mare's milk, and the refined epicurean of polished society, pouring libations of Burgundy and Madeira to beauty or patriotism! Cooking never came nearer to perfection in the Roman empire, than under the emperour Augustus; though, like the Roman manners, it retain ed something of the barbarity of the republick. It gradually decayed with the decay of letters and the glory of the empire, till the art was buried, with all others, in the obscurity of the middle ages. It rose again into notice, with the revival of letters, under the patronage of the Medici; but attained its greatest perfection in modern Europe, during the brilliant period of Louis XIV. It was in the reign of his voluptuous successor, that scientifick men digested and published its theory and practice in many inestimable volumes. I could enlarge much on this interesting topick, if I did not contemplate publishing at some future day (and hereby give notice to all subject-seeking authors, in the present exhausted state of literature and science) a work with this title, An inquiry into the progress of civil society, as connected with the culinary art ; and an attempt to establish, upon principles drawn from this art, a true standard of taste.

MUSICK.

Modern musick resembles Gothick architecture, whose parts, instead of captivating, puzzle and confound; while the harmonious strains of antiquity, like the Grecian temples, charm by an union of grandeur and simplicity.

MANSFIELD AND CHATHAM.

The judgment of the younger Lyttleton is conspicuous in the following brief mention of two very

"The two

eminent characters. principal orators of the present age, (and one of them perhaps a greater than has been produced in any age) are the Earls of Mansfield and Chatham. The former is a great man, Ciceronian; but I should think inferiour to Cicero. The latter is a greater man; Demosthenian, but superiour to Demosthenes. The first formed himself on the model of the great Roman orator; he studied, translated, rehearsed, and acted his orations. The second disdained imitation, and was himself a model for eloquence, of which no idea can be formed, but by those, who have seen or heard him. His words have sometimes frozen my young blood into stagnation, and sometimes made it pace in such a hurry through my veins, that I could scarce support it. He embellished his ideas by classical amusements, and occasionally read the sermons of Barrow, which he considered a mine of nervous expressions; but, not content to correct and instruct imagination by the works of mortal men, he borrowed his noblest images from the language of inspiration."

VANIERE'S PRÆDIUM RUSTICUM.

VANIERE was one of the modern writers of Latin poetry, and a learned Jesuit. His Prædium Rusticum, a poem, consisting of sixteen books, on Husbandry, has been too slightly appreciated by Doctor Warton. But Mr. Murphy in the preface of his translation of the sixteenth book, entitled The Bees, vindicates Vaniere with powerful cogency.

His fourteenth Book, which contains the history and management of Bees, was translated by Mr. M. many years ago, when the famous Italian and French

writers of Latin poetry engaged his attention; he sometime since revised the translation for his amusement; and he seems to have published it with no other view, than that of inscribing it, in very handsome terms, to Miss Susanna Arabella Thrale.

Nature has not, perhaps, produced a more astonishing phenomenon than a kingdom of Bees. It is not surprising, therefore, that the manners, the genius, and all the labours of these wonderful insects, should have engaged the attention of philosophers and poets, from Pliny to Miraldi, who first invented glass-hives; and from Virgil to Vaniere, whose Prædium Rusticum might have been immortal had the Georgics never been written.

Mr. Murphy, in his Translation, has done ample justice to the Poet, whom he has so ably vindicated.

From an abundance of excellepce, to select is difficult. As a specimen, however, we shall trans

ORIGINAL.

GENTLEMEN,

their prey;

She summons all her friends; her friends obey;
They throng, they press, they urge, they scize
Rush to the socket of each blooming flow'r,
And from that reservoir the sweets devour;
Till, with the liquids from that source distill'd,
Their eager thirst their honey-bags has fill'd.
Untir'd they work, insatiate still for more,
And viscous matter for their domes explore.
That treasure gain'd, in parcels small and neat
They mould the spoil, and press it with their feet;
Then in the bags, which nature's hand has twin'd
Around their legs, a safe conveyance find."
Nor yet their labours cease; their time they pass
In rolling on the leaves, until the mass
Clings to their bodies, then in wild career,
Loaded with booty, to their cells they steer.

Soon as the spring its genial warmth renews,
And from the rising flow'rs calls forth the dews,
Th' industrious multitude on ev'ry plain
Begin the labours of the vast campaign,
Ere the parch'd meadows mourn their verdure fled,
And the sick rose-bud hangs its drooping head.

