solitary hours with blessed and peaceful thoughts; and like "the Scraph Abdiel, faithful found Among the faithless, faithful only they." the serenity they bring along with them to our troubled spirits, is next only to that which is imparted by "a conscience void of offence." They are a fresh and ever salient spring of pure and unalloyed pleasure; and they are ever in the power of a gentle and a thoughtful mind. One thing yet remains. The elder essayists have felt, and have confessed, that, when they began a periodical essay, "to give the thing a name were wise"-but that it was difficult, Every succes sive writer perhaps has labored under the same difficulty, which at last has been overcome rather by accident than design. When Dr. Johuson had actually begun his first paper, he knew not, as he confessed to Sir Joshua Reynolds, how to name it. He sat down on his bed-side, and resolved that he would not go to sleep till he had fixed its title. The Rambler seemed the best that occurred, and he took it. He expresses the same difficulty in the very first number of the Idler, a paper in many respects more interesting than his Rambler. "Those," he says, "who attempt periodical essays, seem to be often stopped in the beginning [by the difficulty of finding a proper title." To assume any of the names, hallowed by genius and by time every one of which "stands the shadow of some mighty name"stat magni nominis umbra,- --were less an instance of presumption than a kind of fatuity. In accordance with the humble design of the present paper, it was hoped that The Reader would have been a new name. But the indefatigable Sir Richard Steele, the father of the English essayists, once began a paper, as Mr. Chalmers informs us, entitled "the Reader." Whether it was literary or political we are not told; but it was most probably political. This paper, however, seems to have shared the fate of things which, as Lord Bacon wittily expresses it, are sunken by time. "Time" says that great man, "is like a river which carrieth down things which are light, and blown up, and sinketh and drowneth that which is sad and weighty." As, therefore, this paper, which I suppose to be a "sad and weighty" political one, loaded with lead, instead of being winged with the genius of its lively writer, has not been borne down to posterity on the river of time, I think myself justified in retaining the title of THE READER. that they laid fast were hailed as old There is another disadvantage, under which "the Reader" comes before the public. The Tatlers and Spectators, the Ramblers, the Adventurers, and the Idlers, appeared so frequently, some every day, except Sunday, and others twice, or thrice a week, hold of the affections of their readers. They and familiar friends; and as such they were loved perhaps for their very weaknesses and faults, when deficient in their wanted solidity and virtue. I appear but once a month. Instead of my appearances being hailed as "angel visits," it is to be feared that I shall be coldly welcomed even in a tropical climate. I shall have the cold constraint of a monitor to fetter me, instead of the genial warmth of frequent communication to set me at my ease. "Gyves shall I wear, and cold shall be my comfort." With the best grace, however, that I can assume, and with the unfeigned disposition to make myself agreeable, I appear. I make no specific promises, I bind myself to no positive engagements promise only to do my best to please my friends, that is, all my readers: and I will endeavour to instruct them when opportunity offers; for I shall sometimes be serious. I invite all lovers of books and of knowledge to aid me by their correspondence. My speculations will be on books and men, for they are inseparable. Books are the spirits of dead men which survive their authors, and the essence of the quickening intellects of those who yet live and breathe the upper air. I exclude only all personal themes which smack of ill nature. I would be at peace, and keep my readers and myself from all "wars, and rumours of wars,"-public or private, political or personal. I would rather throw oil upon the waters of the tempest of life, and conclude with our immortal Bard, the swan of Avon, at the close of his "Tempest: "I'll promise you calm seas, auspicious gales." And thus, trying to please and to be pleased, will "My little Boat Rock in its' harbour, lodging peaceably." THE TWILIGHT OF LIFE BY THE EDITO Tis a beautiful thing to see the dawn Of reason in childhood's early morn, And to watch it's growth, as each cheering ray The mists and clouds which have long hang o'er But it is a pitiful thing to see. To behold how the early hours of life, To tell them how dark are their evil ways? Oh yes, for it were not well that all The weak, without aid from the strong, should fall. "Tis a fearful thing to see an old man From life and its pomps, while his fleeting breath But none for the aged, hoary sinner; For it sickens the heart to hear the tongue When the brow is wrinkled the hair is white; Th' appointed hour, without fear or pride. BRIEF NOTICE OF THE PHILOSOPHERS, POETS, ETC. BOTH ANCIENT AND MODERN, WHO HAVE FLOURISHED AMONGST THE TAMILS IN THE SOUTH OF INDIA AND CEYLON. BY SIMON CASIE CHITTY, Esq. Ir is much to be regretted, that no records of the lives of the Philoso phers and Poets of antiquity in India have been left to posterity either by them, or their contemporaries, and hence we are much at a loss for correct information respecting their birth, country and the age they lived in. Some of the Puranas indeed profess to give an account of a few of them, but it is so replete with fables that it scarcely deserves even a perusal. The brief notice which is here offered of Agastya, and his contemporaries has been framed chiefly from the traditions current in the South of India, and it is hoped that it may prove acceptable to the public. 1. Agastya. This eminent Philosopher was born in the South of India, of Brahman parents. Nothing certain is known of the time he flourished. According to some traditions he lived only 500 years ago when the Kings of the Pâudiya race were masters of Madura; while others make him contemporary with Rama, and the heroes of the Ramayanam. He claims precedence of all the literati amongst the Tamils, as he was the first who laid down rules concerning the grammar of their language, and is also, like Hippocrates, considered "the father of physic and prince of physicians." It appears that in his time the people in the south of the Peninsula were sunk into a state of barbarism, and the fable which is related of his having made the southern part of the earth level with the northern, perhaps alludes to their civilization by him. Agastya spent the greater part of his life on the mount Podiya, near Courtallicon, and composed an infinite number of works on various subjects; but in the lapse of ages many of them have perished and we have only twenty-five remaining. 2. Téreiyen. A pupil of Agastya, who having attempted to overreach him in the art is said to have been discarded by him with a malediction. He has left several treatises on medicine; but his prescriptions are on the whole considered empirical. 3. Tirumooler. Little is known of this sage, even of the place of his nati. vity. He is numbered amongst the eighteen celebrated ascetics of India, and there is a work of his remaining, called Vytiya Vàgadam, which treats of the symptoms of deceases, and of the diet that ought to be observed during the administration of medicine, and consists of 2,000 stanzas. (To be Continued.) |