the very reverse of that snug nicety, the apartment for a lady's leisure usually presents. A peep through the open doors showed the bedsteads in the adjoining chambers without beds; hence a glass was removed, and wrapped in an old cloth, that moth might not eat nor dust destroy its golden borders. Three chairs stood in the room, and of these two were without backs. Embers of a fire gleamed through the two lower bars of an unpolished grate; and over them a kettle, in all the respectability of sooty service, hummed lazily. · "There," cries my gran, in answer to my good day, ma'am,' "the wind is against us, directly in our teeth: I knew 'twould be so, we shall never get off."-"I thought it a fine windless morn as I walked here, ma'am.'-"Oh! that can't be, Edward: the storm blew against the window there all night; I didn't sleep a wink."What a pity: night's not morning,' said I, for the sake of reason; however, our births are paid for. My eyes here caught a smoking bowl of tea, and I seated myself before it. The table was an oaken one, which had been expedited from the kitchen to hold this parting meal, and had been washed, as the maid whispered in assurance to the inquisitive look I gave it, clean for the purpose at twelve the previons night. My cup had lost its handle; but my gentle Louisa was by my side, pressed my band, and smiled; and I soon forgot that the cream-cwer leaked: the spout of the earthen tea-pot stood abridged, and our lumps of sugar were unceremoniously scattered, for the service of each desirous finger, over the surface of the table. Going to France, almost every article in the house, I believe, had been packed up by noon on the preceding day: some chosen things, however, of which we then enjoyed a few,-were left out for the service of the women who were to be in charge of the house. Gran had dined out with a friend, for convenience, the day before, and heartily enough I wished she had broken her fast out that day too: one only cup of tea could I drink out of the kitchenmaid's equipage. The door now opened, and the old cook entered, bedizened in her best cottons, for transportation to Paris; there, at the savoury age of sixty, to suit the palate of a mistress at seventytwo with beef-steaks and mutton Oh! chops. I fancied it time to dispel the gloom over us. ""Twas very odd," I began, "but the first sound I heard this morning was the chirrup of a cocksparrow." The words were spoken at random; but the good heart of my worthy friend of the steakery generally attempted to make something of all I did or uttered: And is'nt it,' she cries, the surest sign of a fine day in all Ireland: if 'twas a hen-sparrow, indeed, that would be nothing. I wou'd'nt doubt you but to bring good news to Miss Louisa: God bless the pair of you.' Pretty well, thought I, but we're not paired yet. Here gran was about to ejaculate, but a horn was heard, and I blessed the blast: already the coach rattled at the door, and for awhile all was bustle going to France. Oh! come to me when day-light sets O'er the moonlight sca; For then's the hour for those who love, Sweet, like you and me. Moure's Melodies. Oh, Mr. Moore, false and faithless, fie! how many and how delightful were the anticipations your pocsies had excited in the mind of Louisa, and how deep was the disappointment, not mental only, but bodily also, that followed the impression. For the first time she was about to be borne upon the sea-blue waves; an azure sky, a soft undulation, and a sunny surface, the very domain of love, in imagi nation, spread before us. ""Tis like marriage, (I said,) is the sea: one litthe wave, gilt by the sun, joins another, and both unite to form a third, brighter and more crested." Well, we reach the harbour, and behold dark and dirty mounds of water, grumbling at their confinement against the pier of Dunleary: the sky was clouded,-not a single gleam peeped from the sun, and the women's cloaks floated back from a cold breeze that made my teeth chatter. However we got into the packet, and Louisa and I clung to one another, or tried to hang from the rails, now as we bolted on one side, now jolted to the other, and now fell forwards. I cursed poetry from the bottom of my soul, while Louisa rejected the goddess for a fibbing jade. "If there be an offence," she faintly observed, "it is to deceive the easy mind of youth, and mislead the confiding expectations of carly love." Then would the dear suffering girl hope, perhaps when we got farther out,-besides, we went by steam,-there might might be a difference. Alas! there was, indeed. My precognoscent gran now called Louisa to the cabin, to prove other scenes without my care. I soon tottered after, hid the odious view from my eyes in a musty birth, and sought in sleep to forget disgust, Decidedly, then, lovers should not take a voyage by sea: it is, indeed, a space ample enough for sympathy, but each one has too much to suffer on it, for selfishness to allow pity. Matrimony may be, as it is termed, a damper of extacy, but the ocean is a perfect obliterator of grace, of charm, of de cency. Wretchedly sick myself, I must have looked