JOHN WINTHROP, Esquire, in the Court of King
CHARLES the Second, Anno Domini 1662, when
he obtained a Charter for the Colony of Connec-
ticut." In this he describes a rairacle by one of
WINTHROP'S company, on the return voyage.
"The winds awhile

Are courteous, and conduct them on their way,
To near the midst of the Atlantic sea,
When suddenly their pleasant gales they change
For dismal storms that o'er the ocean range.
For faithless EOLUS, meditating harms,
Breaks up the peace, and priding much in arms,
Unbars the great artillery of heaven,
And at the fatal signal by him given,

The cloudy chariots threatening take the plains;
Drawn by wing'd steeds hard pressing on their reins.
These vast battalions, in dire aspect raised,

Start from the barriers — night with lightning blazed,
Whilst clashing wheels, resounding thunders crack,
Strike mortals deaf, and heavens astonished shake.
"Here the ship captain, in the midnight watch,
Stamps on the deck, and thunders up the hatch,
And to the mariners aloud he cries,

'Now all from safe recumbency arise!

All hands aloft, and stand well to your tack, Engendering storms have clothed the sky with black, Big tempests threaten to undo the world:

Down topsail, let the mainsail soon be furled:

Haste to the foresail, there take up a reef:

'Tis tim boys, now if ever, to be brief;
Aloof for life; let's try to stem the tide,
The ship's much water, thus we may not ride:
Stand roomer then, let's run before the sea,
That so the ship may feel her steerage way:
Steady at the helm!' Swiftly along she scuds
Before the wind, and cuts the foaming suds.
Sometimes aloft she lifts her prow so high,
As if she'd run her bowsprit through the sky;
Then from the summit ebbs and hurries down,
As if her way were to the centre shown.

"Meanwhile our founders in the cabin sat,
Reflecting on their true and sad estate;
Whilst boly WARHAM's sacred lips did treat
About God's promises and mercies great.
"Still more gigantic births spring from the clouds,
Which tore the tattered canvass from the shrouds,
And dreadful balls of lightning fill the air,
Shot from the hand of the great THUNDERER.

"And now a mighty sea the ship o'ertakes,
Which falling on the deck, the bulk-head breaks;
The sailors cling to ropes, and frightened cry,
'The ship is foundered, we die! we die!'

"Those in the cabin heard the sailors screech;
All rise, and reverend WARHAM do beseech,
That he would now lift up to heaven a cry
For preservation in extremity.

He with a faith sure bottom'd on the word
Of Him that is of sea and winds the LORD,
His eyes lifts up to heaven, his hands extends,
And fervent prayers for deliverance sends.

The winds abate, the threatening waves appease,
And a sweet calm sits regent on the seas.
They bless the name of their deliverer,
Whom now they found a God that heareth prayer.
Still further westward on they keep their way,
Ploughing the pavement of the briny sea,
Till the vast ocean they had overpast,
And in Connecticut their anchors cast."

In a speech to the king, descriptive of the valley of the Connecticut, WINTHROP says—

"The grassy banks are like a verdant bed,
With choicest flowers all enamelled,
O'er which the winged eboristers do fly,
And wound the air with wondrous melody.
Here Philomel, high perched upon a thorn,

Ings cheerful hymns to the approaching morn.

The song once set, each bird tunes up his lyre, Responding heavenly music through the quire. "Each plain is bounded at its utmost edge With a long chain of mountains in a ridge, Whose azure tops advance themselves so high, They seem like pendants hanging in the sky." In an account of King PHILIP's wars, he tells how the soldier —

"met his amorous dame,

Whose eye had often set his heart in flame.
Urged with the motives of her love and fear,
She runs and clasps her arms about her dear,
Where, weeping on his bosom as she lies,
And languishing, on him she sets her eyes,
Till those bright lamps do with her life expire,
And leave him weltering in a double fire."

