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overhanging its whole base in the most threatening manner. Sitting under the cover of this huge canopy, a shelter from the storm, the most interesting sketch, (for a single view,) of the whole Scar may be taken. The sweep of the cliff, inclo sing it on the opposite side, is serpen. tine; the fine swell, like a round tower, of one part of it, itself a fine object, bare, and of the perpendicular height of 300 feet, appears to shut up this circular chasm, by nearly joining with the opposite side. The colour of this cliff is more cheerful, particularly as the sun shines on it; a variety of trees overhang the precipice, and are seen on the ledges on its sides. Finely situated in the interval where these opposite sides nearly meet, a waterfall is seen midway dashing among large limestones, through which it breaks its way, over a bright yellow earth, till it forms the transparent stream at the bottom.

Walking farther into this first chasm, we are very agreeably surprised by the view of another cascade, a story higher, in an inner recess or chasm. This second chasm is much smaller, and also nearly round, but is only less remarkable than the first, by being of less dimensions. Its area, to which we climb up the rocks through which the water breaks its way, is level with the top of the waterfall first seen, and is then not flat, but filled with masses of rock that appear to have fallen.

In this recess, the water enters the Scar through a hole near the top, arched in a rude way, and makes a fall among the huge stones with which this chasm is filled, nearly as high as the one into the larger chasin, which is here seen below

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tiago, and secretary of the household of Dom Jorge, Duke of Coimbra; and of Mexia Froes Varella, who gave to their children that education which the nobility of their birth demanded. Froes followed the profession of arms, whist Antonio entered upon those studies, which afterwards conduced so much to his own advancement and the honour of Portugal.

The University of Coimbra was, at that time, in a very flourishing state, and, for its complete re-establishment, the most able masters in every department of literature had been invited by the King Dom Joao III. To this seminary, Antonio was sent by his parents to perfect himself in the Belles Lettres, and attend lectures in jurisprudence; studies them generally associated.

Under the immediate care of Diogo de Teive, who filled the second chair of phr lology, he studied the histories of antiquity, and the works of the Greek and Roman poets; and it is probable, that it was at this time he became attached to the writings of Horace, whose style he afterwards closely imitated. His progress was rapid, and his gratitude for the attentions of his tutor never deserted him; on the contrary, he has frequently men tioned him in terms equally honourable to the master and the scholar.*

To write elegantly in Latin was, at this period, esteemed, by the University and the kingdom at large, as one of the most desirable accomplishments. In this language, Diogo de Teive was eminently skilled; and it is a circumstance much to the credit of Ferreira, that, in this particular instance, he dissented from the prevailing opinion. He stemmed the torrent of custom, presenting, as Diogo Bernardes says, 66 so many beautiful verses to his country, and all in its own proper language." This circumstance also gained him the praise of Francisco de Sá de Miranda, who had previously adopted this measure, and whose steps Ferreira pursued. Not con tent with setting the example, he also forcibly recommends the practice.§ In

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a letter to Caminha, he thus describes the Portuguese language:

Floreça, fale, cante, onça-se e viva, A Portugueza lingua, e já onde for Senhora va de sé soberba, e altiva Se te qui esteve baixa, e sem louvor, Culpa the dos que a mal exercitaraō, Esquecimento nosso, e desamor. Warmed with the glorious design of enobling his national language by his compositions, he eagerly pursued his inclination; a feeling, which he cherished from his earliest years, and from which he received the purest delight. In the epigram, which forms the preface to the first part of his verses, he thus expresses

himself:

"Eu deste gloria só fico contente, Que a minha terra amei, e a minha gefte. This is my boast-the sweet content I feel, That I have lov'd my country and her weal." Having taken his degree of Doctor of Civil Law, he obtained a professorship at Coimbra, whence he went to Lisbon to enter upon the office of Desembargador na Relação. From this period he received repeated marks of royal favour, was made Desembargador da Casa da Supplicação, instituted by Joaō I. and appointed a Fidalgo of the royal house hold.

Although the services of the King prevented him from giving that attention to the Muses which he would otherwise have done, he never entirely deserted them. Many of his letters are dated from Lisbon, and were most probably written after his advancement. He had married previously to his quitting Coimbra; and, in a letter, written to his friend Manoel de Sampayo, before he commenced his journey, he paints, in lively colours, the lovely retirement of that city, and his preference of quiet enjoyment at a distance from the court, to the honours which awaited him. From his marriage, sprung one son, Miguel Leite Ferreira, the future editor of his father's works, and whose tender age, at his decease, precluded him from receiving the attentions, or knowing the virtues of his parent.

