principles of translation, laid down by our author, we think any attempt to render our countrymen better acquainted with the sentiments of the ancient classical poets, highly honorable and useful. Still we should be far from recommending the Tristia of Ovid as worthy of particular attention, and think that Mr Arden has honored it much beyond its deserts, by naming it in the same sentence with the Fasti. Ovid carried little of his poetry into banishment, except the ease and melody of his versification. His five books of Tristia and four of Epistles from Pontus, are distinguished by a superabundant share. of all the defects of his early writings, and by an almost total absence of his characteristic spirit and ingenuity. They are filled with childish exaggerations of the inclemency of the climate and the inhumanity of the people of Pontus, with servile intreaties to Augustus, and with petulant and unfounded complaints of the neglect of his former friends. We find a perpetual recurrence to the same ideas, a monotonous strain of doleful lamentation, which continually reminds us of the note of the whippoorwill. Not satisfied with the most simple and natural, and therefore most interesting expressions of his grief, he is perpetually striving to excite the sympathy of the reader, not by pathetic declamation, but by logical argument. He does not exclaim with the prophet, see if there be any sorrow like to mine,' but sets out to prove the point, by precedents drawn from history and poetry, by close parallels and nice distinctions, between his own adventures and those of some of the fabled heroes of antiquity. His petitions, his compliments, and his reproaches are all disfigured with the same intermixture of frigid reasoning. Let those who think these remarks too unqualified, turn more particularly to the second elegy of the first book of the Tristia. This purports to be a prayer to the sea gods, written by the poet in a violent storm, on his voyage to the place of his exile. Instead of a concise and impassioned petition, it is a collection of quibbling sophisms, which, if expressed in plain English prose, might be mistaken for the work of some of those sages of the law whose subtleties are detailed in Plowden's Commentaries. Defects like those which we have mentioned, can be concealed or repaired in no version whatever; and we cannot but think that our author, in attempting to render the Tristia interesting in an English dress, has undertaken a task, beyond not only his own power, but that of any poet.

ty of dialect, which must be ascribed to their secluded situation among the mountains, very well versed in the art of oratory.' That this art, however, is not closely connected with that of prophecy, is apparent from what our author adds, that he learned from a venerable member, that the bill respecting the judicial regulations of the community was under consideration, and that he guessed it would be passed by a large majority.' Here the member's gentility stood him but little in stead, and the most rustic legislator could not have come wider of the mark.

The next discovery of our author is not positively novel, something like it being recorded, if we remember correctly, in the judicious miscellany of Mr Joseph Miller. We refer to the well known person, who had the good fortune to be able to exhibit a horse, with his tail where his head ought to be. Mr Stansbury encountered in his pedestrian journey in Vermont, a district where droves, not only of fine fat cattle, but of horses also, are continually streaming down the hills.' If this should prove on further enquiry to be accurate, it may safely be said of the pastures of Vermont, where the horses and oxen are streaming down hill, that the cattle are where the brooks ought to be. Our author mentions another circumstance highly peculiar to these regions, that he felt an evident change of temperature in mounting alternately to the tops of these ridges, and returning again to the level of the bottoms of the valleys.' He adds of the place he is describing, that the plain upon which it stands, is perfectly level,' forming in this, we doubt not, a striking contrast with the surrounding hills. Our author's general impressions of the Vermontese character are highly favorable. He says, 'we are under no small obligations for the respectability of the American character to the assistance of the Green Mountain boys;' and most of the tavern floors, in his way through the country, were occupied by venerable citizens, discussing, at these convenient meeting places, the affairs of governors, states, and nations' a practice which must essentially aid these venerable boys, in their husbandry and households.

Our author makes brief mention of the college at Dartmouth, which he tells us occupies a perspicuous station.' If it were as easy for others to realize, as our pedestrian author to make, his discoveries, we doubt not our brethren at Hanover would imitate the English universities, and set up a number of travel

tion, has formed his mind to the severer discipline of the English stock; cast off all spectacle, unlearned the national vanity, which the French more than any other nation display; and besides this, he appears to have made himself familiar with the most dignified and important studies. To those who look for science in a book of travels, who would have the margin a kind of hortus siccus, or a catalogue of fossils, his Switzerland will present few attractions. A little more geology, however, than all will understand, is introduced from time to time; though this is clothed in popular language and made still more intelligible, by means of a few simple and well imagined wood cuts.

