SIXTH EVENING.

Whosoever hath "Delight in Disorder," shall be entertained here with much Variety and little Order but Caprice, the Selections ranging from Swift to the Poets of our own day, English and American.

VANESSA.

FROM CADENUS AND VANESSA," BY JONATHAN SWIFT.

Na glad hour Lucina's aid

IN

Produced on earth a wondrous maid,

On whom the queen of love was bent

To try a new experiment.

She threw her law-books on the shelf,

And thus debated with herself:

"Since men allege, they ne'er can find

Those beauties in a female mind,
Which raise a flame that will endure
Forever uncorrupt and pure;
If 'tis with reason they complain,
This infant shall restore my reign.
I'll search where every virtue dwells,
From courts inclusive down to cells:
What preachers talk, or sages write;
These I will gather and unite,

And represent them to mankind

Collected in that infant's mind."

This said, she plucks in heaven's high bowers

A sprig of amaranthine flowers,

In nectar thrice infuses bays,

Three times refined in Titan's rays;
Then calls the Graces to her aid,

And sprinkles thrice the new-born maid:
From whence the tender skin assumes

A sweetness above all perfumes :
From whence a cleanliness remains
Incapable of outward stains:

From whence that decency of mind,
So lovely in the female kind,

Where not one careless thought intrudes,
Less modest than the speech of prudes;
Where never blush was called in aid,

That spurious virtue in a maid,
A virtue but at second-hand;

They blush because they understand.

The Graces next would act their part,
And showed but little of their art;
Their work was half already done,
The child with native beauty shone;
The outward form no help required:
Each, breathing on her thrice, inspired
That gentle, soft, engaging air,
Which in old times adorned the fair:
And said, "Vanessa be the name

By which thou shalt be known to fame;
Vanessa, by the gods enrolled :

Her name on earth shall not be told."

But still the work was not complete ;
When Venus thought on a deceit :
Drawn by her doves, away she flies,
And finds out Pallas in the skies.
"Dear Pallas, I have been this morn
To see a lovely infant born;

A boy in yonder isle below,

So like my own without his bow,
By beauty could your heart be won,
You'd swear it is Apollo's son:

But it shall ne'er be said a child
So hopeful has by me been spoiled,
I have enough besides to spare,
And give him wholly to your care."

Wisdom's above suspecting wiles :
The queen of learning gravely smiles,
Down from Olympus comes with joy,
Mistakes Vanessa for a boy;

Then sows within her tender mind

Seeds long unknown to womankind;

*

For manly bosoms chiefly fit,

The seeds of knowledge, judgment, wit.
Her soul was suddenly endued

With justice, truth, and fortitude;

With honor, which no breath can stain,

Which malice must attack in vain ;
With open heart and bounteous hand.
But Pallas here was at a stand;

She knew, in our degenerate days,

* It may be said that the poet here glorifies his heroine at the expense of the sex, but let this be forgiven for the sake of the general charm of the picture.— EDITOR.