somewhat as I felt; but Louisa, she whom I never had contemplated but as an angel; what an object was she when I went to hand her from the lady's cabin! She reeled into my arms, with a pale check, sunken eyes, the tremor of sickness through every limb; while my gran,oh! my poor gran! Thus, upon the night I arrived, did my Irish friend O'Tallan, whom I had not seen since we left college together, describe to me, over a bottle of Burgundy at Calais, his debarkation from Dublin. He has all the warmth and impetuosity of his country; some talent, not the better for the master's inconsideration, and far too much eccentricity for it. I liked him a boy, and value him a man. We toasted the days gone by, and drank to as happy a futurity. And now, he added, before we go to bed, take from me one word of advice. Put patience in your pocket; you'll want her company at every turn. Expect nothing; unless, like me, it be to be disappointed! You're in a fortress, and you'll see in the morning what a narrow dirty place it is. You sit upon velvet, lie under silk, and, up stairs and down stairs, have your feet frozen on a tiled floor. Gran's got the rheumatism already, and Louisa's getting it for the first time. They serve us for dinner half a dozen small dishes of stewed and fricaseed morsels,-not so bad to taste, but the look-I can't bear it; the sight of plenty is itself a meal, and, when I sit down here to eat, I always fear I shall not have enough. And there is the noise of that waiter,-words, and manner, is it endurable?-talk of politeness here! I've to call the rascal a dozen times before he'll come to listen to my orders; and then the fellow does half a dozen other things under my nose before he proceeds to what I want. But, worse than all, is a new and peculiar sort of peevishness I feel, as I only half understand what the strange people about me utter; but good night,you'll soon complain, and regret with me, that French, as we studied it at school in a book is one language, and French here in conversation another, For the Monthly Magazine. LYCEUM OF ANCIENT LITERATURE, NO. XXXVI. MARTIAL. most extensive, and, in some reN commencing our notice of this spects, most celebrated writer of epigrams among the ancients, it appears proper to make some remarks upon that species of composition by which he has distinguished himself. It is not our intention to enter at length into every thing relating to the epigram; its celebrity, construction, and variety; such a discussion is too tedious for our plan, although to be wholly silent as to its origin and nature, when speaking of the works of Martial, would be an unjustifiablę omission. We shall therefore briefly notice the first introduction of the epigram; shewing, at the same time, in what it consists, and the principal requisites for its successful composition. The literal meaning of the word epigram is simply an inscription or title. Accordingly, in its primitive and true signification, the term was applied to any inscription on a monument, statue, trophy, or image, though sometimes consisting of a single word only. It was afterwards employed in a more extended meaning; and those inscriptions, to which we have alluded, often became themselves the titles or subjects of short poems, which continued to receive the name of epigrams, till, by degrees, this kind of composition began to be applied indifferently to a variety of subjects, and the term epigram acquired the meaning which has long been attached to it, namely, a short poem, sometimes of a simple nature, containing merely the mention of a thing, a person, or circumstance; and sometimes complex, where a conclusion is deduced from some previous statement. The first of these, though hardly considered as an epigram in our time, Was was much in use among the ancients; and Martial, though he evidently delighted more in the opposite style, has yet a great number of this description. The epigrams in the Greek Anthology are chiefly simple ones; and it is indeed in this class that we generally meet with the greatest poetical beauty and elegance of composition. Perhaps no example will convey a more correct idea of the nature of the simple epigram than the following, written by Gellius:* Adolescens tametsi properas, hoc te saxum rogat, Ut se aspicias: deinde quod scriptum est legas, Hie sunt poetæ Pacuvii Marci sita Ossa; hoc volebam nescius ne esses: Vale. 66 Æneas hæc The line in the Æneid, de Danais victoribus arma;" and the distich said to have been written by Virgil upon himself, "Mantua me genuit," &c. may be considered as examples of the same kind. The complex epigram admits of the introduction of an endless variety of ideas, and deductions from premises of every kind. The works of Martial furnish specimens of every imaginable description of this composition. It may not be uninteresting to give some examples of the very different manner in which his various conclusions are deduced. Sometimes a greater conelusion is obtained from smaller premises, as in his eulogium on the amphitheatre of Titus, in which he places that edifice above all the wonders of the world: Barbara pyramidum silcat miracula Memphis; Assiduis jactet nec Babylona labor; Nec Trivia templo molles laudentur ho nores, Dissimuletque Deum cornibus ara fre. or apparently equal, as in that wellknown epigram Cum sitis similes, paresque vità Uxor pessima, pessimus maritus, Miror, non bene convenire vobis.