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THE SHEPHERDS RESOLU TION. % Shall I, astinp in despair, Die bctauK another "? fur? Or make pale my cheeks with care, XJause another** rosy are? He she fairer than the day. Or ibe flowery meads io ***y; If she be not so to roe. What c*rr 1 how fair she be.' Shall my foolish heart be pined 'Cause 1 see a woman kind? % Or a well-disposed nature Joined with a lovely feature? Be she meeker, kinder, The turtle do\c?/^n; lfsh*>^,Sr,otorae' care I how kind she be " Shall a woman's virtues move Mo to perish for her love? Or her well-deservings known. Make me quite forget my own' lie she u ith that goodness bless'd, Which ma> merit nsme of best; If she be not such to me, What care 1 how good she be' 'Canse her fortune seems too high, Shall I play the fool and die? Those that bear a noble mind. Where they want of riches find, Think what with them they would do, That without them dare to woo; And, unless that mind I see, What care I how great she be? Crcat or good, or kind or fair, 1 will ne'er tl?e more despair; If she love me, this beheve, 1 will die ere she shall grieve; If she slight me when 1 woo, 1 can scorn and let her go: If she be not fit for me. What care 1 for whom she be* ? WITHE. From Poulaou'-s American Daily Advertiser. ACROSTIC. (_>ase thus to clamour, men of high renown. Oil other's error's, but repair jour own; Nor be thus lav ish of a people's fame, licnerotii in blood, and noble still in name: 1?< le.it! be cautious? patriotic ? just! Ext rt your wisdom to perform your trust! , So shall the 44 general welfare" be improved, So shall jou be respected, honour' d, loved. X. AN ASTASIUS; OH THE ME MOIRS Ot A GREEK. A work un?l? r this title has recently been published in L/Jiidon? the following extracts from it are taken from the Literary Gazette. ** I had left a storm gathering in Kgypt, of which 1 since have thank < tl God I witnessed not the bursting. Already previous to my departure the consequence of the scarcity had L gun to appear in many places; but if v*as only alter I left the country * u t he famine attained its full force; ?tm! such in spite of every expe dient of human wisdom, or appeal to Dmne mere* ? the progressive fury of Uie scourge, that at last the Scha ichs ami other regular ministers of worship, supposing the Dt ity to ha\e heroine deaf to their entreaties, or incused at their presumption ? no lunger themselves ventured to irrtplore off* nded Heaven, and henccforth on ly addressed the Almighty through tin* inte ceding voices of tender in fants; in hopes that, though c allous to the sufferings of corrupt man, Providence still might listen to the supplications of untainted childhood, and grant to the innocent prayers o I hahes, what it denied to the agoniz ing cry of beings hardtned in sin. L?'d by the linams to the tops of the higiM'st minarets, little creatures j from live to ten years of age there raised to Heaven their pure hands and feeble voices; and while all the count less myriads of Cairo, collected round the foot of these lofty structures, ob served a profound and mournful si I'-nre, they alone were heard to li?p from their slender summits entreat ies for Divine mercy. Nor did even they continue to implore a fertility, which no longer could save the thous ands of stai vi i? wret< lies already in the pang* of death. They only brg er? M ti?nt a general pestilence might speedily deliver them from their lin gering and painful agony: ami when, from tb* gilded spirea, throughout e v?:ry iliMrirt ??f Hie. immense Masr. thousand* of infantine voicM wont forth the name instant to implore the Hame ?ad boon, the whole vant popu lation below %% it h lialf extinguished v??i' ' s }i?irif1> an*wered? ** so he it.'* The humble rrr|tust God in his meiTy /granted. \ he plague followed the scarcity, ami the routagion com pleted v. hat the famine had begun. The human form wan awept. away ft<??n the surface of Hip land* like tin* ahadowfl of darkness which the dawn j>'i?* twilight. Towns and tillages ? ml 'iambi* innumerable were bereft of their tenants to a man. The !jv ing tacatuc tao few to bury the dead. Their o<vu houses remained their ce meteries. Mr here long strings of coffins at first had issued forth, not a solitary funeral any longer appear ed. Hundreds of families, who had fled from famine to Syria, were over taken by the plague in the midst of their journey, and with their dead bodies marked their route through the desert. Egypt. smitt?? by the two fold visitation ??most ceased to appear inkf'ftrted; *nd both plsgucs at l;i*??