man, Italian, English, or Spanish, have been transferred into the Latin tongue. It is the longest lived, and most extensively diffused of any human language, since it was spoken and written with equal facility and excellence on the banks of Arno and Tyber, in the age of Cæsar and of fifteen hundred years, and since Leo, ages separated by an interval it is studied, even at present, and is familiarly known to the studious, in India, Europe, and America; on the Ganges, the Danube, the Maragnon, and the Mississippi.

The Latin language is supposed to teem with every thing reasonably delightful and instructive; and so it does: but a tolerable acquaintance with modern Latin will inform us, that it likewise contains the most voluminous monuments of human error and folly; that the whole mass or body of it has passed through the punster's mill; has been pounded into its minutest fibres in the griphical mortar; and has has been sifted clean away in the anagram

But this effort of genius is far exceeded by the following, which, on account of its mysterious structure and significance, has been gravely ascribed to the devil:

Signa te signa, temere me tangis et angis Roma tibi subito motibus ibit amor.

By these various methods, it is probable, that the Latin language has been more thoroughly wrought, has been more completely turned, twisted, dissected, and compounded, than any language whatever. Every religion has borrowed from it its language. Every science is indebted to it for its terms. It has been made the medium of every system of laws. It has been modulated by every conceivable system of numbers. Every thing Hebrew or Greek has been made, anciently or modernly, to assume a Latin dress. Even the authors of late times, whose writings are originally Ger

AUTHENTIC letters, I have often heard, are the most precious materials both of history and biography; and I am much inclined to assent to the opinion of one of my female friends, who maintains, that the truest evidence of an enlightened and cultivated mind is an intimate acquaintance with the epistolary remains of eminent persons. The other day I inquired of her what productions of that kind were most worthy of my attention. Whether she regulated her answer by the consideration of my sex I cannot tell, but, without hesitation, she recommended to me the letters of

madame Maintenon and madame de Sevigne.

I objected that these ladies were of a rank in life, and lived in a state of manners and society, very remote from my own. It would not be easy, I told her, to collect from the language or sentiments of women like these, any hints for the direction of my own conduct, or the information of my own judgment.

She was of a contrary opinion. She treated the distinctions of rank and of nation as nothing, and insisted on the transcendant merit of these ladies, in their character of letter writers, with no small eloquence.

Of madame Maintenon's letters she said, that they painted, in inimitable colours, and from the life, the writer's portrait. According to her, good sense, wisdom, and gravity, prevail throughout them. There are few pleasantries, but those few are excellent, and in their proper places. Sometimes, reflections naturally occur at the end of facts, which might be repeated as maxims. Few have ever so perfectly known the duties of different stations as madame de Maintenon. Bishops, ambassadors, generals, ministers, princes, and even nuns, are characterized, as if by accident, in her letters. When she addresses her directors, her expressions abound in candour and simplicity; and we are always surprised that not a word ever escapes, which discovers, or even raises, a suspicion of what she was. She paints originals which may be varied accidentally from what we see around us, by titles and badges, but at bottom they are specimens of human nature, such as it continually presents itself to view.

Of madame Sevigne she was still more eloquent in the praise. She maintained that no defect had ever been urged against this charming writer, but the perpetual repetition of tenderness for her daughter, amounting almost to adoration; which, however, she so varies and embellishes by the grace, elegance, and variety of her terms of endear

ment, that there must be something very misanthropic in the reader who is offended with them. It is certain, however, that she never had the least suspicion that her letters would be printed; and she was, doubtless, at liberty to write to her daughter in whatever manner she pleased. The style of these letters, though careless, is free from redundance; it is sweet and flowing, without insipidity. There are many beautiful thoughts which arise out of the subject, unsought; fragments of natural eloquence, which the greatest writers would not disavow; pleasantries of society, at which those can laugh who were not present; elegant narrations, with descriptions so exact, that we seem looking at the things described; puns, and a play of words, which bite without hurting; a fine irony, but no malice; and, throughout, we discover goodness of heart, tenderness and frankness, with a fund of good sense, wisdom, and religion.

One of the great benefits, continued my friend, which may be drawn from these delineations of private life, is the change of inclination, taste, ways of thinking and judging of individuals, observable in the course of twenty-five years, during which this correspondence lasted; the revolutions in the friendships, connections, and fortunes of those with whom we live; the unforeseen accidents and events: all constitute a true moving picture, which furnishes subjects for reflection on the prudence and precaution necessary in the choice, during early youth, not only of our friends, but of our common acquaintance.

