RUBENS.

WHEN some alchymist, who pretended that he had discovered the philosopher's stone, offered to disclose his secret to Rubens; that great artist laughingly told him he needed it not, for that his pencil had long acquired the power of converting every thing it touched into gold.

LAURA.

WHEN Petrarch first beheld Laura, she was dressed in green. and her gown was embroidered with violets. Her face, her air, her gait, were something more than mortal. Her person was delicate, her eyes tender and sparkling, and her eye-brows black as ebony. Golden locks waved over her shoulders whiter than snow: and the ringlets were interwoven by the fingers of Love. Her neck was well formed, and her complexion animated by the tints of nature, which art vainly attempts to imitate, When she opened her mouth you perceived the beauty of pearls and the sweetness of roses. She was full of graces; nothing was so soft as her looks, so modest as her carriage, so touching as the sound of her voice. An air of gaiety and tenderness breathed around her, but so pure and happily tempered, as to inspire every beholder with the sentiments of virtue for she was chaste as the spangled dew-drop of the morn.

DAPHNE.

Vie de Petrarch.

DAPHNE was the daughter of the river Peneus; the gods changed her into a laurel, to shelter her from the pursuit of Apollo, who ran after her along the banks of this river. "Since you cannot be my wife," said he," you shall be my laurel," From that time the laurel tree was consecrated to that god. And from the laurel being thus consecrated to the god of poetry, they afterward crowned the poets with it.

THE MUSES,

THESE renowned sisters are said at first to have been in number the same as the Graces, consisting of Mnemosyne-Memory; Melete--Meditation; and Eide-Song. Their augmentation to the number of nine has been thus accounted for-" The inhabitants of their ancient towns, being desirous of placing their statues in the temple of Apollo, ordered three of the most skilful sculptors to execute the three each, making together the number nine, from which it was proposed to select the three most perfect; but the nine were so beautiful it was agreed to take them all. They were accordingly set up in the temple, and called the nine Muses, the six other attributes of poetry being given to the additional sisters; the names of the original three were subsequently changed."

THE ROSE.

ONE day I pull'd a rose so fair,
Which Julia in her bosom plac'd.
I said, sweet rose, till planted there,
Thy beauty never was outgrac'd.

Her bosom warm'd; its heaving throes
So modestly did she conceal;
That to have been the rivall'd rose,
I would have given half my weal,

The rose's envy could not brook
The rival beauty of the maid:
Its wonted sprightliness forsook;
Its boasted beauty 'gan to fade.
So, Julia, may thy beauty bloom;

For ere thy charms can rivall'd be,
Fate will have seal'd the general doom,
And dropt into eternity.

T.

DIRGE, SUNG BY ORPHEUS AND CHORUS OF THRACIAN VIRGINS OVER THE TOMB

"Linus was the inventor of Poetry, and the first who introduced the Phoenician letters into Greece. Some say he was a native of Euboea."

PLAN AND ARRANGEMENT OF THE "MAGNET.”

ORIGINAL Papers form the first and principal portion of each number. They comprise Essays, Fictions, Sketches of Character, Delineations of Manners, notices of the Belles Lettres, at once light, and interesting.

The second part of each sheet contains Reviews, with copious Extracts, of the most attractive new publications.

The remaining pages are reserved for Miscellaneous Matters, including Poetry, a choice selection of Jeux d'Esprit, &c.

Contributors of acknowledged talent are engaged to each department; amongst whom are several Scholars in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge; and they have the assistance and co-operation of writers, distinguished by their eminence in the literary world. A correspondence is established with several literary characters in France and Italy, whose communications will materially tend to enrich its pages.

Each number will, in general, form a complete publication by itself, and yet will be part of a consecutive and uniform series, which, when bound up together, with the plates, will constitute an interesting collection for future reference, and a beautiful addition to the library of the scholar and the gentleman.

The ILLUSTRATIONS will be executed by the best Artists on steel and copper, and are inserted in every fourth number and part.

UNITY AND VARIETY.

