Relate, inspiring muse! where shall I find A blooming virgin with an angel mind? Unblemish'd as the white-rob'd virgin quire That fed, O Rome! thy consecrated fire? By reason aw'd, ambitions to be good, Averse to vice, and zealous for her God! Relate, in what blest region can I find Such bright perfections in a female mind? What phoenix-woman breathes the vital air So greatly good, and so divinely fair? Sure not the gay and fashionable train, Licentious, proud, immoral, and profane; Who spend their golden hours in antic dress, Malicious whispers, and inglorious ease.

Lo! round the board a shining train appears
In rosy beauty, and in prime of years!
This hates a flounce, and this a flounce approves,
This shows the trophies of her former loves;
Polly avers, that Sylvia drest in green,

When last at church the gaudy nymph was seen;
Chloe condemns her opties; and will lay
'Twas azure sattin, interstreak'd with grey;
Lucy, invested with judicial power,
Awards 'twas neither,-and the strife is o'er.
Then parrots, lap dogs, monkeys, squirrels, beaux,
Fans, ribands, tuckers, patches, furbeloes,
In quick succession, thro' their fancies run,
And dance incessant, on the flippant tongue.
And when, fatigu'd with ev'ry other sport,
The belles prepare to grace the sacred court,
They marshal all their forces in array,
To kill with glances, and destroy in play.
Two skilful maids with reverential fear,
In wanton wreaths collect their silken hair;

Two paint their cheeks, and round their temples pour

The fragrant unguent, and the ambrosial shower;
One pulls the shape-creating stays; and one
Encircles round her waist the golden zone;
Not with more toil to improve immortal charms,
Strove Juno, Venus, and the queen of arms,
When Priam's son adjudg'd the golden prize,
To the resistless beauty of the skies.

At length, equip'd in Love's enticing arms,
With all that glitters, and with all that charms,
The ideal goddesses to church repair,
Peep thro' the fan, and mutter o'er a pray'r,
Or listen to the organ's pompous sound,
Or eye the gilded images around;
Or, deeply studied in coquettish rules,
Aim wily glances at unthinking fools;
Or show the lily hand with graceful air,
Or wound the fopling with a lock of hair:
And when the hated discipline is o'er,
And misses tortur'd with repent, no more,
They mount the pictur'd coach; and, to the play,
The celebrated idols hie away.

Not so the lass that should my joys improve,
With solid friendship, and connubial love:
A native bloom, with intermingled white,
Should set her features in a pleasing light;
Like Helen flushing with unrival'd charms,
When raptur'd Paris darted in her arms.
But what, alas! avails a ruby cheek,
A downy bosom, or a snowy neck!
Charms ill supply the want of innocence,
Nor beauty forms intrinsic excellence:
But in her breast let moral beauties shine,
Supernal grace and purity divine:
Sublime her reason, and her native wit
Unstrain'd with pedantry, and low conceit;
Her fancy lively, and her judgment free
From female prejudice and bigotry:
Averse to idol pomp, and outward show,

The flatt'ring coxcomb, and fantastic beau
The fop's impertinence she should despise,
Tho' sorely wounded by her radiant eyes;
But pay due rev're ice to the exalted mind,
By learning polish'd, and by wit refin'd,
Who all her virtues, without guile, commends,
And all her faults as freely reprehenda
Soft Hymen's rites her passion should approve,
And in her bosom glow the flames of love:
To me her soul, by sa red friendship, turn,
And I, for her, with equal friendship bura:
In ev'ry stage of life afford relief,
Partake my joys, and sympathize my grief;
Unshaken, walk in Virtue's peaceful road,
Nor bribe her Reason to pursue the mode;
Mild as the saint whose errors are forgiv'n,
Calm as a vestal, and compos'd as heaven.
This be the partner, this the lovely wife,
That should embellish and prolong my life,
A nymph! who might a second fall inspire,
And fill a glowing cherub with desire!
With her I'd spend the pleasurable day,
While fleeting minutes gayly danc'd away:
With her I'd walk, delighted, o'er the green,
Thro' ev'ry blooming mead, and rural scene;
Or sit in open fields damask'd with flow'rs,

Or where cool shades imbrown the noon-tide bow'rs
Imparadis'd within my eager arms,

I'd reign the happy monarch of her charms;
Oft on her panting bosom would I lay,
And in dissolving raptures melt away;
Then lull'd, by nightingales, to balmy rest,
My blooming fair should slumber at my breast.

CONCLUSION.

And when decrepid age (fɛail mortals' doom) Should bend my wither'd body to the tomb, No warbling syrens should retard my flight To heavenly mansions of unclouded light. Tho' Death, with his imperial horrors crown'd, Terrific grinn'd, and formidably frown'd, Offences pardon'd and remitted sin, Should form a calm serenity within: Blessing my natal and my mortal hour, (My soul committed to the eternal pow'r) Inexorable Death should smile, for I Who knew to live, would never fear to die.

