The nurse of heroes, the delight of Gods. Tully. Roma domus virtutis, imperii dignitatis, domicilium gloriæ, luce orbis De Oratore.

terrarum.

The first half of the 5th sc. 3d. act, is nothing but a transcript from the 9th book of Lucan, between the 300 and the 700 lines. You see by this specimen the exactness of Mr. Addison's judgment, who wanting sentiments worthy of the Roman Cato, sought for them in Tully and Lucan. When he would give his subject those terrible graces which Dion Hallicar complains he could find no where but in Homer, he takes the assistance of our Shakespeare, who in his Julius Cæsar has painted the conspirators with a pomp and terror that perfectly astonishes. Hear our

British Homer:

"The genius and the mortal instruments Are then in Council."

is exactly proportioned to the dignity of the subject. But this would have been too great an apparatus to the desertion of Syphax and the rape of Sempronius, and therefore Mr. Addison omits it.

2. The other thing more worth our notice is, that Mr. A. was so greatly moved and affected with the pomp of S.'s description, that instead of copying his author's sentiments, he has, before he was aware, given us only the marks of his own impressions on the reading

him.

Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream."
And

"The state of man, like to a little kingdom, suffers then

The nature of an insurrection.

paint the softer passions, he has reAgain, when Mr. Addison would peculiar genius that way. course to Lee, who certainly had a Thus his

Juba

True, she is fair, O how divinely fair!"

coldly imitates Lee, in his Alex: thus, "Then he would talk: Good Gods, how he would talk!"

I pronounce the more boldly of this, because Mr. A. in his 39th specimen expresses his admiration of it. My paper fails me, or I should now offer to Mr. Theobald an objection against Shakespear's acquaintance with the ancients, as it appears to me of great weight, and as it is necessary he should be prepared to obviate all that occur on that head; but some other opportunity will present itself. You may now, Sir, justly complain of my ill manners in deferring till now, which should have been first of all acknowledged due to you, which is my thanks for all your favours when in town, particularly for introducing me to the knowledge of those worthy and most ingenious gentlemen that made up our last night's conversation,

I am, Sir, with all esteem,
Your most obliged friend
and humble servant,
W. WARBURTON.

Newark, Jan. 2, 1726.

(The

For

(The superscription is thus.)

ation.

April. 30, 1766.

retained.

EDMOND MALONE.

London, March 15, 1778.

Should this MS. prove to be an unpublished letter of the celebrated Dr. Warburton, I am sure you will have pleasure in giving it to the public.

A

For the Monthly Magazine. LETTER from the NORTHERN STATES of AMERICA. Merrimac, county of Hilsborough, State of New Hampshire. T length I take my pen to write to you from this side of the ocean. I did not write before as I wished to give you all the information I could. We left Northampton on the 18th of June, and after a disagreeable voyage on the canal in Pickford's boat, we arrived at Liverpool, took lodgings till the 1st of July, and then went on board the ship Wallace, Captain Hickney, for Boston. At the end of forty-days we were only half way on our voyage, our provisions nearly exhausted, and the crew also upon short allowance. The eldest child I did not expect to live a day; the two youngest were scalded by the upsetting of a kettle of coffee running under them as they sat on deck; all frequently crying for victuals and water, and scarcely any to MONTHLY MAG. No. 358.

