The great number of such miserable creatures in some of the cantons of Switzerland inclines some to suppose, that the soil and climate are the causes of their mental darkness.* But the arguments urged in defence of this speculation are far from being conclusive. Poor Joe has never travelled beyond the boundaries of his native town; he has breathed the air and trod the soil which many thousand others have; and I must confess, Mr. Editor, that if the theory above is admitted, I cannot see why all those thousands should not have been as silly and absurd as poor Joe himself. But to return to my subject As the poor fellow stood before me, surrounded by a troop of ragged school. boys, he looked up to me in a language which I could not misunderstand. He spoke not, for he is dumb, yet he solicited me in the most pathetic manner to deliver him out of the hands of his little mischievous tormentors--a piece of service which I had frequently rendered him. This I immediately did, and, as a trifling recompence for the annoyance he had experienced, I put a penny into his hand. The loud laugh he uttered on beholding the treasure, still vibrates in my ears, and the language it spoke is still fresh in my me mory. The fool of nature stood with stupid eyes DRYDEN. But enough at once, Mr. Editor. On some future occasion I may continue the subject, and lay before your readers the secret cogitation of some more interesting characters. I beg leave to subscribe myself in the mean time, Sir, yours, &c. ARGUS. TRANSLATION Of the Latin Epitaph on a Dog, which appeared in the Northern Star for June, 1818. "Lest thou, O traveller! shouldst with injurious foot overthrow this standing column, stop! nor think it strange that a little dead dog is exalted to the greatest honor. But dost thou ask what kind of a dog?—It was one which its extraordinary shape, snowy whiteness, tender love, and ready submission, made the darling of its master, to whose side it adhered-his diligent follower, and the constant companion of his couch. The strength of its master's mind being fatigued, it drew from this attendant vivacity and fresh inclination. For these actions and properties its owner, not ungrateful, but bewailing the lifeless animal, has placed its worthy relics in this marble urn." On this subject, see Holcroft's LAVATER, vol. i. p. 64, vol. ii. p. 28 and 280, and vol. iii. p. 254. † Qui pourra jamais dire en quoi l'organisation d'un imbecile differe de celle d' un autre homme.-BUFFON. VOL. III. N 122 Mathematical Repository, NEW MATHEMATICAL QUESTIONS. 1. By Mr. John Baines, Nottingham. AT what distance from the foot of a given spire standing on an horizontal plane, will the upper half appear under the greatest angle? 2. By the same. If a and b represent the sines of two arcs, whose tangents are as I'm ; then, the radius cosine of the greater angle:: av/m2 -1: √/b2—a2. Required the investigation. 3. By Philo-veritas, Rotherham. What is the sum of the series 16+26 +36 +46 + &c. to n terms? 4. By Mr. T. S.Davies, Sheffield. If a man, whose weight at the surface of the earth is 12 stone, be placed at that point between the earth and moon from which the sum of their visible surfaces shall be the greatest possible, what will then be his weight? Biography, &c. [Under this head the Editors earnestly entreat notices of eminent literarg characters now living, as well as obituaries and more elaborate memoirs of the distinguished dead. Literary and scientific anecdotes will be also very acceptable.] MEMOIR OF THE LATE JAMES CAWTHORNE. To the Editor of the Northern Star. THE partiality which a mother, possessed of parental feelings, evinces towards her own offspring, is beautiful and natural; this instinct of affection, nevertheless, is not the result of comparison; her child may not possess, even in her own eyes, any superiority over other children, nay, much less, may be decidedly inferior;-but it is the child of her bosom, the offspring of her body; in one word, it is her own! It may be like her; it may resemble one she loves; then the spring of her feelings acknowledge their own identity; she loves it because she can never hate herself. As with individuals, so with communities; the birth-place of genius is revered by those who inhabit its vicinity; and the inhabitants of that spot, whence one of superior intellect hath sprung, consider themselves as the parents, and regard such an one as their offspring, less because he rises high on the scale of contemporary excellence, than because their very localities are identified with the corruscations of his genius; and may derive a fresh and vivid interest from intellectual associations with his own mind, as a mother gazes with rapture on her child, because she attaches the idea of rejuvenescenee and posterity to that which has sprung from herself. Poetry, although rather a fine than an useful art, has found its admirers in all ages rude or refined, and in almost countries, savage or civilised; in our own it has attained a degree of perfection, perhaps, inferior to few, if any, of the brilliant examples left us by the greatest poets of antiquity, The person who has no taste for poetry may justly be suspected of possessing either an uncultivated or insensible mind. Genius in the bosom of a poet is enthusiasm, and however some cold calculators or sentimental misers may affect to despise it, has procured by its charms the admiration of past ages, and purchased for its excelling votaries the applause of the future.To excel in poetry, indeed, must be the lot of but very few; and although some Augustan periods may boast their constellations of wit and clusters of genius, yet highly favoured votaries of the Muse are rare, and seem when seen "like angel-visits, few and far between." These desultory sentiments have almost unconsciously flowed from a pen, taken up for the purpose of soliciting a registry in your