Hình ảnh trang
PDF
ePub

its, lovelinefs was vanished away; the leaves thereof were scattered on the ground, and no one gathered them again.

Aftately tree grew on the plain; its branches were covered with verdure; its boughs fpread wide, and made a goodly fhadow; the trunk was like a strong pillar; the roots were like crooked fangs.--I returned,

the verdure, was nipt by the qaft wind; the branches were lopt away by the ax; the worm had made its way into the trunk, and the heart thereof was decayed; it mouldered away, and fell to the ground.

I have seen, the infects sporting in the funfhine, and darting along the ftream: their wings glittered with gold and purple; their bodies fhone like the green eme rald; they were more numerous than I could count; their motions were quicker than my eye could glance.

I returned; they were brushed into the pool; they were perishing with the evening breeze; the fwallow had devoured them; the pike had feized them: there was none found of fo great a multitude.

I have seen man in the pride of his ftrength; his cheeks glowed with beauty; his limbs were full of activity; he leaped; he walked; he ran he rejoiced in that he was more excellent than those.. -1 returned; he lay stiff and cold on the bare ground; his feet could no longer move, nor his hands ftretch themselves out; his life was departed from him, and the breath out of his noftrils:-Therefore do I weep, because DEATH is in the world; the fpoiler is among the works of God all that is made, must be destroyed; all that is born, muft die.

-1

"I also have feen the flower withering on the stalk, "and its bright leaves fpread on the ground. "looked again, and it fprung forth afresh; the stem crowned with new buds, and the sweetness thereof filled the air.

86

was

July 6, "I have feen the fun fet in the weft, and the fhades of night shut in the wide horizon: there was no colour, nor fhape, nor beauty, nor mufic; gloom and darkness brooded around -I looked,-the "fun broke forth again from the east, and gilded the

[ocr errors]

mountain tops; the lark rose to meet him from her

"low neft, and the fhades of darkness fled away.

[ocr errors]

"I have seen the infect, being come to its full fize, languish, and refufe to eat: It ipun itself a tomb, and was fhrouded in the filken cone; it lay without "feet, or shape, or power to move. -I looked "again, it had burst its tomb; it was full of life, and "failed on coloured wings through the foft air ; it rejoiced in its new being.

[ocr errors]

しい

"Thus fhall it be with thee, O man! and fo fhall "thy life be renewed.

"Beauty fhall fpring up out of afhes, and life out * of the duft.

"A little while fhalt thou lie in the ground, as the feed lieth in the bofom of the earth: But thou shalt "be raised again; and if thou art good, thou shalt ne ver die any more.

"Mourn not therefore, child of immortality! for the fpoiler, the cruel fpoiler, that laid waste the "works of God; is fubdued! JESUS hath conquered death Child of immortality! mourn no longer."

To the Editor of the Bee.

On Herodotus the Hiftorian.

HISTORY is a fpecies of compofition, at the fame time the most popular and the moft dignified. To excel in it, requires imagination with all its fplendour, and judgment with all its knowledge; it therefore includes almost every denomination of readers; it particularly in

terefts the poet, the philofopher, and the politician; and is also acceffible to the common herd of mankind, whọ are content with the amusement of general and fuperficial knowledge.

The actions of men, and if we may fo fpeak, the actions of nations, are the two great fubjects of hiftory; the one exhibiting human nature as it actually exifts, the other government, with all its political confequences. The first has been more attended to by the ancients, the laft by the moderns.

Herodotus was the first of hiftorians; and therefore little acquantance with political establishments is tobe expected in his works: he lived in that ftate of fociety in which the love of the marvellous far exceeds that of philofophical truth, and in which the mind must be grati fied with extraordinary events, and uncommon adventures, with what will roufe the imagination, and what will intereft the heart. Incapable as yet ftrictly to difcern all the poffibilities of nature's operations; and unwilling to fubftitute general and abftract ideas, in place of thofe pleafing and wonderful tranfactions which take poffeffion of the mind, without, the labour of inquiry, or · tedious investigation; indulging thefe incredible fictions, they often allow themselves to be carried along with them through the courfe of ages, notwithstanding the counteracting tendency of reafon and nature.

