command admiration; but they never conciliate general regard by the frequent bestowal of petty benefits, or the regular communication of durable advantages.

If these remarks require authority for their support, we may produce the opinion of Milton. He is a writer so well known to the lovers of poetry, that his character is suggested by the mention of his name. So delicate were his perceptions of taste, and so exuberant was his fertility of fancy, so enlarged were the faculties of his mind, and so extensive was the range of his erudition, that it is hazardous to deny, what his sentiment establishes. Indeed, when we contemplate accurately the wonderful structure of Milton's mind, it is found so astonishing by the endowments of genius, and so opulent in the Peruvian treasures of literary acquisition, that in the ranks of learning I know not a character more venerable, or a reputation better consolidated. In the beginning of the eighth book of Paradise Lost, Milton introduces Adam inquiring about the motions of the sun, the firmament, and the stars, and suggesting to Raphael doubts and reasonings on the immobility of the earth, and the revolutions of the orbs. Raphael in reply admonishes Adam for asking about subjects with which he has no concern, and proposing questions which he cannot solve, and declares that great Architect has secrets which are not to be divulged, and that his works are humbly to be admired. He concludes with saying,

• Solicit not thy thoughts with matters

hid,

Leave them to God above, him serve and fear;

Of other creatures, as him pleases best,

In what he gives thee, this Paradise And thy fair Eve: Heav'n is too high ~ To know what passes there; be lowly wise,

Think only what concerns thee and thy being.'

All refined and abstract speculations are certainly not to be wholly condemned. Much might be suggested in their favour by a mind of ingenuity; and if examined by some other standard, than that of general utility, their merits and advantages might be exhibited and determined: but when man is considered in his civil, moral, and social situations, the virtues of beneficence, justice, kindness, and hospitality, are the themes, which should occupy his mind, and the principles, which should regulate his conduct. They are so wide in their influence, and so frequent in their application, that every writer should endeavour to fix these great rules on the minds of his readers by beauty of illustration and cogency of argument. Books of most general and frequent use are those, which teach and impress the knowledge of our several duties, love to God and benevolence to man, which inculcate the beauty of kindness, the obligations of virtue, and the necessity of piety; these maxims, by their universality of operation, exercise our hearts and conduct every moment of our lives. By them we are continually tried, and consequently acquitted or condemned; the practice of them would make easy the course of our days, and the belief in them would consecrate the remembrance of our existence. In point of comparative utility, speculative researches become of little avail; they may perplex, dazzle, or confound, by complication of arrange

ment, greatness of view, or difficulty of solution; but they rarely attract general reward, because they rarely extend the sphere of practical happiness. The ruin threatening comet astonishes the spectator by the infrequency of its visit, the path of its glory, and the effulgence of its blaze; but the sun, in his revolutions, dispenses light and heat to all the

regions of the globe; visiting in his course the unwatered sands of Africa, and the untravelled deserts of America; affording, by an admirable economy, the means of subsistence to the far-off wanderer in the polar circle, and ripening for the Hindoo and the savage the luxuriant vegetation of tropical latitudes.

PHYSICIAN'S OATH. THE Physician's Oath, as extant in Hippocrates, and taken by himself, cannot be unacceptable to the reader.

I swear by Apollo the Physician, by Esculapius, by Hygia, and Panacea, and by all the Gods and Goddesses, that to the best of my power and judgment I will faithfully observe this Oath and Obligation. The master who has instructed me in the art I will esteem as my parent, and supply, as occasion may require, with the necessaries of life. His children I will regard as my own brothers; and if they desire to learn, I will instruct them in the same art with out obligation or reward. The precepts, the explanations, and whatever else belongs to the art, I will communicate to my own children, to the children of my master, to such other pupils as have subscribed the Physician's Qath, and to no other person.

My patients shall be treated by me, to the best of my power and judgment, in the most salutary, manner, without any injury or vio lence neither will I be prevailed

upon to administer pernicious physick, or be the author of such advice myself; but will live and practice chastely and religiously.

