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Away with such.-But let not wisdom scorn
Those purer works that sense and taste adorn;
Whose pages, never soiled by vice, admit
The force of genius, and the play of wit.
It is a crime with such, to while away
The listless moments of a languid day?
With them, the hour of trouble to beguile,
And raise, in spite of care, one sunny smile ?
With them in tender sympathy to glow,
And shed a tear for even fabled woe ?
No-they have soothed, in many a troubled soul,
The stubborn passions that disdained control;
Have roused the slumbering feelings, by their art,
And as they warmed the fancy, warmed the heart;
And they have given, and this enough we deem,
To you amusement ;-and to me a theme.

The Cave of Eolus.-Imitated from Virgil.

HIGH on a throne, within his vast domain,
The monarch Eolus rul'd a vassal train;
Reluctant winds fierce struggling he compell'd,
And threatening tempests in his prison held.
In murmurs hoarse, and haughty tones they rave,
And lash, indignant, their detested cave.

But He, serene in pow'r, his sceptre wields,
And by his nod control'd their fury yields,
Which did he not, their tyrant ire would sweep
The winnow'd earth to mingle with the deep;
Ere this, had rush'd to heav'n sublime, and hurl'd
The skies in chaos with a ruin'd world.

Once, to this warring cell, of troubled name,
With humbled step the haughty Juno came,
Surpriz'd the king perceiv'd the unwonted guest,
Her hurried accent, and her strange request.

Oh thou, to whom the Almighty Sire consign'd
The throne of storms, -the sceptre of the wind,-
A race by me detested spread their sails,
On Tyrrhene seas, from Troy's unpeopled vales,
And bear presumptuous to my lov'd abodes
Their batter'd armours, and their vanquish'd gods.
But thou, Imperial King, to whom is given
To rule the waves, and loose the winds of heaven,

Incite thy wildest pow'rs, that ceasless roam,
Like fetter'd pris'ners round thy vaulted dome,
In whirling gulphs their shatter'd vessels sweep,
And strew their corses o'er the boiling deep;
So shall thy vast and lonely hall display,
Such honours as the wife of Jove can pay.

,

H.

Imitation of the lines repeated by the poet Lucan, after his veins were opened, by order of the emperour Nero.

No more the blood distils in measures slow.
The gushing veins like eddying torrents flow,
The cold hands fail-the pulse no longer beats,
Life to her trembling citadel retreats-
Nerves the sunk heart to ward the dreaded blow,
Arms all her force to combat with her foe;
But death and destiny, with purpose dire,
Press to the fortress where her steps retire,-
Quench her pale taper, rend her feeble span,
And rise victorious o'er the strength of man.

H.

MISCELLANEOUS JOURNAL.

Boundaries of the United States.

THE provisions in the treaty of Ghent, relative to the boundaries of the United States, have excited considerable attention. The following summary may perhaps give some information on the subject.

The limits of the several states, which at the peace of 1783 became sovereign and independent, were originally described in ancient charters from the crown of Great Britain, or in derivative grants under those charters, which in many respects were inconsistent with each other, vague and extravagant, and often the same charter was inconsistent with itself.When these charters or grants were first made, but little more than the sea-coast of the American continent had been explored; and that was so imperfectly known that mistakes of an important nature in the relative situation and dependency of contiguous places are every where manifest. Indeed there seems to have been a very general opinion among the European grantors, that the continent of North America was bounded by a straight line on the ocean; and that the courses of its rivers made right angles with this line.

This ignorance of the country can excite but little surprise, when the slight means of obtaining better information are considered, especially since it was necessary that a grant should be made before possession could be taken, and of course that a portion of territory must be described, before it was possible to explore it.

Inasmuch however as natural landmarks were but little known or were uncertain in their position, it became convenient to portion out the several tracts by lines of latitude; and of course most of the ancient charters are bounded and de. scribed by this manner of description.

