Singular Sermon.

That a ridiculous sermon should be preached can excite no surprise; for preaching is assumed by all ranks, and persons of every qualification, Jearned and unlearned; but that a Bachelor of

Divinity should preach before the University, and afterward publish such a sermon as one that we have seen in print, is remarkable. The title is The Virgin Mary. Preached in St. Mary's College, Oxford, on Lady- day, 1641: By the learned Thomas Master, B. D." The text is from Luke, i. 26, 27.-" The angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of Da vid; and the virgin's name was Mary. The Divine then opens his subject thus. We see the virgin in her perigæum; and her degrees, in this lower part of her orb, are prickt out in the text. 1. A virgin supposeth a woman, a degree below a man. 2. A vigin, one degree below woman: a virgin is a cipher: God made it not, Espoused: that is, somewhat lower yet: it is the gods', and the king's highway from maid to wife; but is neither, and therefore inferior to both. 4. To Joseph: this brings her lower still. 5. Of the house of David: lower still. 6. Her name Mary; yet lower. Her husband could not call Mary, but it reminded her of her poverty. 7. Of Nazareth: we are now at the ground; nay, the grave, for Galilee was in the region of the shadow of death."

3.

-

The reverend preacher then proceeds From this lowly state of Mary, we gather com fort for ourselves: for 1st, our soul is a woman. 2. She is a virgin. 3. She is espoused to some favourite study. 4. To the body; that is to the flesh, which is the carpenter's shop, and the spirit, which is the carpenter. 5. This carpenter is nobly descended. 6. Mary is a Lady; and that's the soul's name too. 7. She dwells here at Na zareth." In this strain Mr. Master proceeds through the whole of his sermon.

The Eolden Tooth.

Fontenelle says, "If the truth of a fact were always ascertained before its cause were inquired into, or its nature disputed, much ridicule might be avoided by the learned." In illustration of this remark, he relates the following whimsical anecdote:

"In 1593, a report prevailed, that a child in Silesia, seven years old, having lost its first teeth, in the new set a tooth of gold grew up in place of one of the cheek teeth. Hortins, Professor of Medicine in the University of Helmstadt, became so convinced of the truth of this story, that he wrote a history of this tooth, in which he affirmed, that it was partly natural and partly miraculous, and that it had been sent by heaven to that child to console the poor Christians opposed by the Turks. It is not, however, very easy to con ceive what consolation the Chsistians could draw from this tooth, nor what relation it could bear to the Turks.

"Hortius, however, was but one historian of the tooth; for, in the same year that this work appeared, Rullandus wrote another history of it. Two years afterwards, Ingosterus, another learned man, wrote in opposition to Kullandus respecting the golden tooth, who failed not to make a very elaborate and scientific reply. Another great man, Libavius, collected all that had been said on the tooth, and added his own peculiar doctrine.

"Nothing was wanting to so many fine works, but a proof that the tooth was really of gold; a goldsmith at length was called to examine it, who discovered that it was only a bit of leaf gold applied to the tooth with considerable address. Their books were first composed on an assumed fact, and then the goldsmith consulted."

Narrative of a fatal Event.

Concluded from our last.

Unconnected ravings, and frantic cries could alone express the unsufferable anguish I endured-His stretched out hand-I often, often see it still! yet it is nearly thirty-seven years ago. But the heart that would not save his frie..d, that saw him about to erish, yet kept aloof in the last extremity, perhaps deserves that suffering which time seems rather to increase than aileviate.

It is vain that I reason with myself that I say. "all this is too true,-I hesitated to save him.-I kept aloof from him.-I answered not his last cry for help,-I refused his outstretched hand, and saw him ingulphed in the cruel waters, but yet surely this did not spring from selfish or considerate care for my own safety. Before and since I have hazarded my life, with alertness and enthusiasm, to rescue others, no cold calculating prudence kept me back; it was an instinctive and involuntary impulse, originating from a strong early impression, and on finding myself suddenly placed in circum. stances which had been long dreaded in imagination? But all this reasoning avails nothing. I still recollect the inestimable endowments and amiable disposition of my early and only friend,---memory still dwells upon our taking leave of the city,---our passage of the Clyde,---our researches and walks in the woodlands and sequestered glens of Cowal,--our moonlight sail on Lochfine,---our ascent of the mountain, the splendid view of the sea and islands,

and our conversation on the summit,-the first cry of alarm, the out-stretched hand and upbraiding look,the appearance of the sinking body,-the bleating of the goat,-my friend s dying efforts among the sea-weed!

