Now the emotion which this picture excites, results not merely from the images of touch and motion, conveyed by the epithets warm cheek, and rising bosom, which are of course inapplicable to the canvas; but from the charming associations enveloped in the phrases of the second line, including ideas of youth, health, fragrance, lightness, ardour, grace, and lustre, with which this celestial being is instantly encircled in the imagination of every reader of taste and feeling. If you seriously inquire for the propriety or meaning of the epithet liquid in the line you have quoted, you will see, by reading the language of the aerial forms in the next stanza, that it means smooth, melo. dious, worthy of the skies; and this indeed is neither remarkably poetical, nor is it vulgar. But what shall we think of that criticism, which, to depreciate the force of Gray's numbers, resorts to examples taken from the little jeu d'esprit on the drowning of a cat, and searches several odes for false rhymes, when more than half as many may be produced from the single ode of Dryden on Alexander's feast. Once more; either you or I have mistaken the mode of referring to the ode on the progress of poesy; for the passage to which I referred is the third stanza of the first ternary, and not of the third; which you may still think however no better than doggerel. There are some ears, which cannot distinguish between a jig and the movements in an oratorio; or, in American phrase, between Old Hundred and Yankee Doodle. The admirers of Gray will not only consent to be laughed at, but will even join in the luugh, when you shall produce your parody of the Bard. But they are not now first to learn that the highest sublimity is most susceptible of being burlesqued. Even the passage in Genesis, which extorted the admiration of Longinus, might be "successfully imitated," at least in his own opinion, by the man, who should say, "make a fire in my chamber, and the fire was made." You have closed your letter with a benevolent wish, which I beg leave to reciprocate with a little variation; that instead of employing your acknowledged talents as a poet, in burlesque imitations of Gray, you would have the goodness to give us an ode equal to the Bard. THE AUTHOR OF THE REMARKER, NO.34 he who is silent on topicks with which he is familiar, and he who aims to be learned on those of which he is ignorant; the long story teller, and the artificial wit, might all have their places, assigned in the new classification of talkers. But certain circumstances have led me, instead of a scientifick arrangement and analysis, to offer, in the present number, such loose hints as have occurred to me, and have been suggested by others. Taciturnity is often interpreted as a mark of wisdom; and its opposite is estimated according to the ability of the loquacious to please or instruct. It is singular, that we should often discover the most positive significaney in silence, and brand him for a blockhead, who, in his social intercourse, sometimes overhaps the bounds of discretion. A wise man, however, while he is too proud to expose his ignorance, is generally willing to impart his knowledge; and if he become a mere listener, when the discourse turns on subjects that are familiar to him, we are authorised to class him among those captious cynicks, who delight to prey upon the absurdities of mankind. But, there is in some, a reserve that cannot be accounted for, either from pride or affectation; a reserve wholly constitutional, and which, if it can ever be entirely subdued, cannot be overcome without effort. This natural disposition is often cherished and confirmed by habits of seclusion; and hence it is, that we sometimes find the scholar, who has never relished the beauties of ancient or modern literature, except in his study, unable, at the literary fair, to hold competition with those, who have been accustomed to bring their wares to market. Still less can he expect to rival the literary fop, who knows precisely what is in demand, and who, though he has as few changes of dialogue as the finical gentleman has of dress in his wardrobe, is very knowing in what will certainly please. The Remarker thinks it proper to communicate to his readers, certain complaints, from different correspondents, of the awkward situation, in which they have severally been placed by the pedantry, affectation, or ignorance of those with whom they have occasionally associated. Mr. Remarker, I am one of your plain, sedentary scholars, read my Latin and Greek, and am not altogether insensible to the pleasures arising from the study of modern belles-lettres. But I seldom commit to memory the fine sayings of the ancients, and cannot repeat two couplets from any modern poet. What I would chiefly complain of is, that a shallow fellow of my acquaintance, who has procured a gradus ad