POPULATION.

Ir is curious to observe the different proportion of inhabitants distributed to the different quarters of the world. It is undoubtedly a general rule that the mild and temperate climates bordering on the tropicks have a more compact popula tion than the rest of the world; but the causes why countries which are separated only by a mountain, or a river, or an imaginary line of latitude, differ so much in their comparative population, are more evanescent, and must be sought in circumstances which at first appear unimportant. Few minds are capable of detecting and demonstrating these causes; but, any one who will take the trouble to calculate, may see that the following statement is correct, although almost every one will be astonished at the disproportion between the sparse population of Iceland, and the multitudes which throng the little turbulent island of Malta. Montesquieu assigns a curious reason for the phenomenon in this last island.

Upon an equal space where one man subsists in Iceland, three men subsist in Norway; fourteen in Sweden; thirty-six in Turkey; fifty-two in Poland; sixty-three in Spain; ninetynine in Ireland; one hundred and fourteen in Switzerland; one hundred and twenty-seven in Germany; one hundred and fifty-two in England; one hundred and fifty-three in France; one hundred and seventy-two in Italy; one hundred and ninety-two in Naples; two hundred and twenty-four in Holland; eleven hundred and three in Malta.

ORPHEUS.

THERE is a strange mixture of Paganism and Christianity in the spurious fragments which pass under the name of Orpheus. They contain many sublime conceptions which could have been derived only from the sacred scriptures. The unity and spirituality of the Deity, and his superiority to Fate, are directly opposed to every system of Pagan mythology. In the fragment translated below, the use of ayy in the sense of heavenly messengers, fixes its date within the Christian era. Earth, air and ocean own thy sway, O God, And high Olympus trembles at thy nod! In realms of night the dead thy laws fulfil, And Fate obedient executes thy will.

Thine anger shakes the spheres. In cloud and storm,
Mingled with fire, thou veil'st thine awful form.

But, high in heaven, beyond where planets roll,
In life and light, and joy beyond control,
Where circling angels hymn thy holy praise,
And dwell in light too strong for mortal gaze,
Thy throne, O God, is fixed.-

ORIGINAL POETRY.

MOSCHUS ON THE DEATH OF BION.

Translated from the Greek.

The encomiums which this beautiful poem has received from sources of the highest authority. leave room only for regret that it is so difficult to exhibit in an English dress the spirit and pathos of the original.

LAMENT

AMENT, ye groves, your tears ye fountains shed,

Ye Dorian rivers, mourn your Bion dead.

Sad be your hues, ye flowrets of the vale;

Ye roses weep him, and ye plants bewail.
Your signs of woe, ye hyacinths, assume,
And hang in sorrow o'er the shepherd's tomb.

* Shrouded in leaves, ye songsters of the air,
Beside Sicilian Arethuse declare,

Bion the swain is gone, and with him fled
The harp's sweet power, the Dorian muse is dead.

Strymonian swains beside the waters wail,
And fill with plaintive notes the passing gale;
Such notes as once in sweet succession rung
Along your shores, when matchless Bion sung.
Tell the agrian and Bistonian maids,
The Dorian Orpheus seeks the Stygian shades.
Belov'd of flocks no more the swain shall play,
Nor pour mid lonely oaks his melting lay;
In Pluto's realms, Lethaean banks along,
He swells unheard a deep oblivious song.
But here the hills are mute, the herds recede
Mourning their shepherds, and refuse to feed.

* The burden of the song, Αρχετε Σικελίκαι τω πενθεος, άρχετε μοισαι is omitted, as likewise some of the less interesting parts, for the sake of brevity.

1

Lamented bard; Apollo's self deplored

Thy timeless fall; their tears the satyrs poured;
The sad Priapi deck'd in black attire,
And weeping Pans* thy absent voice require;
Mute Echo sits the silent rocks among,
And grieves no longer to repeat thy song.
The trees reject their fruit, the blossoms die,
Their milky store the sorrowing herds deny,
From teeming combs no nectar drops distill,

Nor more shall honey flow, since thy sweet voice is still.

Who on thy reed, lamented swain, shall play,
Or daring strive to imitate thy lay?

Even now that reed scarce ceases to prolong
Thy dulcet breath and soft enchanting song.
Still Echo lingers on the reedy plain

To catch thy notes and banquet on the strain.-
To Pan thy pipe be given; yet Pan shall fear,
Lest to thy power inferiour his appear.

