366 Varieties Literary, &c. Star of the mild and placid seas, Ave Maris Stella! Star of the deep! when angel lyres To hymn thy holy name essay, To mingle in the mighty lay! When storms and tempests pass away, ROBERT BURTON BORN, FEB. 8, 1576. The celebrated author of the Anatomy of Melancholy, a book full of all such reading as never was read,' and the only one which Dr. Johnson said would induce him to rise at six o'clock in the morning to peruse. DR. CLAUDIUS BUCHANAN DIED, FEB. 8, 1815, ET. 49. With the name of Dr. Buchanan will ever be associated the cause of promoting Christianity in India. He was a rare instance of zeal, judgment, and munificence. His Christian Researches' in Asia is a most interesting work; and his prizes for promoting a knowledge of the state of India, by calling attention to the country and its circumstances, evinced a princely generosity. His Three Discourses on the Jubilee show him to have been the christian and the patriot. SIR W. BLACKSTONE DIED, FEB. 14,1780. The learned author of Commentaries on the Laws of England,' which are at once celebrated for the perspicuity and elegance of their style, and (generally speaking) for their sound and constitutional principles. He is charged, however, with softening some passages in his first edition, to make them more agreeable to the crown lawyers. His Farewel to the Muse' contains some pleasing lines. We select the following: FAREWEL TO THE MUSE. As by some tyrant's stern command, [VOL 4. Till on some neighb'ring mountain's brow How blithesome were we wont to rove, By verdant hills or shady grove : Where fervent bees with humming voice Around the honied oak rejoice; In long cathedral walks extend. Luiled by the lapse of gliding floods- Then all was joyous-all was young, Me wrangling courts and stubborn law And midnight conflagrations glare: MARTIN LUTHER DIED, FEB. 18, 1546. While the bull of Leo X. executed Here by Charles V. was thundering through- him keep close to his sword, without taking the least notice of books, if by chance any should fall in his way.' [For farther remarkable days in February, see Atheneum, Vol. 2, p. 354, &e.} 367 animals to death with dogs, very much rethe instruments of wicked priests, i perpetsemble the devil, who, by crafty wiles and ually seeking whom he may devour? Again: we happened to take a leveret alive, which I put into my pocket, with an intent to preserve it; yet we were not gone far before the dogs seized upon it, as it was in my Just so the pope pocket, and worried it. and the devil rage furiously to destroy the souls that I have saved, in spite of all my endeavours to prevent them. In short, I am tired of hunting these little innocent beasts; and had rather be employed, as I have beeu for some time, in spearing bears, wolves, tigers, and foxes; that is, in opposing and confounding wicked and impious divines, who resemble savage animals in their qual *He used sometimes even to go out a bunting with those few who were in the secret: which, however, we may imagine, he did more for health than for pleasure, as, indeed, may be collected from his own curious account of it. I was,' says he, lately two days a hunting, in which amusement I found both pleasure and pain. We killed a brace of hares, and took some unhappy partridges; a very pretty employment truly for an idle man! However, I could not forbear theologizing amidst dogs and nets; for, thought I to myself, do not we, in hunting innocent ities.' From the Literary Gazette. A HAUNTED STREAM. "Of objects all inanimate I made Idols."-Byron. POETRY. once in my IT deem The tale allied to truth.---They say yon brook Such streams as these did Dian love, and such The rough Scamander; ob,and how he rushed, And mingled with Troy fight---and some did tell life air Breathes her deep note complaining, till the Seems touch'd, and all the woods and hollows, sighing, Prolong the sound to sadness.--Hark! a noise-- HERE, if on summer nights you stray, And down the wave float silently--- Beat with their tiny wings the air, stray, As on her breast some sorrow weighed, Mehal Jurisprudence and the Reforma- and accompanied by biographical and bis R. Roscoe has in the press, a work on B. WEST, esq. P. R.A., by R. SATCHWELL; tion of Criminals; which includes an inquiry into the motives, ends, and limits, of human punishments; and also as to the effect of punishment by way of example; and on the prevention of crimes. The work will also contain the latest accounts respecting the state prisoners and penitentiaries in the United States. From so philosophical a pen, a treatise on these subjects cannot fail, at this time, to be peculiarly valuable. Mr. GEORGE CHALMERS announces