Oration on a delicate Queffion, from Effay on Old Maids. -literally just. I repeat, he has entered into partnerth.ip with a ghoft; and I will add, Sir, the very probable confequence of fuch a partnership: he will foon find, that, by the fubtle illufions of his invifible partner, he has loft even his poor moiety lu that precarious poffeffion, the heart of a re-married Widow! and will find himself, at the fame time, a real bankrupt in happiness. S nce my antagonists have been pleafed to fmile at my expreffion, as the language rather of fancy than of truth, fuffer me, Mr. Prefident, to quote a cafe, in which this dead, this derided partner made his actual appearance, and was bold enough to urge an exclufivc claim. Sit, I traft the cafe I allude to is a cafe directly in point; it is quoted, indeed, on a different occafion, by the admirable Addifon, from the feventeenth book of the Jewish hiftorian, Jofephus. I mean the cale of the Widow Glaphyra, who, having been twice a Widow, took for her third husband Archelaus. You may remember, Sir, that the thoughts of this lady, after her third adventure, ran fo much on her first lord, that the faw the good man in a vifion- Glaphyra,' faid the phantom, thou haft made good the old fay ing, that women are not to be trufted. Was not I the hutband of thy virginity? Have I not children by thee? How couldst thou forget our loves fo far as to enter into a fecond marriage, and after that into a third?-But for our paffed loves I will free thee from thy prefent reproach, and make thee mine for ever.-Glaphyra related her dream, and died foon after. This, Sir, is a ferious and tragical proof, how dangerous it is to marry a Widow. Surely no confiderate man would chafe to incur the hazard of having his bride thus torn from his embraces by fo arrogant a phantom.-Allow me, Sir, to relate a story of a comic caft, which will equally prove the fecret perils of fuch a marriage. I received it from a very worthy old gentleman, not unknown to this affembly. He was acquainted, in his youth, with a famous mimic of the laft century, who was the principal actor in this comic or rather farcical feene, and related it circumftantially to my friend. This mimic, Sir, a man of pleasantry and adventure, courted, in the early part of his life, a very handfome and opulent Widow; the gave him the highest encouragement; but, as avarice was her foible, the at last jilted him for a wealthy fuitor, who, though of a very timid conftitution, was rath enough to marry this very tempting Widow. The difcarded mimic was inflamed with a variety of paffions, and determined to take fome very fignal revenge. An opportunity of vengeance occurred to him, which, as he knew the extreme timidity of his fortunate rival, he feized without the pause of apprehenfion. His valet had intrigued with the favourite abigail of the Widow, and by her affistance the mimic commanded the nuptial chamber of the bride. He had known the perfon of 31 her first husband, and, having concealed himself under a toilet till the hour of confummation, he then made his appearance, affuming the most exact fimilitude, both in figure and voice, to the dear departed. He had hardly undrawn the curtain, when the affrighted bride fell into a fit. The bridegroom, who had also known his deceased predeceffor, was feized with a panic ftill worfe, and his trembling body foon diffused fo powerful an effluvia, that although it con tributed nothing to his own relief, it recovered the lady from her fwoon. She revived in perfect poffeffion of her fenfes, and, finding the dead husband vanished, and the living one unfit for a companion, the haftily arole. As the loved money, he had taken the pru dent precaution of fecuring to herself the enjoyment of her own fortune, and, having fome fufpicion of the trick which had been played against her, the refolved to make wife ufe of it, and declared, that the would never proceed to confummate her marriage with a man, who had not refolution enough to prote& her from a ghoft. She perfifted in this conduct, and the luckless derided bridegroom remained, through life, a melancholy example to confirm the wisdom of that adage, which fays, that he thould, indeed, be a bold man, who enters into the service of a Widow. "Sir, I thould entreat your pardon for having trefpaffed on the patience of this affembly by the recital of so long a flory, did I not flatter myself that it will have a happy tendency to guard the fingle gentlemen, who hear me, from the iniquitous temerity of preferring a Widow to an Old Maid. "I might alledge, Sir, many