13$ Cornucopia. [Sept. 1, 



di prima intenzione, he has cried out of his desires was to be admitted an a*- 



bcfore me, "There, Sir, you see there sociateof the Institute, for which he had 



are new composers who do honor to our the highest veneration. After having 



art;" and he always tooit pleasure in received his nomination, transmitted to 



rendering ample justice to the c/ief- him at Naples, he wrote to me, that 



riVEittire* of our royal academy of mtisic, amongst the circumstances of his life 



and the thealrc of the comic opera, which his memory would retrace with 



whether composed by Frenchmen or the greatest pleasure, his nomination as 



foreigners, who had been long employed member of the Institute of France 



for our lyric scene. would be always the most dear to him, 



He frequently accompanied me to because it had procured him the hap- 



kcar the works of our most celebrated picst day of his life. 



living composers; one astonished him 

 by his vigour and grand dramatic inten- 

 tions ; another, by a prodigious novelty 

 of scenic and musical ideas ; a third, by 

 the delicacy of ideas, and a perfect ac- 

 cordance with the poem ; and others, by 

 the richness of style: in all he found 

 something to admire — peculiar character, 

 ©r striking eflect. " The French school," 

 he observed to me, " is equal to any 

 •ther you compose for the scene, not 

 simply good music, but really dramatic 

 and theatrical music, which obliges the 

 spectator to listen, and which procures 



Such is a feeble dcetch of the tran- 

 scendant merits of Pa'esiello; Athens, 

 in the height of her glory, would have 

 raised a statue to him, and placed it by 

 the side of those of Orpheius, Terpander, 

 and Timotheus ; and, dear as are thos« 

 names to all posterity, we may safely 

 predict, that that of Pa'esiello will b» 

 scarcely less so. 



Paesiellodied at Naples the 5th June, 

 1816, aged 76. That city rendered him 

 funeral honors, in causing to be exe- 

 cuted a mass for the dead, found 

 amongst his j)apers. The same evening 



faim real pleasure, from the commence- bis Nina was performed at the opera, 



ment to the end of tlie piec^e. 



He entertained a \ cry high idea of the 

 progress of the art in France, and lie 

 was so great an admirer of our science 

 and our litcratui'e, that the most ardent 



and the King of Naples and the whole 

 court deigned to be present, to display 

 the interest they felt for an illustrious 

 composer, who, for half a century, ho* 

 nored modern Italy. 



CORNUCOPIA. 



Under this iupersciiption it j« intended to scatter detached flowers and fruits of literature, 

 timilar to those deposited in the Jivfit forty volumes of the Hlonthly Mugnzine, with the 

 title Port-fdio. — Otid tells us, in his Fasti, that the she-goat u-hich suckled Jupiter brokg 

 off one horn against a tree ; that his nurse Amatttiea picked it up, wreathed it with gar- 

 lands, filled it with f> rapes and oranges, and thus presented it to ynvng Jove, who made it 

 his favmrite ployttdng. When he was grown up, and had aaiuirtd the dominion nf the 

 htareiui, he remimhered his hum of sweetmeats, made a constellation in memory of it, and 

 promoted Amailheato be the goddess of plenty , or fortune, ivhose symbol it became. This 

 horn is called cornlcopia, and is feigned by the mythologists incessantly to shed a f«« 

 riety of good things. 



APHORISMS, LITERARf, 



APnORIS^IS, rejiresenting a know- 

 ledge broken, invite mm to en- 

 quire further ; whereas methods, carry- 

 ing the show of a total, secure men as 

 if they were at furthest. 



If you excel in memory, choose eru- 

 dition ; if you excel in fancy, choose 

 poetry ; if you excel in reasoning, choose 

 philosophy : for your pursuit. 



Read only the gieat writers. 



As riches are most wanted where 

 there is least virtue, so learning where 

 th«re is least geuius. 



The learner should trust, the learned 

 should judge. 



If a man will begin with certainties, 

 he sliall end in doubts ; but, if he, be con- 

 tent to begin with doubts, he shall end 

 iu certainties. 



The superfluity of books is not to h» 

 Temedied by making no more books, but 

 by making more good books, which, 

 like the serpent of Moses, may devour 

 the serpents of the enchanters. 



Ambition, if a vice in living, is a \ir« 

 tue in writing. 



The less we copy the ancients tli« 

 more wc shall resemble them. 



