Here are a band, by no employ disgraced;
All their vocation to be men of taste:

A living catalogue, which never looks
Beyond the title, size, and price of books ;`
This stupid signpost stands at Learning's door,
Tells, "Entertainment here," but knows no more.
The spawn of Idleness, a vagrant crew,
Base sons of Genius, whom he never knew,
Complain, unless a brazen pillar rise*

150 To note their fame-neglected merit dies;
Bid the revolving world its course forbear,
To hear a sonnet-to Melissa's hair.

Are they to learn, the author should unite
Wisdom with wit, and profit with delight?
Who thank the shower denied the thirsty plain,
Were all its blessings scattered on the main ?
If the cold soil no genial heat expand;
The sunbeam wasted on the desart sand?

As they proceed within the mirrour rise 160 A sable group, and thus Experience cries, Ruin to them who dare mislead mankind! Shut their own eyes, and then direct the blind'; Ruin to those who gain dishonest bread With lips unclean-unconsecrated head! Who from the worship of the temple rove To the high hill, or the unhallowed grove ; Unlicensed on the sacred offering feast, Degrade Heaven's altar, and defraud his priest. Empiricks who destroy without control,

170 The moral constitution of the soul;

Promise to free the heart from sinful stain,
As quacks draw teeth, nor give the patient pain.
To heal the broken spirit, they infuse

Some grand specifick "for an inward bruise."t
Say, can the patent opiate they advise,
Compose to sleep the worm which never dies;
Their lotions purify from guilty fears,
Like bitter floods of penitence and tears?
To restrain vice and folly is their plan,
180 Not by the fear of God, but fear of man;
Unless the offence be known, no law is broke,
And future recompense for crime, a joke.
Oh, strip the miscreants of the robe they stain,
And drive them from the altar they profane.

Vain were the task, and endless, to describe Of shape, so varied, each degenerate tribe

Of vile impostors; wretches, who degrade
A liberal science to a menial trade

Riches and power their sordid souls enflame;
Content with fortune, they deserve not fame.
These haunt the Forum...these the law disgrace.
Like birds of prey, who wear the human face,
Voracious harpies, they the food defile,

By rapine seized, that none may share the spoil.
They can fix bounds, or landmarks can remove,
Last testaments at pleasure break, or prove;
To furnish proof, in perjury they trade,
Invent an oath, or sell one ready made,
And from a chaos of discordant lies,
200 Systems elaborately harmonize.

If raised by fortune, though by crime debased,
Have these the senatorial robe disgraced?
They have a patient ear, smiles at command,
A supple body, an extended hand,

A rapid sight to instantly decide.

Which is the weak, and which the strongest side
For right or wrong indifferently they vote,
Change principle or party with their coat.

;

There is to man, and so there is to heaven,
210 A crime so black it cannot be forgiven!
'Tis not of human growth; the root is laid
In hell, and earth the branches overshade;
It is the sin of fiends, apostates base,
Who shun the light which flashes in their face,.
Whose lips express the lie the heart denies,
And the conviction which it feels, defies;
The patient power, protecting them, deride,
And spurn the bounty which their wants supplied.
Who scatter, like a mist, delusion round,

220 Folly to blind, and ignorance to confound,
When they obscure the light of truth divine,
Then, sprung from filth, these exhalations shine.

Sir, you mean me! some warning conscience cries.
You mean yourself, Experience replies :

Full many a tedious corner I go round,

Lest, my good friend, I trespass on your ground.

Who sat the picture of a dog I drew,

Not" Tray, nor Blanch, nor Sweetheart"-Sir, did you?
Indeed no fancy portraits were designed,

230 Far less the individual...but the kind.

I'm no assassin, murdering in the dark,
"Tis not the fool...the folly is my mark;
Swift flies the vagrant arrow from the string,
Shot at a venture, it may pierce a king.

-the little dogs,

Tray, Blanch, and Sweetheart, see they bark at me. SHAK. Lear.

When timid friends retire, and hide their head
Behind the gathering cloud misfortune spread;
When secret slander bids her ruffian band
"Strike the death blow, but hide the guilty hand,"
And with the point of her envenomed dart
240 Slowly engraves her memory on the heart;
Then he will change...not principle, but place,
Far worse than death, the patriot fears disgrace ;*
With dignified retirement live content,
Self-satisfied, contemplate life well spent.
And when at last his country shall be just,
Malice and envy buried with the dust,
Then from the tomb, ascending to the skies,
Truth's injured spirit, just released, shall rise;
There memory feels her power of voice too weak,
250 There kneeling Gratitude, too full to speak,

His eye with mute, but most expressive praise,
In yonder temple views with steadfast gaze,
Beyond the grasp of Time, immortal Fame
Unite to WASHINGTON'S her ADAMS' name.

Experience ceased; his eyes the traveller cast
Within the mirrour, to review the past;
A straight and narrow path the plain divides,
Which to the rugged mountain's summit guides,
Above, her temple stood; the pillars rise
260 Founded on adamant, and reach the skies.
Let us approach, he cried, the sacred fane,
Nor longer traverse this ignoble plain.
To him the sage replied, with frown severe,
Yet, as he spoke, restrained the falling tear,....
Just undeceived? why hast thou spent the day
Where fashion, folly, vice, and pleasure stray?
Now thy limbs totter, scarce the blood maintains
Its lazy current through thy stiffening veins;
Weary and weak, 'tis now too late to climb
270 The mount; behold the downward course of Time;
This was no mirrour, but a vacant frame,

To teach thee, past and future are the same.
What seemed illusive to thine eyes, was true;
What seemed reflection, was the distant view.
Not an amused spectator hast thou been,
Thou wert a real actor in the scene.

