Mercury. Why didst thou not chuse to copy virtue then, whose reward would have been lasting and real, instead of foolishly pursuing a phantom, whose pleasure is transitory and imaginary, but whose end is certain misery, and which has at length caused you shamefully to die by your own hand? Mr. P. I acknowledge your last words to contain the sting of truthbut where lies the sin I have been so guilty of-The gods you said have given to men riches, as a mean of happiness I endeavored to attain those means, which the gods allow, and I have acquired them and the eminence which he holds in. the art, he stood pledged to the public and his profession.-The pencil which immortalized Wolfe and British valour, on the heights of Abraham, could not be expected to do otherwise than commemorate the death of a Nelson, and the most splendid victory which has ever been recorded in the annals of the British navy. It is a just pride to the nation that we have men amongst us, to whom may safely be confided all the immortality which the arts can bestow upon the splendid actions of our heroes and defenders. A certain French general is said to have lamented, that he lived in an age so barren of literature, that he could not expect even a decent epitaph on his tomb stone as a compensation for Mr. P. I wish you could convince me all the laurels he had earned. In the that my conduct was wrong. present times there needs no such subMercury. By one touch of this rod-ject of regret. Poetry perhaps may fail, be thou convinced the fellow looks but the pencil can still perform its task. stupified. Mercury. Without regarding the steps you took in pursuit of them. Mr. P. there lies the crime. You sacrificed the end to the means. Mr. P. O conscience! conscience! how do thy torments rend my soul to pieces!-thy arrows are more piercing than the pointed steel! thy horrors are intolerable! Fain would I headlong rush into the waves of the fiery Phlegethen Methinks I could gladly dive into the river of oblivion-and quench, eternally quench the soul's immortal spark, and drown her anguish and her hope forever......Exeunt. LYSIPPUS. The present picture represents the death of Lord Nelson, in the memorable victory obtained over the fleets of France and Spain, off Cape Trafalgar. As this picture will not appear in any exhibition, a description of it may not be unacceptable to the lovers of the art, and the public in general. The subject of the picture being leroic, the artist has considered it under the head of the Epic. He has kept the attention.constantly fixed upon the hero, and made every thing subsidiary to him. The dying Nelson is exhibited lying upon the quarter-deck of the ship, surrounded by his officers. By this groupe he first acts upon and excites the feelings of the spectators.. Here is the hero, and, in the language of poetry, his story. The wounded and the dead form the episodes of the piece, and the whole raises a noble climax up to the dying Admiral. WEST'S PORTRAIT OF LORD NELSON. THIS celebrated artist, who has so long maintained the first rank of his profession, and whose historical paintings have not only contributed to form the modern English School, but to establish an era in the art through the principal academies of Europe, has at length completed the picture, for which in justice to bus well-earned reputation The point of time is the death of the Lord Nelson lies, with his head fall. ing back, on the breast, and in the arms of his Chaplain. His face and eyes are elevated to Heaven. His.countenance expresses a most resigned and noble piety, a diguity, and a consciousness of having done his duty to li; king and country. In the countenance of Nel. son, the painter has shewn his power ALEXANDER envied Achilles the poet, that recorded his glory.....Em. Edi. dexhibiting the most difficult and composite passions with the most natural and tempered correctness. In Nelson there is nothing of affectaton; every thing is as simple as was the character of the man; there is a kind of serene and saint-like heroism, the comfort and composure of a dying martyr. This head can never be too much admired; it would be inestimable if considered only as a portrait of the man; for we do not hesitate to pronounce it the best we ever saw. The position of Lord Nelson on the quarter-deck occupies the middle of the picture; he extends his left hand to Capt. Hardy, who affectionately presses it to his bosom, whilst he announces, from a paper, the victory over the enemy and the number of ships taken. The surgeon and his mates are rendering | their assistance, whilst an intrepid sailor spreads the Spanish flag at the feet of the dying Admiral. And an officer enters at the same time with the French flag under his arm, but starts back with marked emotion, upon beholding the situation of his commander. The picture generally may be said to Consist of two distinct groupes. The figures on the left form a groupe of officers attendant on his Lordship; their countenances express a grave and decent sorrow, and are admirably contrasted with the groupe on the right, which consist of sailors flushed with the sounds of victory, but checked by ne of the surgeons who beholds the approach of death in the countenance of Nelson. Between these figures, all of which are powerfully pourtrayed and contrasted, are groupes of sailors carrying the wounded to the cockpit, and others rendering their best tokers of regard to the