For the Anthology.

The following lines are not the offspring of fiction; they were written during the melancholy feelings inspired by the event they record. If not inconsistent with your design, the author would be gratified by seeing them in the Anthol

Yes, shielded from the woes of life
In death's inviolable sleep,
Corroding grief nor passion's strife
Shall cause her radiant eyes to weep.

No more bright Hope's fantastick train,
No more the giant brood of Fear,
Shall hold their fond delusive reign,
Or fright the mind with frown severe.

Vain solace-still the heart must mourn
The lovely form to bliss assign'd,
From warm affection's wishes torn
To long oblivion resign'd.

Unconscious now that matchless face
Of admiration's kindling eye,
O'er-dazzling white, with vivid grace,
Where glow'd young beauty's roseate
dye.

Each charm, those clustering ringlets shade,

The fates with icy hand destroy,

I muse, the mystery was not made a science,
It is so liberally profest! almost

All the wise world is little else, in nature,
But parasites, or sub-parasites. And, yet,

I mean not those that have your bare town-art
To know, who's fit to feed em; have no house,
No family, no care, and therefor mould
Tales for men's ears, to beat that sense; or get
Kitchen-invention, and some stale receipts
To please the belly, and the groin; nor those,
With their court-dog tricks, that can fawn and
fileer,

Make their revenue out of legs and faces,
Eccho my lord, and lick away a moth:
But your fine elegant rascal, that can rise,
And stoop (almost together) like an arrow,
Shoot through the air as nimbly as a star;
Turn short, as doth a swallow; and be here,
And there, and here, and yonder all at once;
Present to any humour, all occasion:
And change a visor, swifter than a thought!
This is the creature had the art born with him,
Toils not to learn it, but doth practise it
Out of most excellent nature: and such sparks
Are the true parasites, others but their Zanið.
BEN JONSON.

Studious to please, and ready to submit,
The supple Gaul was born a parasite;
Still to his int'rest true, where'er he goes,
Wit, brav'ry, worth, his lavish tongue bestows;
In ev'ry face a thousand graces shine,
From ev'ry tongue flows harmony divine,
These arts in vain our rugged natives try,
Strain out with fault'ring diffidence a lie,
And get a kick for awkward flattery.
Besides, with justice, this descending age
Admires their wond'rous talents for the stage :
Well may they venture on the mimick's art,
Who play from morn to night a borrow'd part;
Practis'd their master's notions to embrace,
Repeat his maxims, and reflect his face;
With ev'ry wild absurdity comply,
And view each object with another's eye;
To shake with laughter ere the jest they heart,
To pour at will the counterfeited tear;

Isles this bird sometimes serves the purpose of a candle, by drawing a wick thro' its nostrils, from which it possesses the quality of spouting oil. It is seen all over the Atlantick ocean at the greatest distance from land. In tempests, of which it is said to warn the seaman by collecting under the stern of his vessel, it skims over the tops of the billows with incredible velocity. These birds are the "Cypselli' of Pliny, which he places mong the apodes of Aristotle; not because they wanted feet, but were Kaxoroda.

Come, penfive nun, devout and pure,
Sober, steadfast, and demure,
All in a robe of darkeft grain,
Flowing with majestick train,
And fable tole of cypress lawn,
Over thy decent thoulders drawn.
Come, but keep thy wonted flate,
With ev'n ftep and mufing gait,
And looks commencing with the skies,
Thy rapt foul fitting in thine eyes;
There held in holy paffion ftill,
Forget thyfelf to marble, till
With a fad, leaden, downward caft,
You fix them on the earth as fast.

MILTON.

