LITERATURE.

translator of Theocritus and Anacreon, he was indebted for some valuable hints when about to publish his translation of the Georgics.

The marquis Prosper Manara died on the 18th of October, 1800, and all his poetical works, together with his life by Mr. Cerati, were published in the following year, 1801, in four elegant little volumes, by the celebrated Bodoni.

What tho' at haughty Gallia's chiefs
The spear of vengeance Britain aims,
Shall she not mourn a people's griefs,
Their dying sons, their weeping dames?
Nor shall she ev'n with tearless eye
You galiant Navy e'er descry
Returning o'er the western flood;
For ah! the laurel's greenest bough
That ever crown'd Victoria's brow
Is surely ting'd with blood!

Tho' blaze the splendid fires around,

Tho' Arcs of Triumph proudly rise,
Tho' Fame her loudest pecan sound,
And notes of conquest rend the skies,
Alas! in some sequester'd cell
Her slaughter'd lover's funeral knell
In every shout the virgin hears!

And as the strain of vict'ry flows
More swell the widow'd matron's woes,
And faster fall her tears!

Tho' from this cliff while Fancy views
Yon squadrons darken half the main,
She dress in Glory's brightest hues,

The pride of Albion's naval reign,
Yet, as Reflection's mirror shows
Th' attendant scene of death and woes,
Th' existing hopes of conquest cease,
She turns from War's delusive form
Tó deprecate th' impending storm,

And breathes her vows for Peace.

MISCELLANEOUS COMMUNICATIONS.

The man of letters feels himself compelled to hail it as a powerful mean for promoting useful information and knowledge; the profound philosopher, who at the midnight lamp investigates the history of man, must bow with reverence to the active, wise, and generous nation, which, wherever its victorious arms or deep policy bring new countries, and nations into subjection, carefully cherishes the lights she finds, and diffuses those she possesses, with a liberality of sentiment, untainted by selfishness, nor degraded by avarice and lust of gain.

Several European nations have either reigned in the East Indies, or found admission as colonists; but it was reserved to the English to promote by their settlements and conquests in that country, not only their own prosperity and the welfare of their State, but also the interests of the whole Republic of Letters.

The Portuguese, the first Europeans who reigned in that part of the globe, destroyed with fanatic rage every monument of science and of art that fell within their grasp. They made proselytes, it is true, but rendered odious both their religious system and their

nation.

The Dutch, on settling in India, had no other aim but the acquisition of money, and when single individuals, such as Rhede and Rumphius, exerted themselves in behalf of the Sciences, their exertions remained the insulated efforts of single individuals, and ceased on their departure or death. An Academy of Sciences, it is true, has been established in Batavia, but the particulars of its erection, progress, continuance and transactions remain yet to be known.

The French, it should seem, have hitherto been too much engaged in the East Indies in political intrigues to attend to scientific pursuits. The works of De la

cannot invalidate our remark. Their enterprizes were private undertakings, restricted to particular objects, and calculated rather to collect information than to

diffuse knowledge.

The Danish original of the following interesting Me-Caille, Le Gentil, Anquetil du Perron, and Sounerat, moir appeared in the Minerva, a respectable Danish Journal, edited by Professor Knud Lyne Raabek, for last March; we extract it with the greater pleasure, as it shews that our commercial prosperity is not viewed with equal jealousy in every country. On the meritorious exertions of the English Nation to diffuse the lights of Science in the East Indies. By the Rev. Mr. Fuglsang, of Copenhagen, &c. Complaints of national arrogance and lust of empire are frequently preferred against the English; they are accused, and perhaps not without foundation, of looking down with contemptuous pride on all other States, whether great or small, and of conceiving themselves alone entitled to command, and all other nations destined to obey. There is no country, it should seem, where those charges may be preferred with a stronger appearance of truth, than in the East Indies, where a company of merchants, which about the beginning of the seventeenth century established simple factories in those distant regions, reigns now as Sovereign over tracts of country, which in point of extent, population and revenue, far surpass the territories of several European States.

Let politicians and speculative cosmopolites declaim on this strange phenomenon; let thein display their eloquence on the means by which it was prepared, and on the measures which completed its lustre.

The natural bent of the Danes towards peace and quietness, and their relative position to other European powers, have not, it should seem, allowed them to engage in the politics and culture of India; for the advantages derived from the Danish mission in that country in the course of nearly a whole century, when impartially appreciated, will be found extremely trifling, and (to judge from my own experience) almost of no effect. The attempts of the Academy of Sciences to gather astronomical information in the East Indies, ceased at the untimely end of the late Mr. Engelhart, the zealous promoter of scientific researches, who had set them on foot. This undertaking was therefore stifled in its birth; it was also trifling from its very nature and extent, for notwithstanding the ardent zeal of that learned man, he could make but little scientific progress in a country where enterprizes of that kind are attended by considerable trouble, and require no small sacrifices of property and time.

