entertainment. But at the same time to assure him that two or three of his dishes were too stale before they were served up at his table, and that one or two others were quite spoilt by the seasoning. I had it in contemplation also, to inform THE SCRIBBLER that he wrongs himself by taking such a nick-name; for his merit as a writer entitles him to a much more dignified appellation. In fact his choice has reduced modest me to a serious dilemma; for in order to distinguish our qualifications as writers, by an appropriate signature, I am sadly put to it-there being none left in the whole vocabulary of the language which, according to his rule of deciding, might not be considered as too presumptuous for me to adopt. How he will be able to make me adequate compensation for this trespass upon my proper Title I leave for his ingenuity to discover. With ATTICUS I have a crow to pick. He has offended not me only, but, I suspect, many others. So capable as he appears to be to give his friends a substantial dish of Greek pudding; he is continually whetting their appetites and then, forsooth, placing before them little more than a little philological flummery. How much more consistent with his character would it be (for I willingly acknowledge him to be a gentleman) to satisfy us with some hearty slices from Epictetus or Plato! This hint I trust will be sufficient; otherwise I shall most assuredly prefer an information in full form against him to the High Court of Ladies (when organized) to roast him for neglecting to serve us with the best from his stall. The dispute between Analyticus and the author of the Essay called "Man Constitutionally Moral," is left at sixes and sevens. I would go much out of my way to make my acknowledgments to those ingenious gentlemen. Upon the subject of sympathy they both appear to be right, and both, in some respects, wrong-and if I could express myself as well as either of them, I do not know but I should enter the lists against them severally. For the present, I only beg leave to remark, that in reply to Analyticus, his antagonist seems to forget, that the doctrine of association, which he dwells upon with so much energy and fondness, involves that very principle of necessity which he strenously disclaims. How it happens that the quick-sighted Analyticus suffers him to exult in so doubtful a victory I know not-unless indeed I have run into a misapprehension of the bearing of some of their arguments. HARTLEY, who first broached the beautiful system of communicative vibrations and associations, openly avows it to be founded upon absolute necessity, however remotely or secretly the links of the concatenation may be formed. And indeed, if many, not to say all, of our associations really and involuntarily fasten themselves upon our minds without our own contrivance, and if the powers of sympathy grow out of these associations, and if these powers of sympathy be the only foundation of our moral feelings, is it not plain that our morality must be altogether mechanical, not less upon this, than upon Analyticus's plan which honestly avows the Divine sovereignty throughout? I heartily wish they had sifted this matter more thoroughly, or, according to Analyticus's fine language, that they had not contented themselves "with hovering round the foliage instead of digging at the roots of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." If I were to put down in writing all the remarks upon your literary purveyors, which the perusal of their labours for eighteen months past, has enabled me to make, I should spin my first performance to an immoderate length. And as I suppose you to have enough of experience in these matters to shun an acquaintance with a prolix Essayist, I shall terminate this inaugural with the request to be occasionally permitted, in this free and easy manner, to peep upon you out of the shades of my retirement. Seminary Range, (Ohio.) FOR THE PORT FOLIO-THE POLITE SCHOLAR. HAVING, in recent speculations dwelt, perhaps too fondly, on the merits of Horace and La Fontaine; and having attempted to give, in the form of gay paraphrase, the mere English reader some idea of the sportive style of the illustrious ancient, it now imports me to perform a similar act of justice to the no less brilliant modern. Of the Tales of La Fontaine I know no complete and perfect version in the English language. Single stories have been rendered by certain wits, who were apt pupils of Lord Rochester and Lord Lyttleton, but I may not quote any passages, lest I should be suspected to have formed an alliance with wicked wit, and to have indulged my memory at the expense of my discretion. It is impossible for a Polite Scholar to trespass upon the boundaries of delicacy or the rights of modest woman, and, therefore, let us be silent, concerning the British paraphrases of a certain section of the works of La Fontaine. We think that a dissipated and juvenile nobleman of Scotland, a certain lord Haddington, has made the nearest approach to the sportive style of this facetious writer, unless we except John Hall Stevenson, the favourite friend of Laurence Sterne; and as legitimate a branch of the Shandy family as ever indulged in a whimsical thought or action. In one of the gayer miscellanies of hazarded poetry, which none but the initiated must read, is a version in a metre, style, and spirit, of which Dean Swift would not have been ashamed. But here genius is so much at variance with virtue, we cannot with propriety, take any other part than merely to allude to the combat. Of the Fables of our frisky Frenchman, the manner and the moral are equally pure and unexceptionable. But I know not whether they have yet been invested with a complete dress of English drapery. The story of Les deux Pigeons is thus admirably translated by the genius of Charlotte Smith, and as this exquisite morceau has never appeared in America, we must not fail to record it as a perfect specimen of the best manner of La Fontaine, which will leave the vernacular reader no cause to regret his ignorance of the original. THE TRUANT DOVE, A FABLE, FROM LA FONTAINÉ. A mountain stream its channel deep By fretting rains in many a crevice worn; But the fern wav'd there, and the mosses crept, And o'er the summit where the wind Peel'd from their stems the silver rind, Depending birches wept There, tufts of broom a footing used to find, And heath and straggling grass to grow, And half way down from roots enwreathing, broke The branches of a scathed oak And seem'd to guard the cave below, Where each revolving year, Their twins two faithful doves were wont to rear; Choice never join'd a fonder pair; To each their simple home was dear, No discord ever enter'd there; But there the soft affections dwell'd, And three returning springs beheld Secure within their fortress high "Toujours perdrix, messieurs, ne valent rien-" So did a Gallic monarch once harangue, And evil was the day whereon our bird Whose means of information, And knowledge of all sorts, must be so ample; He thought of with indifference, then with loathing; So long belov'd, so mild, so free from blame, How should he tell her, he had learn'd to cavil At happiness itself, and longed to travel? His heart still smote him, so much wrong to do her, He knew not how to break the matter to her. But love, though blind himself, makes some discerning; His frequent absence, and his late returning, With ruffled plumage, and with altered eyes, His careless short replies, And to their couplets, coldness or neglect All was not right; but she forbore to tease him, Yet rush with open eyes to their undoing: Thus felt the dove; but in the cant of fashion He talk'd of fate and of predestination, And, in a grave oration, He to his much affrighted mate related, How he, yet slumbering in the egg, was fated, |