Not the tranquillest air that the winds ever blew, LOVE AND REASON. 'Quand l'homme commence à raisonner, il cesse de sentir.'-J. J. Rousseau. "TWAS in the summer-time so sweet, When hearts and flowers are both in season, Love told his dream of yesternight, While Reason talked about the weather; The boy in many a gambol flew, Fell on the boy, and cooled him still. In vain he tried his wings to warm, "This must not be,' said little Love The sun was made for more than you.' Now gaily roves the laughing boy O'er many a mead, by many a stream; And drinking bliss in every beam. From all the gardens, all the bowers, He culled the many sweets they shaded, But now the sun, in pomp of noon, And fever thrilled through all his veins ! The dew forsook his baby brow, No more with vivid bloom he smiledOh! where was tranquil Reason now, To cast her shadow o'er the child? Beneath a green and aged palm, His foot at length for shelter turning, Oh! take me to that bosom cold,' He felt her bosom's icy touch, And soon it lulled his pulse to rest; For, ah! the chill was quite too much, And Love expired on Reason's breast! TO FANNY. NAY, do not weep, my Fanny dear! The world-ah, Fanny! Love must shun One bosom to recline upon, Are quite enough for Love! What can we wish, that is not here For me, there's not a lock of jet "Tis in your eyes, my sweetest love! Let but their orbs in sunshine move, May frown or smile for me! ASPASIA. "TWAS in the fair Aspasia's bower, There, as the listening statesman hung Was planned between two snowy arms! Sweet times! you could not always last- Fanny, my love, they ne'er shall say Attuned to woman's soft control, And Fanny hath the charm, the skill, THE GRECIAN GIRI'S DREAM OF THE BLESSED ISLAND. TO HER LOVER. όχι τε καλος Πυθαγόρης, όσσοι τε χορον στήριξαν ερωτος. AπоÀÀшν пερι ПArivov.-Oracul. Metric, a Joan. Opsop, collec WAS it the moon, or was it morning's ray, That called thee, dearest, from these arms away? The languor of a soul too richly blest! 1 It was imagined by some of the ancients that ingly, we find that the word kеavos was somethere is an ethereal ocean above us, and that the times synonymous with anp, and that death was sun and moon are two floating luminous islands, not unfrequently called Okeavolo mopos, or the in which the spirits of the blessed reside. Accord-passage of the ocean.' I heard thy lyre, which thou hadst left behind, While thus I lay, in this voluptuous calm, Through paths of light, refreshed with starry dew, Thou know'st, my love, beyond our clouded skies, Gemmed with bright islands, where the hallowed souls, author of the Dii Fatidizi, p. 160) illos esse loci Genios:' which words, however, are not in Eunapius. 1 Eunapius, in his Life of Jamblichus, tells us of two beautiful little spirits or loves, which Jamblichus raised by enchantment from the warm springs at Gadara; 'dicens astantibus (says the I find from Cellarius, that Amaths, in the That very orb, whose solitary light So often guides thee to my arms at night, Floating in splendour through those seas above! Played with the ringlets of her Samian's hair," neighbourhood of Gadara, was also celebrated for its warm springs, and I have preferred it as a more poetical name than Gadara. There were various opinions among the ancients with respect to their lunar establishment: some made it an elysium, and others a purgatory; while some supposed it to be a kind of entrepot between heaven and earth, where souls which had left their bodies, and those that were on their way to join them, were deposited in the valleys of Hecate, and remained till further orders. Τοις περι σεληνην αέρι λέγειν αυτας κατοικείν, και απ' αυτής κατω χωρείν εις την TEDLYCLOV YEVEO.-Stob. lib. i. Eclog. Physic. 2 The pupil and mistress of Epicurus, who called her his dear little Leontium' (Acorraptor), as appears by a fragment of one of his Letters in Laertius. This Leontium was a woman of talent; she had the impudence (says Cicero) to write against Theophrastus; and, at the same time, Cicero gives her a name which is neither polite nor translateable. Meretricula etiam Leontium contra Theophrastum scribere ausa est.'- De Natur. Deor. She left a daughter, called Danae, who was just as rigid an Epicurean as her mother; something like Wieland's Danae in Agathon. It would sound much better, I think, if the name were Leontia, as it occurs the first time in Laertius; but M. Menage will not hear of this reading. 3 Pythia was a woman whom Aristotle loved, and to whom, after her death, he paid divine honours, solemnizing her memory by the same sacrifices which the Athenians offered to the goddess Ceres. For this impious gallantry the philosopher was of course censured. It would be well, however, if some of our modern Stagyrites had a little of this superstition about the memory of their mistresses. Socrates, who used to console himself in the society of Aspasia for those 'less endearing ties' which he found at home with Xantippe. For an account of this extraordinary creature, Aspasia, and her school of erudite luxury at Athens, see L Histoire de l'Académie, etc., tom. xxxi. p. 69. Ségur rather fails on the subject of Aspasia. Les Femmes, tom. i. p. 122. The author of the Voyage du Monde de Descartes has also placed those philosophers in the moon, and has allotted Seigneuries to them, as well as to the astronomers (part 2, p. 143); but he ought not to have forgotten their wives and mistresses; quunt.' • cura non ipsa in morte relin the name of this fair Pythagorean. They are There are some sensible letters extant under addressed to her female friends upon the education of children, the treatment of servants, ete. One, in particular, to Nicostrata, whose husband had given her reasons for jealousy, contains such truly considerate and rational advice, that it ought to be translated for the edification of all married ladies. See Gale's Opuscul. Myth. Phys. p. 741. "Pythagoras was remarkable for fine hair, and Dr. Thiers (in his Histoire des Perruques) seems to take for granted it was all his own, as he has not mentioned him among those ancients who were obliged to have recourse to the 'coma apposititia.'-L'Hist. des Perruques, chap. 1. |