38 
Yet thon can bid the child of grief, 
-Whofe finking eye betrays defpair, 
Blefs the kind hand that brings relief, 
And pour unfeen the grateful pray’r. 
Thou canft blefs the generous heart, 
When, with joy the moft fincere, 
A foothing balm his hands impart, 
And wipe the orphan’s tear, 
Although I fcorn, Oh mighty Power! 
To yield my heart to thy controul, 
And let thy fordid cares devour 
The {weeteft feelings of the foul ; 
Yet Inever would defpife 
Gifts which thou haft to beftow ; 
Then let my moderate withes rife, 
Oh ! let thy bleffings flow. 
J afk not Splendour’s gaudy train, 
For Grandeur has no charms for me ; 
But let me not implore in yain 
The fweets of Med\ocrity. 
Let me not be forc’dto fay — 
To the fuppliant at my door, * 
¢¢ Ah, wretched mortal ! go thy way, 
For I like thee am poor,” 
Extraéts from the Povt-Folio of a Man of Letters. 
[Feb. ], 
Oh ! never let my bofom know 
The ftings of want and vain defires 5 
' Eut fuch a competence beftow, 
Domeftic happinefs requires. 
Then, if Laura fhould be mine, 
' Nota wifh would dare to move, 
But all my warmeft thoughts combine. 
To blefs the maid I love. 
TERPE, 
— 
AN EVENING SONNET TO MARY. 
"THE blaftering winds are hufh’d on high 5 
The darken’d clouds are all withdrawn 3. 
And, ftealing to the wefern ky, 
The evening fhades move o’er the lawn, 
The woodland pours its fweeteft fong, 
That foftly finks as day retires, 
And as it dies the vale along, 
A harmony of foul infpires. 
Calm as this clofing hour of day, 
And bleft with harmony as fweet, 
May Mary’s feafons glide away, 
And peace and joy her wifhes meet 5 
And may no dark relentlefs form 
Her tranquil happinefs deform ! 
- 
TERPE, 
Extracts from the Portfolio of a Man of Letters. 
USE OF ICE AS A LUXURY. 
F OUR Firf Volume contains a notice. 
(p- 383,) of the ufe of ice as a lux- 
ury by the ancients: perhaps you will ad- 
mit fome additions to the particulars there 
compiled. 
«© Among the proverbs colleéted by the 
men of Hezekiah,” (Hilkiah, no doubt, 
and his fon Jeremiah,) mention is made 
(c. XXV. v. 13,) of thisrefrefhment. As 
the cold of fnow in the time of harveft, fays 
the poet, fo is a welcome meflenger. Now 
as {now does not fall in harveit-time, it 
muft already have been habitually employ- 
ed at that feafon for the cooling of bever- 
age. Michaelis fays, in his note to the 
paflage, that fnow was brought from Li- 
banon in bafkets to Jerufalem. It was 
then from natural, not artificial refervoirs, 
that the table of the Jewifh kings was 
fupplied with fnow. Confequently, they 
derived this refinement, not from the Ba- 
bylonians, who were too remote from a 
mountainous country fo to obtain their 
fnow, but from the inhabitants of Ni-f 
neveh, the only other metropolis o 
fafhions and manners, which much in- 
fluenced Paleftine, except Egypt, where 
there is no fhow. Nineveh (Nahum III, 
18.) was contiguous to a mountainous 
diftric&t. 
The Romans preferved their fnow in 
cellars, and furrounded it with ftraw. 
Seneca fays: Didicerunt Romani nives ad 
tempus aftatis locis fubterraneis cufiodire. 
And Auguftin fays: Quis palee dedit vel 
tam frigidam vim, ut obrutas nives fervet 5 
vel tam fervidam, ut poma immatura ma- 
turet? And Seneca again: Quid Lacede- 
mont fecifjent, fi vidiffent reponende mivis. 
officinas et tot jumenta portonde aqua de- 
fervientia, cujus colorem faporemque paleis, 
quibus cufiediunt, inguinant. So that the 
drink was inelegantly cooled by flinging 
in pellets of fhow, fince it was defiled by 
the immingled ftraw. Pliny’s Hi zives, 
ili glaciem potant does not prove that the 
liquor was congealed, but merely that 
fome perfons flung in lumps ef ice, rather 
than of {now. There is no trace of the 
freezing of fherbets among the ancients. 
From the Arabians, through the 
Spaniards, this nicety feems to have pe- 
netrated into Europe. A Spanifh phyfi- 
cian, Blaze of Villa Franca, firft pub- 
lifhed at Rome, in 1550, Methodus rejfri- 
gerandi ex vocato falenitro vinum aquam~ 
gue. And another Spanifh phyfician, 
Nicholas Monardes, who died in 1578, af- 
cribes the invention to the African tra- 
ders: Tertius cum nitro refrigerandi mo= 
dus, a nautis inventus, illis precipue qui 
triremibus 