give them. I had nothing several days but a little biscuit which the men gave us out of their scanty allowance, and the cook's slush (pot liquor.) A porpoise we caught made all hands sick; besides these we saw a few whales; but in our greatest distress, we happily met some British transports from Quebec with a regiment on board; from one of these we got some provision, and now depended upon catching some cod on the Newfoundland banks, but unfortunately we took but one. After being sixty days at sea we landed at Boston Sep. 7. When I left Boston with Mr. P. in a chaise, I was delighted with the appearance of the country; the thousands of apple-trees, loaded with fruit, the ground covered with windfalls, and hogs eating, I was almost inclined to get out and fill the chaise with these apples. Small waggons from fifty to 70 tons are in common use here. At Hollis I worked for Mr. Paul, and resided in a house which he had formerly occupied ; but not liking this place and having a number of invitations, we left it to go to Merrimac in November. We have now a comfortable dwelling and two acres of ground planted with potatoes, Indian corn, melons, &c. I have two hogs, one ewe and a lamb; cows in the spring were as high as thirty-three dollars, but no doubt I shall have one in the fall. Half my land, which was wood, I have cleared this spring. I have now a great deal of work at my trade; have kept one man in the house a considerable time, and have turned several customers away. Next year I hope to save something worth while: but as money is scarce, we have what we want in lieu of it. Most people pay in kind, and this is generally the way in the newly settled places. Labourers get a dollar per day, and 75 cents in winter. To form a just idea of this country, you must consider that 200 years ago it was all wood; a man buys three or four hundred acres of land; the neighbours turn to and build him a log house about 24 feet square; here he lives till he can clear land enough to maintain a family. He may next build a barn, stable, &c. and if industrious he may build a good frame house clap boarded, all of wood, excepting the brick chimney; another does the same, and thus you find all the country covered, not with villages, but single houses scattered over it. Thus our town is reckoned twelve miles by six, with Q

about

about 1000 inhabitants; here are five stores, a meeting, a tavern, a lawyer, a blacksmith, a ferry house, and my self a shoe-maker. The river Merrimac, about sixty rods wide, runs from north to south in front of our house: it is navigable for flat-bottomed boats, with locks at the fall for thirty miles; and a canal is cut from it near Newbury Port to Boston. There is a great deal of traffic upon the Merrimac; in the winter from 50 to 100 sleighs pass from Vermont in the upper part of this state to Boston, with dead hogs, pork, butter, cheese, &c. and load back with store goods. They have generally two horses, and travel forty miles a day with a ton weight; the sleighs used for pleasure instead of chaises, are very handsome. The winters are very long and cold: the rivers are frozen from November till May, and the snow upon an average is two feet deep. The air is generally clear, and the cold steady; for a few days I observed the thermometer 24 degrees below zero. Upon -such nights a person's hair, the blankets on the bed, &c. look as white as if -they had been powdered. During winter the farmers slide their timber and fire wood to the rivers, attend their cattle, &c. The common drink is cyder, their dram rum, the latter a great evil to the Yankees. They generally barrel beef in the fall, and pork in the winter, for the year's use; much fish is eaten in summer; the bread is sometimes rye and Indian corn. They have but three meals a day, but these are hearty ones: for breakfast, fried meat, vegetables, toast, cakes, biscuits, tea, coffee, chocolate, butter, cheese, &c. They say they don't like pot-luck (boiled victuals) and seldom have a meal without a pye baked on plates; in short it takes twice as much to keep a Yankee as it would to support a common Englishman, but the people of Boston live more like the English than any of the Americans. Boston is the great mart for all the Northern States, and in a few years will be the largest manufacturing town in America, especially as a dam has been formed three miles long, and broad enough for buildings on each side, from the old town to the main land, This is a turnpike road, and here they work silk mills by the tide at all times. . Now for the principal question: I assure you I have made every possible enquiry, and can safely invite you to this happy country; there ean be no doubt of a steady active per

son doing well, especially a man conversant in business as you are, and in possession of a little property; you have many distressing accounts in England, but is it strange that a person should be distressed who lands in a strange country without a farthing? and some expect miracles, others use no perseverance, and sink under their troubles. I could have sent you a distressing letter, when I had no money, no tools, no furniture, and a child extremely ill; but no, I would not-I went into the woods, felled a tree, made my lasts, went to a smith's, made my tools, and, strange as you may think it, turned out such boots as the people here never saw before. Bring all the furniture you can, in a ship direct from London, and if you are a steerage passenger, lay in 68 days provision or more. T. HANDS.

For the Monthly Magazine. EXTRACT of a LETTER from a LADY (Mrs. Philips, wife of an English Missionary,) at BATAVIA, to her Friend at BATH.

