He sung a modern buck, whose end
Was blinded, prejudice and zeal;
In life to every vice a friend,

Unfix'd as fortune on her wheel.
He liv'd a buck, he died a fool;

So let him to oblivion fall,

Who thought a wretched body all,
Untaught in nature's, or the passion's school.

Now again his cornet sounding,
Sense and harmony confounding;
Reason tortur'd, scripture twisted,
Into every form of fancy;
Forms which never yet existed,

And but his oblique opticks can see.

He swears,

He tears;

With sputter'd nonsense now he breaks their ears;
At last the sermon and the paper ends.

He whines, and hopes his well beloved friends

Will contribute their souse,

To pay the arrears for building a house.

Hark, hark! his cry resounds,

Fire and thunder, blood and wounds!

Contribute, contribute,

And pay me my tribute;

Or the Devil, I swear,

Shall hunt ye, as sportsmen would hunt a poor hare.

THE PORT FOLIO.

THE editor of this publication is well known. His talents, his political and literary principles, are themes of admiration, both to the scholar and politician. Having conducted the Port Folio for many years, with uncommon ability and taste, as a WEEKLY magazine; he now has deemed it expedient to change, and accordingly has advertised his determination of publishing it in future, ONCE A MONTH, under the same title. Without pretending to be acquainted with his motives to this alteration, or with the more extended prospects which a change of situation is calculated to open to his view; whether the novelty of the design is expected to aid its progress, or whether from the light and airy scenes of fancy, he means to descend into the courts of disquisi

tion, and offer us more solid and substantial matter than is possible for a work of only sixteen pages to afford; we are equally disposed to contemplate his attempt with pleasure. Because we are confident that the abilities of Mr. Dennie, whether applied to the subtleties of controversy, the blandishments of taste, the virulence of politicks, or the acuteness of satire, are eminently calculated to effect the object to which they may be directed: and the patronage of the American publick can never be ill bestowed on one, the aim of whose life has been to extend the literature of his country, and to maintain the proud pre-eminence of genius over the grovelling notions of cent per cent. and the calculations of city wisdom.

He has brushed away the insects of literature, whether fluttering in the sunshine of publick favour or not ; he has penetrated the fortresses of democratick spoilers, and exhibited the feature of the inhabitants for general abhorrence; he has maintained the doctrines of sound philosophy and true religion, against the sophistry of infidelity, and the visions of modern theorists: he has espoused the side of real taste, and endeavoured to infuse the spirit of the belles lettres into the sluggish veins of his countrymen.

His success in obtaining patronage, we fear, has not been so complete as his arguments against absurdities have been irrefragable. We cannot therefore but offer our best wishes, that the general support of his present plan, may be co-extensive with its utility: and although our fears draw the reins upon our hopes, yet they inspire us with sufficient confidence to predict, that the counteance of more extended influence will smile upon his new undertaking. He has laboured in the vineyard, from the first until the eleventh hour, and has not yet received the wages of his hire. We hope he will go on, however; it may be that brighter skies and more benignant sun-shine will succeed to the cloudy and tempestuous atmosphere which now surrounds us,

ADVERSARIA.

Quid est, quod negligenter scribamus adversaria ?...GIC.

THE hostility of the administration begins now to assume a thundering aspect. Not content with appeals to reason, proclamations, nonimportation bills, Embargoes, and other restrictive energies, they begin to talk of war. However exploding the torpedo, as too destructive a measure, they propose as a most effectual conquest of the British marine, a premium to any set of mutineers who will rise upon their officers, and bring the whole navy into our harbours! They say, besides, that such mutineers shall have the privilege of citizenship immediately conferred

on them without the necessity of residence; since the very act of treachery is so congenial to the administration, as at once to entitle the traitors to be placed in the enviable situation of friends to the powers that be.' If we are to be involved in a war with that power, we may now beg leave to quiet the minds of those misguided citizens who may happen to fear, that when the ships come before our towns, they will undertake to blow them about their ears, that no such thing is to occur. No, no; the government is as sure that the present plan will succeed, as that the Embargo can coerce Great-Britain: and we are pretty certain that one scheme will be just about as effective as the other is proved to have been.

The Assassin Administration.

CONGRESS is no longer a deliberative assembly; the eastern members are first to be brow-beaten into silent acquiescence, and if that plan fails, to be duelled into eternity. The attempt to assassinate Mr. Gardenier, last year, failed of success; how nearly the plan of dispatching our representative, Mr. Quincy, has been executed, is yet to be determined. The costive ridicule of the Monitor has had as little effect to daunt his determination to expose corruption, as the accumulated indignities which he has been obliged to sustain on the floor of the house. We look upon him with singular attachment, as the man who has dar ed to make the attempt to 'pluck bright honour,' by penetrating the vestibule of governmental turpitude; and by making many efforts to rescue from the deep the drowning prosperity of his country. Such a man should always be entitled to the regard of his constituents, from his intrinsick merits; but his persecution should sanctify their esteem.