arguments which I have not hitherto touched upon, in favour of my client. I might thew of what infinite importance it is to matrimonial felicity, that the husband fhould receive into his arms a partner for lite, whofe difpofition and habits, instead of being fixed already by a former lord, are yet to be moulded according to the will and abilities of her firft and only director. Sir, in this point, the Widow is a piece of warped wood, which the most skilful workman may find himself unable to fhape as he wishes; but the Old Maid, Sir, is the pliant virgin wax, which follows, with the most happy ductility, every ferious defign, every ingenious device, every sportive whim, of the modeller. "But I will relinquish the innumerable arguments that I might yet adduce in fupport of the Old Maid; I will reft her caufe on that folid rock, which I have endeavoured, Sir, to exhibit in different points of view, I mean the fuperior fecurity with which her husband may depend on the ftability of her affection. I will conclude by conjuring every gentleman, who may happen to hefitare between a Widow and an Old Maid, to remember, that reafon and experience, that equity and the general interest of mankind, all loudly plead 32 Arguments against the Ufe of plead for his preferring the latter: I will conjure him to recollect, that the man who marries a Widow has great caufe to apprehend unreasonable expectations, unpleafant comparifons, and variable affection; while be who marries an Old Maid may with confidence prepare to meet unexacting tendernefs, increafing gratitude, and perpetual endearments." MR. URBAN, Barrack-bill-boufe, Jan. 12. HE greateft calamities that occur THE to the human fpecies have not always originated from ill-nature, but frequently from miftaken notions in religion. When priests and prelates are taught to believe that the Supreme Being harbours an implacable refentment against fome of his creatures, a fertile imagination leads them to think that his vicegerents do him good fervice by anticipating the tortures they fhall hereafter endure; the confequence of which is, that kings, and others in authority, take the fame liberty, and inflict the torture for notorious crimes, though it is evident that no methods of torture are countenanced or connived at, much lefs approved of, or commanded upon any occafion, by the laws of Chriftianity; fo that, when a governor inflicts the torture, he takes the work of the devil out of his hands, in direct oppofition to the precepts and precedents of God Almighty. Whatever the punishments of a future ftate may be, it is evident they will not be grounded upon malice, revenge, or an implacable refentment, of which God has often declared his deteftation and abhorrence, but will certainly take place upon the eternal reafon and fitnefs of things. That malefactors, who are untit for fociety, fhould be rooted out of it, as weeds out of a garden, is highly rational; but that a man fhould have his flesh torn off his bones with red-hot pincers, be put upon the rack, or broken upon the wheel, anfwers no good end to the man himfelf, is of no advantage to fociety, and a practice conftantly reprobated by the wife and good. It will perhaps be faid, the crimes he has committed were attended with peculiar circumstances of barbarity: what then? if I retaliate, 1 render myfelf like, or rather fet myfclf upon a level with him; I commence barbarian to reward his cruelty, which is as oppofite to the Chriftian character as light to darkness. Say not, I will do fo to bim as he hath done to me, I will render to the man according to his work, Torture.-Petronius illuftrated. which is, literally fpeaking, I will retaliate; on the contrary, if neceffity requires that he fhould be cut off from his people, let it be done, if poffible, with a punishment lefs than his iniquity deferves. This is acting in a God-like manner, and, instead of exafperating the offender, infpires him with juft and aweful ideas of his own demerits; this induces him, if any thing will do it, to venerate the juftice and equity of adminiftration, and, inftead of thinking that he has atoned for his crimes by the cruelty of his sufferings, leads him to repent of them with a fincere contrition, and to acquiefce more chearfully in the mildness and lenity of tl.e fentence palled upon him. The above animadverfions, I acknowledge, are not calculated for our meridian, where torture is abolished; but as your valuable Magazine will be probably read where fuch principles prevail, I leave my fentiments to be dif culled by thofe who