-?nsappeared, for want of fur ?ffler victims to slay." Ill Arabia the hero of the narrative performs pilgrimages to Mecca and Medina, and his views of these and other Arabian customs are of the most attractive kind. Thence to Constantinople, Chio, (where his fa ther dies before he can see his son), and again to Egypt, we *ith great delight follow the adventurer and a friend named Spiridion. At Cairo, the account of a miser's death forms ' a fit sequel to our preceding cx I tract. ** The reader may remember the dreadful famine which 1 had left hanging over Egypt. Emin, on this occasion, was one of the provident. During the years of plenty he had laid by for those of want. But, like the ant, he labored for himself, and t ared not to share h^s savings with the idle. Though his granaries groan ed under their loads of corn, he saw unmoved the thousands of wretches who every day perished with hunger under their very walls. When the bodies of the sufferers choaked up the entrances of his store houses, he still refused to unbar their surly gates, until the corn had reached the exorbitant price fixed by his avarice. This it at last attained; and now, ex ulting at the thoughts of the millions he should make in a few hours, Emiu took his keys and opened his vaults. But O horror! O dismay! Instead of the mountains of golden wheat he had accumulated, he only beheld heaps of nauseous rottenness. An avenging worm had penetrated into the abodes fortified against famished man ! A grub had fattened on the food withheld from the starving w retch ! While the clamour of des pair resounded without, a loathsome insert had in silence achieved within the work of justice. It had wrought Einiu's punishment in darkness, while his crimes shone in the light of heaven ! The miser's wealth was de stroyed, the monster's hopes were all blasted! At the dire spectacle he uttered not a word. He only a few minutes contemplated the infect ed mass nitblhc fixed eye of despair; then fill ? fell flat on his face upon the putrid heap. God had smitten him ! On raising his prostrate body life had tied. Like his corn, his trains w as become a mass of corruption." The third volume ranges throngh Egypt, Arabia, (among the Bedo weens, and Wahhah tribes,) Malta, Si: i!y, Italy, \< . but we have no room for the particulars. Enough to say. that Anastasius has a soil named Alexis, whom he recovers in Egypt, after many dangers, and bears off in gladness and triumph to Europe, i lie loss of his child cannot be per used with a dry eye ? we never read any tiling more powerfully affect mg. *? My cousin's letter had promised me a brilliant lot, and ? what was better ? my own pockets ensured me a decent competence. ? The refine ments of an European education should add evey external elegance to my boy's innate excellence, and hav ing myself moderately enjoyed the good tilings of this world, while striv ing to deserve the better promised in the next, I should, ere my friends be come tired of my dotage, resign my last breath in the arms of my child. *? The blue sky seemed to srnile up on my cheerful thoughts, and the green wave to murmur approbation of my plan. Almighty (?od! what was there in it so heinous, to deserve that an inexorable fate should cast it to the winds! "In t lie in id st or my dream of happiness my rye fell upon t lie darl ing object in which centered all its sv%ecU. Insensibly my child'* prattle had diminished, and had at last sub sided in an unusual silence. I thought he looked pale his eyes seemed heavy and his lips frit parched. The rose, that every morning still so fresh, so erect on its stalk, at midday hung its heavy head, discoloured, wan and lading; but so frequently had the billows, during the fury of the storm, drew lied my boy's little crib, that I could not wonder he should have fe|r their effects in a se vere cold. I put him to bed and tried to hush hiin to sleep. Soon* however, his fare grew flushed, and his pulse b?s ame feverish. I failed alike hi my endeavours to procure hitn repose d and to afford him au?uscme?t : ? but though play thing* were repulsed, and tale* no longer attended to* still he could not bear me an instant out of his sight; nor would he take any thing except at my hands. Even when ? as too soon it did ? his reason began to wander* his filial affection retained its pristine hold of his heart. It had grown into an adoration of his equally doating father; and the mere consciousness of my presence seemed to relieve his uneasiness. " Had not my Mings, a few mo ments only before, been those of such exceeding happiness, I should not so soon perhaps have conceived great alarm: hut I had throughout life found every extraordinary hurst of joy fol lowed by some unforeseen calamity; and my exultation had just risen to so unusual a pitch, that a deep dismay now at once struck me to the heart. I felt convinced that 1 had only been carried to so high a pinnacle of joy, in order to be hurled with greater ruin into an abyss of woe. Such be came my anxiety to reach Trieste, and to obtain the best medical assis tance, that even while the ship con tinued to cleave the waves like an arrow, I fancied it lay like a log up on the main. ? How then did my pangs increase, when, as if in resent ment of my unjust complaints, the breeze, dying away, really left our keel motionless on the waters. My auguish baffled all expression. In truth, I do not know how I preserved ray senses, except fnnn the need I stood in of their aid: ? for while we lay cursed with absolute immobility, and the sun ever found us on rising in the same place where it had left us at setting, my child ? my darling child ? was every instant growing worse, and sinkiug apace uuder the pressure of illness. To the deep and Hushing glow of a complex ion far exceeding in its transient brilliancy even the brightest hues of health, had succeeded a settled, un changing, deadly paleness. His eye, whose round full orb was wont to beam upon me with mild but fervent radience, now dim and wandering, for the most part remained half clo sed; and, when ? roused by my ad dress?the idol of iny heart strove to raise his languid look, and to