University of Virginia Library

These verses were sent to the Gentleman's Magazine by Dr Darwin, a short time after they had been presented to him by their author, and sent without her knowledge, and with an alteration in the concluding lines; which alteration invokes the nymph of Botany to grace the scene. They are here inscribed as they were originally printed. Fourteen years after, in the spring 1792, the first part of that splendid poem, The Botanic Garden, appeared, which had been some years oddly preceded by the second part of the work. In that first part its author has placed the above verses as the exordium of his poem, with some slight verbal alterations, and with a few brilliant lines of his own interwoven. There is no hint in the notes, or even by a quotation mark, that this poetic landscape was the work of another pen. The circum- stance would have been immaterial, if the lines had not ap- peared in print with the name of their author; but that cir- cumstance rendered that claim necessary. Other periodical publications of that day copied them from the Gentleman's Magazine.

In a gloomy recess of this dell, there is a rock that drops about once in every minute, alike in dry and wet seasons.

Dr Darwin is here considered as the genius of the place, since he first cultivated and adorned the tangled and swampy plain.

The Author claimed these verses in Dr Darwin's life- time. Two years before he died, they appeared in her name, in Shaw's History of Staffordshire.

The institution of Bath-Easton was a charitable one.

Lady Miller, patrouess of that poetic institution, at her villa, near Bath, always appointed the subject of the verses written for the festival. A description of its ceremonies will be found prefixed to the Author's Monoday on Lady Miller.

Lear.

Macbeth.

Hamlet.

Richard the Third.

Samian Sage.—Pythagoras.

Alluding to a celebrated picture of Mrs Kauffman's, The Nymphs disarming Cupid.

These are very tall rocks around Bermuda.

See Shakspeare's Tempest, where Ariel alludes to the high surf around this island.

The sea breezes at Bermuda come on about noon, and last till day-dawn.

In those latitudes the sun shines out instantaneously on the break of dawn.

The Peterel is a bird found in the frozen seas; its neck and tail are white, and its wings of a bright blue.

“In the course of the last 24 hours, we passed through several fields of broken ice; they were in gencral narrow, but of considerable extent. In one part the pieces of ice were so close, that the ship had much difficulty to thread them.”

“Our sails and rigging were so frozen, that they seemed plates of iron.”

The breaking of one of these immense mountains of ice, and the prodigious noise it made, is particularly described in Cook's second voyage to the South Pole.

“After running four leagues this course, with the ice on our starboard side, we found ourselves quite embayed, the ice extending from north-north-east, round by the west and south, to east, in one compact body; the weather was tolerably clear, yet we could see no end to it.”

“To carry a green branch in the hand on landing, is a pacific signal, universally understood by all the islanders in the South Seas.”

The exchange of names is a pledge of amity among these islanders, and was frequently proposed by them to Captain Cook and his people; so also is the joining noses.

Captain Cook left various kinds of animals upon this coast, together with garden-seeds, &c. The Zealanders had hitherto subsisted upon fish, and such coarse vegetables as their climate produced; and this want of better provision, it is supposed, induced them to the horrid practice of eating human flesh.

The coral rocks are described as rising perpendicularly from the greatest depths of the ocean, insomuch that the sounding-line could not reach their bottom; and yet they were but just covered with water. These rocks are now found to be fabricated by sea-insects.

“We had now passed several months with a man constantly in the chains heaving the lead.”

“On one part of this isle there was a solitary rock, rising on the coast with arched cavities, like a majestic temple.”

Flora is the Goddess of modern Botany, and Fauna of modern Zoology: hence the pupils of Linnæus call their books Flora Anglica—Fauna Danica, &c. “The Flora of one of these islands contained 30 new plants.”

In New Zealand is a flag of which the natives make their nets and cordage. The fibres of this vegetable are longer and stronger than our hemp and flax; and some, manufactured in London, is as white and glossy as fine silk. This valuable vegetable will probably grow in our climate.

The Kangroo is an animal peculiar to those climates. It is perpetually jumping along on its hind legs, its fore legs being too short to be used in the manner of other quadrupeds.

“The Poi-bird, common in those countries, has feathers of a fine mazarine blue, except those of the neck, which are of a beautiful silver grey; and two or three short white ones, which are in the pinion-joint of the wing. Under its throat hang two little tufts of curled white feathers, called its poies, which, being the Otaheitean word for ear-rings, occasioned our giving that name to the bird; which is not more remarkable for the beauty of its plumage, than for the exquisite melody of its note.”

