lover. He then profited by these calm hours, to regulate with Hymen the conditions of the projected alliance. Vulcan bound himself to furnish and to keep up the celestial artillery, and Jupiter gave Venus in exchange. Hymen himself concluded the bargain.

Night had hardly performed two thirds of her course, when Jupiter charged Mercury with wakening Venus. At the same time he sent by him an order for Mars to depart the next morning without taking leave, under pretence of sending him to combat some partizans whom the Titans had been trying to assemble together.

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Venus was this moment troubled by a cruel dream. She believed that she was herself in the midst of the celestial court. Jupiter presented to her the god of Lemnos, and ordered her to take him for a husband.

She repulsed with trembling the hand of Vulcan, and threw herself at the feet of Jupiter, which she bathed in tears. She called him her protector, her father, and conjured him not to sacrifice her, or at least to defer the sacrifice. Jupiter relented, and heard her prayer; but Destiny, more powerful than the gods, pronounced the sentence of Venus. Mercury conducted her to Vulcan, and Hymen united them in his chains at the foot of the altar.

Such was the dream of Cypria, when Mercury awaked her. The unfortunate half-opened her eyes, dim with tears and weighed down with poppies, and confounding the illusion with reality, exclaimed :-" Let us go! since inflexible Destiny ordains, I obey." At these words she followed Mercury, astonished at her resignation.

"My daughter," said Jupiter to her, " you know—"

"Yes," replied she; "I know all that is exacted from me.

I do not accuse you of my sorrow, I accuse Destiny alone.

But since it must be-" She suffered her hand to fall, Vulcan seized it, and the fatal oath was pronounced.

Meanwhile Mars, in despair at the unforeseen exile which would break off his amorous projects, flew to Venus to take leave of her; but Venus is absent-absent before daylight!

་

Mars is alarmed; he suspects, he runs, he inquires, and discovers at last what it distresses him to know.

Too well instructed in his misfortune, Mars cursed the Destinies; he cursed Jupiter, Vulcan, nay, even Venus herself. After these extravagances he departed; and in my opinion he could not do better; for when a lover sees his mistress married to another, if he assists at the wedding-feast, he must find himself a little awkward in his compliments.

At the rising of Aurora, she beheld Venus with compassion! Venus, whom for the first time she found weeping! The other goddesses yet slept. At their waking, the immortals learned two pieces of news which were equally agreeable to them; the marriage of Venus, and the recal of Apollo,

These two events occupied the rapid hours of the toilet, and gave birth to a double project.

Venus raised herself before dawp; she had wept, her eyes were swollen, her cheeks were pale; but a little art might hide this. Apollo was amiable, he was a conquest worth making; he came from the country, therefore the conquest

would be easy. Others might dispute him; it was necessary

then to arm accordingly. Occasion invited; the king of heaven had just issued orders for a ball.

At that word, Emilia, do you not anticipate attacks, surprizes, rapid conquests? And do you not recal the brilliant night in which I beheld you for the first time?

The next day, ere morning dawned, placing my hand upon my eyes, I found there the bandage of love under the mask of light pleasure; I strove in vain to tear it away; Cupid had tied it by such a divine knot, as was tied by the hand of Nature when she bound the zone of Beauty round your matchless bosom. On my brow this charming fillet is not a false disguise; I am blind, I swear it to you? Oh! who is not blind in loving you? Blinded by your brightness to their own deficiency? Nevertheless, I manage to see two beautiful eyes, features noble and sweet, a candor innocent and pure, a refined mind, a seducing charm, a tender melancholy. I am blind, Emilia, blind to all the world but you! Adieu.

"Ere gods grew numerous, and the heavenly crowd,
"Press'd wretched Atlas with a lighter load,”

Juvenal-Sat. XIII.