JAMES OTIS,

THE first writer of the Revolution, was born in Barnstable, Feb. 5, 1724. He was prepared for Harvard College by the Rev. Jonathan Russell, and graduated in 1743. Eighteen months after he commenced the study of law in the office of Jeremiah Gridley, and was admitted in 1748, at Plymouth, where he resided. Two years after he removed to Boston. His practice soon became extensive. In 1755, he married Miss Ruth Cunningham, the daughter of a merchant of Boston. In 1760, he was engaged in the famous case of the Writs of Assistance-a new regulation introduced by the English government, by which the courts were called upon to protect the officers of the customs in forcibly entering and searching the premises of merchants in quest of dutiable goods. Pending the application to the Superior Court for these writs, Sewell, the chief justice, died, and Lt. Gov. Hutchinson was appointed his successor. The elder Otis condemned this multiplication of offices in the hands of one person, and this opposition and the future proceedings of himself and son have been charged against them as instigated by revenge, he having expected the

office himself. The charge is branded as an "execrable lie" by John Adams. Otis defended the merchants in this case, and with success. "American Independence was then and there born." His speech was widely circulated, and its author was elected to the State Legislature in May, 1761. In 1762, he published a pamphlet, entitled A Vindication of the Conduct of the House of Representatives. It was a defence of an address to the governor in answer to his message announcing an addition to the armament of the Massachusetts sloop (a small matter in itself, but involving the principle of the expenditure of the public money without the action of the legislature). This address, drawn up by Otis, contained the following passage: "It would be of little consequence to the people whether they were subject to George or Louis, the king of Great Britain or the French king, if both were arbitrary, as both would be, if both could levy taxes without Parliament." A member cried out "treason" when it was read, but the address was passed by a large majority. "How many volumes," says John Adams, "are concentrated in this little fugitive pamphlet! Look over the Declarations of Rights and Wrongs, issued by Congress in 1774. Look into the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Look into the writings of Dr. Price and Dr. Priestley. Look into all the French constitutions of government, and, to cap the climax, look into Mr. Thomas Paine's Common Sense, Crisis, and Rights of Man; what can you find that is not to be found in solid substance in this Viudication of the House of Representatives?"

Games Ctr

In 1764, Otis's Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved, a pamphlet of 120 pages 8vo., appeared. Its argument is given with admirable concision in the summary near its close.

The sum of my argument is, that civil government is of God, that the administrators of it were

John Adams,

originally the whole people; that they might have devolved it on whom they pleased: that this devolution is fiduciary, for the good of the whole: that by the British constitution, this devolution is on the king, lords, and commons, the supreme, sacred, and uncontrollable legislative power, not only in the abdication, the original compact was broken to realm, but through the dominions: that by the pieces; that by the revolution it was renewed, and inore firmly established, and the rights and liberties of the subject in all parts of the dominions more fully explained and confirmed: that in consequence of this establishment and the acts of succession and union, his Majesty George III. is rightful king and sovereign, and with his parliament, the supreme legislative of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, and the dominions thereunto belonging: that this constitution is the most free one, and by far the best now existing on earth: that by this constitution, every man in the dominions is a free man: that no part of his Majesty's dominions can be taxed without their consent: that every part has a right to be represented in the supreme or some subordi nate legislature, that the refusal of this would seem to be a contradiction in practice to the theory of the constitution: that the colonies are subordinate dominions, and are now in such a state, as to make it best for the good of the whole that they should not only be continued in the enjoyment of subordi. nate legislation, but be also represented in some proportion to their number and estates in the grand legislation of the nation: that this would firmly unite all parts of the British empire, in the greatest peace and prosperity; and render it invulnerable and perpetual.

Otis was elected to the first or Stamp Act Congress, but after the publication of his last work took a less prominent part in public debate.

Sept. 4, 1769, he published an advertisement in the Boston Gazette, denouncing the commissioners of the customs who had sent over to England false and libellous charges against him. The next evening he met Robinson, one of these persons, in a coffee-house. An altercation ensued, Robinson struck him with a cane, Otis returned the blow, was attacked by a number of Robinson's adherents, and received a severe wound in the head-which is generally supposed to have led to the insanity which soon after made its appearance, and incapacitated him for future public or professional exertion. He brought an action against Robinson, and recovered £2000 damages, which he refused to accept. He retired from the legislature in 1770, and was re-elected in 1771, but did not take any important part in the debates. He withdrew the same year, and passed the remainder of his life at Barnstable and Andover, where he was struck by lightning, May 23, 1783, and died instantaneously. His life has been written by William Tudor.*

ADVANTAGES OF REPRESENTATION.