When Froft and Fire with martial powers engag'd,
Froft, northward, fled the war, unequal wag'd §.
Beneath the pole his legions urg'd their flight,
And gain'd a cave profound and wide as night
O'er cheeriefs fcenes by Defolation own'd,
High on an Alp of ice he fits enthron'd!
One clay-cold hand his chrystal beard sustains,
And feepter'd one, o'er wind and tempeft reigns;
O'er stony magazines of hail, that ftorm
The bloffom'd fruit, and flowery Spring deform.
His languid eyes like frozen lakes appear,
Dim gleaming all the light that wanders here.
His robe fnow-wrought, and hoar'd with age: his

Open your ears; for which of you will ftop
The vent of hearing, when loud Rumour speaks? -
I, from the orient to the drooping wett,
Making the wind my poft-horse, ftill unfold
The acts commenced on this ball of earth
Upon my tongue continual flanders ride;
The which in every language I pronounce,
Stuffing the ears of men with false reports.
I speak of peace, while covert enmity,
Under the smile of fafety, wounds the world:
And who but Rumour, who but only I,
Make fearful musters, and prepar'd defence ?
Whilft the big year, fwoll'n with fome other grief,
Is thought with child by the flern tyrant war,
And no fuch matter? Rumour is a pipe
Blown by furmifes, jealouties, conjectures:
And of so easy and so plain a stop,

That the blunt monfter with uncounted heads,
The ftill-difcordant wayering multitude,
Can play upon it.
SHAK

Fame, the great ill, from fmall beginnings grows, Swift from the firft; and every moment brings New vigour to her flights, new pinions to her

wings.

Soon grows the pigmy to gigantick fize;
Her feet on earth, her forehead in the fkies:
Enrag'd against the gods, revengeful earth
Produc'd her last of the Tiranian birth.
Swift in her walk, more fwift her winged hafte :
A monftrous phantom, horrible and vaft;
As many plumes as raife her lofty flight,
So many piercing eyes enlarge her fight:

.

T

(But wond'rous light) ycleped Fame,
That, like a thin camelion, boards
Herself on air, and eats her words:
Upon her fhoulders wings the wears
Like hanging fleeves, lin'd through with ears,
And eyes, and tongues, as poets lift,
Made good by deep mythologift.
With thefe the through the welkin flies,
And fometimes carries truth, oft lies ;
With letters hung like eattern pigeons,
And Mercuries of furthest regions,
Diurnals writ for regulation
Of lying, to inform the nation;

And by their publick ufe to bring down
The rate of whetstones in the kingdom.
About her neck a pacquet-male,
Fraught with advice, fome fresh, some ftale,
Of men that walk'd when they were dead,
And cows of monsters brought to bed;
Of hail-ftones big as pullets eggs,

-And puppies whelp'd with twice two legs;
A blazing-ftar feen in the weft,
By fix or feven men at lealt.

Two trumpets the does found at once,
But both of clean contrary tones;

But whether both with the fame wind,
Or one before and one behind,
We know not; only this can tell,
The one founds vilely, th' other well;
And therefore vulgar authors name
Th' one Good, the other Evil, Fame.

FAIRY LAND.

HUDIBRAS.

THERE, mußt thou wake perforce thy Doric quill;
'Tis Fancy's land, to which thou fett'it thy feet,
Where till, 'tis faid, the Fairy people meet,
Beneath each birken thade on mead or hill.
There, each trim lafs, that skims the milky flore,
To the (wart tribes their creamy bowls allots;
By night they fip it round the cottage-door,
While airy minttrels warble jocund notes.
There, every herd, by fad experience, knows
How wing'd with fate, their elf-fhot arrows fly
When the fick ewe her fummer food foregoes,

Or stretch'd on earth, the heart-fmit heifers lie. Such airy beings awe the untutor'd (wain:

Sweet scented flower! who'rt wont to bloom

On January's front severe,

And o'er the wint'ry desert drear
To waft thy waste perfume!
Come, thou shalt form my nosegay now,
And I will bind thee round my brow,
And as I twine the mournful wreath,
I'll weave a melancholy song,
And sweet the strain shall be, and long
The melody of death."

Come fun'ral flow'r! who lov'st to dwell
With the pale corse in lonely tomb,
And throw across the desert gloom
A sweet decaying smell.

Come press my lips, and lie with me
Beneath the lowly alder tree,

And we will sleep a pleasant sleep,
And not a care shall dare intrude
To break the marble solitude,
So peaceful, and so deep.

And hark! the wind-god as he flies
Moans hollow in the forest trees,
And sailing on the gusty breeze
Mysterious musick dies.
Sweet flow'r, that requiem wild is mine,
It warns me to the lonely shrine,
The cold turf altar of the dead;
My grave shall be in yon lone spot,
Where as I lie by all forgot,

A dying fragrance thou wilt o'er my ashes shed.