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ble liberality amongst his relations, to promote whose happiness was an object that always seemed to animate his exertions. Native diffidence promoted his favourite views, for he was unconscious of his merit, when improvement was to be obtained. Knowing that the painter's great secret is to learn to imitate nature, he disdained to make a mystery of his art, but was always ready to communicate without jealousy the result of his observation and experience. Although he was unable to devote much time to reading, yet he by no means neglected the improvement of his intellect, for it was his delight to procure a friend to read to him when painting. He had pursued with taste and attention many of the most approved English authours, and with a mind naturally acute and discriminating, selected and retained what he read.

As Miniature was the department he chose, it limited those powers which would have been eminent even in historick painting;but it was a style peculiarly congenial to the benevolence of his feelings. He imparted such life to the ivory, and produced always such striking resemblances, that they will never fail to perpetuate the tenderness of friendship, to divert the cares of absence, and to aid affection in dwelling on those features and that image, which death has forever wrested from it.

His style of painting was chaste and correct, his colouring clear and judiciously wrought, and his taste altogether derived from a just contemplation of nature-In his female heads particularly, there was, when his subject permitted, an enchanting delicacy and beauty. We have never seen a pencil more happy in representing "the mild light of love," the "Lumen purpureum Juventa." For these excellencies he would not suf fer even from a comparison with Guido or Albani.

The memory of such a man will long be preserved with respect by those who knew him; his pencil, whose language is universal, will rescue his name from oblivion.

ORIGINAL POETRY.

For The Port Folio.

MR. OLDSCHOOL.

Having, unexpectedly, a little leisure, I am enabled to present you, before my departure, with a few more specimens of the poetry of INDIANUS, some of which you may perhaps think not totally unworthy of a place in your interesting miscellany. I must repeat, however, that I will not be answerable for their merits-neither Euterpe nor Calliope ever favoured me with their smiles or honoured with their friendship; to you, therefore, as their minister and confidant, I shall consign the verses in question, convinced that whatever may be your decision, it will be the result of a taste and judgment discriminating and impartial.

FRAGMENT

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Of Scipio's virtues and of Virgil's fame.
Is this, I musing paused, the fate of power?
Of arms heroick and of boasted arts,
The final doom? Is this the end of man!
Sudden a form, than human more appear'd
In Roman drapery clad; in withered hand
He held a glass that told the parting hour,
And rays ethereal circled o'er his brow,
His aged step and double visage spoke,
Janus, the hoary sovereign of years,
And slow in solemn speech, he thus began.
"Lament not, erring mortal, o'er the fall
Of gorgeous greatness and of guilty power
Throned on the ruins of a groaning world,
Turn from the blood-stained page to bright-

er scenes

Favour'd by Heaven and dear to free-born

man.

Ere Time began to roll his length of years, The present, future, and the past I knew.

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Mild modest muse, oh! once again,
Inspire your poet's humble strain,
So may the bard a wreath ent wine,
Sacred to love, and mirth and wine.
Lethe's streams that oft impart
Useful oblivion to the heart,
Can never form its station there,
Remove the image of my Fair;
Even the loud din of Mars's train
That haunts us on the direful plain
In vain would try, with ceaseless art,
Alas! to tear her from my heart.

Bacchus' sons that love the vine
And oft, in sportive mood, entwine
Curling wreaths to deck the hair,
Kindred wreaths shall now prepare,
Unite the myrtle to the vine
Sacred to love and mirth and wine.
INDIANUS.

JOHN E. HALL, Esq. of Baltimore, has completed, and will speedily publish a Translation of " PRAXIS SUPREME CURIE ADMIRALITATIS," written by Francis Clerke, who was Register of the Court of Arches, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. This is almost the only work on the practice of the Admiralty Court, and is esteemed as unquestionable authority at the bar. A translation of the third edition was published, about the com mencement of the last century; but the fifth edition, which Mr. Hall has used, possess. es the advantage of much additional mat ter, both in the text and the notes. The present work will contain notes on the practice in this country, and a variety of such precedents as have been established in our own courts of maritime jurisdic

tion.

