"Reason alone must claim direction,
And Apathy's the soul's perfection.
Like a dull lake the heart must lie,
Nor passion's gale nor pleasure's sigh,

Though heaven the breeze, the breath supplied,
Must curl the wave or swell the tide !"

Such was the rigid Zeno's plan
To form his philosophic man;
Such were the modes he taught mankind
To weed the garden of the mind;
They tore away some weeds, 'tis true,
But all the flowers were ravished too!

Now listen to the wily strains
Which, on Cyrené's sandy plains,

(When Pleasure, nymph with loosened zone,
Usurped the philosophic throne)—
Hear what the courtly sage's* tongue
To his surrounding pupils sung:

"Pleasure's the only noble end

To which all human powers should tend,
And Virtue gives her heavenly lore
But to make Pleasure please us more!
Wisdom and she were both designed
To make the senses more refined,
That man might revel, free from cloying,
Then most a sage when most enjoying!'

Is this morality?—Oh, no!

E'en I a wiser path could show.
The flower within this vase confined,
The pure, the unfading flower of mind,
Must not throw all its sweets away
Upon a mortal mould of clay;

No, no! its richest breath should rise
In virtue's incense to the skies!

But thus it is, all sects we see
Have watch-words of morality!
Some cry out Vens, others Jove;

Here 'tis religion, there 'tis love!

But while they thus so widely wander,

While mystics dream, and doctors ponder;

And some, in dialectics firm,

Seek virtue in a middle term;

While thus they strive, in Heaven's defiance,

To chain morality with science;

The plain good man, whose actions teach
More virtue than a sect can preach,

Aristippus

3

Pursues his course, unsagely blest,
His tutor whispering in his breast:
Nor could he act a purer part,
Though he had Tully all by heart;
And when he drops the tear on woe,
He little knows or cares to know
That Epictetus blamed that tear,
By Heaven approved, to virtue dear!

Oh! when I've seen the morning beam
Floating within the dimpled stream;
While Nature, wakening from the night.
Has just put on her robes of light,
Have I, with cold optician's gaze,
Explored the doctrine of those rays?
No, pedants, I have left to you
Nicely to separate hue from hue:
Go, give that moment up to art

When Heaven and Nature claim the heart;
And, dull to all their best attraction,
Go-measure angles of refraction!
While I, in feeling's sweet romance,
Look on each day-beam as a glance
From the great eye of Him above,
Wakening his world with looks of love!

THE NATAL GENIUS, A DREAM.
TO, THE MORNING OF HER BIRTH-DAY,

IN witching slumbers of the night,
I dreamed I was the airy sprite

That on thy natal moment smiled;
And thought I wafted on my wing
Those flowers which in Elysium spring,
To crown my lovely mortal child.

With olive-branch I bound thy head,
Heart's-ease along thy path I shed,

Which was to bloom through all thy years;
Nor yet did I forget to bind

Love's roses, with his myrtle twined,

And dewed by sympathetic tears.

Such was the wild but precious boon
Which Fancy, at her magic noon,

Bade me to Nona's image pay-
Oh! were I, love, thus doomed to be
Thy little guardian deity,

How blest around thy steps I'd play !

Thy life should softly steal along,
Calm as some lonely shepherd's song

That's heard at distance in the grove;
No cloud should ever shade thy sky,
No thorns along thy pathway lie,

But all be sunshine, peace, and love!

The wing of Time should never brush
Thy dewy lip's luxuriant flush,

To bid its roses withering die;
Nor age itself, though dim and dark,
Should ever quench a single spark

That flashes from my Nona's eye!

217

THE principal poems in the following collection were written during an absence of fourteen months from Europe. Though curiosity was certainly not the motive of my voyage to America, yet it happened that the gratification of curiosity was the only advantage which I derived from it. Finding myself in the country of a new people, whose infancy had promised so much, and whose progress to maturity has been an object of such interesting speculation, I determined to employ the short period of time which my plan of return to Europe afforded me in travelling through a few of the States, and acquiring some knowledge of the inhabitants.

The impression which my mind received from the character and manners of these republicans suggested the Epistles which are written from the City of Washington and Lake Erie. How far I was right, in thus assuming the tone of a satirist against a people whom I viewed but as a stranger and a visitor, is a doubt which my feelings did not allow me time to investigate. All I presume to answer for is the fidelity of the picture which I have given; and though prudence might have dictated gentler language, truth, I think, would have justified severer.

I went to America with prepossessions by no means unfavourable, and indeed rather indulged in many of those illusive ideas, with respect to the purity of the Government and the primitive happiness of the people, which I had early imbibed in my native country, where, unfortunately, discontent at home enhances every distant temptation, and the western world has long been looked to as a retreat from real or imaginary oppression; as the Elysian Atlantis where persecuted patriots might find their visions realized, and be welcomed by kindred spirits to liberty and repose. I was completely disappointed in every flattering expectation which I had formed, and was inclined to say to America, as Horace says to his mistress, "intentata nites." Brissot, in the preface to his travels, observes, that "freedom in that country is carried to so high a degree as to border upon a state of nature ;" and there certainly is

a close approximation to savage life, not only in the liberty which they enjoy, but in the violence of party spirit and of private animosity which results from it. This liberal zeal embitters all social intercourse; and, though I scarcely could hesitate in selecting the party whose views appeared the more pure and rational, yet I was sorry to observe that, in asserting their opinions, they both assume an equal share of intolerance; the Democrats, consistently with their principles, exhibiting a vulgarity of rancour which the Federalists too often are so forgetful of their cause as to imitate.

The rude familiarity of the lower orders, and indeed the unpolished state of society in general, would neither surprise nor disgust if they seemed to flow from that simplicity of character, that honest ignorance of the gloss of refinement, which may be looked for in a new and inexperienced people. But, when we find them arrived at maturity in most of the vices, and all the pride, of civilization, while they are still so remote from its elegant characteristics, it is impossible not to feel that this youthful decay, this crude anticipation of the natural period of corruption, represses every sanguine hope of the future energy and greatness of America.

I am conscious that, in venturing these few remarks, I have said just enough to offend, and by no means sufficient to convince; for the limits of a preface will not allow me to enter into a justification of my opinions, and I am committed on the subject as effectually as if I had written volumes in their defence. My reader, however, is apprised of the very cursory observation upon which these opinions are founded, and can easily decide for himself upon the degree of attention or confidence which they merit.

With respect to the poems in general, which occupy the following pages, I know not in what manner to apologize to the public for intruding upon their notice such a mass of unconnected trifles, such a world of epicurean atoms, as I have here brought in conflict together. To say that I have been tempted by the liberal offers of my bookseller is an excuse which can hope for but little indulgence from the critic; yet I own that, without this seasonable inducement, these poems very possibly would never have been submitted to the world. The glare of publication is too strong for such imperfect productions: they should be shown but to the eye of friendship in that dim light of privacy which is as favourable to poetical as to female beauty, and serves as a veil for faults, while it enhances every charm which it displays. Besides, this is not a period for the idle occupations of poetry, and times like the present require talents more active and more useful. Few have now the leisure to read such trifles, and I sincerely regret that I have had the leisure to write them.

TO LORD VISCOUNT STRANGFORD.

ABOARD THE PHAETON FRIGATE, OFF THE AZORES.
By Moonlight.

SWEET Moon! if, like Crotona's sage,
By any spell my hand could dare