In the next page he paints the rising of the sun

"By this AURORA doth with gold adorn The ever-beauteous eyelids of the morn; And burning TITAN his exhaustless rays Bright in the eastern horizon displays; Then, soon appearing in majestic awe, Makes all the starry deities withdrawVailing their faces in deep reverence, Before the throne of his magnificence." WOLCOTT retired from public life, after having held many honorable offices, in 1755, and died in May, 1767, in the eighty-ninth year of his age.

The next American verse-writer of much reputation was the Reverend MICHAEL WIGGLESWORTH, (1631, 1707.) He was graduated at Harvard College soon after entering upon his twentieth year, became a minister, and when rendered unable to preach, by an affection of the lungs, amused himself with writing pious poems. One of his volumes is entitled "Meat out of the Eater, or Meditations concerning the necessity and Usefulness of Affliction unto God's Children, all tending to prepare them for, and comfort them under, the Cross." His most celebrated performance, "The Day of Doom, or a Poetical Description of the Great and Last Judgment, with a short Discourse about Eternity," passed through six editions in this country, and was reprinted in London. A few verses will show its quality

"Still was the night, serene and bright,
When all men sleeping lay;
Calm was the season, and carnal reason
Thought so 't would last for aye.

'Soul, take thine ease, let sorrow cease,
Much good thou hast in store:'
This was their song, their cups among,
The evening before."

After the sheep" have received their reward, the several classes of "goats" are arraigned before the judgment-seat, and, in turn, begin to excus themselves. When the infants object to damna. tion on the ground that

"Adam is set free
And saved from his trespaks,
Whose sinful fall hath spilt them all,

And brought them to this pass,"—

the Puritan theologist does not sustain his doctrine very well, nor quite to his own satisfaction even: and the judge, admitting the palliating circumstances, decides that although

"in bliss

They may not hope to dwell, Still unto them He will allow The easiest room in hell.”

At length the general sentence is pronounced, and the condemned begin to

"wring their hands, their caitiff-hands,
And gnash their teeth for terror;
They cry, they roar, for anguish sore,

And gnaw their tongues for horror.
But get away, without delay,

CHRIST pities not your cry:
Depart to hell, there may ye yell,

And roar eternally."

The Reverend BENJAMIN COLMAN, D.D.,“ married in succession three widows, and wrote three poems;" but though his diction was more elegant than that of most of his contemporaries, he had less originality. His only daughter, Mrs. JANE TUBELL, wrote verses which were much praised by the critics of her time.

The “Poems, on several Occasions, Original and Translated, by the late Reverend and Learned JOHN ADAMS, M.A.," were published in Boston in 1745, four years after the author's death. The volume contains paraphrases of the Psalms, the Book of Revelation in heroic verse, translations from HoRACE, and several original compositions, of which the longest is a "Poem on Society," in three cantos. The following picture of parental tenderness is from the first canto:

"The parent, warm with nature's tender fire,
Does in the child his second self admire;
The fondling mother views the springing charms
Of the young infant smiling in her arms,
And when imperfect accents show the dawn

Of rising reason, and the future man,
Sweetly she hears what fondly he returns,
And by this fuel her affection burns.

But when succeeding years have fixed his growth,
And sense and judgment crown the ripened youth,
A social joy thence takes its happy rise,
And friendship adds its force to nature's ties."
The conclusion of the second canto is a de-
scription of love—

"But now the Muse in softer measure flows,
And gayer scenes and fairer landscapes shows:
The reign of Fancy, when the sliding hours
Are past with lovely nymphs in woven bowers,
Where cooly shades, and lawns forever green,
And streams, and warbling birds, adorn the scene;
Where smiles and graces, and the wanton train
Of Cytherea, crown the flowery plain.
What can their charms in equal numbers tell-
The glow of roses, and the lily pale;
The waving ringlets of the flowing hair;
The snowy bosom, and the killing air;
Their sable brows in beauteous arches bent;
The darts which from their vivid eyes are sent,
Aud, fixing in our easy-wounded hearts,
Can never be removed by all our arts.
'Tis then with love, and love alone possest —
Our reason fled, that passion claims our breast.
How many evils then will fancy form!
A frown will gather, and discharge a storm:
Her smile more soft and cooling breezes brings
Than zephyrs fanning with their silken wings.
But love, where madness reason does subdue,
Een angels, were they here, might well pursue.
Lovely the sex, and moving are their charms,
But why should passion sink us to their arms?
Why should the female to a goddess turn,
And flames of love to flames of incense burn?
Either by fancy fired, or fed by lies,
Be all distraction, or all artifice?
True love does flattery as much disdain

As of its own perfections, to be vain.