* And in the ingenious conclusion of his epigram to Flaccus, in which, after attributing the want of poetical excellence to the deficiency of proper patronage, he adds Ergo ero Virgilius, si munera Mæcenates Des mihi? Virgilius non ero: Marsus ero.f Sometimes he makes the point of his epigrams turn upon the bringing together ideas of a different, and even of a contrary nature. Of the first we have an example in the 47th of his eighth book: Pars maxillarum tonsa est tibi, pars tibi pusa est, Pars vulsa est: unum quis putet esse caput? Of the effect which he produces from contrarieties, we have a fine example in his admirable distich to a person of capricious character:Difficilis, facilis, jucundus, acerbus es idem; Nec tecum possum vivere, nec sine te. He not unfrequently terminates an epigram with a happy ambiguity, as in that to Scazon, where, after describing the object of his satire in a manner too plain to admit of any misapplication, he concludes by saying— Quæris quis hic set? excidit mihi nomen.‡ Examples might be given from Martial of many other varieties equally ingenious, but those we have selected are sufficient for our present purpose, His writings, besides numerous simple epigrams, embrace every variety of the complex kind; and, in the compotion which modern taste appears to sition of the latter, (the only descriprecognise,) he has served more or less as a model to all succeeding writers. The life of this author was not marked by any very remarkable or eventful circumstances. He was born at Bilbilis, in Celtiberia; the name of his father was Fronto, that of his mother Flaccilla. His ancestry, indeed, was altogether obscure, though the celebrity of his genius afterwards made him illustrious. Concerning the name of the poet himself, no controversy exists, all the existing manuscripts agreeing in calling him Marcus Vale* Lib. 8, ep. 35. + Lib. 8, ep. 56. rius Lib. 1, ep. 97. rius Martialis; but whether he assumed those names himself, or derived them from his parents, is a matter of uncer tainty. The circumstance, however, of Marcus and Valerius being both Roman names would appear to favour the supposition of his having first taken them at Rome. That he was a Roman citizen there can be no doubt, since the citizenship was granted to others at his request,-a circumstance of which he boasts not a little in his epigram to Nævolus.* It is most likely, too, that he was a citizen by birth; since, had he obtained that privilege in any other manner, we should probably have found some tribute to his patron in his writings. But the right of citizenship was then casily procured; Claudius having rendered it of so little value, that it was vulgarly said to be purchascable even with broken glass. The native place of our author appears moreover to have been an Augustan colony; he himself calls it Augusta Bilbilis, in one of his epigrams.t He came to Rome in his twenty-first year; he passed more than thirty-five years in that city, as appears from his own account; and quitted it when he was about fifty-six years of age. He therefore lived at Rome under Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian, Titus, Domitian, Nerva, and Trajan. In the first or second year of Trajan's reign, finding himself neglected by that emperor, he returned into his own country, where he ended his days, about four, or at most five years after quitting Rome; being about sixty years old at the time of his death. He enjoyed in a high degree the regard of Domitian and Titus, both of whom loaded him with honours and presents. He received the jus trium liberorum, a privilege which the emperor alone could confer, and which was considered as the strongest proof of his favour. The poet boasts repeatedly in his writings of this mark of distinction. He was likewise created a tribune, and raised to the equestrian dignity to both of which promotions he has alluded. A house was also assigned to him in the city, and a country-house in the suburbs, as he himself informs us.* During his absence from his own country, he appears to have visited most of the principal cities in Italy, as well as the capital of the empire. Besides the patronage of the emperors, he seems to have enjoyed the friendship of the most illustrious of his cotemporaries. He numbered in his list of friends Licinianus, Pliny the Younger, Cornelius Priscus, Regulus the Orator, Quinctilian, Juvenal, Valerius Flaccus, and many others, whom he has immortalized in his writings. His general health was good; but, during his stay at Rome, he was once attacked with a very dangerous illness. He was of the middle stature; his body rough and athletic, and his voice and countenance manly. After the death of Domitian, his friend Parthenius, who possessed great power at court, having been slain in a tumult of the soldiers, Martial, finding