may find their account in it, and am, Sir, yours in the literal fenfe of the words, A PROFESSOR OF HUMANITY. ME. URBAN, Jan. 13. TAKE the liberty to present you with an humble attempt to restore a paffage in Petronius, which, in its prefent ftate, appears to me, after all the labours of the learned, to be much mutilated and disfigured. To wave all ftudied praife and encomium, I hazard nothing, in my in opinion, when I declare to you that I think the place is both fine and interefting. DOCTOR IS INSTITUTIO. Et fortuna fonet celeri diftin&ta meatu: nentur. His animum fuccinge bonis, fic flumine largo Petronii, cap. V. p. 22, ed. 4to. What has been faid upon thefe verfes of Petronius may be feen at large in the 4to edition by Peter Burman in the year 1709. The Conjectural Emendation of Petronius.-Old Cecil Houfe. The fix firft lines, in which the poetry of Homer, the philofophy of Socrates, and the eloquence of Demofthenes, are propofed as early objects of imitation, stand in need of little comment or illuftration to make their meaning perfectly clear to the ftudent in Latin verfe. The seventh and eighth are not fo perfpicuous. The critics read by eonjecture, oraque Graio Exornata fono —— mutet faporem fuffufa (fapore). Interdum fubdu&ta foro det pagina curfum, The reafons are, that pagina has never been rightly interpreted; and fortuna is corrupt. When thefe words are explained and corrected, the true fenfe will probably appear. The commentators, one and all, have been driven to extremities to give a colour to the egregious nonfenfe that the text at prefent is made to exhibit; but no meaning was to be given but by fubftituting cortina in the place of fortuna; and then difcin&ta became diftinda, and deftricta, and fo on, "confufion worfe confounded." Now, if I might be allowed to propofe an emendation, the line fhould ran thus: EL FORTI UNA fonet celeri difcincta meatu. Then the confiruction would be, "Sometimes let the active fcene, difengaged from the bufinefs of the forum, have its courfe; and fometimes let one [fcene] fonet, that is, be heard, or reprefented, without the quick movements. The word pagina, upon the peculiar interpretation of which the fenfe of this paffage to much depends, means comoedia, as is evident from Petronius himself, cap. 8o. Mox ubi ridendas inclufit PAGINA partes, 33 How pagina comes to have this meaning. it is not material to my prefent point to enquire; that it has, it is not to be denied. If then this be the cafe, curfus and celer meatus have a fixed and determined fenfe: and the first is defcriptive of the comedia motoria, and the fecond of the comedia tataria. Confult the prologue to the Self tor mentor: Adefte æquo animo, date poteftatem, mihi The rest is not difficult, if you except the last verfe but two, which would be placed to advantage after the fixth. Liber, et ingentis quariat Demofthenis arma, Grandiaque indomiti Ciceronis verba minetur? Hinc Romana manus. MR. URBAN, Yours, &c. S. W. Jan. 5. TILL you can get a better account of Old Cecil Houfe, which you have engraved in last month's Magazine, you may inform your readers, that in the reign of King Edward VI. Sir Thomas Palmer began to build a houfe (where and timber very large and fpacious. But Exeter Exchange now ftands) of brick, afterwards it was more beautifully increafed by Sir Wm. Cecil Lord Burghley, whence it was called Cecil-bouse, and after that Exeter-boufe, from his fon and heir Thomas, created Earl of Exeter 3. James I. M. GREEN. MR. URBAN, CRIM Margate, Jan. 17. RIMINALS have fometimes been found alive after hanging near an hour; a remarkable ftory of this nature ufed to be told by the late Dr. Hunter in his anatomical lectures: but none of our English anatomifts feem to have had an opportunity of examining by diffection the caule of this uncommon efcape fron the gripe of death. cafes collected by Bonetus feem to throw As the following fome light on this matter (attributing the recovery of criminals after fufpenfion in two inftances to an oflification of the trachea arteria) I fend them for the Gentleman's Magazine. fufpenfus Bononiæ jacuit, vivus inventus "Is qui diu eft, quod afperam arteriam non cartilagineam, fed ofleam haberet." Cardanus, lib. II. tr. 2. contrad. 