Noon. "Fervid on the glitt'ring flood "Now the noontide radiance glows; "Drooping o'er its infant bud, "Not a dewdrop 's left the rose. "By the brook the thepherd dines; "From the fierce meridian heat "Shelter'd by the branching piues, "Pendant o'er his grally feat. "Now the flock forfakes the glade "Where uncheck'd the funbeams fall, "Sure to find a pleating fhade By the ivy'd abbey-wail. "Echo in her airy round, "O'er the river, rock, and hill, Cannot catch a fingle found, "Save the clack of yonder mill. "Cattle court the zephyrs bland, "Where the ftreamlet wanders cool; "Or, with languid filence, stand "Midway in the marthy pool. But from mountain, dell, or stream, "Not a flutt'ring zephyr springs; Fearful left the noontide beam "Scorch its foft, its filken wings. "Not a leaf has leave to stir; "Nature's lull'd ferene and ftill; "Quiet c'en the shepherd's cur, "Sleeping on the heath-clad hill. “ Languid is the landscape round, "Till the fresh defcending thow'r, Grateful to the thirty ground, "Raifes ev'ry fainting flow'r. "Now the hill, the hedge is green; "Now the warbler's throat's in tune; "Blithfome is the verdant fcene, Brighten'd by the beams of noon." I will not pay your readers fo ill a compliment, as to attempt to point out the particular beauties of this paftoral. Thus before them I leave it to their own comments, and fhall proceed to extract a ftanza or two from the Evening of our poet, which, by the bye, is far inferior to either of the preceding. He feems to have taken little pains in this to reach above mediocrity. His ideas are fuch as every magazine poet can furnish; nor is his language diftinguifhed by that neatnefs and propriety of adaptation which on other occafions call forth our commendation. Perhaps the following are the best which this refents. "How the hermit owlet peeps "From the barn or twisted brake, "And the blue mift flowly creeps, Curling on the filver lake. "As the trout in fpeckled pride "Playful from its bosom springs "To the banks, a ruffied tide "Verges in fucceffive rings." With the following stanza it concludes. "Linnets with unnumber'd notes, "And the cuckoo bird with two, "Tuning fweet their mellow throats, "Bid the fetting fun adieu." His "Corydon," a paftoral to the memory of William Shenstone, Efq., it will be unneceffary to tranfcribe; for it is a production with which every reader of Shenftone must be acquainted, it being ufually prefixed to the poems of that author. It breathes a tender fpirit of poetry, though as an elegiac compofition it would have been better were it written in a different metre. The The third paftoral which I have enumerated may afpire to the praife only of being pretty. idea is pretty, the language is pretty, and the conclufion is pretty; yet, as the pretty fometimes proves a feafonable relief to the fublime and beautiful, I will venture upon your patience by a tranfcriptionof it. Content: a Paftoral. "O'er moorlands and mountains, rude, barren, and bare, "As 'wilder'd and weary I roam, "A gentle young thepherde's fees my despair, "And leads me o'er lawns to her "Now jocund together we tend a few fheep, "And if by yon prattler, the ftream, "Reclin'd on her bofom I fink into fleep, "Her image still softens my dream. "Together we range o'er the flow rifing bill, "Delighted with paftoral views; "Or reft on the rock whence the ftreamlet diftils, fmith's Deferted Village, which a correfpondent of your's, who ftyles himself a Poet, has ventured to fubmit to the public through the medium of your Magazine. I do not think it by any rule of poetry admiffible. In the first place, his obfervations do not appear to my apprehenfions of good poetry founded on any juft and folid grounds of criticism. In the fecond place, I fee no nonfenfe whatever in the expreffion, filent manliness; and, laftly, I think the propofed alteration, certainly not correction, would endanger the harmony of the verfe in question. In the first place, all poets are allowed a licenfe, without which they would not be able to clothe their ideas with that happy ornament, and beautiful variety, which fo highly gratify the heart "And point out new themes for my and understanding of all lovers of mufe. poetry. This licenfe, it must be "To pomp or proud titles the ne'er did confeffed, they fometimes carry to an unpardonable length; but for once where you find it abused, you will difcover it a thousand times applied with infinite propriety, beauty, and effect, efpecially in the productions of fuch fterling poets as Dryden, Pope, Goldfmith, &c. The taking away the adjective from one fubftantive, and prefixing it to another connected with it, was a very common licenfe among the antient poets; nor do I fee why our language will not fometimes admit of the fame tranfpofition, without the leaft violation to its fenfe or harmony. It will not, I grant, admit of it in fo great a latitude as Greek or Latin.