dead. One of these smaller groupes we can never too much commend; we mean that of an affectionate demeanor of a faithful servant, over the dead body of his master, Capt. Adair. In the retiring parts of the picture, and the perspective, are seen all the rage and fury of a sea fight,-ships on fire, others sinking, or blowing up; of some the masts are falling; others are nearly buried in their own ruins. Here every thing is terrible and aw ful; here is sublimity in the fulness of its horrors. The groupes in this picture are composed of nearly eighty figures, and more than fifty of them are portraits of men and officers actually engaged in the battle. Such is the picture;-of which, independent of its excellence as a work of art, we may truly say, that the circumstances which produced its perfection can never occur again. It is impossible again to collect, in the painting room of the artist, those various groupes of men whose portraits are upon the canvass, and whose individual likenesses were necessary for the fidelity of a composition which aspires to be considered as a work of historical record,-a work of truth, and not of fancy. We shall not enter into a minute criticism; it will be sufficient to say, that Mr. West, in this picture, has excelled every thing he has hitherto done. For the Emerald. DESULTORY SELECTIONS, AND ORIGINAL REMARKS. Mr. EMMET, the Irish advocate that has flashed into fame and practice in the city and state of NewYork, is brother, we understand, to another of equal eminence that formerly flourished in Ireland, and to Robert Emmet, Esq. the modern Curtius, illustrious for mind and misfortune, who was executed in Dublin for high treason being concerned in the insurrection of the At the poop of the ship are station-23d July, 1803. On trial he made ed the marines and their wounded of ficers the signal lieutenant, with his midshipman; and the master of the ship, with his navigating seamen. Under the poop are men stationed at the gun, close to which a lieutenant is killed. no defence; but after verdict, on the clerk's putting to him the common question, which is mere matter of form, "What have you to say, why judgment of death and execution: should not be pronounced against you manner. according to law?" he took occasion | "It is the accursed progeny of to make the most eloquent harangue servile hypocrisy of remorseless language can boa:t. It has very lust of power-of insatiate thirst of beautifully been said to have been gain, laboring for the destruction of "that voice, which spoke almost man under the specious pretences of from the grave; and seemed assim-religion-her banners stolen from ilating to the energy and inspiration the altar of God, and her allies conof eternal truth." It concludes in gregated from the abysses of Hell. the following admirably impressive She acts by votaries to be restrained by no companctions of humanity, My Lords, you seem impatient for they are dead to mercy-to be for the sacrifice. The blood, for reclaimed by no voice of reason; which you thirst, is not congealed for refutation is the bread, on which by the artificial terrors, which sur-their folly feeds. They are outlawround your victim; it circulates ed alike from their species and their warmly and unruffled through the Creator. The object of their crime channels, which God created for is social life, and the wages of their noble purposes, but which you are sin is social death.” bent to destroy for purposes so Such a man is not honored by grievous, that they cry to Heaven. making him Attorney General, Be yet patient! I have but a few and Master of the Rolls. He honwords more to say.-I am going to ors the places; and could every my cold and silent grave: my lamp place of power and distinction withof life is nearly extinguished: my in the gift of government be assignrace is run the grave opens to re-ed him, he could fill and make more ceive me, and I sink into its bosom. Honorable the immensity of office. --I have but one request, to ask at my departure from this world; it is the charity of its silence.-Let no man write my epitaph; for as no man who knows my motives dare now vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them.--Let them and me repose in obscurity, and my tomb remain uninscribed, until other times and other men can do justice to my character. When my country takes her place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written I HAVE DONE!" We have no hesitation in saying, that if the principles of Greek and Roman eloquence are preserved any where, they are in Ireland. The Roman forum is the Irish bar. Westminster hall never heard elcquence, that can equal the following, nor an orator that can rival CURRAN. The Philipic is against bigotry. Time, that moulders towering monuments into dust, and obliterates the memory of their existence, only serves to picture to our minds bad acts in more horrific forms.The pleasures of the world may strew flowers over them, but they cannot hide them. Adamant may hold its characters perfect for ages, yet they must wear out at last; but those engraven on the conscience Time does not efface, but with his scythe continually renews, end, at every fresh touch, sinks deeper and deeper they, as if written there, in rubric, with the heart's blood, can only cease to be when that shall flow no more. The observation of MAUSONIUS, which, the translator of the Abbe D'Olwit has well remarked, may be called the