If the writings of men betray the secrets of their breasts, none represent this author more faithfully than those of Ferreira. His manners were such, as a good disposition generally imbibes from cultivation of talent, and from literature. He was humane and gentle, yet un

* Obras de Ferreira, Letter x, Book 1.

biassed in the distribution of justice. The friends of his youth were the friends of his whole life. Francisco de Sá de Menezes, Sá de Miranda, and Diogo De Teive, were by him denominated his masters; and the perusal of his works will shew, that the first and best poets of the age were his intimates, and that monarchs, princes, and nobles, were alike his patrons and friends.

Enjoying the most marked distinctions, and the highest reputation, he was cut off in his forty-first year, by the plague, which in 1569 raged in Lisbon; an event universally regretted, but more particu larly lamented by those who had partaken of his friendship. He was buried in the cross of the Convento do Carmo, in Lisbon, and a monument erected to his memory. The poets, who were his contemporaries, mourned over his death in elegics and sonnets, while historians, and other writers, are loud and lavish in his praise.*

The writings of Antonio Ferreira consist of almost every species of minor poetical composition-Castro, a tragedy; and two comedies, in prose. He had, it appears, so early as his twenty-ninth year, corrected and arranged them for publication; and his first sonnet was to have been the preface to the volume. This collection did not contain all his works; many of them, and particularly his Tragedy, were the fruits of his ma turer years. They remained in manuscript until 1598, when his son Miguel Leite Ferreira, edited and published them in a quarto volume, at Lisbon, at the press of Pedro Crasbeeck, with a dedication to Philip, the usurper of the Por tuguese throne. This edition embraced only his poetical works; his comedies being previously published by his son, jointly with those of Så de Miranda, in 1622. The greater part of the poems of Ferreira were composed in his youth, particularly his sonnets, in many of which he directs his discourse to the Mondego. In these compositions we have the history of the attachments which engaged his youthful mind, and in which he was un fortunate. The object of his first attachment, the stages of which may be traced

Antonio des Reis no Enthusiasmo Po etico.-Nicolao Antonio. Bibl. Hisp Tom. i. p. 93.-Manoel Severin de Faria, Disc. da Ling Port p. 82.-Oabbade Diogo Barbosa

Machado na Bibl. Lusit. Tom. i. p. 272.Candido Lusitano no Disc. prel, a sua Trad." Port, da Post. de Horacio, &c. from

from the earliest of his sonnets, up to the forty-fifth, resided at Lisbon; and to her were written some of the sweetest of our poet's strains. Why this connection was broken off we are not informed; but

Amo vive este corpo sem sua alma ?
Ah que o caminho tu bem me mostraste,
Porque correste a gloriosa palma !
Triste de quem naō mereceo seguir-te!

art rais'd,

SONNET.

it appears, by the following sonnet, that Pure soul, which now more pure in Heav'n he had recovered that liberty, which he was again soon doomed to lose, and as soon almost to weep the death of the lady who had ensnared his heart.

SONITO.

A ti torno, Mondego, claro rio,

Com outr'alma, outros olhos, e outra vida:
Que foi de tanta lagrima perdida,
Quanto em ti me levou hum desvario?
Quando en co rosto descorado, e frio

Soltava a voz chorosa, e nunca ouvida
Daquella mais que serra endurecida,
A cuja lembrança inda tremo, e esfrio,
Doc'engano d' amor! que m'escondia

Debaixo de vas sombras, que passaram
Outro ditoso fim, qu' alma já via,
lá á minha noite amantrecco hum dia,

lá rim os olhos, que tanto choráram ; Já reponso em boa paz, boa alegria.

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Why dost thou treat me thus with cool

disdain,

And why so harshly view thy lover's pain; Of which thou once approv'dst and oft hast prais'd?

Say, hast thou not a thousand times profest,

And, thee believing, been my soul secure, That the same hour of death's dark night

obscure,

Should lead us both to days of happy rest.

Ah! why then leave me thus imprison'd here?

And how could'st thou alone thy flight pursue,

While I still linger'd in existence drear?

Too well, alas! thou shew'st the reason true, Thy virtues rare the glorious palm obtain, While I, less pure, must sorrowful remain.