A representation in Parliament from the several colonies, since they are become so large and nume. rous, as to be called on not only to maintain provincial government, civil and military, among themselves, for this they have cheerfully done, but to contribute towards the support of a national standing army, by reason of the heavy national debt, when they themselves owe a large one, con

• Life of James Otia, of Massachusetts, Boston, 1898.

tracted in the common cause, cannot be thought an unreasonable thing, nor if asked, could it be called an immodest request. Qui sentit commodum sentire debet et onus, has been thought a maxim of equity, But that a man should bear a burthen for other people, as well as himself, without a return, never long found a place in any law-book or decrees, but those of the most despotic princes. Besides the equity of an American representation in parliament, a thousand advantages would result from it. It would be the most effectual means of giving those of both countries a thorough knowledge of each other's interests, as well as that of the whole, which are inseparable.

Were this representation allowed, instead of the scandalous memorials and depositions that have been sometimes, in days of old, privately cooked up in an inquisitorial manner, by persons of bad minds and wicked views, and sent from America to the several boards, persons of the first reputation among their countrymen might be on the spot, from the several colonies, truly to represent them. Future ministers need not, like some of their predecessors, have recourse for information in American affairs, to every vagabond stroller, that has run or rid post through America, from his creditors, or to people of no kind of credit from the colonies.

JAMES BOWDOIN

Was born in Boston, August 7, 1726. He was of Huguenot descent; his grandfather Pierre Baudouin having been a refugee from France on the revocation of the edict of Nantes, who, living for a short time in Ireland, in 1687 was an applicant to Governor Andros, in New England, for a grant of land in Maine. His son, James Bowdoin, became a wealthy merchant of Boston; and his son James, of whom we are writing, inherited a handsome paternal fortune. He was educated under Ma-ter Lovell at the South Grammar School of the city, and was a graduate of Harvard of 1745. At twenty-four years of age he had visited Franklin in Philadelphia, and disclosed a taste for scientific pursuits which induced the philosopher, then twenty years his senior, to communicate to him his papers on Electricity. This was the beginning of a correspondence by which the friends have become united in reputation. A resume of this scientific connexion is given by the Hon. R.C. Winthrop, a descendant of Bowdoin, in his address on the Life and Services of Bowdoin.*

At the outset of this correspondence, Bowdoin appears to have availed himself of the invitation to make observations on Franklin's theories and specu lations, with somewhat more of independence of opinion than might have been expected from the disparity of their ages. One of his carliest letters (21st Dec. 1751) suggested such forcible objections to the hypothesis, that the sea was the grand source of electricity, that Franklin was led to say in his re ply, (24th January, 1752,)—"I grow more doubtful of my former supposition, and more ready to allow weight to that objection, (drawn from the activity of the electric fluid and the readiness of water to conduct,) which you have indeed stated with great strength and clearness" In the following year Franklin retracted this hypothesis altogether. The saine letter of Bowdoin's contained an elaborate explication of the cause of the crooked direction of lightning, which Franklin pronounced, in his reply,

Winthrop Maine Historical Soc. Address, 1849, pp. 10–12.

to be "both ingenious and solid," adding, "when we can account as satisfactorily for the electrification of clouds, I think that branch of natural philosophy will be nearly complete."

In a subsequent letter, Bowdoin suggested a theory in regard to the luminousness of water under certain circumstances, ascribing it to the presence of minute phosphorescent animals, of which Franklin said, in his reply, (13th Dec. 1753,)- The observations you made of the sea water emitting more or less light in different tracts passed through by your boat, is new, and your mode of accounting for it ingenious. It is, indeed, very possible, that an extremely small animalcule, too small to be visible even by our best glasses, may yet give a visible light." This theory has since been very generally received.

Franklin soon after paid our young philosopher the more substantial and unequivocal compliment of sending his letters to London, where they were read at the Royal Society, and published in a volume with his own. The Royal Society, at a later day, made Bowdoin one of their fellows; and Franklin writing to Bowdoin from London, Jan. 13, 1772, says: "It gives me great pleasure that my book afforded any to my friends. I esteem those letters of yours among its brightest ornaments, and have the satisfaction to find that they add greatly to the reputation of American philosophy."

He bore a leading part in the political agitations of the times, in opposition to the parliamentary and local government tyranny; and was an carly advocate of the union of the Colonies. He was a member of the Colonial Council, where his patriotism rendered him an object of dread to Governor Bernard and Hutchinson, while he was specially set aside by the English home government. He was elected to the Old Continental Congress and prevented attendance only by family illness. His own health was weak, and his life became a long consumptive disease; but he was always vigorous in public affairs. In 1785, he became Governor of the Commonwealth, in the discharge of the duties of which he applied all his energies to the suppression of Shay's Rebellion against law and order. He lived to see his efforts for union fully established in the formation of the Federal Constitution; received Washington, with whom he had conferred on the perilous heights of Dorchester, in 1776, at his house in Boston in 1789; and on the 6th of November, 1790, followed, after an interval of a few months, his old friend Franklin to the grave.