sententiolas, Dodd's beauties of Shakespeare, and several other excellent books to abridge the labour of reading, is continually, wherever I meet with him, interlarding his discourse with passages drawn at second hand from great writers, by means of his scholar's assistants. Sometimes he will pretend to forget whence he has procured those treasures, which he lavishes with such profusion. "It is Horace, Sir," he has said to me more than once, when justifying the levities of which he has been guilty, it is Horace, I think, who says; dulce est desipere in\ loco." "Is it not Virgil, who observes, in speaking of the happiness of agricultural life; O fortunatos nimium, c." " Juvenal, if I remember rightly, has, what I would apply to this remark. able genius (such for instance as a juggler or rope dancer,)" rara avis in terris, &c." Such rattle may be very well borne once; but my misfortune is, that, apprehending me to be a scholar, he persecutes me with this same sort of entertainment, in whatever company we meet. It is true, he always gives warning of the attack to be made on my patience; for, like a certain Italian poet I have read of, he invariably has the same exordium Now, Sir, is it right, that these superficial coxcombs, who have acquired a small, jumbled miscellany, should be suffered at pleasure to retail the little stories of their memory to the annoyance of those, who have some relish for the intercommunity of so cial and literary discourse. The gentleman will probably know this sketch of his picture; though he has set for it so often, that it might have been drawn much nearer to perfection. With this conviction, I shall neither expose his name, nor subscribe my own. SIR, Yours, &c. To the Remarker. I am a widowed lady, who have been persuaded by my female friends, to send my daughter to a boarding school, to learn what are called the accomplishments I had the good fortune to receive a tolerable education under the care of my parents; but I was utterly astonished at the novelty, exhibited by the directress of the institution, in the use of terms and in the application of her knowledge. At my first interview, she placed such a host of "tall opaque words" between me and her meaning, that I was more than once on the point of making my escape. Having occasion to speak of some of that class of misses, commonly called romps, and the vexation they caused her, she exclaimed with infinite dignity," O, that I could revive the ostracism!" In relating to me the stupidity of a pupil in performing a problem on the globe, she burst into a sublime apostrophe to the immortal Newton, and lamented that prodigious disparity of intellect, in consequence of which, few could learn even a small portion of all that he discovered. I am no enemy, Sir, to a modest display of the little learning that our sex is permitted to acquire; but I would pray to be delivered from such a wanton misapplication of it, as I have witnessed in the lady I have mentioned. In truth nothing is more disgusting to those of either sex, who have any knowledge or taste, than a female pedant. She is entitled to more praise, who applies her philosophy to improvements in domestick economy, than the woman, who acquires just learning enough to expose herself to theridicule of a satirist; who stores her memory with trite axioms of the ancients, which she finds in magazines, with the history of institutions for which she makes some absurd parallels; or with that mere scum of science, which serves only to excite the contempt of the learned. I am, Sir, Yours, SOPHIA. My friend Mythologos has examined every niche in the Pantheon, and is perfectly acquainted with thre genealogy of every God and Goddess acknowledged by the ancients. He often complains of the ignorance of his associates in the fabulous history of Greece and Rome, and has more than once felt a glow of shame upon his cheek for the ludicrous blunders he has witnessed. The following letter to the Remarker shews how much a man of his sensi bility is wounded by that stupidity, which, to ordinary men, is a source of diversion, SIR, I was the other day paying a vis it to a good neighbour of mine, who had a son just returned from college, The young gentleman took the liberty to compliment his sisters by telling them they were "the very pictures of Hygeia herself." The father, not willing to appear ignorant of that personage, said, hastily, "Ah, that was the fellow that had a hundred heads!" "Oh,no my dear,"replied his gentle wife," that monster was the Hydra." My good humoured friend was by no means discomposed, and contented himself with exclaiming, "How much education is improved since my time !" It may not be entirely useless to give this a place in one of your future numbers. It may tend to check some in the impertinent and ill-timed use of what learning they have, and prevent those who have