of composition. After the acquisition of ideas, which have been strengthened by reflection and chastened by purity of taste, he submits them to a correct arrange ment and embodies them in a perspicuous and harmonious expression. From their continued attention to these three constituents, thoughts, arrangement, and style, results the interest with which the works of some authors are read. We are hurried along by a pleasing violence, and mistake the effect of the taste, the judgment, and the profound exertions of the writer, for the unaffected, spontaneous flow of nature. We seize the pen with a desire to imitate, but soon resign it in despair, convinced how near the perfection of art and the effusions of nature approach each other. These are the authors one delights to read. These are the sublime souls, that seem to have caught a ray of inspiration from heaven to conduct their fellow mortals through mazes of errour, to the sacred bowers of eternal truth and happiness. The ancients, more honest than the moderns, acknowledged the difficulty of acquiring the art of writing well. They never imagined, that tardiness of composition necessarily implied poverty of ideas, nor that application damped the mental flame. They prefer red the steady blaze of intellect to a meteorous brilliancy, which expires in the effort that gave it birth. For examples we might mention the poet Euripides, who was employed three days in the composition of as many verses; and the orator Isocrates,whose Attick taste found exercise for ten years on a single oration. The illus trious Cicero could not pen even a familiar epistle, without bestowing on it a degree of labour, which the economy of our modern writers would hardly expend on an octavo. The author of the Eneid was twenty-seven years in perfecting that beautiful mental fabrick, which,like the Grecian temples, happily combines simplicity with grandeur, and dignity with taste. Even some of the moderns have been convinced of this truth. The celebrated author of "Les Lettres Provinciales" records, that he was agitated ten whole days in fixing the significa tion of a single word. The whole life of the musing Gray afforded the world, but a small bouquet of intellectual flowers, and even some of these were culled from the rich fields of ancient literature. These examples are sufficient to prove, that by those, who have most excelled in literary composition, fine writing has been considered an art, the acquirement of which depended on a profound and continued exertion of intellect. Ideas undoubtedly form the first object of attention, but language, though a subordinate, is still an essential part. Indeed the effect of the former results,in a great degree, from the character of the latter. It is by the union of these, that the enraptured soul is fired by "Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn." We cannot but admire, therefore, the pains that our authors take to send forth to the world their imbecile productions, which survive but a day, and then lie dusty and neglected on the bookbinder's shelf, till they are transported, with other literary trash, to the pastry cook's or the trunkmaker's. To these writers, thus infected with the cacoethes scribendi, we would recom、 mend the observation of an ancient painter, who, when he was accused of tardiness of execution, replied, Diu ping'o,quum in æternum pingo. PHILAUTHOS. DOMINI, For the Monthly Anthology. Si hic flosculus, in vestrâ Anthologiâ positus, boni aliquid vel naribus vel oculis haberet, inserite, ac alios mittam. AD JULIUM, ACADEMIAM PRO MERCATURA LINQUENTUM. Eheu! quam miseri sunt Avaritiæ Vidi, eheu! miseros, Lucifero duce, Juli, in hoc numerari grege sordido, Merces, Virgilii, judice Julio, Apparet melior versibus optimis ?— Vestrum oblivius ac tui. LUCIUS. For the Monthly Anthology. PASTORAL. O fortunatos nimium, sua si bona norint, Agricolas quibus ipsa, procul discordibus armis Fundit humo facilem victum justissima tellus.—VIRGIL. BETWEEN those sister elms with ivy hoar 'Tween banks of thyme where willows hang the head, On yonder hills, that skirt the eastern sky, Oft have I view'd in still and sultry hours, No seeming friend beside his bosom laid, But faithful WATCH who guards the checker'd shade ; Skims o'er the plain and through the greenwood sings, When Day retiring fires the glowing west While round in breathless haste his children press, And fondly struggle for the first caress. And through the naked woods when cold winds blow, And bitter Winter bites with icy fang, GENTLEMEN, PETER PASTORAL. To the Editors of the Monthly Anthology. If the following be too trifling for insertion in the Anthology, it is requested, that it may be laid by without notice. ON LISTENING ΤΟ A CRICKET. I LOVE, thou little chirping thing, Thou canst not now drink dew from flowers, And when my lamp's decaying beam, Then will I listen to thy sound, Recal the many-coloured dreams, I love the night; and sooth to say, But see pale Autumn strews her leaves, And in his train the sleety showers, Thou, cricket, through these weary hours GENTLEMEN, For the Monthly Anthology, Anticas- NUR "ON Several susceptible youths of your city having been lately employed in making woeful ballads to their mistress' eye-brow, it entered my noddle to at, tempt something after their manner upon the interesting object of attachments,....Dolly. EPISTLE TO DOLLY. FROM the dark gulf of comfortless despair Like some twin cherry, by sweet zephyr mov'd, * Lately discovered. my tendereşt Those gooseberry eyes with emerald lightnings big, Beaming sublime like barn-door in the morn, Have burnt thy Neddy's heart just like, forsooth, A crisp pork-chop upon a gridiron. Oh, oh those pouting cherry lips of thine, Dance sportive to thy throat's wild melody: There thinking on thy angel mien I toss in pain, How pleasant sitting at my cottage door |