The bats which captain Cook saw in some of these countries were of incredible dimensions, measuring three feet and a half in breadth, when their wings were extended.

“As we passed this island, many of its trees had an unusual appearance, and the richness of the vegetation much invited our naturalists to land, but their earnest wishes were in vain, from the dangerous reefs and the violence of the surfs.”

Captain Cook observes, in his second voyage, that the women of Otaheite were grown more modest, and that the barbarous practice of destroying their children was lessened.

The Morai is a kind of funeral altar, which the people of Otaheite raise to the memory of their deceased friends. They bring to it a daily tribute of fruits, flowers, and the plumage of birds. The chief mourner wanders around it in a state of apparent distraction, shrieking furiously, and striking at intervals a shark's tooth into her head. All people fly her, as she aims at wounding not only herself, but others.

Milton, in his Paradise Lost, uses that fine old word, synonimous to the common word frozen.

Also Spencer,

—This Ode was written at the end of that remarkable fine year, 1779, during which there was scarce any winter; but at that period England was involved in the ruinous miseries of the American war.

Goddess of Vengeance.

Alluding to captain Donellan's murder of sir Theodosius Boughton by laurel-water—an event, which at that time agitated the public mind considerably.

See the Dying Indian in Dodsley's poems:

Alluding to the conquest by Lord Cornwallis.

The Court-martial decree, signed at Tappan, for Major Andre's execution.

The name by which Mr Andre addressed the author in his correspondence with her.

Mr Andre had conspicuous talents for poetry, music, and painting. The newspapers mentioned a satiric poem of his upon the Americans, which was supposed to have stimulated their barbarity towards him. Of his wit and vivacity, the letters subjoined to this poem afford ample proof. They were addressed to the author by Mr Andre when he was a Youth of eighteen.

Miss Honora S---, to whom Mr Andre's attachment was of such singular constancy, died in a consumption, a few months before he suffered death at Tappan. She had married another gentleman, four years after her connection with Mr Andre had, by parental authority, been dissolved. To that marriage her father gave a reluctant consent. So groundless was the idea of the Reviewers, who, when this poem was first published, imagined, from some expressions, whose sense they had mistaken, that she was urged into wedlock against her inclination.

Mr Andre drew two miniature pictures of Miss Honora S---, on his first acquaintance with her at Buxton, in the year 1769, one for himself, the other for the author of this poem.

The tidings of Honora's marriage: Upon that event Mr Andre quitted his profession as a merchant, and joined our army in America.

“I have a mother, and three sisters, to whom the value of my commission would be an object, as the loss of Grenada has much affected their income. It is needless to be more explicit on this subject, I know your Excellency's goodness.” See major Andre's last letter to General clinton, published in the Gazette.

The miniature of Honora. A letter from Major Andre to one of his friends, written at that period, contained the following sentence. “I have been taken prisoner by the Americans, and stript of every thing except the picture of Honora, which I concealed in my mouth. Preserving that, I yet think myself fortunate.”

Julius Cæsar, act 4. sc. 4.

The concurrent testimony even of the British officers, during the years which have elapsed since this poem was first published, acquits general Washington of that imputed cruelty, which had so forcibly impressed the grieved heart of the author, concerning the sacrifice of major Andre's life. They acknowledge that there was but one way to have saved the gallant sufferer, viz. by general Arnold having been given up in exchange, who had fled to the English army. It was believed by the American officers, that general Arnold had so taken his measures, that if the projected interview with Andre had been discovered, while they were together, it might have been in his power to have sacrificed Andre to his own safety. This report was urged to the prisoner by an American officer, commissioned from general Washington, who wished his preservation, to induce him to write to general Clinton, requesting him to propose the exchange—but major Andre would not listen a moment to the suggestion. However, though it is urged, that general Washington could not, with safety to himself, and justice to his country, set aside the decision of the court-martial, surely it was in his power to have rendered the manner in which major Andre was to suffer, less wounding to the sensibility of an intrepid spirit.

The place where major Andre was put to death.

Our whole army in America went into mourning for major Andre, a distinguished tribute to his merit.

This Ode was written on the publication of Mr Hayley's Triumphs of Temper.

Elfin Sprite.—Sophrosyne, the Goddess of Mr Hayley's supernatural machinery in that poem.