His eclogues were also the produc tions of his juvenile years, while he yet wandered along the banks of the Men. dego, as was his comedy of Bristo, which he dedicated to the Prince Dom Joao. The death of this prince happening a in the name of the whole nation, he con1554, Ferreira wrote his letter, wherein, gratulates the king, Dom Joaō III, on the fortitude with which he bore this stroke of fate.

Sá de Miranda had introduced the son

net, elegy, and Horatian epistle; and to these were added, the epigram, ode, and epithalainium by Ferreira.

The comedies of Bristo and 0 Cioso, or the jealous man, are written with abis lity if we look to the period in which they were produced; but it is upon his trage. dy that the fame of Ferreira principally rests. The story of the beautiful and unfortunate Dona Ignez de Castro is too well known to need any comment: upon this is founded the tragedy of Fer reira, a wonderful performance, display ing the attention he had paid to the rules of the Grecian drama. He is said to have taken Trissino for his model, and to have followed him in the verso sciotto, in which that author wrote. The Sofonisba of Trissino was the first tragedy of modern times, and the only one prior to the Castro of Ferreira, who has far exceeded the Italian in sweetness of composition. On this production

Diogo Bernardes wrote a beautiful sonnet to him, to which he made a modest and suitable reply.

An enlarged and improved edition of his works issued from the press at the expense of Du Beux, at Lisbon, in 1771, 2 vols. 8vo. comprising the whole of his writings.

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

I

SIR,

BEG to say a word or two on Mr. Colquitt's Description of his New Giches.

Of Eridanus, or Auriga and Bootes, and many other constellations, I had formerly proposed to change the names, or rather to retain them and add the names of the cultivators of Astronomy, as synonyms are in botany. So far I am glad to find it either adopted from ny hint, or simultaneously imagined, as the intro duction of the names of the Fathers of Astronomy. But, if beautiful animals are to be adopted into the heavens, why not introduce the greyhounds, who are among the most beautiful, and by their swiftness are happily symbolical. And, surely, after a possession of between two and three thousand years, the Hair of Berenice ought not now to be displaced.

most desirable acquisitions to our mo. dern celestial globe. There was such a globe in Queen Anne's reign, though I have not been so fortunate as to meet with it. This appears by an advertisement in the Tatler.

I am most perfectly willing to adopt the Antelopes, but those mild and peaceable animals would not expel others; the Peacock I hope is suffered to remain. The train of the Comet of last year, in October last, had very much the appear auce of the train of a Peacock studded with stars.

I love reform; but in all reform let us see what it is that we pull down, and what we build in its room.

On a globe with mere outlines, circumscribing the constellations without figures, the paths of Comets would best be delineated.

Juries. For more than these thirty years I have been an advocate for the real unanimity of juries. And I very early reasoned against the mischief of determining by a majority of voices. The proper legal address of the officer to the jury is, before he records the verdict, "This is your verdict; and so you say all." Not a verdict of compromise, but the verdict of each juror. In criminal cases, a verdict of a majority, and that, necessarily undefined and unknown, is most dangerous, and would very likely end in being actually the verdict of one If or two,

The Prism of Newton I had proposed to place near the great Telescope of Herschel, where there is a cluster of unformed stars well adapted to its outline. Sagacity and Fidelity are worthy of their place in heaven, if Egyptian Astronomy be entitled to a memorial, I plead for Canis Major and Minor. Why Ce phesus, Cassiopeia, Perseus, Andro. meda, Hercules, Bootes, Draco, Erida. nus, Lyra, Aquila, Corvus, should have their figures and names retained, I think I have already given very satisfactory reasons in a Syrophoenician cipher. I have no objection to adding modern astronomic names, and thus uniting recent discovery with ancient remembrance. I must think, if Cor Caroli had Halley added to it as a synonym, justice would at Last be done.

I am not for banishing the Triangle :-without Triangles, where would have been Astronomy? but I am for adding the Circle. I approve the restitution of its classic name to the Northern Crown, Corona borealis.

But the paths of the principal Comets, with their nodes and perihelion places, after Bode's Chart, would be one of the MONTHLY MAG. No. 235.

Astronomical Hints-Above C Serpentarius, is a very remarkable nebulus, which on the 4th of last month I took for a Comet. It is long, brilliant, and not distinctly resolvable with any power I have; though I suspect it to be clustered. It is very near the equator, and comes near to the meridian about seven in the evening. At nine it has an altitude of about 35°; of two stars just on the northwest edge of the Milky Way, it is above the highest.

