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O'er wilds, o'er mountains, her high course extends,
'Thro' darken'd woods, and thro' bandittis' dens!
At length she lights within some ruin'd tower,
While, from the turret, tolls the midnight hour!
A thousand phantoms follow at her call,
And groans ascend along the mouldering wall!
Dim shadows flutter o'er the sleeping vale,
And ghostly music comes upon the gale!
A light appears....some hollow voice is near....
Chill terror starts....and every pulse is fear!
To man not only has kind Nature given
Genius, which rolls her piercing eye on Heaven,
Enchanting woman bears an equal claim,
To her unfold the golden doors of Fame.
This truth, those names which we have past declare,
Whom Fiction wafts transported thro' the air.
.....Where fall'n Palmyra moulders with the ground,
And Terror spreads its misty robe around;

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genius, in the present day, none can approach her. She leaves far behind her the Monks and Castle Spectres. It is remarkable of this writer, that, from her first performance to the last, she has been advancing to greater excellence. Her Italian is the noblest production of her pen, and one which I think she will never exceed.

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The great Zenobia held her powerful sway, And with stern virtue bade her realms obey. Her mind unshaken all the world admire, And Pity weeping sees the queen expire. ....Hapless in love, in sorrow's moving strain, Hear Sappho mourn her unrequited pain. ....Cold-hearted youth, where wanders Phaon now? Ah! youth neglectful of thy former vow.... ....Behold thy maid on bleak Leucadia's brow Bend o'er the waves which beat the rock below: Hear her to winds her injur'd love declare, See her wild tresses streaming in the air, See her rais'd hands, her blue uplifted eye, A suppliant pleading with the gods on high. ....Fly cruel youth....haste Phaon haste to save, To snatch thy Sappho from the raging wave. ....All aid is vain....ye rolling billows cease! She seeks with you the silent arms of peace. ....Hear bold Corinna* strike her lyric string, And bear young Pindar on her eagle wing.

1

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It is said that Corinna was the instructor of Pindar; and often in competition with him bore away the prize.

.... With "Lion port" and with a nervous hand, Eliza sway'd the sceptre of her land.

....Nurs'd on the bosom of luxurious France,
The queen of Scotland led the airy dance,
Love's softest lustre wanton'd o'er her face, 239
Her limbs were form'd, her actions mov'd, in grace.
Science and Taste adorn'd her festive court,
Music and Joy and every 'wildering sport.
Gay "laughs the morn"....the sullen night appears,
Oft after transport comes the feast of tears;
Joy strikes the viol....strains of rapture rise,
The minstrel falls....the voice of music dies.
Ah! why to pleasure should such pangs succeed,
Why wast thou, Mary,* doom'd so soon to bleed?
How sweet and musically flows that lay,
Which now in murmurs softly dies away;

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• Who does not wish to vindicate the character of Mary, queen of Scots? What heart has not bled over her interesting history? Who does not lament her thoughtless levities, her criminal follies? Who does not execrate the stern policy, the hardened vices of Elizabeth, which doomed to the scaffold this enchanting woman, unrivalled in loveliness, accomplishments, and distresses? Who, that has read her beautiful lamentation on her unhappy fate, does not feel the fervour and pathos of her genius?

G

Colonna* bending o'er her husband's bier, Breathes those sad numbers hallowed with her tear.

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With active zeal, with honest thirst of fame
Hear Dacier vindicate her Homer's name.
Hear Montague repel light Voltaire's rage,
Who like a butcher mangled Shakespeare's page.
Hear from the bosom of the pious Rowe
The tender strain and warm devotion flow.
In Woolstonecraft's strong lines behold confest
The fatal errors of the female breast.
Behold enforc'd in More's instructive page,
Lessons of virtue for this careless age.
Hear Seward weeping over Andre's grave;
And call for Cook the spirit of the wave.
To Smith's romances fairy scenes belong
And Pity loves her elegiac song.
Carter both Science and Invention own
And Genius welcomes from her watchful throne.
On Barbauld's verse the circling muses smile,
And hail her brightest songstress of the British isle.

Italy.

Criticism has called this lady, the first poetess of But few can sway the boundless field of art;

To few will Genius all her gifts impart.*
One, she enables on the winds to soar,
And higher regions of the air explore.

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• The instances are innumerable which confirm this assertion. I shall notice some, which are the most striking....Cicero, the first name on the page of antiquity, failed in his attempts at poetry..... Archimedes, whose name may stand for a large class devoted to mathematics, had little taste for any other branch of literature, than geometry. There are not a few, who would prefer the investigation of the legs and wings of the most tiny insect, to the contemplation of the brightest planet that rolls through the worlds of space! Berkeley, to the exclusion of most other employments, was forever attempting to dig in a well without a bottom....while Gray, who at his time, was pronounced to be the first scholar in Europe, had no taste either for mathematics or metaphysics; in a letter to his friend are contained the following sentences, “ Must I plunge into metaphysics? Alas! I cannot see in the dark; Nature has not furnished me with the optics of a cat. Must I pore upon mathematics? Alas! I cannot see in too much light; I am no eagle. It is very possible that two and two make four, but I would not give four farthings to demonstrate this ever so clearly; and if these be the profits of life, give me the amusements of it." Perhaps the three modern writers who possessed the most universal genius were Leibnitz, Milton, and Haller.