THE Gentleman's Magazine: AND Historical Chronicle. From JANUARY to JUNE, 1818. VOLUME LXXXVIII. (BEING THE TENTH OF A NEW SERIES.) PART THE FIRST. PRODESSE ET DELECTARE. E PLURIBUS UNUM. By SYLVANUS URBAN, Gent. LONDON: Printed by NICHOLS, SON, and BENTLEY, ONCE more the gentle airs of Spring The promise of fresh pleasure bring : Once more the minstrel of the grove Attunes new sonnets to his love: Once more the fleret almost peeps And soon, to Flora's breath serene, That moss shall wear a softer green. Ah! while such warblings wake the year, Musœus. Bur yester-morn was half-conceal'd I stoop'd to taste the breathing spring, And is that violet's glance so coy, That paints the air, but ne'er shall be ? If I have hail'd thy vernal pride, Say, is thy bower the rosemarine, That veils the blush thy scorn would hide, The blush I fondly fancied mine? Musaus. Musœus. LIST OF PLATES. Bradford Abbas Church, Dorset, 401. Dorchester Old Bridge, Oxon, 104. Harnham Bridge, Chapel, &c. at, 393. Hatfield, co. Hertford, view of, 297. Norton Church, co. Derby, 497. : PREFACE TO THE FIRST PART OF THE EIGHTY-EIGHTH VOLUME. 0 N the conclusion of each succeeding Volume, it has been customary to present to our Readers the most heartfelt thanks for their long and unabated patronage of our labours-and to assure them of our constant adherence to the genuine principles of the English Constitution, as established by Magna Charta, confirmed by the glorious Revolution, and strengthened and perpetuated by the mild Government of the illustrious House of BRUNSWICK. - To these principles we have uniformly and steadily adhered; nor, thanks to a beneficent Providence, have the principles themselves lost any thing of their value. They have been assailed with great violence; they have been confronted with unheard-of novelties; they have been branded with standing in the way of all those Utopian schemes of improvement with which the Publick has of late been nauseated. But we may venture to assert, that they have entered into the mind of no man among us by the avenues of considerrate examination and conviction, who has wavered in his attachment to them. They are the only principles recognized by our happy Constitution; under the shadow of which the Nation has so long reposed in safety, and flourished in character and dignity; they are those of the soundest and best Statesmen who have graced our councils, and who have left to us the fruit of their wisdom, their firmness, and their labours. These were the principles which opposed an effectual bar to the Revolutionary spirit of 1792, which kept up the spirit of resistance to Buonaparte through a long contest, and at length liberated Europe; and which, after having conducted us to a Peace which secures our glory and our greatness together, are, by their influ ence |