The intrinsick difficulty of accurately measuring these lines

had but little effect in producing the conflicting claims between proprietors of contiguous tracts, because most generally the country was again patented, before it was surveyed, and sometimes occupied, with nothing more than a conjectural regard to these astronomical limits. So far as this confusion was confined to the subjects of the same monarch, the difficulty admitted of a remedy. The King in council was considered as having a right to explain and interpret what was uncertain in those patents, and on various occasions undertook to give an equitable construction to the ambiguities of those that were more ancient, and to make such explanations of them, as a more correct knowledge of the country would permit.

The charter given by King James I. under the seal of Scotland to Sir William Alexander in 1621, is almost a solitary exception to the manner of ancient conveyances, and Sir William justly, though quaintly, boasts, that while other patents are imaginarily limited by degrees in the heavens, his is the first national patent clearly bounded by lines upon the earth."

This mode of conveyance has however its peculiar difficulties, and was not very generally adopted and when lines of latitude gave place to measured miles by direction of the compass, a confusion not less perplexing was soon found to be the consequence. The charter limits of some of the New England provinces, if they had been explained only by the language of the charters themselves, would have interfered with other territories, to which, by tacit consent at least, they disclaimed all title; and would have been more extensive than could possibly have been intended, when the charters were drawn. It is probable that an exact adherence to the literal phraseology of some of them, would have extended their limits from sea to sea, or from the Atlantick to the Pacifick Ocean, and that encroachments, under the broad words of conveyance, might be made on the Quebec, Nova Scotia and Florida governments, which in fact had never been attempted by the colonial proprietors when the whole country remained under one sovereign head.

For these and other causes the Plenipotentiaries, who negotiated the preliminary articles of peace between Great Britain and the United States in 1782, were not satisfied with an enumeration of the thirteen states by name, as being thereafter intended to form a new empire; but with an intention of avoiding all future misunderstanding, they defined the exteriour boundaries of those states in the following words.

And it is hereby agreed and declared that the following are and shall be the boundaries of the United States, viz. from the northwest angle of Nova Scotia, viz. that angle which is formed by a line drawn due north from the source of St. Croix river to the highlands, along the said highlands, which divide those rivers that empty themselves into the river St. Lawrence, from those which fall into the Atlantick ocean, to the northwesternmost head of Connecticut river; thence down along the middle of that river to the 45th degree of north latitude; from thence by a line due west on said latitude, until it strikes the river Irequois or Cataraquy, thence along the middle of said river into lake Ontario ; through the middle of said lake until it strikes the communication by water between that lake and lake Erie; thence along the middle of said communication into lake Erie; through the middle of said lake until it arrives at the water communication between that lake and lake Huron; thence through the middle of said lake to the water communication between that lake and lake Superiour; thence through lake Superiour northward of the isles Royal and the Philipeaux to the Long lake; thence through the middle of said Long lake and the water communication between it and the lake of the Woods to the said lake of the Woods; thence through the said lake to the most northwestern point thereof, and from thence on a due west course to the river Missisippi; thence by a line to be drawn along the middle of said river Missisippi until it shall intersect the northwesternmost part of the 31st degree of north latitude-south by a line to be drawn due east from the determination of the line last mentioned in the latitude of thirty one degrees north of the equator, to the middle of the river Apalachi cola, or Catahouche; thence along the middle thereof to its junction with the Flint river; thence strait to the head of St. Mary's river; and thence down along the middle of St. Mary's to the Atlantick ocean-east by a line to be drawn along the middle of the river St. Croix, from its mouth in the Bay of Fundy to its source; and from its source directly north to the aforesaid highlands, which divide the rivers that fall into the Atlantick ocean, from those that fall into the river St. Lawrence, comprehending all islands within twenty leagues of any part of the shores of the United States, and lying between lines to be drawn due east from the points where the aforesaid boundaries between Nova Scotia on the one part, and East Florida on the other, shall respectively touch the Bay of Fundy, and the Atlantick ocean, excepting