How well the contest she sustain'd! But when, alas! life's spirits die, And awful death's sepulchral sleep; Those too, on heavenly wings from earth, Shall mount to renovated birth, And bloom again in youthful pride, "Where angels live, who mortals died!" As if shy to encounter the night. Still I trace, with pure homage of wonder and love, Still adoring I view the bright circle improve, When again to depart I behold thee prepare, Some resemblance remote to each other we bear, Then forgive, if while thus I contemplate thy sight, And thus musing I mournfully gaze; If my worship's profane of the Heav'n-born light, By the tear that I blend with its praise. For to me how revers'd is the beam of that sphere, With a timid suspicion I shrink from the lamp, On the dew frozen lawn I behold the chill damp, And joy sinks on the bosom of care. Yet, perchance a fond dream of enchantment I find, As reflection exhibits her glass; Here the scenes that are vanish'd pass over the mind, As thy shadows fleet over the grass. With endearment the visions of time I renew, I review the fair days of my juvenile pride, In refulgence full orb'd my bright Cynthia then rose, Ruling star of the dance or the song; Then-impatient I waited the day's tardy close, And her presence to lead the gay throng. With a lustre divine she embellish'd this grove, And these bushes in splendor array'd; It might seem that the goddess commanded by Jove, For Endymion had silver'd the shade. But where now is the moon that so brilliantly shone? Lost-in treasure of Time's rifled store; Where the colours from life's painted canvass are flown, When Hope dresses the picture no more. THE POWER OF GOLD. ANACREON, ODE XLVI. Love's a pain that works our woe; Not to love is painful too: But, alas! the greatest pain Waits the love that meets disdain. What avails ingenuous worth, Sprightly wit, or noble birth? All these virtues useless prove; Gold alone engages love. May he be completely curst Who the sleeping mischief first Wak'd to life, and, vile before, Stamp'd with worth the sordid ore. Gold creates 'mong brethren strife; Gold destroys the parent's life; Gold produces civil jars, Murders, massacres, and wars; But the worst effect of gold, Love, alas! is bought and sold. LINES ADDRESSED TO MRS. T. W. VAUGHAN, ON HEARING HER PLAY ON THE HARP. SURE 'tis a voice divine that wakes yon strings, Hark! in yon distant note what softness dwells! Yon silver sounds, and mingle as they fall; In wild disorder strike upon the ear; But e'en the gay, the giddy, and the vain, But ah! most welcome to soft fancy's ear, Is the wild cadence of these trembling strings; At the sweet sound she calls her spirits near, And waves in silent joy her painted wings. Sometimes she whispers that the melting strains Spring from th' angelic choir in bright array, Bearing on radiant clouds to yon blue plains A soul just parted from its mould'ring clay! And oft at eve her bright creative eye Sees to the wind their silken pinions stream, While on the quiv'ring trees soft breezes sigh, And thro' the leaves disclose the moon's pale beam. Only daughter to the celebrated and beautiful Mrs. Musters, of Grosvenor Place. + See Akenside's Pleasures of Imagination. Ar thy approach, enchanting spring, How sweet with a dear friend to rove, Or blackbirds sweetly sing; To welcome in the Spring. Or on some verdant bank reclin'd, Our thoughts on rural subjects bent, That grandeur seldom knows. Woods, hills, and plains, own Nature's King, Who rules the seasons, decks the Spring, With power and skill divine: The lowing herds their Maker praise, THE RETURN OF SPRING. 'Tis past!-gay Flora crowns the laughing sphere; That oft young fancy's heedless morn beguiles, When the dear hope of lasting bliss pervades Her fairy warblings and her syren smiles. O life! what pangs the feeling soul must bear, That lone and hopeless treads thy toilsome way; But virtue's hand dispels each baneful care, And points, exulting, to the blissful day. The day that, destin'd to a softer shore, Shall prove thy sorrows and thy woes no more. TO A LADY, On hearing her sing, JUBAL, the pride of Judah's race, Inventor of the lyre, And Miriam's tuneful voice conjoin'd, But O! had Jubal heard thy lips Breathe for that lyre a pray'r, Miriam would own superior strains Than Israel's daughter sung; O may those soft melodious pow'rs, Be tun'd, when here they cease to charm, F. L. H. ODE. OH! far remov'd from my retreat Give me, unconscious of their pow'r, RETROSPECT OF POLITICS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. WE are naturally led to speak of the advantages which the cause of general independence at present enjoys. They are not indeed numerous, but some consolation may still be found, notwithstanding the calamitous catastrophe of the war. F. H. illusions with which Bonaparte contrived to beguile his pure and noble soul, seemed to frget for a time, that there can be no peace with the ever renascent necessities of a government, unjust in its nature, and with the phrenzy of a delirious ambition; and thus seconded in some degree the Europe was, during the four years that suc-projects of that government, by resisting them cecded the peace of Luneville, what she had been only, and at best by her silence. during the painful period which prepared and produced that peace: an incoherent mass of scattered and jarring elements, rather