It is nearly thirty and seven years now; yet day or night. I may almost say, a waking hour has not passed in which I have not felt part of the sufferings that I witnessed convulsing the body of my poor friend, under the agon es of a strangely protracted death. Why, then, will the reader say, does the writer of this melancholy story communicate his sufferings to the public? Tis natural question I will endeavor to answer. The body of Campbell was found, but the distracting particulars of his fate were unknown. They were treasured in my own bosom, with which a catholic bigot conceals the discipline, or whip of wire, which, in execution of his private penance, is so often dyed in his blood. I avoided every allusion to the subject, when the ordinary general inquiries had been answered, and it was too painful a subject to press upon me for the particulars. It was soon forgotten by all but me; and a long period has passed away, if not of secre guilt, at least of secret remorse. Accident led me about a month since, to disclose the painful state of my mind to a friend in the neighborhood, who pretends to some philosophy and know edge of the human heart. I hardly knew how I was surprised into the communiThe discourse happened to turn on such moods of the cation of feelings which I had kept so long secret. mind as that under which I have suffered. I was forced into my narrative almost involuntarily, and might apply to myself the well-known lines:

Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched
With a strange agony,
Which forced me to begin my tale,
And then it left me free.

My fri nd listened to the d tail of my feelings with much sympathy. "I do not," he said, when my horrid narrative was closed, "att mpt by reason. ing to eradicate from your mind feelings so painfully disproportioned to the degree of blame which just y attaches to your conduct I do not remind you, that your involuntary panic palsied you as much the unfortunate sufferer's cramp, and that you were in the moment as little able to give him effectual assistance, as he was to keep afloat without it. I miglit

add in your apology, that the instinct of self-preser vation is uncommonly active in cases where we ourselves are exposed to the same sort of danger with that in which we see others perish. I once witnessed a number of swimmers amusing themselves in the entrance to Leith harbor, when one was seized with the cramp and went down. In one instant the pier was crowded with naked figures, who had fled to the shore to escape the supposed danger; and in the next as many persons who were walking on the pier, had thrown off part of their clothes and plunged in to assist the perishing man. The different effect on the byestanders. and on those who shared the danger, is to be derived from their relative circumstances, and from no superior benevolence of the former

or selfishness of the latter. Your own understanding must have often suggested these rational grounds of consolation, though the strong impression made on your imagination by circumstances so deplorable, has prevented your receiving benefit from them. The question is, how this disease of the mind (for such it is) can be effectually removed?"

I looked anxiouly in his face, as if in expectation of the relief he spoke of. "I was once," said he, "when a boy, in the company of an old military of ficer, who had been in his youth employed in apprehending outlaws, guilty of the most deliberate cruelties. The narrative told by one so nearly concerned with it, and having all those minute and circumstantial particulars, which seize forcibly on the imagination, placed the shocking cene as it were before my eyes. My fancy was uncommonly lively at that period of my life, and it was strongly affected. The tale cost me a sleepless night, with fervor and tremor on the nerves. My father, a man of uncommonly solid sense, discovered, with some difficulty, the cause of my indisposition. Instead of banishing the subject that had so much agitated me, he entered upon the discussion, showed me the volume of the state trials which contained the case of the outlaws, and, by enlarging npon the narrative, rendered it familiar to my imagination, and of consequence more indifferent to me. I would advise you, my friend, to follow a similar course. It is the secresy of your sufferings which goes far to prolong them. Have you never observed, that the mere circumstance of a fact, however indifferent in itself, being known to one, and one only, gives it an importance in the eyes of him who possesses the secret, and renders ît of much more frequent occurrence in the progress of his thoughts, than it could have been from any direct interest which it possesses. Shake these fetters therefore from your mind, and mention this event to one or two of our common friends; hear them, as you now hear me, treat your remorse, relative to its extent and duration, as a mere disease of the mind, the consequence of the impressive circumstances of that melancholy event over which you have suffered your fancy to brood in solemn silence and secrecy. Hearing it thus spoken of by others, their view of the case will end by becoming familiar and habitual to you, aud you will then get rid of the agenies which have hitherto operated like a nightmare to hag-ride your imagination."