The heart can feel whate'er the lips reveal,
Nor syren's smiles the destined death conceal.
Love is a noble and a generous fire;
Esteem and virtue feed the just desire;
Where honour leads the way it ever moves,
And ne'er from breast to breast, inconstant, roves.
Harbour'd by one, and only harbour'd there,

It likes, but ne'er can love, another fair.
Fix'd upon one supreme, and her alone,
Our heart is, of the fair, the constant throne.
Nor will her absence, or her cold neglect,
At once, expel her from our just respect:
Inflamed by virtue, love will not expire,
Unless contempt or hatred quench the fire."

"Last Wednesday morning expired, in this place, in the thirty-sixth year of his age, and this day was interred, with a just solemnity and respect, the reverend and learned JOHN ADAMS, M.A., only son of the Honourable JOHN ADAMS, Esquire. The corpse was carried and placed in the center of the college hall, from whence, after a portion of Holy Scripture, and a prayer very suitable to the occasion, by the learned head of that society, it was taken and deposited within sight of the place of his own education. The pall was supported by the fellows of the college, the professor of mathematics, and another master of arts And, next to a number of sorrowful relatives, the remains of this great man were followed by his honour the lieutenant-governor, with some of his majesty's council and justices; who, with the reverend the president, the professor of divinity, and several gentlemen of distinction from this and the neighbouring towns, together with all the members and students of the college, composed the train that attended in an orderly procession, to the place that had been appointed for his mournful interment. The character of this excellent person is too great to be comprised within the limits of a paper of intelligence. It deserves to be engraven in letters of gold on a monument of marble, or rather to appear and shine forth from the works of some genius, of an uncommon sublimity, and equal to his own. But sufficient to perpetuate his memory to the latest posterity, are the immortal writings and composures of this departed gentleman; who, for his genius, his learning, and his piety, ought to be enrolled in the highest class in the catalogue of Fame."

In the Middle Colonies literature was cultivated as industriously as in New England, and generally in a more liberal spirit, though Quakerism, when its ascendancy was absolute, was much more intolerant than Puritanism, as may be learned from the interesting history of WILLIAM BRADFORD, the first printer in Pennsylvania. The founder of the colony, indeed, had been unwilling to have a printing-press set up in Philadelphia, and was perhaps delighted when BRADFORD was driven

away.

The earliest attempt at poetry in the region drained by the Delaware, was probably "A True Relation of the Flourishing State of Pennsylvania," by JOHN HOLME, of Holmesburg, first pub

*This was the first newspaper published in America. The first number was issued the twenty-fourth of April, 1704, and the first sheet printed was taken damp from the press by Chief Justice SEWEL, to exhibit as a curiosity to President WILLARD, of Harvard University. The "News letter" was continued seventy-two years.

lished, from the original manuscript in my possession, by the Pennsylvania Historical Society, in 1848. It is exceedingly curious. The author says:

"I have often travelled up and down, And made my observations on each town; The truth of matters I well understand,

And thereby know how to describe this land;"

and after nearly a thousand lines in this style gives us the following pleasant picture of the state of the country:

"Poor people here stand not in fear

The nuptial knot to tie;

The working hand in this good land
Can never want supply.

"If children dear increase each year
So do our crops likewise,

Of stock and trade such gain is made
That none do want supplies.

"Whoe'er thou art, take in good part

These lines which I have penned;
It is true love which me doth move
Them unto thee to send.

"Some false reports binder resorts

Of those who would come here;
Therefore, in love, I could remove

That which puts them in fear.
"Here many say they bless the day
That they did see PENN's wood;
To cross the ocean back home again
They do not think it good.

