and wonder would possess the multitude. Women would faint-and men, iron-hearted men, would weep for very enthusiasm. But let the wonder cease-let the re-appearance of these great men be accounted for on some rational principle, supposing that possible, and those restored patriots, being contemporary, would soon be talked of with the same freedom that has ever distinguished and yet distinguishes the political contests of this nation—a freedom, from which even the character of Washington, spotless as it was, could not always be sacred.

The farther we go into the past, the greater is our wonder at any thing which brings those olden ages near. Thus a mummy, preserved for dozens of centuries, is truly a marvellous object. We look upɔn the antiquated face, once fanned by the airs of Egypt; on the closed lids that perhaps opened to greet the sunlight as it poured its matin influence on the harmonious Memnon; on the hands that may have woven the broidered sails of Tyrus, or waved some signal of applause to Ptolemy or Cleopatra. A British Poet has indulged in some beautiful reflections on this subject, suggested by seeing one of these ancient of days in the exhibition of Belzoni, at London. They are in the form of an address to the mummy:

"I need not ask thee if that hand, when arm'd,
Has any Roman soldier mauled and knuckled,
For thou wert dead, and buried, and embalmed,
Ere Romulus and Remus had been suckled:-
Antiquity appears to have begun,

Long after thy primeval race was run.

"Since first thy form was in this box extended,

We above ground have seen some strange mutations;
The Roman empire has begun and ended-

New worlds have risen--we have lost old nations;
And countless kings have into dust been humbled,
While not a fragment of thy flesh has crumbled.

"Didst thou not hear the pother o'er thy head,

When the great Persian conqueror, Cambyses,
March'd armies o'er thy tomb, with thundering tread,
O'erthrew Osiris, Opus, Apis, Isis,

And shook the Pyramids with fear and wonder,
When the gigantic Memnon fell asunder?

"If the tomb's secrets may not be confessed,
The nature of thy private life unfold;

A heart has throbbed beneath that leathern vest,

And tears adown that dusky cheek have roll'd:

Have children climb'd those knees, and kissed that face?
What was thy name and station, age, and race?

"Statue of flesh--immortal of the dead!

Imperishable type of evanescence!

Posthumous man, who quit'st thy narrow bed,

And standest undecayed within our presence,

Thou wilt hear nothing, till the judgment morning,

When the great trump shall thrill thee with its warning!"

Distance, which in space, belittles objects, in time, enlarges them. That which time spares, it hallows or curses. It bears to after ages the brightness of a mighty reputation, or it adds fresh grimness to "a wounded name." Its plaudits and its anathemas are alike enduring;

and that which, when contemporary, was not deemed especially worthy of either, has its claims strengthened in the lapse of years.

Contemporaries! Could any one go back in bodily presence, as we may in mind, among the great beings of the past-great for good or evil -how common-place would seem to him the thousand objects which history, and those deeds that ages sanctify, and fate, preserve immortal! That traveller into antiquity might sport with Anthony in his voyages, with the dark eyes of "his Egypt" darting their liquid lustre, and witness the mighty littleness of the loving Roman; he could stray with the philosophers through the groves of Athens-find Aristotle writing hymns to please his sense, and gratify the master of a concubine, notwithstanding his ethics that sense was non-essential to happiness ;-he might see Tiberius fight with an oysterman, or hear Nero fiddle. Coming slowly down the vista of years, he might hear Shakspeare play at the Globe Theatre, in London, or enjoy his early and ample fortune at Avon ;he might play with Goldsmith, dine with Milton, at Mr. Russell's the tailor's ;-or laugh at Thomson as he sat on the fence of his rural re⚫treat, with his hands in his pockets, eating out the blushing and sunny sides of peaches in his garden, that he was too lazy to pick! This traveller, too, might see what were the real knights of chivalry, about whom so much is prated in these degenerate days. He would find them boisterous, revengeful, bilious and dishonest fellows;-vulgar in attire, awkward in harness, covered with salve-patches on their arms and legs, where they were galled with their iron mail, and leaving their scores at the blacksmith's shops unpaid, all the way from France and Britain, even to the Holy Land. Alas! how much of romance fades away in that one werd, contemporary! It is ratsbane to the imagination—it is a green shade over the eagle eye of Genius!