The two volumes of the work are disconnected with each other, the former only containing the journal, the latter the historical sketch. It cannot be denied that this division has led Mr Simond to protract each part, beyond its necessary limits; while the plan of following his journal chronologically and setting down separate visits made to the same spot after a considerable interval, has occasioned the repetition of several remarks, some thrice and many twice. Mr Simond is a writer, who could afford to make a small book. His metal is too pure to make it necessary to catch the eye, by spreading it over a large surface; its value would have been apparent in dimensions however small. As we trust moreover our acquaintance with him is not here to rest; but that we shall, in due season, hear of him from the Ausonian bounds, we look forward with some concern to a proportionate number of volumes from Italy. With concern, not because we fear the volumes will be bad; we should then have a speedy remedy: but because we doubt not they will be good; and because in the region of the mind the reverse of Mr Malthus' doctrine seems to hold. In the physical world population increases geometrically and food arithmetically. In the mental, the quantity of intellectual aliment-the number of good books— increases so much faster than leisure or strength to consume them, that unless the Tartars take pity on us, and send us another Omar, there is danger of a general surfeit of the understanding. Since, however, the complaint against the multiplication of books comes with no very good grace from those, who, like ourselves, are favoring the public with one every three months, we shall without further ado proceed to share with our readers the gratification we have derived from perusing Mr Simond's Switzerland.

Captain or farmer, he got the blind side of our author, who declares with enthusiasm that the evening fled in the most interesting manner; the jests went round; the mug of cider circulated, and the rosy apple brightened each laughing lip.' This cider, however, had an effect on the worthy captain himself, at which our author only hints. Always jocular, the old gentleman became exceedingly so, and even permitted one of his men, who was standing, to sit down upon a wash basin instead of the chair, which he had silently removed.' The man was unquestionably highly pleased with the permission. The worthy captain seems to have taken the phrase of drowning care in the bowl' somewhat literally; or was perhaps living his youth over again, and thought he was letting a green hand into a tub, on crossing the equator; a mistake the less to be murmured at, as the mug of cider had circulated, and the ancient navigator appears to have been half seas over. Our author, who, to all appearance, is a bit of a wag himself, declares, 'that he left this house with regret.' His agreeable entertainment in it was but an unfaithful augury of his company in the stage coach to Boston. Among them were two persons, whom he pronounces to have been, in the mild signification of the term, Boston sharpers, and who commenced business by a boisterous colloquy about such smart men of their town, such and such sharp fellows of their neighborhood, and made many shrewd remarks concerning horse dealing, swapping, purchasing molasses, and vending clocks, wooden bowls, and pumpkin-pie dishes to the southward.' We think we see the wicked smile of these rogues in making our poor pedestrian swallow all they chose to put themselves off for; and a high treat they must have had to see worthy Mr Stansbury entering them in his note-book, first as horse jockies, then West India supercargoes, then travelling pedlars, or rather all at once, without the good man's dreaming of the hoax. The Boston folks are sharp indeed; rather too much so to blow themselves thus to Mr Stansbury. We have no doubt he expected every moment to see the dogs pull out a bag of wooden nutmegs.

Approaching nearer the ocean from Connecticut river, our author had the good fortune to find the land grow more fertile; whence it is plain that the luck of making discoveries, which attends him on foot, does not desert him in the coach. 'His vehicle rolled speedily, he tells us, through Bedford, Nashford, and Tungsborough, each a splendid place, without one

small or ill looking house about it. This is travelling with a witness; and a very valuable annotation informs us that the New England currency is 6s. 8d. to a dollar; from which we are sorry to argue, that we have lived all our days with a set of sharpers, who have put the odd eight pence in their pockets, for every dollar they have exchanged for us.

But the glorious things which it was reserved for our author to disclose, crowd fast upon us. We passed,' saith he, 'through Dunstable, Chelmsford, Billerica, Burlington, and Woburn, without stopping more than ten minutes in each place. Bur lington has become famous for its extensive theological institutions, which are brick buildings of extraordinary elegance as well as simplicity.' This discovery of Mr Stansbury's at Burlington strikingly confirms a remark often made, that travellers will find out more of a place in a few moments, than inhabitants and neighbors in a long life. Struck with shame on reading this part of Mr Stansbury's valuable work, we immediately set off on foot to do penance with a fifteen miles walk, and make a pedestrian trip to Burlington. We did not allow the word pedestrian, however, nor our purpose of taking a walk, to betray us into a too literal accomplishment of that plan. Availing ourselves of one of those advantages, which Mr Stanbury declares to be peculiar to pedestrians, that of jumping into the first vehicle which we encountered, we craved a seat in the one horse chaise of our former academical associate and esteemed friend, the reverend Mr Sewall, of Burlington, not doubting that if there were a theological institution in his parish, he would certainly know the fact, and peradventure belong to the establishment. Our friend was not less surprised at the strain of our remarks, than we had been in reading the paragraph of Mr Stansbury's work. Too mild, however, to express a disparaging judgment, he half whispered with a significant smile, fuit haud ignobilis Argis,' and bid us good morning.

Mr Stansbury put up at the Rising Sun in Boston, the only sign we are sure at all appropriate to the happy day, when he entered our walls. With a peculiar talent at getting over the ground, which his habit of walking probably conferred, he contrives to bring his observations on Boston, Charlestown, and Cambridge, within the compas of one day, and starts off the next morning for Newport. His conscience having smitten him for his intemperate indulgence in a seat in the Concord stage, he determined once more to adopt what he learnedly New Series, No. 12.

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