7. "Conftat quendam bis fulpentum fervatum miraculi fpecie: inde cum tertio Judicis fo-, lertia 34 Memoirs of the Author of The Hiftory of the Irish Bards. R. E. HUNTER. MR. URBAN, High Holborn, Nov. 10. DURING a vifit which I lately paid to Dublin, my attention was attracted by Hiftorical Memoirs of the Irish Bards," the perufal of which afforded me fo much pleasure, that I naturally made fome enquiries concerning the author. The refult of thofe enquiries I am now about to communicate, to which, if you pleafe, you may allot a place in your va Juable repofitory. Had I been fo fortunate as to have fallen into the author's company, I fhould have been more fatif factory with refpect to his perfon and manners. BIOGRAPHICUS. Memoirs of Jofeph Cooper Walker, M. R. I. A. author of "Hiftorical Memoirs of the Irish Bards." Jofeph Cooper Walker was born in Dublin, of refpctable parents, who are fill living. Our author received his education at an eminent academy (under whofe care I omitted to learn) in the city which gave him birth. Though prevented, by a delicate conftitution in his tendereft years, from purfuing with fufficient ardour thofe ftudies which are requifite for a college courfe, yet by his own abilities and affiduity, with the affiftance of private tutors, he has acquired a competent knowledge of the dead, as well as fone of the living languages, viz. French, Italian, and Spanish; and, from the publication which has introduced him to our notice, he feems not to be not unacquainted with the Irish; but of which he laments (lee his preface) his knowledge is as yet rather confined. That he has a turn for poetry, his Life of Carolan clearly evinces, as it is natural to conclude that fome of the anonymous translations he there introduces are his own. To all thefe, we are informed, he unites the fashionable accomplishments of the age. At an early period of life he was put forth into the world. While aimoft à boy, he got an employment in his Majefty's Treafury of Ireland, where he has arrived to the rank of third clerk, in, we believe, the upper, or Mr. Conyngham's department. Though fond of the favourite amufements of the age, he pays the fricteft attention to the duties of his office; whilft in office, he is the man of bufinefs; after the hours of bufinefs, hls time is devoted to pleasure or books, "in his retirement forgetting the town, in his gaiety lofing the ftudent." He has drawn a flight, but masterly, yet modeft fketch of himself in his elegant little preface affixed to his "Memoirs of the Irish Bards." In the fummer of 1785 he was elected a member of the Royal Irish Academy; and on the 17th of March following (the day appointed by the charter for a general meeting of the academy) he was chofen one of the committee of antiquities. Since his admiffion into that learned body, he has not been inattentive to the duty he owed it, having delivered in, as we were informed, fome effays, with the fubjects of which, however, we are unacquainted. In order to promote the profecution of his Audies, he obtained, he informs us in his preface (omitting however the year), with the approbation of the pro voft and fellows of Trinity College, Dublin, freedom of access to their valuable library. And in the commencement of the prefent year he appeared, for the first time, in the character of an author. Perhaps I ought not to omit, that our author is a batchelor; that his age feems to be about 21 or 22; and that he is a dutiful fon. and an affectionate brother. With refpe&t to his perfon, I am informed that he is rather of the middle fize, if not a little under; of a shapely, well-turned figure; his habit of body, neither meagre nor corpulent, but coniely and well-proportioned; his vifage round; features neat and regular; eyes dark and fparkling; his afpect throughout pleafing and agreeable; his drefs always fashionable and genteel: fo far with refpect to external qualities; with refpe&t to internal, his temper and difpofition are-mild and gentle, his manners eafy and engaging, his converfation entertaining and lively. I fhall now take the liberty of troubling you with a few obfervations on his "Hiftorical Memoirs of the Irish Bards." In this work our author has difplayed much erudition, much tafte, and much grace of compofition; and notwithstanding the abftrufenefs of the early part of his work, and the novelty of the whole, he has flashed much light on the gloomy clouds which overhang the page of Irish hiftory; and has rendered a fubject, ap parently dry and uninterefting, exquifitely pleafing and entertaining. And, as the authenticity of Irish history has been of late much questioned, he feems to have taken a good deal of (perhaps too much The Yew indigenous in G. Britain and Ireland.-The Nectarine. 