"But here they 'Il bide and safely hide

Whilst Europe broils in war;

The fruit of the curse, which may prove worse
Than hath been yet, by far.

"For why should we, who quiet be,

Return into the noise

Of fighting men, which now and then
Great multitudes destroys?

"I bid farewell to all who dwell

In England or elsewhere,
Wishing good speed when they indeed

Set forward to come here."

About the year 1695 Mr. HENRY BROOKE, a son of Sir HENRY BROOKE, of York, was appointed to a place in the customs, at Lewiston, in Delaware, and for many years was much in the best society of Philadelphia. One of his poetical pieces is a Discourse concerning Jests," addressed to RoBERT GRACIE, whom FRANKLIN describes as a young man of fortune-generous, animated, and witty -fond of epigrams, and more fond of his Liends. A specimen is here quoted:

"I prithee. Bob, forbear, or if thou must
Be talking still, yet talk not as thou do'st:
Be silent or speak well; and oh, detest
That darling bosom sin of thine, a jest.
Believe me, 't is a fond pretence to wit,
To say what's forced, unnatural, unfit,
Frigid, ill-timed, absurd, rude, petulant-

"T is so,' you say, all this I freely grant;'
Yet such were those smart turns of conversation,
When late our Kentish friends, in awkward fashion,
Grinned out their joy, and I my indignation.
Oh, how I hate that time! all, all that feast,
When, fools or mad, we scoured the city last!
All the false humour of our giddy club,

The tread, the watch, the windows, door, or tub.....

These, though my hate-and these God knows I hate Much more than JONES or STORY do debate

More than all shapes of action, corporation,
Remonstrances, a Whig or Tory nation,
Reviews, or churches, in or out of fashion,
The BRADBURYS, DINTONS, RIDPATHS, 'Observators,'
Or true-born DANIELS, unpoetic satyrs,--
From wine's enchanting power have some excuse;
But for a man in 's wits, unpoisoned with the juice,
To indulge so wilfully in empty prate,
And sell rich time at such an under-rate,

This hath no show nor colour of defence.

And wants so much of wit, it fails of common sense."

The entire performance is in the same respect able style. It is possible that one of the “Kentish friends" referred to was the author of "The Invention of Letters," of whom some account will be given on another page. That the excellences of BROOKE were appreciated by his literary associates is evident from a passage in a satire entitled "The Wits and Poets of Pennsylvania,❞—

"In BROOKE's capacious heart the muses sit, Enrobed with sense polite and poignant wit."

When FRANKLIN arrived in Philadelphia, in 1723, there were several persons in the city distinguished for talents and learning. ANDREW HAMILTON, the celebrated lawyer, and JAMES LOGAN, whose translation of CICERO'S "Cato Major" is the most elegant specimen we have of FRANKLIN'S printing, were now old men; but THOMAS GODFREY, the inventor of the quadrant, JOHN BARTRAM, who won from LINNEUS the praise of being the "greatest natural botanist in the world," and JOHN MORGAN, afterward a member of the Royal Society, were just coming forward; and there were a large number of persons, for so small a town, who wrote clever verses and prose essays. GEORGE WEBB, an Oxford scholar working in the printing office of KEIMER, whose eccentric history is given in FRANKLIN's Memoirs, was as confident as any succeeding Philadelphia writer of the destined supremacy of the city, and in a poem published in 1727 gives this expression to his sanguine anticipations:

"T is here APOLLO does erect his throne:
This his Parnassus, this his Helicon;
Here solid sense does every bosom warm-
Here noise and nonsense have forgot to charm.
Thy seers, how cautious! and how gravely wise
Thy hopeful youth in emulation rise,
Who, if the wishing muse inspired does sing,
Shall liberal arts to such perfection bring,
Europe shall mourn her ancient fame declined,
And Philadelphia be the Athens of mankind."

