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For the Literary Magazine.

PRIZE MEDALS OFFERED BY THE HUMANE SOCIETY OF PHILADELPHIA.

THE society have observed, with gratitude and admiration, the labours of the many learned and ingenious benefactors of mankind, who have advanced, to a high degree of improvement, the means to be employed in restoring to life those who have been apparently deprived thereof. But they have, at the same time, to regret, that notwithstanding much good hath been done, yet these means very often fail of success. In order to excite public attention towards the further improvement of so important a part of medical science, the society is induced to offer,

For the best dissertation on the means of restoring to life persons apparently dead from drowning, and more effectual than any yet in

use, a GOLD MEDAL, value FIFTY DOLLARS.

For the second best, a SILVER MEDAL, value TWENTY-FIVE DOL

LARS.

The dissertations to be sent to the secretary of the society, post paid, by the first day of January, 1808.

They may be written in the English, French, or Latin language, to be accompanied with a sealed paper, containing the author's name and place of residence, which is not to be opened, unless the prize is decreed.

They shall be submitted to the judgment and decision of the medical professors of the University of Pennsylvania.

The society entertain the pleasing hope, that to some of their fellow citizens is reserved the heartfelt satisfaction and honourable reward of improving this truly interesting part of useful knowledge, and of announcing to the world an important addition to the means already in use for restoring suspended animation.

By order of the managers of the Humane Society,

JOSEPH CRUKSHANK,
President.
ISAAC SNOWDEN, jun.
Secretary.

Philadelphia, Dec. 11th, 1805.

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The hearts of all round you might break,
While you are enwrapt in a dream.
Too long, O too long, you have slept,
To the meltings of pity unknown,
While I with the mourner have wept,
And made all his sorrows my own.

"The voice of sweet pity assume,
It may something like comfort convey,
At least it may steal from the gloom
That's wearing our kinsman away.
Let echo reply to a strain,

The tend❜rest that sympathy knows:
It fails not to soften our pain,

When others partake of our woes.

"Sure sympathy warm from the heart
May easily dictate the lay,
Nor eloquence fail to impart

The unsodded grave of a friend
Taught something like numbers to
flow;

Nor favour I look'd to attend,

My heart was alive but to woe.

"My pen since a solace has prov'd,
Though weak, it imparted relief,
It was the companion I lov d,

I found it a rival to grief.
Fate destines to some paths of flow'rs,

I prove one with brambles o'ergrown,
Yet alive to sweet sympathy's pow'rs,

The woes of my friends are my own.

"The sorrow, Maria, that wears
The form of Alexis away
My bosom in sympathy shares,
I've wept them by night and by day:

What ambition might seek to pour. Yet sympathy warm from my heart

tray.

O let him not sorrow alone,

The desolate victim of fate;
Your heart, once to feeling so prone,
Seems strangely unfeeling of late."

"Maria, nay tempt me no more,"

Said Mira," my pen to resume;
Those days of indulgence are o'er,
I've wrapt me in apathy's gloom.
The verse, the employment of hours
While all those around me have slept,
The world, by its censuring powers,
Of every charm have bereft.

They deem it the offspring of pride,
Of a daring and arrogant mind;
Ambition, 'tis said, is my guide,

My talents are light as the wind.
Perhaps they may make it appear:
Yet little I know of my heart
If it shelters a thought insincere,
Or wears the entrappings of art.

"To error I feel I am prone,

I feel it each morning I see ;
Yet a treasure there is to atone,
A mercy unbounded and free.
Though frailties and many are mine,
I am not ambitious of fame,
I never have bow'd at its shrine,
From the world I have nothing to
claim.

"The talent that nature bestow'd Is feeble, most feeble, I own, Afar from the muse's abode,

I've ponder'd, unsmil'd on, alone.

Will not lull his sorrows to rest, Nor strains, though enflower'd by art, Give ease to his tortured breast.

"To cheer his disconsolate mind,

The sea I as soon could becalm;
Or stay by my hand the strong wind,
As find for his sorrows a balm.
Oh, no! there is none to be found,
Where a sensitive mind is possess'd,
For cruel ingratitude's wound

On the core of the bosom imprest.

"The power that meant he should feel
So deeply, by giving the mind,
That power his sorrows must heal,

The heart that is broken must bind.
Then tempt me, Maria, no more

The strain once so lov'd to resume, Those days of indulgence are o'er, I've wrapt me in apathy's gloom.

"Should heaven a favour bestow,

This boon, and this only I crave,
Let me pass through this valley of woe,
Uncensur'd, unknown, to the grave.
Yet let not my foes, who abound,

Once think I crave mercy from them;
Is mercy with hyenas found?

Know they justice who love to condemn ?"

She ceas'd; and I saw through the bow'r,

Through parting of leaves I could

trace

The aching heart's eloquent power
On a sorrow and time-injur'd face.

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JOHN CONRAD & CO. PHILADELPHIA; M. & J. CONRAD & co. BALTIMORE; SOMERVELL & CONRAD, PETERSBURG; AND BONSAL, CONRAD, & co.

NORFOLK.

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

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