COMMERCIAL REPUTATION OF THE UNITED STATES. more slowly than in the present year, 1804. In the southern American states, the failure of the crops has left the planters and merchants without means to satisfy the demands of their creditors of this country. One or two honest men among them have written, that, having no produce, they will even sell off their slaves, and remit the prices, rather then suffer their correspondents to be reduced by their misfortune to bankruptcy. But, it is not in the character of many American traders to act this fair and honourable part. The laws of the American states are much too favourable to debtors willing to defraud their creditors. A man who owes more than he chuses to pay, in America, may transfer his property, by a secret assignment, to some confidential friend, suffer himself to be laid in prison for debt, then after a few days imprisonment swear that he has nothing in the world with which to satisfy his creditors, come out of prison free from any claims of creditors, resume the property of which he had made a trust-tranfer, and renew his business, a richer and more flourishing man than before. This laxity and facility of the laws of insolvency and bankruptcy in America have proved fatal to the reputation of American commercial faith. It is certain, that a very large proportion of the bankruptcies in London, are occasioned by disappointments of remittances from America. An English merchant known to trade largely to America would, at that moment, be judged to be, even for that reason alone, of very suspicious solvency. It is as tonishing that the legislators of the United States should not perceive that it is of the greatest importance to make the commercial credit of their country as good as possible; and that it is utterly impossible for any country to be very rich in commercial credit, unless its laws be severe against insolvent debtors, and afford the utmost facility to creditors, especially to foreign creditors, in the recovery of their debts. 281 Should the merchants of America, in general, persist in giving the same trouble, as of late, to English merchants trusting them, the necessary consequence must be, that, within a very short time, no American wil be able to procure one sixpence worth of goods to be shipped for him from London, unless he shall have previously paid the price. America will thus be, in effective commercial wealth, some millions poorer than it is at present. For to the honest, sensible, industrious merchant, and especially to every great commercial nation, credit is more than even ready money: it is the very lever of Archimedes, capable to move the world from its foundations. To the man of confusion, to the spendthrift, to the swindler, it is amply the means of fraud and ruin. We exhort the patriots of America to render their bankrupt-laws more rigorous, that their public and private credit may become more worthy of a great commercial nation. For the Literary Magazine. SHAKESPEARE'S SIMILES. DAINTIES are said to be dainties only when eaten rarely and sparingly. Sweets cloy, and good things grow stale, by repetition and excess. Some have maintained that these maxims hold good with regard to intellectual, as well as corporeal dainties, but, I suspect, the analogy is fallacious. The more we banquet upon poetry, painting, and music, the more is our appetite enlarged, and our relish improved. The deeper we go into these pursuits, the harder does it become to extricate onrselves from their allurements, and transfer our thoughts to other objects. Every enthusiast in either of these arts is able to testify the truth of these remarks; and yet I am condemned either to deny the truth of them entirely, or to regard myself as an exception to ordinary rules. I sometimes think myself as capable of feeling the pure delights of poetry as any one living. And yet I open a poem not once in three months. Books of that kind are always within my reach, yet, in moments of mental languor and weariness, I seldom think of sipping at the refreshing and delicious fountains of Milton or Shakespeare, of Virgil or Ovid. I light upon them more by accident than design, but, having once begun, I read with extreme delight. Perhaps I am searching in my bookcase for some metaphysical or historical dissertation, and open the unsightly volume of Dryden or Pope, merely because it officiously intrudes itself upon my eye; but whatever be my haste, however cold the weather, or urgent my occasions elsewhere may be, my attention is riveted the moment it lights upon the page. The pleasures 1 thus experience, dwell strongly on my memory, yet I feel no desire to renew the banquet. It is, indeed, renewed, but not till after a long interval, and only, as before, by accident. It was in this manner that I just now opened a volume of Shakespeare. I fell into a controversy with a friend about the exact circumstances of Agricola's circumnavigation of Britain. An appeal was made to Tacitus, and with difficulty I prevailed upon my friend to stay, notwithstanding a pressing engagement elsewhere, till I went up stairs and brought down the book. I opened the bookcase, and my eye lighting upon Shakespeare's volume, I