him, or his children, or with those of James I. or any other monarch or mortal, high or low, either prince or beggar. With what absurdity of self-conceit does man place himself, as in the centre of the universe, and fondly imagine himself of such importance, that all nature is employed in giving warnings to him! Astrology and the doctrines of omens had their origin in an inordinate self-love. Slow-retiring superstition keeps a hold over many minds, and under the vain conceits of dreams, particular providences, warnings, omens, &c. still retains an extensive although diminished empire. K. ATTACHMENT OF COURTIERS. The Duke of Sully in his memoirs, thus describes the favour of summer friends, and the uncertainty of prosperity: "those years were full of glory and prosperity for me, but they are past: those friends so affectionate have disappeared with my favour: those allies so respectful have vanished with my fortune." PROFUSION. Two Italian gentlemen were walk ing leisurely up the Hay-market, sometime in the year 1749, lamenting the fate of the famous Cuzzona, an actress who some time before had been in high vogue, but was then, as they heard, in a very pitiable situation. Let us go and visit her, said one of them, she lives but over the way. The other consented; and calling at the door, they were shown up stairs, but found the faded beauty dull and spiritless, unable or unwilling to converse on any subject-"How's this?" cried one of her consolers, "are you ill? or is it but low spirits chains your tongue so?"-" Neither," replied she, 'tis hunger, I suppose. I ate nothing yesterday, and 'tis now past six o'clock, and not one, penny have I in the world to buy me food."“Come with us instantly to a tavern, BELFAST MAG. NO. XXXV. we will treat you with the best roast fowls and port wine that London can produce."-"But I will have neither my dinner nor myplace of eating prescribed to me," answered Cuzzona, in a sharper tone, "else I need never have wanted."- "Forgive me," cried the gentleman, "do your own way; but eat, in the name of God, and restore fainting nature." She thanked him then, and calling to her a friendly wretch, who inhabited the same theatre of misery, gave him the guinea with which the visitor had accompanied the last words, "and run with this money," said she, "to such a wine-merchant," naming him; "he is the only one keeps good Tokay by him-'tis a guinea a bottlemind you,"-to the boy," and bid the gentleman you buy it of, to give you a loaf into the bargain-he won't refuse." In half an hour the lad returned with the Tokay; "but where," cried Cuzzona, "is the loaf I spoke for?"-" The merchant would give me no loaf," replied her messenger, "he drove me from the door, and asked me if I took him for a baker."-" Blockhead!" exclaimed she, "why I must have bread to my wine, you know, and I have not a penny to purchase any; go, beg me a loaf directly." The fellow returns once more, with one in his hand, and a halfpenny, telling that the gentleman threw it to him, and laughed at his impudence. She gave her Mercury the money, broke the bread into a bason which stood near, and poured the Tokay over it, and devoured the whole with eagerness. This was indeed a heroine in profusion. Some active persons procured her a benefit after this; she gained about £350, and laid out two hundred of the money instantly in a shell-cap, such things being then worn. Dr. Johnson's improviso verses, made on a young heir's coming of age, are highly capable of restrain 856 ing extravagance, and wanton wastefulness-if they are to be restrained. Long expected one and twenty, Call the Betsys, Kates, and Jennys, All that prey on vice or folly Wealth, my lad, was made to wander, When the bonny blade carouses, Should the guardian, friend, or mother, RAPIDITY OF Piozzi's British Synonymy. FASHIONABLE CONVER SION. Louis de Courcillen de Dangeau, abbot of Fontaine-Daniel and Cler mont, was himself a convert, and as conversion was much in vogue, under the devout Lewis XIV he sinetimes employed himself in this work. Of one instance of success, however, he did not boast. An unbeliever. who probably had been so through fashion, and became a convert from the same principle, went directly to the opposite extreme of superstitious credulity. "Alas!" said the abbot, "I have but just proved to this giddy-head the existence of a God, and he is ready to believe in the christening of bells." A MILD CHECK TO INTOLERANCE. When Bishop Morley was consulted by a mayor of a country corpora tion, what method he should take to root out the fanatics in the year of his mayorality; the bishop, now grown old, first preached friendliness to him, by ordering him a glass of Canary as oft as he started the question in company; and next admonished him, when alone, to let these people live quietly, in many of whom he was satisfied there was the true fear of God, and who were not likely to be gained by rigour and severity. School Books. THE ODYSSEY AND THE ILIAD. Ir is a subject of surprise that in our schools and academies, the ILIAD should be used as a standard classic in preference to the ODYSSEY, equally well suited to convey the knowledge of the Greek language, and so much superior in its morality and lessons of life. One is tempted to exclaim, in the translation of Cowper, which, always, gives us the character as well as the sense of the divine original, ............How can we overlook Divine Ulysses, whose courageous heart, With such peculiar cheerfulness endures Whatever toils, and whom Minerva loves. We should naturally have expected that preceptors, and professors, who are generally of the clerical profession, would have been solicitous to turn away the eyes, and the hearts of their pupils, from the immoral theology, the ferocious passions, the splendid and dangerous fallacies of the Iliad. From the partialities of its poet, we should have turned them to the perfect model and example which the Odyssey opens to our enraptured view, of perseverance, of patience, of prudence, (the providence of the human being) of modest