WE

April 5, 1820. E are now at Ryswick, about three miles from Batavia, which renders our situation more healthy; for my part I have not yet felt the heat more oppressive here than upon a hot summer's day in England, and in some parts of the day it is even cooler. This is owing to the west or wet monsoon, which generally commences about the end of November, and continues till March or April. During this season the inhabitants are exposed to sharp winds and violent torrents of rain. Thunder storms, accompanied with vivid lightning, are very frequent, especially towards the close of the monsoon. Batavia is very fertile; the whole year is one perpetual spring; the interior is quite the garden of the east; fruit is abundant, but few are equal in flavour with that produced in England.

Our house is surrounded with coroa nut trees and plantains, two of the standing fruits of the country, and of the greatest importance to the natives, as with the addition of rice and salt they supply them with almost every thing which they deem the necessaries of life. Cocoa-nut trees grow in almost every field around us; however the table of an European does not seem complete without a dish of boiled rice and currie, both for breakfast and dinner. We lately purchased a milch goat with

a kid for two rupees and a half, and eight fowls may be had for a rupee. Pork is not difficult to obtain, but other meat is scarce and not equal to what we have in England. The cows are very poor looking animals, and yield very little milk; goats are substitutes both for sheep and cows. Butter is extravagantly dear, and good cheese is a scarce article. Wines are moderate; the Cape wine is nine rupees the dozen. As to our situation, we reside in a house principally constructed of bamboo, in a pleasant green lane about three miles from Batavia; it is about 44 feet long and 35 wide, with a veranda before and behind. The centre is a large hall with folding doors opposite each other, which admit a free current of air; on each side is a sleeping room and a study. The walls are bamboo; the posts of teak; the floor is paved with square bricks, and the roof thatched with palm leaves. You may think it strange to hear of a house without an upstairs room, a pane of glass, or a single chimney; yet this is exactly the case, and it makes a pretty appearance. The contrast of the white walls with the green trees which surround it, gives a cheerful aspect to the whole. The sentinel tree, which presides over our gate of bamboo, is a majestic tamarind, now loaded with fruit. The front veranda looks into a garden, the back into a poultry yard. My little canary bird, my companion for fifteen thousand miles, hangs in the front veranda, and has never ceased warbling from cockcrowing till sun-set. The value of this little bird is equal to that of three houses in this country.

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. SIR,

THE HE public is much in the dark respecting the objects and real proceedings of certain societies which have been formed within the last few years in London, under all sorts of pretexts; and generally, with what are denominated honorary secretaries, at their head, which it must be confessed is a very imposing title; and would seem to indicate, that the offices implied by it are executed without emolument, and purely from patriotic motives. I fear however, that there is something in all this more than meets the eye; and that they and others with the same profession in their mouths, have only what is called the "main chance" in view.

So fully am I of this opinion, that I do not think that any individual or body of individuals could render a more useful service to the public than by devot ing themselves to the ferreting out and bringing into day-light the mechanism and management, in all its ramifications, of some of these societies under the controul of their self-stiled honorary secretaries. If it be a virtue to subscribe money to further the objects of such societies, it surely is no less a virtue to see that such money is legiti mately and properly applied. It is, I believe, notorious that societies profess ing charitable objects, have been set on foot by individuals, the situations, circumstances, and previous habits of some of whom, would seem to mark them out as the most unfit persons as to property, responsibility and talent, that could be named for such offices. They however generally possess one indispensable requisite for such undertakings, which is, an over-weening degree of confidence in themselves, united with a large portion of cunning. Qualities, which, as daily experience proves, often leave real talent and desert, united with diffidence, in the shade. "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread."

