time; but at night the weather was so thick that we could not distinguish any object at twice the length of the ship. I kept lights at the mast-head, and a constant watch forward to look out for fishing smacks, which are accustomed to lie at anchor on the banks. The wind was blowing a smacking breeze, and we were going at a great rate through the water. Suddenly the watch gave the alarm of a sail ahead!'--it was scarcely uttered before we were upon her. She was a small schooner, at anchor, with the broadside toward us. The crew were all asleep, and had neglected to hoist a light. We struck her just a-mid-ships. The force, the size, and weight, of our vessel bore her down below the waves; we passed over her, and were hurried on our course. As the crashing wreck was sinking beneath us, I had a glimpse of two or three half-naked wretches, rushing from her cabin; they just started from their beds to be swallowed shrieking by the waves. I heard their drowning cry mingling with the wind. The blast that bore it to our ears swept us out of all farther hearing. I shall never forget that ery! It was some time before we could put the ship about, she was under such headway. We returned, as nearly as we could guess, to the place where the smack had anchored. We cruised about for several hours in the dense fog. We fired signal guns, and listened if we might hear the halloo of any survivors; but all was silent --we never saw or heard any thing of them more!' "I confess these stories, for a time, put an end to all my fine fancies. The storm increased with the night. The sea was lashed into tremendous confusion. There was a fearful, sullen sound of rushing waves, and broken surges. Deep called unto deep. At times the black volume of clouds over head scemed rent asunder by flashes of lightning that quivered along the foaming billows, and made the succeeding darkness doubly terrible. The thunders bellowed over the wild waste of waters, and seemed echoed and prolonged by the mountain waves. As I saw the ship staggering and plunging among these roaring caverns, it seemed miraculous that she regained her balance, or preserved her buoyancy. Her yards would dip into the water; her bow was almost buried beneath the waves. Sometimes an impending surge seemed ready to overwhelm her, and nothing but a dexterous movement of the helm preserved her from the shock. "When I retired to my cabin the awful scene still followed me. The whistling of the wind through the rigging sounded like funereal wailings. The creaking of the masts: the straining and groaning of bulk heads, as he ship laboured in the weltering sea, were frightful. As I heard the waves rushing along the side of the ship, and roaring in my very ear, it seemed as if death were raging round this floating prison, seeking for his prey: the mere starting of a nail-the yawning of a seam, might give him entrance. "A fine day, however, with a tranquil sea and favouring breeze, soon put all these dismal reflections to flight. It is impossible to resist the gladdening influence of fine weather and fair wind at sea. When the ship is decked out in all her canvas, every sail swelled, and careering gayly over the curling waves, how lofty, how gallant she appears-how she seems to lord it over the deep! I might fill a volume with the reveries of a sea voyage, for with me it is almost a continual reverie-but it is time to get to shore. "It was a fine sunny morning when the thrilling cry of land!' was given from the mast-head. I question whether Columbus, when he discovered the new world, felt a more delicious throng of sensations, than rush into an American's bosom, when he first comes in sight of Europe. There is a volume of associations with the very name. It is the land of promise, teeming with every thing of which his childhood has heard, or on which his studious years have pondered. "From that time until the moment of arrival, it was all feverish excitement. The ships of war, that prowled like guardian giants along the coast; the headlands of Ireland, stretching out into the channel; the Welsh mountains, towering into the clouds; all were objects of intense interest. As we sailed up the Mersey, I reconnoitred the shores with a telescope. My eye dwelt with delight on neat cottages, with their trim shrubberies and green grass plots. I saw the mouldering ruin of an abbey overrun with ivy, and the taper spire of a village church rising from the brow of a neighbouring hill-all were characteristic of England. "The tide and wind were so favourable, that the ship was enabled to come at once to the pier. It was thronged with people; some idle lookers-on, others eager expectants of friends or relatives. I could distinguish the merchant to whom the ship was consigned. I knew him by his calcu lating brow and restless air. His hands were thrust into his pockets; he was whistling thoughtfully, and walking to and fro, a small space having been accorded