The English produced not only a memorable revolution in the political relations of India, but also eminently promoted the knowledge of that country; they not only endeavoured to gain the respect of the

MANNERS.

people whom they governed, but also to make them respected by other nations. Unbiassed by prejudices, they sought for information among their new subjects, and took care that the torch of knowledge should not be extinguished by the yoke which they imposed on their necks. It must be confessed, that in a great measure we owe it to the English nation, that the treasures hidden in the Sanskrit are no longer concealed from the investigation of the European literati. We are now able from Indian monuments to form a just idea of the ancient culture and institutions of the country, and are no longer compelled to resort for information on that head to the doubtful reports of travellers, frequently given and circulated with an equal degree of ignorance.

MANNERS.

On the British Trader.

44

IN our last Journal, we offered a hasty sketch of the alterations which have taken place of late years in any shape in commercial pursuits; and the results of the manners of Tradesmen, or persons engaged in objects of our remarks, as indicating a liberal spirit of the circumstances then detailed were in favour of the mised to point out certain innovations and changes improvement. At the conclusion, however, we prowhich, in our humble opinion, are not to be consifrom wishing entirely to reverse the picture, but yet dered as improvements. In doing this, we are far Nor were the exertions to obtain a correct and sa-jection to much of the manners of the commercial are sensible that there are very solid grounds for obtisfactory knowledge of India from genuine Indian world, which we hope may be stated without giving sources confined to private literati, but the govern- offence. ment (although radically commercial) thought itself obliged to employ part of the public revenue in seconding the meritorious efforts of those learned men, and in procuring to newly arrived Europeans, oppor-racter of men in trade. They fall into this error from tunities to fit themselves for their different stations, by the study of the Indian idioms, not only of the language of common life, in which business is trans acted, but also of the dead tongue, in which scientific information is recorded.

In the first place, we would remark, that an approximation to the manners of fashionable life, has for some time been a very conspicuous feature in the cha

power of money, like all other human power, is an opinion of the omnipotence of money, but the confined within certain bounds, and it requires no very great extent of experience to prove that there are some things which money cannot effect.

66

The pursuits of fashionable life can only be carried pleased to consider on successfully by that class whom the world has been as people of fashion," and when we designate any person as a man of fashion, or a woman of fashion, whatever various meaning we may

Pensions for learned men, scientific travels undertaken at the expence of government, and institutions best calculated to promote public instruction and general diffusion of useful knowledge are therefore constant objects of the attention of the English government in the East Indies, and of its most power-affix to the words, and in whatever sense we may unful support.

Mr. EDITOR,

(To be continued.)

Your Correspondent P. has mistaken in supposing me to impute want of wit to Lord Chesterfield, or that I denied the superior point of Martial's epigrams to the Greek., Lord Chesterfield in his letters, has shewn himself as devoid of real, chaste, and classical taste, as he was of a proper sense of morality.

The following epigram of Rhuphinus conveys an elegant compliment with as much condensed wit as is to be found in Martial:

Τέσσαρες οι χάριτες, Παφίαι δυο και δεκα Μέσαι,

Δερκυλἷς ἐν πάσαις, Μεςα, χάρις, Παφίη.

I will not injure it by an attempt to paraphrase: There are four Graces-two Venuses, and ten Muses. Dercylis is, in every respect, a Muse, a Grace, and a Venus.

What Pope wrote on a pane of glass with Lord Chesterfield's pencil, in his presence, was certainly a proof of the poet's wit; but will scarcely be brought as a sincere testimony of his opinion of the Peer's, however just it might be.

As to my reading of the passage in the epigram imputed to Anacreon; certainly it is no forced construction to render by cujus rei, and signum is the proper translation of ; and monumentum, figurative expression, as is obvious from all its derivatives.

Yours, E.

derstand our own jargon, or the cant of others, no one would for a moment suppose that the character meant had any connection with trade, or could ever be detected in a shop or a counting house. The fashionable character of fashion is hereditary, and in much stricter world will not permit its rights to be invaded; the terms than an estate, for it is handed from generation to generation long after

"House and lands are gone and spent."

It is not money that can purchase admission into the circles of fashion, except to have the privilege of losing that money, and being laughed at. We have of late, indeed, heard of brilliant, splendid, and expensive routs and other entertainments, given upon the strength of rum puncheons and sugar hogsheads, but we appeal to every person of fashion, whether these were notthings to be stared at, and laughed at, and partaken of, and afterwards perhaps seriously censured, as affectations, or imitations of fashion not to be endured. often leads them to accept invitations from such sorts In truth, the extreme good nature of people of fashion connexion with ton, or breeding. Sometimes they of people, from motives which have no immediate wish to oblige my lord, who has a small affair to nelady's presence as a mark of high distinction and pregociate with a citizen whose wife would consider my convenient to keep up appearances with such sort of dominant superiority. Sometimes my lady may find it people, because they are plethoric and bleed freely, while my lord is stingy, has a calculating turn, and has somehow learned that his expenditure may possibly

