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So intimate is the analogy between the physical and moral kingdoms, that man is not unfrequently styled a microcosm. To define every feature of the resemblance, would fill volumes; and were the natural history of this “Biped without feathers,’ in all his affections, seasons, and properties, written with the greatest perspicacity, it would demand more talent and labour, than the philosophical or botanical researches of a Linnæus, or a Darwin.

There is a Magazine of theatrical biography published annually in London, called “The Green-Room;” which is not only replete with sketches of the dramatick characters of the actors and actresses, but is sometimes enlivened with the tender anecdote of private amour.

Ovid, who “took a peep behind the curtain” of Olympus, has Pasquin-ized the intrigues of Jupiter's court in the same figurative style of elegant “tete à tete!”

The Egyptian mythology was so heterogeneous and absurd, that, not confined to the extensive regions of animated nature, that hieroglypical nation stupidity descended to the vegetable world, to fill the niches of their temples. “In Egypt,” says a learned writer, “it was more difficult to find a man, than a God.”

A parody on part of the last line in the following passage of Denham's “Cooper's Hill.”

Æsop, the Phrygian, the most celebrated fabulist of antiquity, was not only disfigured in his legs, but was deformed in almost every other part of his body.

Marcus Tullius Cicero, the father of Roman oratory, is said to have received his last appellation, from an uncommon excrescence on his cheek, resembling a Cicer, or vetch.

Mezentius, a prince of the Tyrrhenes, a contemner of the gods, was the inventor of the savage punishment of binding the devoted offender to the putrescent body of some victim, sacrificed to his barbarity.

Those spots of earth, which are impregnated by mineral strata, are generally distinguished by the desolate aridity of their surface, which is totally insufficient to support the vegetation even of graminous productions.

Robert Merry, esquire, the only pupil in the school of Collins, who possesses the genius of his master, is the author of those elegant poems in the British Album, signed Della Crusca, of Paulina— the Pains of Memory, and several dramatick pieces. In the summer of 1791, he married Miss Brunton, a celebrated actress in Covent-Garden theatre, and no less admired for her pre-eminent talents as a daughter of the Buskin, than esteemed as a woman of unblemished principles, and polished accomplishments.

Mrs. Morton, of Dorchester, the reputed authoress of an heroick Poem, of much merit, entitled “Beacon-Hill,” may, without hesitation, be announced the American Sappho.

It is a fact, that, in countries, subject to volcanick inundation, the subsiding lava super-induces a fertility of soil, not to be equalled by the most exuberant luxuriance of the tropical climates.

Empedocles is recorded, in fabulous history, to have leaped into the flames of Ætna, to obtain, in the dark ages of paganism, an apotheosis for his memory; but the brass slipper, which he had worn during his hermitage in a cave of the mountain, was soon after thrown up by the volcano, and exposed the impostor to the world.

This event, so honourary to the character of Buonaparte, took place soon after the capitulation of Mantua. The village, which boasts the nativity of this immortal bard, lies in the suburbs of that city.

The first eruption of this mountain happened in the 79th year of the Christian era. Pliny, the elder, a man no less renowned for forensick than military powers, was at that time commander of a fleet in the bay of Misenum. Unintimidated by the terrible phenomenon, he hastened with his ships to the relief of the nobility and peasants, whose villas and farms had been ingulphed in the flames. In this benevolent and heroick attempt, he died by suffocation. This eruption destroyed the cities of Herculaneum, and Pompeii. To support the poetick allusion, it may be necessary to add, that the burning of the towns of Charlestown and Fairfield, in the revolutionary war, affords but too prominent a trait in the similitude.

It has been universally allowed, that the classical and military advantages of Sir John Moore's education were superiour to those of any modern English General. These great opportunities of improvement to his tactical intuition were afforded in the school of living history, on the scite of battles, marked with the vestiges of victory and defeat, of stratagem and fortune. The scenes, over which he dwelt with the fondest devotion, were those, which had formed the theatre of the wars of the illustrious Frederick; a hero, who, on one day could not place his foot on one inch of sand, which would own his impression as a master; and who, on on the next day, was the lord of an empire, and, by the fame of his talents, the awe, the astonishment and the admiration of Europe. The line of the poem above quoted alludes to the celebrated battle, which achieved this glorious event.

Had this distinguished military prince transmitted to the present incumbent on his throne that character and science of arms, which were so much admired, and so enthusiastically studied by Sir John, when he travelled under the tutelage of his father, with the Duke of Hamilton—the day, in which we live, would have been spared the shame to have witnessed the disgraceful and perfidious flight of Jena, nor would it have so painfully perceived the terrible distinction, between,

But national hypocrisy, like the fraud of individuals, is always punished by a signal Providence. The affectation of sovereignty is but the shadow of power; and while the hundred arms of Briareus gave him the reputation of a Giant, yet this would have been but an empty proclamation of strength, had he not been inspired with the courage to lift even one of his fingers at his enemy.

It has been the fate of Sir John Moore, a fate most severely unpropitious to the reputation and honour of some administrations of the British Cabinet, to be envied, opposed, checked, cramped and neglected, (durante potestate) from the first onset of his military life. His great talents, dauntless courage, commanding person, practical knowledge, gallant virtues, contempt of selfishness, inaccessibility to party, firmness in battle, and generosity to his army, and above all, his rapid and comprehensive foresight of the fears and the hopes of a jejunely projected expedition, and his own rejected map of an admirable campaign, which might, in all military and geographical calculation, have reduced the invaders of Spain to submission or flight, condemned him to the honourable neglect of the ministry, whom he despised. But this persecution had been practised before, and under the same influence. At the siege of Calvi, one of the mountainous, and the best fortified towns in Corsica, and to which the line in the Poem refers, Sir John was eminently distinguished. It was the last, and was deemed the impregnable strong hold of the Island. From the eminence of its rocks, and the danger of its access, it demanded a veteran and a hero in the art of war, to assault and reduce it to surrender. This exploit of skill and of honour Sir John undertook and performed; and this intrepid and scientifick General's services in Corsica were rewarded by the impolitick and calculating ingratitude of an invidious ministry.

Rome was built on its own seven hills, which gave security to its glory, while its virtue remained. Yet its inhabitants, reared to habits of legionary discipline, and bold in their contempt of death, had not, for near five hundred years, any knowledge, either of the fosse and glacis of a city, or of the entrenchment and palisade of a camp. When stormed by Brennus, defeated by Pyrrhus, or overwhelmed by Hannibal, the citizens of Rome, despairing of its safety, fled either to the rock of the Capital, or to the mountains, which surrounded it. The Romans gained their first knowledge of intrenchment from the conquered camp of the Grecian hero, Pyrrhus.