The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1820-12-28 00:00:00

ATTEMPT AT ASSASSINATION..

Oa Snnd►y .1,. s worst, as. Aka:war Eisq. of the
Cart le of N. tern •t le, c Iv 4111.1ick, akr of lo 1...1.1('..u.te.
Yeyj VRiair, an. walk iota In hull pleraure gruantls, he ~turned
a Wall 31 I a Antal dislnue.•, in a *ln ulthery, rin.p.rsrnted a
Itlonsilerinsra at hien, which tiaisreil ; the arrakain very lie.
lobes ately 5.1 k the portlier ill the p.ris,!sitill 'snappiest aat
hao , wills a like rreiiii ; and then, thruwing the bisiiirirr
'S down, .hear bum 11111 1.111111111 a large pistol,whirls he
rairkrA and Grid at Mr. llorkina ; mart furs ins:arty the
hall only r, t, his. ►l tart. The ilha,ter, 6'1'1164 that Isis
shut hul hut the err', esl clTrct, raw 441'. Wr Yn,l, pivot/
that arrival periossia ore isiiplorated in lien allensrl a 1 awns•
sittatimi, awl Mut aurae have becu wrested all ttivittriuu .
(Limeriok Chronicle. j

LETTER •
912 TOR LATE SIR HERBERT CROFT,
Tag Rio°KAMM or DC NIOUNO, IN " JellINSOPed

1.11/F i OF Tilit POETS."

It is well known that the late Ilea. Sir 11. Croft ;
wit* the author of the life of Dr. Yining* among
JohNsures t toes of the Poem An intimacy with
Frederick 'Voting, the Imo Of the author of the
ight Thoughts, enabled Ilerlwrt Craft, at that
time a young tarn icroilyitir, the law, to learn pry.-
licailars respecting the Poet. which Jillitisnit,
it is probable, hot nn means of r•bt.iiiing from
any other source. The memoir furnished by
Sir Heiluot Croft brio, deenpil by the bingrs-
phr r sufficiently correct for pulihrstlntl• lie gr"t"
fir(' the ambition of hi* yont:ig font's, and hi. own
indolence •t the same time, hr givinv: it to the
world as he received it front the anise. 'll'he
loa lag extracts from a letter of Sir Ileibert Croft,
iiirlr pendently of their coming from the pen of a
man of learning, wing It he tvidniabtedly wes, fUlf-
sai.li some other circumstances relative to Yoitii7,
sod an anecdote of the late l.'rd Camelford, tr•h ii
is not uninteresting. Every incident relative to de-
parted genius is deservedly dear to the Isolate;
trod there is naturally a to cherish sti,
in hearts open to the iltligiolul impression. pro.
iliscril by tha lab)))) of the pat.% A inelatichidy
illeql.lllC us always felt no f or hearing pity
thing new regarding •a getsltlr. Is ". gatileted
to his fathers?' The researches of lliallV curious
persons who endeavour to rescue lions olslieitni a
jest d'esprit, s stanza, or some trifle in ,'self of
little moment hut fur it* culmoiiois with a great
seine, afford society a pleasure, or at least harm-
less entertainment.
It appears that Croft at one time projected what
he
Ire denominated a'l'one of Utili..ly, I
meant to have addressed letters to particular I'-tends
touching the history of the limes; u,.(1 Chit hire
was probably not relinquished %%hen lie wrote this
letter. It is addressed to George II --, E.g. sit
Datum iu I)enniark, and is dated Lisle, Totshlay,
.four 5, 11104; the writer being sit thst firer reM-
deist in France, among the English detained there
at the commaneement of hiisoilitits in 1802.