none, from a needless and ridiculous confession of their igno It is not the pedantick, the superficial, and the ignorant only, who evince sometimes that they know not when to speak, and when to be silent. There is a sort of men in all professions, who are desirous of appearing to be profound in every thing. You will sometimes hear a lawyer or physician imparting to divines what he considers a novel explanation of a text of scripture, with which the mere catechumen in biblical criticism is better acquainted than he; and the clergyman laying down with no small parade political Vol. V. No. IX, 3M axioms, as trite as the common appellations of contending parties. Such men, in their particular vocations, where they excel, are very calm and unobtrusive, and are willing to see their inferiours contending for victory. But bring them to the ground where their competency is questionable, to a contest in which they are thought to have an inferiour, or at most but an equal chance for the prize, and, no longer remaining careless spectators, they enter the lists with all the zeal of youthful combatants. Remarker might enlarge; but he This is a topick on which the has answered the intention of this number, if he have brought into view, by the aid of his correspondents, without aiming at personality, certain characters who shall recognise themselves, and take a friendly hint. Advice,, though when administered gratuitously to individuals it is seldom palateable, when offered at random, can neither be offen sive in itself, nor impertinent in him who bestows it. The Remarker, therefore, would recommend to all gentlemen who are in the habit of enlivening every subject with a quotation, to repeat, according to the best of their recollection, and seldom to appeal to another for their verbal correctness, for the work whence the passage is taken, or the name of the author. His fair sisters he would guard equally against an excessive or affected ti midity in the use of their knowledge, and a needless, pedantick display of it. The ignorant he would advise to listen with apparent wisdom to the learned; and the learned to acknowledge, what may otherwise be discovered to their mortification, that in some things they have their superioare. For the Anthology. ORIGINAL LETTERS; From an AMERICAN TRAVELLER in EUROPE, to his friends in this country. LETTER TWENTY-FIRST. Rome, February 25, 1805. serted, and seems from that cause to cast a gloom over the rest of the city. MY DEAR FRIEND, I HAD commenced in my last letter a short topographical description of modern Rome. I have spoken of its size, its surface, and general form and appearance. Something has been said. also of its mountains, or rather as we should call them, hills. The Monte Celio, or Mons Celius, is no otherwise remarkable at the present day, than as being the scite of the famous church of St. John in Laterano, the second church of Rome in point of splendour, and the oldest in Christendom as the catholicks pretend. Whatever may be the justice of its pretensions in this respect, they are so far admitted by the Apostolick see, that the ceremony of the induction of the pope is always performed in this church, to the great prejudice of its proud sister, St Peter's. In the early ages of Rome, this mountain was called the mountain of Oaks, on account of its being covered with a thick forest; it is said to have derived its present name from Celius, who, according to Tacitus, brought succours to Tarquin the ancient in his war against the Sabines. It would not be an injury to Rome, if it were again covered with oaks, since it embraces a portion, which is among the most de The Aventine mount is not worthy of notice on account of any remarkable modern edifices; its extent is very considerable, and its heighth has been as little impaired as any of these famous hills. The Mons Quirinalis is situated in the most populous part of modern Rome; it is in fact covered with fine streets and magnificent edifices, but it is most distinguished by being the seat of the papal palace, in which the pope always actually resides. Upon occasions of great splendour and solemnity, the Vatican is preferred, but the constant domestick establishment of the pope is at the Quirinal palace. It is a most beautiful and noble hill, and gives an air of grandeur to this city, of which no other city of Europe can boast. Though the Mons Janiculus was not considered as one of the seven hills, on which ancient Rome was said to have been built, (probably because it was on the opposite side of the river from the others, and rather without the populous part of the city,) yet it always formed, and still forms a very important and interesting portion of the metropolis. It is now inferiour to none of the other hills in point of splendour, since it has the honour to support the incomparable palace of the Vat |