ESSAY ON FRIENDSHIP,

DELIVERED

AT THE PANTHEON, EDINBROUGH,

April 12, 1792.

BY R. CUMMING.

NOT noisy war, which fires the hero's soul,

Nor meek-ey'd Peace, nor commerce, source of wealth,

Nor gold, nor pow'r, boast of th'ambitious great,
Nor rights of man, which warms the patriot's breast,
Nor Science fair, nor poet's fame, I sing;

As once when here* the laurel due entwin'd
Its fairest blossoms round a Ramsay's brow,
And deck'd the temples of Edina's bard †;
But sacred FRIENDSHIP, with her angel form,
Who to the mind gives dignity and worth,
And through society spreads the richest sweets.
High her descent-fair daughter of the skies,
And brightest image of her Sire divine.
Nature, new-born, beheld her fair approach,
Immortal flowers strew'd her etherial path;
The muses in her train their golden lyres
Attun'd to notes sweet as seraphic song :
The smiling earth, receiv'd her radiant steps,
And mankind hail'd her with enraptur'd joy:
With them she wander'd through those pristine scenes,
Th' abodes of Freedom, Innocence, and Peace,
Mild and serene as their unsullied minds,
Whose passions (unto discord strangers) mov'd
In harmony divine. When vice appear'd,
She from his horrid form recoil'd; she fled
The once-lov'd haunts of men, nor since return'd,
Except to those whom VIRTUE's gentle pow'r
Has rais'd sublime above the giddy crowd.

Not wealth nor pleasure e'er could court her hence,
Nor pow'r, though midst the splendours of a throne,
Nor wit, nor beauty, if devoid of truth,

Can once allure her from her sacred fane,

Too

pure

to mix with vice, th'invidious mind

Alluding to a former poetical debate in the Pantheon.

↑ R. Ferguson.

Her heav'nly beauties ne'er with pleasure view'd,
Nor felt her pow r. She never warm'd the breast
Of grov'ling Avarice, nor gently thaw'd

The sordid miser's callous frozen soul;
"Tis only with pure minds she will reside;
"Tis only hearts congenial she unites.

The pow'r of Friendship on the human mind
Is uniform in kind, but acts in modes
Which vary oft, as circumstance directs.
Her inspiration 's not the sudden flow
Of fancy unrestrain’d, allur'd by shew
Or incidents of chance, but founded deep
On intimacy, observation close
On similar virtues, dispositions such

As move harmonic. Hence this living flame
Acts and re-acts with mutual force; inspires
Alike our motives, movements, and our ends;
Minds mix alike with minds, alike receive
Her sacred eddies, and her influence pure.
From the rude touch of meanness, cold neglect,
The breath of falsehood, still this power shrinks,
Like as the bud, just opening to the view,
Before the nipping frost. This flame, if quench'd,
Will ne'er again with mutual ardor rise:
This union close and chaste, if once dissolv'd,
Will ne'er with mutual confidence rejoin.

This heav'nly principle is not that pow'r
Which melts the bosom at the tale of woe,
Nor that which stimulates the gen'rous mind
To aid distress: nor yet that gentle flame
Which warms the youthful lover, when his eyes
Enraptur'd gaze on those bewitching charms
Which grace with elegance the female form,
Which glow in living beauties on the mien,
And from the fair one's eyes their lustre dart.
However pure those pow'rs or passions be,
Friendship must nearer to perfection rise :
Motives and ends the former may excite,
To which alloy in some degree adheres;
This Friendship still rejects, and still repels,
As incompatible with her pure laws.
She through the soul sensations doth diffuse
Sweet as the breath of morn, or balm of spring;
Sorrow she sooths, the wounds of anguish heals,

Excites that pleasure which must ever rise

From unity of hearts without reserve,

From mutual confidence and conscious worth.

TO BE CONTINUED.