Comet. Suppose a Comet to have a period of fifty-two years, then its mean distance would, as I estimate, be about 2,700 million of miles; its aphelion distance about 5,320 millions; and it might be expected, by reason of its condensed atmosphere, to be visible as a nebulous star, during great part of its rèvolution. It is therefore highly desirable to ascertain what change of place may, from time to time, be observed in those numerous nebula which make a cometary appearance. And this, like other suggestions,

3 S

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P.S. As for Pegasus, I must particularly protest in his behalf. He can have a certificate of good behaviour from one most respectable gentleman, and nine most accomplished bodies. And in ancient days it is not upon record that he ever threw more than one person, and he had no business to mount him. He may have thrown many in modern days for the same reason; but from Petrarch, Dante, Ariosto, and Tasso, to Racine, Corneille, Voltaire, Shakespeare, Otway, Dryden, Milton, Akenside, Gray, and Thomson, and several now living, he has always been very manageable-to those who deserved to sit him. Ladies have experienced this, Miss Seward, Mrs. Charlotte Smith, and others, who are in Elysium, and several who still make an Elysium here, whom I should be very happy to call as witnesses. That he belongs to the class of Beautiful Animals cannot be disputed. How useful he has been, let the annals of poetry rehearse! I trust he will continue to adorn the celestial plains. If, however, any hardy adventurer will persist in an attempt to turn him out from that most ample pasture, what damages may be recovered, or what censure or punishment ineurred, in the court of Parnassus, I will not suddenly pronounce. This I know, he enjoys immortal youth, and thirty centuries have taken nothing from his spirit and activity. And, all good nature as he is, it may be of use to those who would compel him to self-defence to remember, that Mount Helicon bears adamantine testimony to the force of his hoof. "Recalcitrat undique tutus," will, I hope, always be his motto.

by this question: Why has the earth any mountains? I never deviated from that question, which I treated in five letters, from the dictates only of natural history and natural philosophy. This may also be seen in the opening of the sixth letter, where I then positively declared that I intended to prove the conformity of the monuments of the earth with the first chapters of Genesis, including the account of the deluge and its consequences.

If all that I have adduced to prove the birth of our continents to have been a sudden revolution on our globe, during which the ancient continents sinking down formed the present bed of the sea, be well founded, there must have been a violent motion of the waters. Now, this circumstance is impressed in all the mythologies of the eastern nations. In the same letter to Professor Blumenbach, after having quoted my authori ties on this subject, I stated the result in the following manner. Not only the family of Noah was struck with this event, in the manner I have shown, they must have been as spectators; but they knew, and transmitted to their posterity, that God had interposed on this occasion, and that it was by his power they had been preserved. We know this from the ancient mythologies, the first foundations of which necessarily refer to traditions of Noah's family. Now, the nations of the earth have applied the whole strength of their imaginations to describe the terrible agitation of the sea during the deluge: or, rather, it is from

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. the greatness of the ideas preserved

I

SIR,

(Continued from our last.) COME to the part of Mr. FAREY'S idea, that the deluge was a quiet effusion of water on the land. This certainly was the case with respect to the rain of forty days; but Moses says also, that the fountains of the deep were broken up; and, in the language of Genesis, the deep means the sea. Moses therefore, in his short account of the deluge, mentions its two causes. When Mr. Farey shall have leisure to read, in the British Critic, my Letters to Professor Blumenbach, he will certainly acquit me of what he attributes to some geologists, a pious fraud; for, in the first of these letters, I positively set aside the considerations which might be drawn from the expressions of Genesis, and declared that I considered geology only as a natural science. I therefore Legan

among them, on which they exerted all the power of their fancy when left to themselves, that proceeds the strong character observed in the oriental images. And they had not lost sight of the cir cumstance of a superior power presiding in this catastrophe; for they particularly attribute to such a Being the preservation of a bark, notwithstanding the vio lent agitation of the ocean; which bark contained some holy personage with his family, consisting of seven people."

Thus the history of the deluge, as I have stated before, is very different from that of the fall of man: the latter, with the important circumstance of the origin of the human race and the events rela ting to the first men, could not be known but by Revelation; while the deluge happened at an advanced period of the history of mankind. The event was surely miraculous, and it was predicted, because the omnipotent Being directs,

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