Lithotomy I will not meddle with, but will leave it to the operators in that way. Whatever house I am sent for to, I will always make the patient's good my principal aim; avoiding as much as possible all voluntary injury and corruption. And whatever I see or hear in the course of a cure, or otherwise relating to the affairs of life, if it ought to remain a secret, no person shall ever know it. May I be prosperous in life and business, and for ever honoured and esteemed by all men, as I observe and not confound this solemn oath; and may the reverse of all this be my portion if I violate it, and forswear myself!

Who can help admiring the humanity of this oath? What a pity that all civil governments which license quack-medicines do not oblige the Quacks themselves to take a similar oath, under the penalty of being hanged, should they be ever known voluntarily to break it!

, ĐƠN QUIXOTE. Ir seems a problem in literature, that a nation the gravest and most seriously disposed by its natural temper and the gloomy despotism of its government and religion, should have produced the most lively work that ever was written. It abounds in original humour and exquisite satire. It displays the most copious invention, the most whimsical incidents and the keenest remarks on the follies of its cotemporaries. There is no book in whatever language that so eminently possesses the power of exciting laughter. The following anecdote may be record ed as an instance of it.

Philip III. being one day at a balcony of the palace at Madrid, observed a young student on the borders of the Mauzanares, with a book in his hand, who, as he read, exhibited the most violent marks of extacy and admiration, by his gestures and the repeated peals of laughter which he sent forth. Struck with the oddity of the sight, the king turned to one of his courtiers, and said, "Either that young man is out of his mind, or he is reading Don Quixote." The courtier descended for the purpose of satisfying the curiosity of the monarch, and discovered that it actually was a volume of Cervantes, which the youth was perusing with such delight.

JEREMY TAYLOR.

FEW men have left behind them more imperishable monuments of learning, judgment, genius, and industry, than Jeremy Taylor. A venerable prelate, now living, did not indulge a bold figure when he styled Bishop Taylor the Shakespeare of divinity." The encomium which Archbishop New

come bestows on one of his works, may with justice be extended to all, when he characterizes it as "pious, eloquent and learned, and the emanations of a sublime genius." An Oxford antiquary, who lived nearer his time, pronounced the excellent discourses which he has written, enough of themselves to furnish a library, and predicted they would be famous to all generations, for the exactness of wit, profoundness of judgment, richness of fancy, clearness of expression, copiousness of invention, and general usefulness to all the purposes of a christian. In the delineation which his eloquent successor has given of Bishop Taylor's prominent features, the reader may perhaps be disposed to attribute much of its high colouring to the partialities of friendship and personal esteem; but if the following tribute to departed excellence could be paid in a funeral discourse by his warmest admirer, when intentional exaggeration can only endanger the character of the encomiast, it must be allowed that in his natural and acquired excellences, in the qualities of his mind, and the gifts of his understanding, bishop Taylor far eclipsed the lustre of his cotemporaries, and equalled, if not surpassed, the most renowned of succeeding times. "To sum up all," in the animated language of Dr. Rust," this great prelate had the honour of a gentleman, the eloquence of an orator, the fancy of a poet, the acuteness of a schoolmaster, the profoundness of a philosopher, the wisdom of a chancellor, the sagacity of a prophet, the reason of an angel, and the piety of a saint; he had devotion enough for a cloister, learning enough for an university, and wit enough for a college of

virtuosi, and had his parts and endowments been parcelled out among his poor clergy that he left behind him, it would perhaps have made one of the best dioceses in the world."

THE HORSE.