to him by the crowd, in deference to his temporary importance. There were repeated cheerings and salutations interchanged between the shore and the ship, as friends happened to recognize each other. But I particularly noticed one young woman of humbie dress, but interesting demeanour. She was leaning forward from among the crowd; her eye hurried over the ship as it neared the shore, to catch some wished-for countenance. She seemed disappointed and agitated; when I heard a faint voice call her name. It was from a poor sailor, who had been ill all the voyage, and had excited the sympathy of every one on board. When the weather was fine, his messmates had spread a mattress for him on deck in the shade, but of late his illness had so increased, that he had taken to his hammock, and only breathed a wish that he might see his wife before he died. He had been helped on deck as we came up the river, and was now leaning against the shrouds, with a countenance so wasted, so pale, so ghastly, that it is no wonder even the eye of affection did not recognize him But at the sound of his voice, her eye darted on his features; it read, at once, a whole volume of sorrow; she clasped her hands, uttered a faint shriek, and stood wringing them in silent agony. "All now was hurry and bustle. The meetings of acquaintances-the greetings of friends-the consultations of men of business. I alone was solitary and idle. I had no friend to meet, no cheering to re ceive. I stepped upon the land of my forefathers--but felt that I was a stranger in the land." RURAL LIFE IN ENGLAND. "The stranger who would form a correct opinion of the English character must not confine his observations to the metropolis. He must go forth into the country; he must sojourn in villages and hamlets; he must visit castles, villas, farm-houses, cottages; he mast wander through parks and gardens; along hedges and green lanes; he must loiter about country churches; attend wakes and fairs, and other rural festi vals; and cope with the people in all their conditions, and all their habits and hu mours. "In some countries, the large cities absorb the wealth and fashion of the nation; they are the only fixed abodes of elegant and intelligent society, and the country is inhabited almost entirely by boorish peasantry. In England, on the contrary, the metropolis is a mere gathering place, or general rendezvous, of the polite circles, where they devote a small portion of the year to a hurry of gaiety and dissipation, and, having passed this kind of carnival, return again to the apparently more congenial habits of rural life. The various strata of society, therefore, are diffused over the whole surface of the kingdom, and the most retired neighbourhoods afford specimens of the different ranks. "The English, in fact, are strongly gifted with the rural feeling. They possess a keen sensibility to the beauties of Nature, and a relish for the pleasures and employments of the country. This passion seems inherent with them. Even the inhabit ants of cities, born and brought up among brick walls and bustling streets, enter with facility into rural habits, and evince a tact for rural occupation The merchant has his snug retreat in the vicinity of the metropolis, where he often displays as much pride and zeal in the cultivation of his flower-garden, and the maturing of his fruits, as he does in the conduct of his business, and the success of a commercial operation. Even those less fortunate individuals, who are doomed to pass their lives in the midst of din and traffic, contrive to have something that shall remind them of the green aspect of Nature. In the dark and dingy lanes of the metropolis, every drawing-room window is like a bank of flowers; wherever, also, there is a spot capable of vegetation, the grass plot and flower bed are cultivated, and every square has its mimic park, laid out with picturesque taste, and gleaming with refreshing verdure. "Those who see the Englishman only in town are apt to form an unfavourable opinion of his social character. He is either absorbed in business, or distracted by the thousand engagements that dissipate ime, thought, and feeling, in this huge metropolis. He has, therefore, too commonly a look of hurry and abstraction. Wherever he happens to be, he is on the point of going somewhere else; at the moment he is talking on one subject, his mind is wandering to another; and while paying a friendly visit, is calculating how he shall economize time so as to pay the other visits allotted to the morning. A vast place, like London, is calculated to make men selfish and uninteresting. In their casual and transient meetings, they can but deal briefly in common-places. They present but the cold superficies of characterits rich and genial qualities have no time to be warmed into a flow. "But it is in the country that the Englishman gives scope to his natural feelings. He breaks loose gladly from the