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Women-Clerical Avarice-Bon Mot-The Clergyman's Three Wives.

Women. In youth, says Bacon, women are our mistresses, at a riper age, our companions, in old age, our nurses, and in all ages, our friends.

Clerical Avarice. The rapacity of the clergy in demanding their tithes, is a common topic of censure; but the following shows that some of them at least carry this matter to an uncommon pitch. Dr. Haye, the present Dean of Lincoln, finding in his parish, (near Sherwood Forest) three poor families having from ten to twelve children in each, he claimed the TENTH child from each family; and the poor parents joyfully complying with his demand, the Doctor has taken charge of them, and feeds, clothes and educates the little tithes. Let others claim such tithes as these, and use them in the same way.

Bon Mot.-The Emperor Sigismund was reproached for regarding instead of destroying his enemies, and by that means giving them the power again to injure him. 'What,' said the noble minded monarch, do not I destroy my enemies, when I make them my friends.'

The Clergyman's Three Wives.-A learned and witty dissenting minister, not many years deceased, married three wives; the first for her pecuniary advantages, the second on account of her personal charms, and the third he married in his old

age, for the sake of securing her attention and his own comfort: she however turned out a very shrew. Well, said the reverend divine to a friend, I have in my time had three wives the World, the Flesh, and the Devil!

Cheapning. A Highlander who sold brooms went into a barber's shop in Glasgow to get shaved. The barber bought one of his brooms, and after having shaved him asked the price of it. Tippence, said the Highlander. No, no, said the barber, I'll give you a penny, and if that does not satisfy you may take your broom again. The Highlander took it and asked what he had to pay? A penny, says Strap. I'll gie ye a bawbee, says Duncan, an' if that dinna satisfy ye pit on my beard again.

Slander, Slander is a vice impure in its source, dangerous

G

The Weeping Image-Reformation--Infallibility.

in its effects, general in its influence, irreparable in its consequences. A vice that strikes two mortal blows: it wounds him who commits it, and against whom it is committed. It is tolerated in society, only because every one hath an invincible inclination to conceal it.

The Weeping Image. The Virgin Mary of Atocha is made of wood, yet is even melted into tears at the pathetic parts of a sermon annually preached before her every Good Friday. On such occasions the spectators cannot help sharing in the bitterness of the Virgin's sorrow. One day the preacher having exerted all his powers of oratory with the usual effect, perceived among his congregation a carpenter who looked on with a dry eye. Impious wretch, exclained the orator, what-not weep! not discover the smallest emotion, when you see the holy Virgin herself melted into tears!-Ah, reverend father, replied the carpenter, it was I who fixed up that statue yesterday in its niche: in order to fasten the Virgin properly, I was obliged to drive three great nails in her backside, 'twas then she would have cried, lad she been able.

Reformation. An English country clergyman was boasting, in a large company, of the success he had had in reforming his parishioners, on whom his labours, he said, had produced a wonderful change to the better. Being asked in what respect, he replied, that when he came first among them, they were a set of unmannerly clowns, who paid him no more reverence than they did to one another; did not so much as pull off their hat when they spoke to him, but bawled out as roughly and familiarly as though he were their equal; whereas, now, they never presumed to address him but cap in hand; and in a submissive voice, made him their best bow, when they were at ten yards distance, and styled him Your reverence, at every word.-A Quaker, who heard the whole patiently, made answer; And so, friend, the upshot of this reformation, of which thou hast so much carnal glorying, is, that thou hast taught thy people to worship-thyself!

Infallibility-Steele in one of his dedieations observes, that the only difference betwixt the church of Rome and the church of England, are their opinions of the certainty of their doctrine

Female Politician-Sleeping Court-Maxims.

is, that the former thinks, it is always infallible, and the latter, that it is never in the wrong.

Female Politician.-A woman in politics is like a monkey in a china shop: she can do no good, and may do a great deal of harm.

Sleeping Court.-A Welsh Judge was trying a man for felony, and in the course of giving a long charge, whether from the length of the charge, the warmth of the day, or the circumstance of attending business after dinner, (which is usual in some assize towns) the Jury, and Counsel fell fast asleep; the Jailor soon after this being seen to nod, somebody in the court apprehensive of the escape of the prisoner, suddenly exclaimed, Wake the Jailor-No, no. says the judge, who saw the situa tion of things, with great good humour, there is no occasion to wake the Jailor, you see the prisoner himself is asleep.