-Virgil has it, Memorem Junonis ob iram; we fee immediately that Memorem belongs properly to Junonis; yet where is the impropriety of its being allied to iram? The fame ob fervations hold with respect to the fame author's-virûm fortia corpora-& diræ belli portæ; and to Homer's φθιμες Ψύχας Ηρωων, A great number of inftances might be adduced from the antient poets to confirm the frequent adoption and ufage of this licenfe; but the foregoing will anfwer my purpofe, as well as a thousand. Dryden has written Tyre's proud arms. Proud evidently belongs to Tyre; Now, granting that filent would properly be affociated with grief, I beg, in the fecond place, to ftate it as my opinion, though I do it with deference to fuperior learning and talents, that it may be taken from the fubftantive grief, and prefixed to manlinefs, which is intimately connected with it, without any prejudice or injury to the fenfe what ever. What nonfenfe is there in the expreffion,---the filent manliness of grief? Juft as much as there is in the expreffion,---the manlinefs of filent grief; that is, none at all. It appears to me to contain as much fenfe, and to be fully as intelligible as Virgil's virum fortia corpora, Homer's φθεμες Ψυχας Ηρωων, or Dryden's Tyre's proud arms. If in the court of fenfe a bill be found by the grand jury against Goldfmith, the other three will be implicated in the trial. In the laft place, the propofed alteration would unquestionably endanger the harmony of the verfe. Variety is a great beauty in the conftruction of verfe, as in every thing else. The arts and fciences would have no attractions without it. Now, according to Goldfmith's difpofition of the words, the line in queftion flows, as it were, in a different channel from the preceding one, which is a beauty: according to the propofed tranfpofition, it flows in the fame, which is no beauty. I am, therefore, for the line remaining in its prefent order, and hope never to fee it mutilated by any printer or poet whatever, however fkilled in the art of making errata, or in the science of finding fault. As the line ftands, it is perfectly intelligible to the meaneft capacity; it is full of beauty and expreffion, and ftands in no need of correction. Should these remarks, in anfwer "A to your correfpondent, " A Poet,? appear to you worthy of a place in your Magazine, I shall be emboldened to continue my correfpondence as often as leifure from my profeffional labours will afford me opportunity. I remain, Sir, yours, &c. EXCUSE MY GLOVE. R. S. To the Editor of the Univerfal Mag. MR. EDITOR, WHEN an old acquaintance falutes me by an hafty and hearty fhake of the hand, before he has had time to take off his glove, I have frequently been faluted with "Excufe my glove." Having made repeated enquiries of various well informed perfons as to the meaning of this common and customary expreffion, without receiving any fatisfactory informa tion, perhaps fome one of your numerous readers may be able to give an opinion upon the cafe. I have, myfelf, been frequently burried into the expreffion; and as it is not pleafant to ufe words without knowing their fignification, I am induced to request that this may be inferted in your next number, as an anfwer may fatisfy me and many other readers. I remain, yours, N* T**o. ON CHINESE LITERATURE. Letter II. [Continued from page 377.] BUT to return. We owe to the fuperior talents and judicious difcrimination of the Emperor Lim-ti, the last but one of the Han, about 168 A.C., the complete revival of literature, and the ultimate improvements and clalifications of characters, by establishing the ufe of thofe eight ftyles of writing called 書篆體八泰 Cin-pa-ti-chuen-vu, or eight fubflantial (effential) antient writings. of the dynafty Çin, which, although first invented or adopted by Li-fu (fee "Eloge de la Ville de Moukden," p. 190) under the Çin, as the name indicates, yet they had hitherto been neglected, and promifcuoufly ufed, on account of the many wars during the Han, that had greatly injured the renewal of