running out naked and wild with apprehension, recalled me to life with their anguish. But it was only to view objects of terror, for the flames had by this time caught the roof of our dwelling, part after part continuing to fall in, while the family stood with silent agony, looking on as if they enjoyed the blaze. I gazed upon them and upon it by turns, and then looked round me for my little ones; but they were not to be found. O misery, cried I, where are my little ones? They are burnt to death in the flames, exclaimed my wife calmly, and I will perish with them. The moment I heard the cry of the babes within, who were just awaked by the fire, nothing could have stopped me.Where are my children, cried I, rushing through the flames, and bursting through the door of the chamber in which they were confined. Here, dear papa, here we are, cried they together, while the flames were just catching the bed in which they lay. I caught them both in my arms, and conveyed them through the fire, while, just as I was going out the roof sunk in. Now, cried I, holding up my children, let the flames burn on, and all my possessions perish." It is curious to observe what different modes are taken by these writers to throw the heart into a storm of anxiety and horror. The last lays his plan with deep designing artifice, and awakens every endearing sensation, to take the soul by surprise, and to make the succeeding contrast more awful and terrible. The two first lines of Paine, on the other hand, hurl us headlong into the midst of a conflagration, and they may safely be denominated two masterpieces of pathos.

The following will be read by the public with a share of that mournful sensibility now felt by the surviving friends, when they are informed that it is the last production of the poet's muse, and composed but a very few days before his death.

Written for, and sung at the Anniversary of the Massachusetts Association, for improving the breed of Horses, October 21, 1811.

THE Steeds of Apollo, in coursing the day,
Breathe the fire which he beams on mankind:
To the world while his light from his car they convey,
Their speed is the blaze of his mind.

Thus Ambition, who governs of honour the chase,
Keeps life's mettled coursers in glow;

For Fame is the goal, and the world is the race,
And, hark forward! they start! Tally ho!

All ranks try the turf; 'tis the contest of life,

By a heat to achieve a renown;

And so thronged are the lists in the emulous strife,
That but few know what steed is their own;

For many, like Gilpin, alarmed at the blood,

Lose their rein and their course, as they go:

While the rider, high trained, knows each pace in his stud, And, hark forward! he flies, Tally ho!

The hero's a war-horse, whose brave, gen'rous breed,
Scorns the spur, though he yields to the rein;
Blood and bone, at the trump-call he vaults in full speed,
And contends for his own native plain.

In battle he glories; and pants, like his sire,

On the soil, where he grazed, to lie low;

See his neck clothed with thunder, his mane flaked with fire, While, hark forward! he springs, Tally ho!

The Statesman's a prancer, so tender in hoof,
He curvets, without fleetness or force;
In the heat of the field, when the race is in proof,
He gallantly bolts from the course!

With his canter and amble, he shuffles his way;

And no care of the sport seems to know;

Till he sees, as he hovers, what horse wins the day,
Then, hark forward! he shouts, Tally ho!

The farmer's a draught, the rich blood of whose veins,
Acts with vigour the duties, he owes;

He's a horse of sound bottom, and nurtures the plains
Where the harvest, that nurtures him, grows.
At his country's command, on her hills or her fields,
Which her corn and her laurels bestow;

Firm in danger he moves, and in death never yields,
But, hark forward! he falls, Tally ho!

Columbia is drawn by the steeds of the sky,
The long journey of Empire to run;

May her coursers of light never scorch as they fly,
And their race be the age of the sun!

Nor distanced by time, nor in fame e'er forgot;
May her track still be known by its glow;
Like Olympian dust, may it stream o'er the spot,
Where, hark forward, she rode, Tally ho!

Here the analogy between the steeds of Apollo and the various avocations of life, is struck with a happy facility as if the steeds of Apollo were in fact the primal cause of the various careers. It is a thought which has perhaps never been struck upon before, but the parallel is so happily run, that we wonder why it has remained a secret so long. To surround an invention with so many concomitant probabilities, the boldness of which starts us at the authors, and then to pass it off as a fact, always betrays the master hand. This is done by the aid of those graceful and delicate analogies of which we have been speaking, and which Mr. Paine has in the present instance preserved.

