The New-York Weekly Magazine, or Miscellaneous Repository Part 80

Since such delights I tasted last, Near eight insipid months have past; Each circling hour a dreary void, Despis'd, neglected, unenjoy'd: But when the heart in transport swims, How light, how active are the limbs!

And fas.h.i.+on's mutable commands Finds business for the head and hands.

Then, Winter, haste thy golden reign, And bring those halcyon days again.

MONIMIA.

THE COMPLAINT.

Oft has the splendour of a court, Where wealth and elegance retort, And bliss ideal reigns; Midst sparkling gems and brilliant toys, Been deem'd inferior to the joys Which sport on rural plains.

But ah! our share of bliss below, Bears no proportion to the woe That rankles in the heart: For all the happiest man can boast, Is but a partial bliss at most-- A happiness in part!

Say, has that G.o.d, whose word from high With orbs unnumber'd gem'd the sky, And bade the waters flow; In mercy, or in wrath, decreed That ev'ry heart by turns must bleed, And taste the cup of woe?

Tho' what we wish attend our pray'rs A something yet the joy impairs, And spreads a dark'ning gloom.

Our fears are ever on alarm, And always point to future harm, Which yet may never come.

Let Casuists inform me why Our bliss is tainted with alloy; Why mingled thus with woes?

For such the fate of all our joys, That what most ardently we prize, We always fear to lose.

ADDRESS TO A FAVOURITE CANARY BIRD.

Sweet Bird! devoid of ev'ry care, You feel no idle rage To wander in the fields of air; You're happy in your cage.

You cheerful hop, and plume your wing, And all your wants a.s.suage, Pick up your food, and drink and sing, And revel in your cage.

Your heart no female charms allure, No vain desires engage; And many evils, I endure, Are strangers to your cage.

Tho' free to rove, I cannot find, On life's disastrous stage, Such calm content and peace of mind, As rest within your cage.

Then well you may your song pursue, With ills no war you wage; And Kings, my Bird! may envy you The blessings of your cage.

NEW-YORK: _+Printed by JOHN BULL, No. 115, Cherry-Street+, where every Kind of Printing work is executed with the utmost Accuracy and Dispatch.--+Subscriptions+ for this +Magazine+ (at 2s. per month) are taken in at the Printing-Office, and by E. MITCh.e.l.l, Bookseller, No. 9, Maiden-Lane._

_UTILE DULCI._

THE NEW-YORK WEEKLY MAGAZINE; or, Miscellaneous Repository.

+Vol. II.+] +Wednesday, November 23, 1796.+ [+No. 73.+

ON LAUGHING.

To form a true judgment of a person's temper, begin with an observation on his _laugh_; for the people are never so unguarded as when they are pleased; and laughter being a visible symptom of some inward satisfaction, it is then, if ever, we may believe the face; but for method sake, it will be necessary to point out the several kinds of laughing, under the following heads:

The dimplers.--The smilers.--The laughers.--The grinners.---The horse-laughers.

The dimple is practised to give a grace to the features, and is frequently made a bait to entangle a gazing lover. This was called by the ancients, the chain-laugh.

The smile is for the most part confined to the fair s.e.x, and their male retinue; it expresses our satisfaction in a silent sort of approbation, and does not disorder the features too much, and is therefore practised by lovers of the most delicate address.

The grin is generally made use of to display a beautiful set of teeth.

The horse-laugh is made use of with great success, in all kinds of disputation. The proficients in this kind, by a well-timed laugh, will baffle the most solid argument. This, upon all occasions, supplies the want of reason, and is received with great applause in coffee-house disputes; that side the laugh joins with, is generally observed to gain the better of his antagonist.

The prude has a wonderful esteem for the chain-laugh or dimple; she looks upon all other kinds of laughter as _excessives_ of levity, and is never seen upon the most extravagant jests, to disorder her features with a smile; her lips are composed with a primness peculiar to her character; all her modesty seems collected into her face, and but very rarely takes the freedom to sink her cheek into a dimple. The effeminate fop, by the long exercise of his countenance at the gla.s.s, is in the same situation, and you may generally see him admire his own eloquence by a dimple.

The young widow is only a chain for a time; her smiles are confined by decorum, and she is obliged to make her face sympathise with her habit; she looks demure by art, and by the strictest rule of decency is never allowed to smile, till the first offer or advance to her is over.

The wag generally calls in the horse-laugh to his a.s.sistance.

There are another kind of grinners, which some people term sneerers.

They always indulge their mirth at the expence of their friends, and all their ridicule consists in unseasonable ill-nature; but they should consider, that let them do what they will, they never can laugh away their own folly by sneering at other people's.

The coquette has a great deal of the sneerer in her composition; but she must be allowed to be a proficient in laughter, and one who can run through all the exercise of the features: she subdues the formal lover with the dimple---accosts the fop with a smile--joins with the wit in a downright laugh:---to vary the air of her countenance, she frequently rallies with a grin---and when she hath ridiculed her lover quite out of his understanding, she, to complete his misfortunes, strikes him dumb with the horse-laugh.

At present the most fas.h.i.+onable is a mixture of the horse-laugh and the grin, so happily blended together, that the teeth are shown without the face being distorted.

EXTRAVAGANCE AND AVARICE.

Some rich men starve to-day for fear of starving to-morrow, (as a man leaps into the sea to avoid being drowned) and the indigent often consume in an hour what they may feel the want of a year: as if old people h.o.a.rded money because they cannot want it, and young men throw it away because it is necessary to their subsistence.

He is rich enough that needs neither flatter nor borrow, and truly rich that is satisfied: want lies in desire.

History tells us of ill.u.s.trious villains, but there never was an ill.u.s.trious miser in nature.

THE VICTIM OF MAGICAL DELUSION; _OR, INTERESTING MEMOIRS OF MIGUEL, DUKE DE CA*I*A._ Unfolding Many Curious Unknown Historical Facts.

_Translated from the German of Tsc.h.i.n.k._