Lo with a mighty hoft he comes; I fee the parted clouds give way; I fee the banner of the Crofs difplay. • Death's zonqueror in pomp appears, In his right hand a palm he bears,. And in his look redemption wears. Many other paffages might be produced, which would fully prove the juitice of Norris's claim to the title of Poet. In the Ode to Melan boly, the greatest part of thofe images may be found, which have been to hacknied and wire-drawn by modern verifyers. I cannot refift the defire of tranferibing a ftanza from an ode, entitled The Aspiration. The poet laments that his four is immured in the dark prifon of the body, which prevents its full enjoyment of the divine prefence.

"How cold this clime! and yet my fenfe

Perceives c'en here thy influence; "Evin here thy ftrong magnetic charms I

• feel,

And pant and tremble like the ara'rous fteet: "To lower good, and beauties lefs divine, «Sometimes my varying needle does decline; But yet fo irong the fympathy,

It turns and points again to thee!

The metaphor contained in thefe lines ftrongly relembles that beautiful one, in an Ode to Senfibility, the production of a modern female writer."

Norris as a poet wrote but little; but his pieces difplay a vigour of intellect, and a rich vein of imagery; and the peculiar energy which he felt when treating on divine fubjects, enabled him very frequently to foar to the true fublime.

Philofophers will efteem him moft on account of his metaphyfical works, in which he exhibits proofs of a clearness of conception, andan accuracy of diftinction, rarely to be found in the pages of any other writer. I know that thele enquities have been cenfured as of no profit te the mind of man, which they are faid perpetually to delude. There may be

.

much of truth in the objection; fet at the fame time it must be confeffed, that fuch difquifitions, abftrule as they are, exhibit the powers of the mind in their greatest perfection. An aente metaphyfician leaves at a great diftance, in point of mental energy, the proficient in every other branch of knowledge. Norris has foared to the utmost heights of this sublime icience, and with a more vigorous wing than any other writer, his own great favourite Malebranche not excépted.

Whilft memoirs, and fcraps of me. moirs, of characters which have but little claim to public notice, are gleaned with care, detailed with pomp, and read with avidity; it furely reflects no credit

on the fcientific character of a nation, to fuffer the name of a divine equally cininent in learning and piety, to fail down the fream of time unnoticed, and now nearly forgotten.

This feeble eulogium on the merits of a writer, who deferves the warmet ftrains of panegyric will at leaft teftify my gratitude; for I do not fcruple to acknowledge, that the perufal of his works has conftituted one of the chief pleasures of my life.

Were I ranked among the diftinguished few whofe applaufe is fame, gladly would I weave the garland of praile and place it on his brow; well affured that the difcerning tafte of future ages would preferve the laurels unwithered, and for ever green.

Mr. Norris was educated at Winche ter fchool, was (I think) of All Souls College, Oxford, and Rector of Bemerton, near Salisbury. He preached an excellent Vifitation Sermon at the Abbey Church Bath, before the Bishop of that diocele, July 30th, 1689. He refiled fome little time at Newton St. Loo, HORTENSIUS.

CLD HOUSES IN DUKE-STREET, WEST-SMITHFIELD.
(WITH A PLATE.)

THE Old Houfes in Duke-street are
fome of the few remains of the
Antient Architecture of this Country.
The date on the back part of the houie
adjoining the French Horn is 1599.
The houses alluded to are glebe to the
Rectory of St. Bartholomew the Great,
and are nearly oppofite to a Livery-
Gable, the ign of the Black Horie, the.

ftables of which are part of the Cloifters of the Monaftery of St. Bartholomew the Great, noticed heretofore in` this Mugazine.

The curious veftiges of antiquity in the above parish are well worth the attention of thofe who with to comport the former method of building with the prefent.

P.

Το

3IR,

To the EDITOR of the EUROPEAN MAGAZINE.

