Far other scenes that on th' expanse appear Than thirsty flocks or weary hunted deer; The glassy surface spread on every side, Bends to the skate or forms the easy slide; Crowds fly along, the sportive race is run, By many lost, and by as many won: The grass which droops and lies upon the plain, Or dead, or dying, ne'er to rise again; The mazy dance; the song; the bursting cries [hold; While the hot sportsman drives her from her The sportsman who now runs where once he rang'd [chang'd; At leisure, wond'ring how bright Nature's Nature herself, who smil'd in fair array; The hours which bring the speedy close of day; [drear The night which casts a gloom so dark, so All, all remind me of the op'ning year. LINES G. J. B. Audressed to my Sister, on the 21st Anniversary of her Birthday. When thou wert in thine infancy, And sported in our native bow'rs, And I thy playmate us'd to be In that gay round of life's young hours; This was the blithest day we knew, Which in thy book of years display'd Another spotless leaf to view, Where all life's passing scenes were laid. Those days of childhood now are fled; Thy years of youth have glided on: The book of time again is spread; Its leaves are turn'd to twenty-one. Come, let us trace the record through, Up to this age of perfect youth: How spotless is the tablet's hue; How bright with innocence and truth. Fair written in thine early age; And winning look that knows no shame. Here prudence with reserve unites [Feb. 1, And, above all, sublime and bright, Gay smiling scenes are scatter'd round Through all thy course of future years! 3, Durham Place, Chelsea. W. P. Ye friends of old Albion! remember the chief To whose words mighty fame every Briton directs, [wreath, While conquest and death were entwining his "His duty from each man fair England expects!" [battle be o'er, Though the slaughter be past-though the The sweet bond of duty is never to cease: 'Twas the tars' to defend you in fierce raging [peace! "Tis your's to protect them in soft smiling Ye friends of old Albion! who oft have remov'd [smile, The hot tear of anguish for pleasure's gay Ye friends of old Albion! who often have prov'd war! That Charity reigns over Liberty's isle! See, now tapers high, bright Benevolence' (morn,) flame! (So, after dark night, comes the rose tinted While the sons of Britannia united exclaimThe bold British tar shall ne'er wander H. W. forlorn! 1818.] [ 37 ] CABINET OF VARIETIES. SONG OF "MARY'S DREAM." IN our last number (p. 582.) was recorded the death of Mrs. Mary M'Lellan, the heroine of the popular ballad of Mary's Dream. The following particulars, relative to that subject, extracted from a late Scottish publication are given on the authority of a person who visited her a few months before her decease. On the 8th of May 1817, the writer of this called on Mrs. M'Lellan, and spent an hour or two with her. The following is the substance of the conversation, which turned chiefly on her early days. Being from the same neighbourhood, and well acquainted with the circumstances of each other's families, I asked her if she recollected the time when she was the celebrated Mary in the song of 'Mary's Dream? She said that she did perfectly, and repeated, in substance, the much-famed ballad, but observed that it was somewhat altered from the first composition and recital. I asked her if she did not understand that the Rev. Mr. N. McKie, of Crossmichael, had been considered the author of it? She instantly replied, Never ;-that Mr. Lowe, and Mr Lowe alone, composed it: and that he produced it a day or two after the accounts arrived of Sandy,' or Dr. Miller's* death, who had gone abroad to pursue his profession. The circumstances, she continued, were as follow:-She had mentioned to her sisters, some time previous, that she had seen Sandy Miller in a vision during a fever, when they rallied her very much about it. One morning, when they were at breakfast, the account of his death was announced; she was much affected, and rose up to go into the garden. She met Mr. Lowe on the stairs, but she did not speak; and when he got into the room he asked what was amiss with Miss Mary? They said she had received bad news, and told him the circumstances; and, in a short time, he produced the ballad. Soon afterwards, he went to the late Mr. Gillespie's, at Kells Manse, and to Mr. Grierson's, at Garroch, and repeated and sung it at both places. Mr. Lowe was, at that time, tutor in the family of Mary. I further asked her, if Mr. N. M'Kie was a poet? She said, certainly he was; and, as a proof of it, she repeat • To whom Miss Mary M'Gie was engaged. ed the following stanzas, which she had beard him recite. They were intended as a hit at a minister of the name of Martin, who also was a rhymer:— Your last performance my dear youth, And yet, some of your hobbling lines To rouse the lion from his den, chester, where she has resided upwards The old lady is now living at Manof 20 years. She has the remains of a fine woman; and, although upwards of seventy years of age, she is in full possession of her intellects, and very entertaining to those acquainted with her native district, and the families of that day * STRUCTURE OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. The following remarks seem particularly deserving of the attention of public writers and public speakers, as well as of the lovers of philological studies. The style of Hume is well known not deled entirely after the French cut.-It only to be full of Gallicisms, but mowas often said of Voltaire by his coun trymen that he was infected with an Anglomania, but we are much better entitled to charge the English historian fondness for the French that he gave a with Gallomania; for such was his blind and indiscriminate preference to every thing connected with them,their literature, their language, their manners, &c. One of our most celebrated When he states in his History the mixture of French introduced by the he does not hesitate to say, that it conNorman conquest into our language, stitutes the best part of it.