the Life of Mary Queen of Scots, drawn from the state papers, with six subsidiary memoirs: On the calumnies concerning the Scottish queen; memoirs of Francis H.; on Lord Darnley; on James Earl Bothwell; on the Earl of Murray; on Secretary Maitland. The whole to be illustrated with ten plates of medals, portraits, and views, and printed in two volumes, quarto. A high quarrel with the Pope is announced, in a copy of a correspondence between the Court of Rome and Baron von Wessenberg, bishop of Constance; in which the bishop disputes the authority of the Pope in Germany, and endeavours, with every probability of success, to effect a general reformation in the German Catholic Church. The History of the late War in Spain and Portugal is preparing by ROBERT SOUTHEY, esq. in no less than three quarto volumes. A second edition is printing of the School Fellers by the author of the Twin Sisters. A ssional work will speedily be published,entitled, the Fountain of Life Opened, or a Display of Christ in his Essential and Mediatorial Glory; by the late Joan FLAVEL. torical sketches. Miss SPENCE, author of Sketches of the Manners, Customs, and Scenery, of Scotland, &c. &c. is preparing for publication a new work, entitled, a Traveller's Tale of the last Century. Elements of Chemistry; by James Millar, M.D. Editor of the Encyclopædia Edinensis. One vol. 8vo. This work will contain.—-l. Principles of Chemistry-2. Phenomena of Nature---3. Arts and Manufactures. NEW WORKS PUBLISWED. A Sequel to Mrs. Trimmer's Introduction to the Knowledge of Nature. By Sarah Trimmer, 12mo. Observations introductory to a Work on English Etymology. By John Thomson, Margaret Melville, and the Soldier's Daughter. By Catherine Alicia Mant, Author of Ellen, &c. Florence Macarthy: an Irish Tale. By Lady Morgan, author of France, O'Donnell, &c. 4 vols. My Old Cousin; or, A Peep into Cochin China; a novel. By the author of Romantic Facts. 3 vols. Nightmare Abbey. By the author of Headlong Hall. 12mo. Brambleton Hall. 12mo. Warwick Castle; a Tale, with minor Poems. By W. R. Bedford, B. A. of University College, Oxford. The Immortality of the Soul, and other Poems. By Thomas Thomson. History of Voyages into the Polar Regions, undertaken chiefly for the purpose of discovering a North East, North West, or Polar passage between the Atlantic and Pacific. By John Barrow, esq. 8vo. Fearson's Narrative of a Journey of 5,000 miles through the Eastern and Western States of America. 8vo. A fine and curious work of Scripture Costume, in imperial quarto, is preparing. It will consist of a series of engravings, accurately coloured, in imitation of drawings, respecting the principal personages mention- Narrative of the Expedition which sailed ed in the Old and New Testament. The from England in 1807, to join the South drawings are under the superintendance of American Patriots. By James Hackett. A NIGHT IN THE CATACOMBS. Mr. Editor, full of meaning, whom he released one morning ter I transcribe, that he is a person of the most un- September, 1818. MY DEAR S D. K. S. deepest gratitude to the providence which turned to so much benefit in my own case, that which, considering the peculiar state and temper of my mind, might have caused insanity or death, and wishing it to become, if possible, as useful to others. Superstition is not indeed an epidemic of the present age; yet there may be individuals, who cast their eyes upon my tale, that will thank me for its lesson. I never knew the fostering care of a father; and my mother, except in the boundless affection which I remember in my solitary years,did not well supply his place. Inberiting a large domain in the wildest district of Wales, I was TH HERE is nothing more baneful early taught to attach notions of dignithan the influence which privileged ty and importance to myself, and enternurses and other attendants upon young tained a long train of more interesting children exercise over their untutored thoughts than usually occupy the breast imaginations, through the medium of of boyhood. From the indulgence of superstitious dread. You know that my guardians to an only son, I was there are few who have suffered more never sent to school, and thus had no from such cruelty than myself; that opportunity of acquiring the prompt for the prime years of my youth I was and active spirit that is generated in a the victim of a distempered fancy, which public seminary, or that hard yet bril- I in vain attempted to chasten or cor- liant polish of the world, that repels rect; and that it was only by a most from its surface all assaults of sanguine singular and unexpected accident that and romantic feeling. My domestic I was freed from the reign of terror. tutor enriched my mind with an extenBut I believe you have never been sive knowledge of the classics, and immade acquainted with the full detail of bued it with the deepest admiration of that accident; and I therefore send you their beauties; but he did not apply this account of it, impressed with the himself to correct the wild tissue of ab 2Y ATHENFUM. Vol. 4. 