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found, that more interest was necessary for the purpose than the could command; and that the had, for that reafon, laid afide her comedy for ever." While she was talking, came in a favourite dog of Lavinia's, which I had used to caress. The creature sprung to my arms, and I received him with my usual fondness. Lavinia endeavoured to conceal a tear, which trickled down her cheek. Afterwards she says, "Now that I live entirely alone, I show Juno more attention than I had used to do formerly. The heart wants fomething to be kind to, and it confoles us for the lofs of fociety, to fee even an animal derive happiness from the endearments we bestow upon it.".

The heart wants something to be kind to 1-0, eloquent truth! What sensibility in this sweet and sympathetic expreffion! What delicacy in the circumstance! How must it be experienced by the forrowing and forfaken female, who, like Eliza Ryves, was virtuous amidst her despair, and evinced an heroic fortitude, while her foul shuddered with all the delicacy of a feminine foftness.

I have not yet finished what I have to obferve on this little volume. The authorefs, with the melancholy fagacity of genius, forefaw, and has described her own death! The affecting manner of Lavinia's death, occafioned by a broken heart, was strictly that of Eliza Ryves; in the fiction, Lavinia dies of a broken heart, occafioned by a disappointed paffion, and an individual neglect; in truth, Eliza Ryves died of difappointment and neglect; and when the heart is literally broken, whether it was love or grief, it will fignify nothing. I believe this volume procured no temporary aid to its authoress's poverty. I have in vain fought for it in our journals; and not being there noticed, shows the extreme obscurity with which it was ushered into the literary world.

I shall conclude these hafty recollections with fome

thing

4

thing that will interest the reader of sensibility with more pathos than I can afford. Mifs Ryves favoured me with the following stanzas, a short time before her death, with a fignificant gesture, which too plainly expreffed who was the object of her melancholy mufe. The verse is very elegant and flowing; but the circumstance is much more interesting than the verse :

A SONG,

BY ELIZA RYVES.

"A new-fallen lamb, as mild Emmeline paft,

In pity she turn'd to behold,

How it shiver'd and shrunk from the merciless blaft,
Then fell all benumb'd with the cold.

She rais'd it, and touch'd by the innocent's fate,
Its foft form to her bosom she preft;
But the tender relief was afforded too late,
It bleated, and died on her breaft.

The moralift then, as the corse she resign'd,
And, weeping, spring flowers o'er it laid,
Thus mused, "So it fares with the delicate mind,
"To the tempests of fortune betray'd.

"Too tender, like thee, the rude shock to sustain,
"And deny'd the relief which would fave;
"'Tis loft, and when pity and kindness are vain,
"Thus we dress the poor fufferer's grave."

These last lines seem to reproach me, as I form these Hafty Recollections. Alas! I hardly knew thee-and now I know thee too late. Vain and impotent rite! I would now scatter some living roses over the pale athes of the dead !

MR.

MR. MATTHISON'S, DESCRIPTION OF THE LATE
MR. GIBBON, WHOM HE VISITED WHILE IN
THE PAYS DE VAUD.

I

YESTERDAY waited on Mr. Gibbon, his figure is very striking. He is tall, of athletic make, and rather aukward when he moves. His face forms one of the most fingular phyfiognomical phænomena, owing to the irregular proportion of the parts to the whole. The eyes are so little as peculiarly to contraft with his high and finely arched forehead; while the nofe, inclining to flatnef, almost vanishes between the cheeks, which project exceedingly. The double chin hanging down very low, renders the elliptic shape of his long face still more remarkable: yet, in spite of these irregularities, Mr. Gibbon's countenance has an uncommon expreffion of dignity, which, at first fight, bespeaks the profound and acute reasoner. Nothing exceeds the glowing animation of his eyes. In his conversation and manner, he is quite the polite gentleman; civil, but cold. He speaks French with elegance; and, which is truly furprising in an Englishman, pronounces it nearly like a Parifian man of letters. He liftens to his own accents with great complacency, and talks flowly, as if carefully examining each phrafe before he gives it utterance. With the fame compofed countenance, he speaks on agreeable and on disagreeable subjects, on joyful and on melancholy events. During the whole of our conversation, the mufcles of his face remained unaltered; though a very ludicrous incident, which he had occafion to relate, might naturally have drawn a fmile from him. In his house, the strictest punctuality and order prevail; and his domeftics muft expect to be difimiffed if they perform not their business almoft at the ftated moment. Of this exactness he fets them the example himself. His day is divided like that of king Alfred. As the clock ftrikes, he goes to business, to dinner, or fees