The accuracy, learning and talents of MR. HALL powerfully recommend his work; and as its subject is not confined to the law and the practice of this state, there can be no doubt of its being considered as a valuable gift to the American Bar ge nerally.

The price of The Port Foic is Six Dollars per annum, to be paid in advance,

Printed and Published, for the Editor, by SMITH & MAXWELL, NO. 28, NORTH SECOND-STREET.

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Various, that the mind of desultory man, studious of change and pleased with novelty, may be indulged-Cowp.

Vol. V.

Philadelphia, Saturday, April 2, 1808.

For The Port Folio.
TRAVELS.

ORIGINAL PAPERS.

LETTERS FROM GENEVA AND FRANCE.

Written during a residence of between two and three years in different parts of those countries, and addressed to a lady in Virginia.

-quâ me quoque possim
Tollere humo.
VIR.

Je dirai j'étais là, telle chose m'advint,
Vous y croyriez être vous-mêmes.

LA FONTAINE.
(Continued from page 194.)
LETTER IX.

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No. 14.

phical dictionary, or common book of travels will give you an ample account of this well known city, of its academy, its Floral games, of its capitols, and of the Calas family. It is situa ted in a fertile country, and in the vicinity of the canal; neither its trade, however, nor its population have been ever such, as might have been expected, and are both much declined, since the revolution: it is, in a few words, a large, old-fashioned gloomy place, with several ancient and venerable churches, with a handsome theatre, and with a choice of beautiful publick walks. Of the canal, which terminates within a short distance of the city, on forming a junction with the Garonne, you may easily conceive the importance by placing a map of Europe before you, and by observing that it connects the navigation of the Mediterranean with that of the Atlan tick. See what a length of stormy sea is avoided from Cette, through the straits of Gibraltar, along the coasts of Spain and Portugal, and across the never-ceasing glory of Louis the XIV bay of Biscay; see and admire the in having effected that which is honourable to the Romans even to have Bb

thought of. From the waters of the Mediterranean to those of the Garonne, near Thoulouse, the distance is near two hundred and ten miles, along which space, and notwithstanding the intervening obstacles, of rivers, of mountains and of an inequality of six hundred feet, an uninterrupted intercourse is kept up by boats, some of which draw five feet water, and are of the burthen of four hundred tons. This required, as you may suppose, a great number of locks, with all the contrivances in use to guard against too much water, and to provide enough, and had I been differently situated, I could very well have employed a month in examining them.

This magnificent work was planned and in a great measure executed by a gentleman of the name of Riquet; such services are surely the best sources of distinction in society, and they found in Louis XIV, who upon some occasions knew how to act the monarch to perfection, the reward which they deserved; the family of Riquet was ennobled, they were exclusively intrusted with the manage

It appears, by the memoirs of Besenyal,

ment of the canal in perpetuity, and were authorized to apply the profits arising from the tolls to their own use: but, in the late unhappy period of the revolution, the family having remained faithful to the descendant of their benefactor, became liable to the penalties of emigration, and lost their estate by confiscation.

The number of men employed in digging the channel, and construct ing the works, was never less than eight thousand for fourteen years, and they were sometimes increased to twelve thousand, and the expense incurred was about a million sterling : the present annual expense for repairs and attendance is about seventeen thousand ponds sterling, but the government derives an income of nearly twenty five thousand pounds from the tolls, clear of all deductions, and the saving to the community at large is not less than two hundred thousand pounds a year.

If the sum appear a large one, you must look at what Adam Smith says in his Wealth of Nations, on the comparative advantages of land and water carriage: a vessel of two hundred tons, and navigated by six men,

that after Riquet had made some experi-plying between Leith and London is

ments which convinced the most incredu lous that his plan was practicable, and had obtained the consent and approbation of the government, it was still impossible to be. gin the undertaking for want of money; Colbert with every good wish for the sucsess of so noble an enterprise, could advance nothing, and the monied men of the times were too well satisfied with the interest they received to venture their fund, upon a scheme in any degree uncertain. It occured at length to Riquet that it might promote his views to be thought intimate with the superintendant of the treasury, and he prevailed upon Colbert to consent, that he should enter his cabinet, without knocking at the door at a time when he should be known to be in conference with the former general of the revenue-it might have ap. peared an accidental thing the first time, and the experiment was therefore repeated. Riquet found afterwards no difficulty in getting as many subscriptions as he wanted; every body was now desirous of being concerned with a person who was so much in the confidence of Col. Morrie w Colbert, as to be in the habit of entering his cabinet without knocking.

