and implacable enemies. See Rev. chase and the ardour of the pursuit, xvii. 6. had separated him from his attendThat by the battle of the great day ants, and he found himself bewildered of God Almighty, and the gathering in an extensive valley surrounded by together at Armageddon, the same lofty hills, whose sides were clothed final war is to be understood; and with verdure, and whose summits by the great earthquake, "such as were lost in clouds. The fertilizing was not since men were upon the waters of the Retz here took their earth," the French revolution. "The course, and meandered in a gentle great city divided into three parts, and murmur over banks of flowers, till the falling of the cities of the nations," they were seen and heard no more. intimate, that instead of ten or more, The faintness of hunger and the as formerly, only three great powers weariness of fatigue, made the prince shall then remain in Europe, or desirous of rest, and impatient for Christendom. food; and he looked round in eager That the 21st and 22d chapter of anxiety to find some human habitathe Revelations do not describe hea- tion, where he might procure the one, ven, of which the ear hath not heard, and enjoy the other. He at length nor hath the eye seen, but the com- entered a long foot path, at the end parative heavenly state of the Mes- of which he perceived a hermit's cotsiah's kingdom on earth, as a domi- tage, and its solitary inhabitant sitting nion free from persecution, oppres- at the door. "Disappointment is sion, and wars. In a word, if truth not always the lot of man," thought or falsehood derive any weight from Abdallah, upon seeing the cottage: the celebrity of those who have en- " did we moderate our desires as they tered their lists; and as posterity will become unreasonable, we should not probably do justice to the list; among so often have to complain that our the advocates for religious toleration expectations of pleasure are fruitless. and civil equality, the names of a My hopes are accomplished, and my Locke, a Priestly, a Gregoire, or a wishes will be satisfied. To this Mendlesohn, &c. may appear with humble abode my rank will procure that of a late illustrious British states- me a ready admission; the plainest man,* in opposition to those of Pitt, food can be sweetened by hunger, and Horseley, and Burke, and a few pre- the hardest bed softened by fatigue." tended orthodox anonymous French Approaching the hermit, "Friend," emigrants and papists of the old unreformed Gallican church, the advocates through the medium of a British press, for exploded bigotry and superstition, at the commencement of the nineteenth century. I am, &c. An Advocate for the THE CONTEMPLATIST. said he, "you see before you the prince of Persia. I have wandered from my attendants in the heat of the chace, and I know not which way to return to Ispahan. If you can afford me a supper and a night's lodging, you shall be amply rewarded." "Great Prince," replied the old man, prostrating himself," to the children of Oromanes the rights of hospitality are always due; their necessity, not their rank, is the measure of their claim. To procure the little I have to give it is sufficient that you stand Corporis voluptatem non satis esse in need of it, and the homage of an dignam hominis præstantia, eamque isolated old man can add little to the contemni et rejici oportere." (CIC. OFF.) glory of the prince of Persia." The Tast on the lake of Urmia, refinement of his manner, convinced HE setting sun had just shed his courtesy of his behaviour, and the when Abdallah, prince of Persia, Abdallah that the speaker was no returned from hunting near the moun- common peasant. He took his hand tains of Ararat. The length of the and raised him from the ground, and thanking him alike for his reproof and hospitality, he turned his horse ABDALLAH, PRINCE OF PERSIA. * Mr. Fox. Upon entering his habitation, the hermit immediately prepared a plentiful repast of dates, figs, and a cheese made of goat's milk, of which his royal guest very eagerly partook. loose into the valley, and followed to amass money. The greatness of him into the cottage. his fortune did but increase his rapacity, and I believe had he been possessed of all the gold that yet discovered mines can yield, the impossibility of obtaining, would not have prevented him from wishing for more. I had the misfortune to lose my mother at so early an age, that I was never sensible of her maternal cares, and my remaining parent was too much engaged in business to attend to his son's education. He contented himself with sending me to a public school, and permitting me to pay him an annual visit that he night, as he said, see when I should be fit for trade.' "I cannot repress my curiosity," said Abdallah when he had