I am pretty well acquainted with the French language, and am half resolved to undertake the perusal, or, as my friend advises, the study of these works; but, in spite of my deference to her judgment, I feel some little hesitation, which it will be in your power to remove, by joining in the same counsel.

I have lately read the letters of Cowper so often and so attentively, that I have them nearly by heart.

Could I find a woman who possessed the soul, the genius, and could write such letters as Cowper's, I should conceive a higher veneration for my sex than ever. Methinks Cowper ought to have been a woman; I see in him so many feminine qualities. His singularities, his timidity, reserve, nervous sensibility; these qualities, which do not exalt him as a man, would shine out as excellencies in a woman.

Can you tell me whether Maintenon and Sevigne had any degree of Cowper's spirit in their lives, or any of his genius in their letters? If they had, then will I read them most devoutly.

CLARA.

For the Literary Magazine.

SINGULARITIES.

THE English prints supply us with the following instances of character, somewhat worthy of being noted for their singularity:

Died, a short time since, the notorious Scots Moggy, alias Mary Grey, alias Wheeler, alias Barnsley. This character was universally admitted by the police officers to be the most expert pick-pocket in England. There was scarcely a fair or race between Berwick-upon-Tweed and the Land's End where she had not exercised her professional abilities. She originally came from Scotland, and married one of the notorious Wheelers, with whom she lived some years. On the arrival of another celebrated pick-pocket from Botany Bay, of the name of Barnsley, she took a great fancy to him, and left her husband. With this man she practised picking of pockets for several years, both in town and country. Although in person rather delicate, it was no unusual thing to see her on lord mayor's day, and other public occasions, in the greatest crowds, in conspiracy with the notorious gang of

hustlers, who have for so many years infested the metropolis. She was generally dressed in a very genteel style. About seven years ago she was at Bath, commiting her depredations, and at one of the churches received the sacrament; at the same time, the mayoress of Bath happening to be one of the communicants, Moggy observing her to have a very valuable gold watch, contrived to rob her of it before the conclusion of the solemn ordinance. She had several children, whom she kept at a boarding-school. Notwithstanding she had been several times tried on capital charges, she was always fortunate enough to escape punishment.

Died, at Lytham, in Lancashire, a man well known by the name of old Henry. Upwards of twenty years have elapsed since his first appear. ance at that place, and, during an uninterrupted residence till his death, no account of his parentage, place of nativity, or occupation, could never be enticed or extorted from him. He was never known to crave charity, otherwise than by the silent mode of exposing himself to the view of such of the inhabitants as were accustomed to relieve his wants. His reason seemed to have received a shock, from some cause or other, as, at intervals, he evinced a sound state of mind, both by his conversation, and his accurate display of writing and arithmetic ; and, at other times, showed evident marks of a disordered imagination. He said he was born in the year 1730, and would often gratify himself with talking about going to Beverley market. His dialect evidently seemed to have been collected from that part of Yorkshire. He called himself Henry Stephenson, and said he was a married man; but his communication always ceased, and his reflection seemed to recoil, at every question relating to the connections of his youthful days, the endearing ties of conjugal affection, or the pleasing and domestic scenes which must have attended him in early life.

For the Literary Magazine.

ON DIDACTIC POETRY AND THE GEORGICS.

IN consequence of the decision of Aristotle, many a servile critic has denied the rank and praise of poetry to didactic compositions. Many will argue, that Aristotle was as much in the right as Plutarch, and that Castelvetro was wrong. The stagirite pretended not to lay down rules a priori, but, from the best examples before him, formed a code of laws to guide the taste of his own and future ages. His judgment on the ode was formed from the sublime numbers of Pindar, and his notions of the epic from the nervous harmony of Homer; but, in the times of Aristotle, there was no didactic poet who vied with these great founders of lyric and heroic composition. Hesiod was a mere chronologist, and Theocritus, with much suavity of style, was too defective in spirit and energy for one inspired by the muses. The poem of Empedocles, "On the Nature of Things, and the Four Elements," is totally lost, but appears to be the only one that could plead in favour of didactic subjects, when Aristotle wrote. The candid and polite Lucretius has applauded Empedocles for this philosophic effusion, and his praise will endure as long as literature lives in any country; and the Grecian critic himself has condescended to denominate him "Homeric, energetic, metaphoric." But, nevertheless, he appears not to have possessed qualifications that entitled him to the name of poet in the judgment of Aristotle; and, after this attempt of Empedocles, he deemed it impossible for didactic subjects of any kind to be proper themes for the muse, and therefore excluded all such disquisitions from the list of poems.

