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BELFAST MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

No. 35.]

JUNE, 30, 1811.

[Vol. 6.

To the Editor of the Belfast Magazine. fearfully, upon the corpse, and then

SIR,

ONE TOUCH OF NATURE MAKES US ALL AKIN."

HUM

UMAN nature is much the same in all countries. Face and features, and colour differ, but in the internal organization, there is little variety-all are selfish, The heart supplies itself with blood, before it yields a drop to the rest of the body. All possess sympathy, of whatever name, or nation they may be, and can communicate this univer. sal language. Thus the Tartar Khan addresses himself to Michael Kamenskoy of the Russian army.

"Venerable, illustrious, great general,-My son Mahmud Gheary Sultan was said to have been killed in the battle fought by your and my troops. Therein consisted the will of God, and this is the fate of those who serve their religion and their monarch. You would not believe the assurances of the fore-named prisoners, but have sent the body with a guard, accompanied with the clergy of Gangura, with this request, that I should let you know whether it is really my son. It is indeed my Son -and the good will you have shewn me by sending the same is particularly affecting to me. I send back, herewith, the two clergymen, and return you thanks with the tenderest emotions, and with many tears for

the great favour you have shewn

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me. Every heart must feel the touch of nature expressed in this epistle, and every eye must see the hoary chieftain throwing his eyes

BELFAST MAG. NO. XXXV.

raising them to Heaven." It is indeed my Son."

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On Monday a slave court was held at the court-house in this town, when John, a Sambo, was tried on two indictments, the one for stealing sundry tools, the other for assaulting with intent to kill Mr. Bruce, an overseer of St. Faith's estate, in St. John, (how the name of Saint is prostituted on sugar plantations!) when he was found guilty on both indictments. He was sentenced to be hanged next morning, which sentence was accordingly put in execution. When this sentence was pronounced, he thanked the court, and said, It was the best thing they could do for him." From many this address would draw laughter; from one at least, at this distance of time and place, and connexion, it seldom fails of drawing a tear. The sublime sometimes borders upon the ridicųlous, and the pathetic also, on some occasions, vibrates between tears and smiles.

In Plutarch's description of Cato's behaviour on the last night of his existence, before he fell upon his sword, he thus writes. "Now the birds begun to sing, and Cato fell into a short slumber: at length Butis came back, and told him all was quiet in the Haven." There is here a touch of pathos in the contrasted quiet, and serenity of nature with the grandeur and sublimity of the mortal business then in procedure, that is singularly impressive and affecting. Far indeed is it from equal- ling (except as truth overcomes fiction) the sublime departure of Rho

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deric Dhu, in the Lady of the Lake, "At first, the Chieftain to the chime,] With lifted hand, kept feeble time."

whole work, associate itself with some grand and actuating passion of universal human nature, such as religion

Lines, I think inimitably pathetic, or patriotism. The whole duty of

when contrasted to those which are instantly recollected,

"The Mountaineer shot glance of pride, Across Benledi's living side."

When, by an effort, we break loose from the fascination in which we are held by Mr. Scott's poetry, and step, as it were, out of "the charmed circle," we cannot help wishing that he would aggrandize his subjects, and that free-booters, mountaineers, lifters of cattle, and savage marauders, were not so often imposed upon us as heroes; in short, that his heroes were more truly heroic; we cannot help wishing that the border story would give place to an Epic Poem, worthy of immortality, not only by the embellishments of fancy, but the intrinsic excellence of a grave and grand morality, such as might instruct, delightingly, the remotest posterity, He ought to rouse himself from his fairy fictions and golden slumbers, from the plau dits of girls, and boys, and distrust ing the flush of pópularity, he should chuse a subject, worthy of his name, his country, and his kind, and then shower down upon it the profusion of poetic beauty and creative imagination." Quid cogitem, quæris, (said Milton now mature of years) ita me bonus Deus, Immortalitatem." 'Tis true. There is an immortality in a Fairy Tale, in the Arabian Nights, in the Border Story, but there is a Miltonic immortality, fitted for the maturity of the individual, and for the manhood of a nation.

And indeed, I think, such immortality will never be gained, but by an adequate, and aweful MORAL run ning through the whole poem, and fertilizing all the flowers of a poetic fancy; it should, throughout the

man, and of woman too, may be learned from Milton, in various passages, solid in sense, yet sparkling with fancy, and which ought to be reposited in the memory, not for the pedantry of quotation, but for the better purpose of lessoning the lite in the calm recess of the heart. The fair pupil may pluck the moral from such passages, and get them by heart in the truest sense, as they would gather for their bosom fresh flowers from the stalk in the garden of Eden.