But most fair Galatea shall complain,

The nymph so oft delighted with thy strain.
Ne'er with the Cyclop could her soul agree,
Him the coy virgin fled, and fled to thee.
Now thou art gone, she seeks the sea-girt mead,
And knows no pleasure save thy flocks to feed.

With thee, sweet bard, the muses' voice is dead,
The maids' fond kiss and lovers' vows are fled.
Thy early tomb afflicted loves deplore,
Venus Adonis wept, but weeps thee more.
O first of streams, resounding Meles, know
Another loss is thine, a second woe.

Great Homer first, the muse's herald, fled,
And all thy waves bewailed their offspring dead.
Now falls thy second son, and whelmed in woe,
Thy troubled waters murmur dark and slow.
Dear to thy streams, each poured alike his lay,
And both thy fountains charm'd with equal sway;
That sung of wars, in Helen's cause begun,
Achilles brave, and Atreus' warlike son;
But this no battles sung, no dire alarms,

But taught the shepherd's life, the country's charms;
And well he knew the roving flocks to feed,
Or draw their milk, or shape the unfinish'd reed;

* Και Πανες σοναχουντι το σον μέλος.

To love's soft power he raised the votive strain,
And heavenly Venus doated on the swain.

Alas! the frailest flower that decks the fields,
The meanest plant prolifick nature yields,
Waked by returning spring shall reappear,
And bloom and ripen in another year.

But man, the great, the brave, the strong, the wise,
When once he falls, he falls no more to rise;
Pent in the narrow earth, and doom'd to keep
A lonely, dark, interminable sleep.
Even thou the sweetest bard that ever sung,
Thy voice is silent, and thy harp unstrung.

Ah, to thy mouth the murderous poison came,
Swelled in thy veins, and shook thy manly frame.
What poisoned draught of power so strong and strange,
Could touch thy lips, and not to honey change?
What savage hand the deadly bowl could raise,
Nor melt with pity at thy melting lays ?

Unerring vengeance shall the deed o'ertake,
But I for thee the song of grief will wake;
And had I power, like Orpheus I would go
To hear thy musick in the shades below.
Oh, when thou meet'st Proserpine the fair,
Awake some ancient, soft, Sicilian air.
For she has strayed Ætnean groves among,
And knows the magick of a Dorian song.
Sure she will melt to hear the heavenly strain,
And send thee pitying to thy fields again.

Even I, had I the power like thee to sing,

Would seek the Stygian realms, and tempt the dreadful king.

TRAVESTIE OF THE SAME.

Ye woods, and brush, and sticks, and stubble,

And brooks along the mead that bubble,
Your tears for once by hogsheads shed,
And weep and wail, for Bion's dead.

Ye weeds, and grass, and pinks, and roses, ́
Onions, and leeks, and other posies,
Hang down your heads with bodies bent,

And spread about a dismal scent;

'Tis meet your fiddler's loss to rue,

For death at last has brought him to.

CHORUS. Sicilian muses, split your throats,

With grunts, and groans, and doleful notes,
Ye screech owls perched on old pine trees,
That hoot and howl to every breeze;
Now tune your throats for proper use,
And tell the waves of Arethuse,
Bion the old ploughjogger's dead,
And muse and harp have gone to bed.

Stymonian swans, both one and all,'

Now stretch your necks, and croak and squall;
Make a worse noise for Bion's sake,

Than he himself knew how to make;
Tell all the girls he ever knew,
Eagrian and Bistonian too,

Since death has laid his clutches on him,
They'll never more set eyes upon him.

No more for beasts the lout shall play,
To lounge his precious time away;
Nor twang his fiddle, pipe or horn,
To scare the hogs out of the corn;
For now old Pluto's got him fast,
And makes him blow a doleful blast;
But here for once the hills are still,
And cows and pigs go where they will.

Bion, 'tis wondrous droll to hear
The noise they make about you here;
Apollo frets with all his might,
And satyrs growl by day and night;
Priapus' self has learned to bellow,
And Pan to bawl like lusty fellow.
Among the rocks miss Echo sits,
And pouts, and pines, and scowls, and frets,
Because, though sore against her will,

Her endless clack must now be still.
The trees, and fruit, and blossoms die,

And cows and honeycombs are dry.

No musick now for honey passes,
Though yours was reckoned mere molasses.

Who now will touch your dirty pipe,
Whose mouth you never thought to wipe:

Sure one must be a tasteless fool,

To smear his lips with such a tool;