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JOSEPH ATKINSON, ESQ.

MY DEAR SIR,

I FEEL a very sincere pleasure in dedicating to you the Second Edition of our friend LITTLE'S Poems. I am not unconscious that there are many in the collection which perhaps it would be prudent to have altered or omitted; and, to say the truth, I more than once revised them for that purpose; but, I know not why, I distrusted either my heart or my judgment; and the consequence is, you have them in their original form :

Non possunt nostros multæ, Faustine, lituræ

Emendare jocos; una litura potest.

I am convinced, however, that, though not quite a casuiste reláché, you have charity

enough to forgive such inoffensive follies: you know that the pious Beza was not the less revered for those sportive Juvenilia which he published under a fictitious name; nor did the levity of Bembo's poems prevent him from making a very good cardinal.

Believe me, my dear friend,

With the truest esteem,

Yours,

T. M.

JUVENILE POEMS.

FRAGMENTS OF COLLEGE EXERCISES.

Nobilitas sola est atque unica virtus. Juv.

MARK those proud boasters of a splendid line,
Like gilded ruins, mouldering while they shine,
How heavy sits that weight of alien show,
Like martial helm upon an infant's brow;
Those borrow'd splendours, whose contrasting light
Throws back the native shades in deeper night.

Ask the proud train who glory's shade pursue, Where are the arts by which that glory grew? The genuine virtues that with eagle-gaze Sought young Renown in all her orient blaze!

Where is the heart by chymic truth refin'd,
Th' exploring soul, whose eye had read mankind?
Where are the links that twin'd, with heav'nly art,
His country's interest round the patriot's heart?

Justum bellum quibus necessarium, et pia arma quibus nulla nisi in armis relinquitur spes.-LIVY.

Is there no call, no consecrating cause,
Approv'd by Heav'n, ordain'd by nature's laws,
Where justice flies the herald of our way,
And truth's pure beams upon the banners play?

Yes, there's a call sweet as an angel's breath
To slumb'ring babes, or innocence in death;
And urgent as the tongue of Heav'n within,
When the mind's balance trembles upon sin.

Oh! 'tis our country's voice, whose claim should meet
An echo in the soul's most deep retreat;

Along the heart's responding chords should run,
Nor let a tone there vibrate-but the one!

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