BY THE SAME AUTHOR. I. THE ITALIANS; or, THE FATAL ACCUSATION. A Tragedy. Eighth Edition. This Edition is printed from the Copy, read with distinguished Approbation before a numerous but highly select Audience at FREE-Mason's HALL.-"There cannot, in my opinion, be a doubt," says a celebrated Commentator on Shakespeare, in a letter to the Author," that, had your Tragedy not encountered the most illiberal and envenomed opposition, of which there is any record in the annals of dramatic literature, it must have succeeded to the full extent of your wishes. There is a romantic interest about it, and a novelty in several of its characters, powerfully adapted to arrest and fix attention. The mental aberrations in the character of ALBANIO,-forming a species of hallucination, the result of an excess of sensibility,-appear to me well and correctly drawn; and are finely relieved by the pathetic scenes, which occur between Fontano and his fascinating page. SCIPIO is, in fact, throughout, a creation of uncommon beauty and effect; and, together with the sublime and masterly character of AlbaNIO, should have rendered the 'ITALIANS' as great a favourite on the stage, as it is likely to prove in the closet." II. AMUSEMENTS IN RETIREMENT. III. THE FALL OF THE LEAF; AND OTHER POEMS. New Edition. THE BEAUTIES, HARMONIES, AND SUBLIMITIES OF NATUR E. BOOK I. CHAPTER I. TACITUS gives a curious account of a proposition, that was made in the Roman Senate, to divert the course of those rivers and lakes, which emptied themselves into the Tiber; and which, at certain seasons of the year, causing that river to overflow its banks, occasioned great loss to those citizens of Rome, who possessed houses and lands in its immediate neighbourhood. Petitions being presented from the Florentines, the Interamnates, and the Rheatines, against the proposition, it was abandoned. One of the causes of this abandonment arose out of an argument, employed by the Rheatines: "Nature," they observed, "having made the best provision for the conveniences of mankind in directing the course of rivers, it would be highly unbecoming in the Romans to alter their VOL. 1. B direction; and the more so, since their allies had long been in the habit of consecrating woods, altars, and priests to the rivers of their country." This curious and effective argument, my Lelius, will naturally call to your recollection a singular anecdote, which was related to us by Signor Hypolito de Vinci; who afterwards honourably distinguished himself in the service of his country; and who fell, covered with wounds and with glory, in the battle of Vimeira, a martyr to his enthusiasm, and an honour to the human race. A celebrated engineer, some years previous to the compulsory resignation of the late King of Spain, proposed to the Spanish government a plan, which had for its object the rendering of the Tagus navigable to Madrid. After mature deliberation, the ingenuity of the engineer, and the advantages derivable from his project, were acknowledged by the ministry; but the execution they thought proper to decline. On the engineer's inquiring the cause of so extraordinary a refusal, they returned for answer, that if it had been the intention of Nature, that the Tagus should be navigable so high into Spain as Madrid, she would have rendered it so herself; to presume to improve what Nature had left imperfect would be scandalous and impious! The plan was, however, afterwards adopted; as was that of Mons. le Maur for forming a canal from the mountains of Guadarama to the Tagus, and from that river to the Guadina and the Guadalquiver; thus opening a ready communication be tween Madrid, Toledo, Cordova, and Seville. Tacitus, Annal. lib. i. c. 79. II. "Where a spring rises or a river flows," says Seneca, "there should we build altars and offer sacrifices!" In pursuance of this idea, most nations, whether barbarous or refined, mistaking the effects of a deity for the deity itself, have at one time or other of their history personified their rivers, and addressed them as the gods of their idolatry. The Indus1 and the Nile, the latter watering nations that knew not its origin, and kingdoms which were ignorant whither it flowed, were both worshipped by the respective nations, which they fertilized. The Abyssinians call the Nile by a name signifying giant ;" and Vespasian placed in the Temple of Peace a large block of basaltes, which represented its figure with sixteen children playing around it. At the annual opening of this river no Jew or Christian is permitted to be present; and when Browne, the African traveller, beheld its majestic waters near their confluence with the sea, reluctantly descending, as it were, to lose their tide in the bosom of the Mediterranean, his mind filled with ideas, "which, if not great or sublime," says he3, "were certainly the most soothing and tranquil that ever affected me." Alexander, previous to his sailing down the Hydaspes and the Sinde, invoked them as deities; and 4 1 Philost. in vit. Apol. vi. c. 1. 2 Asiatic Researches, i. 387. The ancient Ethiopians esteemed the Nile both earth and water.-Philost. vi. c. 6. In the time of Pomponius Mela, the Nile and the whole of Egypt were included in the map of Asia.-Vid. Pomp. Mel. de Situ Orbis, lib. i. c. 9. 3 Travels in Syria and Africa, p. 32. 4 Quint. Curt. ix. c. 4.-Arrian, vi. c. 4. from the prow of his ship poured libations into their streams from golden goblets. The Jews held in the highest veneration Siloa's brook, that flowed "by the Oracle of God." Varro invokes water as a deity'. The Adonis was esteemed sacred by a great portion of western Asia; the Peneus, as we are informed by Maximus Tyrius, was adored for its beauty; the Danube for its magnitude; and the Achelous for its solemn traditions. The Phrygians worshipped the Marsyas and Meander; the Trojans the Scamander 2; the Druids the Dee3; the Massagetæ paid divine honours to the Palus Mæotis and the Tanais; and water is still worshipped by the natives of Multanistan. The ancients attributed many fictitious properties to rivers. Some were said to make thieves blind; to injure the memory; to cause fruitfulness; and to cure barrenness. Josephus even mentions a river in Palestine, which, in compliment to the sabbath, rested every seventh day! Rivers are held sacred too in China; and we find the Emperor in one of the Peking gazettes 5 feeling "grateful to the God of the Yellow River," because no accident had occurred in consequence of its having overflowed its banks. The ancient Persians never polluted water; considering those, who accustomed themselves to such indecorum, guilty of sacrilege; and they enacted a law, that 1 Etiam precor, Lympha, quoniam sine aqua omnis misera est Agricultura. |