The societies formed within these. last few years are now so numerous, and their titles and apparent objects. trenching so closely upon each other, that it really seems difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish between them: or to know precisely the difference, where the objects and even the names are so nearly the same. We have "the Houseless Destitute Society," and "the Houseless Poor Society," between which it would, I apprehend, puzzle a much wiser man than I am to find out any rational distinction. Then we have "the Society for the Suppression of Vice;" and the Society for the Suppression of Mendicity;" and "the Constitutional Association for the Suppression of Seditious and Blasphemous Publications ;" which objects are to be accomplished, it seems, by impeding all the free motions of the press; and finally putting a gag into its mouth. The public, in the mean time, seem to be lost in amazement, and know not what to think, or how to act, under these novel combinations of persons and circumstances. Amid this chaos of objects, however, there is one thing very observable ; and that is, that those societies professing to have for their objects the relief is

seem

tress, and for which such liberal contributions have been raised, much more intent (so far as the public have the means of knowing,) upon the punishment of vice and imposture,

public papers are perpetually teeming with paid for paragraphs detailing their achievements in this way. The accounts inserted of the proceedings of the "Mendicity and Houseless Poor Societies," in the various leading papers, sufficiently witness to this fact, and which must cost these societies no small annual sum. Then we have a loose and general statement at the end of their two month's winter campaign, of the NUMBER of wretches to whom a night's lodging, and a meal of victuals have been afforded: which would really seem upon the face of it to be the least important feature of the expense.

And this is all that the public, or perhaps even the great body of the subscribers themselves, know of the disposition of the immense funds collected in this instance, and which are said to amount to eight or ten thousand pounds in hand, besides their large annual subscriptions. Fifty thousand meals of victuals, is evidently meant. for the purpose of a grand display; for those who do not know that a meal of

а

victuals means in this case two-pence, or three-pence, or even less, may very innocently suppose that it means shilling, or perhaps more; a mistake which the honorary secretary seems to be no way anxious about correcting, In the instances of the canting and hypocritical Societies for the Suppression of Vice, and the misnamed Constitutional Association of Bridge-street, recent disclosures would seem to justify the belief that some of the active agents divide the great bulk of the outgoings among themselves; and that they are their own pay-masters and auditors, with little or no controul by the society at large. For these reasons I again repeat that a more useful service could not be rendered to the public, nor to the great body of the subscribers to such societies themselves, than for some competent person or persons to watch the operations of these societies, by bringing authentic documents of their accounts and proceedings as frequently as possible under the public inspection. SCRUTATOR.

26th July, 1821.

tragedy is followed up by the farce in due succession. Scarcely have the tears, shed over the doom of the unhappy Doge, been wiped from our eyes, when the noble comedian puts on his mask, and entertains us with a continuation of his serio-comic melo-dramatic harlequinade, Don Juan: assuming for himself the character of first jester or clown, and acquitting himself of his part with infinite promptitude and dexterity. As in the former cantos, he pours out a singular mixture of pathos, doggrel, wit and satire, taking a strange and almost malignant delight in dashing the laughter he has raised with tears, and crossing his finest and most affecting passages with burlesque ideas, against which no gravity is proof. Perhaps this style is the real transcript of his mind-at least if we are to believe him sincere in the apology which he offers for the offences charged against the former parts of his work. "Some have accused me of a strange design Against the creed and morals of the land And trace it in this poem every line;

fine;

I don't pretend that I quite understand My own meaning, when I would be very But the fact is, that I have nothing Unless it was to be a moment merry, plann'd, A novel word in my vocabulary."

The noble author in fact pursues this plan of making himself, or his readers, merry, with much greater steadiness than the ostensible scheme of his story. His digressions into every subject that chances to strike his fancy, and offer a fair mark for ridicule, are numerous and entertaining. Like his prototype in the pantomime, he has his jest ready for the most solemn occasions, and his box on the ear administered with hearty good will, for the gravest and most consequential personages. But a bitter truth often lurks under his best dissembled foolery. To some ears there is no jocularity in the jingle of his bells. Over the brotherhood of the lakes-indeed the notes must come, "toll, toll, through the silence of evening."

"All are not moralists, like Southey, when He prated to the world of "Pantisocracy;"