But what Greece could not effect Rome amply accomplished. The sweet, sublime, and pathetic numbers of Lucretius and Virgil, both labourers in the didactic field, prove that Aristotle was in an error, and

leave no room to doubt, that, if he had written after these immortal bards, he would have as readily admitted the notion of didactic as of lyric or heroic poetry. The laws of Aristotle, therefore, being drawn from the patterns before him, and which extended no further than these patterns would justify, were perfect when written, but have been defective for many ages since. We are to revere him for having done all that was possible at the time in which he wrote: but critics of succeeding ages cannot profit by this plea, who, with the force of demonstration before them, still continue blind to its radiance, and slavishly fettered by the obsolete opinions of their master.

Every poet is a Midas; and though, unluckily, he cannot convert every thing he touches into gold, he can change it into poetry. A dry catalogue of ships was a pregnant theme in the hands of Homer; the symptoms of the plague in those of Lucretius; and a list of husbandmen's tools beneath the plastic power of Virgil. Nor is this magic metamorphosis unknown to modern times: Fracastorius has shown it in his poem on syphilis; Dyer in his description of wool-combing and weaving; and Armstrong in the symptoms of the sweating sickness; while Polignac has put into very good verse the tenets of Descartes on natural philosophy, and those of St. Augustin on free-will; and, as minor effusions, we might mention a poem in the Musæ Anglicanæ, on the circulation of the blood, and another on Dr. Hale's vegetable statics, which, indeed, are the best in the collection.

The Georgics, if they be not "the first poem of the first Roman poet," are at least the master-piece of Virgil himself. They possess his highest finish and his boldest originalities: he wrote them in the most perfect leisure and convenient privacy, and in the full strength and vigour of his age, when his judgment was at its height, and his imagination had not declined. They

occupied his sole attention for nearly five years, and were shown, as he proceeded, and probably subjected to the strictures of Horace and Macenas. He was the first Roman poet who had written on the subject of rural life. Indeed the poem may be deemed an original production; for though Nicander, a physician of Ionia, had long before compiled one upon the same subject, with the same title, this production was never in any high degree of repute, and Quintilian, in his catalogue of Grecian poets, scarcely condescends to mention the writer. The Georgics of Nicander have, however, been 'lost for ages; but we may be sure that, if they had any beauties worth transcribing, they are still to be found in the Latin bard, who never scrupled to copy from his predecessors every line. which he thought would enrich his own workmanship.

For the Literary Magazine.

SEA CURRENTS EXPLAINED.

THERE have been many theories adopted, for explaining the currents which are found in the ocean, moving not only without the impulse of wind, but sometimes in opposition to it. The following is the most recent of these theories, and probably the truest of them:

As the condensation of salt water with cold continues long after it has been cooled to the temperature at which fresh water freezes, those particles at the surface which are cooled by immediate contact with cold winds descend, and take their places at the bottom of the sea, where they remain, till, by regain ing heat, their specific gravity is again diminished. But this heat they never can regain in the polar regions because there is no principle of heat in the interior of the globe, which, by exhaling through the bottom of the ocean could communicate heat to the water which rests upon it.

The temperature of the earth at great depths under the surface is different in different latitudes, and this is also true with respect to the temperature at the bottom of the sea, so far as it is not influenced by the currents which flow over it; and this proves that the heat which exists, without any sensible change during summer and winter, at great depths, is owing to the action of the sun, and not to central fires, as some conclude.

The water of the ocean, which, on being deprived of a great part of its heat by cold winds, descends to the bottom of the sea, cannot be warmed where it descends, as its specific gravity is greater than that of water at the same depth in warmer latitudes, hence it will begin to spread on the bottom of the sea, and to flow towards the equator, and this must produce a current at the surface in an opposite direction; and there are proofs of the existence of both these currents.

What has been called the gulf stream, in the Atlantic Ocean, is that which moves from the equator towards the north pole, modified by the trade winds, and by the form of the continent of North America; and the progress of the lower current may be inferred from the cold which exists in the sea at great depths in warm latitudes; a degree of temperature much below the mean annual temperature of the earth in the latitudes where it has been found, and which of course must have been brought from colder latitudes.

The mean annual temperature in the latitude of 67 degrees has been determined to be 39 degrees; but lord Mulgrave found, on the 20th of June, when the temperature of the air was 484 degrees, that the temperature of the sea at the depth of 4680 feet was six degrees below freezing, or 26 degrees of Fahrenheit's thermometer.

On the 31st of August, in the latitude of 69 degrees, where the annual temperature is 38 degrees, the temperature of the sea at the depth