The selfsame dear confiding friend

As him for whom our hearts we rend
Will near again be given.

The dearest that I ever knew
To day demands the pious vow
That we may meet in Heaven.

PHILOSOPHICAL NOTES TO PAN.

As this Pastoral is some what novel in its character, it may be as well to say something of its nature, ́and the object of the Author in writing it. To 'divert the tedious hours of convalescene, he composed, in his mind, a poem which in fact represents his peculiar view of things, if indeed any thing under the sun can be said to be peculiar or new, and he found a consolation in the discovery that the Pythagorean philosophy, when properly understood, was not at variance with the Christian religion. The plan of the poem supposes various philosophers, shepherds and 'sages of deep meditation hastening to the stall at Bethlehem; and in their way, beset with templations to sensuality, discussing the new doctrines which were about to be devellopped, with cool philosophy and in accordance to various antient prophecies, the emblematical fables of the East and the fanciful mythology of Greece and Rome. In the speech of Pyrrho are given the concentrated natural arguments against, in that of Philostratus for Christianisy. But a doubt still remaining on the minds of the sages, they pray

the Heaven to give them a sign of truth: when Astraea in the character of retributive Justice descends from the sky, and from the top of the rainbow points to her manifest law on Earth, as affording the most solid proofs of a Divine Gouvernor. And then reasccnds into Heaven. The poem is at least highly moral; and if it should be in any thing considered as exaggerated and outré; it falls in this respect far short of many of the Christian "miracle plays and other works of fiction, which in the middle ages were acted, with a view of conveying divine instruction to the people, in an amusing form.

SCENE I. There may seem some anachronism here, or at least too rapid a jump from summer to winter, but this is excusable in poetry, wherin, as in dreams, the scenes rapidly shift.

LINE 10. "To conquest over Python.
Qui modo pestifero tot jugera ventre prementem
Stravimus innumeris tumidum Pythona sagittis.
OVID. Mex. I, 10.

L. 149. The dispersion and fate of the Jews in all countries is perhaps one of the most remarkable facts in human history.

L. 161. See Edipus Judaicus, a remarkable work on the history of astronomy, by the late Sir William Drummond. London, 1811.

L. 193. "Suddenly a Dove." The Author by this intends the Holy Spirit emblematicaily represented

as a Dove; and enlighting the mind to understand the Scripture.

L. 198. There are many profane as well as sacred prophecies of a Messiah. Virgil's Pollio is said to have this import.

L. 215. This description of the Golden Age corresponding to the period before the flood, is also described by other poets, particularly by Milton in Paradise Lost. Ovid's account of it reads very well in conjunction with Virgil's Pollio.

L. 447. The Author has otherwhere given his opinion respecting animal food and its baneful consequences on the human body. Our Temperance Societies have no doubt done much good; but drunkenness after all is a fleabite to gluttony, at least in its physical consequences. Mr Newton has written ably in defense of vegetable diet, and Shelley, whose amiable qualities extended to every animal in the creation, has added the force of moral argument, in his extraordinary poem of Queen Mab; but the great patron of this opinion is Dr Lambe. Some of the most intellectual men have lived entirely on a herb diet.

L. 530. This passage alludes to the influence of atmospherical excitants and the dominion of the moon and stars over them.

Epidemics. I wish to clear up one point, which I consider very important in medicine, respecting the twofold origin of all diseases. The exciting cause of their peculiarities probably resides in the atmos

phere, or at least depends on invisible agents floating therein, and is uncontrollable by human art; but the predisponent, which is equally necessary to the production of actual disease, is under the influence of medicine, diet, and other habits.. The almost innumerable varieties of disease probably depend on combinations of these two orders of causes. Now what I want to insist upon is the necessity of defeating the evil operation of the excitant, by changing the predisposing condition of the constitution. My own opinion, the result of much inquiry and experience, is that vegetable diet is best suited to the nature of man, and that most persons would experience its benefit eventually, if they would only have courage to submit to the inconvenience of is first adoption.

Many opinions exist as to the nature of the atmospherical excitants; some consider them as belonging to varieties of electrical action, while others regard the malaria as depending on new combinations and chemical qualities. I have always considered the hypothesis of insects or minute animalcula as solving the phenomena the best: at all events these disorders are attended with the past production of visible insects, which induces one, reasoning from analogy, to infer the existence of others too small to be visible even in our best lenzes. The cholera, the plagne and other diseases are attended with small insects, and the microscope shews others even in the morbid secretions of diseases.

Case of Illness, p. 15.