meet the fearful enquiries of mine, he only showed the former fire of his coun tenance extinct. In the more violent bursts indeed of his unceasing deli rium, his wasting features sometimes acquired a fresh but sad expression. He would then start up, and with his teeble hands clasped together, and big tears rolling down his faded cheek, beg in the most moving terms to be restored to his home: but mostly he seemed absorbed in inward musings, and ? no longer taking note of the passing hour ? he frequently during the course of the day moved his pal lid lips, as if repeating to himself the little prayer whirh he had been wont to say at bed-tiine and at rising, and the blessings 1 had taught hi in to add, addressed to his mother in be. hair of his father. If, wretched to see liiin thus, and doubly agonised to think that I alone had been the cause, I burst out into tears which 1 strove to hide, his perception of outward objet ts seemed all at once for a mo ment to return. He asked me whe ther 1 was hurt, anil would lament that young amd feeble as lie w as, he could not yet nurse me as he wished ? but promised ine better care w hen he should grow stronger. ** In this way hour after hour and day after day rolled on, without any progress in our voyage, while all I had left to do was to *it doubled over my child's com h, watching all his wants and studying all his look* ? trying, but in vain, to discover some amendment. ** O for those days!" I now thought, ?? when a calm at sea appeared an intolerable evil, only be cause it stopped some tide of lolly, or delayed some scheme of vice! ?'At last one afternoon, when to tally exhausted with want of sleep, I sat down by my child in all the com posure of torpid depair, the sailors rushed in, one and all ? for even they had felt my agony, and doatrd on my boy. They came to chcer me with hotter tidings. A breeze had just sprung tip; the waves had again be gun to ripple, and the lazy keel to stir. As ininute pressed on minute, the motion of the ship beacmc swif ter: and presently, as if nothing had b'*cn wanting but a first impulse, we again dashed through the waves with all our former speed. '* Kvery hour now brought visibly nearer the innocent recess of the deep Adriatic, and the end of our journey. Fola aeeroed to glide by like a vision: presently we passed Fiume: we saw Capo d'lstria but a few minutes: ? at last we descried Trieste itself! Another half hour, and every separate house became vi sible; and not long aiier we run full Mil into thr harbour. The sails vr ere taken in. the anchor was dropped, and a boat instantly came alongside. "All the necessary preparations had been made for immediately con vcy'nK patient ou sliore. Wrap |>ed up in a shaw l, be was lifted out of his crib, laid on a pillow, and low ered into the boat, where 1 held him in my lap, protected to the best of my power from the roughness of the blast and the dashing of the spray, until we reached tlir quay. ? In my distress 1 had totally for gotten the taint contracted at Mela da, and had purposed, the instant we stepped on shore, to carry my child straight to a physician. New anguish pierced my soul when two bayo nets crossed upon iny breast forced me, in spite of my supplication and | rage, to remain oh the jette. there to wait his coming and his previous scrutiny of all our healthy crew. All I could obtain as a special favor was a messenger to hurry his approach; while panting for tiis arrival, 1 sat down with my Alexis in my arms un der a low shed which kept off a pelt ing shower. My mind was so wrap ped up in the danger or my boy as to remain wholly unconscious of the bustle around, except when the re moval of some cask or barrel forced me to shift my station. Yet, while wholly deaf to &e unceasing din of the place, I coul? discern the faintest rumour that seemed to announce the approaching physician. 0 how 1 cursed his unfeeling delay: how 1 would have paved his way with gold, to have hastened his coining! ? and yet a something whispered continu ally in my ear* that the utmost speed of man no longer could avail. " Ah, that at least, confirmed in this sad persuasion, I mi^lit liavr tasted the heart-rending pleasure of bestowing upon my departing child the last earthly endearments! ? hut, tranquil, composed and softly slum bering as he looked, I feared to dis turb a repose, on which 1 founded my only remaining hopes. All atome, in the midst of my despair, 1 saw a sort of smile light upon my darling's features, and hard as I strove to guard against all vain illusions, I could not at this sight stop a ray of gladness from gliding unchecked in to my trembling heart. Short howe ver, was the joy: soon vanished the deceitful symptoms! ? On a closer view it only appeared to have been a slight convulsion which had hurried over my child's now tranquil coun t-nance, a s w ill sometimes dart over the smooth mirror of a dormant lake the image of a bird in the air. It look ed like the response of a departing angel, to those already on high, that hailed his speedy coining. The soul of my Alexis was fast preparing for its flight. " Lest he might feel ill at ease in my lap, 1 laid hint down on m> cloak, and kneeled by his side to watch the grow ing change in his features. The present now was all to me: the future I knew no longer should reck. ? Feel ing my breath close to hi* cheek, he