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LINES TO THOMAS TELFORD, ESQ.

BY ROBERT SOUTHEY, LL.D. POET LAUREATE.

[An elegant marble tablet, executed by Messrs. Cleland, of Glasgow, is placed at Banavie, (Neptune's Staircase,) on the Caledonian Canal, on which the following lines are inscribed, in honour of the civil engineer under whose direction the canal was completed.]

Where these capacious basins, by the laws
Of the subjacent element, receive

The ship, descending or upraised,—eight times
From stage to stage, with unfelt agency
Translated,-fitliest may the marble here
Record the architect's immortal name !
TELFORD it was, by whose presiding mind
The whole great work was plann'd and perfected!-
TELFORD, who o'er the vale of Cambrian Dee,
Aloft in air, at giddy height upborne,

Carried his navigable road; and hung
High o'er Menai's straits the bending bridge;
Structures of more ambitious enterprise
Than minstrels, in the age of old romance,
To their old Merlin's magic lore ascribed.
Nor hath he for his native land performed
Less, in this proud design; and where his piers,
Around her coast, from many a fisher's creek,
Unsheltered, and many an ample port,

Repel the assailing storm :-and where his roads,
In beautiful and sinuous line far seen,

Wind with the vale, and win the long ascent,
Now o'er the deep morass sustain'd,—and now,
Across ravine or glen, or estuary,

Opening a passage through the wilds subdued!

THE BUSINESS OF LIFE.

Learn to live well, that thou may'st die so to-
To live and die is all we have to do.

ADVICE TO A YOUNG PHYSICIAN.

After the awkward ceremony of your first appearance is over, and matters a little adjusted, take great care to be upon your guard indulge in a variety of significant gestures, and emphatical hems! and hahs! proving you possessed of singularities, that may tend to excite ideas in the patient and surrounding friends, that a physician is a superior part of the creation.

Let every action every word, every look, be strongly marked, denoting doubt and ambiguity; proceed to the necessary inquiries of "what has been done in rule and regimen previous to my being called in?" Hear the recital with patience, and give your nod of assent, lest you make Mr. Emetic, the apothecary, your formidable enemy, who will then most conscientiously omit to recommend the assistance of such extraordinary abilities on any future occasion.

Take care to look wisdom in every feature; speak but little, and let it be impossible that that little should be understood; let every hint, every shrug, be carefully calculated to give the standers-by a wonderful opinion of your learning and experience.

In your half-heard and mysterious conversation with your medical inferior, do not forget to drop a few observations upon the animal economy, circulation of the blood, acrimony, the non-naturals, stricture upon the parts, acute pain, inflammatory heat, nervous irritability, and all those technical traps that fascinate the hearers, and renders the patient yours ad libitum.

To the friends or relations of the patient (as the case may be), you seriously apprehend great danger; but such apprehension is not without its portion of hope; and you doubt not but a rigid perseverance in the plan you shall prescribe, will remove all difficulties in a few days, and restore the patient (whose recovery you have exceeedingly at heart), to his health and friends; that you will embrace the earliest opportunity to see him again, most probably at such an hour (naming it); in the mean time you are in a great degree happy to leave him in such good hands as Mr. Emetic, to whom you shall give every necessary direction, and upon whose integrity and punctuality you can implicitly rely

You then require a private apartment for your necessary consultation and plan of joint depredation upon the pecuniary property of your unfortunate invalid, which you are going seriously to attack with the full force of physic and finesse.

You first learn from your informant what has been hitherto done without effect, and determine accordingly how to proceed; but, in this, great respect must be paid to temper, as well as to the constitution and circumstances of your intended prey.

If he be of petulent and refractory disposition, submitting to medical dictation upon absolute compulsion, as a professed enemy to physic and the faculty, let your harvest be as short and complete as possible.

On the contrary, should a hypochondriac be your subject, with the long train of melancholy doubts, fears, hopes, and despondencies, avail yourself of the faith implicitly placed in you, and regulate your proceedidgs by the force of his imagina tion; let your prescription (by its length and variety), reward your jackall for his present attention and future service.

