Me rather the still voice delights, the praise
Whispered, not published by fame's braying trump ;
Be thou my herald nature! Let me please
The sacred few, let my remembrance live
Embosomed by the virtuous and the wise;

Make me, O Heav'n! by those, who love thee, loved
So when the widow's and the children's tears
Shail sprinkle the cold dust, in which I sleep
Pompless and from a scornful world withdrawn,
The laurel, which its malice rent, shall shoot
So watered into life, and mantling throw
Its verdant honours o'er my grassy tomb.

SENECA.

How fortunate is the guess of Seneca with regard to the discovery afterwards made by Columbus. Had he been one of the fathers of the christian church, it would doubtless have been considered as a prophecy. Having occasion to speak of the first navigators of the ship Argo, he burst forth into all the inspiration of poetry, foretelling more adventurous expeditions in the latter ages of the world, and the discovery of a new and more extensive continent in the west. His words, in an English translation, are as follow: Time shall disclose a further shore,

And seas stretcht out earth's ample round; New pilots shall new worlds explore, Nor Thule be the western bound.

THE CONNOISSEUR.

VERY early in life, (says a modern author,) I resided above a year at Paris, and happened one day to accompany five or six of my countrymen to view the pictures in the Pa

lais Royal. A gentleman, who affected an enthusiastick passion for the fine arts, particularly that of painting, and who had the greatest desire to be thought a connoisseur, was of the party. He had read the lives of the painters, and had the Voyage Pictoresque de Paris by art. From the moment we entered the rooms he began to display all the refinement of his art. He shook his head at some pictures, tossed up his nose at others; commended a few, and pronounced sentence on every piece as he passed along.

We at length came to the St. John, by Raphael, and here this man of taste stopped short in the extacy of admiration.-One of the company had already passed it without minding it, and was looking at another picture, on which the connoisseur bawled out"Good God, Sir! what are you about?" The honest gentleman started and stared around to know what crime he had been guilty of.

"Have you eyes in your head, Sir?" continued the connoisseur : "Don't you know St. John when you see him?"

"St. John "replied the other in amazement; "Aye Sir; St. John the Baptist, in propria persona."

"I don't know what you mean, Sir," said the gentleman, peevishly.

"Don't you?" rejoined the connoisseur ; "then I'll endeavour to explain myself. I mean St. John in the wilderness, by the di

vine Rafaelle Sonzio da Urbino, and here it stands by your side.-Pray, my dear Sir, will you be so obliging as to bestow a little of your attention on that foot? Does it not start from the wall? Is it not perfectly out of the frame? did you ever see such colouring? They talk of Titian; can Titian's colouring excel that? What truth, what nature in the head! To the elegance of the antique, he has joined the simplicity of nature."

We stood listening in silent admiration, and began to imagine we perceived all the perfections he had enumerated: when a person in the Duke of Orleans' service, came and informed us, that the original, which he presumed was the picture we wished to see, was in another room: the Duke having allowed a painter to copy it. That which we had been looking at, was a very wretched daubing done from the original by some obscure painter, and had been thrown, with the other rubbish, into a corner, where the Swiss had accidentally discovered it, and hung it up merely by way of covering the vacant space on the wall, till the other should be replaced.

How the connoisseur looked on this trying occasion, I cannot say. It would have been barbarous to have turned an eye upon him. I fully determined to be cautious in deciding on the merit of painting; perceiving that it was not safe, in this science, to speak even from the book.

D...VOL. 2.

BOISSY THE POET.

Boissy, the author of several dramatick pieces that were received with applause, met the common fate of those who give them selves up entirely to the arts of the muses. He laboured and toiled unremittingly--his works procured him fame, but no bread. He languished, with a wife and child, under the pressure of the extremest poverty.

But melancholy as his situation was, he lost nothing of that pride which is peculiar to genius, whether great or small; he could not creep and fawn at the feet of a patron. He had friends who would have administer ed relief to him; but they were never made acquainted with his real condition, or had not friendly impetuosity enough to force their assistance upon him.

Boissy became a prey to distress and des pondency. The shortest way to rid himself at once from all his misery seemed to him to be death. Death appeared to him as a friend, as a saviour, and deliverer; and gaine ed his affection. His tender spouse, who was no less weary of life, listened with parti cipation when he declaimed with all the warmth of poetick rapture, of deliverance from this earthly prison, and of the smiling prospect of futurity; and at length resolved to accompany him in death. But she could not bear to think of leaving her beloved son,

of five years old, in a world of misery and sorrow; it was therefore agreed to take the child along with them on their passage into another and better,

They were firmly resolved to die. But what mode of death should they adopt? They made choice of the most horrible---of starving accordingly they waited, in their solitary and deserted apartment, their dear deliverer death, in his most ghastly form.Their resolution and their fortitude were im moveable.

They locked the door and began to fast. When any one came and knocked, they fled trembling into the corner and were in per petual dread lest their purpose should be dis covered. Their little son, who had not yet learnt to silence the calls of hunger by arti ficial reasons, whispering and crying, asked for bread? but they always found means to quiet him.

It occurred to one of Boissy's friends, that it was very extraordinary he should never find him at home. At first he thought the family were removed; but, on being assured: of the contrary, he grew more uneasy. He called several times in one day always no. body at home! At last he burst open the door.Oh what a sight!

He saw his friend, with his wife and son, lying on the bed, pale and emaciated, scarcely able to utter a sound. The boy lay in the middle, and the husband and the wife had