War with France,

IS strongly recommended in Mr. Gore's Report on Mr. Crowninshield's Resolutions. We have no objection to this course; we think it clear, that with it, all our difficulties with England will be removed; but we are not prepared to say that those difficulties cannot be removed without it. How hopeless is our situation, if, either the tone of hostility to Great-Britain must be softened into acquiescence by the administration; or the tone of submission towards France, be changed to that of war. If by a signal mark of the divine favour, we could be made to escape from this perilous crisis, it would afterwards inspire the most chilling recollections, to retrace in our memories the dangers we had passed. When we should tell our children the history of this day; of the relative power of Great-Britain and France; of the Embargo policy, its suicide upon ourselves, its impotence abroad; that after a year, a long year of trial, it was more rigorously and tyrannically enforced than ever; that constitutional and unalienable rights were de

stroyed, or rendered nugatory: when we should tell them too, how the different departments of government were filled; that James Madison was secretary of state; Albert Gallatin, a foreign renegado, the secretary of the treasury; and Thomas Jefferson the president of the union; how their feelings would be excited at the relation. But when we should proceed to inform them that these very men, notwithstanding all their treachery and ignorance of our interests, were again elected into office; they would not believe it possible that such rulers could have survived the exemplary revenge, which their injured countrymen must have inflicted upon them, to rescue their rights, their persons, and happiness, from impending destruction.

THE Chronicle of Monday last, after saying that God will seek retribution for innocent blood, observes, "America will also be punished till this is obtained at the hand of justice. I will bring war on that nation which screens the murderer from punishment, says the LORD." This reminds us of a passage of scripture once cited by a country gentleman, who had frequently observed that his neighbour's wife, from motives of squeamishness, refused to take her regular meals with the family. "Do you recollect," says he, "that awful denunciation in scripture, Verily, the woman that refuseth to eat with her family, but satisfieth her hunger privately in the pantry, is an abomination in my sight, saith the Lord." We wish some one, who reads the scriptures more than we do, would inform us where these passages are to be found.

Something truly Wonderful.

THE pastor of the Baptist church in Barnstable informs the publick through the medium of The Witness, a new periodical work published in Boston, that the meetings of his church" are carried on with the greatest solemnity and decorum; so that there has been no outcrying, swooning, &c. in the work." We congratulate these people, and most truly congratulate the publick on this reform, and sincerely pray that it may prevail in other places as well as in Barnstable.

Still more Miraculous.

In a handbill lately published in Connecticut, addressed to the charitable, requesting subscriptions for the purpose of purchasing bibles, to supply the new settlements in the western country, we are informed, "that one of the missionaries in Upper Canada not long since went into a family, and began to read select passages in the bible; (probably in the book of Chronicles or Song of Solomon) he had not read long before he observed the crystal tear' trickling down the cheeks of the

whole family, particularly a daughter of about sixteen, and a little boy of four or five, the latter of whom exclaimed in piteous accents, while remorse for his numberless crimes almost choaked his utterance, 'Daddy, is that a Bible?" on being answered in the affirmative, he replied, 'I did not think that a Bible looked so." "

Miracles outdone.

During a late 'stir in religion,' so called, at Brattleborough in Vermont, a young lady relating her experience at the time when (to use the expression of Dr. Finley,) she first closed with Chrift,' said that "she was one day walking in the woods, and saw lying at the foot of a tree, an animal which she supposed to be an angel or a devil; she was sure it must have been an angel, a devil, or a woodchuck" !!

So much for the effervescence of itinerant zeal, and the ebullitions of fanatick bigotry. Are not publications, which convey such disgraceful accounts of the prostration of human nature in the darkness of infatuated ignorance, libels on the character of New-England; and is it not the duty and interest of every good, wise, and learned Christian to oppose the ramparts of his talents, his virtues, and information, to the incursions of such re-barbarizing delusions?

EPIGRAM,

ON A WOULD BE PHILOSOPHER.

When first his farce of countenance began,
Ere the soft down had mark'd him almost man,

A solemn dulness occupied his eyes,

And the fond mother thought him wondrous wise

But little had she read in nature's book,

That fools assume a philosophick look.

The above is an extract; but we cannot see why the application does not come home to the sentiments and feelings of the present times.

TO READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS.

THE hurry in which our last paper went to the press, was the cause of numerous typographical errours. In the remarks on Love and Physick, page 57, for a great variety,' read a great rarity; for much delectable food,' read such delectable food; page 60, for ‘Laura descried her lover,' read Laura describing her lover; page 62, for 'unccessful negociation,' read unsuccessful negociator.

We shall endeavour in future that such glaring inaccuracies shall

not occur.