Philosopers would call me driveller. Let them. Stands by, and says he merits it. That's true;But wherefore should Philosophy take snuff When the poor culprit writhes? A plague on stoicks! I cannot hoop my heart about with iron, Like an old beer butt. I would have the vessel : Bawl out his ethicks on it, till his thunder WE shall make but one more extract from this Play, and that is a speech of Helen, to Sir Edward, at the beginning of the third act. I'll mimick the physician-wise and dullWith cane at nose, and nod emphatical, Portentous in my silence; feel your pulse, With an owl's face, that shall express as much As Galen's head, cut out in wood and gilt. I would distil Each flower that lavish happiness produced, Upon the wings of Time, and mock his flight, As he sail'd with thee towards Eternity. I'd have each hour, each minute of thy life MERIT. I REMEMBER Poor Merit, that ill-fated youth Was the offspring of Wisdom and nurtur'd by truth; As patient he sail'd down life's varying stream, He felt not the warmth of the Sun's genial beam: Like a floweret on Nature's great desert he lay, Which the weeds that surrounded had hid from his ray; Its fragrance unknown, none the loss will deplore, For he droop'd in the vale, and was thought of no more ; ChillPenury's hand drew the child from the womb, But the children of Vice had extinguish'd his claim : Indignant they drove the meek youth from the throng, Suppress'd his ambition, and fetter'd his song. FATE OF GENIUS. THE fate of supreme genius is, generally speaking, unenviable.Many a wise head, and many a worthy heart, are doomed to ache with the pressure of human sufferings, living in misery, and dying in obscurity and want, while the duller worms of mortality fatten on the marrow of prosperity, living to themselves alone, with minds incapable of expanding, and forbidden by sordid principles to do good and benefit mankind.-The following melancholy list proves the justness of a remark which wounds sensibility.. Plautus, turned a mill; Terence was a slave; Boethius died in a gaol; Paolo Borghese had fourteen different trades, yet starved with them all; Tasso was often distressed for a marvedie ; Bentivoglio was refused admission into an hospital he had himself erected; Cervantes died of hunger; Camoens ended his days in an alms house; Vangelus left his body to the surgeons to pay his debts! Galileo was persecuted and tortured because he had more wisdom than his enemies; and Lovelace, Butler, Otway, and Chatterton perished for lack of bread ! HISTORICAL ACCOUNT, Of the memorable EARTHQUAKE that happened in Ganada, in 1663. [From Herriot's History of Canada.] "On the 5th of February, about half an hour past four in the evening, a great noise was heard, nearly at the same time, throughout the whole extent of Canada. That noise seems to have been the effect of a sudden vibration of the air, agitated in all directions. It appeared as if the houses were on fire, and the inhabitants, in order to avoid its effects, immediately ran out of doors. But their astonishment was increased when they saw the buildings shaken with the greatest violence, and the roofs disposed to fall, sometimes on one side, and sometimes on the other. The doors opened of themselves, and shut again with a great crash. All the bells were sounding, although no person touched them. The pallisades of the fences seemed to bound out of their places; the walls were rent; the planks of the floor separated, and again sprung together. The dogs answered these previous tokens of a general disorder of nature, by lamentable howlings. The other animals sent forth the most terrifick groans and cries, and, by a natural instinct, extended their legs to prevent them from falling. The surface of the earth was moved like an agitated sea. The trees were thrown against each other, and many, torn up by the roots, were tossed to a considerable distance. "Sounds of every description were then heard; at one time like the fury of a sea which had overflowed its barriers; at another like a multitude of carriages rolling over a pavement, and again like mountains of rock or marble opening their bowels, and breaking into pieces with a tremendous roar. The thick clouds of dust, which at the same time arose, were taken for smoke, and for the symptoms of an univer sal conflagration. "The consternation became so general, that not only the men, but the animals, appeared as if struck with thunder; they ran in every quarter without a knowledge of their course, and wherever they went they encountered the dangers they wished to avoid. The cries of children, the lamentations of women, the alternate successions of fire and darkness in the atmosphere, all combined to aggravate the evils of a dire calamity which subverts every thing by the excruciating tortures of the imagination, distressed and confounded, and losing in the contemplation of the general confusion the means of self preservation. "The ice which covered the St. Lawrence, and the other rivers, broke into pieces which crashed against each other; large bodies of icewere thrown up into the air, and from the place they had quitted a quantity of sand, and slime, and water spouted up. The sources of several springs and little rivers became dry; the waters of others were impregnated with sulphur. At sometimes the waters appeared red, at others of a yellowish cast; those of the St. Lawrence became white from Quebeck to Tadoussack, a space of thirty leagues: the quantity of matter necessary to impregnate so vast a body of water must have been prodigious. In the mean time the atmosphere continued to exhibit the most awful phenomena; an incessant rushing noise was heard, and the fires assumed every species of form. The most plaintive voices augmented the general terrour and alarm. Por |