my humanity with a baboon. It was, perhaps, the Muse who kept me wakeful, for on my midnight pillow I paraphrased the "description of the War-horse in Job.

"Proud in his strength, behold the warlike horse "Paw the green valley, and demand the course. With stately step he treads the dusty fields "Glist'ning with groves of spears and moony shields. "First with retorted eye he hears th' alarms “Of rushing multitudes and clashing arms. Impatient to be free, he tears the plain,

And tosses in his rage, his thunder-waving mane. "In vain the javelin glitters in his eyes,

He scorns the quiver, and the lance defies.
"Clouds of thick smoke his fiery nostrils roll,
"And all the battle rushes on his soul.

"He sees the moving phalanx rise around,
"He hears the trumpet, and the shouts resound.
"He starts! and fir'd by glory bears afar
"His trembling rider through the ranks of war."

"I had something of importance to observe to you. I perceive, with undissembled sorrow, that you admit words into your vocab"ulary, for which there is no authority in "the undefiled writers of English. Appreci(6 ate and meliorate are bad words; so are "novel and derange. Of modern writers (( none are more ridiculous coiners of words "than the Scotch and Welch Tourists. Of

these one introduces to desiderate, and tor"tures it through all its inflexions; and an"other in descanting upon ruins, says very

gravely, they were castleated! The inference to be deduced from the page in which "words of this kind appear is, that the taste "of the writer has been abominably vitiated. "The English language is not written with

purity in America.* The structure of Mr. Jefferson's sentences is, I think, French; and "he uses words unintelligible to an Englishman. Where the d-1 did he get the word lengthy? Breadthy and depthy would be equally admissible. I can overlook his word belittle; it is introduced in wantonness; but he has no right, that I know, to out-adverb "all other writers, and improve ill into illy. "Does not his description of the junction of "the Shenandoah with the Potomac, discover

an elevated imagination? But was one of 66 my countrymen to describe the Natural Bridge (a huge mass of rock) "springing as "it were, up to heaven," would it not be said, "that Paddy had made a bull.†

*If any work can transmit the English language uncorrupted to future generations on the banks of the Potomac, and Mississippi it will be our matchless version of the Bible. While religion exists in America, there will be a perpetual standard for the English language.

[† Davis endorsed the fanciful construction. Cf. his American Mariners &c. A Poem. Salisbury, 1822, p. 235—The Natural Bridge: An Ode.

When Fancy left her native skies,

To visit earth, before unseen,

She bade the swelling fabric rise

In this sequester'd sylvan scene.

"Come over, will you, to my potatoeground next Saturday, and bring with you. your Adventures of Captain Bobadil. You (( can pass your Sunday with me-not in an "affectation of holiness, or hypocritical groans "of contrition; but in study and meditation "that lift the soul from its clay-confines, and transport it to the world of spirits. Vale!"

I journeyed delightfully from New-York to Philadelphia. My finances were good, and I was going to a place where I had only to extend my arms and catch the golden shower. Let the gloomy moralist insist on the position, that life is rather to be endured than enjoyed; but hope itself is happiness, and he who has the knack of practising it, cannot be long a victim to melancholy, though he find himself cheated daily by new disappointments.

At Philadelphia I found Mr. Brown, who felt no remission of his literary diligence, by a change of abode. He was ingratiating himself into the favour of the ladies by writing a new novel, and rivalling Lopez de Vega by the multitude of his works. Mr. Brown introduced me to Mr. Dickins, and Mr. Dickins to Mr. Dennie; Mr. Dennie presented me to

And here perhaps the Indian stood,
With hands upheld, and eye amaz’d,
As, sudden, from the devious wood,
He first upon the fabric gaz'd &c.]

Mr. Wilkins, and Mr. Wilkins to the Rev. Mr. Abercrombie; a constellation of American genius, in whose blaze I was almost consumed.*

Mr. Dennie was remarkable for his facility of expression; he could not only draw for thousands, but had always ready-money in his pocket; and few men excelled more in colloquial fluency than he. The Rev. Mr. Abercrombie was impatient of every conversation that did not relate to Dr. Johnson, of whom he could detail every anecdote from the time he trod on a duck, till he purchased an oak stick to repulse Macpherson. He was a canister tied to the tail of a canister. Mr. Brown

said little, but seemed lost in meditation; his creative fancy was perhaps, conjuring up scenes to spin out the thread of his new novel.

Mr. Dennie now conducts, at Philadelphia, a literary paper, called the Port Folio. He first distinguished himself by the essays he contributed to the "Farmer's Museum," under the title of the Lay-Preacher. He afterwards became editor of the paper, when its name was changed from the Farmer's Museum to that of the Lay-Preacher's Gazette. The essays of the Lay-Preacher were afterwards collected in a volume, which is, I be

[* James Abercrombe of Philadelphia, 1758-1841; and possibly the Rev. Isaac Wilkins, of St. Peter's Church, Westchester County, New York.]

lieve, the most popular work on the American continent.* I am of opinion, that the sermons of the Lay-Preacher have rather injured than assisted the cause of religion; to appropriate the remark made by Gray on Yorick, the LayPreacher, after exhorting his congregation to righteousness, throws his periwig at their heads.

The editor of the Aurora calls the Port Folio, the Portable Foolery; and his facetiousness is applauded by one party, and scorned by the other. But a better quibble on the word would be, I think, to name it the Court Olio; for it mingles the dresses at St. James, with speculations on literature. It being rumoured that Mr. Dennie had been denominated, by the British Reviewers, the American Addison, the following ludicrous paragraph appeared in the Aurora Gazette. †

"Exult ye white hills of New Hampshire, "redoubtable Monadnock and Tuckaway!

[*"The Lay Preacher of Dennie and his articles in the Portfolio seem to me feeble and affected, though occasionally marked by considerable excellence. For several years after the death of Brockden Brown, I believe he was the only man in the country who made literature a profession." Griswold, Prose Writers of America, p. 40. "Literature in America is an amusement only, not a profession." Some Information respecting America, collected by Thomas Cooper, late of Manchester. Dublin, 1794, p. 64.]

[† The Aurora and General Advertiser, of which Benjamin Franklin Bache was the editor. Those were political times. The Portfolio was Federalist and the Aurora was Democratic (Republican).]