1822.] 
and especially from the 5% degrees to 
the 43 degrees of north latitade, the 
whole country is accessible, and pre- 
sents so many circumstances subser- 
vient to the advantages of population 
and industry, that considering the ex- 
tent it would be difficult to find a space 
parallel to it on the surface of the 
globe. 
Notwithstanding the fatigues inse- 
parable from such an expedition, not 
one of those who embarked in it suffer- 
ed from any bodily complaint. 
Some difficulties will, at first, attend 
getting inured to the climate, but with 
the precautions recommended by M. 
le Baron Laussat, these will be very 
much lessened. 
M. Laussat, the governor, gives it as 
his opinion that the new colony, differing 
totally from the oueactually established 
in all its local relations, should form 
a government altogether separate and 
distinct. 
In conclusion, the possibility of form- 
ing a colony of French families and 
cultivators on the left bauk of the Ma- 
na is announced as an incontrovertible 
fact. 
The baron then touches on certain 
preparatory measures that would be re- 
quisite, and terminates his paper by 
an address to the king, requesting his 
majesty to authorise him, im concert 
with a commission to be appointed, to 
investigate the plan and means of colo- 
nising a settlement on the Mana. 
——— a 
LYCEUM OF ANTIENT LITERA- 
TURE. 
No. XXXIV.* 
TIBULLUS. 
ligt poet is generally ranked the 
_ third in the celebrated trio of 
amatory and elegiac Latin poets; but 
were the appeal to be made from the 
prescriptive authority of erudite com- 
mentators and professed critics, to the 
plain common sense and better feelings 
of readers of cultivated taste and un- 
biassed judgment, it is highly probable 
that the sentence of established opinion 
might be so far reversed, that many 
inight be inclined to assign the first 
* This interesting series was disconti- 
nued by the decease of its able contributor, 
the late Rev. Okey Belfour, and from the 
difficulty of finding a gentleman qualified 
to sustain it with equal spirit. We hope, 
however, that in the judgment of our read- 
ers, such a person has at length been found. 
Lyceum of Ancient Literature.—No. XXXIV. 
29 
place to the subject of the present ar- 
ticle. The beauties of Tibullus are as 
exclusively his own, as those of Catul- 
Jus and Propertius are peculiar to their 
respective authors ; and the two latter 
writers are chargeable with many gross 
faults, from which the former is uni-. 
versally acknowledged to be free. In 
order to illustrate the comparative me- 
rit of these rival bards, it may not be 
amiss, before proceeding with our ob- 
servations on Tibullus, to revert briefly 
to some of the characteristic beanties 
and faults of the poets of Umbria and 
Verona. 
The reputation of Propertius stands 
so high among his admirers, the more 
learned in particular, that it is almost 
a hazardous experiment to descant 
upon it with too great freedom. In 
their estimation, he is of all elegiac 
poets, facile princeps ; and if any par- 
tial failure is at times discoverable, it is 
to be attributed to his talent soaring 
above his theme. Perhaps, however, it 
would be more equitable,while we award 
the full meed of praise to the powerful 
genius, the spirit and energy, the grace, 
and vivacity, that are conspicuous in his 
writings, to admit that they contain 
much that we ean admire, but little in 
which we can sympathize; that his 
verse is frequently the effusion of an 
ostentatious pedant, rather than that 
of a sincere lover, whose mind would 
scarcely be at sufficient ease to admit 
of endless allusions to mythology; 
which, though they may exhibit the 
erudition of the author, and supply a 
very amusing exercise for the com- 
mentator, have little connexion with 
the language of real passion; that the 
want of genuine feeling is often at- 
tempted to be concealed under a studied 
pomp of expression; and that an ob- 
vious want of ease is but too discernible 
in his style, where such a deficiency is 
particularly objectionable; and when 
the strain professes to flow warm from 
the heart, we find that “the line labours, 
and the words move slow.’ Nor can 
we forget that many of his subjects are 
of the most repreliensible kind, and 
such as cannot he extenuated by the 
prevailing manners of the age: on one 
occasion, especially,* he has thought 
proper to exhibit himself in a character 
‘so infamous, that few men could be 
found willing to sustain it, and fewer 
still to publish their disgrace. 
With regard to Catullas, his beauties 
~ * Vid Prop. lib..1.el.19. 
are 