that he had little influence with Nerva, and none with Trajan, returned to his native country, where he died; having, during the last three years of his life, completed the twelfth book of his epigrams. Unfortunately, he did not find that calm and undisturbed retreat which he had hoped to enjoy in the bosom of his country; his declining days were embittered by the envy and ill-will of many of his countrymen, who, meanly jealous of his prosperity and reputation, excrted themselves to wound his feelings, and disturb his repose; and there is reason to believe that the grief and uneasiness which their conduct occasioned him, was the immediate cause of the disorder that terminated his existence. [On account of the length to which this article has extended, we shall defer our strictures on the writings and character of Martial to a future Number.] To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. according to the celebrated Lord Bacon, nearly two thousand years; but, as it does not appear that it has been generally known, your correspondent Capt. Layman has conferred a benefit upon society by reverting to the subject. It is probable that Bacon's account of the process, as given in his Sylva Sylvarum, may not be uninteresting to some of your readers. "Dig a pit upon the sea-shore, somewhat above the high-water mark, and sink it as deep as the low-water mark; and, as the tide cometh in, it will fill with water fresh and potable. This is commonly practised on the coast of Barbary, where other fresh water is wanting. And Cæsar knew this well, when he was besieged in Alexandria; for, by digging of pits in the sea-shore, he did frustrate the laborious works of the enemy, who had turned the sea-water upon the wells of Alexandria; and so saved his army, being then in desperation. But Cæsar mistook the cause; for he thought that all sea-sands had natural springs of fresh water. But it is plain that it is seawater, because the pit filleth according to the measure of the tide; and the sea-water, passing or straining through the sands, leaveth the saltness."Sylva Sylvarum, Century 1. But there is another process of purifying water by percolation, which may be as useful, under certain circumstances, as the foregoing. To obtain pure water from a muddy pond, or river, or cistern, take a tub, bore the bottom full of holes, and, after half filling it with sand, or sand and gravel, place it in a shallow part of the pond or river, so that its edge remain above the surface; and the water will rise through the sand and gravel perfectly clear and pure. This simple process, I conceive, might be rendered highly useful, both in families and on ship-board, by merely substituting an outer tub for the pond or cistern, and letting the foul water fall between the outer and inner tubs. Thus a constant supply of pure water may be obtained, whereever foul water and two old tubs are to be had. J. FITCH. Stepney; Sept. 10. rit, and fame as the natural consequence resulting from the development and exertion of extraordinary talent; in short, the individual who has acquired distinction is admitted gratuitously to have deserved it: while obscurity, on the other hand, is uniformly looked on as the invariable reward of ambitious dullness; and neglect as the necessary but unenviable appendage of ignorance, or at least of mediocrity. Can we tell -How many a soul sublime Hath felt the influence of malignant star? And the rest of this sweet stanza is highly applicable : Or wag'd with fortune an eternal war; Check'd by the scoff of scorn, or envy's frown, Or poverty's unconquerable bar. 66 Who, for instance, among the great bulk of the present generation of readers knew anything of the existence of many of the "American Poets," until the Monthly Magazine, some time ago, brought the subject into notice. What has been done so ably and so judiciously for the Americans, I am now anxious to see done for my neglected countrymen: the rewards of genius are few, and frail and uncertain. They whom a want of celebrity is likely to deprive of pecuniary compensation, have nothing to excite them to higher undertakings but the inherent love of song, and the applause of the judicious few to whom chance may render their merits known; the latter excitement may be administered without seeming a sacrifice on the part of him who confers it; and, when given with a feeling of temperate indulgence, will produce the best effect. Acting under this impression, I shall venture to trespass on your pages by a few observations on the writings of some of our authors residing here, and probably not generally known in England. I should begin with Anster, the author of a volume of poems published in Edinburgh: I have been told, however, that he has gone but recently to the Continent; and, as Blackwood and the New Monthly have noticed his productions, he can hardly be classed among the neglected. Mr. John Banim, one of the authors of "Damon and Pythias," is a young writer of great promise. To his tragedy ample justice has been done: but why has his "Celts Paradise" been passed over in silence by all the re Tt views |