THE ancient historians and biographers have not been satisfied with detailing the lives of illustrious men, but have also given us a minute description of the beauty, the grace, and the exploits of their horses; and there is more consistency between different writers, in their memoirs of this beautiful portion of animated nature, than in their memoirs of intelligent beings; for all the world will agree in their ideas of a rare, beautiful animal, but all the world differ in their opinions of illustrious men. The horse was held in great veneration in heroick ages, as if it had been formed, in the system of nature, the intermediate chain between intellectual and brute creation. Casar's horse, we are informed by Suetonius, possessed all the intrepedity of his master. Cæsar, who had a most profound veneration for Alexander, was charmed to possess one trait of resemblance with him. As Bucephalus was distinguished from ordinary horses by a head resembling that of a bull, he elected one which had human feet. The conqueror of Darius, as well as the conqueror of Pompey, were the only men who could mount their favourite coursers. Alexander built, in honour of his horse, the city of Bucephalia, and Cæsar erected a statue to his in the temple of Venus. Cæsar had another motive for honouring his horse. The astrologers of his time pretended that its birth presaged to him the empire of the world. Casar was of course attached to his

horse either from superstition or policy, as Sertorius was to his kid, and Mahomet to the pigeon which announced to him the visit of the angel Gabriel. Adrian also had a famous horse named Boristhenes, which he much honoured during his life, and at its death honoured it with a publick funeral, erected to it a monument, on which was inscribed an epitaph, written by himself. Verus, who shared with Marcus Aurelius the empire of Rome, carried still further his passion for his horse, which he called Avis. He gave it raisins and pistachio to eat; he kept him in an apartment hung round with purple, and whenever he was much delighted by his agility, he rewarded him with a purse of gold. None of the emperors, however, on this subject, equalled the extravagance of Caligula. In the life of this prince Suetonius informs us, that he built for his horse Incitatus a stable of marble, and that the trough, from which he ate, was of ivory; that many slaves were employed to attend upon him; that he often invited him to dine at his table; that he swore by his fortune, and that he even had it in contemplation to name him to the consulship,

IRISH LITERATURE.

It has often surprized me, says Arthur Browne in his Sketches, that a nation like the Irish, remarkable for its valour, and whose inhabitants, even down to the peasantry, are blessed with a peculiar acuteness of mind, and a charactersistick turn of wit and pleasantry, should not have filled a greater space in the eye of mankind. The reason I believe is, that their wit and talent for ridicule are employed in depreciating one onother, and their valour too often exhausts itself in idleness and riot.

In Scotland, if any man becomes an author, the whole nation joins in praising and elevating him; but in Ireland to be a writer is almost sufficient to ensure mockery; whoever takes up his pen,especially if it be in the province of belles lettres, whole tribes of Satirists, like the monkies of Africa, begin to chatter and grin at him, and employ every art to laugh him down the consequence is, few write the modest, who have talents, confine their display to conversation and to professional exertions, while the Satirists take care to do nothing but find fault, and never venture to expose themselves to criticisms, by writing any thing.

The Irish are so accustomed to be governed by England in every thing, taste as well as politicks, that they seem absolutely afraid to give the stamp of approbation to any thing in the first instance, hesitating whether it has merit or

not, until they see an English review. They long seemed unconscious of the merits of two considerable works written by sons of their own university, and hesitated to praise till the incense of fame arose to one from the literary altars of Cambridge; and an English Judge (Blackstone) had declared the other current coin.†

Swift was a Satirist exactly suited to their genius, with a power of ridicule too great not to subdue any one who laughed at him: but I am not quite sure, that if Pope had been an Irishman, he would have succeeded so well; his pastorals might have afforded excellent food for pastime, and I am convinced Collins and Gray, and all your ode-makers, would have been laughed down, and discouraged in the infancy of their muse.

* Hamilton's Conic Sections. Sullivan's Lectures.

[The introductory lines allude to the

author's early poems.]

'AWAKE a louder and a loftier strain ! Beloved harp, whose tones have oft beguil'd

My solitary sorrows, when I left The scene of happier hours, and wander'd far,

A pale and drooping stranger; I have sat (While evening listen'd to the convent's bell)

On the wild margin of the Rhine, and woo'd

Thy sympathies, a-weary of the world. And I have found with thee sad fellowship,

Yet always sweet, whene'er my languid hand

Pass'd carelessly o'er the responsive wires,

Whilst unambitious of the laurell'd meed