oe 
Avoiding then so great asin, 
With something moral Pll-begin 5 
An¢é to the world’s Lord Paramount, great 
custom, 
These thoughts Tihumbly castelet him ad- 
just ’em. iad bagel 
Where is the use of hoarded science 
Of books, rules, schools, and heaps in store 
Of philosophic pomp and lore, : 
Of threadbare systems, and much more, 
But to put vicious habits at defiance; 
?Gwixt peevish spleen and hoyden joys, 
To give the soul an egual poise .» 
And teach the subject passions to dispense 
With all the toys of appetite and sense ? 
# A pretty picture this for carnal man ! 
Whose conduct must, in every feature, ¥ 
Pronounce him still a sensual creature; 
From goodness and perfection widely dis- 
tant, 
Still veering at a puff—still inconsistent, 
Not to be scann’d from closets and from 
: hooks, : 
From’ bird’s-cye views and learned nooks, 
Wor to'be squar’d by plummet, rule, or plan.” 
Reader ! of this make all thy brains are able; 
‘Too long a comment always spoils the fable. 
Upon a branchy trunk, the freehold of our 
fowl, 
And fit Lyceum for the lore 
Of such, and many sages more, 
Aloft in blear-ey’d majesty was pereh’d an 
owl 5 1 
Sharp hanger had redue’d him to aspectre, 
A proper plight to give his friends a lecture 
His slender carcase, and wig widen’d pole, 
Bespoke a flesh o’ercome and pregnant soul ; 
Around in dumb attention fix’d, 
Birds of all beaks their feathers mix’d ; 
From turkies, eagles, hawks, and hens, 
To little humming-birds, and wrens. 
All weil-fledg’d rabbins, doctors, sages, 
Drew from their wings the longest quill, 
Their note-books from his lore to fill; 
And take it home in short-hand pages. 
His callow audience, from his figure, 
Thought him ill-qualified to teach; 
And from his utter loss of vigour, 
Expected nothing but his dying speech. 
Proceedings of Learned Societies. 
+" Te i ee 
All ready, with a hem, the tutor spokese =~ 
But to say all he said, ; - 
' Would take the longest head, 4] 
That gravely nodded on the crowded oak 3 
This must, however, be recorded, ¥ 
His lecture much advice alforded, 
‘On bridling rampant passions and desires. 
He taught them in impressive words, 
What shame it was for well-bred birds 
To live by micans that brutal force inspires. 
By rapine, tyrinny, and wanton pow’r, . © 
Tocut the guiltless insect’s short-liv’d hours 
When to the beak that reason curbs, 
Suffictent are the dainty herbs, : 
That scent with fragrance Nature’s lavish 
breast : . 
He sees the pittance hunger needsy 
And wisely on that little feeds, ne 
Nor others’ comforts will his claws molest. . 
Much in this strain his peroration rany 
While at the bottom of the tree, : 
in merriment and gambols frees. . 
A field-mouse scamaper’d, spite of bird or mai 
Now critics have affirm’d, our ow]’s advice 
Had been suggested by a want of mice; 
And that necessity had made him feed, 
On this and that delicious weed 5 
But we can’t vouch, how true the’tale is, 
It might be told, * ewm grano salis :? 
Yet thiseye-witnesses do taithfully depose, _ 
When still the pupils, cautious to let slip 
A single word, hung silent on his lip, 
The tutor to his lecture put this awkward 
close: 
With lickerish bill he left his pulpit perchy 
And all the gaping cirele in the Jarch; - 
And spite of lore recondite, and wise saws, 
OF maxims, precepts, and fine moral laws, 
He seiz’l the little victim in bis claws. ps 
The congregation thus deserted broke j—e * 
When every billofevery fowl. . ) 
Rush’d furious on the witless owl, ~ 
And archly thus a rev’rend magpie spoke + 
One lesson from our tutor waits us still, 
To do what natureiprompts is best, 
To feed, or fly, or tend the nest ; 
Let fools philosophize and dream their fill ; 
He that will. do what suits his state andagey 
Alone deserves the credit of a sage. , 
A. BE. 
a 
PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES, — 
| NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE. | 
On the stcnas of the ancients; read 
by uM. mMoncrz at the PCBLIC SITTING 
of the 'NSTITUTE, JULY 1, 1808,” 
Tis not my Inteution (says M. Mon- 
gez) to treat generally of this subject; 
on which Folard, in his Commentarigs,on 
Polvbius, and the Abbé Sallier, ina me- 
mow read totheAcademy of Belles Lettres 
In 1236, bave threwn considerable elit: 
Bat the invenrion of the ‘Pelegraph—an 
uventign on which ‘Prance “may justly 
pride herself, has furnished me with 
means of comparison which they did not 
possess, and which I shall apply to the 
explication of several passages in ancient 
authors relative to signals. 
‘The most celebrated of these passages 
is that in the ‘Tragedy of Agamemnon, 
(286), where /Eschylus makes Clytemnes- 
tra announce tothe old menof Argos, that 
the Greeks bad just captured Troy, aud 
that this intelligence had bee comma- 
nicated 