Besides his participation in Franklin's discoveries, he has a claim upon our attention here as a contributor to the Pietas et Gratulatio, the volume of Cambridge poeins on the accession of George III., to which he contributed three articles,* and the author of a volume of verses published anonymously in Boston, in 1759. His Paraphrase of the Economy of Human Life furnishes at least a pleasing study of the tastes of the man and the period. He was a fellow of the Corporation of Harvard College, subscribed liberally to its funds, and left the institution a handsome legacy to be applied to the encouragement of literature in premiums among the students. Ho was one of the founders and first Presidents of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Boston, and published a philosophical discourse on

• Anie, p. 18.

year, and in the following September received the Master's degree, being regarded as one of the ablest scholars the institution had produced. In 1752, finding the exertion of preaching prejudicial to his health, and influenced to some extent by religious doubts, by which his mind was then disturbed, he commenced the study of the law, with a view to a change in his career. In 1754, he made a tour to Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, with great benefit to his health. In April of the following year, he accepted an invitation to preach during the college vacation, at Newport, R. I., and soon after receivel a call to retain the position permanently. After much deliberation, he determined to abandon the law and accept the appointment. He had previously, by laborious study and earnest thought, dispelled the theological difficulties which had disturbed his mind, and was realy to devote himself with earnestness and zeal to his sacred calling. His clerical duties did not, however, prevent his attention to the scientific and philological studies in which he also delighted.

In 1757, he married Elizabeth, daughter of Col. John Hubbard, of New Haven.

A discourse delivered on the public thank-giving for the capture of Montreal, September 8, 1769, shows him to have been among the first to foresee American Independence. He says: "It is probable that, in time, there will be formed a Provincial Confederacy, and a Common Council, standing on free provincial suffrage: and this may, in time, terminate in an imperial diet, when the imperial dominion will subsist, as it ought, in election." In July, 1766, he was urged to allow himlf to be proposed as a candidate for the presideney of Yale College, but declined. The proposal

Ezra Stiles

lege, he accepted the office, and commenced its duties, June 23, 1778.

In the spring vacation of 1780, the British having evacuated Newport, the President paid a visit to his old congregation. The church had been desecrated by the enemy, who had put up a chimney in the middle of it, and demolished all the pews and seats below, and in the galleries, but had left the pulpit standing. My little zealous flock," says the President, "took down the chimney, and cleansed the meeting house, and then procured some benches, made for the king's troops' entertainment and left behind: so that we attended divine service very conveniently, though with a pleasure intermixed with tender grief." He retained his Presidency with high honor to himself and usefulness to the institution, until his death, May 12, 1795.

Dr. Stiles was an indefatigable student throughout his life. By the aid of a Jewish acquaintance in Newport, he instructed himself in Hebrew, and afterwards acquired an acquaintance with the other oriental languages. He corresponded with the Jesuits on the geography of California, with Greek bishops on the physical formation of Palestine and the adjacent countries, and addressed queries of a scientific and philological nature to travellers from the interior of Africa, Behring's Straits, and other remote regions. The lato Chancellor Kent, who was one of Stiles's pupils in the college, has paid a handsome tribute to the warmth and character of his political principles and personal virtues: "President Stiles's zeal for civil and religious liberty was kindled at the altar of the English and New England Puritans, and it was animating and vivid. A more constant and devoted friend to the Revolution and independence of this country never existed. He had anticipated it as early as the year 1760, and his whole soul was enlisted in favor of every measuro which led on gradually to the formation and establishment of the American Union. The fre quent appeals which he was accustomed to make to the heads and hearts of his pupils, concerning the slippery paths of youth, the grave duties of life, the responsibilities of man, and the perils, and hopes, and honors, and destiny of our coun try, will never be forgotten by those who heard them; and especially when he came to touch, as he often did, with a master's hand and prophet's fire,' on the bright vision of the future prosperity and splendor of the United States. . . . . Take him for all in all, this extraordinary man was undoubtedly one of the purest and best gifted men of his age. In addition to his other eminent attainments he was clothed with humility, with tenderness of heart, with disinterested kindness, and with the most artless simplicity. was distinguished for the dignity of his deportment, the politeness of his address, and the urbanity of his manners. Though he was uncoinpromising in his belief and vindication of the great fundamental doctrines of the Protestant faith, he was nevertheless of a most charitable and catholic temper, resulting equally from the benevolence of his disposition and the spirit of the Gospel."

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