In the same production he implores the goddess of numbers so to aid him that he may sing the attractions of his theme in verses

"Such as from BRIENTNALL'S pen were wont to flow, Or more judicious TAYLOR'S used to show." FRANKLIN describes BRIENTNALL as "a great lover of poetry, reading every thing that come in his way, and writing tolerably well; ingenious in many little trifles, and of an agreeable conversation." JACOB TAYLOR, Schoolmaster, physician, surveyor, almanac-maker, and poet,

"With years oppressed, and compassed with woes," gave to the public the last and best of his works, · Pennsylvania," a descriptive poem, in 1728. In

the same year THOMAS MAKIN, who nearly half a century before had been an usher in the school kept by the famous GEORGE KEITH, dedicated to JAMES LOGAN a Latin poem called "Encomium Pennsylvania," and in the year following another, "In laudes Pennsylvaniæ," of both of which PROUD, the historian, gives specimens and translations.

Among FRANKLIN's more intimate associates, was JAMES RALPH, a young printer, characterized by him as "ingenious, genteel in his manners, and extremely eloquent." He had been a schoolmaster in Maryland, and a clerk in Philadelphia, and now had such confidence in his literary abilities that he was disposed to abandon the pursuit of printing entirely for that of authorship. CHARLES OSBORNE, another acquaintance, endeavoured to dissuade him from attempting a literary life, assuring him that his capacities were better suited for his trade; but it was in vain, and FRANKLIN soon after assisted in a little scheme of deception, the result of which confirmed him in all the suggestions of his vanity. FRANKLIN, RALPH, OsBORNE, and JOSEPH WATSON, agreed to write verses for each other's criticism, as a means of mutual improvement; and as FRANKLIN had no inclination for the business, he was persuaded to offer as his own a piece by RALPH, who believed that OSBORNE had depreciated his talents from personal envy. The stratagem succeeded; the production was warmly applauded by OSBORNE, and RALPH enjoyed his triumph. RALPH accompanied FRANKLIN to England, and was very badly treated by him there, as FRANKLIN admits. He became a prolific author, in prose and verse. His longest poem, "Zeuma, or the Love of Liberty," was partly written in Philadelphia, and was first published in London, in 1729. A few lines

from it will sufficiently display his capacities in

this way:

Tlascala's vaunt, great ZAGNAR'S martial son,
Extended on the rack, no more complains
That realms are wanting to employ his sword:
But, circled with innumerable ghosts,
Who print their keenest vengeance on his soul,
For all the wrongs, and slaughters of his reign,
Howls out repentance to the deafen'd skies,
And shakes hell's concave with continual groans."

In the following fifteen years he wrote several plays, some of which were acted at Drury Lane. Among his shorter poems were two called "Cynthia" and "Night," and a satire in which he abused POPE, SWIFT, and GAY. This procured him the distinction of a notice in "The Dunciad,"

Silence, ye wolves! while RALPH to 'Cynthia' howls, And makes Night' hideous: answer him, ye owls!" His book on "The Use and Abuse of Parliaments" was much talked of, and his "History of England during this Reign of William the Third" is praised by HALLAM as "accurate and faithful," and led Fox to refer to him as "a historian of great acuteness and diligence." His last work was "The Case of Authors stated, with regard to Booksellers, the Stage, and the Public." He died on the twenty-fourth of January, 1762.

The poems written by FRANKLIN himself are not very poetical. The best of them is the amusing little piece entitled

"PAPER.

"SOME wit of old - such wits of old there were-
Whose hints showed meaning, whose allusions care
By one brave stroke to mark all human kind,
Called clear blank paper every infant mind,
Where still, as opening sense her dictates wrote,
Fair virtue put a seal, or vice a blot.

"The thought was happy, pertinent, and true:
Methinks a genius might the plan pursue.
I can you pardon my presumption?-I,
No wit. no genius, yet for once will try.
"Various the papers various wants produce-
The wants of fashion, elegance, and use;
Men are as various; and, if right I scan,
Each sort of paper represents some man.

"Pray, note the fop-half powder and half lace-
Nice as a bandbox were his dwelling-place;
He's the gilt paper, which apart you store,
And lock from vulgar hands in the scrutoire.

