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.

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

fine white sand, beautiful shells, and pretty round polished pebbles; which, I dare say, please the old lady wonderfully. In process of time this mixture becomes, by the aid of vegetable decomposition, a fine rich soil, level, and without a single rock, or even stone as large as an egg. It was on these flats that the early adventurers made their first effectual settlement, from whence they gradually penetrated into the region of river alluvion, of which I shali speak anon. Along the rivers, winding through these extensive plains, lived, not more than an age ago, a race of stately planters, whose hospitality gave a character to Virginia, which it still retains. Strangers were always welcome, and soon forgot they were strangers. But time, the exhaustion of the soil, by a careless mode of cultivation, together with the division of property, brought about by the salutary operation of the statute abolishing entails, which is the true foundation of our republican system, all combined, have changed the face of things. A few of these ancient establishments are still kept up, but many of the houses are shut; others have passed into the hands of the industrious, or the speculating, whose modes of thinking, feeling, and acting, are totally different; and, with here and there an exception, nothing now remains, but the traditionary details of some aged matron, who lives only in the recollections of the past, of ancient modes, and ancient hospitality. Trade and industry are good things; but they are not without that alloy of evil which seems to incorporate itself with every mode and

VOL. I-D 2

habit of life. Those who get money with difficulty, part from it with difficulty; and, although they may add to their own enjoyments, and to the wealth of a country, seldom, I believe, are either very disinterestedly hospitable or generous. They certainly rarely partake, in any great degree, of those lofty feelings, which set one man high above another in the scale of being, and which are so frequently found among those who are neither very industrious nor very saving. The more, and the nearer I look at human life, the more I am satisfied of this great truth-that the only perfect system of equality is to be found in the distributions of Providence; that there is nearly the same proportion of good and evil in all classes of society, except one, as well as the same proportion of enjoyment; and that mankind are happy, not according to the wealth they enjoy, but to the virtues they practise. Great enjoyments are coupled with great sufferings the capacity for exquisite happiness is ever the accompaniment of a great susceptibility to misery-great faults and great virtues belong to the same family;-so do small virtues, and little vices; and although one man may suffer for a great crime, while another, guilty of a multiplicity of small ones, escapes, still it may reasonably be questioned whether the sum total of the one does not amount to the single enormity of the other. And now let us get on in our travels,--and I hope you are not impatient; for a man can't always be on horseback; he must stop to bait himself and his horse. In like manner I cannot always be telling you of what I see; for what

I see here, belongs to other people; what I think and feel is my own, and therefore I am fond of showing it, as a mother is of exhibiting her child, even though it is not worth looking at; which is very often the case with my thoughts.

ocean.

The transition from the region of sea sand, to that of river alluvion is very abrupt; it is only climbing a hill, and you pop on the latter, which is a deposit of the rivers, in like manner as the former is of the The rivers, not to be behindhand with the sea, bring down a tribute to the earth. But the sly rogues play the old lady a trick similar to that of the man who stole his neighbour's purse to pay a debt he owed him. They only pay in the low lands what they filch from her in the mountains, which is what they call "robbing Peter to pay Paul." If it was not for this nefarious swindling, the earth would probably grow so large in time, as to destroy the whole system of the universe by increasing in attraction as in size, until all the planets would come shooting towards her, and break their own heads, as well as the old lady's. But let the modern makers of Heaven and earth, who scandalize the honest rivers in this way, look to it;-all I can say is, it is well for these gentry that there are no watery gods nowa-days, except Daddy Neptune, who has enough to do to defend the rights of the ocean, to take their part. You remember what a scrape one of Homer's heroes got into by insulting the Scamander, which fell into such a passion that it fried itself dry in its own channel, insomuch that none of the learned, except M.