The poem which ranks next to that of Milton (" delectando pariterque monendo") in its power of fancy, and at the same time, its authority of intellect, is the ODYSSEY of Homer, a worthy atonement made by the great author, for forming, and fostering the love of war, the art of killing our fellow creatures, which he has so recommended in the Iliad. It is indeed an ill compliment to the feelings as well as to the taste of mankind in general, that such a poem as the Iliad should have so long reigned paramount in Epic excellence. Shame npon public opinion that has bestowed such inadequate praise upon the adventuies of Ulysses, the wise, the venerable, and the patriotic! The much enduring man, who, with glorious and yet imitable perseverance, wrestles with the waves of ill-fortune, keeps his head buoyant above the tide, and holds up the scarf of HOPE and confidence in the protection of divinity. Αλλ' ετλην καὶ ἔμεινα. Such is the inotto worthy of MAN, and such is the man worthy of the universal acclain of mankind, reiterated and prolonged till times remotest bound.

Let then the mature poet mark

and meditate that performance so truly heroic in all its progress, and taking some theme of universal interest, replete with some noble and magnanimous passion, let him paint for immortality; not the immortality of a fairy fiction, but of an epic, which may instruct as well as please the remotest generations, and his Cover name and his nation with such glory, that, in ages to come, there may arise a question whether the author was called from the country, or the country from the author. The name of WALTER SCOTT has diverted me, as by a charm, from the subject I designed to touch upon, at the beginning of this letter, and it is scarcely, worth returning to it.

A. P.

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Fall the feathered inhabitants of the earth, the peacock has most peculiarly attracted the admiration of mankind. The Greek Mythologists thought him a worthy attendant on "Heaven's imperial Queen." And the great Solomon conceived it not beneath his dignity to admire this splendid bird, and while collecting around him whatever could augment his glory, we find that he gave a particular order for procuring Peacocks along with other treasures of the East. Indeed few objects seem better calculated to convey an idea of princely grandeur, and decorate

the domains of majesty. The sap phire, emerald, and topaze, seem combined with the ruby in his ever varying plumage, and even amidst the vivid glow of tropical vegetation, the peacock shines conspicuous. Over all the Southern regions of Asia, from the spicy groves of Ceylon, to the cold mountainous lands of Thibet, this bird is found in a state of liberty, but it is said, no where of greater beauty and size, than on the banks of the Ganges, where, guarded by tigers and other tremendous animals, they enjoy the permanent attachment of their female, who after six tedious weeks of patient incubation, sees rise around her an active and almost independent family of five or six young, who from having their infant wings provided with quill feathers, accompany their mother to some elevated branch, where they rest secure, under the enfolding wings of their affectionate parent, who gives, and who receives, the most tender carresses, and not until that period when nature calls to multiply their species, and give existence to other beings, is this maternal solicitude dissolved.

If the Count de Buffon's theory could be applied to birds, that the life of an animal is only three or four times that of the period at which it arrived at a state of puberty, birds should be much shorter lived, than experience shews. Swans have been known to live to 100 years; Geese to 70 or 80; and a Goldfinch to 20. The limitation of the Peacock's life should therefore not be according to this rule, but according to that general law which seems to govern the life of birds. Yet no Peacock has yet been known in this country to exceed that of ten or twelve years. And although, like many of the productions of warm countries, it reproduces in our cold climate, it is not yet so well naturalized, as nor

to have its life in some degree shortened by the severity perhaps of the winters it is obliged to endure. At about a month old, the crest begins to appear, at half a year the neck of the young cock becomes blue, but it is not until the second year that the various coloured eyes enrich his then often expanded tail, and the cock endeavours to attract the attention of the female, with a full display of his beauty. Nature, which in her productions seems to spread beauty around, and to adorn with a lavish hand, has denied to the Peahen the brilliancy of her mate, guid ed by that unerring wisdom, which has fitted every animal for its mode of life, (which colours the timid hare like the winter-blasted fern, and the woodcock like the fallen leaf,) has coloured her in uniformity to the ground on which she is destined to pass so much of her time; and to this homely colouring she is in all likelihood indebted for her safety, from her quick-sighted enemies, while engaged in her maternal duties.

