think, and reason—some right-others wrong, ought to be ashamed of themselves, to believe so badly of their countrymen and neighbours. It is a foolish . absurdity, ever the product of national folly, or national antipathy, to assert, that cotemporary and neighbouring people, having the same lights of religion, living under similar laws, and enjoying, equally, the advantages of education, should be so essentially different in morals. They may differ, it is true, in manners; but there is no philosophical reason for their exhibiting a contrast of morals, or that one should be so much wiser and better than the other. I believe, if we place them fairly in comparison, with no interest to allure us astray, and no antipathies to tempt us from the truth, we shall find, that an inferiority in one point will be met by a superiority in another; that, though they may differ in various respects, there is no general disparity; and that, on the whole, the scale remains equally balanced. There are two distinct classes of faults in the world; one open, palpable, and offensive; the other secret, sly, and hypocritical. Those who commit the former, are worse than they seem; and those who indulge in the latter, are not half so good as they appear. The former are offenders against decency and the laws of man; the latter against virtue and the Divinity.

But I know you hate prosing, and not without good reason, since I remember you had a surfeit of it, when by way of growing wise, you accompanied

our friend, Dr. on a scientific tour to the sevenmilestone. This worthy scholar never had an original idea but once in his life, when I recollect he was delivered of a swinging absurdity. I shall never forget the time, when he drew a conclusive argument in favour of the immortality of the soul, from his capacity of deriving such wonderful pleasure in the contemplation of a flower through a little magnifying glass. But it is time for us to get on in our travels.

I commenced my regular tour at N, where I was lucky enough to fall in with our old fellowstudent, Oliver B, who, you may remember, was expelled the college, for taking such unwarrantable freedoms with the venerable classics, which he always translated to suit his own purposes. This habit gave mortal offence to the professor of humanity; for it not only made the class laugh, but, what was far worse, caused the professor sometimes to forget his gravity. But the grand offence was against the professor of theology, and theologians, you know, never forgive. One cold morning, when, as usual, we were called up at daylight, to prayers, I suppose to make us in love with praying all our lives, by connecting it with such agreeable associations, somebody, in coming into the cold chapel, exclaimed, "O tempora;" Oliver, stretching himself out with a most significant yawn, replied, “O mores," drawling it out, to make it sound like more ease. This occasioned a mighty tittering, which, being

VOL. I-D

traced to Noll, he was had up before the faculty, and, like poor Cinna, the poet, who was killed by Marc Antony's mob, for making bad verses, was expelled for marring good Latin.

While at college, he was considered the best Greek and Latin scholar of the class; and, for Latin puns, no man in Philadelphia could come up to him. But his hobby, at present, is geology, the fashionable science of the day. Last year he was hard at chymistry, and Sir Humphrey Davy was his hero. But he grew tired of this improving science, which he declared was always playing him tricks; for, by the time he had fairly got to understand one theory, another came, and as fairly knocked it on the head; so that he was not only compelled to begin to learn, but to unlearn anew. Monsieur Cuvier is now his oracle, but shares his attentions with Werner and Hutton, the present fashionable manufacturers of worlds. Noll has made three worlds already, though we have only travelled three days; and I begin to find this so easy a matter, that I think of trying my hand at it myself soon. Such trifles are nothing to the philosophers, who create worlds as easy as boys blow soap-bubbles.

Our old acquaintance having an idle summer on his hands, for he has not yet chosen his profession, agreed to accompany me, and we accordingly set forth on horseback, carrying our plunder (as the Virginians call baggage) in a light Jersey wagon. The good women along the road take us for travel

ling pedlers, and come out continually to bargain for pins, needles, handkerchiefs, and such like matters.

It is very rare here to see gentlemen travellers carry their plunder except in a small portmanteau fixed to the saddle, as it is not customary to dress fine at the Springs, or elsewhere: those who do, are apt to be taken for blacklegs, or horse-jockeys. Good by.

1

LETTER V.

DEAR FRANK,

ENTERING "Ould Virginia," from the Chesapeake bay, you travel upon what is called by the learned in these matters, the region of sea sand. But, by the way, I ought to tell you, I caught a fresh-water fish in the bay; whence I conclude, to a certainty, it was once a great fresh-water lake, where the waters of the rivers, gradually accumulating, at last broke through, between capes Charles and Henry, with an intention of making a violent inroad upon the ocean. But they reckoned without their host; for the sea fairly turned the tables upon them, and, in revenge, changed all the great lake salt, making a pretty kettle of fish of it. In this you see the wonderful equality, or, to use a diplomatic phrase, “reciprocity,” in the operations of nature, who having, according to the testimony of a learned philosopher, metamorphosed the waters of the great lakes from salt into fresh, did, like an honest lady, make the salt waters amends for this liberty, by turning the fresh waters into salt in another quarter.

The region of sea sand is, according to the present fashionable theory, an accession from the sea, which, in this way, seems to acknowledge a sort of fealty to mother earth, by paying her a yearly tribute of