I BEG leave, through the medium of your Magazine, to offer to the Public the following ODE. It is the production of SHAH ALLUM, the ftill nominal Emperor of Hinduftân-a man whofe misfortunes and fufferings are abundantly known, but whofe talents and virtues have not been justly appreciated. The narrators of his melancholy hiftory, viewing him merely in a political light, and judging of the man from the imbecility of his government, have formed conclufions unfavourable to his intellectual endowments; but thofe to whom an intimate knowledge of his life has given the means of eftimating the general character of his mind, whilft they concur in the opinion of his incapacity for public affairs, delcribe him, at the fame time, as poffeffing much elevation of fentiment, and acuteness of fenfibility; as being alike capable of exalting his mind to the pursuits of philofophy, and of foftening it to the exercife of the milder virtues. Poetry was the amulement of his youth amidst the fplendour of a palace, and is now the confolation of his age in the gloom of a dungeon.

This ODE is esteemed the best of his late performances, and is rendered pecu liarly interefting by the afflicting nature of its theme. It was written at the age

of feventy, about two years after he had been depofed, imprisoned, and deprived of his fight, by Golaum Khader, one of his vaffal Princes, and it bears ample teftimony of his dignity and his fpirit. It breathes the warm language of infulted virtue, and the calm dictates of pious refignation. It fhews a mind of which the energies have neither been enfeebled by age, nor repressed by adversity. Of the beauties and defects of the Poem, as they appear in an English drefs, it were unbecoming in this place to make any difcrimination. I may, however, be permitted to obferve, that the Tranflator has given to an almoft literal tranflation, a chaftenefs and an elegance which, from the oppofite idioms of the two languages, and the ftill more oppofite genius of Oriental and of English poetry, has been but feldom attained. But thefe pathetic verfes have a higher value, as illuf trating the character of their venerable author, whom England has allowed to languish in hopeless mifery, than from any intrinfic merit of their own. I trust, therefore, that a contemplation of his unhappy condition, and of thofe feelings which it will not be denied him to have expreffed in a manly as well as a delicate ftrain, will excite the fympathy of the reader, and affuage the feverity of the critic; and, I may prefume, there are thofe amongst us who can commiferate the fate of de graded magnificence, and give a tear to the forrows of neglected genius,

-Sunt bic etiam fua præmia laudi;

Sunt lacryma verum, et mentem mortalia tangunt.
I am, &c. &c.

L. D. C.

TRANSLATION of a PERSIAN ODE written by the EMPEROR SHAH ALLUM during his Confinement, after his Eyes had been put out by the Traitor GOLAAM KHADER.

THE angry ftorm now rifes faft,

To view a wretch afcend that throne

Hoarse howls around Misfortune's blaft, The right of Timour's race alone.

Difperfed abroad in defart air,

Borne on the gales of fad Despair;
My pow'r, which lately fhone so bright,
Sinks in the deepest shades of night;
Now blind I mourn, a prey to woe,
Bereit of every blifs below.

Alas! but haply Heaven's decree
In mercy doom'd this lot to me,
Left the accurs'd Ufurper's rife
Should wound the Royal Suff rer's eyes;
Surely to fee th' exulting foe
Would aggravate Misfortune's blow i

VOL. XXXI. MAY 1797

O'er India's fair extenfive plain
Aufpicious dawn'd my early reign;
Too foon the flatt'ring profpect fled,
Now forrow shrouds this aged head;
No pow'r averts th' Almighty's dom,
E en martyr'd glory fought the tomb;
Ere Mecca's rightful lord expired *
War's facrilegious torch was fired;
As the bleft fpirit rofe on high
Il-omen'd wailings rent the fky;
Heaven's orb affum'd a livid glare,
Pale meteors crofs'd the troubled air,

Literally, vanished.
Rr

Portending

The fon of Mertiz Ally, who was flain at Kurbella.

+ Yezzid, the fon of Mauvia, who caufed Emaum to be put to death.

Perfons whom Shab Ailum had raised from obfcurity, and who proved traiterous. Sbib Allum wrote a very pathetic letter to Timour of Perfia, representing his fituation, and foliciting aid against the Ufurpers

Scindia had at this time been driven from the Northern provinces by the armies of Ilmari Beg, and the Rajahs of Goznajur and Janernagur.