cold formalities and negative civilities of town; throws off his habits of shy reserve, and becomes joyous and free-hearted. He contrives to assemble around him all the conveniences and elegancies of polite life, and to banish its restraints. His country seat abounds with every requisite, either for studious retirement, tasteful gratification, or rural exercise. Books, paintings, music, horses, dogs, and sporting implements of all kinds, are at hand. He puts no constraint either upon his guests or himself, but in the true spirit of hospitality provides the means of enjoyment, and leaves every one to partake according to his inclination. "The taste of the English in the cultivation of land, and in what is termed landscape gardening, is unrivalled. They have studied Nature intently, and discover an exquisite sense of her beautiful forms and harmonious combinations. Those charms which, in other countries, she lavishes in wild solitudes, are here assembled round the haunts of domestic life. They seem to have caught her coy and furtive graces, and spread them, like witchery, about their ru. ral abodes. "Nothing can be more imposing than the magnificence of English park scenery. Vast lawns that extend like sheets of vivid green, with here and there clumps of gigantic trees, heaping up rich piles of foliage. The solemn pomp of groves, and woodland glades, with the deer trooping in silent herds across them; the hare bounding away to the covert; or the pheasant suddenly bursting upon the wing. The brook, taught to wind in the most natural meanderings, or expand into a glassy lake -the sequestered pool, reflecting the quivering trees, with the yellow leaf sleeping on its bosom, the trout roaming fearlessly about its limpid waters; while some rustic temple, or statue of nymph, grown green and dank with age, gives an air of classic sanctity to the seclusion. "These are but few of the features of park scenery, which, indeed, is too well known to need description. But what most delights me is the creative talent with which the English decorate the unostenta tious abodes of middle life. The rudest habitation, the most unpromising and scanty portion of land, in the hands of an Englishman of taste, becomes a little paradise. With a nicely discriminating eye, he seizes at once upon its capabilities, and pictures in his mind the future landscape. The steril spot grows into loveliness under his hand; and yet the operations of art which produce the effect are scarcely to be perceived. The cherishing and training of some trees; the cautious pruning of others; the delicate distribution of flowers and plants of tender and graceful foliage; the introduction of a green slope of velvet turf; the partial opening to a peep of blue distance, or silver gleam of water-all these are managed with a nice tact, a pervading yet quiet assiduity, like the magic touchings with which a painter finishes up a favourite picture. "The residence of people of fortune and refinement in the country has diffused a degree of taste and elegance in rural economy, that descends to the lowest class. The very labourer, with his thatched cottage and narrow slip of ground, attends to their embellishment. The trim hedge, the grass plot before the door, the little flower bed bordered with snug box, the woodbine trained up against the wall, and hanging its blossoms about the lattice; the pot of flowers in the window; the holly providentially planted about the house, to cheat winter of its dreariness, and throw in a gleam of green summer to cheer the fire side;-all these bespeak the influence of taste, flowing down from high sources. and pervading the lowest levels of the public mind. If ever love, as poets sing, delights to visit a cottage, it must be the cottage of an English peasant. "The proneness to rural life among the higher classes of the English has had a great and salutary effect upon the national character. I do not know a finer race of men than the English gentlemen. Instead of the softness and effeminacy which characterize the men of rank in some countries, they exhibit a union of elegance and strength, a robustness of frame and freshness of complexion, which I am inclined to attribute to their living so much in the open air, and pursuing so eagerly the invigorating recreations of the country. These hardy exercises also produce a healthful tone of mind and spirits, and a manliness and simplicity of manners, which not even the follies and dissipations of the town can easily pervert. In the country, too, the different orders of society seem to approach more freely, to be more disposed to blend and operate favourably upon each other. The distinctions between them do not appear to be so strong and impassable as in the cities. The manner in which property has been distributed into small estates and farms, has established a regular gradation from the nobleman, through the classes of gentry, small landed