half opened his eye, looked as if after a long abscence again suddenly re cognizing his father, and, putting out his little mouth ? seemed to crave one last token of love. The tempta tion was too powerful: I gently pres sed my lip upon that of my babe, and gathered from it the proffered kiss. Life's last faint spark was just going forth, and 1 caught it on the thre shold. Scarce had I drawn back my fare, when all respiration ceased. His eye-strings broke, his features foil, and his limbs stiffened fur ever. All was over: Alexis was no more." THE FOLLY OK ANTICIPATING TROUHLK. Afflictions wen in perspective arc more appalitig than v*hcn they ae?u ally arrivr ; for there arc few but are attended with fiomc alleviating circumstances that deaden their force. Why, then, should we Hour the present cup of happiness by an ticipating trouble that may never reach us, and in probabilities depend ant only on a thousand contingent circumstances never likely to occur at oncc? The fully of doing so, will he placed in a stronger light by the following anecdotc: A countrywoman set her daugh ter, a girl of fifteen, to bake, while she went to a neighbour's. After some stay she returned, and found the oven sparkling hot, and her daughter in another apartment, in the greatest agony and in tears, A sight so unexpected eirited the ten derest sympathy in the maternal bo som, and solicitude for the rause. After much entreaty the daughter complied : ** I was thinking," said she. ? ffl was married, and should o liavt a dear li.lic thilo, uuii it should live to run about, and I thould be baking, as I am now, and I should go out for furl, and should leave it alone, and it should take a chair, and should get up to the mouth of the ovrtt, and should crawl in, and should burn itself to death, what a terrible thing it would b?; Ohff)h! Ob! dear, w bat should I do? i BAD LUCK BY DEGREES. Sir James Hall and irrvant? Scene ? Parlor. Sir James ? Well, Peter, what news? Peter ? Nothing in particular, Mas sa, 'scrpt Bob's* lame. Sir James ? Bub lame! What's the matter with Bob? Peter ? He hurt himself, trying to stop de horses, Massa. Sir James ? Horses! what horses, pray? * Peter ? Old Massa's horses run a way wid de carriage. Sir James ? Father's horses run a way w ith the carriage! w hat started them? Pr/er ? Firing cannon, Massa. Sir James ? What was cannon fir ing For? Peter ? To alarm the folks, Massa, and inake em come and help to put out de fire. Sir James ? Fire! what fire pray? Peter ? Your big new house burnt all down, Massa. Sir James ? My new house burnt down! Veter ? Took fire w hile we gone to funeral* Massa. Sir James ? Funeral! who is dead pray? Peter ? Your father dead, Massa, cau>e lie hear de bad news. Sir James ? Bad news! what bad news? Peter ? The bank tail, Massa, and he lose all he money. Sir James ? You rascal, yon, why didn't you tell me of this bad news at once? Peter ? Case, Massa, I 'fraid it too much for you all at once, so [ tell you little at a time. SANCHO. From the Hr.ks .'ournil WAR. There is a strange idea prevails in the world, that wars are necessary at the return of different periods in the age of a nation; and on this principle there are those who justify a pleas ing anticipation of this most capital nf all misfortunes. It will, however, be generally found, on examination, that this insensibility to the misery of our species, arises from an unprin cipled love of gain; for what are wars in general, but robbery and murder on an extensive plan? The two principal inducements w> all the wars which have deluged the world in blood, have been avarice and am bition. The first has given rise to predatory excursions, and extended ' tiie limits of particular states and kingdoms. The latter has led to that species of war, which, while it di verted the attention of the people from contemplating their domestic misery, enabled the ty rants of the earth to rivet the chains of slavery, and extend the limits of their despot ism. Hence wars, however succ ess ful, and however advantageous to in dividuals, are always a losing busi ness t'? the people. Ilappv and free must that country be, whose policy is of a pacific nature, S. I RI'.rLlXTlON. There is an cvrn title in the da), t While the world withdraws from us. ami w hile the sha<lcs of the evening dar ken upon our duelling, the splen dors of the firmament come forward to our view. In the moments when the earth is overshadowed, heaven opens to our eye* the radiance of a siihliiner being; our hearts follow the nuccessive splendors of the scene; and w'tile wc forget, for a time, the obscurity of earthly concerns, we feel " that there are yet greater tilings than these," and that we have a Fa ther who dwelleth in the heavens* and who yet deigneth to consider the things that arc upon earth. QUICK. DESPATCH. " Doctor/' said a London law) t i , who was lately examining a mine in Cornwall* to a clergyman, his friend, who stood at the top, ?* as you know of all things from the surface to tlif centre, pray how far is it from tlii* pit to that in the, infernal region*.:'' " I cannot exactly ascertain the dis tance," replied the divine, ** hut let go your hold, and you will be then* in a minute."
The Durham Recorder (Durham, N.C.)
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May 10, 1820, edition 1
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