Mr. Baftings, it is well known, once cherished the noble defign of emancipating the wretched Monarch from his mifery.

THE ADVENTURES OF MERCURY,
BY JOSEPH MOSER, ESQ.

THAT "nothing is fo killing as a long-continued Allegory," is the opihion of fome eminent critics for whofe learning and liberality I have, as De la Croix fays, "the highest confideration;" and the truth of whofe propofition I confequently do not mean to difpute. I have, therefore, not only diffevered the frather from my own pen, but have applied the literary pruning knife to the work of a correspondent, of which the fubfequent lines are a veftige, in order to reduce to a critical fize what was heretofore, like a Torpedo, of moft "petrifying" dimensions. Whether the caules of complaint which my applicant, who feems to write in fome heat, enumerates, exift to the degree which he states, will be best known from his own reprefentation. I have, therefore, directed him to throw them into the following form, and address them to a publication which, by its extenfive circulation, will be the most likely to contribute to their difperfion. He has taken my advice, and delred me to enclofe the refult of it

To the EDITOR of the EUROPEAN
MAGAZINE.

SIR,

ALTHOUGH I am, as you well know, the God of Eloquence, fo much am I irritated, that, like Demofthenes before he had taken a mouthful of pebbles, or a Welsh orator in a paffion, my words are fo crouded upon each other, that it will give me, and perhaps yourfelf, fome trouble to arrange them.

I am exactly in the fituation in which you have fometimes feen an advocate, who, when his fee has been large, has felt fuch a proportionate intereft for his client, the defendant, and has endeavour ed to infufe fuch a quantity of anger into his philippic, that he has overhot the mark, and has, inftead of abufing and attacking the plaintiff with afperity and opprobrious language, as he ought to have done, been truck as dumb as if in the Senate.

How much reafon I have to complain you will judge when you have heard my ftory. Oh, Father Jupiter! fhall I, that am not only, as I have faid, the God of orators, but of pickpockets alfo, be ufed fo vilely? 'Tis more than immortality can bear! To be infulted by a fet of perfons immediately under my protec.

tion, to whom I am their best friend and ableft affiftant, who owe the whole of their fame and affluence to my fecret operation; who, if I were to be fublimed or evaporate from their laboratories, must shut up their fhops, lay down their carriages, and defcend to their original meannels ! By Styx-but hold; instead of waiting my fpirits by vain expletives let me inform you who the parties are that have incurred my difpleature.

Know then, Mr. Editer, that the gentry to whom I allude are a large body of freebooters, who, like the Indian Cohorts, difperfe their poiioned arrows with fuch fkill and fuccefs, that they kill many thousands without the furvivors perceiving the wound. I am again wafting your time and my fpirits in metapher: to defcend then to common fenfe. I mean by freebooters, the venders of quack medicines and cofmetics; non-commiffioned physicians; fellows, no, perlons that certainly are not fellows, becaufe they dare to kill without a diploma; mifcreants who are continually fending me to the Elyfian Fields with fouls that have not had a regular pafs, which have never obtained an order of removal from the Medical Seilions, in Warwick-lane, who have never had an opportunity to appeal! But I am for the third time running into digreffion. Let me recollect myfelt, and, leaving thofe jackalls to grave diggers and undertakers, who may be confidered as wholesale dealers in mortality, to future animadverfion, confine my prefent complaint to the cofmetical Cohorts, who are, perhaps, by as much the most dangerous, as a concealed enemy is when compared to

an open one.

Every one knows, that a great number of ingenious perfons in this metropolis, and a ftill greater number in the country, have frequently united thofe three useful profes fions, viz. phyfician, bookfeller, and perfumer; but every one does not know that thefe perfons have been for years endeavouring to make me a fleeting partner. To do this they have bribed pretty high, and have actually introduced me to the lips, armis, and boioms of the greatest beauties and moft fashionable toalls in the nation; but, because they did not with me to appear in my own proper form, it has always been indifguife, which you know was the cafe in antient times, when I carried the Caduceus for my father ju

Rr 2

piter