"Mechanics, servants, farmers, and so forth, Are copy paper, of inferior worth;

Less prized, more useful, for your desk decreed,
Free to all pens, and prompt at every need.

"The wretch whom avarice bids to pinch and spar、
Starve, cheat, and pilfer, to enrich an heir,
Is coarse brown paper; such as pedlers choose
To wrap up wares, which better men will use.

"Take next the miser's contrast, who destroys
Health, fame and fortune, in a round of joys.
Will any paper match him? Yes, throughout,
He's a true sinking paper, past all doubt.

"The retail politician's anxious thought
Deems this side always right, and that stark naught;
He foams with censure with applause he raves —
A dupe to rumours, and a stool of knaves:
He'll want no type his weakness to proclaim,
While such a thing as fools-cap has a name.

"The hasty gentleman whose blood runs high,
Who picks a quarrel, if you step awry,
Who can't a jest, or hint, or look endure:
What is he? What? touch-paper to be sure.

"What are the poets, take them as they fall,
Good. bad, rich, poor, much read, not read at all?
Them and their works in the same class you'll find;
They are the mere waste paper of mankind.

"Observe the maiden, innocently sweet,
She's fair white paper, an unsullied sheet;
On which the happy man, whom fate ordains,
May write his name, and take her for his pains.

"One instance more, and only one, I'll bring: "Tis the great man, who scorns a little thing Whose thoughts, whose deeds, whose maxims are his own, Formed on the feelings of his heart alone: True, genuine royal paper is his breast; Of all the kinds most precious, purest, best."

The "General Magazine," published by FRANKLIN, from January to June, in 1741, contained a few original and a much larger number of selected poems, most of the latter being from the Virginia Gazette." The "American Magazine, and Monthly Chronicle for the British Colonies," s tablished by WILLIAM BRADFORD, a nephew ot the first printer west of Boston, and published for twelve months, was a periodical of far higher character than FRANKLIN'S, or indeed than any that had yet been attempted on the continent. In the preface the editor says of his contributors

"Some are grave and serious, while others are gay and facetious; some have a turn for matters of state and government, while others are led to the study of commerce, agriculture, or the mechanic arts; some indulge themselves in the belles-lettres, and in productions of art and fancy, while others are wrapt up in speculation and wholly beset on the abstruser parts of philosophy and science." The principal poetical contributors to the "American Magazine" were an anonymous writer, of Kent, in Maryland, whose name I have not been able to discover, and JOSEPH SHIPPEN, THOMAS GODFREY, NATHANIEL EVANS, FRANCIS HOPKINSON, and JOHN BEVERIDGE, the professor of ancient languages in the Philadelphia college.

The anonymous writer here mentioned was the son of an officer distinguished in the military service, in Ireland, Spain, and Flanders. In early life he had been intimate with MR. POPE, upon whose death, in 1744, he wrote a pastoral, which nakes between two and three hundred lines, besides numerous learned notes. Anticipating BISHOP BERKLEY'S famous verses on the prospect of the arts in America, he says in his invocation:

"Pierian nymphs that haunt Sicilian plains,
And first inspired to sing in rural strains,
A western course has pleased you all along :
Greece, Rome, and Britain, flourish all in song.
Keep on your way, and spread a glorious fame;
Around the earth let all admire your name.
Chuse in our plains or forests soft retreats;
For here the muses boast no antient seats.
Here fertile fields, and fishy streams abound;
Nothing is wanting but poetic ground.

Bring me that pipe with which ALEXIS charm'd
The eastern world, and every bosom warm'd.
Our western climes shall henceforth own your power;
THETIS shall hear it from her wat'ry bower;
Even PHOEBUS listen as his chariot flies,
And smile propitious from his flaming skies.
"Haste, lovely nymphs! and quickly come away,
Our sylvan gods lament your long delay;
The stately oaks that dwell on Delaware,
Rear their tall heads to view you from afar;
The nalads summon all their scaly crew,
And at Henlopen anxious wait for you.