35 much) pains, to fupport whatever he advances with the beft authorities; adducing the moft refpectable names in the annals of Irish literature. Of this work an anonymous writer, in one of the Irish papers, thus fpeaks, in an effay on the prefent ftate of literature in that kingdom: "The next in my account is Jofeph Cooper Walker, who has published an Hiftory of the Irish Bards, a work by no means unentertaining, and highly interefting to the lovers of mufic, as a fcience. He has entered into the spirit of his fubject, and given the lives of fome of our bards in an original and pleafing narrative. Mr. Walker poffelles that tafte and fenfibility which every author ought in fome degree to poffefs, and his language vibrates on the ear, as mufic does on the foul." Befides our author's grand work, the Hiftory of the Bards, he has annexed, exclufive of his little Memoir of Cormac Common, and his admirable Life of Carolan, &c. &c. feveral valuable cominunications of fome of his literary friends, amongt which are eminent thofe of the Rev. Mr. Ledwich, to whofe matterly pen the world are already indebted for fome ineftimable publications. I will here take my leave, with obferving that the reader of judgment and tafte, as well as the curious reader, will have no caufe to regret his having in his poffeffion the "Hiftorica! Memoirs of the Irish Bards." MR. URBAN, IT Dec. 28. T was with fatisfaction I perufed your valuable corrrefpondent's obfervations on the Taxus, Ilex, and Fagus, inferted in your valuable repofitory for Novemher; that the former, the yew tree, is indigenous to this Iftand and Ireland, I think there is not the leaft doubt. Has your correfpondent ever noticed thofe venerable trees to be met with on our chalky downs, far detached from all polibility of communication with gardens and cultivation? Can any thing more forcibly evince the yew to be a native, than that remarkable bat of them, fo termed, to be met with in the tract between Salifbury and Cranburne, infulated, and impervious to the fun's beams from their clofe connected branches forming a folemn umbrella, the work of ages? That it is allo ab origine in Ireland, Mr. Smith in his Hiftory of the Counties of Cork and Kerry fufficiently proves: in garticular places, many noble venerable 7 trees are fill exifting, notwithstanding the deadly axe has levelled the principal part, in confequence of the introduction of that nuifance and peft of a country, the iron forge. That the Ilex, and Fagus, are both na tives of Italy is certain; but the former is more particularly found in the fouthern parts, nor does the writer remember ever to have feen it in plenty to the northward of Florence. In a wood confifting almoft of evergreens, between Rome and Naples, not far diftant from Terracina, there are three varieties of it; the common evergreen oak; the Juber, or cork oak; and the kermes or gall oak, a dwarf fpecies: 'but the most flourishing and beautiful trees of the firft, or com mon kind, are to be met with near Al. bano, twelve miles fouth of Rome. In regard to the Fagus, the beech tree, it is, I believe, peculiar to the northern diftrict of Italy, and even there rather, confined to the mountainous parts, where, together with the fweet or Spanish chefnut, it ornaments and clothes the middle region; the chefnut indeed is common to both northern and fouthern Italy; not fo the beech; the writer at deaft, never faw it growing indigenously to the fouthward of Lombardy. As your Magazine is in my hand, per mit me a word more, on your correfpondent Obfervator's remarks on the nectarine and peach. From the clofoft attention to the fubject, I have never been able to diftinguifh between the two but by their fruit; the leaves and bloffoms are fimilar in various kinds, the orange, elruge, and brugnon nectarines, have a fmooth leaf and a fmall flower, exactly refembling the catherine, the violet native, and cheuvreufe peaches, &c. whereas the old Newington nectarine, if not the Roman, has a wide expanded blof fom and ferrated leaves, perfectly according with the old Newington, nobleft, and mignon peaches, &c. but I do not remember, as your correfpondent mentions, ever to have feen the leaf of any nectarine fcolloped, or noticed it to blow later than the peach; in refpect to grafting the almond on a flock of the latter, and that the flone of the almond in confequence derives from the peach ftock a hardnefs equal to the fone of the peach, I fufpect the cafe to be this, that the admond which bears the red bloom, and is the only fort that endures the rigour of our climate, and whofe ftone is naturally as hard, or harder than the ftone of the peach, was the kind your ingenious cor refponde |