GOLDEN MAXIM, is indeed beautiful. "Allowing the per- formance of an honorable action to be attended with labor, the labor is soon over, but the honor immortal; whereas, should even pleasure wait EPIGRAM. A VICAR, long ill, who had treasur'd up wealth, his health, Told his curate, one Sunday, to pray for on the commission of what is dis-Which oft having done, a parishioner honorable, the pleasure is soon gone, but the dishonour eternal." said, That the curate ought rather to wish "For my truth," says the curate "let I NAMERTES, the Spartan, being styled by a stranger, The happy, on account of the number of his friends, asked him, "How such, as had many, should know whether they were Dr. BLAIR, Somewhere in his lecsincere or pretended?" "He could tures, talks of the moral sublime, not tell" was the answer. "Learn and quotes the daring speech of the then," said Namertes, "BY AD-adventurous Cesar, to the timid piVERSE FORTUNE." lot, tossed by the waves: To give physic to a dead body, said DIOGENES and advice to an old man, is the same thing. TIMON, the Athenian, being asked why he hated all mankind, sullenly answered, "I hate the bad for being so, and the rest for not hating the bad." The same antient pronounced AVARICE and VANITY the principal clements of all evil. To expose one's self to great dangers for small matters, said AUGUSTUS, is to fish with a golden hook. Perhaps the best remark that ever fell from a Cynic is contained in this happy and forcible similitude of DIOGENES. "Such as have virtue clways in their mouths and neglesi to live agreeably to the standard of it, are like a harp, which yields a sound pleasing to others, while itself neither hears nor is sensible of the music." WINE. A vine bears three kind of grapes, said ANACHARSIS; the first of pleas 66 Quid times? Cæsarem vehis." The following modern instance of the above quality, found in a recent journal, will please the reader: An old German soldier having lost both his arms in a severe battle, his commanding officer proposed to reward his bravery with a dol lar. You certainly think, captain," exclaimed the veteran, with becoming spirit, " that I have only lost my gloves !" [The Calcutta Fost. With pleasure, we insert the following Charge to an English Grand Jury, delivered by a well meaning magistrate and illustrious law character, about the year 1752. It quaintly conveys the ideas of a good puritan of old time...... Players at the close of the first head, will desire to thank God for the progress of civilization and liberal thought; and belles, who look forward with glad expectation to the approaching balls and assemblies and have already their new dresses prepared, will not think the judge very courtly for his remarks on the last. WHITELOCK BULSTRODE's opinion of PLAYS & MASQUERADES, in a specch to the Grand Jury of Middlesex, Eng. OF PLAY-HOUSES. 'Tis to be wish'd there were none ure, the second of drunkenness, in the kingdom, because of the evil the third of repentance. they do to mankind. THE EMERALD. These poets, ev'n after they are dead, if their plays survive them, by their vicious plays, help Satan to ruin mankind in this world, and utterly to destroy them in the next. What reckoning, what accompt, will those witty, unthinking poets have to make for these great evils at the dreadful day of judgment! Let them remember the direful woe our Saviour pronounces against them which give offence; that is, occasion mankind to sin. These plays being contra bonos Mores, both the poets and the actors are presentable; the patent they have not warranting them herein; and the king's proclamation for suppressing vice, immorality and prophaneness, being directly against such doings. These plays are a nuisance to the virtuous part of mankind who happen to see them, and sink the vicious deeper in the mire of destruction. My next head is, touching Masquerades and Balis. MR. EDITOR, From the difficulty of condensing the meaning of the Latin epigram in your last, within the same num[ber of lines in English Hexameter, there will not be found much poetry in the following, but the sense of the original is, I believe, fairly preserved. DELIA will not think us ungallant in not receiving her with open arms. Communications may seem insignificant to her, which to others are respectable. Our cabinet is proud of many of the "rings," which contain such Had masquerades, alias balls, been "posies." The same hand, under a in use at the time of the apostles, it columns with diamonds of the first wadifferent signature, has furnished our would have been impossible chris-ter and weight. There are paths enough tianity could have any success; to Parnassus. Those, who climb, need could have gained any ground, where not quarrel for room. Delia is wild as those had been practised. One mas-Diana and winds the horn of the huntress. querade or ball would have carried We apply to her the lines of SBENoff more christians from the christian faith, and the purity of a christian life, than the raising ten men from the dead would have kept in it. VERSES WRITTEN ON A LADY'S FAN. FLAVIA the least and slightest toy STONE. "O Peace, to yonder clarion go, lations from the Greek. Would CASTIGATOR but attend to his precepts, Horace, though dead, would yet speak in his own words. "Fungar vice cotis." His communication should be well set to give it edge. We are pleased with his thoughts. The blade has good stuff; but it wants whetting. |