But

For heroes whose lives are passed at the head of armies, amid "the stir of camps and the revelries of garrisons"-who are from year to year the observed of all observers-for them, there is the reward of their own era. Such men enjoy during their own mortal span kind of antepast of that renown which settles after death upon their name. they pay heavily for their glory, by the responsibility and peril in which they exist. Failure even in judgment would be ignominy; multitudes of restless spirits are to be guided and kept subordinate by their power, kindness, and skill; and what with one object and another to harass and distress them, their lives are passed upon the rack, and they pay dearly enough for that two-penny whistle, posthumous fame. It is only by the bustle and turmoil in which they live, that they receive more passing applause, than the quiet civilian, whose works and merits, after his departure, add radiance to his name.

I have said that, to be a contemporary, is to be belittled. The remark is true, indubitably. I might prove it by a thousand instances, but I will content myself with a very few. Homer was called by Aristarchus, a vain, foolish fellow, who fancied he could make poetry, and under that delusion had produced his stupid Iliad, whose speedy transit to oblivion was confidently predicted. Now his fame fills the world. When Milton's Paradise Lost appeared, a contemporary critic condemned it as

trash-and it sold for fifteen pounds. Now it is immortal. Every body will acknowledge that Shakspeare was a poet whose works are imperishable-whose observation was unfailing; who looked through Nature-whose pathos and humor are irresistible; who was, in short, at once sublime, yet simple and delicate-touching and witty, deep and playful. He was such a man as centuries do not match or approach. And how would these eulogistic words have been received in his time? As downright hyperbole. He was probably looked upon in pretty much the same light as Sheridan Knowles-that fine poet of humanity-is now viewed in London-namely, as a man who wrote plays, and acted parts in them. The majority of the common people undoubtedly esteemed him "no great shakes." I find in the chronicle of a quaint historian of Shakspeare and Queen Elizabeth's time, the following venerable sketch, which shows that the Swan of Avon stood but indifferent well: Our modern and present excellent poets which worthily flourish in their owne workes, and alle of them in my owne knowledge lived in this Queene's* reigne, according to their priorities, as neere as I could, I have orderly sette down, (viz.) George Gascoigne, Esquire, Thomas Church-yard, Esquire, Edward Dyer, Knight, Edmond Spenser, Esquire, Sir Phillip Sidney, Knight, Sir Thomas Chaloner, Knight, Sir Francis Bacon, Knight, and Sir John Davie, Knight; Master John Lillie, gentleman, Master George Chapman, gentleman, Master William Warner, gentleman, Mast. Wil. Shaks-peare, gent.; Samuel Davie of the Bath, Master Christopher Marlo, gent.; Master Benjamin Jonson, gent.; John Marston, esquire; Master Abm. Francis, gent.; Francis Meers, gent.; Master Joshua Sylvester, gent.; Master Thomas Decker, gent. ; John Mecher, gent.; John Webster, gent.; Thomas Hayward, gent.; Thomas Middleton, gent.; and George Withers."

Now of all the poets, here "orderly sette downe, according to their priorities," how few survive! We have a host of knights and esquires, of whom, with a few exceptions, nothing is known: and after Masters Chapman and Billy Warner, we have "Mast. Wil. Shaks-peare!" Of his fellow-bards, with some omissions, what have we heard? What of Chaloner, Davie, Lillie, Webster, Meers, Sylvester, and Thomas Churchyard, eke? We can only fancy the latter a melancholy writer, but darkness covers nearly all the rest. Doubtless Shakspeare conceived himself inferior to all those whose names here precede his-and therein, (with the exclusion of his king and queen, and a few choice, learned spirits, who knew his surpassing power,) he probably coincided with the general impression of his merits. Such is the judgment of "contemporaries!"

