صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

I received it, says, he has been informed that it was founded on the following inscription, probably written from real feeling, on the window of an inn, situated in the Highlands of Scotland:

"Of all the ills unhappy mortals know,

A life of wandering is the greatest woe;

[ocr errors]

On all their weary ways wait care and pain,
And pine and penury, a meagre train-

A wretched exile to his country send,

--

Long worn with griefs, and long without a friend."

This poem contains a description of the situation of a Scotch gentleman, who had been obliged to leave his country for rebellion against our present happy government. It points out the fatal consequences of such treasonable attempts, and represents the distress of the person described, in a very interesting and pathetic manner.

THE EXILE. AN ELEGY.

Where, 'midst the ruins of a fallen state,
The once-famed Tiber rolls his scanty wave,
Where half a column now derides the great,
Where half a statue yet records the brave:

With trembling steps an Exile wander'd near,
In Scottish weeds his shrivell'd limbs array'd;
His furrow'd cheek was cross'd with many a tear,
And frequent sighs his wounded soul betray'd.

Oh, wretch! he cried, that, like some troubled ghost,
Árt doom'd to wander round this world of woe,
While memory speaks of joy forever lost,

Of peace, of comfort, thou hast ceased to know!

These are the scenes, with fancied charms endow'd,
Where happier Britons, casting pearls away,
The fools of sound, of empty trifles proud,
Far from the land of bliss and freedom stray.

[ocr errors]

Would that, for yonder dome, these eyes could see
The wither'd oak that crowns my native hill!
These urns let ruin waste; but give to me
The tuft that trembles o'er its lonely rill.

O sacred haunts! and is the hillock green,
That saw our infant-sports beguile the day?
Still are our seats of fairy fashion seen?
Or is my little throne of moss away?

Had but Ambition, in this tortur'd breast,

Ne'er sought to rule beyond the humble plain, Where mild Dependence holds the vassal blest, Where faith and friendship fix the chieftain's reign:

Thus had I lived the life my fathers led;

Their name, their family had not ceased to be; And thou, Monimia, on thy earthly bed!—

My name, my family, what were these to thee!

Three little moons had seen our growing love,
Since first Monimia joined her hand to mine;
Three little moons had seen us blest above

All that enthusiast hope could e'er divine.

Urged by the brave, by fancied glory warm'd,
In treason honest, if 'twas treason here;
For rights supposed, my native band I arm'd,
And join'd the standard Charles had dared to rear.

Fated we fought, my gallant vassals fell,
But saved their master in the bloody strife;
Their coward master, who could live to tell
He saw them fall, yet tamely suffer'd life.

Let me not think; - but, ah! the thought will rise,
Still in my whirling brain its horrors dwell,
When, pale and trembling, with uplifted eyes,
Monimia faintly breathed-
-a last farewell!

"They come!" she said—" Fly, fly these ruthless foes,
And save a life in which Monimia lives;
Believe me, Henry, light are all her woes,
Except what Henry's dreaded purpose gives!

"And wouldst thou die, and leave me thus forlorn,
And blast a life the most inhuman spare?
Oh! live in pity to the babe unborn

That stirs within me to assist my prayer!

What could I do! Contending passions strove,
And press'd my bosom with alternate weight,
Unyielding honour, soft persuasive love

I fled and left her-left her to her fate!

Fast came the ruffian band; no melting charm,
That e'er to suffering beauty nature gave,

The ruthless rage of party can disarm;
Thy tears, Monimia, wanted power to save!

She, and the remnant of her weeping train,
Whose faithful love still link'd them to her side,
Torn from their dwelling, trode the desert plain,
No hut to shelter, and no hand to guide.

Thick drove its snow before the wintry wind,
And midnight darkness wrap'd the heath they past,
Save one sad gleam, that, blazing far behind,
The ancient mansion of my fathers cast.

Calmly she saw the smouldering ruins glare; "Tis past, all-righteous God! 'tis past!" she cried; "But for my Henry hear my latest prayer!"

Big was her bursting heart;- - she groan'd and died!

Still, in my dreams, I see her form confess'd,
Sailing, in robes of light, the troubled sky!.
"And soon," she whispers, "shall my Henry rest"
And, dimly smiling, points my place to die!

I hear that voice, I see that pale hand wave;
I come once more to view my native shore;
Stretch'd on Monimia's long-neglected grave,
To clasp the sod, and feel my woes no more!

No. 86. SATURDAY, MARCH 4, 1780.

66

SIR,

"TO THE AUTHOR OF THE MIRROR.

"MANY inestimable medicines, as well for preserving health as for curing diseases, are overlooked by our modern practitioners. An attempt to revive some of those obsolete remedies, though it may appear better suited to a medical performance, yet does not seem altogether foreign to The Mirror; since a sound mind, according to the well-known apophthegm, is in natural alliance with a sound body, the same publication which is calculated for the improvement of the one, may not improperly be made subservient to the health of the other.

66

"I. The first that I shall mention is of sovereign efficacy in restoring debilitated stomachs to their proper tone. It renders the body vigorous, and it prolongs the days of man even unto extreme old age. Of it, Tulpius, an eminent physician of Amsterdam, treats in his Observationes Medicinales.

"In some languages it is called Cha, in others, Tzai; but with us it has received the appellation of Tea.

"II. There is another simple of a singular kind; according to the great traveller Pietro della Valle, it is cooling in summer, and warm in winter, without, however, changing its qualities.

"It expelled a gout, of thirty years' standing, from the toes of the Reverend Alexander d'Albertus, a barefooted friar of Marseilles, aged seventy.

"For a long time Madame de Lausun could not walk without the aid of a crutch; and no wonder, for the good lady had numbered the frosts of fourscore and two winters.' She was seized with what my author calls a tertian quartan ague, which undoubtedly is a very bad thing, though I do not find it in my dictionary; but she tried father Alexander's remedy; her youth was renewed, as one might say, [comme rajeunie,] and she threw away her crutch.

"The wife of M. Morin, physician at Grenoble, was reduced to the last extremity by a confirmed phthisic, of no less than sixteen years' endurance; at length the doctor found out a method of laying the disease that had so obstinately haunted his bed. By way of experiment, he administered the remedy to his chère moitie, [dear half,] which is French for a wife. She recovered of her phthisic, and afterwards, by using the same remedy, of another disease, with a horrible Greek name, a peripneumony.

"I might add many and various effects of this medicine still more wonderful. That of the public speaker, who was seized with a fit of modesty, is most remarkable. By taking a single dose, he felt himself restored to his wonted composure of mind, and he declared that he could, with ease, have spoken out another hour.

"For this and other authenticated cures, the inquisitive reader is referred to the treatise of Philip Sylvester du Tour, concerning the virtues of coffee.

"III. There is a certain weed, 'which, taken a while after meat, helps digestion; it voids rheum, &c. A little of it, being steeped over night in a little white wine, is a vomit that never fails in its operation. It cannot endure a spider, or a flea, or such like vermin; it is good to fortify and preserve the sight, being let in round about the balls of the

« السابقةمتابعة »