Maxims. Too much familiarity breeds contempt. He who is much feared, has himself much to fear. In good fortune be moderate, in bad prudent. Friendship is one soul in two bodies. He who has many friends, has none. All things should be common between friends; our friend is another self. It is a pleasant thing to grow old with a good friend and sound reason, Wicked men cannot be friends either with themselves or with the good. Be the same to your friends both in prosperity and adversity. Go slowly to the entertainments of thy friends, but quickly to their misfortunes. Real friends are wont to visit us only in our prosperity when invited; but in adversity to come of their accord. Procure not friends in haste, nor if once procured, in haste abandon them. How excellent it is to do good to our friends, and at the same time to make friends of our enemies. Every thing great is not always good, but all good things are great. Hope is the last thing that dies in man. Hope is the dream of a waking man. He only is idle who might be better employed. The greatest of vices is ingratitude. One ought to remember kindnesses received, and forget those one has done. The wicked live to eat, but the good eat to live. We should promise little, but perform what we promise. Prudence is the eye of virtue. Make reason thy guide. A man ought to obey reason, and not appetite. Betray no secrets.

Scotch Translation of Homer.

Poetry.

SCOTCH TRANSLATION OF HOMER.

TO THE EDITOR.

DEAR SIR,

Garshake Academy, 15th October, 1818.

Upon examining the MSS. of my deceased friend *, I have discovered inter alia, a Scotch version of the most popular of Homer's Epics. It hath occurred to me frequently lucubrating thereupon, that by judiciously epitomizing the Poem, and annexing thereunto the scholia of me or some other learned critic, to elucidate obscure, or controverted or controvertible passages, your publication might be agreeably diversified, and, perchance, no small benefit accrue to the cause of learning in our land.

Should this obtain a favourable reception among your readers, it may assist exigere monumentum perennius ære over the humble tumulus of departed genius: and peradventure, a little (parvus afflatus) popularis aure may be conveyed even to my domicile. Albeit minime decet that we (the learned) should hold audible converse in the vulgar and unliterate tongue to which my young poet showed so warm an attachment there can be little dubiousness in the fact, that it was even I myself (credite posteri!) who excited in him a relish for compositions in his native language. Often when the rest of the Juniores were not within` hearing, have I impressed upon him the innegable truth, that the idiom or genius of the Lingua Scotica approximates to those of Greece and Rome, much more than the verbose, unexpressive, unfeeling, circumlocutory phraseology of modern days, aut domi aut foris. Nor will it less admit of negation that to me shall appertain the sole praise of having superintended him while in the attainment of classical knowledge, whereby you, (as all readers of discernment may well observe) to excel the diffuse rendering of Pope, and even the more to be commended version of Cowper: how much more the bombastical

* Vide page 33.

Scotch Translation of Homer.

parody of Madame Dacier and the turgid poetico-prose of that Homo whom men of weak intelligences have imagined possessed of cerebral capacities sufficient to write Ossian.

A. WILSON, A. M.

Note by the Editor.

We go entirely into Mr. Wilson's idea, that an outline of this admired poem in our own highly expressive language, cannot fail of being acceptable to the generality of our readers. And while we return our thanks for the kind promise of continuing his fa vours, we beg he will not regard it as a failing in respect to his literary attainments, nor any contempt for those disquisitions on disputed readings with which he has obliged us, but merely from our desire not to obtrude compositions otherwise interesting on many of our readers, to whom they must appear out of place, that we have ventured to omit parts of his communication, and in what follows have made considerable alteration in the prose.

The celebrated Iliad of Homer opens with a detail of the circumstances which occasioned the "wrath of Peleus' son," and his vow to remain neutral during the remainder of the Trojan war.

Astynome or Chrysëis, wife of Eetion, king of Lyrnessus, was the daughter of Chryses, and on the capture of Lyrnessus by the Greeks fell to the lot of Agamemnon, according to the custom of the period. Chryses came to the Grecian camp with intention of ransoming his daughter; but, being insolently dismissed, he prayed for vengeance. Apollo (of whom he was priest) sent a plague throughout the beseiging army, which having raged with increasing violence for nine days, Achilles called a general council on the tenth, for the purpose of consulting the soothsayers respecting the cause of this signal calamity, and the proper method of propitiation.

Calchas, the High Priest, distinguished above all his contemporaries for the extent of his knowledge and his skill in divination, after asking and receiving from Achilles a promise of protection, lest his revelations might expose himself to personal danger, declared that the insult offered to the priest of Apollo, were the causes of all their distress.

V. 101. Then Agamemnon raise, auld Atreus' son:

(Wide was his sway, and weel he fill'd his throne,)
He raise in wrath, his black heart fili'd wi' ire,
An' his twa een-they flashed like flames o' fire.
A grousome look he coost on Calchas than,
An' bauld an' awsome words he thus began:

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