In this country, even while young they are by no means tender, and when they are left to their mother's care, she feeds them with indefatigable attention, with flies and other insects. Linnæus says, that Pea fowl are poisoned by eating of the common elder, and it has been observed, that wherever that plant abounds, few young have ever been reared; when reared, they seem to bid defiance to the storm), and the severest wea ther of our climate, scarce ever forces them from the house-top, a situation which they seem particularly to delight in, and from which, when the lightning flashes and the thunder rolls, they join their voices, seemingly wishing, like small song-birds, to contend for mastery, and by their. loud and repeated cries, to overpower their opponent. They are often sub

ject to sote-feet, à disorder perhaps first generated by cold, and afterwards perpetuated from generation to generation. And as if, however, to prevent our pleasure in possession of this beautiful creature from being without alloy, some bad qualitres lurk under this fair exterior; the Peafowl are the tyrants of the farm-yard, they follow with neverceasing persecution whatever fowl is their inferior in strength, and with those which are able to contend with them, they wage eternal war. The garden also, without strict attention to expel them on their first attempts at entrance, exhibits daily marks of their depredations.

Elian mentions, that "the Peacock was at Athens shown for a stated price to both men and women who were admitted to the spectacle, at the feasts of new moon. Considerable sums were thus collected, and many, through curiosity, came from Lacedaemon and Thessaly."

The date of this cannot be fixed, but it was after the return of Alexander from India. The conqueror was so much delighted with the rich plumage of the Peacocks, that he enacted severe penalties against Killing them ""After the Peacock was transplanted from Asia into Greece, it found its way into the south of Europe, and gradually was introduced into France, Germany, and Switzerland, and as far as Sweden."

At what period they were brought to Ireland, cannot now be determined. it is however probable that they were brought to Britain dy the Romans, and from thence transferred to Ireland, but the hand which added this beautiful bird to our domestie animals, and his name, as his whose patient industry reclaimed the first barren waste, is concealed under the veil of time, leaving us only the power to imitate their deeds.

T

For the Belfast Monthly Magazine.

PROSPECTUS OF THE DUBLIN INSTITU TION, 1811.

WITHOUT alluding to any sci

entific or literary association already existing amongst us, to each of which society is indebted for the extension of knowledge, and consequently for improvement in the best qualities of man, it is obviously an object worthy of the most respectable residents in this populous metropolis, not only to increase the facilities of promoting those valuable purposes, but by enlarging the opportunities of information, to multi ply the probabilities of calling forth, and of fostering talents, which may hereafter adorn and enlighten our city and our nation.

Useful learning, or that wisdom which flows from the labours and the experience of ages, is not, and ought not to be confined to Academic groves, or to the walks of the learned of whatever profession; it renders even amusements elegant aud improving, and it converts into a blessing that leisure which to the vacant mind too often proves a curse: in a more important point of view, it not only assists to discover and combine the means of enlarging the wealth and power of a state, but it gives to agriculture multiplied and varied productions to manufactures the manifold use of the powers of nature--to commerce the widest intercourse of man with man, indefinite interchange of benefits, and daily augmentation of the public stock; and, above all, it directs benevolence how best to relieve distress, to prevent vice, to promote virtue, and to diffuse happiness.

In a great city like this, men are engaged in almost every pursuit of cultivated society, whether contemplative, or active, or both: and con

sequently the association and mutual contact of such variety of character, in the prosecution of any intellectual object, must prove materially beneficial, inasmuch as the informa

tion, views, and modes of thinking

peculiar to each, tend to enlarge useful knowledge, to correct preju dice, and to establish truth.

And farther, the means of knowledge brought home to the boson of private families, and access to liberal instruction, made easy and frequent, may prove highly favourable to domestic happiness The ardour of youth, too often wasted in destructive dissipation, may thus be pre-occupied by a taste for improvement; and what is of equal moment, information, operative as well as pleasing, may be more generally acquired by those best associates of the domestic state, to whom the earliest and most important years of life are entrusted, on whose wisdom or folly so much of virtue and happiness depends, and by respectable exertions of some of whom true honour has been conferred on their sex, and lasting benefit on society.

Under these impressions, and to advance these views it has been proposed to establish an institution, in some convenient situation in the city of Dublin, which shall be supplied with a select and extensive library, and with the necessary apparatus for lectures, on the most generally useful subjects of science. It has also been proposed that the use of the books shall not be merely local, but they shall be delivered out, under terms and regulations, to determined upon hereafter; and that every mode shall be adopted to unite, from time to time, all the objects of which the institution may be found capable, in order to render it the most variously and most extensively beneficial.

That the entire property shall belong to the subscribers for two hun

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