than a duly organized body, united and moved by the laws of a common interest. England was completely insulated from the Continent, who seemed as regardless of the war, of the awful war which she waged with France, as of the quarrel she was at the same time engaged in with Scindia and Holkar. Austria, bent beneath the yoke, did not even dare to fix her eyes on the prospect of a mutually protecting alliance, and trembled at the idea of raising any apprehension in the tyrant's mind, that she seriously cherished any hope of arising from her fall. Russia, carried away by the desire of co-operating in the new arrangements of Germany, still more powerfully carried away by the unremi ting anxiety of her sovereign to lay the foundation of a solid and durable peace, and by the No. II, Vol. I. Prussia in fine, wedded by a long over-weening habit of insulation and political egotism, clinging with a blind pertinacity to old inveterate antipathies, of which the total change the affairs of Europe had undergone, should have extinguished even the recollection; fearing, perhaps, those very powers whose cause had become her own, on the very account of the injury she had done them by her long inactivity, and considering moreover her connection with France as the only or the surest means of acquiring, from time to time, some transient advantages, consolidated and extended those connections, even at the sacrifice of all her dignity, by allowing a French army to sit down at her frontier, and give the law to those to whom Prussia had so repeatedly promised, and held out her powerful protection. Such was the situation in which we stood, when the unchecked strides of Bonaparte, and his continually increasing insolence, awakened at once all the Cabinets, and impressed upon their minds | confederacy), even Prussia had abjured her disthe indispensible necessity of a change of system tressing neutrality, and was most cordially preand of principles. This political revolution took paring to co-operate with the efforts of the conits rise at the close of the year 1804; but its federate courts. It already bespoke a revolution, effects became manifest only about the month of but little expected in his political system, to see August, 1805. The disdainful and offensive the King of Prussia induced to offer up the most manner in which the passports granted to M. ardent vows for the success of their arms and Novosiltzoff were returned, and the audacious- their views; but what indisputably proved the ness with which they were annulled by the in- secret change which had taken place in his mode vasion of Genoa, were the signals which an- of thinking and feeling, and carried him much nounced to Europe that she must soon arouse further, was the extreme facility with which the from her long slumbers. Emperor of Russia had prevailed upon him to embark in the common enterprize by a most solemn treaty. By a strange concurrence of fatal circumstances, seconded perhaps by the perfidy of the instruments that were employed in the execution of the diplomatic part of the treaty, this engagement proved abortive. It is not to be A new order of things speedily began to unfold itself. England became closely connected with Russia, by a treaty founded much less upon the particular interests of either power, than on the pure principles, the noble project of a general equilibrium, a general conservation and prosperity. Through the medium of this treaty, Eng-wondered at, if the public, who are always illland also linked herself in a community of interest with Austria, who had acceded to the treaty; and we should have seen her likewise united with Prussia, had not the fatal events of the month of December blasted for the moment our fairest hopes. The Emperor of Russia was long before convinced, that the conduct of the French government, that the monstrous preponderance it had acquired, that the efforts which it was incessantly exerting to increase that preponderance, to the utter extinction of every other power, were the sole cause and source of all the disturbances and of all the sufferings of Europe. He therefore conceived the magnanimous design of first employing his intervention, and next the greater part of his forces, in support of the common interest of the different powers, and of seeking greatness and glory not in unavailing conquests, but in the confirmation of social order, and the gratitude of his cotemporaries. informed upon such matters, or if some persons who know better, but who listen only to their malice and their resentment, endeavour at present to excite suspicions respecting the reality or the sincerity of that memorable negotiation. It is, however, a thing beyond the reach of all doubt-a fact that can never be rescued from the page of history-that if the confederate armies could but have made head to Bonaparte until the 20th of December, war would have been declared by Prussia against France, and an army of one hundred thousand men would have advanced into Bohemia, while another of equal force would have marched from the Mayn to the Danube. Every thing had, therefore, been absolutely changed around us; and to a state of things in which a complete disunion of the greater powers, in which desertion or apathy on the part of some, false policy and suspicious designs on the part of others, were hurrying us on with giant strides towards