Such was my friend's counsel, which I heard in silence, inclined to believe his deductions, yet feeling abhorrent to make the communications he advised. I had been once surprised into a confession, but to tell my tale again deliberately, and face to face, to avow myself guilty of something" at once approaching to cowardice and murder, I felt myself incapable of the resolution necessary to the disclosure. As a middle course." I send you this narrative'; my name will be unknown, as the event passed in a distant country from that in which I now tive. I shall hear, perhaps, the unfortunate survivor censured, or excused; the wholesome effect may be produced in my mind which my fiend expects from the narrative becoming the theme of public discussion; and to him who can best pity and apologize for my criminal weakness, I may perhaps find courage to whisper, the unhappy object of your copassion is now before you.”

Without one bright-eyed bird, whose song May sooth the wanderer's saddest mood,

Warbling the dark green boughs among? What is the grove, the summer bower By side of waters brightly flowing, * Without one rose, one lovely flower,

In freshness and in fragrance blowing?
Say that the change of light and shade
Bids kindred thoughts the soul pervade,
As, ruling with alternate sway,
Reason and fancy guide the way :-

Say 'midst the oaks and broad plane trees.
The hollow moaning of the breeze

Is pleasant, like the voice of those

Who virtue for their theme have chose;

Whose words serenely stern declare,
Truth, holy truth, alone is fair :-
Say that the lofty poplar tree,

Bending and waving airily,

As it wantons with the playful gale,

With all its thousand leaves in motion,

Is like the minstrel's knightly tale,

The lay breathed with a bard's devotion :

Say this, and more :-and all is true;
But when I range the woodland through,
Or climb the mountain and the hill,
Or loiter by the bubbling rill,

In shady bower or summer grove,

I would have something more to love

Than mount, and dale, and brook. and trees;

For these too soon will cease to please,

If no sweet songster, with wild trill,
The rove with soft sad music fill;
If no bright flowers beside me bloom.
And richly breathe around perfume.-
But if the wild bird's song I hear,
If the red rose is blushing near-
Oh there is something bids me stay
And list and look the live long day.

Now who will read my riddle weil
And all its darkling meaning tell?
Even he who deems fair woman's smile
Rich guerdon of long care and toil;
Who loves to see sweet woman's eye
Meet his in fondest sympathy;
Who feels his inmost soul rejoice
At the soft sound of woman's voice;
Who most the happy circle loves,
Where she in her mild beauty moves;
And who rejects the thrall of v.ce,
And bends to love, not avarice.
Yes he can read my riddle well,
And this its darkling meaning tell :
In scenes of grief, is woman there?

Her smiles nake wo and sorrow lighter.
In scenes of pleasure bright and fair,

Her smiles make radiant pleasure brighter.

But yet another drift is mine;
And if my simply figured line
Declare sweet woman's smile to be

The star that lights society;

Still more 'tis meant to tell the fair,
That 'midst the young crowd, that repair
To pace with step, or quick, or slow,
Through Hermes' column d portico,

1

There is too much of Stoic air,
Because few fair ones mingles there;
And far less pleasure than would rule,
If underneath the RETICULE,
The silken net-work for them hung
The lofty colums fair among,
Ladies more oft were passing seen
With modest beauty's graceful mien;
And smiles, which to the censor stern,
Benigner thoughts and tone would learn;
And looks of power to dispense
To the historian eloquence;

And voice which sweet as poet's lyre,
Would rouse the minstrel's slumbering fire.
And who will say those forms so fair
Should not be seen assembled there ?-
Banish the savage far away

To realms, where gloomy fleets the day,—
Where the dark rock and mountain stand
O'ershadowing a treeless land.
Where sullen billows ceaseless roar,
And break upon a barren shore.—
Nay, banish him not there: such scene
Might suit the heart, which once had been
Glad as the morn, but smiles no more,
Stung by deep sorrow to the core;
For there, amid the lonely wild
Time should make sorrow soft and mild.
No: send the savage far away

To haunts, where scarce the beam of day
Lights his dull footsteps, as he moves
Amid the gold and stores he loves.
Let him not know what 'tis to share
A home with one as wise as fair,
Whose charms, less than her polished mind,
His soul in sweetest fetters bind:-
Let him not know what 'tis to hear

Her voice, like sweetest music stealing,
His loved one to her offspring near

The treasures of her mind revealing. But there are none of those who move In Hermes' precincts, but would love To see the gentle and the fair Mingling in all their beauty there. There are none there who would not say Oh! come and with us ever stay: Come to the moralists, and prove "The counsel and advice they love "To give the fair, whom they admire, "You do not all alike require.