JUVENAL, in the poignant Satire from which the motto of this paper is extracted, after speaking of the innocence of the golden age, gives a ludicrous account of the many deities, with whose worship the world had been troubled. Vice it appears, had kept an equal pace with the progress of refinement, from the early ages of our globe, to the time when Adrian held the sceptre of imperial Rome. The multiplied crimes of men, arising from the unlimited gratification of their passions, required the example of heaven itself to sanction the flagrant and frequent commission of them. The original mythology of the heathens, was founded on the proper appreciation of virtuous principles, and their effects on society. But, it is curious to observe, how gradually it became necessary for poets to feign "strange gods,”-or to accuse the old ones, of iniquitous practices, in order to console the human heart when wounded by the stings of remorse, or to cool the burning blush, that reflection had kindled in the countenance. It has been well observed, that the erection of a heathen altar was the apotheosis of a criminal passion. Man has been aptly termed a microcosm. The unnecessary indulgence of impure inclinations, whims, caprices and follies, creates the "strange gods," by whose weight the Atlas formed to support the little world, is crushed and destroyed. Pursuing the analogy, I shall endeavor to mark the characters of some of those beings, to whose dic. tates the human race pay willing homage, though shame at

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tends the sacrifice, and the chalice of devotion is presented to the lips by the hand of Death.

The superiority of art to nature is not a doctrine of modern philosophy. The ancients were familiarly acquainted with it. Among them, hypocrisy was dignified with the name of stratagem; and Nature, in whatever form she presented herself, was scarcely an object of wonder or worship, when compared with Wisdom, who sprang finished and perfect from the very brain of Jove. The god of eloquence, and the patron of the arts, was himself a most accomplished thief, for whose most trivial offence in our times, a halter would be adjudged instead of a shrine. Rochefoucault says, hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue; this is like Milton's devil being abashed in the presence of an angel. Such are the transcendent splendors of truth and purity.

The catalogue of sins of commission is too large and varied for insertion in this place. Every crime, that is therein enumerated, is a tyrant and a " strange god,"-a Baal, to whom the oblation is made by fools, and followed by vengeance. These supernumerary idols are the causes that the Atlas of the microcosm totters beneath its weight-that make his knees to knock together like Belshazzar's, and at length press him down, a wretched Nebuchadnezzar, to herd with cattle, and crawl on all-fours like a beast. There are also sins of omission, that are highly reprehensible, and though not often fatal in their effects, produce much unhappiness and many inconveniences in life. But there is a non descript species of peccadilloes, whose mode of existence and characteristics we must leave casuists to determine, not being certain how to name or where to class them for instance, when a lady, without intending to commit suicide, omits eating wholesome and nutritive food, lest her completion become vulgarly ruddy like a milkmaid's, and starves herself into a consumption; or when an antiquated maiden, having been used to feed a favorite monkey from her lips, has taught the animal to expect like favors from all her visitors, and blundering pug, bobbing at the mouth of a beau of threescore, dashes his false teeth

down his throat, to the great endangerment of his life, by strangulation; or when Miss Hoyden, in the hey-day of her blood, gives old Frizzle a thump on his back, which jolts his glass eye out of its socket, much to her merriment and his distress-cum multis aliis-these, being at present entirely out of the contemplation of law, and the purview of any statute, can only be considered as the dii minimi of the animated microcosm.

As the Greeks and Romans divided the gods and progeny divine into classes and orders, from the universal father and monarch, down to the guide-post and scare-crow, so the human race preserve the same distinctions, and mark the same gradations in the voluminous catalogue of vice and folly. There are falsehoods, both black and white ;-murders, honourable and horrible ;-oaths, vulgar and genteel;-foul adulteries and gallant crim. cons;-base seductions, and errors of the heart;-and all are atrociously criminal, or very excuseable, according to circumstances of time and place, or the rank and influence of the offending parties.

How pleasing is it to leave the subject that I have been considering, and take a view of man, in his original state, when, free and happy, his desires were limited by the few and simple cravings of Nature. What a noble being, ere refinement had taught him to dissemble, or luxury had multiplied his wants! Ere conscience, the accusing spirit, had found a tongue, and when proud in the integrity of his heart, he could meet the visitation of the DIVINITY Without a blush!

NEW ART OF CRITICISM.

SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN WRITTEN BY HENRY BROOKE.

RULE I.

Find fault, at first sight, with every thing that is published. THIS is the first and fundamental rule of all good criticism; and is itself founded upon solid reasons. For,