itself, likewise, should breathe the very spirit of tender melancholy, and by exquisite touches of nature, elicit even the tear of the casual observer. The following little piece by Leonidas of Tarentum, a mother deploring the loss of her son, is in the best style of the greek epigram, and imbued with its peculiar felicity of sentiment. We will suppose it inscribed upon an urn containing the ashes of the beloved youth.

Ah! dear hapless boy, art thou gone?
Sole support of my languishing years!
Hast thou left thy fond mother alone,
To wear out life's evening in tears?

To forsake me thus old and forlorn,

Ere thy youth had attain'd its gay bloom?
Thy sun was scarce risen at morn,
When it set in the night of the tomb.

Alas! the fresh beam of the day,

Happy mortals with thankfulness see;
But I sicken, O Sun! at thy ray:
It brings sadness and wailing to me!

Oh! might the dear child but return,
From despair his lost mother to save!
Or might I but share in his urn!

Might I flee in his arms to the grave!

WAKEFIELD,

From our own store in this class, I shall select one of singular beauty, written by Shenstone, and, without doubt, the most exquisite production of his genius. Nothing can exceed the tender sentiment which closes it. That full justice may be done to these pathetic lines, the scenery surrounding them should be described. "The path begins gradually to ascend beneath a depth of shade, by the side of which is a small bubbling rill, either forming little peninsulas, rolling over pebbles, or falling down small cascades, all under cover, and taught to murmur very agreeably. This very soft and pensive scene is terminated with an ornamented urn, inscribed to Miss Dolman, a beautiful and amiable relation of Mr. Shenstone's, who died of the small-pox about twenty-one years of age. On one side are the following words:

*

Peramabili Suæ Consobrina
M. D.

On the other side:

Ah Maria

Puellarum Elegantissima,

Dodsley's Account of the Leasowes

Ah! Flore Venustatis Abrepta,

Vale!

Heu Quanto Minus Est

Cum Reliquis Versari,
Quam Tui
Meminisse !

It is no uncommon circumstance to meet with inscriptions placed amid the most beautiful scenery; if these are merely of the descriptive kind, nothing can well be more impertinent; or, should they suggest only trite moral or common-place sentiment, they will equally offend. The attempt to describe when the features of nature are before you, is, in general, absurd, and he who wishes to delight by moral insinuation, must proceed with the utmost delicacy and caution; the thought should be natural, yet not obvious; immediately drawn from the scene, but of a kind that would not occur, probably, to one person in a hundred; yet the moment of perusal brings with it the conviction of its being the very dictate of nature, and, at the same time, no small surprize that it had not previously occurred.

In the landscape, where all is of a character joyous and gay, to introduce a pensive train of thought forms a most pleasing contrast; the poet and the painter have alikę availed themselves of the idea, and the pathetic inscription has here an effect that appeals powerfully to the heart. The most beautiful odes of Horace owe their charm to this very circumstance, and the poet never interests our feelings so much as when, amid the luxuriant colouring of spring, he hints at the shortness of life, and the fleeting nature of our pleasures. In the fourth ode of the first book, after describing the beauties of the vernal season and the sprightly revels of the Graces and the Nymphs, he exclaims;

O beate Sexti,

Vitæ summa brevis spem nos vetat inchoare longam.
Jam te premet nox, fabulæque Manes,

Et domus exilis Plutonia: quò simul meâris,
Nec regna vini sortiere talis,

Nec tenerum Lycidam mirabere, quo calet juventus
Nunc omnis, et mox virgines tepebunt.

Again, after painting in vivid hues the return of spring and the vicissitudes of the seasons, he pours forth the following pathetic complaint:

Damna tamen celeres reparant cœlestia Lunæ :
Nos ubi decidimus,

Quò pius Æneas, quò Tullus dives, et Ancus;
Pulvis et umbra sumus.

Quis scit an adjiciant hodiernæ crastina summæ
Tempora Dii superi ?

Cùm semel occideris, et de te splendida Minos
Fecerit arbitria ;

Non, Torquate, genus, non te facundia, non te

Restituet pietas.

Lib. iv. Od. 7.

And here I cannot avoid quoting a few lines from the Abbé De Lille as given by his elegant Translator; they breathe the very spirit of the plaintive Moschus. The Abbé having in vain attempted the preservation of some venerable trees, for whose existence he thus sweetly pleads:

Oh! by those shades, beneath whose evening bow'rs,
The village dancers tripp'd the frolic hours;
By those deep tufts, that shroud your fathers' tombs,
Spare, ye profane, their venerable glooms!

subjoins the annexed apostrophe:

Ye saplins, rise, and crowd the empty space;
Ye dying trees, forgive your dire disgrace!