--_Virgil._

To SAMUEL SAUNTER, _Esq._

Sir,

As I perceive your plan, like that of Coleman and Thornton, in the
"Connoisseur," and like that of your relation, _Solomon_ Saunter, in
"Literary Leisure," admits Poetry as well as Prose, which one may feed
upon alternately, as we eat bread and cheese, I send you a
translation, from the German of Lessing, and some fugitive originals.

I am, yours
HARLEY.

I ask'd my fair, one happy day,
What should I call her in my lay,
By what sweet name, from Rome or Greece,
Iphigenia, Clelia, Chloris,
Laura, Lesbia, Delia, Doris,
Dorimene or Lucrece?

Ah, replied my gentle fair,
Beloved, what are names but air?
Take thou whatever suits the line,
Clelia, Iphigenia, Chloris,
Laura, Lesbia, Delia, Doris--
But don't forget to call me--_thine_.

_Port Folio_, III-25, Jan. 1803, Phila.

[Lessing, _Die Namen_.]

THE NAVIGATION
Translated from the French of Gessner.

It flies! the vessel flies, that bears away
To distant shores my Daphne, fair as May.
Guard her, ye loves! be lull'd each ruder gale;
Let Zephyrs only fill the swelling sail;
Ye waves flow gently by the vessel's side,
While pensive she surveys you idly glide;
Ah! softly glide, prolong her reverie,
For then, ye Gods! 'tis then she thinks of me.
When near the nodding groves that shade the shore,
To her, ye birds, your sweetest warbling pour;
No sounds be heard, but such as gently sooth,
And be, O sea, thy azure surface smooth.
Ne'er since thy daughters sought their liquid caves,
A lovelier charge, was trusted to thy waves.
Her clear, her bright unsullied beauty shews
The lilly's white, and freshness of the rose.
Not Venus had more charms, more beauteous bloom,
When, rising from the sea's resplendent foam,
She smiling mounted first her silver car,
And shone effulgent as the morning star.
The enchanted Tritons left their noisy sport,
And nymphs cerulian in their crystal court;
Regardless of their frowns, or jealous smiles,
While beauty's queen each eager eye beguiles.
They gaze, and held in most delightful trance,
Pursue her moving o'er the smooth expanse.