The plain, the mountain, both appeared in sight;
This promised glory, that ensured delight.
Reason subdued, thy conquering senses chose,

280 Averse to toil, inglorious repose.

Farewell! and learn, 'tis man's disastrous fate,
Time flies too soon, Experience comes too late.

He ceased. With languid look the traveller glanced
The distant
Now far behind him, dwindling in his sight,
befit from whence be first advanced;
With swiftest pinion Time pursued his flight;
He with the western sun declining fast,

The outward circle of the horizon past,

No more like him the "eastern hill to climb"; 290 Death is to man the eternal night of Time.

The

NOTES.

That truant garter, she adorned with stars-Line 182.

of the garter was instituted by Edward III, in the year 1350. Many events, which belong to remote periods of English history, are involved in obscurity. Its origin has been attributed to an accident, which is related to have happened to the countess of Salisbury, the mistress of Edward. Perhaps other conjectures are more plausible, and have nearer affinity to truth; but, all the world knows, truth better suits the purpose of the historian than the poet. Charles I, afterwards added the star to the insignia of the order.

Voracious harpies, they the food defile.—L. 193,

They are described in the third book of the Eneid:

uncæque manus & pallida semper

Harpiæ, & magnis quatiunt clangoribus alas
Diripiuntque dapes, contactuque omnia fœdant
Immundo: tum vox tetrum dira inter odorem.
Rursum in secessu longo, sub rupe cavata
Arboribus clausi circum atque horrentibus umbris,
Instruimus mensas, arisque reponimus ignem.
Rursum ex diverso coeli, cæcisque latebris,
Turba sonans prædam pedibus circumvolat uncis,
Polluit ora dapes :-

invadunt socii & nova prælia tentant
Obscænas pelagi ferro fædare volucres

Sed neque vim plumis ullam, nec vulnera tergo
Accipient,

A

If this were not narrative, the nefarious practices of an unprincipled attorney could not be more faithfully delineated in allegorical representation. We instantly know the griping talons, the pale famished visage, the noisy nonsense, "magnis clangoribus alas." We see him impertinently intrude into the recesses of domestick retirement, an unwelcome guest both at the table and the altar. If his conduct provoke indignation, he neither feels, nor regards in character or person, disgrace or chastisement.

66 ...neque vim plumis ullam, nec vulnera tergo
Accipiunt."

Have these the senatorial robe disgraced ?—L. 202.

In ancient Rome, eloquence was principally confined to the senate and the forum. Having described characters who disgrace the bar, we proceed to mark others engaged in political pursuits. The term, senatorial, is here opposed to the term, forensick, and is not intended for a particular body, but for all who dishonour the legislative station, whether at present in publick or private life. By illnature more than ignorance it may be invidiously misapplied.

975 1

Swift flies the vagrant arrow from the string.-L. 233. Experience may not be so happy in this allusion to the sacred writings as to be readily understood. Chronicles, b. II. chap. xviii. "And a certain man drew a bow at a venture, and smote the king between the joints of the harness," &c He intends to illustrate his preceding remarks....He aims at the whole flock, he does not select a particular bird. Yet small and great being equally exposed, it may happen that one of the leaders may be casually wounded by his arrow.

THE BOSTON REVIEW.

SEPTEMBER, 1806.

Librum tuum legi & quam diligentissime potui annotavi, quæ commutanda, quæ eximenda, asa
bitrarer. Nam ego dicere verum assuevi.
maxime laudari merentur.-Pliny.
Neque ulli patientius reprehenduntur, quam qui

ARTICLE 38.

Concluded from page 428.

ADAM in Biography is another V. I. Part I. of The New Cyclo-nal work; and none of these alte example of numerous and unwarrantable deviations from the origi fedia, or Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences. By Abraham Rees. First American edition, 4to. Philadelphia.

We now proceed to expose other important alterations, which the American editors have not thought proper particularly to indicate to their readers.

The article ACCOMMODATION in Theology in the English edition consists of about four columns and a half, in which compass much curious and interesting learning is introduced from several eminent writers. In the American edition all this is reduced to a very meagre half-column, or about one ninth part of the original. Two whole pages are thus struck out, and the reader is not informed of it! But this is not all. A reference, which Dr. Rees makes to another part of the work, the article QUOTATION, where the subject would doubtless be resumed, is also suppressed. Are we to understand by this, that the American editors intend to suppress the whole article, to which this reference is made? If such is to be the management in the succeeding volumes, the publick, we trust, will manifest that indignation, which is due to conduct worthy of the darkest ages of monkish cunning.

rations, though among the most important in the volume, are designated by any mark. It should ing sentence of a paragraph in the be observed also, that the concludoriginal article rendered it necessary to make a reference to the articles, FALL of MAN and ORIStruck out of the American edition, GINAL SIN. That sentence is and with it the reference, and a import is substituted by the Amenew sentence of a very different be presumed,that those two imporrican editors; from which it is to tant articles are to be wholly omitdoubtedly, from the same motives ted. This has proceeded, unwith the suppression of the refertioned. We leave the liberalence in the other instance we menminded reader to determine what name such conduct deserves.

marks upon other articles,in which We forbear extending our resimilar mutilations have been made, but we think some of our readers will feel obliged to us, if covered, and leave the comparison we point out such as we have disof them with the original to the leisure of individuals. And here merely in articles of magnitude we would observe, that it is not that such reprehensible mutilations are made; the same spirit may be traced from the largest to the