finished, to know what reason can induce you to live in such entire solitude. I am convinced that you are no common peasant; why then do you neglect so many opportunities of benefiting mankind (which in mixing with the world so often occur,) to live where you can neither receive nor confer a favour?" "It was necessity," replied the old man, "that "As I naturally loved learning, forced me into solitude: I have long I was constant in my endeavours to been tired of a state of life in which improve myself: and as knowledge I have been often miserable, and dawned on my mind, I could not never happy. But you forget that help secretly despising the sordid nature requires rest, and the fatigue principles of my father, and resolved that you have undergone calls you to when I should be my own master repose. At the rising of to-morrow's to gratify the inclination I had to sun your curiosity shall be satisfied, and when the beams of omnipotence begin to enlighten the world, you shall hear the history of my lite, which is neither long nor eventful." The prince was unwilling to take possession of the only bed the cottage afford- ling was yet undiminished, but I reed, but his scruples were overruled by the importunity of his host; and he slept uninterrupted till the light of morning awakened him from slumber, and the bird of paradise called him to his devotions. He then seated himself with the hermit at the door of his cottage, and the old man began his history. travel. At the age of eighteen I left school, and was immersed in the cares of commerce till I was twentythree, at which time my father died, and left me in possession of an immense fortune. My desire of travel solved to dedicate five years to pleasure and amusement in my native city, and to become acquainted with my own country before I began my studies abroad. Six months passed away, spent in riot and dissipation, in the indulgence of every passion, and the gratification of every appetite. But the enjoyment of pleasure ceased with its novelty, and experience soon taught me that affluence alone cannot confer happiness. I had been dazzled with wealth which I did not know how to value: I had been intoxicated with riches of whose value I was yet ignorant. From this dream of folly I was roused by an event that awakened me to reason, and finished a course of life of which I was already tired. "Thirty five times," said he, " has the sun performed his annual course since I first beheld the light in the city of Bassora." "Have you not made a mistake?" said the prince. "I should have supposed that you had seen more than eighty summers, and you say only thirty-five." "Those who judge only from appearances," replied the hermit, will often be deceived.” - “ In such a case as this we can judge no other way," "Being one evening at supper with returned Abdallah, but I will ask a large party, at the house of a satrap, questions afterwards; proceed with I entered into discourse with an Engthy story." My name is Merlin. I am the only son of a wealthy merchant, whose whole study was how lish traveller: the conversation turned upon the beauty of women, in the course of which the Englishman took The Contemplatist.-No. VI. frequent occasion to assert the supe- favour of all-powerful Alla; and to reriority of English females over those cover by devotion that tranquillity of 507 of Persia and other nations. I ima- mind to which, in the tumult of pleagined my self bound in honour to stand sure and the hurry of dissipation, I had up in defence of my country women; been so long a stranger. My first efforts and although I had never seen an were weak and unsuccessful. While English lady, I intemperately con- my hands were lifted up in prayer to tradicted his assertion. fended, and being both heated with back to the world, and pictured to He felt of Heaven, my wandering thoughts flew wine, the quarrel soon rose to such a my imagination scenes of earthly feheight, that, upon the Englishman's licity of which the reality probably proposal, we agreed to decide it in never existed. But by perseverance the field. We met in a private place in duty I obtained its reward. The the following morning, and after a stings of remorse ceased to be violent; short conflict, I ran my scymitar the upbraidings of conscience were through his heart. no witnesses of the transaction, I had voice of religion; and calm resignation As there were softened, though not silenced, by the time to collect some of my most succeeded to murmurs and disconvaluable effects, and with these, disguised as an old dervise, I fled to this cottage, where I have lived ever since, endeavouring to atone for my crime by penitence and prayer.” tent." 66 not quit a state of life in which you Why," said the Prince, "did you lived only to be miserable, and by You that can speak from expe- once gratify your inclination, and travelling into foreign countries, at fience," said Abdaliah, continuing shelter yourself from the fury of perthe conversation, nion of a life of solitude; the argu"tell me your opi- secution, and the sword of justice?" ments that have been used by pui- tage," replied Merlin, "When I first entered this cotlosophers, who have either written lection of murder recurred so incesin its support or spoken in its defence, santly, and with so much terror to 66 the recolhave inclined me to think that hap- my mind, that I looked upon myself piness is to be found in retirement as unworthy to associate with the alone." 