Haste, lovely nymphs! and quickly reach our shore;
Th' impatient river heeds his tides no more.
Forsakes his banks, and where he joins the main,
Heaps waves on waves to usher in your train.
"But hark! they come! the dryads crowd the shore,
The waters rise, I hear the billows roar!
Hoarse Delaware the joyful tidings brings,
And all his swans, transported, clap their wings.
Our mountains ring with all their savage host-
Thrice welcome, lovely nymphs, to India's coast!
Not more Parnassian rocks Phoebus admire,
Nor Thracian mountains ORPHEUS' tuneful lyre;
Not more sad lovers court the darkling note
Of Philomela's mournful warbling throat;
Not more the morning lark delights the swains,
Than you, sweet maids, our Pennsylvania plains!"

He had recommended to Mr. POPE the discovery of printing as a subject worthy of his genius, and when that poet died, without having made use of the suggestion, he wrote from the banks of the Delaware, in 1749, his own "Poem on the Invention of Letters," which is inscribed to Mr. RICHARDSON, "the author of Sir Charles Grandison." and other works for the promotion of religion, vir

tue, and polite manners, in a corrupted age," whon. he describes as “himself the Grandison he paints:'

These lays, ye Great! to RICHARDSON belong;
His Art and Virtues have inspired the song.
Forgive the bard-who dares transfer, from you,
A tribute to superior merit due-

Who, midst war's tumults, in flagitious times, And regions distant from maternal climes, Industriously obscure, to heaven resign'd, Salutes the friend and patron of mankind.” Colonel JOSEPH SHIPPEN, who in 1759 wrote The Glooms of Ligonier," an amatory song much in vogue for a quarter of a century, was the author of the following early recognition of the genius of BENJAMIN WEST:*

64

"ON SEEING A PORTRAIT OF MISS, BY MR. WEST. "SINCE GUIDO's skilful hand, with mimic art,

Could form and animate so sweet a face,
Can nature still superior charms impart,
Or warmest fancy add a single grace?
"The enliven'd tints in due proportion rise,

Her polish'd cheeks with deep vermilion glow;
The shining moisture swells into her eyes,
And from such lips nectareous sweets must flow.
"The easy attitude, the graceful dress,

The soft expression of the perfect whole,
Both GUIDO's judgment and his skill confess,
Informing canvas with a living soul.
"How fixt, how steady, yet how bright a ray

Of modest lustre beams in every smile!
Such smiles as must resistless charms convey,
Enliven'd by a heart devoid of guile.
"Yet sure his flattering pencil's unsincere,

His fancy takes the place of bashful truth,
And warm imagination pictures here

The pride of beauty and the bloom of youth. "Thus had I said, and thus, deluded, thought, Had lovely STELLA still remained unseen, Whose grace and beauty, to perfection brought, Make every imitative art look mean," THOMAS GODFREY, a son of the inventor of the quadrant, was esteemed a prodigy of youthful genius. He was a lieutenant in the expedition against Fort Du Quesne in 1759, and on the disbanding of the colonial forces went to New Providence, and afterward to North Carolina, where he died, on the third of August, 1763, in the twentyseventh year of his age. His poems were published in Philadelphia in 1765, in a quarto volume of two hundred and thirty pages. His “Prince of Parthia” was the first tragedy written in America. "The Court of Fancy," which the editor of the "American Magazine" thought evinced "an elevated and daring genius," is in sinooth but feeble heroic verse, and betrays very little inventive capacity. Some of his shorter poems are more striking. The following is from an " Ode to Wine:"

"Haste, ye mortals! leave your sorrow;
Let pleasure crown to day- to-morrow,

In the "American Magazine" for February, 1758, 00curs, probably, the first paragraph ever printed in commen. dation of the genius of WEST. The editor says, introducing the above poem on one of his portraits:

"We are glad of this opportunity of making known to the world the name of so extraordinary a genius as Mr. WEST. He was born in Chester county in this province, and without the assistance of any master, has acquired such a delicacy and correctness of expression in bis paintings, joined to such a laudable thirst of improvement, that we are persuaded, when he shall have obtained more experience and proper opportunities of viewing the productions of able masters, he will become truly eminent in his profession "