the last extreme of servitude and nothingness, we saw succeed an unexpected concert that would have extricated us, for a length of time, from our embarrassments, our tribulations, and our fears, had not some leading defects Austria no longer finding herself alone and deserted on all sides, emerged from her profoun lethargy; concerted with Russia and th: ngh Russia with England, the means of producing an essential change in the affairs of Europe, and displayed for some months a resolution vigor-in its primitive composition, and the overwhelmously announced and energetically followed up by the most respectable measures. Prussia herself (it is no longer possible to shut our eyes to that fact, in spite of the fatal issue of this grand ing disasters which marked its outset, struck it with impotence at the very moment we imagined we were about to enjoy the rewards of such glorious achievements. [To be continued.] PUBLIC AMUSEMENTS FOR MARCH. During the season of Lent, the public amusements have been somewhat dull. "that when Congreve left the stage, comedy left it with him," but we may venture to say, that until the true sense of what constitutes comedy returns to the public, Congreve can At this period of the year little novelty can be expected at either house; something, however, is in preparation at both, and the public are un-scarcely hope to be popular above a night. usually sanguine with respect to the amusements in store for them. Dibdin's opera of the White Plume, with Reeves's delightful music, will be produced on Easter Monday. It is spoken of as a chef d'œuvre of Dibdin's. The Forty Thieves are cer tainly coming forward. Upon this subject we speak decidedly. The dialogue and the songs are said to be written by Colman. This comedy was extremely well cas'-Elliston's Valentine had spirit and ease; it wanted, perhaps, that which is now almost obsolete on the stage the manner of the Rake of Congreve's time; that kind of elegant grossness, and gay profligacy, which was the character of men of wit and fashion at that period; every trace of which is now lost, and is certainly not worth redeeming The days are long past A new comedy has been read at Drury-lane,« Since Wits wrote plays, and even Lords kad wit.” it is entitled the Enthusiast. The author's name is pretty well conjectured; but not known. Earl Warwick was revived on Saturday the 29th of March, for the sake of giving a declamatory part to the Young Roscius. We wish now, that the Managers are in the reviving humour, that they would reinstate Shirley's excellent old comedy of the Gamesters; a delicate hand might easily cleanse it of its impurities. A new farce, under the title of Loquacity, has been so popular on the French stage, that we are astonished it has not been imported. The humour of this piece is that of man, with an unbounded propensity to talking, stopping every body's mouth, catching up auswers in embryo, and anticipating the dialogue of every person with whom he converses. Thus, in fact, notwithstanding the variety of characters.with whom he is associated, he has, with little exception, the whole dialogue of the piece to himself. The humour is original and good, and if properly combined with character and situation, would be very effective on the stage. The Valentines and Mirables, now, can never hope to please, since, in truth, they are not understood; and probably the style of acting these parts is as much lost and forgotten as the sense, of relishing them. The creatures of Congreve, unlike these of Shakespeare, are perishable beings; formed upon accidental habits, and adventitious modes, the cement and the sand are continually loosening, whilst those which have nature for their basis, like the elements upon which she rests, have a solidity and permanency which can only be shaken by the stroke which dissolves herself. Bannister, in the character of Ben, was the true sailor of nature, and not that of the stage merely. This character, so finely drawn, was no less admirably performed. Bannister's Sailor has always been the boast of the English stage; and the nearer his prototype resembles life, the better it is. Some actors succeed most in characters eccentric and distorted, but it is the pride of the genuine sons of humour to place their boldest strokes, and imprint their most brilliant and lasting colours, upon the canvass of nature only. It has been stated in some of the papers, that Master Betty has entered into an engagement with the Drury-lane Managers for the next season, at a reduced salary of twenty pounds percellence of Mrs. Jordan, in Miss Prue. Miss week. DRURY LANE. LOVE FOR LOVE. THE admirable comedy of Love for Love has been revived at this theatre.-It is some credit to the public that in the present degeneracy of the stage such a comedy can find an audience. We cannot agree, perhaps, with Jeremy Collier, It is unnecessary to speak of the unrivalled ex Duncan's Angelica had those faults which infect her general acting, and of which, with the most zealous regard for her professional character, we shall remind her at another opportunity. Her worst enemy now is a flatterer; the best thing her critics can do is to put her out of conceit with herself: so noble and promising a performer should not be lost for the want of a little wholesome discipline. Dowton's Sir Sampson is deserving of the highest credit. |