LETTER XXV.

DEAR FRANK,

THE town of Fincastle, in the county of Bostetourt, where I mentioned our arrival in my last, is situated in one of the most picturesque parts of the state, and the earth seems to have been in great commotion when she finally settled her atoms in these parts. It abounds in iron ore, and is finely watered by the different branches of James river, which are here called creeks, but in any other country would aspire to the title of rivers.

This town, like Rome, is situated on several little hills, and has a stream running nigh, pretty nearly equal to the Tiber, only not quite so muddy, except when it rains. From thence you have a full view of the far-famed Peaks of Otter, towering high above the surrounding mountains; one rising to a point, the other flattened at the top. From the former, which is the highest of the two, I am told the prospect is exceedingly extensive, various, and magnifiWe were inclined to try the ascent—Oliver, to see if he could find any oyster-beds, and I to see what was to be seen; but relinquished this undertaking on the score of distance and difficulty; the mountain being fourteen miles out of our way, and the

cent.

ascent laborious. There is no enjoyment to be gained at the summit of a mountain, when one gets there half-tired to death. The cost is generally more than the gratification, although people who take the trouble don't like to acknowledge themselves disappointed.

While dinner was getting ready, we strolled about the town to look for curiosities; but unless one is a scientific traveller, he will be at a loss to find matter to fill up a letter in our country, unless he tells over again the same stories that have been a hundred times repeated already. A scientific traveller, like you know who, can talk a full hour about a stone picked up in the road, or a plant plucked from the side of a ditch. It is only to call it schistus, quartz, talc, calcareous, argillaceous, or granitic, if it be a stone; or juniperius virginiana, yucca alofolia, corypha umbraculifera, or nigra oblonga, if it be a plant; and the reader becomes wonderfully interested in stones and plants, that he has seen every day of his life, but without knowing they were of such infinite consequence. After thus christening them with a long Latin name, the scientific traveller looks into the Encyclopedia, for the article botany, or mineralogy, and borrows enough to astonish every body with his learning, and make a notable paper for the transactions of one of the numerous societies to which he belongs. But to a traveller unacquainted with the secret of being learned without knowing any thing of the subject, it is a sad drawback, that almost every thing he sees in our country indicates a rapid advance, rather than a state of decay. Consequently there is

nothing that makes amends for its present insignificance, by its ancient renown, or which the dapper spruce gentleman traveller can tell over again for the hundredth time. There are no old castles to conjure up the recollection of William the Bastard's time, when the old barons had more manors than manners-oppressed the people, rebelled against the king, and drank small-beer for breakfast. Indeed, your traveller in the old countries has a great advantage over him of the new world. The latter has nothing but what he sees to describe, and nothing but what he thinks and feels to record; whereas the former can make a book of travels, good enough for his readers, without either seeing or thinking at all. Every town through which he passes has a regular history, called a "Picture," written expressly for his particular use. In these you will find the history of the dead and the living; 'descriptions of all the tombs in all the churchyards, visible and invisible, past and present; biographical notices of Messrs. Tom, Dick, and Harry, together with their illustrious cotemporaries, tag, rag, and bobtail, and all their posterity. In addition to these valuable and interesting particulars, he is furnished with a regular list of the bishops, mayors, abbots, aldermen, sextons, church-wardens, grave-diggers, and catchpolls, for at least a thousand years. This assortment is completed by a list of various other articles too tedious to mention, as the grocers say in their advertisements. Out of all this, the greatest dunce in the world, that is to say, the traveller who sells his own land to go

VOL. II-D

and see that of other people, can make a book which will be praised by the critics, provided it is written by a gentleman belonging to their party, or is published by the bookseller who patronizes their Review. It will also, most likely, be republished in this country, where all the second-hand finery, and second-rate literature of England finds a ready market. But the unlucky souls who travel in our country, unless they are possessed of the great secret of being scientific a la Encyclopedie, will find themselves at a loss for interesting particulars, unless they can enter into the various shades and peculiarities which distinguish one people from another, even though they are ever so much alike, which, by the way, is no easy thing. For want of this nice perception, which is one of the great characteristics of genius, those literary foreigners who have done us the honour to ride post through our country, have supplied the lack of antiquities, and the talent for observation, by resorting to their imagination for facts, and to their memory for good stories and rare adventures, that have happened regularly to every one of them from time immemorial.

Of all countries in the world, this, therefore, is the worst for a book-making traveller, and itinerant poet. Ruins inspire both the one and the other; and a ruined tower or ivied hall is as good as six pages to each. Traditionary antiquity gives interest to the smallest trifles; and the most insignificant persons become objects of interest by living a long time ago, just as old Jenkins became immortalized, by living

longer than other people. Until, therefore, we have a good number of ruins, with subterranean passages, and "Donjon Keeps," for our poets to commit murders, and our travellers to locate legends in, I despair of our excelling in these articles: as our friend the dry-good merchant calls poets and travellers.

This being the case, my learned friend-for learned thou art by this time, if thou hast read all my letters— we found very little to interest us at this place, except here and there in the outskirts of the town, a ruined log-cabin, deserted for a better, or abandoned for the western country. It would puzzle a Philadelphia lawyer to make a romance out of a log-hut; but by a rare good luck, I met with a legend, the subject of which is as follows:

When George the First was imported from Hanover, to take possession of the English crown, as usual a crowd of his poor relations accompanied him, to get a slice of Johnny Bull's roast beef, which was rather more plenty then than it is now. Among these was a sad fellow, called Kierst Von Guelph, who, by the time he had been half a year in England, had committed so many foul and unnatural murders on the king's English, that for fear of a rising among the genuine old Britons, who took umbrage at his calling things out of their right names, he was sent out to Virginia, with a grant of land and permission to murder every word of the language in cold blood. When he arrived in this new world, he built himself a house of logs, the ruins of which are still visible; called his first son George Rex, in compliment to his