"Make them the listeners in their turn,

Empowering you to emulate

• The celebrated fair they praise, "Whose portraits bright they elevate "With pride to your admiring gaze, "Fair pendant on the net-work here,

Those portraits we behold with pleasure, "But were you oftener to appear,

"We shou d not hold them such a treasure."

There are a thousand themes which none
But woman's pen should touch upon~~
Themes which for man are far too fit e-
Like to the gossamer s silk line;
Like to the soft ephemeral flower.
That blooms and fades in one brief hour;
Like the bright colors that adorn
With lovely change the rising morn ;
Nay, like the passing blush that breaks
On virgin beauty's smiling cheeks;
Like joy s bright flash in beauty's eyes.
Which with the thought that roused it, dies.
Yes, themes whose charms are come and gone,
Ere man s slow power can picture one.

For fear the ladies should think me so stupendously ignorant as not to know what a Reticule really is, I must say in my own defence, that the original term RETICULUM likewise means Net-work, and in this sense it is used as better suiting my subjcet in its poetical dress.

Woman alone has power to fix

Those thoughts like sun-lit waters flowing; Her hand ber pencil only mix,

And spread those rainbow colors, glowing, Which tremble in such themes as these, And give them tenfold power to please :Hours of domestic industry,

When rosy fingers gracefully

Guide the bright needle to produce
The work of ornament or use,
While memory and fancy pour

Tales of some fond remembered hour :-
Walks of delight through summer fields
Which morn or evening sunbeam gilds;
Where sun-lit sky, and flower-decked earth..
To though's of piety give birth :-
Seasons of pleasure, ah, how sweet!
When youth and beauty smiling meet:-
Seasons of sorrow when they part,
And grief sits heavy on the heart:-
All the fleet changes that strange form
The tale of life; its calm and storm:
The frail bark's course of joy and gloom:
The voyage to the silent tomb :-
Fond home with all the pleasures sweet,
That in its dear relations meet;
The love of kindred and of friends,
And that where deeper feeling blends,
That love, which, full of joy and pain,
Binds youthful hearts with holy chain ;-
These themes, and thousands like them more,
Ask no proud depths of studied lore,
And rich with beauties fine are fraught,
Touches of nature,-to be caught
But by a soul of sympathy...
From vice and selfish feeling free;
A soul impressed with truths divine,
In mild serenity possessing
Those feelings simple, infantine,

On earth a more than earthly blessing,
Feelings that give a fresh bright charm
To God's works round us and above,
And heighten each affection warm

Of earthly and of heavenly love-
And how much more must they delight,
Urged by the voice of beauty bright!
For me, who in unpolished strain,
(And yet, I hope, nor bold nor vain)
Have dared to ask the ladies fair
Our joys to heighten and to share,
Methinks, that if amid the crowd,
My gaze caught one enchanting form,
My lyre should yield a note more proud,
My voice give birth to lay more warm:
For what can make a poet's fire,

Like beauty's eye with rapture glowing?
Or what a nobler lay inspire

Than beauty's voice in music flowing; When form, and voice, and look declare The blissful reign of virtue there? Liverpool, 11th April, 1823:

CELANDO.

The poem of Celando is quite suitable for the Reticule, in which department we are prevented from inserting it, because of its length.

PENATICS.-SONNET VII.

And art thou all mine own? Alas! it is

Some dream that wilders me, most fair, most fleet

ing;

No! 'tis no dream! my hearts delirious beating Sweetly confirms my certainty of bliss. Thou art my wedded own! Before His shrine Who made thee beautiful as saints above, Weeping proud tears of fond confiding love, There hast thou vow'd to be for ever mine. Oh what will next in unknown fate succeed? What envious grief? I know I am too blest For earthly lot; yet 'tis my glad heart's creed

That come what sorrow may, on thy kind breast, My loving Rosa! I shall find relief

So sweet-'twill sooth to gentlest joy all grief.
Liverpool.

