a poet to be "three removes from truth;" rpiraros año ras

1 Pinkerton has said that "a good history and description of the Bermudas might afford a pleasing addition to the geographical library;" but there certainly are not materials for such a work. The island, since the time of its discovery, has experienced so very few vicissitudes, the people have been so indolent, and their trade so limited, that there is but little which the historian could amplify into importance; and, with respect to the natural productions of the country, the few which the 'ahabitants can be induced to cultivate are so common in the West Indies, that they have been described by every naturalis; who has written any account of those islands.

It is often asserted by the trans-Atlantic politicians that this little colony deserves more attention from the mother country than it receives, and it certainly possesses advantages of situation, to which we should not be long insensible if it were once in the hands of an enemy. I was told by a celebrated friend of Washington, at New York, that they had formed a plan for its capture towards the conclusion of the American War; "with the intention (as he expressed himself) of making it a nest of hornets for the annoyance of British trade in that part of the world." And there is no doubt it lies so conveniently in the track to the West Indies, that an enemy might with ease convert it into a very harassing impediment.

The plan of Bishop Berkeley for a college at Bermuda, where American savages might be converted and educated, though concurred in by the government of the day, was a wild and useless speculation. Mr. Hamilton, who was governor of the island some years since, proposed, if I mistake not, the estab

Oh! say, is it thus, in the mirth-bringing hour, When friends are assembled, when wit, in full flower,

Shoots forth from the lip, under Bacchus's dew,
In blossoms of thought ever springing and new—
Do you sometimes remember, and hallow the brim
Of your cup with a sigh, as you crown it to him
Who is lonely and sad in these valleys so fair,
And would pine in elysium, if friends were not
there!

Last night, when we came from the Calabash

Tree,

When my limbs were at rest and my spirit was free,
The glow of the grape and the dreams of the day
Set the magical springs of my fancy in play,
And oh,-such a vision has haunted me then
I would slumber for ages to witness again.
The many I like and the few I adore,
The friends who were dear and beloved before,
But never till now so beloved and dear,

At the call of my fancy, surrounded me here;
And soon,-oh, at once, did the light of their smikt
To a paradise brighten this region of isles;
More lucid the wave, as they look'd on it, flow'd,
And brighter the rose, as they gather'd it, glow'd.
Not the valleys Heræan, (though water'd by rills
Of the pearliest flow, from those pastoral hills,*
Where the Song of the Shepherd, primeval and wild,
Was taught to the nymphs by their mystical child,)
Could boast such a lustre o'er land and o'er wave
As the magic of love to this paradise gave.

lishment of a marine academy for the instruction of those children of West Indians, who might be intended for any nautical employment. This was a more rational idea, and for something of this nature the island is admirably calculated. But the plan should be much more extensive, and embrace a general system of education; which would relieve the colonists from the alternative to which they are reduced at present, of either sending their sons to England for instruction, or intrusting them to colleges in the states of America, where ideas, by no means favorable to Great Britain, are very sedulously inculcated.

The women of Bermuda, though not generally handsome, have an affectionate languor in their look and manner, which is always interesting. What the French imply by their epithet aimante seems very much the character of the young Bermudian girls-that predisposition to loving, which, without being awakened by any particular object, diffuses itself through the general manner in a tone of tenderness that never fails to fascinate. The men of the island, I confess, are not very civilized: and the old philosopher, who imagined that, after this life, men would be changed into mules, and women into turtle-doves, would find the metamorphosis in some degree anticipated at Bermuda.

2 Mountains of Sicily, upon which Daphnis, the first inventor of bucolic poetry, was nursed by the nymphs. See the lively description of these mountain a Diodorus Siculus, lib. iv. Ηραια γαρ ορη κατα την Σικελίαν εστίν, ο βασι καλ AsL, K. T. λ.

Oh magic of love! unembellish'd by you, Hath the garden a blush or the landscape a hue? Or shines there a vista in nature or art, Like that which Love opes thro' the eye to the heart?

Alas, that a vision so happy should fade! That, when morning around me in brilliancy play'd, The rose and the stream I had thought of at night Should still be before me, unfadingly bright; While the friends, who had seem'd to hang over the stream,

And to gather the roses, had fled with my dream.

But look, where, all ready, in sailing array, The bark that's to carry these pages away,1 Impatiently flutters her wing to the wind, And will soon leave these islets of Ariel behind. What billows, what gales is she fated to prove, Ere she sleep in the lee of the land that I love! Yet pleasant the swell of the billows would be, And the roar of those gales would be music to me. Not the tranquillest air that the winds ever blew, Not the sunniest tears of the summer-eve dew, Were as sweet as the storm, or as bright as the foam Of the surge, that would hurry your wanderer home.

