The Sun.
London, England, 1822-06-18 00:00:00

P O E T R Y.

STANZAS to the ➢IEMORY of STEPHEN GEORGE
KEMBLE, ESQ.
( From the Durham Advertiser.)
" Poets themselves must fall like those they sung,
Dull the praised ear and mute the tuneful tongue
Even he, whose soul now melts in mournful lays, •
Shall shortly want the generous tear he pays—
Life's idle business at one gasp be o'er,
The muse forgot, and thou be loved no more."
Pope's Elegy.

How frail are all the earthly hopes of man !
How few his days—and all his wisdom frail.
Tinie binds his wandering prospects to a span,
And signifying nothing is the tale :

For man is born to trouble—and he dies,
As those who pass'd before, in grief and pain.
It is the lot of all beneath the skies,
To wish and sigh for lengthen'd days in vain.

It is the fate of some, who struggle on
To that dark sepulchre, where gloom and night
Await the grave and gay, to think the sun •
Will never cease to pour on them his light :

Yet thou hast pass'd as those of old declined,
The chosen race, the sons of Israel blest
By God himself—and free and unconfined
To earthly bounds shall be thy dreams of rest.

For thou, lov'd friend, whose talents and whose mind
'Were dear to genius, as to friendship dear :
A soul like thine this heart may never find
'Midst the rude scenes of life's uncertain sphere.

Genius ne'er stood neglected at thy gate—
Which greatness sometimes spurneth with disdain.
Thou oft hast succour'd the disconsolate,
And merit ne'er applied to thee in vain.

Hush'd is thy muse, which late so gently sung,
Whose balmy numbers sooth'd the mourner's heart
Whose soul was pure, as erst when fresh and young,
Or man was free from stratagem and art.

Oh ! had our general mother never heard
The serpent's tongue—nor listen'd to his lies,—
Mankind had then been happy, nor have err'd
Against the tempted Spirit of the skies.

We might, have seen unending summer's reign,
Then had we liv'd for ever, and this frame
Had stood unmov'd by death's devouring pain,
From thousand years to thousand years the same.

Ailieu, blest shade, 'tis thus that friends must part ;
Thy joys or griefs, thy friendships, all are o'er;
Through many a scene thou'st cheer'd this drooping heart,
That now can share thy sympathy no more.

No more—as late through many a happy year,
Thou more than parent shall this bosom own ;
For thy bright spirit, that so long was dear,
Has burst the bonds of earth, and gain'd the heav'nly zone.
THOMAS BURGON.
Elvet Bridge, Durham, June, 1822.

AN ENGLISH GENTLEMAN.--The following
notion of the proper character of an English
Gentleman, is entertained by the intelligent
American—the author of Bracebridge Hall:—
" Many of Lord Chesterfield's maxims would make a young
man a mere man of pleasure ; hut an English gentleman should
not be a mere man of pleasure. He has -no right to such sel-
fish indulgence. His ease, his leisure, his opulence, are
debts due to his country, which he must ever stand ready to
discharge. He should be a man at all points; simple, frank,
courteous, intelligent, accomplished, and informed; upright,
intrepid, and disinterested; one that can mingle among
freemen ; that can cope with statesmen ; that can champion
his country and its rights either at home or abroad. In a coun-
try like England, where there is such free and unbounded
scope for the exertion of intellect, and where opinion and ex-
ample have such weight with the people every gentleman of
fortune and leisure should feel himself hound to employ him-
self in some way towards promoting the prosperity or glory of
the nation. In a country where intellect and action are tram-
melled and restrained, men of rank and fortune may become
idlers and triflers with impunity ; but an English coxcomb
is inexcusable; and this, perhaps, is the reason why he is the
most offensive and insupportable coxcomb in the world."

The celebrated LlNNxus, when he was
forty-three years of age, was subject to such violent attacks of
the gout, that they deprived him of sleep and appetite. Dur-
ing the fit, he happened to eat some strawberries, after which
he had a refreshing sleep. The next day he ate, at intervals,
a large quantity, and on the second day after was quite re-
covered, and able to quit his bed. In the summer of the
following year he again dispelled attacks of the disease by
taking ripe strawberries. The third year the attacks were
renewed, but in a slighter degree than in the preceding
years. After this, Linnaeus never neglected to eat strawberries
every summer : his blood seemed to be purified by this means,
his countenance was more cheerful, his colour fresher, and he
was ever after free from the gout, though he lived to the age of
seventy years. _ _

THE -THIRD TIME.—The facetious Dr. B. of W r,
having inadvertently preached one of his early sermons for the
third time, one of his parishioners having observed it, said to
him after service—" Doctor, the sermon you gave us this morn-
ing having had three several readings, I move that it now be
passed."

Liuna's PORTRAIT.—ItaIian papers say that
the original portrait of Petrarch's Laura has been found.
It is well known that she was painted by Simone Memmi ;
but the engraving, published by Raphael Morghen, is after
an ideal poi-trait, or perhaps the portrait of another Laura, who
lived about 1,300. The recovered portrait is in the collection of
M. Arrighi, at Florence, (Piazza SS Trinitk, palazzi Buondel-
monti) and has been declared by Count Cicognara to be authentic
after a comparison with the original miniature in the celebrated
MS. of Petrarch, preserved in the Laurentian Library at Flo-
rence. The possessor has published an engraving of it.

AMERICANISMS.—The verb " to progress" is at
presentpeculiar to the Anglo-American dialect. It is, however,
to be found in some of our older writers, being one of those
words Of Latin derivation, which having once been neutralized
in the language, are.since become obsolete.' Thus in Shaks-
peare's King John :
Let me wipe off this honourable dew
Which silvery doth progress down thy checks.'
And Milton (who probably pronounced it after the American
manner) speaks in some one of his prose works, of " pro-
gressing the dateless and irrevoluble circle of eternity."--Kedge,
brisk or lively, (as " are her spirits kedge ?" in Fearon) is a
native of English growth : in an old Latin dictionary, of
which we cannot specify the author, (" for well a-day, the title
page was lost,") we read as follows: " Kedge, vegetus,
vividus, alacer.' —Boss, master, is perhaps from the Dutch
Laos.

A Captain of a merchant ship, now in this port, applied
one day last week to an inhabitant to, consult means of con-
veyance of some property to his family in the North. " What
is your name ?" ". Christian." What is the person named to
whom you wish to transmit your property P' Christian ; it is
my wife." 44 What is her Christian name ?'' " Christian."
" Where are you from ?" " Amsterdam." " What house
there ?" 44 Christian's! ! .t" This fact is the more singular,
from the circumstance of chance of trade alone connecting the
latter persons.—( Plymouth Paper. )
HORTICULTURE.— An experienced Horticul-
turist considers the following as the most likely means of se-
curing gooseberry bushes from the caterpillar :---His practice
was to wrap a beam or twist of reed, strongly impregnated with
that strong scented bitumen coal tar, round the stem of the
bush ; and no caterpillar touched a leaf. It kept off the flies,
and of course there was no caterpillar. There was not a leaf
eaten upon this gentleman's bushes, when all his neighbours'
were destroyed, and the fruit of course spoiled. Black pepper
keeps off the flies from meat. It is upon this principle of
creating an offensive smell that turnip seed is recommended to
be steeped in train oil before it is sown, and it is said to be a
perfect security against the bite of the turnip fly.