It is most certain that, during fifteen or sixteen
par* at least, we have always had to gly-.... Thr
present moment is more extranribilary thin soy of
which Inetury tells;"--autl, behold, we ,'till find 1
ouriorleea, on the present Sili of J 11.1,, 1804. iii the
incredible moment lii which we make ow of exactly
theses:le wondering laileiore. Boma:owe isaiii, ilui-
Mg the revolution fertile 18th Brumaire, .1 Men. duos
l'histoire, lie rest-enable a la fin du Isinesiecle," sod
every hour since has proved the truth Or his word.,
applied to the begennistA of the to li century. We
Gel. day after day, like Pope's traveller in the Alps,
in that exquisite as just sonde in its. I:ssuy on
Criticisms. which Johnson, in Pope's Life, calls
46 the best aximporimu that English poetry can chew:"
and perhaps even now, after all that we have aerie
for au many years—other wandering amidst such
moving rocks and yaw . g precipices, and meeting.
at every turn, new and loftier mountains, which, if
their beads tooth the skies, may often be said to
take root in Tartarus--our aching mid asto-
nished sight has still to cheviot, fresh woodeia, and
mountains more gigantic and more threateniiig than
those which have so repeatedly frozen the boldest
blond. Alas! my friend, may tio overwhelming
aeshosehe detach itself. in mighty min, front Mere
projecting Alps. and bury, for ever, hundred* of
harmless people in its fall
Lord Cantelford, however, will see time of these
cloodecapt events which perhaps await us. If the
ovalattehe cover him. it most fall ou the Swiss grave
lie has chosen, in the canton of Berne, on the mar-
gin of Lake Saint-Pserre, riot far from the real
awful Alps. POUT fellow I he was certainly strange.
acid almost more than etranee; as you and 1 agreed
at Cuxhaven; but 1 wide that all men of large
fortune had part of Isis strangeness. His directing
his relations to deposit his remains in the grave la.
points out in Switzerland. at the lout of the mid-
inmost of three trees, far framed! the haunts .i
men, where he had often meditated on the muta-
bility of human affairs, and on the ingratitude of
mankind ; what a melancholy. and perhaps instruct-
ing contrast does it not furor with a young man of
twenty-oiler spooling more than four thousand
pounds of his income, every year. in a peisonal
contest with tnisforittne ; in making his wretched
fellow-creatures, happy, notwithstanding all that 611 e
could do to the contrary I her principal delight was
extricating young officers its the navy or army
from the clutches of 'Dowry, mid enabling theist to
get no isi'lltwir profession.
You perhaps leave seen the English papers which
speak of his manly death. in consequence of a duel,
the begi 111 l ing of March. with Captain nest of the
navy, an old still lustttt ate friend ? Ile lived till
the lion day. and seems to have chiefly employed
his now in obviating any unpleasant constritiel.cra to
his antagoisist for killing him. 1 ono,- knew a line
fellow oleo fell also as cutorquence of a foolish quar-
to-I, by the hand of a friend, to whom, Ina will mode
afterwards, he left a considetable legacy, which the
other, of course. declined. The French accuisiet
of Lord C.'s conduct soul death (whitAi is all 1
have seen) alleeted sue much. Ile lead a noble
• d : and he would certainly have made a first-
rate character. could Isis intellects have hero regu-
lated, Slid could' their energies have been directed
into a wooer channel. It is far (loin my intention
to censure his father, Mr. TI a Pi't, crested
Lord Catnelford in 1784; indeed I have heard that
he and others bestowed all proper pine* on the late
Lord's education; but 1 apprehend that the con-
trary coodsict iii • parrot may affect more than the
posers of the mod. u* we are all agreed ; that
it may unhinge even the illiellteU4 as we call illellU•
I knew, full %veil, the PAU of one of the most tllll.
owlet Engliah lor:6; and I ani coolident of %glint isey
blend would hot let toe say. during Ilia life-time,
in my account of Dr. Vottog. tolllollg •• Johnson's
Lives." in 1779 —1 am continent Mat. aide differeut
'cafe taken tit his youth, aid ai,il such rare as such
a poet ought to have given to the only child of lief
whom hr vigor the Aight Thoughts to Naito,.
the world would have wou not only our indevideed
ithe less in the chino of d h am. who ate mt.-table. but
1 as.,, tlw more in she rank of iil46Me a ho reflect Honour
i swain homiest stature. Viesteriek Young, the 'eite-
-1 weistativeof our gvest poet and of the Lortilirlol Noll.
1 ly, and tbt bar of all No ratl.res imitate, died of a