THE ocean is one of the grandest spectacles which nature presents to the human eye. Its size, its perpetual motion, its saltness, its various productions, and its general utility to man, all claim our attention: accordingly, it has been the subject of philosophical research from the remotest period. " As the earth is full of the riches of Jehovah, so is the great and wide sea, wherein are things innumerable, both small and great beasts: there go the ships: there is that leviathan (whale) whom thou hast made to play therein. These all wait upon thee: that thou mayest give them their meat in due season. That which thou givest them they gather thou openest thy hand, they are filled with good." Such were the reflections of the Hebrew monarch, when he contemplated the works of Jehovah in the deep.

The great naturalist, Buffon, supposed the land and sea to be nearly equal upon the surface of the globe; but in this he was evidently mistaken, for whoever looks over any accurate map of the world, will see that the ocean is greatly superior, in extent, to the earth. Buffon calculated, indeed, upon the existence of a vast southern continent; but the voyages of Captain Cook have demonstrated, that the south pole is destitute of land. The proportion of water to land has been reckoned as three to one: but we doubt whether this is giving to the ocean its due extent four to one seems to us to be nearer the existing fact. This immense body of waters is known to be diffused round both the old and new continent to the south; and it is highly probable that they surround them to the north, but the ice in those regions has stopped our inquiries. The ocean indeed is one extensive sheet of water, and no one part of it is divided from the rest, yet geographers have distinguished it by different

VOL. IV.

R

names; as the Atlantic or Western Ocean; this divides Europe and Africa from America, and is about three thousand miles in width. The Pacific Ocean, or South Sea; this is ten thousand miles over, and divides America from Asia. The Indian Ocean, which divides the East Indies from Africa, and is about three thousand miles wide. There are many other smaller divisions, which, as we are not writing upor geography, we shall not mention.

Almost all the rivers of the earth terminate in the sea, but so vast is this general receptacle of waters, that it is not apparently increased by their tribute, nor diminished by their failure : it still continues the same. Indeed, what is the quantity of water in all the rivers and lakes in the world compared to the ocean? Buffon makes an estimate of their comparitive contents, which greatly shews their disparity. He supposes the sea to be, on an average, a quarter of a mile in depth, and reckons it eighty five millions of square miles in extent. This measurement will produce above twenty one millions of cubic miles of water; vast and prodigious indeed! And yet this is far short of facì; for Buffon did not think the sea to be so large as it really is. The river Po, which is a thousand feet broad and ten feet deep at its mouth, and runs at the rate of four miles an hour, will take twenty-six days to discharge one cubit mile of water. From the quantity of ground which the Po, with all its influent streams, covers, he supposes that all the rivers in the world furnish about two thousand times that quantity of water. In the space

of a a year, therefore, they will have discharged into the sea above twenty six thousand cubic miles of water: so that it requires eight hundred years before they have discharged as much water as the sea at present contains! How sublime is that image of the prophet, who describes Jehovah as holding the ocean in the hollow of his hand!

the opinions of philosophers Some have contended that the

Various and opposite have been concerning the original size of the sea. whole earth was at first covered with water, except one single mountain ; and that the sea had been gradually decreasing and the land growing ever since. According to these, the time may arrive when the earth will become one vast dry and parched desart; of which Arabia Deserta is only a faint type. They have recourse to the supposed vegetative nattire of stone to convince us that the quantity of earth is continually increasing, and consequently, that the surface of the sea is diminishing in extent. They assert, also, that all that quantity of moisture, which is imbibed by plants, is lost to the general mass of waters, being converted into earth by the putrefaction of vegetables. They bring forward facts of the sea having left its ancient shores, of bays and harbours being choked up, of towns and cities that once were famous seaports being now miles, or even leagues, within land; even many mountains, say they, give evident proof of having been in a submarine state.

Thus would they persuade us that the moisture of the globe is perpetually lessening, that though it may be a benefit to mankind in a certain state of its progress, yet that the latter generations of men will be gradually patched and scorched to death