proprietors, substantial farmers, down to the labouring peasantry; and while it has thus banded the extremes of society together, has implanted in each intermediate link a spirit of independence. This, it must be confessed, is not so universally the case at present as it was formerly, the larger estates having, in late years of distress, absorbed the smaller, and, in some parts of the country, almost annihilated the sturdy race of small farmers. These, however, I believe, are but casual breaks in the general system I have mentioned. "In rural occupation there is nothing mean and debasing It leads a man forth among scenes of natural grandeur and beauty; it leaves him to the workings of his own mind, operated upon by the purest and most elevating of external influences. Such a man may be simple and rough, but he cannot be vulgar. The man of refinement, therefore, finds nothing revolting in an intercourse with the lower orders in rural life, as he does in the lower orders of cities. He lays aside his distance and reserve, and is glad to doff the attributes of rank, and enter into the honest heartfelt enjoyments of common life. Indeed, the very amusements of the country bring men more and more together; and the sound of hound and horn blend all feelings into harmony. I believe this is one great reason why the nobility and gentry are more popular among the inferior orders in England than in any other country, and why the latter have endured so many excessive pressures and extremities without repining more generally at the unequal distribution of fortune and privilege. "To this mingling of cultivated and rustic society, also, may be attributed the rural feeling that runs through British li. terature; the frequent use of illustrations from rural life; those incomparable descriptions of Nature that abound in the British poets that have continued down from the flower and the leaf' of Chaucer, and have brought into our closets all the freshness and fragrance of the dewy landscape. The pastoral writers of other countries appear as if they hsd paid Nature an occasional visit, and become acquainted with her general charms; but the British poets have lived and revelled with her-they have wooed her in her most secret haunts-they have watched her minutest characteristics. A spray could not tremble in the breeze-a leaf could not rustle to the ground-a diamond drop could not patter in the stream-a fragrance could not exhale from the humble violet-nor a daisy unfold its crimson tints to the morning-but it has been noticed by these impassioned and delicate observers,and wrought up into some beautiful morality. "The effect of this devotion of elegant minds to rural occupations has been wonderful on the face of the country. A great part of the island is level, and would be monotonous, were it not for the charms of culture; but it is studded and gemmed, as it were, with castles and palaces, and embroidered with parks and gardens. It does not abound in grand and sublime prospects, but rather in little home scenes of rural repose and sheltered quiet. Every antique farm-house and moss-grown cottage is a picture; and as the roads are continually winding, and the view shut in by groves and hedges, the eye is delighted by a continual succession of small landscapes of captivating loveliness. “The great charm, however, of English scenery is the moral feeling that seems to pervade it. It is associated in the mind with ideas of order, of quiet, of calm and settled principles, of hoary usage and reverend custom. Every thing seems to be the growth of ages of regular and peaceful existence. The old church of remote architecture, with its low massive portal; its Gothic tower; its windows rich with tracery and painted glass in scrupulous preservation; its stately monuments of warriors and worthies of the olden time, ancestors of the present lords of the soil; its tombstones, recording successive generations of sturdy yeomanry, whose progeny still plough the same fields, and kneel at the same altar. The parsonage, a quaint irregular pile, partly antiquated, but repaired and altered in the tastes of various ages and occupants. The stile and foot-path leading from the church-yard, across pleasant fields, and along shady hedge-rows, according to an immemorial right of way. The neigh bouring village, with its venerable cottages, its public green, sheltered by trees, under which the forefathers of the present race have sported. The antique family mansion, standing apart in some little rural domain, but looking down with a protecting air on the surrounding scene. All these common features of English landscape evince a calm and settled security, an hereditary transmission of home-bred virtues, and local attachments, that speak deeply and touchingly for the moral character of the nation. "It is a pleasant sight of a Sunday. morning, when the bell is sending its sober melody across the quiet fields, to behold