The poetical contents of our Magazine consist mainly, as we have said,
of excerpts from the popular productions of English authors, as they
were found in the magazines of the mother country or in their published
works, the diluted stanzas of their imitators, satirical verses,
epigrams, and translations from the Latin poets. There are, however,
occasional strains from the native Muse, and here and there a waif from
sources now, perhaps, lost or forgotten. Before "he threw his Virgil by
to wander with his dearer bow," Mr. Freneau's Indian seems to have
determined to leave on record a proof of his classical attainments, for
he is doubtless the author of "A Latin Ode written by an American
Indian, a Junior Sophister at Cambridge, anno 1678, on the death of the
Reverend and Learned Mr. Thacher,"--a translation of which is given at
page 166, prefaced thus:--"As the Original of the following Piece is
very curious, the publishing this may perhaps help you to some better
Translation. Attempted from the Latin of an American Indian." The
probability that any reader of the present paper would be disposed to
help us to this "better Translation" seems too remote to warrant us in
giving the Ode _in extenso_; nor do we think any would thank us for
transcribing a cloudy effusion, a little farther on, entitled, "On the
Notion of an abstract antecedent Fitness of Things.
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