Gazette Of The United States

COMMUNICATIONS.

Ten cities, it is said, contended for the honor of having been the birth place of Homer; but this contention, at the distance of more than twenty centuries, is found to have been about a non-entity. A modern French critic has discovered that no such person as Homer ever existed!-What illusions are played off upon the feelings of mankind—how has their sympathy been abused by reading such strains as the following :

" Can all the wreaths that crown'd his head,
"Compensate now to HOMER dead,
" The living HOMER's want of bread?

Another modern discovery is, that Dean Swift did not write the Tale of a Tub. We are not informed as to the circumstances which led to this discovery, but one obvious remark is obtruded on the mind, not very favorable to the reputation of the Dean, supposing the discovery to be well founded, and that is, the imposition which he put on mankind while living, and, owing to his incorrigible dishonesty, has been continued ever since his decease. Several petty robberies have been committed on the fame of Shakespeare; and we may expect every day to hear that Milton was not the author of Paradise Lost. But the assurance of some wonderfully sagacious modern politicians in their modern discoveries, exceeds all former examples. The patriots of America, whose wisdom and valor is emancipating the old world as it has already the new, have in a recent party publication been stripped of their laurels and their honors decreed them by a grateful country. -Their triumphs in the field, and that constitution which was the result of their combined wisdom, " were the productions of characters which will never enjoy the historical fame thereof." A most modest attempt truly to depreciate in the eyes of their countrymen, the patriots of America. If this is not Toryism, it is something that bears a strong resemblance to it.