shown to be equal in effect to fifty waggons, drawn by four hundred horses, and conducted by one hundred men: and Michaux, a very well-informed traveller, says that the inhabitants of our upper country, at the distance of fifty miles from Pittsburg find it easier and cheaper to send their produce for sale to New-Orleans by Pitsburg, along a stream of 2100 miles, than to have it conveyed to Baltimore, at the distance of little more than 100.

At the Museum of Thoulouse, we saw some good pictures and casts of antique statues, there were some busts also, and one in particular, of a Roman lady, which must have been executed at least fourteen hundred years before the discovery of America; her face was that of a pretty woman, and notwithstanding her very great age, it was full of life, and

her hair was dressed precisely in the modern fashion. In my walks over the town, I could never get the better of the impression which had been made upon my mind on entering it; but the environs are beautiful; on one side, a stately bridge connects them with the city, and from that bridge we had a much nearer pros pect of the Pyrenees than before, and could perceive the snow already fallen in several places. We here remedied the defects of our carriage for a trifle more than seven Louis, and after two day's residence in what seemed then, and still seems the worst inn we ever stopt at, we again set forward. I was sorry to leave a place so renowned in history as Thoulouse and so much spoken of by travellers, after so short a stay; but your brother was before us, the expense was great, and more of our senses were in continual sufferance than I would wish to enumerate: from such a place the transition into well cultivated fields and loaded vineyards amidst carts and baskets filled with grapes, and all the hurry, plenty and jovialness of the vintage, was really delightful.

We were

seemed about twenty, had her first child in a cradle by her in the neat little parlour she conducted us into, was rather handsome, had brilliant eyes, and all that politeness and that unaffected grace, which nature seems sometimes to go out of her way, in order to bestow on her favourites: the lady's husband, who shortly after joined us from his vintage, was a well behaved, well looking man of thirty, who had gone out a private soldier to Egypt, had served the whole of the war there, and had returned a non-commissioned officer of dragoons: there could be no want of conversation with such a person and I passed a couple of hours with him very agreeably. It was very customary he told me during the siege of Alexandria for the advanced sentinels to approach each other amicably, after a signal given and returned, and to exchange their rations, the British giving pork and sometimes brandy, and the French bread; it was allowed in their army that the descent of General Abercrombie was a very gallant exploit: a bo dy of boats was seen at a distance laying on their oars, as a bird of prey is seen floating in the air over the spot it is about to dart upon; until at length they began to move, and three distinct lines were observed approach

Our course, if you will allow me a sea term, was generally in the direction of the canal, and we frequently saw and sometimes crossed it; the banks were everywhere planted with Lombardy Poplars, and the locks ap-ing, protected by gunboats at their peared in perfect order. soon at the little town of Bazieges, and were on the point of setting off with fresh horses, and as usual at a full gallop from the post house, when it was perceived and pointed out to us by an idle by-stander, that the nut which ought to contain one of the hind wheels had worked off and been lost; detention in such a place was disagreeable, but nothing when compared to the evil we had escaped; we submitted, therefore, with a good grace, had the carriage dragged opposite to the blacksmith's and were looking about us where there was nothing to be seen, when a lady stept out of a neighbouring house, and invited us to take shelter there she

:

extremeties, preserving the most exact order, and rowing, as if by clock work: not a soldier appeared, but the seamen were erect, and seemed insensible to the French artillery, which thundered upon them from the batteries among the sand hills, and from the fort of Abousir: the action commenced at the water side and even in the boats, but the French were soon overpowered: though liberal in his praises of the British seamen, he would not allow their soldiers any great degree of merit: on my asking him, however, if they did not deserve some credit for their march in order of battle a day or two after the descent and for repulsing the attack of Menou, I would not say for defeating

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