-By best of Did he wish us to understand that he course he means the most valuable part. thought this part the best for all subliving poets once observed to a friend, jects? that whenever he wished to produce a powerful impression, he had always recourse, as much as possible, to words of Saxon origin. In fact, it will be Bible," that sacred will of English unfound, on an inspection of the English defiled," and our best poets, that those passages with which we are most struck are chiefly Saxon. Let us illustrate 38 Structure of the English Language-Attachment of a Goat. [Feb. 1, this by one or two specimens, familiar Ay, but to die, and go we know not where; MEASURE FOR MEASURE. To sleep! perchance, to dream ;-ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, The very stones prate of my where-about, FAIRY QUEEN. These specimens are taken without selection, and from them it is easy to see, that so far from the French being the best part, it is inferior to the other both in amount and force. Had the Bible been taken for selection, whole passages of considerable length might have been given with hardly a single French word. The whole frame and structure of our language is Teutonic our grammar is Teutonic-our versification the same as that of the other Gothic languages, without the least re semblance to that of the languages of the South-and the French is merely a foreign, though pretty powerful ingredient. That Hume should have allowed such an observation as this to escape him, can only be therefore ascribed to the most obstinate partiality, or the most gross ignorance. REMARKABLE ATTACHMENT OF A GOAT. AFTER the battle of Preston in November, 1715, a gentleman concealed himself in Perthshire several months, till two severe wounds permitted him to travel. He reached the west Highlands early in June, and was received by a lady, his near relation with the most cordial sympathy in his misfortunes. Her husband connived at her affording him an asylum, but could not venture to see him least he might be implicated in his denunciations as a traitor. A faithful servant conducted him to the mouth of a cave and loaded with provisions, set them down at the entrance, retiring hastily, as his appearance near it might excite suspicion in persons, who for the hope of reward were known to watch the movements of every stranger. The fugitive crept in at a low aperture, reached a wider and more lofty expanse, dragging his stores along. When he he found some obstacle before him. He drew his dirk, but unwilling to strike, lest he might take the life of a companion in seclusion-he stooped down, and discovered a goat with her kid stretched on the grouud. He soon perceived that the animal was in great pain, and feeling her body and limbs ascertained that her leg was fractured. He bound it up with his garter, and offered her a share of the bread beside him; but she hung out her tongue, as if to apprise him that her mouth was parched with thirst. He gave her water, which she eagerly lapped up, and then took a little bread. After midnight he ventured to look out: all was still. He plucked an armful of grass, and cut tender twigs which the goat accepted with manifestations of joy and thankfulness. The prisoner derived much comfort in having a living creature in this dungeon. He caressed and fed her tenderly. The kid frisked about, and its gambols cheered his spirits. In a fortnight the dam was able to go out a little, but invariably returned to her friend. The man who was entrusted to bring him supplies fell sick; and when another attempted to penetrate into the cavern, the goat furiously opposed him, presenting her horns in all directions, till the fugitive hearing a disturbance 1818.] Alexander and Hezekiah, an Eastern Legend. came forward. The goat possesses fervent affections, and remarkable sagacity. Her devices to hide her young from the fox are admirable. She discerns the enemy at a great distance, conceals her treasure in a thicket and boldly intercepts the formidable marauder. He seldom fails to approach the place where the kid is crouching, but the dam, with her horns, receives him at all points, and never yields till spent with fatigue and agitation. If a high crag or stone should be near when she descries the fox, she mounts upon it, taking her young one under her body. The fox goes round and round to catch an opportunity for making a spring at the little trembler, and there have been instances of his seizing it, but the goat thursts her horns in his flank with such force, as to be unable to withdraw them, and all have been found dead at the bottom of the precipice. It is a fact that the goats know their progeny to several generations, and each tribe herds together, on the hills, or reposes in the cot in separate parties. ALEXANDER AND HEZEKIAH, AN EASTERN LEGEND. IN the time of the high-priest Hezekiah, when Alexander came from Mace donia to make war upon Dairawas (Darius) it seemed to him as if an Angel of Heaven appeared in a dream clothed in the habit of a high-priest and said to him:-"Fear not; the Lord, the God of Heaven and earth has put all the nations of the earth into thy hand. They shall be made thy footstool." Encouraged by this vision and as 39 surance, Alexander marched forward against Darius, made war upon him, defeated and slew him. He then proceeded to Tyre; all the villages and towns near that great city were inhabited by Samaritans. Alexander required them to join him against Tyre, but they sent him back for answer that they were bound by an oath which they had sworn to the Tyrians to take their part, so that they could not comply with his desire. This answer highly exasperated Alexander. Filled with rage he marched towards Naplouse (Samaria) vowing to exterminate all the Samaritans even to the dog that against the wall. The Samaritans, when they heard that he was approaching went forth in procession to meet him with their highpriest at their head, and carrying their sacred books and the rolls of the law in their hands. No sooner did Alexander behold the high-priest than hastily dismounting from his horse, he kissed the ground before Hezekiah the priest, saying:-" My lord and master, I pray thee bestow on me thy blessing." At this the generals and captains of his army were astonished beyond measure, and could not help thinking that the