FALSE PLEASURE, A FRAGMENT. Dea saeva potentibus herbis. Envious of mankind; When blefs'd with equal rule their virtues rise, To the soft dittied strain, shall rue, ere long, Th' empafsion'd breast; nor gain deserv'd applause; All those arts That tend t' enoble and refine the mind, VIRG. The heart while melted is enlarg'd, released On that protecting power. When servile fear Th' applauding strain; enervated and mean JULIANA. VERSES TO A LADY, WITH THE GENTLE SHEPHERD. Fair lady this affecting lay peruse, That charm'd the forests with mellifluent strains. No more the green hill and the deepening grove A. L. Continued from p. 72 and concluded. CREATED for sorrow and tears, we wander here below in the midst of shades, in a night without stars. It is beyond the tomb that day lightens. To what givest thou the name of pleasure, unhappy mortal? Observe narrowly the dazzling scenes of life,-thou wilt only see a cloth on which error has thrown colours without brightness; the fool admires it, the sage considers it with indifference; sometimes it amuses him but it never deceives him. But does not humanity offer more eminent pleasures? are they all like those of the frivolous young man, or of the prince without merit. No, sweet pleasures, confidents of virtue, follow the steps of the retired sage, who, too great for the confusion of the earth, pafses his days in the bottom of a peaceful valley, far from the tumult of cities, in the arms of a tender wife. Transported with joy, when the morning animates the meadows, he slowly traverses the smiling groves: animated with a secret gaity, he contemplates the flowers, which seem to smile upon him : insensibly the objects around lead him to the throne of the Creator. In his religious and profound contemplation, his soul darts beyond this criminal globe. His affectionate spouse presents herself before him; they em brace tenderly; tears of joy run down their glowing cheeks. The invisible angels who surround them, see with a celestial joy that God has permitted man to taste a felicity almost equal to their own. In the evening, when a copious dew has mistened the fields, he again wanders out into the valley, his eyes raised to the star of night,--who, serene and calm as his heart, casts her But if heaven should spare him: if tears of sorrow never bath'd his eyes, would he be insensible to the misfortunes of others,-to the misfortunes of his friends? Would he see with an indifferent eye virtue in distrefs? Ah! if he has a feeling heart, how can he be happy here be low? and if he has not, how can he take the name of wise. Alas! for one happy incident, how many scenes of sorrow there are in the stage of life! There a furious warrior destroys the master pieces of an artist, who thought to live to immortality: the villager sees all his hopes rise in the smoke of his consuming cabin. In vain in his despair does he raise his innocent hands to heaven. The timid virgin is cruelly snatched from the arms of her mother by licentious soldiers; fhe implores the afsistance of her lover; but her lover is no more. He quitted her to seek glory in the fields of war. He has there fallen; and in dying he 1 She still pronounced the loved name of his mistress. feels her heart inflamed by a sublime despair: a dagger snatches her soul from the earth, and her body from infamy. The soul darts to heaven; the body falls without being profaned; a peaceful tomb incloses it. In better worlds, her soul will find that of her young lo ver. But what pleasure hast thou, unhappy young man, in tracing this picture of crimes and of sorrows? Alas! hast thou not enough of evils of thine own? why increase them with foreign ills, which thy imagination still heightens ? What is become of those sweet and smiling images which youth and hope presented to you in an agreeable back ground! Those brilliant visions of a happy futurity have disappeared. The ideas which made thy happiness are difsipated like the dream of the summer's right. Thy youth passes time will soon have devoured the last moment of it. Already thy days of sickness and distress are come. Thou wilt pafs the rest of thy days in a sad servitude; and thou wilt die unknown. Fools will pafs without emotion near the tomb where thou wilt repose.But when wilt thou repose? How many days poisoned with chagrin and melancholy await thee still! Who knows even, if fate in anger may not snatch thy lyre from thee? thy lyre, the last and sweetest consolation of thy life. . . Adieu, my friends! dont refuse me the last marks of friendship grant me a few tears. Sweet, deceitful hope! Liberty which I have lost and which has cost me so many tears! Adieu. Ye groves who hear my plaints, if ever a young man of sensibility comes to wander under your fhades, tell him (whilst your silence will have thrown him into poetić reveries, and a secret emotion fhall have laid hold of his heart) tell him that a young man came also to repose and |