teir utmost industry shall be profit or loss. The be allowed. They are but the follies or vices of indi very first year we see the rich sideboard, the well-viduals, and of those who form but an inconsiderable stored cellar the splendid dinner, and the dashing part of the community. They are numerous enough, curricle. Before they have learned, if we may so however, to attract public notice, and if we may credit speak, to breathe at all, they cannot breathe in the report, are not so much upon the decrease as could be city, and without knowing the most common exer- wished. The consequences will indeed be fatal should tions of application, they visit the most fashionable the same infatuation long prevail. Already it has watering-places, to shake off the fatigues they have shaken the necessary confidence between man and never incurred There is folly in this, but unfortu- man already it has made the prudent more cautious, nately there is a yet greater share of pride; when they perhaps selfish, and soon it will introduce a system of find that such expences can no longer be kept up, narrow policy, and mutual hostility in the various they are ashamed to retract; they have begun by orders of the trading world, which must prove undeceiving others, and mest go on to deceive them-friendly to social happiness, and deprive the really selves, until they drop into the gulph of bankruptcy, almost unconscious that they have committed any thing blame-worthy. They protract the hour of examination, until there is nothing to inquire after, and comfort themselves that they have kept up appearances so as to excite astonishment, that their establishment will make a very distinguished figure in the auctioneer's catalogue, and that, by the aid of his eloquence, their creditors may perhaps receive sixpence in the pound.

All this, it is evident, still resolves itself into the principle already explained, that eager desire to step out of the rank nature and education have prescribed, into one where every thing must be aukward imitation, and hopeless ambition. But the con equences are perhaps yet more extensive than the limits of a single paper can suffice to point out, when we consider that the mischiefs of a fashionable life are too frequently perpetuated by a fashionable education. This, indeed, is carried to a height truly ludicrous; and among the growing evils of the present day, we may safely rank promiscuous admission to young persons of all ranks in boarding schools, where the same education and manners are prescribed. We were lately informed by the mistress of a very fashionable boarding-school, within a few miles of London, that she had a very embarrassing affair to settle. A (for there are no qun rels in boarding-schools) had unhappily taken place between Anna Matilda and Sophie Larenity. Had they been of equal rank, Mrs assured us, that the affair might have been compromised after a fortnight's pouting, and perhaps by the kind mediation of a syllabub or a pottle of strawberries. But unfortunately, Amor Matida, whose father kept an eating house in Drury-lane, had reproached the birth of sopa acndo, whose parent kept only an alehouse in Whitechapel. This involved a question of precedence, which neither Mrs, nor the Kings of Bath, nor Sir Clement Cottrell could settle, and by the last accounts, the war still continued with unabated fury. This little incident is, perhaps, a fair specimen of the ridicule which attaches to this conduct, but the more serious consequences are such, as we trust, need not to be exposed here for the first

time.

These are some of the changes in the manners of tradesmen which have become of late very perceptible, and which it is impossible to rank among the real improvements and refinements of the prescut age. That they do not, upon the whole, run counter to the opinions delivered in our last paper, we hope will yet

honest and industrious of that generous support which
the liberality of trade has hitherto dealt out with an
open and unsuspicious hand.
R. S.

POLITICS.

The Invasion.

WE recollect the adage, Ne sutor ultra crepidam ; we recollect too the story of the conceited old philosopher, who delivered a lecture on the military art before Hannibal. "I have seen many foolish old men,” said the warrior, "but never one more foolish than Phormio." In like manner, we observe at present a multitude of speculations on the threatened invasion, and the means of repelling it, evidently proceeding from men not at all acquainted with the military art, and by consequence containing many crude, and even absurd ideas. In many of them, however, though not written by professional men, we observe ideas not only solid, but ingenious; ideas which, though not exactly perhaps reduced to the practical form in the minds of the authors, well deserve the attention of military men, and of which, by the practical skill of professional men, the most important uses might be made. What we chiefly want is such a portion of intellectual and professional ability at the head of the military department, as might collect the scattered lights thrown out in all quarters, and apply the united wisdom of the nation to the repulsion of its danger.

We do not pretend to have made a particular study of the science of the soldier. But in that general inspection, which, as studiers of human nature and of human affairs, we have accounted it our duty to make into every department of human transaction, so important a part as the business of war has not escaped our consideration. We have observed the principles in human nature, and the accidents in human affairs, which have hitherto rendered wars so prevalent. We have traced the facts, which history records of the wars, both of ancient and modern times. We have marked the general circumstances which run through them all; and we have endeavoured to pick out the circumstances which respectively distinguish them. By this induction it was our object to iscover some of the general principles which flow from the nature of war, and by which its business must for ever be governed. This indeed we confess is something very different from applying the resources of the nation to a great and immediate exigency. But at the same time we say that no man will apply these resources well, who has not taken this enlarged