country farmer sits in a good coach, drawn by two superb horses. There, dirt and darkness in the narrow streets; here, the way every where dry and clean, and no crowding, notwithstanding the great number of passengers. London, indeed, is a beautiful city! Every where prevails a cleanliness, which is rarely to be met with in other cities; and people of the lowest rank are well dressed, and a certain degree of order and regula rity pervades every thing, and makes a very pleasing impression on the mind of a stranger, HYMN TO HUMANITY. "Who can all sense of others ills escape, TATE'S Juvenal, Attend not now to sorrow's cry; Should haply on thy cheek be dry, Indulge my votive strain, O, sweet Humanity! Come, ever welcome to my breast! A tender, but a cheerful guest; Is to humanity a foe; And grief, that makes the heart its prey, Wears sensibility away: Then comes, sweet nymph, instead of thee, The gloomy fiend, Stupidity. O, may that fiend be banish'd far, If the fair star of fortune smile, Nor feed, with pomp, an idle train, If Heaven, in every purpose wise, Howe'er exalted or deprest, The soul that one long sabbath keeps, Alike the foolish and the vain, O, for that sympathetic glow, Or, rais'd to Heaven, implor'd the bread, It comes, it fills my labouring breast. Life, fill'd with Grief's distressful train, Behold, in yon unconscious grove, Parent of virtue, if thine ear Attend not now to sorrow's cry; If now the pity-streaming tear Should haply on thy cheek be dry, Indulge my votive strain, O, sweet Humanity! COUNT GLEICHEN AND THE FAIR SARACEN. "Love, various minds does variously inspire; He stirs in gentle nature gentle fire, Like that of incense on the altars laid. But raging flames tempestuous souls invade." DRYDEN. WHEN a holy zeal to drive the Infidels from the Holy Land had seized all Europe, and the pious knights, bearing the badge of the cross, repaired in crowds to the east, Count Gleichen also left his native land, and with his friends and countrymen went to Asia. I shall not describe his heroic achievments; I shall content myself with saying, that the bravest knights of Christendom admired his prowess, but it pleased Heaven to try the hero's faith. Count Gleichen was made prisoner by the Infidels, and became the slave to a Muhamedan of distinction, who intrusted his gardens to Gleichen's care. The unfortunate count was now employed in watering violets and blue-bells, lilies and roses. The hero long endured the horrors of captivity; but all his sighs and vows would have been ineffectual, if a fair Saracen, his master's lovely daughter, had not begun to regard him with looks of the tenderest affection. Often, concealed beneath the veil of night, did she listen to his melancholy songs-often did she see him weep, whilst praying, and her beauteous eyes were likewise suffused in tears. A modest shame, the peculiar virtue of a youthful female heart, long prevented her from declaring her passion; or from intimating, in any manner, to the slave how deeply she sympathised in his sorrows. At length the spark kindled into a flame, shame was silenced, and love could no longer be concealed in her heart, but poured in fiery torrents from her mouth into the soul of the astonished count. Her angelic innocence, her blooming beauty, and the idea that by her means he might, perhaps, be able to obtain his liberty; all this made such a powerful impression on his mind, that he forgot his wife. He swore eternal love to the beauteous Saracen, on condition that she would agree to leave father and native land, and fly with him to Europe. Ah! she had already forgotten her father and her country. The count was her all. She hastens away, brings a key, opens a private door leading to the fields, and flies away with her beloved. The silence of night, which covered them with her sable mantle, favours their flight. They arrive safely in the country |