66 In a state of life," replied children of Alla; and I rashly bound Merlin," which necessity forces him myself by a solemn vow, to remain to accept, a man very seldom expects here till the end of the 12th winter, or can hope for happiness. When I as a penance for my crime. At the first came to this cottage, the novelty end of that time, I was so enervated of my situation secured my attention. by indolence, so habituated to soliI employed my time in rambling in túde, that, though I still resolved to the vallies or traversing the moun- re-enter the world, I remained here tains; in collecting plants, or viewing without an effort to remove. a barren romantic prospect. Some- occurrences of the early part of my times I went out in the pursuit of life appear like a dream, indistinctly The game; at others I listened to the remembered, and likely soon to be murmurs of the brook, or reclined entirely forgotten. And had not the on a bank of verdure. variety ceased, amusement was at an to exertion, I might have sunk into But when sight of a fellow-mortal roused me end. I wanted society to cheer my the grave without a sigh. In a few vacant hours; I had no friend to days I will set out on my travels; whom I could communicate the ob- and having attentively considered the servations I had made. I longed to situations of life, and the manners re-enter a world from which I was of mankind in foreign countries, I secluded; to mingle in the busy will return into my own, where a scenes of life from which I had fled; still ample fortune will secure to me to partake of pleasure that was to me the comforts of life, and enable me In the rainy season my to reward worth and to relieve disdiscontent was still greater. I then tress. By occasionally returning into endeavoured, by the constant exercise solitude, I shall correct and moderate of religious duties, to regain the lost those passions and defects which a no more. 1 long continuance in the world will tempted to throw ridicule upon Shakinsensibly impart, and by a strict speare when he makes Macbeth experformance of the duties of my claim station to compensate for the vices and follies of inexperienced youth." A. M. The conclusion of JULIA's pathetic narratice arrived too late for insertion this month: it will appear in our next. Sir, STRICTURES ON GRAY. "Thou sure and firm set earth Hear not my steps which way they go, For fear thy very stones prate of whereAnd take the present horror from the time about, Which now suits with it." Or upon that_beautiful passage in Paradise Lost, B. xi. 1. 270, where Eve so pathetically apostrophises the flowers which had been her "early visitation, and her last at even." In fact, apostrophe is one of the most natural figures of speech. But to proceed with Gray. In the fifth stanza we have two instances of pleonasm that would not disgrace Blackmore himself. "Their's buxom health of rosy hue, rosy hue" need not surely be told; and that "invention” is "new" is but a homely truth, almost as obvious as that two and two make four." None of the early numbers of your New Series, (See Univ. Mag. for Oct. and Dec. 1804, pp. 302, 505.) were offered some remarks on the poetry of Gray, and I was sorry that the controversy between your correspondents was not pursued, as it might have led to some general result interesting to literature. Without pro fessing to continue in any manner what they had begun, I offer you the a following desultory observations upon this poet. Mistake me not Sir for a relentless persecutor; I am not insensible to the real merits of this author, but I do think that those merits have been exaggerated; an opinion perhaps, which some other of your readers may entertain when they have read the following minute strictures upon his works. In a voluminous writer, it might be unfair to enter into verbal criticism; but in a writer like Gray, whose language is his only praise; whose works are so few, and the result of such great labour, it is strictly correct. To begin with the Ode "On the distant prospect of Eton College." In the third stanza we have a gram- An instance somewhat similar