Samaritans had employed witchcraft to make their king humble himself to them as he had never done to any other people, for they were ignorant of the real cause of his behavour. When he was left alone with them, and they could no longer repress their astonishment and thoughts on the subject of his infatuation, he related to them how during the life time of Darius he had seen the same high-priest in a dream, together with the words which he had spoken to him, Alexander acknowledged that the God of the Samaritans was the greatest of all Gods, and dismissed the Samaritans in peace, moreover bestowing on them and the high-priest rich presents. MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PERSONS. Account of the Life and Works of M. DUTHEIL, by M. DACIER, Perpetual Secretary to the ROYAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE: read at a Public Meeting, July 19, 1816. FRANCOIS JEAN GABRIEL DE LA PORTE DUTHEIL was one of the few persons whose names, shedding a lustre on the two academies of which the Royal Institute is now composed, will serve to Inark their re-union, or rather to blend their existence. He was born in Paris, July 16, 1742, of a very ancient and noble family, originally of Poitou. His father, endowed with the qualities that constitute a statesman, had early pre ferred the career of politics to the military profession, which his ancestors had followed, and was honourably employed 50 M. Dacier on the Life and Works of M. Dutheil. in a great number of important negotiations in the course of the eighteenth century. Among these was the Congress of Aix la Chapelle in 1748, which he attended as the representative of France; and it was he who, ten years before, negotiated and signed the treaty of Vienna, by which Lorraine was ceded and united to the French monarchy. M. Dutheil, too young when he lost his father to appreciate the glory that may be acquired in the diplomatic line, and led away, like most young people, by the splendor of military renown, entered at the age of 14 years into the light horse of the King's guard, in which he served some years. He then removed into the French guards, and made several campaigns with honour, especially that of 1762, during which he constantly formed part of the corps d'elite of the grenadiers and chasseurs of the King's household. But, passionately attached to letters, he gave up to study, even amid the bustle of camps, all the moments of leisure left him by his military duties, and more than once refreshed himself, after the fatigues and dangers of battle, by reading in his tent the exquisite descriptions of the conflicts between Homer's gods and heroes. The peace which followed this campaign having allowed him to return home and follow his propensity to study, he devoted himself to it with such ardour, that a few years afterwards, in 1770, the Academy of Belles Lettres, to which he had communicated the result of his labours, and which conceived great hopes of him, admitted him among its members, at an age it would then have been almost presumptuous to manifest a wish to obtain that literary distinction. M. Dutheil, who, since he quitted the army, had made the works of Eschylus one of the principal objects of his study, was desirous of exciting in his countrymen the same admiration of the father of Grecian tragedy, by means of a translation into the French language. Before he ventured upon this great and arduous undertaking, he resolved to try his abilities and the taste of the public, and produced in the same year his version of the Orestes, accompanied with a great number of notes, which display not less erudition than sagacity and sound criticism. Though the success of this essay might have been expect ed to encourage him to give to the public the other tragedies of the same poet, yet he seemed for some years [Feb. 1, It to have relinquished that design. excited some surprise when, instead of a continuation of the works of Eschylus, he produced, in 1775, a French translation of the Hymns of Callimachus, likewise enriched with notes and explanatory observations. This performance confirmed the hopes of the French Academy, and was as favourably received as the former. Critics remarked withpleasure the learning and taste of a man who was acquainted with the most delicate shades of the Greek language, as well as all the resources of his own; but observed with regret too strong traces of the efforts of a writer who, striving to raise himself to a perfection which it is almost impossible to attain, occasionally weakens or disfigures, by dint of polishing, the thought and expression of the original. A wish to extend the sphere of his knowledge having excited in M. Dutheil a desire to visit Italy, he set out in 1776, authorised by the government, who recommended him in the most particular manner to Cardinal de Bernis, the French minister to the court of Rome, and a generous and zealous patron of the natives of every country, and especially of France, whom the love of literature and the arts allured to Italy. Having gratified his first curiosity, and admired the superb remains of Roman greatness, which still constitute the principal ornaments of the ancient capital of the world, and the modern structures with which it is embellished, M. Dutheil thought of nothing but how to make his future residence there subservient to the interests of his country, of literature, and of his own reputation. He undertook to collect in the different libraries, and more especially in the archives of the Vatican, all ac cess to which had been hitherto strictly prohibited, such authentic papers and documents, either unpublished or imperfectly known, as related to the ecclesiastical or civil history of France. The first of these researches during the ten years that he passed in Italy was a collection of between seventeen and eighteen thousand pieces, most of which tend to throw new light on the general history of Europe in the 13th and 14th centuries. On his return to Paris in 1786, M. Dutheil was solicitous to employ the treasures which he had brought from Italy, and which he could not suffer to lie idle without disappointing the just expectations of the government. He |