G.

SCIENCE.

Life Preservers.

M. Hoffman, one of the professors of the University of Warsaw, has invented a kind of copper jacket, by which inexperienced swimmers may save themselves in the strongest current.It is an invention which will be very useful in shipwrecks and in the passage of rivers by troops. Repeated experiments have proved, that with this apparatus a man may swim a hundred feet in a minute.

Sea-sickness.

The theory of sea-sickness is very obscure; it certainly does not arise from the food in the stomach being rolled about by the rolling of the vessel; for it does not require that the individual should be moved at all. Baron Larry, in his account of Bonaparte's Expedition to Moscow, says, that the constant sight of vast numbers of armed men, rising here, and falling there, like the waves of the sea, affected him just like sea. sickness. On board ship, we may be rolled about for ever so much, provided we are placed so as not to perceive the movement of surrounding obobjects. We perceive this chiefly through light as on deck, and through the feet as in standing. Bed is the best place, because we avoid both, and experience proves it.

THE RETICULE.

Hints for the Ladies.

Words are the body and dress of thoughts; and the woman who simpers and smiles, when she should resent the culpable freedom of speech in a bold man, renders questionable the purity of

her heart.

The woman who depreciates her husband, still more depreciates herself; for if a woman would have the world respect her husband, she ought to set the example.

A good woman's prospect of happiness, with a good man, reaches into eternity.

Happy the wife who, on the death of her husband, has no material charge of self reproach on reflecting on her behavior to the departed. How few women there are, who, for one reason or another, have the man of their choice! It is well, therefore, that their love is vincible. Perseverance in a rejected lover, after the lady has run through the circle of her humble servants, and found herself disappointed in her own views, has often been crowned with success; and the folly of her early refusal has often been demonstrated by the happinesss of her subsequent

'domestic life.

From sixteen to twenty, all women, kept in humor by their hopes and attractions, appear to be good-natured. What charms would they give to life, if they would make this amiable disposi tion permanent!

Those who set out for happiness in wedlock, will be most likely to find it, if they live single till the age of fancy is over.

Infantem tollis? foribus suspende coronam
Jam pater es

According to Zenodotus, the people of Abydos, at public and solemn festivals, took up infants from the arms of their nurses, who attended on purpose, and carried them round to be kissed by those who were present.

Silvianus Massiliensis, in one of his epistles, says, "Kiss the feet of your parents like a maid servant, their hands as a pupil, their lips as a daughter."

men of ordinary virtue and discernment; and you, CLERICUS, appear to be of this number. For my he friendship ve that man, whatever may be his solicitous to posses station, title, or pretensions, who can speak of a the of that man, pious and devoted minister of Christ in no higher terms than "respectable and well meaning man, and who can publicly and deliberately apply the epithet "ridiculous" to the language of the Sacred Scriptures. But perhaps you are not conscious that the term "epistle" is personally applied by St. Paul.

It was formerly the custom to kiss, by putting ear to ear; and to this mode there is frequent alInsion in the ancient writers, both Greek and Latin, and in particular, by Plautius. Parents also took their children by their ears when they kissed them. There is at Rome an ancient monument, on which a winged Cupid is represented as taking a female by the ears, and kissing her. The women of England (says Polydore Virgil) not only salute their relations with a kiss, but all persons promiscuously; and this ceremony they repeat, gently touching them with the lips, not only with grace, but without the least immodesty. Such, however, as are of the blood-royal, do not kiss their inferiors, but offer the back of the hand, as men do by way of saluting each other. Erasamus writes in raptures to one of his friends on this subject: "Did you but know, my Faustus," says he, "the pleasures which Eng. land affords, you would fly here on winged feet, and if your gout would not allow you, you would wish yourself a Daedalus. To mention to you among many things, here are nymphs of the loveliest looks, good-humored, easy of access, and whom you wonld prefer even to your favorite Muses. Here also prevails a custom never enough to be recommended, that wherever you come, every one receives you with a kiss, and when you take your leave, every one gives you a kiss; when you return, kisses again meet you. If any one leaves you, she leaves you with a kiss ; if you meet any one, the first salutation is a kiss; in short, wherever you go, kisses everywhere abound; which, my Faustus, did you once taste how very sweet, and how very fragrant they are, you would not, like Solon, wish for ten years' exile in England, but would desire there to spend the whole of your life."