just opened it to glance at its condition since my careless cousin L― had returned it. I lighted on a scene in Troilus and Cressida, and never shut the book again till I had finished that play. While I hastily read, I yet had time for many reflections on the scene before me. Shakespeare, thought I, is certainly a poet. A dramatic poet is one that faithfully pourtrays characters and sentiments, but Shakespeare is likewise a poet in another sense. The ordinary distinctions between poetry and prose, which are deemed to consist in the arrangement of syllables, in the choice of words, and in the use of figures, are as richly and forcibly illustrated by Shakespeare's composition, as that of any bard that has ever existed. He affords numberless examples of the finest versé, the most elevated style, and the richest fancy. If we resolve the works of different poets into mere assortments of poetical furniture, Shakespeare's warehouse will contain a greater number and variety of articles, exquisite in kind, and in workmanship, than that of any of his brethren. It is true, with all that is perfect, we shall find, plentifully mingled, all that is rude and low, all that is offensive to morality and taste; and other warehouses may boast, that though their stock is smaller, and their good things not quite so good as Shakespeare's, yet they have none of his worthless trash and abominable filth. This plea will, indeed, avail them little. Customers will always flock to that counter, where the best things are to be had; and as long as they have taste and knowledge to discriminate between the good and bad, the valuable and worthless, it is of little consequence to them in what degree the latter may abound, provided they are not obliged to purchase it, and provided there is an equal abundance of the former. One of the most formal exhibitions of poetical fancy is the figure called comparison or simile. Accurately speaking, the reasoner and the poet are chiefly distinguished by the aptitude of one to discover dif ferences in objects and ideas, and of the other to discover their resemblances. This circumstance affords foundation to a great many poetical figures, the most obvious and regu lar of which the critics denominate simile. The ancient poets abound in this figure. Homer and Virgil are for ever comparing the exploits of their heroes to the exploits of bulls and tygers, or to some natural appearance, thunder or a whirlwind, and, after their example, mo dern poets think it indispensably incumbent on them now and then to rouse the flagging attention by a formal As when, &c. The energy of these similes is equalled by the elegance of the numbers and expression. Again, in describing his efforts to disguise his sighs under a smile, I have, as when the sun doth light a storm, This passage, however beautiful, affords a striking instance of the kind of error into which the poet so frequently falls. The wrinkle is a furrow on the cheek, produced by age, though somewhat resembling those furrows which smiles produce, and hence introduces confusion and deformity into this passage. Speaking of the hand of his mistress, he says, To its soft seizure In this, as in all other departments of poetry, Shakespeare is unrivalled. No particular excites the reader's admiration in a higher degree than the number, variety, and marvellous felicity of his similes. No where is his creative power more conspicuous; for he frequently invents the object or action with which to compare, and by which to enforce, the object or action he has previously invented. The circle of his knowledge, the stores by which he is supplied with the materials of his similes, has no bounds. The mythological system of the ancients appears to have been more familiar to Shakespeare than to any of the ancients themselves, The cygnet's down is harsh. and he has drawn from that system more materials of comparison and simile than any of them. But the world of modern arts, sciences, and manners was likewise open to him, and his imagination was stored with every thing that could minister to his use in this respect. Strong as the axle-tree Such, indeed, is his store, that he On which Heaven rides. wantons in his abundance. Seldom or never does he repeat the same thought; and though the same occasion may occur a thousand times, his inexhaustible fancy is always ready with unhackneyed images, and of these he is as prodigal as if he were called upon to exhaust himself at once. This play has, doubtless, much absurdity and ribaldry in it, but in vain shall we elsewhere look for the same abundance of true poetry. Let us take a cursory survey of its similes alone, and see how far they justify the good opinion I have formed of them. Troilus, in a fit of despairing love, exclaims, Ulysses in speaking of the chain of attention, with which the eloquence of Nestor bound to his lips the ears of his auditors, describes it as A blush often calls up, among poets, the idea of the morning; but mark the way in which Shakespeare has amplified this image, so as to give it all the grace of novelty, and all the richness of a picture. A blush, Modest as morning, when she coldly eyes Nestor, speaking of the ability of Achilles