company;

company; always taking the utmost care not to spend one minute beyond the time fet apart for the occafion. A hair-dreffer was discarded for coming a few minutes past seven o'clock. His fucceffor, thinking to make fure of the punctual customer, called a little before seven, and met the fame fate. The third, who stepped into the house as the clock was striking, was retained.

Mr. Gibbon is now engaged in taking a catalogue of his library, which abounds in valuable works, especially in good editions of the claffics, and which is generally confidered as one of the most excellent collections of books that ever was in the poffeffion of any literary man. The first performance, by which he ushered himself into the republic of letters, appeared in French, at a very early period of his life. He told me that this little treatise, though confifting but of a few theets, had lately, at a public fale, been knocked down for the extravagant price of two guineas. It was in the ruins of the capitol, that he conceived the first idea of writing on the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; and he has, with manly perfeverance, travelled over one of the most rugged roads that ever author ventured to explore.

From ancient English literature, in which he appears to be exceedingly well read, the converfation foon turned to the state of letters in Germany. Mr. Gibbon, although one of the best scholars of the age, whom nothing has escaped that England, France, Italy, and Spain, have produced, in almost every branch of learning, feemed to be but fuperficially informed with respect to our language and literature. That the Germans actually copy ancient metres, is a fact that had never come to his ears. He cited Algarotti, who, in his treatise on rhyme, takes notice of the Germans, but only enumerates the unfuccessful attempts at pure hexameters made by the English, French, and Italians. This induced me to give him a fuccinct history of the German language, and of its rapid improvement, which I concluded with informing him of a German Odyffey,

in which the tranflator had preserved, not only the same metre and number of lines, but in many hexameters even the feet of the original. My memory being faithful enough to furnish me with the two following lines on Sifyphus rolling up the ftone (from the xith book of the Odyffey), I recited them, both in Greek and Ger

man:

Λᾶαν βασιάζονια πελώριον ἀμφολέρησιν: Einen fchweren Marmor mit groffer Gewalt forthebend. Αὐλις ἔπειτα πέδονδε κυλίνδελο λᾶας ἀναιδής· Hurtig mit Donnergepolter entrollte der tickische Marmor. Though unacquainted with the German idiom, and judging merely from the impreffion which these hexameters made on his ear, he admitted the masterly fabric of them. He indeed made me repeat them several times, and I am unable fufficiently to express his aftonishment. He immediately conceived fuch an high opinion of the improvement of our language, and of the "gigantic steps of our literature," as he expreffed himfelf, that he refolved to learn German, as foon as he should enjoy a greater portion of leifure than he then poffeffied.

66

LITERARY ENQUIRIES.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE MONTHLY VISITOR. UKE'S Iron Crown" - Goldsmith's Traveller. What is the fact here alluded to? Where is

L

an account of the fact to be found?

"Lydiat's Life"-Dr. Johnson's Vanity of Human Lydiat, and for what remark

Wishes. Who was

able? " Not Scuith Guiridh, but y Scuith Gogh." Spenfer's F. Q. b. ii. cant. 10. ft. 24.

What are the meaning of these words? Hiftorians have left us in the dark respecting the

reafons (forme there doubtlessly were) of the mercy ex

tended

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