magnanimity, of the most pleasing urbanity, of the most inplicit confidence in divine protection, and in fine of the LOVE OF COUNTRY. We should have been eager to set before them a soul replete with the sweetness of the natal soil, that per vading passion "Ratione valentior omni" which accompanied the great and good Ulysses in all his wanderings, and made him reject Calypso, and a proffered immortality for the dear delight of revisiting the barren Ithaca, Καπνον αποθρώσκοντα νοῆσαι. Ought not the observation to be impressed, as by a signet, on the mind of every preceptor, that whoever has the regulation of early life, is, in a great degree, the arbiter of its happiness or misery, and that the influence of early associations on the mind might be employed in the most effectual manner to aid our moral principles? Thus it should be the grand object to teach learning by instruction, and virtue by example." For this end, I know not of any means more effectual than to set before the delighted eyes of youth, such a man as ULYSSES, humanly perfect; to attach their early associations to the contemplation and love of the poetic form and fiction; and then to animate and realize it by the promethean torch of a virtuous enthusiasm, a flame which, at the perilous period of puberty, either lifts the possessor to heaven, or, perverted and inverted, descends to the centre. Is it, at a critical time, like this, that fuel should be cast upon our brutal passions, and when the ferocious Achilles, impiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer" is suffered perhaps by a christian divine, (professing good wili towards men, and inspired with a wish for peace upon earth.) is this the demoniąc mortal allowed to fascinate the fancies, and kindle the feelings of boys verging upon manhood? The ill tendency of such ingenious but immoral fiction was known and felt even in ancient times, when war was more the occupation of life, when it was made merely for the sake of war, and the philosopher was scarcely heard who said "Bellum ob solam pacem suscipiendum." Even then, the "corruptela poetarum" was acknowledged, and lamented. Did an idolizing imitation of Achilles improve the character or the conduct of Alexander? Did not the siege of Troy, instigate him to the destruction of Tyre? And was it not, with reason, that Plato expelled such Poems from his moral republic? I have sometimes thought that a noble subject of a grand and moral epic, might be found in THE LABOURS OF HERCULES, conveying the wisest instruction through the means of lively fiction, and with a momentous moral running through the whole, like a vein of gold. Pro omnibus gentibus conservandis, labores subiit. If on the one hand every thing is to be feared from the deception of an example, whose very vices, by the pandarism of poetry, are rendered seducing and attractive, nothing on the other hand, forms a more pow. erful incitement to imitation, nothing so rapidly pushes forward the perfectibility of our nature, not only in the arts that adorn life, but in life itself, as placing before us an image of perfection, an "eximius unus" to whom, or to which, we may approximate, where we cannot hope to equal. Thus in eloquence, the image of the perfect orator verus"- -"perfectus"-" solus”moved incessantly, before the eyes of Demosthenes aud Cicero, and illumined their imaginations, and inspired them with the mighty hope of filling the vast TO COME. the world ne'er saw," heightens the Sublimity of the conception, and throws an air of divinity over the statue of Venus or Apollo. And lastly, in the art of living well, certainly the best of all arts, philosophers, or wise men of all ages, have deemed it most useful for the practical imitation of mankind, to set before them an example in which virtue may be said to be embodied, and where we may worship the image of the divinity, without the danger of idolatry. Such we may suppose was the Daimon" consulted by Socrates, and under this point of view, we view the life and adventures of the sage Ulysses, a poem, which, (if the expression may be excused by the enthusiasm of the reader) I should not scruple to denominate the PAGAN SCRIPTURES. I have often admired the beautiful ideal love of Sophia in Rousseau's Emilius. She had fallen in love, before she saw Emilins, with the idol of her imagination, and indeed the object was well worthy of the richest and purest fancy. It was with TELEMACHUS she fell in love, the sou of Ulysses, drawn by the pencil of Fenelon, in a manner, and with that divine grace, which only the best of hearts could have imparted to the creation of the most elegant taste. The "beau ideal" of the other sex, is perhaps accomplished in CLARISSA HARLOWE. The foregoing slight remarks are made with a view of recommending the Odyssey in preference to the Iliad for the use of schools, and Į venture to add that there is ample room for an "index expurgatorius in the books which are wantonly and unadvisedly placed before the youth of these countries, in their public institutions, under the title of classic literature. A. P. AN ADDRESS, Spoken at the Belfast Theatre, on the night of the 19th inst. when a Play was performed for the Benefit of the Pupils of the IRISH HARP SOCIETY. BY A MEMBER OF THE SOCIETY. ERE laws were fram'd, or arts receiv'd their birth, Qr culture's hand had tam'd the stubborn earth, Man helpless liv'd, to solitude confin'd, One step exalted o'er the bestial kind; And still among the woods and wilds had roam'd, To lonely misery perpetual doom'd, Had not, to ease his woes, propitious heav'n Qne gift of passing worth in mercy given; Call'd forth the Angel form that guides the spheres Thro' all the periods of revolving years, With skill melodious-called, and bade her "Now, while destruction's bauner wide unfurl'd, "Waves like a meteor o'er a prostrate world; "While nation after nation tottering fall, «Till all are sunk-one fate involving all; "Secure we stand, and, when the tale we hear, "If beats the heart, 'tis pity's throb, not fear." Oh, sacred Charity! to thee 'tis given, |