to the above is the following, from stanza 7 : "Or jealousy with rankling tooth, That inly gnaws the secret heart." I do not stop to point out beauties, because that has been done usque ad nauseam; my object is to shew that the poetry of Gray has its faults, and those by no means few. In the "Progress of Poesy," the first stanza has already been animadverted on by a correspondent above quoted: but it has other errors. In the third stanza of the second ternary may be found a line approaching very nearly to the ridiculous, viz. "How do your tuneful echoes languish There is something so grotesque in the idea of an "old poetic mountain," that nothing but the blindness of adoration can save it from ridicule. This should be who, as its antecedent is a person; and here let me remark that Johison's observation upon this apostrophe to Father Thames, In this ode also, I cannot but consiwas at once puerile and illiberal. The der his account of Milton's blindness addressing inanimate objects is not as absolutely puerile: it was such a only allowable in poetry, but it is a petty idea, that, because Milton beauty as well might he have at- spied the secrets of the abyss" and 66 "passed the flaming bounds of place and time," he therefore was "blasted with excess of light, And clos'd his eyes in endless night" Had such a silly attempt been made by a modern poet, or even a maker of verses, it would have been justly decried and contemned. my That Bishop Newton, whose character does not rank in the higher classes of intellect, said nothing on this passage, is neither to be wondered at nor As it regards the mind regretted. of man, the passage is highly consolatory; and far from having any heavy charge to remove from MilI have already extended my letter on, we ought to rejoice, that so to some length, and am uncertain important a point had not escaped his whether trouble will be rewarded Philosophical research. Every reflecting mind, although of the purest, by seeing it in the columnus of your Magazine. As aimless labour cheers must be sensible of the occasional, inus but little in its progress, I shall deed too frequent intrusion of evil; here conclude for the present: if what fort to the delicate and scrupulous to and it must afford the balm of comI have written meet with your approgreat Milbation, I will pursue my remarks possess the authority of the through the rest of Gray's works, and ton, that evil may come and go unapprobably extend my enquiries to some proved, and leave no spot or blame behind. other admired poets, whose merits have been scanned with too general an estimation to benefit either truth or literature. Small wits may perhaps exclaim against this severity of criticism, but let them remember that one drachm of pure gold is worth a pound mixed and obscured with dross. J. L. For the Universal Magazine. LL your readers are familiar with A that popular and pathetic bailed, called "The Beggar's Petition," beginning with the well-known fines, "Pity the sorrows of a poor old man, Whose trembling limbs, &c." But they do not perhaps all know ON THE PRESUMED BLASPHEMY OF the author and history of it. As a I MILTON. matter of curiosity and information Sir, therefore to some, permit me to comWAS a good deal surprised at the municate the following particulars:--title of an article in your number It is the production of Dr. Joshua for July, p. 28, and which has since Webster, M.D. and was written at occupied the pens of various corre- St. Albans, in the year 1764. It respondents, viz. The Blasphemy of fers to an aged mendicant, named Milton. It appears to me, to savour Kinderley or Kinder, who had once too much of the unreflecting zeal and lived on his paternal estate, near Potsuperstition of former and less enlight- ter's Cross, between St. Albans and ened times. Berkhamstead, in Hertfordshire, and From the expression of Milton, I was for many years a farmer in deshould rather infer the extent of his cent circumstances. His ruin was research into the philosophy of mind, occasioned by the artifices of what and the profundity of his judgment. Pope calls a vile attorney:" yet, To accede, for argument's sake, to at the period of the above "Petition," the common views on these subjects, he had dragged on a sorrowful exishow is it possible to conceive the all- tence to the great age of eightycomprehensive mind of Cod utterly three, and he continued to live some inaccessible to the entrance of evil? years after. Dr. Webster was living or what advantage can possibly be a few years ago, and resided at gained by blindfolded adulation, of Chelsea. fered to infinite knowledge and per fection, but the groundless and sup I remain, & c. HISTORIA INVESTIGATOR. positious advantage of self deception? Dec. 8, 1907. UNIVERSAL MAG. VOL. VIII. 3 T |