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JOHN CONRAD & Co. PHILADELPHIA; M. & J. CONRAD & CO. BALTIMORE; RAPIN, CONRAD, & Co. WASHINGTON; SOMERVELL & CONRAD, PETERSBURG; AND BONSAL, CONRAD, & CO. NORFOLK.

FRINTED BY T. & G. PALMER, 116, HIGH STREET.

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THERE is a chimney in an ancient house in this city (Philadelphia), in which a fire was kept continually burning for upwards of forty years. The old gentleman who attended this mysterious flame died a very few years ago, and seems not to have succeeded in discovering the grand secret of which he was in search. Indeed he always attributed his ultimate failure to the necessity of withdrawing his attention from the momentous process for a whole day, in consequence of the confusion and panic occasioned by the entry of the British army into Philadelphia. He lived and died what they called a violent tory or anti-revolutionist. After this event his hostile zeal was more ardent than ever; for, says he, what was it deprived the world and me of this great discovery but the war? Ingenious men have wasted their whole lives, in innumerable cases, in search of the art of making gold; not, as we would naturally, at first, imagine, for the sake of the pleasures or benefits accruing from riches, but for the mere sake of the discovery. The imagination of man is

VOL. III. NO. XVIII.

capable of dressing out any object in alluring colours; and it is the property of human nature to become attached to any pursuit on its own account, though perhaps it was at first embraced with views to remote or collateral consequences. Thus the miser contracts a passion for money itself, though money was originally sought by him merely for the sake of what money would purchase.

With the secret of making gold has always been connected, in our fancy, the secret of eternal youth and eternal life. The latter object is far more venerable and desirable than the former.

Inexhaustible

wealth is of little consequence to him who wants life or even health to enjoy it; whereas he who lives for ever, with his faculties of mind and body sound and perfect, need never despair of being sometime rich. Having centuries before him in which to lay and mature his plans for bringing some of the gold already in circulation into his coffers, he need not trouble himself with extraordinary and untried schemes.Even if he sit down in absolute inactivity, and wait the gratuitous fa

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vours of fortune, the richest of these favours will sometime light upon him. As the particles of matter, of which terrestrial bodies are composed, must assume all possible forms through the endless revolutions of nature, so one of these particles or members of which the social or political body is composed, if it last a few thousand years, must necessarily pass through all the conditions known in human society.

The following anedote, related by Dr. Campbell, in his Hermippus redivivus, has always been of great weight with the votaries of alchemy:

In 1687, a stranger, naming himself signor Gualdi, profited of the known ease and freedom of Venice, to render himself much respected and well received there. He spent his money readily, but was never observed to have connection with any banker. He was perfectly well bred, and remarkable for his sagacity and powers of entertainment in conversation. Enquiries were made about his family, and whence he came, but all terminated in obscurity. One day a Venetian noble, admiring the stranger's pictures, which were exquisitely fine, and fixing his eye on one of them, exclaimed, "How is this, sir! Here is a portrait of yourself, drawn by the hand of Titian! yet that artist has been dead one hundred and thirty years, and you look not to be more than fifty!" "Well, signor," replied the stranger," there is, I hope, no crime in resembling a portrait drawn by Titian." The noble visitant withdrew, perceiving that he had touched upon a tender string, and next morning the stranger, his pictures, goods, and domestics had quitted Venice."

The inference suggested by this narrative is, no doubt, meant to be that this stranger possessed the secret of living for ever. This inference, indeed, is not a very obvious one; for, as signor Gualdi observed, there is nothing either criminal or wonderful in resembling a portrait of Titian.

Campbell refers to an Italian author as his authority for this story. Godwin, in planning his St. Leon, had the curiosity to refer to the original; but this original, said by Campbell to be in the British Museum, was no where to be found, so that this important fact, which has plunged many a sober mind into doubtful meditation, turns out to be a mere modern invention.

The most judicious observations on this imaginary art, and those who study or pretend to teach it, are to be found in Dr. Willich's celebrated treatise on health and long life.

MEDICUS.

