I in my slender bark can ride

Down the calm stream, and gentle glide
Down streams that smoothly flow
Nor billows fear, nor raging wind,

While to me all the stars prove kind,

;

While Pollux bright appears, while balmy zephyrs

blow.

Reuben Butler.

MARY.

O veil the warm and living rose,
That freshens o'er thy virgin cheek;
O bend thy speaking eyes on those
Who can sustain the things they speak!
The cheating hopes, the wayward fears,
That juggled with my tender years,
Resign at length their feverish sway;
And I have sworn to be no more
The thrall of love's insidious lore,
But sterner powers obey.

Yet MARY! when again I view,

With thrilling nerves and sinking frame,
The winning form, the feeling hue,
The breathing look without a name !
O blame me not, if while I gaze,
The perished hopes of former days
Should swell the tear in vain represt :
How can they thence away be torn,
Nor leave my bleeding heart forlorn

And widowed in my breast?

So o'er the couch, where faint and low,
The wreck of parting life is laid;
When friendship bends in speechless wõe,
And weeps to feel how vain her aid.
If chance athwart the darken'd bed,
The morning sun one ray should shed;
Straight to the dying man appear,
The woods, the fields, in vernal bloom;
And verging to the cheerless tomb,
He drops one human tear.

S.

SONNET.

To the Evening Star.

Bright Star of eve! resplendent gem of night,
Beneath thy lucid orb I love to stray,

Drop feeling's tear, and mark thy quivering ray ;

Till borne in fancy's car with rapid flight,

I mount thy sphere, and tread thy beamy way!
Or if perchance I seek the ruined tower,
To waste alone the contemplative hour,
Wrapt in deep thought, thy secrets I survey;
Methinks my Angel Isa's form glides by,

And points to thee, her seat of bliss serene;
Then bids me hope, nor grieve for joys terrene ;
Waves her fair hand, and seeks her native sky.
Adieu bright Star!-the airy visions fade,
And leave me pensive in the ruined shade.

S.

Communications addressed to the Publisher, No. 8. William

Street, will be gratefully received.

Groeneck: printed by P. Parald-on.

THE

VISITOR,

OR,

LITERARY MISCELLANY.

No. V.-VOL. II.

ON THE RELATIVE VALUE OF BEAUTY AND GOOD SENSE IN THE FEMALE SEX.

Addressed to a Lady.

DEAR MADAM,-though I have delayed longer than I intended, to throw together my observations on sense and beauty, as you requested me to do, I flatter myself, that if the subject has again recurred to your mind, you have not attributed the delay to any backwardness to oblige you, which it is impossible I can ever feel, or an inattention to your requests, which I shall always honour as commands, and cherish as favours.

You wished, if I rightly understood you, to have my ideas on "the respective worth that sense and beauty in the female sex have in the eyes of ours, the grounds on which our esteem is built, and how far that esteem is in general well or ill founded.”

The subject is indeed a difficult one, and I should almost fear to discuss it, except with a Lady who possesses both these excellencies in a sufficient de

E

gree, to banish all apprehension of offending her, by giving the preference to either.

Notwithstanding the lessons of Moralists, and the declamations of Philosophers, it cannot be denied, that all mankind have a natural love and even respect for external beauty. In vain do they represent it as a thing of no value in itself, as a frail and perishable flower; in vain do they exhaust all the depths of argument, all the stores of fancy, to prove the worthlessness of this amiable gift of Nature. However persuasive their reasonings may appear, and however we may for a time fancy ourselves convinced by them, we have in our own breast a certain instinct which never fails to tell us, that all is not satisfactory; and though we may not be able prove that they are wrong, we feel with conviction that it is impossible they should be right.

to

They are certainly right in blaming those who are rendered vain by the possession of beauty, since vanity is at all times a fault; but there is a difference in being vain of a thing, and being happy that we have it; and that beauty, however little merit a woman can claim to herself for it, is really a quality which she may reasonably rejoice to possess, demands I think, no very laboured proof. Every body naturally wishes to please. To this end we know how important it is, that the first impression

rodúce should be favourable. Now this first imp.ession is commonly produced through the medium of the eye; and this is frequently so

powerful as to resist for a long time the opposing evidence evidence of subsequent observation. Let a man of even the soundest judgment, of the most eultivated understanding, be presented to two women equally strangers to him, but the one remarkably handsome, and the other without any remarkable advantage of person, he will without deliberation attach himself to the former. All men seem in this to be actuated by the same principle as Socrates, who used to say when he saw a beautiful person, he always expected to find it animated by a beautiful soul. Nay more, the two ideas are so singularly combined in our minds, that even the converse of the Socratic position is also true. Do we by any means become acquainted with the sense, the amiable disposition of a woman, before we have seen her person, we inevitably embody the fair spirit that has charmed us, in a form on which we bestow, with lavish hand, every attraction of external grace that our fancy can furnish. Should we find, on a personal acquaintance, that the reality falls very short of this creature of our imagination, we not only feel vexed and disappointed, but are sometimes so unjust as to withdraw a part of that approbation we have before bestowed, and to fancy that we have been too lavish of our praise; so that it often requires a considerable time to regain our good opinion.

If such be the influence of external beauty, surely no woman can be blamed for wishing to possess it,