PLEASURES OF MEMORY,

forneut 129d VIT has been finely said of Euripides, that his imagination looked behind and before; and that his poetry is the linger ing echo of joys, that are past, and of hopes that are to come. This is a happy allusion to that noble passion, that bounds a thousand miles at a step; and that gentle one, which, in the language of the poet, "glides smoothly without step."nor No faculty of the mind produces more delight or more profit, than a memory, well stored and well regulated being the éhief antidote to iq mit 1676 9115BÍ

That days are tedious; but that years are short. Crabbe, } Those, who derive the most enjoyment from the exercise of this faculty, may be said to enjoy the longest lives: since, by bringing back a portion of their existence, those may, as Seneca finely observes, properly be said to have lived long, who draw all ages into one-and those to live but a short period, who forget the past, neglect the present, and are only solicitous about the future.

How delightful it is to remember those, we esteem, and admire, during a concert: -How captivating is the thought of them, in the midst of sublime or beautiful scenery,

With what lively pleasure, too, does our imagination rest upon scenes, among which our earlier years were passed! These associations are acknowledged by all orders of men; though it follows, of necessity, that the charm of recollection must depend on circumstances, tastes, and manners. DANTE, goaded and irritated in manhood, doubly felt the loss of those hours of comparative delight, spent in the society of a mother, the most accomplished woman of the age, in which she lived. Tasso,of a milder and more gentle nature, enjoyed the same pathetic associations. SPENSER had equal advantages; and the days of satisfaction, enjoyed by MILTON in his earlier years, are frequently alluded to in his poetical works; more

particularly in those, written in the language, and after the best manner, of Tibullus.

These impressions were not unknown to Diocletian;-they were still more vividly felt by Henry IV. of France; and Bernadotte, on the throne of Sweden, re-enjoys the hours of infancy and boyhood every day. Madame Necker, too, remembered, in the midst of Parisian elegance and splendour, all the retired graces of her childhood; passed in a valley, in the bosom of which she imbibed the purest of instruction from the lips of her father; and qualified her mind and her heart to shed lustre over the public labours, and retired enjoyments, of the first statesman of his age.

HAYDN whose musical memory my soul loves!—Haydn, loaded, with years and with glory, derived the most solid of enjoyments, when tuning those simple airs, which he had been accustomed to sing with his father and mother; when, being a child, he stood between them, and beat time with two pieces of wood: one of which served him as a violin; and the other as a bow. RUBENS, in the zenith of his subsequent fame, always turned with pleasure to the time, when he studied under Van Veen; and when he laid the foundation of his eminence in the society of that painter's two beautiful daughters, Gertrude and Cornelia; both of whom arrived at distinction in their father's profession. ROUSSEAU charmed his imagination with the airs, which, in a voice of sweetness, his aunt was accustomed to sing, "To her," says he, "I attribute that passion for music, which has always distinguished me.

Equally agreeable, and still more sublime, were the associations of the BARON DE HUMBOLDT, when crossing the Equinoctial regions. Early in life, that accomplished traveller had imbibed an ardent wish to visit those latitudes; where he might behold the constellations, ranged around the Southern Pole.

The Marquis de e Paulmy becoming proprietis chief

of a palace at Paris, once belonging to Henry IV., is said to have placed his happiness iness in livin living surrounded by those objects which Henry IV and. Sully had gazed on and touched." Every thing was in the state, left by that illustrious monarch.

Impatient to visit that hemisphere, he could not raise his eyes to heaven, without indulging the silent charm of meditating on the Cross. When, therefore, his favourite wish was realised, impossible is it to describe the solemn interest with which he beheld the two magnificent stars, that mark the foot and summit of the southern Cross, appear above the horizon, and become almost perpendicular at the moment, in which it passes the meridian. The remembrance of his early years instantly fascinated his imagination; and he repeated, with enthusiasm, the following fine passage from the Paradisio of Dante. Io mi volsi a man destra e posi mente All' altro polo e vidi quattro stelle Non viste mai fuor ch' alla prima gente.

Goder parca lo ciel di lor fiammelle;
O settentrional vedovo sito

Poi che privato se' di mirar quelle !

