obtruded themselves in my lonely walk produced a little ode. ODE ON HOME. DEAR native soil! where once my feet Or shall I, pensive and forlorn, advertisement It was not long before my brought me other applications. The principal of Charleston-College honoured me with a letletter, whom, pursuant to his desire, I waited on at his house. I found Mr. Drone in his study, consulting. with great solemnity the ponderous lexicon of Schrevelius. I could not but feel a secret veneration from the scene before me. I was admitted to the presence of a man who was not less voluminous than learned; for no book under a folio ever stood on his shelf. How stupendous, thought I, must be the erudution of this professor, who holds in sovereign contempt a volume of ordinary dimensions ! Every animal has an aliment peculiarly suited to its constitution. The ox finds nourishment only from the earth; and a professor cannot derive knowledge from any volume but a folio. Mr. Drone received me with all the little decorums of dulness. He, however, talked learnedly. He lamented the degeneracy of literature in England and America; discovered that taste was on the decline; and despaired of ever beholding the spirit of that age revived when writers sought not for new combinations of imagery, but were content to compile lexicons, and restore the true punctuation to an ancient poet. Mr. Drone asked me whether I was conversant with Latin; and on my replying in the affirmative, he produced a Horace in folio, and desired I would construe the Ode of Quem tu Melpomene. Horace had never before assumed so formidable an aspect. In the ordinary editions he had always looked at me placido lumine; but he now appeared crabbed and sour, and I found his text completely buried amidst the rubbish of annotations. By making isthmius labor the agent to clarabit, the difficulty of the inversion vanished; but when I came to analyze the construction of the ode, not having some rule for verbs construed at memory, I think it was the important one of mo fit ui, as vomo vomui;* the Professor, with a shake of his head, which doubtless put all his sagacity into motion, told me very gravely I had yet something to learn. I ought to apologize to my reader for detaining him so long in the company of Professor Drone; but it is a link in the chain of my history, however rusty. To be brief, he engaged me as an Assistant to his sublime College for three months; and had the vanity to assert, that in consequence of it I should become fama super æthera notus. I was about to take leave of Mr. Drone, when his principal Tutor entered the room, to whom he introduced me. Mr. George taught the Greek and Latin classics at the College, and was not less distinguished by his genius than his erudition. On surveying my new acquaintance, I could not but think that he deserved a better office than that of a Gerund-grinder.. Nature seemed to have set her seal on him to give the world assurance of a man. Mr. George laughed obstreperously at the pedantry of the Professor. Peace, said he, to all such! Old Duffey, my first school-master in Roscommon, concealed more learning under the coarseness of his brogue, than Drone will ever display with all his rhetoric of declamation. It is true he can talk of Luitprandus, Bertholdus, and * Vide Lilly's Grammar. E Lambertus; but an acquaintance with these writers, however it may display reading, discovers little judgment. Two young men, of similar pursuits, soon become acquainted. The day of my introduction to Mr. George, we exchanged thoughts without restraint; and during three months that I continued at Charleston, we were inseparable companions. I know not whether I was qualified to fill the vacant chair of instruction at the College; but I remember, that zealous to acquit myself with dignity in my new office, I assumed the aspect of a pedagogue, and when an idle boy stared at me, I checked him with a frown. I, however, was not ambitious of this honour more than six weeks; a space of time, which, however it cannot be long, may surely be tedious. The Professor complained that I was always the last in the College; and I replied by desiring my discharge. I was now dismissed from the College; but I was under no solicitude for my future life. A Planter of the name of Brisbane, had politely invited me to his plantation, to partake with him and his neighbours, the diversion of hunting, during the winter; and another of the name of Drayton, the owner of immense forests, had applied to me to live in his family, and undertake the tuition of his children. Of these proposals, the first flattered my love of ease, and the other insured me an augmentation of wealth. I was not long held in suspense which of the two to chuse; but I preferred the summons of industry to the blandishments of pleasure. The winters of Carolina, however piercing to a native, who during the summer months may be said to bask rather than breathe, are mild to an Englishman accustomed to the frosts of his island. In the month of November my engagement led me to Coosohatchie, an insignificant village about seventy-eight miles from Charleston; for the plantation of Mr. Drayton was in the neighbouring woods. The serenity of the weather invited the traveller to walk, and, at an early hour of the morning, I departed on foot from Charleston, having the preceding evening taken leave of Mr. George. The foot-traveller need not be ashamed of his mode of journeying. To travel on foot, is to travel like Plato and Pythagoras; and to these examples may be added the not less illustrious ones of Goldsmith and Rousseau. The rambles of the ancient sages are at this distance of time uncer tain; but it is well known, that Goldsmith made the tour of Europe on foot, and that Rousseau walked, from choice, through a great part of Italy. An agreeable walk of ten miles, brought me to the bank of Ashley River, where I breakfasted in a decent public-house, with the landlord and his family. That man travels to no purpose who sits down alone to his meals; for my part I |