370 A Night in the Catacombs. [TOL. 4 surd and superstitious notions, which an tomb, are too sacred to my rememacute observer must have detected in brance to be even now unravelled. I my bosom, or the greedy taste for fic- shortly after came of age, and one of tion, and nervous sensibility, of which the first acts of my majority was a visit I myself perceived and lamented the to Paris, during the short interval of excess. Ever since I could walk, I war afforded by the peace of Amiens, had been under the superintendence of in hopes of alleviating my anguish. an old nurse attached to the family, Here indeed I saw something of life; whose memory, like that of most of but I was too reserved to enter into inher country women, was well stored with timacy with any of those to whose aclegend and tradition, and who had se- quaintance my guardians introduced cretly acquired an absolute authority me. Proud, shy, and sensitive, I was over me. While I was a mere child, fearful of their penetrating into the she used to frighten me into obedience, weaknesses of my character, which I if refractory, by threats of supernatural felt were far from harmonizing with the interference, and sometimes by devices general opinions of mankind; and I of so horrible and extraordinary a na- fancy they perceived something unfashture, that I can hardly now recollect ionably cold and sombre about me, them without a shudder. The earnest- which mutually prevented our knowness and emphasis, moreover, with ledge of each other. To the value of which she told me tales which she more even your friendship, my dear S―, than half believed, gave her gradually I was then insensible-but you cannot an entire dominion over my fears and say I have remained so. fancy, which she could rouse and regu- In one of my lonely rambles about late at will. Even after I had emerged the wonderful and interesting capital from the nursery, it used to be my de- I was now visiting, I joined a crowd of light to steal to her apartment in the twenty or thirty persons, waiting at the evening, and sit listening for hours to outer door that leads to the upper enher ghostly narratives, till my knees trance of the Catacombs. I had heard shook, and every nerve in my body of these extraordinary vaults, but not trembled, in the agitation and over-ex- having passed before the Barriere d'Encitement she produced. It was then fer, I had not inspected them in person. almost too much for my courage to Though I could not help conjecturing hurry through the long passage, lighted that a subterraneous cemetery, where by a single central lamp, to the library the relics of ten centuries reposed, must in our gothic mansion; and there, when be a sight too congenial with the morI entered breathless and with a beating bid temper of my mind, I had no noheart, I used to find my mother alone, tion of the actual horrors of that manweeping over the correspondence of my sion for the dead, or in my then distem. poor father in silence, and yielding to pered state of feeling, I should not have the sorrow that finally bowed her to trusted my nerves with the spectacle to the grave. My sole amusement every be expected. How will the curious night, while thus sitting in the room tourist of the present day smile as be with her (for we saw no company at peruses this confession, if you give my al!), was in poring with a perpetually- story to the public!--but a few, perincreasing interest, over all that could haps will understand and pity what most tend to nourish the deleterious were my follies. As it was, I provided passion of my soul. My mother was myself, like the rest, with a waxen tatoo much absorbed in her own recollec- per, and we waited with impatience tions to pay much attention to my em- for the appearance of the guide from ployments or my studies; and her own mind was too much weakened by affliction to have suggested any salutary restoratives for mine. The agonies I felt at my beloved parent's death, and for many a wakeful night after she was committed to the below, with the party that had preceded us. It was about three o'clock of a sultry afternoon, and we were detained so long, that when the door opened at last, we all rushed in, and hurried old Jerome to the task of conducting us, without giving him time for the necessa |