GRAVELY to admonish the youthful aspirant after happiness on his first entrance into life, or the lover who awaits with anxious and expectant thoughts the promised interview, that there is no certainty of happiness in this sublunary vale-that all is mutability, all is vanity--will neither abate his ardour nor convince his mind. In reality, "all in this world is not change," as Crabbe justly observes in his dedication of the Tales of the Hall." There is a unity in variety. Six thousand years have nearly elapsed, and yet we have a constant recurrence of the same objects. The motions of the heavenly bodies, and the rotations and diurnal movements of this our own fair-looking sphere, have been ever the same. Nor do animals differ. The whale of the present day may, for aught we know, be the same creature as the behemoth or leviathan of scripture; or if that latter animal were the crocodile, we have crocodiles yet in existence, although they now learn to seize their prey without tears. The bones of the mammoth, which name importetli "animal of the earth," discovered by a Siberian fisherman on the banks of some river in that frightful region, do, indeed, rise up to terrify us, as they present to our view the hideous structure of some antediluvian animal which holds no affinity with the present orders of created existence. And in our own country we have been recently horrified by the discovery of certain caves in Yorkshire, containing the bones of elephants, tigers, and hyænas. In all this there is a variety in unity. We have learned, also, to vary our opinions respecting the external aspect of the earth. Ye Andes, "hide your diminished heads." Had Messrs. Humboldt and Bompland estimated the exact height of the Himalayan mountains, they might have spared themselves the toil and exertion of ascending 19,000 feet to dance on the summit of Chimborazo or of Cotopaxi. After this, what may we not hope, when we have removed the Cordilleras from their fancied eminence, and placed our ancient classical friend Caucasus in their room. But, in reality, nature never varies from herself; she is always another, yet the same. The "everlasting hills" have stood for ages; and the feline race have the same qualities, and inhabit the same regions, as their ancestors of the olden time possessed, although a Mexican tiger may occasionally find its way into the woods of North America, or a wolf peep in at the gates of Paris. As in the natural, so it is in the moral world. Man varies but little ; whether a descendant of Shem, Ham, or Japheth; whether he has a white, a copper, or an olive complexion; or whether he is an Albino, if such a race there be, it matters little; as he bears the human form, he partakes of many of the human qualities. We speak this with due reverence to the sage observation of Shakspeare, in place of which we would the more readily adopt that of Terence, very inapplicable, albeit, to the crowds who visited the gladiatorial arena of Old Rome. Love, and fear, and jealousy, and revenge, and a host of other passions, perform their respective parts in the great drama; yet where have they ever differed from their counterparts at remoter ages of the world? Did not Berenice display the same heroic fortitude as Arria, though on a different occasion? Of Cleopatra, of Messalina, of Zoe, may not the opinion be formed! In the view of the historian, as well as that of posterity, the Egyptian queen, the Roman empress, and the Greek princess, will bear the same estimation. In all this there is nothing W. L. M. SIXth edition. THREEPENCE. NO. II. C.

same

The

new, exclaims the impatient observer; and we join him in the exclamation; but, gentle reader, if you will condescend to examine the subject with closer eyes, you will find much that is new-much that you have overlooked. Do you live in the country, and are you daily accustomed to view the scenery of nature, to you, perhaps, too common to be interesting? Deign in your next excursion to pause a moment, and contemplate it anew. You will, perhaps, find that your daily view of the same prospect will vary more than you had anticipated. New appearances present themselves, former ones disappear. You tread not the same earth: you view not the same skies. fleecy clouds you saw yesterday have vanished, and others of a more sombre aspect have supplied their place. The landscape of yesterday exists not to-day-the face of nature is changed. Are you in the "crowded city pent," you must have looked with an incurious eye, on the beings with whom you associate, if you have not found that many of them are of camelion hue. Many propose to themselves objects of pursuit, which they never do pursue; and others waste a great portion of their lives in anxious endeavours to attain a something, which, when attained, they know they shall not be able to enjoy. A gentleman of the latter class, with whom I am acquainted, a Mr. Carpent, engaged during half a life in laborious commercial pursuits, has now retired from business with an ample fortune, and distrusting the funds, employs himself in building houses. He rises early in the morning, eats while he is walking about and directing his workmen, hurries from his bricklayers to his masons, and never stays above five minutes at any house at which he calls. One family are at dinner; Mr. Carpent sits down, eats a morsel, but immediately rises, recollecting that business requires him in another quarter. He runs out of the house with part of the good cheer in his hand, and hastens to the place of destination, calling on another family by the way, among whom he performs the same part. In the evening he calculates, arranges, and directs; retires to bed early, and rises at four o'clock in the winter, and two in summer, to renew with indefatigable assiduity his accustomed game of life. His friends represent to him to no purpose, that he injures his health in the decline of life by such continued agitation; that he should allow himself repose, and attend to the duties of religion, and seek to acquire a calmness of mind more befitting old age. Mr. Carpent replies, that he is not irreligious, but he has no time to devote to other pursuits. One object alone occupies his thoughts. He has no wishes to fulfil, but to see his unfinished houses completed, nor any desire to gratify, but that of the erection

of new ones.

Thus have I endeavoured to shew, that while there is a constant unity in all terrestrial things, there is also a considerable variety. The complaint that "there is nothing new under the sun," is therefore true in kind, but not in degree; and man, if he knows his best interests, and attends to the solid duties of life, will be able to derive much pleasure from that variety which is continually diversifying the constant uniformity of nature and of art.

PHI.