to understand a certain message from Hector, says that he would rightly conceive it Were his brain as barren Troilus, charging Helenus with reasoning himself into cowardice, says, that, at the sight of Grecian swords, he would set 6 MATHEMATICIANS, in general, regard every other tract of human pursuit as absolutely, or, at least, comparatively, futile and nugatory. If it were possible to light upon an impartial person, with unhis animadversion, I would submit questionable skill in the objects of the justice of this conclusion to him. the zeal of mathematicians arises I should even appeal to him whether from any other cause than the pleasure which the understanding finds in the exercise of its own powers. Should he point out the various applications of which mathematical truths are capable, to the ordinary comforts of society, to facilitating the measurement of land, the passage of the ocean, the building of houses, and the like, I should not think my question satisfactorily answered: for, admitting the usefulness of mathematics to this purpose, I am far from thinking that mathematical students owe their zeal to the contemplation of this purpose. On the contrary, I suspect that the ideas of abstract atility form no part of their motives, and that their diagrams and symbols would be speedily abandoned, if they had no other recommendation than their useful ness. The mind is so formed as to create, if I may so speak, its own riddles, and to find the greatest imaginable entertainment in solving them. In meditating upon two lines, some question occurs as to their relative proportions. The means of settling these proportions are not obvious: at first sight it seems impossible to find them out. At length, after much thought, the true expedient occurs, and the laborious enquirer feels the utmost delight at the discovery. If this discovery has been made by some other, his labours are directed to the finding out a different method of attaining the same point; and if his endeavours succeed, he is rendered happy. If he should discover a shorter or more simple method than that of his predecessor, his exultation is proportionably greater, and yet the importance which his mind annexes to the pursuit seems entirely the offspring of his own fancy. I have often been surprised at the folly and inconsistency of studious people. With regard to those objects to which their taste is indifferent, they are irresistibly prone to question or deny their utility. If their own pursuit be called into question, they think it necessary to show some common domestic or economic purpose to which it may be made subservient. They, meanwhile, entirely forget that this purpose formed no part of their motive in chusing this pursuit, and that their adversary labours at his tools by virtue of exactly the same stimulus, and in pursuit of exactly the same end as themselves. Mere accident has fixed their curiosity on different objects, and the grand secret of our pleasure is in finding what we are seeking, without any reasoning as to further consequen ces. This is true of all pursuits, but seems particularly evident with respect to mathematics. The pleasure which this science affords seems more purely rational, more intellectual, more divested of all in fluence on the fancy, the senses, or the appetites, than any other. Pleasures of the latter kind are more intelligible to the bulk of mankind, because all have fancy, senses, and appetites to be pleased. But those of the mathematical student are resolvable into those which are connected with the mere exercise of the intellectual powers of reasoning and deduction. This view of things has often occurred to me in conversing with mathematical enquirers. In consequence of dealing in things which exist only in abstraction, the language of this science is more unintelligible than that of any other to the unlearned apprehension. The terms, indeed, of a geometric de monstration are less likely to be understood by one who is no adept, than a sentence of Greek and Latin is to one not instructed in these languages. In the latter case there are sounds somewhat allied to those of his own tongue, and the sentence, if a moral or historical one, relates to objects with which he is previ ously acquainted; but when our friend talks about the logarithms of negative quantities, the sums of infinite series, the calculation of impossible quantities, the arithmetic of infinities, and the like, he is sure of being utterly impenetrable to all but those versed in the same science. I often burst upon the retirements of a friend who is a votary of D’Alembert and Euler. I find him generally wrapt in deepest meditation over a paper, with cycle and epicycle scribbled o'er, of which I can equally make nothing, whether I examine the paper for myself, or listen to the explanations which he always gives me with alacrity. I found him, the other day, wiping his brows, and drinking a glass of water, as after some fatiguing pil grimage. Enquiring from what journey he had just returned, he told me how many days he had been employed, with no intervals but those of a few minutes at meals, and a few hours in bed, in demonstrating a certain theorem in spheric |