France encore, et tant qu'elle peut.-BRANTOME. Note 6, page 3, col. 2. Thus kindred objects kindred thoughts inspire. To an accidental association may be ascribed some of the noblest efforts of human genius. The Historian of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire first conceived his design among the ruins of the Capitol; and to the tones of a Welsh harp are we indebted for the Bard of Gray. Note 7, page 3, col. 2. Hence home-felt pleasure, etc Who can sufficiently admire the affectionate at tachment of Plutarch, who thus concludes his enumeration of the advantages of a great city to men of letters? "As to myself, I live in a little town; and I choose to live there, lest it should become still less.' Vit. Dem. Note 8, page 3, col. 2. For this young Foscari, etc. He was suspected of murder, and at Venice suspicion is good evidence. Neither the interest of the Doge, his father, nor the intrepidity of conscious innocence, which he exhibited in the dungeon and on the rack, could procure his acquittal. He was banished to the island of Candia for life. But here his resolution failed him. At such a dis tance from home he could not live; and, as it was a criminal offence to solicit the intercession of a foreign prince, in a fit of despair he addressed a letter to the Duke of Milan, and intrusted it to a wretch whose perfidy, he knew, would occasion his being remanded I came to the place of my birth and cried, "The friends of my youth, where are they?"-And an echo answered "Where are they?"-From an Arabic MS. a prisoner to Venice. Note 9, page 3, col. 2. chateau at Richelieu, he sacrificed its symmetry to preserve the room in which he was born.-Mém. de Mlle de Montpensier, i, 27. And hence the charm historic scenes impart: Whatever withdraws us from the power of our An attachment of this nature is generally the charsenses; whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future, predominate over the present, advances us in acteristic of a benevolent mind; and a long acquaint the dignity of thinking beings. Far from me and far from ance with the world cannot always extinguish it. "To a friend," says John, Duke of Buckingham my friends be such frigid philosophy as may conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground which "I will expose my weakness: I am oftener missing has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. a pretty gallery in the old house I pulled down, than That man is little to be envied, whose patriotism pleased with a saloon which I built in its stead, though a thousand times better in all respects.”—See would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins his Letter to the D. of Sh. of Iona-JOHNSON. Note 10, page 3, col. 2. And watch and weep in Eloisa's cell. The Paraclete, founded by Abelard, in Champagne. "T was ever thus. As now at Virgil's tomb. Note 12, page 3, col. 2. So Tully paused amid the wrecks of Time. When Cicero was quæstor in Sicily, he discovered the tomb of Archimedes by its mathematical inscription.-Tusc. Quæst. v. 3. Note 13, page 3, col. 2. Say why the pensive widow loves to weep. The influence of the associating principle is finely exemplified in the faithful Penelope, when she sheds tears over the bow of Ulysses.-Od. xxi, 55. Note 14, page 3, col. 2. If chance he hears the song so sweetly wild. The celebrated Ranz des Vaches; "cet air si chéri des Suisses qu'il fut défendu sous peine de mort de le jouer dans leurs troupes, parce qu'il faisoit fondre en larmes, déserter ou mourir ceux qui l'entendoient, tant il excitoit en cux l'ardent désir de revoir leur patrie."-Rousseau. The maladie de pays is as old as the human heart. JUVENAL'S little cup-bearer Suspirat longo non visam tempore matrem, Et casulam, et notos tristis desiderat hædos. And the Argive, in the heat of battle, Dulces moriens reminiscitur Argos. Note 15, page 4, col. 2. Say why Vespasian loved his Sabine farm. This emperor, according to Suetonius, constantly passed the summer in a small villa near Reate, where he was born, and to which he would never add any embellishment, ne quid scilicet oculorum consuetudini deperiret.-SUET. in Vit. Vesp. cap. ii. This is the language of the heart; and will remind the reader of that good-humored 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." Nor did the Poet feel the charm more forcibly than his Editor. See HURD's Life of Warburton, 51, 99. The Author of Telemachus has illustrated this subject, with equal fancy and feeling, in the story of Alibée, Persan. Note 16, page 4, col. 1. Why great Navarre, etc. 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.-Mém. de Sully. Note 17, page 4, col. 1. 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 reassume the reins of government, and the Imperial purple. He rejected the temptation with a smile of pity, calmly observing, "that if he could show 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."-GIBBON. Note 18, page 4, col. 1. Say, when contentious Charles renounced a throne. When the emperor Charles V. had executed his memorable resolution, and had set out for the mon astery of St. Justus, he stopped a few days at Ghent, says his historian, to indulge that tender and pleas ant 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 fa miliar to him in his early youth.-ROBERTSON. Note 19, page 4, col. 1. Then did his horse the homeward track descry. The memory of the horse forms the groundwork of a pleasing little romance of the twelfth century entitled, "Lai du Palefroy vair."-See Fabliaux du XII. siècle. Ariosto likewise introduces it in a passage full of truth and nature. When Bayardo meets Angelica in A similar instance occurs in the life of the venerable Pertinax, as related by J. Capitolinus. Posteaquam, in Liguriam venit, multis agris coemptis, tabernam paternam, manente formâ priore, infinitis ædificiis cir- the forest, cumdedit. Hist. August. 54. And it is said of Cardinal Richelieu, that, when he built his magnificent palace on the site of the old family Va mansueto alla Donzella, |