literature. The following claffification may therefore be confidered with great propriety as finally eftablished by Lim-ti. per would, if he were to imitate this character; that is, by running over the outlines of each ftroke with a double thin line, fo that the blank between fhould fhew how much he is to cut away in the plate, to obtain the proper thicknefs of the trokes. Hence the tranflator of Kien lum (fee Eloge, &c. p. 190) calls these letters, "Lettres primitives, en "traits correfpondans, ou à traits "doubles.' But notwithttanding the account given of them, ibid, we may conclude, from what I have above ftated, that this fort of writing is applicable to all forts of characters that are fufceptible of heavy ftrokes, by delineating them in the manner of engravers. The Chim-çu-tum fays, that this hand-writing is ufed in diplomas on conferring dignities and honourable offices. IV. 書蟲 Chum-xu, or writ ing of infects. The reader muft particularly obferve that the word Chum, although meaning chiefly infects,is to be taken here, as the Chinefe works above quoted direct us, in its wideft and philofophical meaning of animal kingdom in general; embracing the ornamental characters formed with tadpoles, feathers, birds, ferpents, &c. To prove that the character Chum is taken occafionally in fuch an extenfive fignification, I fhall tranflate a fingular claffification of animals according to the Chinese naturalifts, which will be found in the explanation annexed to this character in almost all the Chinefe dictionaries with European I tranflate the interpretation. following from the famous one by F. Francis Dias, in Spanish, in the Royal Library at Berlin (fee an account of it in Mifcellan. Berolin., tom. I, p. 87), where, befides other matter, we read as fol lows:-" Alfo a general name of "animals, which either have fea"thers, and there are three hunTit 麟麒 "Ki lin, a fort of Unicorn, or "fabulous animal;-or have "fcales, and there are three hun"dred and fixty species of them, "the nobleft being the "Lum, or Dragon, a fort of fabu"lous chimera; or have fhells, "and there are three hundred "and fixty fpecies of them, the "nobleft being the Tortoife ;-or 66 are born naked, and there are "three hundred and fixty fpecies "of them, the nobleft being Man. "In all, one thoufand eight hun"dred fpecies." The Chinefe authors fay that this fpecies of writing is used for infcriptions on banners, and colours of all forts. tioned at pp. 375, 376. It paved the way to the invention of the modern now in use, of which I fhall fpeak in my next Letter. Thefe eight antient ftyles of writings are not only adopted for the purposes above flated, but alfo for prefaces, and in executing certain complimentary and elegant productions, wherein the fame character is written in a hundred various ways, by drawing it in all the different forms of each of the above eight and other antient ftyles. This we may eafily conceive, if we recollect that the IVth, Chum-xu, only muft be liable to innumerable variations; while the obfervations made on the IId, Siao-chuen, aflure us, that it is not lefs copious in a variety of forms than the IVth. [See Note s.] The characters thus written, F. Parrenin informs us (fee Lettres d'un Mifi à Pékin, in Svo. à Paris, 1782), are chiefly the three following, (t) Dr. Hager, in his Analyfis p. L, tranflates the word Xeu by an age; hundred different forms it would info that by fending it written in one ply the coarfe hyperbolical flattery of withing a man to live ten thoujand years!!! which is more than any eafiern mythological account ever affigned to any of the femigods, or other ina ginary miraculous beings. The fable of China, rejected by all the learned, affigns even 18,000 years of age to each of the three firft fuppofed families imagined to have lived previous to Fo-hi by many ages: but it mentions ten, twelve, at more emperors of the fame name, which fuccellively reigned in the fame period, fo that it is not to one man that they have given fuch a long reign, but to one family, which being divided, it never makes 2000 years for each ind vidual. Some Chinese chronologins, indeed, called by F. Mailla tee Tablean Chronologique, v. I] most extrava elapted from the firit man down to gant, allow 96,961,740 years to have Confucius. By fuch wild and incoherent accounts Mr. De Guignes muft and the author of the Mém. des Mislion,, have been milled, (Vol. I, Hift. des Huns; vol. XIII, p. 176), if the latter to the |