THE

STEERSMAN'S SONG,

WRITTEN ABOARD THE BOSTON FRIGATE 28TH APRIL.2

WHEN freshly blows the northern gale,
And under courses snug we fly;
Or when light breezes swell the sail,

And royal: youdly sweep the sky;
'Longside the wneel, unwearied still
I stand, and, as my watchful eye
Doth mark the needle's faithful thrill,
I think of her I love, and cry,

Port, my boy! port.

When calms delay, or breezes blow
Right from the point we wish to steer;
When by the wind close-haul'd we go,
And strive in vain the port to near;
I think 'tis thus the fates defer

My bliss with one that's far away,

1 A ship, ready to sail for England. *I left Bermuda in the Boston about the middle of April, in company with the Cambrian and Leander, aboard the latter of which was the Admiral, Sir Andrew Mitchell, who divides his year between Halifax and Bermuda, and is the very soul of society and good-fellowship to both. We separated in a few days, and the Boston, after a short cruise, proceeded to New York.

To wing its way unguided and alone,
The future smiling and the past unknown;
Then ardent man would to himself be new,
Earth at his foot and heaven within his view:
Well might the novice hope, the sanguine scheme
Of full perfection prompt his daring dream,
Ere cold experience, with her veteran lore,
Could tell him, fools had dreamt as much before.
But, tracing as we do, through age and clime,
The plans of virtue midst the deeds of crime,
The thinking follies and the reasoning rage
Of man, at once the idiot and the sage;
When still we see, through every varying frame
Of arts and polity, his course the same,

And know that ancient fools but died, to make
A space on earth for modern fools to take;
"Tis strange, how quickly we the past forget;
That Wisdom's self should not be tutor'd yet,
Nor tire of watching for the monstrous birth
Of pure perfection midst the sons of earth!

Oh! nothing but that soul which God has given, Could lead us thus to look on earth for heaven; O'er dross without to shed the light within, And dream of virtue while we see but sin.

Even here, beside the proud Potowmac's stream,
Might sages still pursue the flatt'ring theme
Of days to come, when man shall conquer fate,
Rise o'er the level of his mortal state,
Belie the monuments of frailty past,
And plant perfection in this world at last!
"Here," might they say, "shall power's divided
reign

"Evince that patriots have not bled in vain.
"Here godlike liberty's herculean youth,
"Cradled in peace, and nurtured up by truth
"To full maturity of nerve and mind,

1 Thus Morse. "Here the sciences and the arts of civilized life are to receive their highest improvements: here civil and religious liberty are to flourish, unchecked by the cruel hand of civil or ecclesiastical tyranny: here genius, aided by all the improvements of former ages, is to be exerted in humanizing mankind, in expanding and enriching their minds with religious and philosophical knowledge," &c. &c. -P. 569.

2" What will be the old age of this government, if it is thus early decrepit!" Such was the remark of Fauchet, the

Oh golden dream! what soul that loves to scan The bright disk rather than the dark of man, That owns the good, while smarting with the ill, And loves the world with all its frailty still,— What ardent bosom does not spring to meet The generous hope, with all that heavenly heat, Which makes the soul unwilling to resign The thoughts of growing, even on earth, divine! Yes, dearest friend, I see thee glow to think The chain of ages yet may boast a link Of purer texture than the world has known, And fit to bind us to a Godhead's throne.

But, is it thus? doth even the glorious dream Borrow from truth that dim, uncertain gleami, Which tempts us still to give such fancies scope, As shock not reason, while they nourish hope? No, no, believe me, 'tis not so—ev'n now, While yet upon Columbia's rising brow The showy smile of young presumption plays, Her bloom is poison'd and her heart decays. Even now, in dawn of life, her sickly breath Burns with the taint of empires near their death; And, like the nymphs of her own with'ring clime, She's old in youth, she's blasted in her prime.*

Already has the child of Gallia's school, The foul Philosophy that sins by rule, With all her train of reasoning, damning arts, Begot by brilliant heads on worthless hearts, Like things that quicken after Nilus' flood, The venom'd birth of sunshine and of mud,Already has she pour'd her poison here O'er every charm that makes existence dear; Already blighted, with her black'ning trace, The op'ning bloom of every social grace, And all those courtesies, that love to shoot Round virtue's stem, the flow'rets of her fruit.

And were these errors but the wanton tide Of young luxuriance or unchasten'd pride;

French minister at Philadelphia, in that famous dispatch to his government, which was intercepted by one of our cruisers in the year 1794. This curious memorial may be found in Porcupine's Works, vol. i. p. 279. It remains a striking monument of republican intrigue on one side, and republican profligacy on the other; and I would recommend the perusal of it to every honest politician, who may labor under a noment's delusion with respect to the pity of American patriotism.