:

between the refpective parents, in which the inclinations of the young couple were too often neglected. The marriages, in courfe, were feldom happy where mutual affection did not previously exift, the cultivation of it, afterward, was never thought of: the tender charities,' the delightful prefervatives of love, were forgotten in the fafcinating follies of diffipation: and feldom could the married pair exclaim with Taffo, O dolce congiuntione de' cuori! O foave unione de gli animi noftri!-Sweet alliance of hearts, delightful union of our fouls!' Or exhibit the charming picture of conjugal felicity in Milton's hymn: Here Love his golden fhafts employs, here lights

His conftant lamp, and waves his purple wings,

Reigns here and revels.

Could ever hear by tale or history,
The courfe of true love never did run
fmooth:

But, either it was different in blood;
Or elfe mifgraffed, in refpect of years;
Or elfe it ftood upon the choice of friends:
Or, if there were a fympathy in choice,
War, death, or ficknefs did lay fiege to it;
Making it momentary as a found,
Swift as a fhadow, fhort as any dream;
Brief as the lightning in the colly'd night,
That, in a fpken, unfolds both heaven
and earth,

And ere a man hath power to say -Be

hold!

The word colly'd (that is, black, fmutted with coal, a word ftill used in the midland counties) conveys the idea of fomething more than black, a perfectly dark and footy night, which renders the glare of the lightning more difmal; that in a fpleen (a moment, on a fudden) darts its blue light, and difplays the creation, juft now thickmantled in night; and before we can even speak to obferve it, the jaws of darknefs devour it up.' The circumftances of the deep darkness of the night; the glare of the lightning, in an inftant bringing to view heaven and earth, the momentary duration of it, not fo long as while a man can fpeak; and its being inftantly devoured by the jaws of darkness; are fuch as place the image immediately before our the moft fublime and admired of anfight, and rank the paffage among cient or modern poetry.

Beautiful Praife from a Rival.

Hermia. God fpeed, fair Helena! Whither away?

Helena. Call you me fair? that fair again unfay.

Demetrius loves you, fair: O happy fair! Your eyes are lode-stars tongue's sweet air

and your

More

Magic Power of Love.

Hermia. Take comfort; he no more fhall fee my face; Lyfander and myself will fly this place. Before the time I did Lyfander fee, Seem'd Athens as a paradife to me : O then, what graces in my love do dwell, That he hath turn'd a heaven unto a hell!

There is a beautiful propriety in thefe lines. Hermia is willing to comfort Helena, and to avoid all appearance of triumph over her. She 'bids her, therefore, not to confider the power of pleafing as an advantage much to be envied or defired; fince Hermia, whom the confiders as poffeffing it in a fupreme degree, has found no other effects from it than the lofs of happiness.

Moon-light Night.

Lyfander. To-morrow-night, when
Phoebe doth behold

Her filver vifage in the wat'ry glafs,
Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grafs,
Through Athens' gates have we design'd
to fteal.

Whenever any incidental defcription of natural scenery occurs in Shakfpeare, it feldom fails to attract attention, although it may not convey any ftriking fentiment or moral. And the Moon-light appears a favourite fubject with him. Thus, in the first fcene of this act :

The moon, like to a filver bow New-bent in heaven, fhall behold the night Of our folemnities.

Again, in the Merchant of Venice: The moon fhines bright: in fuch a night as this, When the fweet wind did sweetly kiss the

This

This effect upon the Lover is more ftrongly defcribed by Thefeus, in the firft fcene of the fifth act:

The Lover, all as frantic, Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt.

་

Our bard has hinted a moral, on this latter fubject, with regard to irregular or misplaced affection, as Dr. Warburton has justly obferved, by as fine a metamorphofis as any in Ovid,' in the last lines of the following fpeech, the whole of which is proper to be tranfcribed here, in order to fhew how justly and poetically he has pointed to the different effects of paffion upon bufy and contemplative, as well as on idle and diffipated minds.

Oberon. That very time I faw (but thou couldst not)

Flying between the cold moon and the earth,

Cupid all arm'd a certain aim he took At a fair veftal, throned by the west * And loos'd his love-fhaft smartly from his bow,

As it should pierce a hundred thousand

hearts:

I must go feek fome dew-drops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowflip's ear,

The cowflip was a favourite flower among the fairies; and, in the pasfage before us, our bard has chosen the golden-coated cowflips, as penfioners to the fairy-queen, as the dress of the band of gentlemen-penfioners was very fplendid in the time of queen Elizabeth, and the tallest and handfomeft men were generally chofen by her for that office. To the fame red pots Shakspeare refers in Cymbeline: A mole cinque-fpotted, like the crimson drops

In the bottom of a cowslip.

Employments of the Fairies.

Puck. I am that merry wanderer of the
night.

I jeft to Oberon, and make him smile,
When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
Neighing in likeness of a filly foal:
And fometime lurk I in a goffip's bowl,
In very likeness of a roasted crab ||;
And, when the drinks, against her lips I
bob,

And on her wither'd dew-lap pour the ale.
The wifeft aunt, telling the faddeft tale,
Sometime for three-foot ftool mistaketh me;
Then flip I from her bum, down topples
the,

And tailor cries, and falls into a cough; And then the whole quire hold their hips, and loffe ;

And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and fwear

A merrier hour was never wafted there.

Shakspeare's fairies are sportive and gay; the innocent artificers of harmlefs frauds and innocent delufions. But on the fubject of these beautiful fictions, I shall be more particular in my next paper.

[To be continued.]

The

PERI

The Appropriation of Time. ERHAPS nothing is more common than to bewail the fhortnefs of life, unless it be to mifpend the little time we are permitted to enjoy. We complain that the evening is clofing on our unfinished labours, without remembering how much of the day has been wafted in indolence; and peevishly lament the infufficiency of our strength, without reflecting on the fatigues produced by diffipation and folly. In fhort, did we never fuffer ourselves to accufe the rapid wing of time, till we had counted the moments that have paffed unoccupied and unenjoyed, the murmur of impious difcontent would be ftifled by regret, and the voice of reproach expire in the figh of contrition.

:

Nor are indolence and diffipation the only fources of error in this particular the improvement of time has other enemies as formidable, perhaps, if it were not that they appear of a more corrigible nature. Among the foremost of these may be reckoned the injudicious manner, in which feafons and avocations are fuited to each other an improvidence fo great, that whoever fhould entirely correct himself of this inconfiftency would find room enough, in the little circle

:

BEATTIE.

of human life, for a much larger proportion of wisdom, and of pleasure, of business and of relaxation, than has, perhaps, ever yet been crowded within it fince the period of antediluvian longevity. At leaft it will not be difputed with me, that a juft appropriation of times and seasons would greatly enhance the enjoyments of life, fince every avocation may, under proper regulations become a pleasure, and the most favourite amusement, by an ill-timed recurrence, may find the ftrings out of time that should vibrate to its measures, and be consequently attended with nothing but wearifome-nefs and difguft.

It fhould feem that men of letters

are particularly negligent of this proper adaptation of time, and frequently not only shorten their lives, but even render the years they experience lefs productive than they might otherwise be, by reverfing the order of nature, and flifing the inftinctive voice or health, whofe warnings were kindly defigned for the prefervation and happine's of mankind. Neglectful of the invigorating and infpiring breath of morning, they but too frequently refer their ftudies to the protracted notturnal hour, which the most unequivocal fymptoms fhew us was designed for flumber and refreshment;

aid

regularly