broken heart, er by Iris oreillioa'rulPibie buds. be.
elope he who 1.-got hiun neglected his youth mid
edueatiou. and quitted the nursery of hie wife
mil Ins own perilous, in order to mike rm.:ur-
inous to Parnassus. Poeta and authors will de-
feud their rouse. by evensong their securer of
waht of frrinl. ; hut I uhshosied front sayiug this.
whirls it lies always been me intention to add to
my / ifs of Young for twenty-five year., while
is single siidsvidrial of the family survived; and I
ahoilutely disclaim all roomy. which is itapolisshie.
to Ilse memory of a poet whose "rooks I 'cern..
Groilripro, if you choose to marry, and to enter
two new chilies. more unisnerosis thins you ore aware
Pi, 3ou are linund to Will them. No number of
lattrel-nosily will ever roliceal from the eyes or pos-
terity, neglect, motels les. 111 usage, of • wife and
1•1111iIrrii : lite wild.' 1141 sent hit three or four eine
pioosii; and eve,' is filth, superior rvro Si) throe we
114 re, will never make irooreirl4 fur such conduct.
The thud shay of a matted poet is to be II good
port ; but the first 14 its be • good husband, sod
the ,ectmol to he a goca father.
My poor enroll's poetical father, whose eye over-
loot eti his 'oily elitlll its " glainiog from heivesi
to (wilt, from earth so heaven;" tin. Rembrandt of
10,,5y wrier' a tine opportiansty of adding
to lois ovllery nfhuutarr rortrisitv, in his !lathes. lISs
lturntke• flutist Iturshipping a.tolip, it nothing to
whst YOUlig% strung sod natural rued might Mice
Fir avght hove ohrwn us the poet. who, absorb-
ed ill hi+ 1/Urf.111(111(141.e
ih it the hest verse. of Virgil, and almost the worst
tor 1;s, lot. or of &harms, will shwa), corupensvie
fur his bring n gnutl-for-nothing nr only a middling
elms-wrier, in his colijugal mud paternal capacities:
who condi wend. to marry a poor lady, the object

. . -
of his colociiipt, because she live never been taught
Greek and Latin ; and then cuanums, every night,
more them adultery, with his little dirty MOW;
olio, in .fort, does worse than neglect his own le4i-
ttinate fl.sh and blood, heir to powers of mind
still sicker than his father'., and doomed to imi-
t iie that father in to-glecting his own children,
and so on, tad is!firdtehe ; who, forsooth, 4r in hi.
Tine frenzy" (it Si, rit.peare call. it) does no-
thing but fundle his sickly, "mewling, puling"
listi it was not likely to live, nor *outlay
to live, a nee k —wheat It is already dead—when it
toyer was any thing but still-boro.
Voting wrth! not hare laid aside his dark and
gloomy even from sketching satirical pm-
traits, oiibuut pion•lr representing such a wretch,
chili, in his poetical capacity, hie hears his useless
lays damned by sill hiss coraemporgries; and
id lot paternal character, he plainly lore:sees,
tin hie death bid, that his mentinry wlll be cursed
by hit latest posterity.
Aly gond liiend, when you acquit me of deigning
to insult Vomit; ris a crate, understand me nut to
brut that sr sellable of this applies to the best of
Young's winks. Young. 1 well know, was a poet,
in the 101 l .e..be of the word
bromism coi sit, cal wear divinior litque es
'lope eeeetetree ; des mosisio InZiee heesiess.