In the writings however of Herodotus, we discover the first dawnings of hiftorical truth. He drew the attention of his countrymen from the remote regions of mythological obfcurity, in which their minds had been wholly involved, to more recent actions, and to scenes which had a greater coincidence with thofe with which they were converfant. He gradually taught them to contemplate human affairs with a more fober eye, by relating those revolutions in kingdoms, and thofe inci dents in life, which either their own experience could atteft, or which had no very diftant analogy to their experience.

In this flate of fociety then, among a people so prone to fable as the Greeks, and with the romantic imagination of Herodotus, we are not to be furprifed, though in his works, fome intermixture of legendary ftory fhould be found; on the contrary, it might have been expected, that he would have given way, in a greater degree, to the natural bias of his genius, and related with indifcriminate ardour every thing that would most readily please those for whom he wrote. Perhaps it was impollible for any man in his circumftances, to fet him felf up against the common belief of the times, and difcredit more than what the limited philosophy of that age would countenance. Upon thefe principles, the objection of credulity which has been fo'often made against Herodotus, may be much alleviated, if not wholly wiped off.

Herodotus prefents us with hiftory in its fimplest form. He brings facts before us without any labour of felection, and yet with much propriety; and characters who act without feeming to have any affiftance from the hiftorian. They appear in review as if upon the ftage; and act and speak in a manner which immediately commands attention. The dramatic form in which he writes, though not fo comprehensive as the plan adopted by after hiftorians, is however more natural and more pleafing; it animates the whole, and we fee before us a picture of men and things fuch as they exift in nature. It is the first and most artless kind of narration, and is to be found in all early poets and hiftorians.

Herodotus poffeffes all the qualities which are requi fite for historical compofition in an eminent degree. He gives a complete view of his fubject; he is copious, and at the fame time pure, perfpicuous and elegant; he relates with a facility, with an unaffected grace and fimplicity, which never fail to charm and intereft every reader; nothing rugged or obfcure, nothing embarraffed or laboured, is to be found in his writings. Upon whatever fubject he touches, he diffuses that luminoufnefs, and that splendour, which is the best criterion of

original genius. We are never at a loss to apprehend his meaning, or follow the train of incidents; every thing is fet in a full, a diftinct, and marked point of view. He is the reverfe of what is faid of Thucydides; he delights to tell of what is agreeable and pleasant; he has more of the airinefs and gaiety of Anacreon, than of the ardent and ferious fenfibility of Tacitus.

t

A new and fimple Mode of Mufical Notation. Ir to fimplify an art, be to improve it, I doubt not but the following very fimple mode of mufical notation, will be deemed a very effential improvement. It poffeffes all the precifion and accuracy of the mode of mufical notation now in use, with the additional recommendation of admitting of being compreffed into much fma ler compass, and of being afforded at a price greatly inferior to that which mufic can be fold for at present. By this method, a small pocket volume, that could be afforded for a few fhillings, might contain as much mufic, as can at present be contained in a bulky folio, which cofts feveral guineas.

The contrivance merits applaufe on account of its utility, rather than its ingenuity; it is, indeed, fo fimple, and fo obvious, that it only excites aftonishment it fhould not have been adopted long ago.

In musical notation, two particulars must be feparately adverted to, viz. tone and time. By the mode of notation now in use, the tones are denoted by certain dots or marks being placed on or between lines drawn across the paper for that purpose, as every one knows. These tones, confidered as afcending or defcending, have been divided into octaves, each octave confifting of feven notes, denoted by the letters A B C D E FG, as in the following scale of mufic.

[merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors]
« TrướcTiếp tục »