Few can estimate the rapture with which RoUSSEAU wrote the first part of his Confessions at the castle of Eri. Every thing, as he acknowledges, he had to recollect, was a new source of enjoyment; the beautiful scenes, he had beheld; the mountains, he had traversed; the lakes, he had navigated; the rivers, he had crossed; and the remembrance of the finest portion of his years, left in his heart a thousand impressions, which he loved incessantly to recall to recollection. The Abbé OLIVET, too, always remembered with pleasure the sensations, with which he used, in his infancy, to wander in the gardens of Benserade, at Gentilly; where every tree and every spot possessed a relic of his genius. The recollections of MARMONTEL, also, were sources of real comfort and alleviation to him, at the period, when the demon of license passed over the horizon of France: when

No spot was hallowed; sacred, no retreat;
No realm a sure asylum could afford,

From fraud, injustice, rapine, and the sword a.

Yriarte.-Belfour.

a I never read ROGERS' Pleasures of Memory without a sensation, as it were, allied to poetry. Its variety of imagery, its harmonious versification, its

For in the hour of sickness or misfortune, memory, by that magic power, with which it is gifted, suspends, for a time, the acutest torments; while old age, if life has been well spent, receives as great a consolation from its properties, as youth enjoys from the flattering whispers of hope.-HOPE ! the nepenthe of the heart, the restorer of the languid, the medicine and refuge of the miserable. Hope is always a lamp both to the young and the old; Memory an harmonica at one time, and worse than a bagpipe at another.

ON THE TRIALS AND CAPRICES OF FORTUNE.

THE scholiasts number five methods of acquiring knowledge: observation, reading, listening, conversation, and meditation. They leave out the most important;-suffering. But mere scholars, and men, who have been rich from their birth, and continue so till the hour of their death, ought never to take so great a liberty with common sense, as to think, they have ever possessed a thorough knowledge of mankind. Felicity was deified by the Greeks and Romans; but they found

pathos, melancholy tenderness, and delicacy of sentiment, win upon the imagination, and charm us into an awakenment of every finer as well as every nobler feeling. The poem seems, indeed, to address itself to us thus :

"The heart, that loves me not, is rough."

In a blank leaf of ROGERS' Pleasures of Memory, at the British Museum, are the following MS. couplets

Χωρματα Μνημοσύνης, μη ψευδη μος λέγε, Μυσα,

Αλγεα του μνημη καν εθερεν το μελος.

Gaudia! num memor es, dic, mendax musa, dolores?

Hunc meminisse, librum me meminisse dolet.

Pleasures of Memory, say you? pains were better !

The book were then entitled to the letter.

Pleasures of Memory; 'tis a living lie;

Such all will find BOOK, MAN, and MEMORY.

Passing, some years since, through the flower-garden belonging to Holland House, I observed the following lines over a covered seat :—

Here ROGERS sat; and here for ever dwell,

To me, those pleasures, that he sung so well.

Vassal Holland.

her the most ungrateful of all the deities. The Scythians représented Fortune, as a woman having hands and wings, but not a foot to stand upon; yet many men think misfortune not only a disgrace, but a crime, till they come to be unfortu nate themselves: and then they see, that those are superficial, who assert, that every misfortune may be prevented by courage or by prudence. They find, too, that fortune not only triumphs over folly and imprudence, but over wisdom and virtue. Many worthy persons, however, seriously fancy their good fortune to be the result of their own management; when all, they have to do, is to sit still, and keep themselves warm!

Fortune, in robbing a man of his property, is not always so cruel, as she is represented: for she frequently gives pride of heart and peace of mind as equivalents. This pride and this peace are shields, consolations, equivalents; nay more than equivalents; they are rewards. For love and peace not unfrequently spring out of misfortune; as naturally as flowers rise out of beds of lava.

They speak profoundly, who say, that the world is like a theatre; where the best judges are obliged to sit in the worst places. But they would speak more profoundly still, if they were to add, that the best judges, notwithstanding the badness of their seats, frequently enjoy the spectacle more to the comfort of their hearts, than those, who sit on velvet cushions.

Sweet are the uses of adversity;

Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,

Bears yet a precious jewel in its head *.

1.. Misfortunes never assume so difficult a character, as in their perspective: anticipation, like island crystal, making every object appear double: while faith in ultimate justice operates as a convex mirror; in which every object appears less. No man need feel ashamed of sorrow! Sophocles makes even Hercules sink beneath impressions of vicissitude. The man For the origin of this fable, vid. Plin. N. H. xxxvii. Philostratus in Vit. Apollon. iii. 8.