of my own weakness. Like those who have surveyed the moon by glasses, I can only tell of a new and shining world above us, but not relate the riches and glories of the place.'. ... Fortune has, indeed, but rendered justice to so much excellence, in setting it so high to publick view; or rather Providence has done justice to itself, in placing the most perfect workman ship of heaven, where it may be admired by all beholders. Had the sun and stars been seated lower, their glory had not been communicated to all at once; and the Creator had wanted so much of his praise, as he had made your condition more obscure; but he has placed you so near a crown, that you add a lustre to it by your beauty. You are joined to a prince who only could deserve you; whose conduct, courage, and success in war, whose fidelity to his royal brother, whose love for his country, whose constancy to his friends, whose bounty to his ser vants, whose justice to merit, whose inviolable truth, and whose magnanimity in all his actions, seem to have been rewarded by heaven by the gift of you. You are never seen but you are blest; and I am sure you bless all those who see you.'.... Thus, madam, in the midst of crowds, you reign in solitude; and are adored with the deepest veneration, that of silence. It is true, you are above all mortal wishes; no man desires, impossibilities, because they are beyond the reach of nature. To hope to be a god, is folly exalted into madness; but by the laws of our creation, we are obliged to adore him, and are permitted to love him at human distance. It is the nature of perfection to be attractive, but the excellency of the object refines the nature of the Vol. III. No. 1. D

love. It strikes an impression of awful reverence; it is indeed that love which is more properly a zeal than passion. It is the rapture which anchorites find in prayer, when a beam of the Divinity shines upon them; that which makes them despise all worldly objects; and yet it is all but contemplation. They are seldom visited from above; but a single vision so transports them, that it makes up the happiness of their lives..... But all my praises are but as a bull-rush cast upon a stream; if they sink not, it is because they are borne up by the current, which supports their lightness; but they are carried round again, and return on the eddy where they first began. can proceed no farther than your beauty,and even on that too I have said so little, considering the greatness of the subject, that, like him who would lodge a bowl upon a precipice, either my praise falls back by the weakness of the delivery, or stays not on the top, but rolls over, and is lost on the other side.'

I

IN a tea conversation, at the house of Sir Joshua Reynolds, speaking of Percy's reliques of ancient English poetry, Dr. Johnson ridiculed that kind of writing, by addressing, extempore, the following stanzas to the young lady that made the tea :

I pray thee, gentle Renny, dear,
That thou wilt give to me,
With cream and sugar tempered well,
Another dish of tea.

Nor fear that I, my gentle maid,
Shall long detain the cup,
When once unto the bottom I
Have drank the liquor up.

Yet hear at last this mournful truth,
Nor hear it with a frown,
Thou canst not make the tea so fast
I can gulp it down.

And fo he flood, guarding his thighs and legs

His breast and fhoulders alfo, with the length

Of his broad shield.

Oppofed in mail complete, Stood Madoc in his ftrength. The flexible chains

Gave play to his full mufcles, and difplayed

How broad his fhoulders, and his ample breast.

Small was his fhield, there broadeft where it fenced

The well of life, and gradual to a point Leffening; steel-ftrong, and wieldy in his grafp,

It bore thofe blazoned eaglets, at whose fight,

Along the Marches, or where holy Dee Through Ceftrian paftures rolls his tamer ftream,

So oft the yeoman had, in days of yore, Curfing his perilous tenure, wound the horn,

And warden, from the cafle-tower, rung

out

The loud alarum-bell, heard far and wide. Upon his helm no sculptured dragon fate, Sate no fantastick terrors; a white plume Nodded above, far-feen, floating like foam On the war-tempeft. Man to man they flood,

The King of Aztlan and the Ocean Chief.

Faft, on the intervening buckler, fell The Azteca's ftone faulchion. Who hath watched

The midnight lightnings of the fummer storm,

That, with their aweful blaze, irradiate heaven,

Then leave a blacker night? fo quick,

fo fierce,

Flathed Madoc's fword, which, like the ferpent's tongue, Seemed double, in its rapid whirl of light. Unequal arms! for on the British shield Availed not the one faulchion's brittle edge,

And in the golden buckler, Madoc's

fword

The deadening force, communicated, rap Up his ftunned arm; anon, upon his helm,

Crashing it came ;.. his eyes fhot fire, his brain

Swam dizzy,.. he recoils, .he reels,..agaiņ The club defcends.

That danger to himself Recalled the Lord of Ocean. On he Sprung,

Within the falling weapon's curve of death,

Shunning its fruftrate aim, and breast to breaft

He grappled with the king. The pliant mail

Bent to his ftraining limbs, while plates of gold,

The feathery robe, the buckler's amplitude,

Cumbered the Azteca, and from his

The unfaftened club; which, when the Prince beheld,

He thrust him off, and, drawing back, refumed

The fword, which from his wrift fuf pended hung,

And twice he fmote the king; twicę from the quilt

Of plumes the iron glides; and lo! the King,

So well his foldiers watched their mon, arch's need, Shakes in his hand a spear.

But now a cry Burft on the ear of Madoc, and he faw Through opening ranks, where Urien was conveyed, A captive to his death.

flame

Grief, then, and And rage infpired him. With a mighty

blow

He cleft Coanocotzin's helm; expofed The monarch stood;..again the thunder-ftroke

Came on him, and he fell... The multi

tude

Forgetful of their country and them

felves,

Crowd round their dying King. Madoc,

whofe eye

Still followed Urien, called upon his men, And, through the broken army of the foc Preft to his rescue.

ARTICLE 1.

Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Vol. I, 1785. 4to. pp. 568. It is honourable to Massachusetts, that in the year 1780, in the midst of the memorable war, which terminated in the establishment of the independence of the United States, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences was incorporated by her enlightened legislature. According to the act of incorporation, "The end and design of the institution of the academy is, to promote and encourage the knowledge of the antiquities of America, and of the natural history of the country; and to determine the uses to which the various natural productions of the country may be applied; to promote and encourage medical discoveries, mathematical disquisitions, philosophical inquiries and experiments; astronomical, meteorological and geographical observations; and, improvements in agriculture, arts, manufactures and commerce; and in fine, to cultivate every art and science, which may tend to advance the interest, honour, dignity and happines of a free, independent and virtuous people."

In prosecuting the object of their institution, the Society has presented to the publick in this volume, the first fruits of their learned labours. The time, that has elapsed since the publication, will not, we hope, render a review of the contents useless nor uninter

esting. To the Memoirs is prefixed the act of incorporation; and also the statutes of the Academy, a list of members, and donors with their respective benefactions. Then follows A PHILOSOPHICAL DISCOURSE, publickly addressed to the Academy by their first President, the honourable JAMES BowDOIN, ESQ. on his first election to that office.

The learned and excellent president, after some remarks on the social affections, and their operation in forming societies of vari ous descriptions, observes, in the spirit of true philosophy, with respect to the American Philosophical Society, which had been previously formed, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, "it is hoped, that, as optic glasses, by collecting the solar rays, do assist and strengthen the corporeal sight, so the two societies, by concentring in a proper focus the scattered rays of science, may aid and invigorate the intellectual: benefiting by their productions, not only the communities, in which they are respectively instituted, but America and the world in general: both together resembling some copious river, whose branches, after refreshing the neighbouring region, unite their waters for the fertilizing a more extensive country.

He afterward takes a cursory view of the antiquities of America, and of natural history, two of the subjects, to which the inquiries of the Academy are particularly directed by the act of incorporation;