Antonio Perez, secretary to the embassy from Philip the Second, of Spain, writes thus to the earl of Essex: "I have this day, according to the custom of your country, kissed, at au entertainment, seven females, all of them accomplished in mind, and beatiful in person."

Dr. Pierius Winsemius, historiographer to their high mightinesses, the states of Friezland, in his Chronijck van Friezlandt, printed in 1622, informs us, that the pleasant custom of kissing was utterly unpractised and unknown in England (just as it is this day in New Zealand, where sweethearts only know how to touch noses when they wish to be kind,) until the fair princess Ronix, the daughter of king Hengist, of Friezland, "pressed the beaker with her lipkens,” (litthe lips,) and saluted the amorous Vortigern with a husjen, (little kiss.)

The Hermes.

TO CLERICUS.

Reverend Sir,-Socrates being once informed that a certain individval had been publishing false reports concerning him, observed, "They who know both parties will as soon believe him when he speaks ill of me, as they would believe me were I to speak well

of him." Whoever you may be, sir, or how great soever the self-importance you may feel in undertaking the honorable offices of literary censor and cleof any prejudicial results from you: displeasure, as rical advocate, believe me I am as little apprehensive I feel sorry for the measure which has roused your indignation. There are some persons in the world whose disapprobation must ever afford satisfaction to

With these feelings I should have been content to pass over your last letter, like that of the 19th ult. without a direct reply, had you confined your attack to the individuals immediately connec ed with the writer of the letter in our last number "gains his Hermes: In your unqualified assertion that the livelihood by scribbling," there is as little truth as courtesy. So far from this, the writer of the article is unknown to us; nor is any individual hired to supply one line of subject matter for our paper. Its contributors, though numerous, are voluntary, and, despicable though they may appear to scholars as profound as you are, some of them have obtained those distinctions to which ordinary judgments are the author of the paper which has revived the choler accustomed to defer. Were it true, however, that of Clericus derives his subsistence by supplying the public p ints, it remains to be shown that this is in the least degree disparaging. It is not the profession which gives a character to the man, but the man who gives a character to his profession; and how far this is true, the public have lately had ample means of judging.

It would be incompatible with the moral design of to the several parts of his letter; but it is perhaps the Hermes to feed the vanity of Clericus by referring due to him that we should acknowledge the benefit derived from his gratuitous and judicious tutorage. The visible" improvement in grammar," which has followed a single tesson from him, proves the efficacy of his plan, and induces us to hope, that, should he continue his strictures, our readers will soon have to congratulate us on attaining the perfection of authorship. Quant. suf.

THE EDITOR.

FRIDAY, TWO O'CLOCK, The final paper of ONESIMUS was forgotten till too late for this week. It shall appear, if at all possible, in our next.

POTASH's letter was forwarded to the parties more immediately concerned in its suggestions; ulo, understanding it to be anonymous, ordered it to. be burnt unread. TRANSLATIONS FROM SCHILLER.-We must acknowledge that the papers on the Mission of Moses closed in a manner very different from that we had anticipated on reading the first sheet. From the character of the gentlemen who recommended them to us, we are now disposed to think their publication can only have been desited to show the fallacy of scepticism. The letter of URIEL on this subject shall appear early. The lines of Montgomery transmitted by M. A. were prepared in the type, and omitted for want of room.

"A New Philosophical Theory” is not likely to take just now.

We are sure that nothing which has ever appeared in our columns can have originated the production of JUVENIS. We advise the youth not. to misapă propriate a superior talent. EDWARD, pray ask her yourself. "Faint heart ne'er won fair lady."

LOSS OF THE ALERT PACKET.-We are desired to recommend a subscription for the widows and orphans of the unfortunates in the late ship wreck. It would be difficult, perhaps, to avoid imposition, under the peculiar circumstances of can only acknowledge the receipt of A. B.-S. the case, but we shall be happy to meet the suggestion as far as in our power. T. B. H......D,-DAVY.—and ANTHROPOS.

We

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