In our opening paper we congratulated our auditors on the number of contributions with which our readings commenced, and considered it as a proof of the pleasure received, and the advantages derived from a periodical stimulus to the exertion of their talents. We have not less reason to be satisfied with the productions which will be read this evening and we look forward with a well founded hope of a brilliant season.
The first poem entitled “Love and a Cottage” is a pleasant and ingenious ridicule on those effusions which young ladies and gentlemen, ignorant of the cares and duties of life, are apt to pour forth in verse and prose to the annoyance of the wiser part of their readers, and to the injury of those who are as ignorant and as sentimental as themselves. The Anagrammatical Charade will afford a little amusement to unravel its meaning, and cannot but be pleasing to the person it is intended to compliment. Of the “Nine Lines” written “by way of apology for eight” it is proper to premise that a bracelet had strayed from the arm of one of our correspondents (One to whom the Muses have been lavish of their choicest favours and to whom the Attic Chest is indebted for some of its most brilliant gems,) which was taken up and restored by a discourteous knight, without any compliment or a single expression of civility. The poor wight was probably too happy to have preserved it for the owner to think of rhyming about it, but the lady — expected verses for sooth, an ode, an elegy, or an epigram — and being disappointed even of a promise threatened to shew her sense of his neglect in eight lines for the Chest, but her anger however could not be kept within the proscribed limits, and so elegantly has she expressed her resentment that the gentleman tho’ he may lament his inattention or inability cannot but be delighted with the consequences. The fair writer encourages such delinquency by honouring it with such notice.
The song to the air of “Waly, Waly, Love is bonnie” is an excellent imitation of the style and manner of Burns. The Rosicrucian has puzzled us completely with his old philosophical Ænigma Unriddled. We wot not what he means by the old Ænigma, nor ween how that can be unriddled which still remains utterly incomprehensible. We fear that like one we formerly alluded to beginning “Alia Lelia Crispus” it will remain for ever unknown unless the profound philosopher in compassion to the foolosopher will unbutton the old fashioned quaint-cut doublet of the subject and exhibit him in his native nakedness. However to stimulate our friends to attempt the unravelling of this Gordian web, The Editress promises to reward the successful operator with a plauditory stanza after her best and newest fashion provided the answer is the produce of mother-wit unaided by previous knowledge or auxiliary information.
We know not which of our correspondents has instigated the quarrel between Tuesday and Wednesday of which the first intimation was received from the facetious poem called Vox Planetarum, read at our last meeting; but the glove that was then thrown down on the part of Mercury we learn from the Vox Stellarum, to be read this evening, has been taken up by Mars and we are threatened with a squabble among the constellations. How this important contest will end we are unable to conjecture without the assistance of our learned friend the egregious Dr. Moore, who in all things relative to the intentions of the celestial bodies sees as far into the millstone as he that picks it. “The Lawyer and the soldier roasted” is a pleasant description of a ludicrous incident and a good delineation of a character not uncommon, that of affected delicacy — a sensibility which trembles at trifles and is overcome with apprehension when no danger exists. Extreme sensibility when real is distressing to those of firmer nerves and often causes the danger which it is most anxious to avoid, but when it is factitious instead of pitying we view it with contempt. This species of affectation we think has been encouraged by some lines in Thomson’s Seasons which follow his ludicrous description of fox hunting and the scene of boisterous conviviality which concludes the fox hunter’s day.
In them ’tis graceful to dissolve at woe
With every motion, every word to wave
Quick o’er the kindling cheek the ready blush;
And from the smallest violence to shrink
Unequal, then the loveliest in their fears;
And by this silent adulation, soft,
To their protection more engaging man.
We shall subjoin the whole of the passage, because with exception of the lines above quoted we recommend it to our auditors as containing the most beautiful enumeration of the accomplishments and duties of the fair sex that poetry can furnish.
But if the rougher sex by this fierce sport
Is hurried wild, let not such horrid joy
E’er stain the bosom of the British fair.
Far be the spirit of the chase from them!
Uncomely courage, unlessening skill;
To spring the fence, to rein the prancing steed;
The cap, the whip, the masculine attire,
In which they roughen to the sense, and all
The winning softness of their sea is lost.
In them ’tis graceful to dissolve at woe;
With every motion, every word, to wave
Quick o’er the kindling cheek the ready blush;
And from the smallest violence to shrink
Unequal, then the loveliest in their fears;
And by this silent adulation, soft,
To their protection more engaging man.
O may their eyes no miserable sight,
Save weeping lovers, see! a nobler game,
Thro’ Jove’s enchanting wiles pursued, yet fled,
In chase ambiguous. May their tender limbs
Float in the loose simplicity of dress!
And, fashion’d all to harmony, alone
Know they to seize the captivated soul,
In rapture warbled from love-breathing lips;
To teach the lute to languish; with smooth step,
Disclosing motion in its every charm,
To swim along, and swell the mazy dance;
To train the foliage o’er the snowy lawn;
To guide the pencil, turn the tuneful page;
To lend new flavour to the fruitful year,
And heighten nature’s dainties; in their race
To rear their graces into second life;
To give society its highest taste;
Well-ordered home man’s best delight to make;
And by submissive wisdom, modest skill,
With every gentle care-eluding art,
To raise the virtues, animate the bliss,
And sweeten all the toils of human life:
This be the female dignity, and praise.
We shall conclude our evening’s amusement with an extract from Mr. Southey’s Introduction to the Chronicle of The Cid on Mahommed and the effects of his religious system on the nations who embraced it. This is the most lucid dissertation we have met with on the subject and we think ourselves much obliged to the friend who transmitted it to us. Incidental acquisitions of great value are often buried in the work in which they originated and are thereby lost to all those not interested in the principal subject, or who have not leisure to peruse a ponderous quarto. We shall be glad to bring forward extracts of equal merits whenever our friends will favour us with them.
The sonnets on the Appearance and Departure of the Swallows in 1809, Verses to Maria, The Impatient Gnome, The Queen and her Three Daughters, The Ballad of Lord Edward, The Ode to a Pig while his nose was boring, The Grecian Anecdotes in prose, and several other compositions must be defer’d to a future evening.