Take care to furnish the frame so amply with physic, that food may be unnecessary; let every hour or two have its destined appropriation; render all possible forms of the ma teria medica subservient to the general good; draughts, powders, drops, and pills may be given at least every two hours; intervening apozems or decoctions may have their utility; if no other advantage is to be expected, one good will be clearly ascertained, the convenience of having the nurse kept constantly awake; and if one medicine is not productive of success another may be.

These are surely alternatives well worthy your attention; being admirably calculated for the promotion of your patient's cure, and your own reputation.

Having written your long prescription, and learnt from Mr. Emetic any necessary information, you return to the room of your patient, to prove your attention, and renew your admonitions of punctuality and submission; then, receiving your fee with a consequential air of indifference, you take your leave; not omitting to drop an additional assurance that you shall not be remiss in your attendance."

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These, sir, are the instructions you must steadily pursue, you possess an ardent desire to become eminent in your profes

sion, opulent in your circumstances, formidable in your competitions, or a valuable practitioner to the company of apothecaries, from whom you are to expect the foundation of support.

A multiplicity of additional hints might be added for your minute observance; but such a variety will present themselves in the course of practice, that a retrospective view of diurnal occurrences will sufficiently furnish you with every possible information for your future progress; regulating your behaviour by the rank of your patients, from the most pompous personal ostentation, to the meanest and most contemptible servility.

EFFECTS OF ENVY.

Plurarch compares envious persons to cupping-glasses, which ever draw the worst humours of the body to them; they are like flies, which resort only to the raw and corrupt parts of the body; or, if they light on a sound part, never leave blowing upon it till they have disposed it to putrefaction.

When Momus could find no fault with the face in the picture of Venus, he picked a quarrel with her slippers; and so these malevolent persons, when they cannot blame the substance, will yet represent the circumstances of men's best actions with prejudice. This black shadow is still observed to wait upon those that have been the most illustrious for virtue, or remarkable for some kind of perfection; and to excel in either, has been made an unpardonable crime. The following are striking examples of the direful effects of envy.

ENVY OF CAMBYSES.

Cambyses, king of Persia, seeing his brother Smerdis draw a stronger bow than any of the soldiers in his army was able to do, was so inflamed with envy against him, that he caused him to be slain.

ENVY AND MAGNANIMITY CONTRASTED.

Maximianus, the tyrant, through envy of the honours conferred on Constantine, and attributed to him by the people, contributed all that a desperate envy could invent, and a great virtue surmount. He first made him a general of an army, which he sent againt the Sarmatians, a people extremely

furious,-supposing he there would lose his life. The young prince went thither, and returned victorious, leading along with him the barbarian king in chains. It is added, that this direful prince, excited by a most ardent frenzy, on his return from this battle, engaged him in a perilous encounter with a lion, which he purposely had caused to be let loose upon him. But Constantine, victorious over lions as well as men, slew this fell beast with his own hand, and impressed an incomparable opinion in the minds of his soldiers, which easily gave him passage to the throne, by the same degrees which were prepared for his ruin.

ALEXANDER THE GREAT'S ENVY.

Alexander the Great, being recovered of a wound he had received, made a great feast for his friends, amongst whom was Coragus, a Macedonian, a man of great strength, and renowned for his valour, who, being heated with wine, challenged Dioxippus, the Athenian, a wrestler, and who had been crowned for many victories. It was accepted, and the king himself appointed the day. Many thousand were met, and the two champions came to the place;-Alexander himself, and the Macedonians with their countryman, and the Gre cians with their Dioxippus, naked, and armed only with a club. Coragus, armed at all points, being at some distance from his enemy, threw a javelin at him, which the other nimbly declined; then he sought to wound him with a long spear, which the other broke in pieces with his club; hereupon he drew his sword; but his nimble and strong adversary leaped upon him, threw him to the ground, set his foot upon his neck advanced his club, and looked on the spectators, as inquiring if he should strike; when Alexander commanded to spare him: so the day ended with glory to Dioxippus. But th king departed, and from that day forward his mind was alien ated from the victor: he fell also into the envy of the court and all the Macedonians; who at a feast privily put a gol cup under his seat, made a feigned and public inquiry afte it, and then pretended to find it with him: a concourse wa about him, and the man, afflicted with shame, departed When he came to his inn, he sent a letter to Alexander by hi friends, wherein he related his innocency, and showed the en vious villany that had been used to him, after which he slev

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