the peasantry in their best finery, with ruddy faces, and modest cheerfulness, thronging tranquilly along the green lanes to church; but it is still more pleasing to see them in the evenings gathering about their cottage doors, and appearing to exult in the humble comforts and embellishments which their own hands have spread around them. "It is this sweet home feeling, this settled repose of affection in the domestic scene, that is, after all, the parent of the steadiest virtues and purest enjoyments; and I cannot close these desultory remarks better than by quoting the words of a modern English poet, who has depicted it with remarkable felicity— "Through each gradation from the castled hall, The city dome, the villa crown'd with shade, But chief from modest mansions numberless, In town or hamlet, shelt'ring middle life, Down to the cottag'd vale, and strawroof'd shed, This western isle hath long been fam'd for scenes Where bliss domestic finds a dwelling place : Domestic bliss, that, like a harmless dove, (Honour and sweet endearment keeping guard,) Can centre in a little quiet nest That can, the world eluding, be itself ven. That, like a flower deep hid in rocky cleft, Smiles, though 'tis looking only at the sky." "From a Poem on the death of the Princess Charlotte, by the Rev. Rann Kennedy, A. M." may, however, be as well to give Dry REMARKS ON THE DIFFERENT TRANS- den's version, that our readers may at LATIONS OF VIRGIL. We have no doubt that many of our readers thought we went much too far in the praise which we so liberally bestowed some time ago on Gawin Douglas's translation of the Æneid. We still, however, adhere to our opinion, and have no hesitation in affirming, that much more striking and poetical passages are to be found in that old version than in any that have succeeded, Dryden's itself not excepted. We happen to have lying by us at present a good many of these translations, and it may, perhaps, be amusing to our readers to compare them. The subject is once more suggested to us by a volume which has just come into our hands, containing, among other things, "a prospectus of a translation of Virgil, partly original, and partly altered from Dryden and Pitt, with specimens." The author's name is John Ring. The idea is not a bad one, if we can suppose that a poetical translator, under the influence of his author's inspiration, (for a translator is worth very little who does not breathe for the time the spirit of his original,) should be able to stop in his course, and cull and pick out lines from every different quarter. However, we think Mr Ring, if he thus meant to prop himself upon the scaffolding of others, ought to have gone farther than Dryden or Pitt. There are some nobler lines, which might be adopted with little variation, in old Gawin than in any of them; and there are several older translations than those which he has selected, of which, though in general bad enough, something might be made. Mr Ring has given among his specimens a short simile from the fourth Æneid. Here we shall compare a variety of translations—and shall, in the first place, begin with Gawin, whose success in the passage we are at this moment quite ignorant of, as we have not yet looked at his version of it, so that nothing can be less partial than the trial we are now going to put him to. Before opening the venerable folio, it See Number for February 1819. The Commemoration of Handel, and other Poems. To which is added, a Prospectus, &c. London, 1819. once comprehend the subject, which the Bishop's obsolete language might not so immediately initiate them into. Then young Ascanius with a sprightly grace chase; Leads on the Trojan youth to view the But far above the rest in beauty shines The great Æneas, when the troop he joins; Like fair Apollo, when he leaves the frost Of wintry Xanthus, and the Lycian coast, When to his native Delos he resorts, Ordains the dances, and renews the sports; Where painted Scythians, mix'd with Cretan bands, Before the joyful altars join their hands. A golden fillet binds his awful brows; seen In manly presence or in lofty mien. "The Here, we may remark, Dryden, as is not uncommon with him, has added a line to the original, and, as the idea in it is his own, perhaps it is expressed more poetically than any other part of the passage. merry madness of the sacred show” is not in Virgil ;-it has scarcely dignity enough for that majestic poet, but it is quite in Dryden's own strain of tree and rich expression. Now for the good Bishop,-who, for any thing we know as yet, may have quite missed the poetical effect of this description.-On looking at the passage, we certainly should not select it as a fine specimen of Douglas's composition, but it still is not without those " thoughts that breathe and words that barn," which can only proceed from a poet. The Troiane pepill forgaderit by and by Ence, gan enter in fallowschip, but dout, • Young. |