For the Literary Magazine.

ON THE CLASSICS LOST.

To the Editor, &c.

I AM a great admirer of the classics; but it appears to me that this admiration, though productive of a great deal of pleasure, is fertile also of infinite regrets. What we have is of such exquisite flavour, that we the more repine at what we have lost. When I read Sophocles, Euripides, or Aristophanes, I feel an insupportable longing for those parts of their writings, and for the writings of others no less eminent, which have been lost. Thus it is, in perusing the works of Sallust, Tacitus, and Livy, the most eloquent historians of the most illustrious times; the regret inspired by the chasms in their works, is, if possible, more keen than the pleasure afforded by the portions that are extant. Indeed the pain on the one hand is excited by the pleasure on the other, and is generally proportioned to it. It is well known that the larger history of Sallust, which was probably not inferior in merit or minuteness to that of Livy, is wholly lost, and that the most valuable portion of Tacitus and Livy are irrecoverably gone.

If any thing can aggravate our regrets on this account, it must be

the reflexion on the manner in which this loss has probably taken place. What must be the feelings of a classical enthusiast when he reads such narratives as the following!

The tutor of a young French nobleman, as he was playing at tennis one day, at an estate near Saumur, casting his eyes on the racquet in his hand, saw some writing on the parchment which covered it, and, having perused it with attention, found it to be part of one of the lost books of Livy. He immediately enquired for the racquet-maker, but found, to his great mortification, that what he had seen was the remains of a collection of manuscripts, which were all made up for racquets, and dispersed all over the kingdom.

There are wanting, of the works of Cicero, two books, "De Gloria," and two "De Legibus." As to the latter, we know of our loss only from Macrobius, who quotes the fifth book "De Legibus," in the sixth of his Saturnalia, though we have but three. As to the treatise on Glory, Francis Philelphus is accused of having found the MS. and destroyed it, after having transplanted into a book, which he published as his own, as many passages as he thought he might venture without being discovered. But Varillos, a French historian, relates, that Petrus Alcyonius, an Italian physician, being obliged to write somewhat for the consolation of Cornaro, a Venetian in exile for having been beaten by the Turks, composed a book, which he entitled "De fortiter toleranda exilii fortunâ," and into which he introduced many ill-adjusted sentences from Tully's treatise "De Gloria," which MS. he afterwards burnt, to prevent the discovery of his plagiarism. Nothing, however, seems certain concerning this much wished for work, except what Petrarch tells us, in one of his epistles, that Raimond Sorenzo, a celebrated lawyer at Avignon, gave the two books "De Gloria" to him; that he studied them perpetually; but that having lent them to an old man, who had been his preceptor, want

had tempted the borrower to pawn them. Afterwards the old man left the country, and the manuscript was never more heard of.

Pope Gregory VII destroyed many manuscripts of the classics deposited in the Vatican library.Among the pieces which suffered were many books of Varro, one of the few authors who discussed the agricultural and domestic economy of his countrymen. Gregory having a great respect for St. Augustine, who is indeed regarded by the Romanists as more oracular, in points of discipline, at least, than the gospels themselves, and knowing the free use of that Roman author which the saint had made in his most celebrated work, chose rather to destroy Varro than to have the good father convicted of plagiarism. Of all the motives for destroying origi nal works, to conceal a plagiarism seems to be the least deplorable. For in this case, properly speaking, that part of it which some literary knave has pilfered for his own use still survives, and the true gem cannot be of much value, or the penetration of the observer not very acute, if it cannot be distinguished in whatever situation it be found.

For the Literary Magazine.

VIRGIL'S MORNINGS.

THESE great natural exhibitions, evening and morning, have always been thought peculiarly susceptible of poetical description and embellishment. As I turned over the pages of the Mantuan bard lately, it occurred to me to enquire how he had pictured the morning; for, often as I have read this my favourite poet, I should not have been able to give any account of his poetry in this particular. I was surprised to perceive, that the morning did not appear to be a favourite object of attention with him, for I did not meet with it once in the Eclogues, and only once in the Georgics. In

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