I do not mran to say that he was not, in his hap-
piese moments, all that Horner demands: but what
then ? IJo mean to soy. that IF was bawd to be
a tallier. us ..ell as a !met : l sill say. that God,
of whom She usithor of the Nigh. Thoughts is
almost the osriirtilar poet, created Young, and all
of in, for stir nobler ends than to make verses. It
is, iiiilispumbly. permitted to US to compose
and to publish either prose Of poetry, either %WPCS
much infetior to Young's. or dull letters of
history like them ; provided we exert our tartar.
as Young always did, to improve. and not to cot-
rupt our fellow-creatures : yet we have not the
right to be even useful, in this way, until we have
fully answered every one of those other end nobler
ends of our crestioa. All the private happiness of
ut least one whole family, and from generation to
griwration, is far too much to pay for the poosible
itistructioo, or perhaps only the doubtful amuse-
mem, of part ist the public. in only one language.
Either Sophocles or Euripides, at a very advanc-
ed age. produced a tragedy to the Judges who were
avernibled to examine into the change of his having
lost his intellects : but, supposing the Athenian
Court of Justice to understood its duty, in vain
would he have offered in evideuce the best of all
Iris tragedies, hod hie children accused Liar of being
• bad lather, instead of brutally charging him with
having fallen into u second childhood.
Racine has a name worthy to be mentioned with
either Sophocles or E01113141td: and yet Ire did not
bloats to be both u husband cud a father. Unable
our day to convince the,politerress of a gentleinso-
lisher how impossible it was that he should attend
him, to dine at the Prince de Conde's', " because
he had been engaged fur a week by hie wile cud
children to partake of a large carp with them ;" and
pretoed by the loonier. with " the Prince's ne-
cessary inortifirato.n, as the company was to he
vet). brillisiit ;" the poet sent fur the bah. " There.
Sir ! be judge 3 ourself. Did you ever see so floe a
earl'? Is it nostible for me to disappoint the poor
things, who make a holiday of gluing me this treat.
and who would out perhaps touch a bit without
use P' Tins scene deserver to be applauded rod
studied, as touch as coy in the best of Racism's tra-
gedies.
Alas'. when the only child of Young came home
to Welwyn, for the vacation, trout Winchester
school, where lw wag for two years senior boy, it hap.
pesied sepeatettly„ according to the best possible
erides.ce, that Los poetical father only saw I nn
the first day mod on the last ; soil that lie left him
to spend the intermediate time exactly as the boy
“ Throe little thing. are great to little seao:"

or rather, the smallest things of dn. kind are of the
gicutest conacquesser, in giving perhaps a colour to ,
a whole life. This poet's neglected child paid '
nfteraartla more attention, /luring tan or three vM
(altlllll%, t./ Ive. a tstrfect stranger, to whom he only
took a f..i,cy en the litre-t null at Winch. titer. when
ass id ill-11111A litrft., with she wine Mr. Adding-
ton, than, according to the oldest iuhiibitrau of
Welw)ii, he experienced host his own lither dor.
hug his whole )nuth.
Should tlwae hasty tellections, which I have not
Ingmar-al frill any loLgustgr-s—fur all languages bold
not authors, stud name particularly ports, iii a
manner ll 10. atitacting —should these erdeca
lions ever have their tpas some tine moron*, this
pelt of site letter will Le as cowries's epietulafir ns

if I tom yott where i dlbed yesterday. its avert
of weather we lore So-day ;a.if I sent yee untrue
iorriligoore...for where is even the dirty spy who
coo procure tree.? --of the new gotperor's hoc
preparrittoos, at Idenifogne, far has tine:stetted (*-
scoot upon Enecland. t• ilandowne i., ao harts!.
some tines:" mantis the proverb. , That I bold to he
a real life letter,-"or, a teal supthinketre, which is
calculated to do veil good.
What I juice been sayioie does not, as I tier
carefully observed, reflect ea the faintly of Lord
Csinelford: who would, I fear, hove been little lime
though five Fenrlessa lied guarded him
yOlllll and guided his vilocatioa. Ido not mean
to may may thane indecorous, tint I would heerlellyi,
though meriortmly, submit to Lord Gieovide, who
ladder all the properly in right of Isis L.'lv, the sisio
ter of Lord Cumellord, whether eking oitii Lattritit
in Nurbolk, and Iloconsoic so Cornwall, nod I knit,
not lo'r illothands a year, trrr-,. do no,
strictly inherit nett of the late mailer% ir.l:4irslirt 1
awl *bribr they be not bound, if :,,.1 legelt;.
more forcibly for certain minds than by goy Ise,
to dimpote of souse trifling portion of his great peo•
pert:, every year, tu the exemplary u.e wee to
which be annually spot se such of it. I tau
readily believe what is said of this 01114;11a of Ili/ in
the ireospapers, which do rout olteu Router tlu deed,
sod in this way ; for I knew rate isisimice that nine
at Cuxhaven, when lie was live year. younger thaw
at his death.