Miscellany for the name of a poet and townsman. In turning over the pages of a Biographical Dictionary, I remember Sheffield mentioned only as the birth-place of one votary of the Muses. More than half a century has elapsed since the gentleman to which I allude, was prematurely snatched from the endearment of his friends and the circle of his admirers, and his name left to perish with the termination of their existence; who, although they remembered the worth of the man with affection, seem (beside his poems) not to have perpetuated the memory of the poet by any other memorial. As your Magazine professes, not only to be a register of the literature, statistics, &c. of the northern districts, but of the biography also, I think the Northern Star may very properly preserve in its pages the name of the REV. JAMES CAWTHORNE, I say his name, for I have been able to learn little more respecting him, than what is recorded of many a greater and many a less, of many a better and many a worse man, that he lived and died. I am sorry, Sir, that I am unable to copy for your insertion the inscription of any memorial erected to his memory, in the town where he was born, and I know not that one is erected any where else. Parian marble and sculptured brass have frequently yielded in durability to the more perishable materials of historic records, and I hope you will lend your pages to give perpetuity to the following inscription: SACRED His poetical compositions were collected and published in 1771, in quarto, and inscribed, "To the worshipful Company of Skinners, the worthy patrons of Tunbridge School." The Editor apologises for the first three pieces in the collection, and hopes it will be thought sufficient that they are the dawnings of genius, and show a turn for poetry and sentiment, not unworthy the author of so early an age. The first of these is a pharaphrase of the 139th Psalm, done at the age of 14, the others at 15 years. The whole of the poems are written in a very pleasing and agreeable style. They were reprinted in 1794, in a collection of the works of "The British Poets, with prefaces, biographical and critical," but whether they contain any account of our author I do not know, never having met with the collection. The father of Mr. Cawthorne was I believe an upholsterer, in AngelStreet; but observing the indications of superior mental capacity in his son, resolved to give him a liberal education, and bring him up for the church, and the ability and excellence of his future life fully justified the predictions of his childhood. I should be glad if any of your correspondents would furnish you with any further account of our author, which I am unable to do; whether he be buried at Tunbridge, and if any tablet record his memory: perhaps, too, some of his unpublished pieces may be in the hands of some of his friends: I believe a sister of Mr. Cawthorne was married to the late Rev. Edward Goodwin, of Sheffield, and was mother of the present worthy and respectable clergyman of that name, who is one of the ministers of our parish-church. She died in the prime of life, and used to speak of her brother, the poet, in terms of the most tender and affectionate respect. I am Sir, yours, August 12, 1818. SHEFFIELDIENSIS. Poiesia. [This department embraces original poetical compositions, translations of ancient and modern poets, with occasional Essays ànd Criticisms illustrative of the metrical art in general. We shall be select in proportion to the liberality of our Correspondents.] TRANSLATION OF THE LATIN VERSES ON HOMONÆA. [See No. 14 of the Northern Star.] To the Editor of the Northern Star. I SEND you, in the following sheet, an attempt at a translation of those beautiful Latin lines (inserted in your Magazine for last month), on the death of the lovely and accomplished Homonæa. I admire the simplicity, the tenderness, and the elegance of this elegiac composition, and cannot but regret that there is an apparent incongruity in the epitaph as a whole, which in some measure destroys the beauty and harmony that the parts possess in themselves, when taken from their connection and considered separately. The first fourteen lines thus considered as a dialogue which took place between Homonaa and Atimetus, her disconsolate husband, a short time previous to her death, and as distinct from the epitaph to which they are prefixed-are written with all the tender pathos and affecting simplicity of Catullus, and are the very tears of the elegiac muse. I wish in the following imitation, the spirit of the original had been better preserved. ATIMETUS. Ah! if the cruel fates would spare the breath Ah! spare thy youth, nor waste it thus with grief; Thy grief could not recal me from the tomb; My day of life I've lived-that day is o'er- Spare then thy youth: so may thy tender heart Of which I'm robb'd by fate and death-relentless pow'rs Extend thy life unto a longer date. This address of Homonæa, so tender and affectionate, might perhaps with poetical beauty and propriety have been considered as an address from the tomb,-in which her spirit, disturbed by the inconsolable grief of her husband, could not rest in peace-had it not been preceded by the address of Atimetus, in which he does not call upon her departed spirit to console him, or lament her as already dead, but (as if she was then living) wishes that he could save her from death by dying for her. The two introductory lines, Si pensare animas sinerent crudelia fata, Et posset remidi morte aliena salus, necessarily imply that Homonea was alive when they were written, or when the sentiment they contained was uttered; and this being the case, the concluding part of the epitaph, as an interruption of Homonæa's address to Atimetus, and a warning address by her to the careless traveller who thoughtlessly passes by her tomb, is out of place, as it is formed on the supposition of her death. |