W.

*Elizabeth.

THE system of teaching foreign languages by interlineal and literal versions, in the vernacular, or other tongue, known by the learner, has been ascribed to Locke, and recently to Mr. Hamilton, a French teacher, who figured away here for a considerable time. The merit of the improvement belongs to neither. The real inventor was the celebrated Arius Montanus, who flourished in the sixteenth century, and published a Greek Testament with a Latin interlineal version, of which I possess a copy. It appeared in 1571. The subjoined is a specimen :

Βίβλος γενέσεως Ιησού Χριστου υιου Δαβιδ υιου ̓Αβρααμ.
Liber generationis Jesu Christi, filii David, filii Abraham.

VI.

TRICKS UPON TRAVELLERS.'

THE driver of a Germantown stage laid a wager that he would take no females in his vehicle, and yet not affront any lady who might make application for a seat. This was during the prevalence of the Yellow Fever in 1797, when three or four stages plied about the same hour from Germantown to Philadelphia. His was the first-and when a lady appeared at a door in the town, he cried, " Madam, there is another stage just behind." This satisfied the applicant, and Jehu drove on with a loud crack of the whip, crying out, at the top of his voice," All men !” This continued till he reached the end of the town, when he had his full complement, and won his wager.

GREAT men often have queer whims. Mr. Jefferson published the first edition of his Parliamentary Manual without paging; a work, much of the utility of which depended on an accurate means of a correct and easy reference, to which proper paging and index are essential.

Folly, however ridiculous, is catching. F. X. Martin & Co., printers and booksellers, at Newbern, published several novels without paging, in imitation of Mr. Jefferson. This was rather less absurd than Mr. Jefferson's whim, as novels do not require means of reference.

VIII.

THE FINE ARTS.

THE following fact respecting the Fine Arts may afford some amusement to the reader:

A large and handsome engraving of "The mother of the children of Zebedee," was executed in London some years since, in which the mother appeared seated, with two children at her knees-the latter apparently about ten or twelve years old. I had the engraving copied, and sold some hundreds of them. They were purchased among others by gentlemen of the clerical profession, and for two or three years nobody here discovered the enormous error, nor, as far as I know, was it detected in London. At length a very common-place man, whose physiognomy did not afford any indication of the slightest scintillation of intellect, was gaping with his mouth open at one of the engravings as it hung up in my store; and after some time, he cried out, "This is a laughable blunder the children of Zebedee were Apostles, and therefore must have been men grown.”

IX.

DE PUGLIA

WAS a half-crazy Spaniard, who had written in Philadelphia a foolish book, which he styled "The Federal Politician," and which fell stillborn from the press. Angry at the want of taste of the public, and determined to be revenged upon them, he imitated the conduct of the Sybil ; burned one half of the edition, and raised the price of the remainder. But he was not so successful as she had been. The public desire of purchasing his book was not increased by the diminution of the number of copies.

X.

GEN. LEE AND JUNIUS.

AMONG the various wild and extravagant conjectures respecting the authorship of Junius's Letters, the most truly ludicrous was that which ascribed them to Gen. Lee, from some incidents of little importance. It is difficult to find two styles that are so totally unlike. There is as much resemblance between a carving knife and one of Rogers's highly polished razors, as between the style of the hero of the battle of Monmouth and that of Junius.

ΧΙ.

A PHILOSOPHICAL HOAX.

JUDGE BRACKENRIDGE, the elder, had a deadly hostility to Philosophical Societies, against which he waged a bellum ad internecionem in the papers, and in the celebrated satirical work, Teague O'Regan. Few persons living know the cause of his ire, which fell under my observation at the time the provocation was given.

In the year 1785 or 1786, he was a candidate for a seat in the Le