The principle of analogy is a science by itself, and is in general the foundation of all argument, connected with moral truth. When applied to poetry, more latitude is of course allowed; but this species of analogy is more a resemblance of sympathies excited by different objects, than any essential resemblance between the objects themselves. Mr. Paine's last ode will furnish a complete illustration of this remark. There is in fact no resemblance between the revolutions of day; and the strong passions of anbition, love of glory and interest, on which he builds his fanciful theory. If a man was born blind, and on inquiring into the peculiar character of light, we should inform him that it resembled a love of glory, he would be perfectly uninstructed on the subject, and remain in profounder ignorance than he was in before the inquiry was made. The analogy, therefore, does not exist so much in the objects as in the passions excited by them--it exists in the strong and exhilirating sensations, produced by the contemplation of glory, which are thus compared to the lustre of the sun, the most magnificent and grand spectacle of nature--it exists in the uniform and rapid pursuit of the object which, when associated with the undeviating revolutions of that majestic orb, furnishes another source of beautiful analogy. Now to adopt the ancient fable, and to make the guardian deity of the sun, the parent of both these associations, although resulting from objects so different, communicates to the conception all the lustre of novelty, and that species of credulity which poetic probability inspires. The great art of the poet lies in seizing, as Mr. Paine has done in the present

instance, such analogical sensations, applying them to different objects, and then producing those sensations as evidence of the fact which he labours to establish. Mr. Paine's fault lies in neglecting the support of such auxiliaries, and attempting to trace an analogy between the objects themselves. The following are instances of the kind:

"And warmed the zembla of a frozen mind:”

Of Shakspeare he says:

"With Blanchards's wing in fancy heaven hê soars,
With Herschell's eye another world explores.”
"Warm to the heart the chymic fiction stole,

And purged by moral alchmy the soul."

All these instances, and many more which might be added, contain the germs of beautiful conceptions, if rightly managed, and that is by tracing a relationship between the associations. they produce. To cite Mr. Paine's own example against himself: had Apollo, for example, been represented as imparting to Shakspeare and to Blanchard, the same power of reducing to their jurisdiction those regions of air inaccessible to common mortals, that this deity, indignant at the reproach thrown upon his votaries, that they dealt in fiction only, had chosen Blanchard personally to explore those regions, and to refute those calumnies by his own observation; such kindred analogies would have given poetic practibility to the tale. Mr. Paine, on the contrary, states the very fact of their difference in proof of this accordance, and leaves all the properties which they inherit in common untouched. We hope that we are now understood on the subject of analogical sympathies. To have drawn out the genius of Mr. Paine to its full length, it was essentially important for his friends and admirers to have pursued directly the reverse of what they did. They should have exercised a friendly severity of criticism, and have admonished him that fame, his ruling passion, was put in serious jeopardy by such unwarrantable licences. This would have allowed no time for his love of pleasure, or of ease, to have come in competition with his nobler passion, and while it improved the poet, it would in all human probability have reclaimed and reformed the man. But while

such homage to his darling passion was paid in advance, with such prodigal munificence, the bard was injured and will go down to posterity, loaded with all his original defects, while the man was ruined beyond the power of recovery. A.

A new critical Pronouncing Dictionary of the English Language, compiled

from authors of the most approved reputation, with considerable additions.

By an American gentleman. Published by David Allinson and co. Burlington, Newjersey.

We opened the work before us with expectations by no means exalted. Our wishes had transcended what we considered as rational hopes. Aware of the difficulties which must necessarily attend an undertaking of this nature; of the peculiarly disagreeable drudgery which it required, we knew that they must operate powerfully, in deterring from the attempt those who were possessed of the powers which such an undertaking demanded. Genius, learning, and persevering industry are rarely united, in a high degree, in a single individual, yet such a combination appeared to be necessary upon an occasion similar to the present.

We entertained the highest respect for the merits of Dr. Johnson and Mr. Walker; and although by no means blind to the errors into which they have been betrayed, and the imperfections which have tended so essentially to impair the excellence of their Dictionaries, were disposed to view, as an arrogant pretender, the individual who should venture to remedy the one and to supply the other. We had been led to apprehend, therefore, that in this work, as in so many others, we should discover rather abundant promises, than faithful performances, rather excuses for indolence and inattention than evidences of care and industry. Although the high testimonials, in favour of the competency of the author, from individuals for whose judgments we entertained the highest respect, afforded some grounds for a reliance upon the engagements which were made to the public, yet their performance was rather sanguinely wished for, than seriously expected. The "Prospectus," by which it was announced, impressed us more favourably, and evinced that the author entertained correct ideas, of the nature of the undertaking, upon