No mellower harvest! Thirteen hundred years That heaved beneath the moonlight with the throng Of cheerful creatures, whose most sinful deeds When Vice walks forth with her unsoften'd terrors, The sick man's lightning half an hour ere death, Of the cold staggering race which Death is winning, The everlasting to be which hath been, Are of as high an order-they must go Even where their driver goads them, though to slaughter. Ye men, who pour your blood for kings as water, What have they given your children in return? A heritage of servitude and woes, A blindfold bondage, where your hire is blows. All that your sires have left you, all that Time And worse than all, the sudden crimes engender'd, And thirst to swallow the sweet waters tender'd The cup which brings oblivion of a chain Heavy and sore,-in which long yoked they plough'd 'Twas not for them, their necks were too much bow'd, She drank no blood, nor fatten'd on the dead, But gladden'd where her harmless conquests spread; O'er the three fractions of the groaning globe; A sceptre, and endures the purple robe; Whose vigorous offspring by dividing ocean May strike to those whose red right hands have bought Foreign Intelligence. FRANCE. School for Naturalists and Botanists.-The king of France has lately created, on the proposition of the minister of the Interior, a school for young naturalists; it is attached to the Jardin du Roi, and directed by the professors of that establishment. The intention is, that after having received instruction sufficient, these students should visit different parts of the world, at the expense and for the advantage of the state. The excursions they will undertake will be conformable to Itineraries traced by the professors; avoiding countries already sufficiently known. All their researches will be directed to useful ends. This institution, which promises happy results, is a seed, in its nature abundantly prolific; but, which eventually may develop itself to the great profit of the philosophic world: and perhaps may prove the germ of an association of naturalists, in more countries than one. Universal Alphabet.-M. Volney, peer of France, well known by former works, has lately published a volume on the application of the European alphabet to the languages of Asia; he describes it as an elementary work, useful to all travellers into the oriental continent. This writer had already published a tract entitled Simplification of Eastern languages, or a new and easy method of learning the Arabic, the Persian, and the Turkish languages, by means of the European characters. Paris, 1795. By means of the Roman alphabet with certain additional signs, the author proposes to express all the Asiatic idioms, and thereby to facilitate our researches into the dialects, the history, the sciences, the arts, and the immense literary treasures of Asia; at the same time, these acquisitions would support and enlarge the commercial connexions of Europe with the original country of the hu man race. This work is dedicated to the Academy at Calcutta. The first part of it comprizes the definitions as well of the general system of sounds pronounced, as of the system of letters, or signs by which those sounds are expressed. In the second part the author considers all the vocal enunciations and tones used among Europeans. They amount to nineteen or twenty vowels, and thirty-two consosants, almost the same as those of the richest languages of Asia; the Sanscrit particularly, according to several of its alphabets. The twenty-five, or twenty six letters of the Roman alphabet are not adequate to the notation of all the variations of voice. But this alphabet has the valuable advantage of offering the most simple forms, and of being employed throughout Europe, in America, and in all the European colonies of Asia. M. Volney proposes to render it universal, by obtaining from itself other simple signs, necessary to mark additional sounds. In the third part of his work, the author reduces his theory to practice, by applying it to the Arabic alphabet, which is one of the most complicated of the Asiatics, though not so vicious in its application as the thousand hyphen'd Sanscrit. The same process applies to the Turkish, the Persian, the Syriac, the Hebrew, the Ethiopian, &c.; and even to Sanscrit and the Chinese. The curious in etymology will find in this work many new and learned applications of the powers of the letters: and we have somewhat enlarged on its nature, because it may prove extremely useful to the preparatory studies of our youth destined for Asia; not to notice the additional assistance it may afford to the practical conduct and advantage of gentlemen, whose situations oblige them to daily intercourse with Asiatics of various provinces, some of whose languages are acquired with difficulty, or but imperfectly, after much labour and time spent in studying them. GREECE. State of Literature. The progress of that civilization which is the constant attendant or consequence of letters, continues to be rapid. The number of schools of the second order, Gymnasia, augments daily. The principal establishments of the kind are at Smyrna, at Kydonios (a small town of eight or ten thousand inhabitants, opposite the island of Lesbos) and in the island of Chios. A young man, a native of Kydonios, mentioned above, has staid long enough in the printing-office of M. Didot, at Paris, to perfect himself in the art of printing. Also, a daughter of the professor of the Gymnasium in that town, named Erianthia, not more than eighteen years of age, has translated into modern Greek, Fenelon's work on the Education of Daughters. The inhabitants of Chios have held meetings for the purpose of raising subscriptions in order to establish a public library. HOLLAND. Public Instruction: gratis.-We learn from the last annual Report of the Schools for giving gratuitous instruction at Amsterdam, that in the eleven schools of this description, three thousand six hundred and fifty children received the rudiments of education, gratis: to which may be added, about eight hundred others who received instruction in the evening schools. Interesting New The Addresses of the Philadelphia Society for the promotion of National Industry-collected in one vol. 8vo. pp. 276.-M. Carey and Son. The History of the Lives of Abelard and Heloisa, with their genuine letters, &c. by the Rev. J. Berington, with a beautiful coloured plate.-Republished by Abm. Small. Publications. The recent alterations in the bounda ry lines of counties and townships. New counties; their seats of justice and distance from the state capital. Post offices, if established since the year 1818. The latitude and longitude of new towns, and other important points. Roads and projected canals, with the names of the streams, &c. which they are intended to connect. Minerals, and mineral springs of recent discovery. Soil, products, and face of the coun try. Natural curiosities. Indian antiquities, with the origin of Indian names. The principal bridges, water-falls, and lighthouses. The head of sloop navigation, on the principal streams. The altitude, situation, and course of mountains, with their local names. Errors in existing maps, with hints for their correction. *** Information on any of the above heads, or other intelligence which will contribute to the accuracy of the work, will be thankfully received by the publishers, Messrs. Tanner, Vallance, Kearny, and Co. Philadelphia. |