FIDELITY.

(Fran 1' 77e Percy Anecdotes: ]

DAMON AND PYTOIAN.

Damon being einedenswed w &lib by Dionysiea, Tyrtat
of Syracuse, uhtainrd liberty to visit his wito childcv-i,
Intelsat( his friend Pythias as a pledge for Ufa roue
on rendition that if he failed, Pythias 'humid swift" in Ilia
stead At ibe appoinieil time, 1/anuta falletl is opyrarttm,
and the tyrant had the curs...my to viell Pythias iw twison.—
.4 What a fool yea' was," said " to rely on Danion'a pro-
miae ! How eueld yen insatisie that be would sacriGre
life for yon or for any 18,4111 My LAtf said pithle.,
with a 11-nt voice and nob', a.pcet, " I would suffer a Hew-
moot deaths rather Shalt my friend shual.l fail su aay article
of honour. He casisot foil. 1 ant ironfideut of his virtoe,
I ion of env own existence. Bet I beseech the gods In pre-
.

scree his ills. Oppose bun ye w Ind.! Disappoint Lis eager-
ness, sad suffer him not to arrive till my death boa saved a
life of notch greater COUiellpielleC Oleo mine, Necessary to
his lovely wife, to his little immense., to his triclinia, to his
enrol. y. Oh! fit me no, die the cruellest of deaths in that
of my Dames." Disin)sins was esti.thandeil, and awed utt's
the magneisionity of these seattmente. lie wi►hed to speak;
he hesitated; he looked down and retired in Wesel,. The
fatal day arrived. Pythias was brought forth, and with al
air of satisfaction walked to the place of eseciation. Ile a -
cusilel the scaffold, sod addressed the peep!". " My prayer •
are heard ; the gods arc propitious; the nisei ha►e
been rootrary. Damon could not remote itapneaibili.
ties; he will he here lo•marrow, and my Mend 'ball ro♦
sum that of my friend's." As he pronounced anew words,
a boas arose; • distant voice was braid; the etosd
caught the wields, sod " Stop, stop, executioner !" wan
repealed by every penes. A mais came at fell speed.
In the Male Mislaid he was off his borer, on the sestalrl,
and is the arms of Pythias. `• You a►e safe," be most.
" you are safe, my friend. The gods be praised, yens am
safe. Pale sad half speeehkss in the arm; of Iris
Damon, Pythias replied in brokes ate/ate: Fatal haste!
cruel impatience ! What nucleus powers base etemsght
impossibilities against your friend ! bat I will qt be
wholly disappointed. &ore I csanot die to save yam;
I will die so accompany you " Dineysies heesst
beheld with asinseishment. His eyes were opened ; Ma
beet was touched ; and he could no Onager resist the peewee
of virtue. He deacroded from ►is throw, sad aseroded the
scaffold. ' Live, live, ye incompirable pair! Ye have
demoostrated the existeace of virtue, and evasequeutly of w
God who rewards it. Live happy, live revered; sad as yeti
have invited wee by your example, form see by your pro
testis to participate worthily of • friendship so divine."

OROAINIC RIMAINC—The organic remains, o-
relics of organised brings, discovered in the rocks
nod soil of North Ame►ica, are exceedingly divers-
fied and curious. Th►y are of all the classy* known
to geologists, such as actual boxes, teeth. and sheik.
petrOgetignts and mineralizations of these; surd
mould, or intimations, in the mot distiurt forma.
There is an extensive collection of these io Mit-
chill's cabinet. For the purpose of waking them
more extensively known, we understand that the
elegant delineator, Mr. Mil beer. has been for SOM.
time occupied ip making drawings of many of the
more remarkable pieces. To those, the proprietor
will add the necessary descriptions.