with all the substantial treasures of knowledge. No man could be more social in his spirit, less assuming or fastidious in his manners, or more kind and indulgent towards all who approached him. He rather liked to talk,—at least in his latter years; but though he took a considerable share of the conversation, he rarely suggested the topics on which it was to turn, but readily and quietly took up whatever was presented by those around him, and astonished the idle and barren propounders of an ordinary theme, by the treasures which he drew from the mine they had unconsciously opened. He generally seemed, indeed, to have no choice or predilection for one subject of discourse rather than another; but allowed his mind, like a great cyclopedia, to be opened at any letter his associates might choose to turn up, and only endeavoured to select from his inexhaustible stores what might be best adapted to the taste of his present hearers. As to their capacity he gave himself no trouble; and, indeed, such was his singular talent for making all things plain, clear, and intelligible, that scarcely any one could be aware of such a deficiency in his presence. His talk, too, though overflowing with information, had no resemblance to lecturing or solemn discoursing, but, on the contrary, was full of colloquial spirit and pleasantry. He had a certain quiet and grave humour, which ran through most of his conversation, and a vein of temperate jocularity, which gave infinite zest and effect to the condensed and inexhaustible information, which formed its main staple and characteristic. There was a little air of affected testiness, and a tone of pretended rebuke and contradiction, with which he used to address his younger friends, that was always felt by them as an endearing mark of his kindness and familiarity, and prized accordingly, far beyond all the solemn compliments that ever proceeded from the lips of authority. His voice was deep and powerful,-though he commonly spoke in a low and somewhat monotonous tone, which harmonised admirably with the weight and brevity of his observations, and set off to the greatest advantage the pleasant anecdotes which he delivered with the same grave brow and the same calm smile playing soberly on

his lips. There was nothing of effort indeed, or impatience, any more than of pride or levity, in his demeanour; and there was a finer expression of reposing strength, and mild self-possession in his manner, than we ever recollect to have met with in any other person. He had in his character the utmost abhorrence for all sorts of forwardness, parade, and pretensions; and, indeed, never failed to put all such impostors out of countenance, by the manly plainness and honest intrepidity of his language and deportment.

In his temper and dispositions he was not only kind and affectionate, but generous and considerate of the feelings of all around him, and gave the most liberal assistance and encouragement to all young persons who showed any indications of talent, or applied to him for patronage or advice. His health, which was delicate from his youth upwards, seemed to become firmer as he advanced in years; and he preserved, up almost to the last moment of his existence, not only the full command of his extraordinary intellect, but all the alacrity of spirit, and the social gaiety which had illuminated his happiest days. His friends in this part of the country never saw him more full of intellectual vigour and colloquial animation,-never more delightful or more instructive-than in his last visit to Scotland in autumn 1817. Indeed, it was after that time that he applied himself, with all the ardour of early life, to the invention of a machine for mechanically copying all sorts of sculpture and statuary,

and distributed among his friends some of its earliest performances, as the productions of a young artist just entering on his 83d year.

This happy and useful life came at last to a gentle close. He had suffered some inconvenience through the summer-but was not seriously indisposed till within a few weeks from his death. He then became perfectly aware of the event which was approaching; and with his usual tranquillity and benevolence of nature, seemed only anxious to point out to the friends around him the many sources of consolation which were afforded by the circumstances under which it was about to take place. He expressed his sincere gratitude to Providence for the length of days with

which he had been blessed, and his exemption from most of the infirmities of age, as well as for the calm and cheerful evening of life that he had been permitted to enjoy, after the honourable labours of the day had been concluded. And thus, full of years and honours, in all calmness and tranquillity, he yielded up his soul, without pang or struggle,-and passed from the bosom of his family to that of his God!

He was twice married, but has left no issue but one son, long associated with him in his business and studies, and two grandchildren by a daughter who predeceased him. He was Fellow of the Royal Societies both of London and Edinburgh, and one of the few Englishmen who were elected members of the National Institute of France. All men of learning and science were his cordial friends; and such was the influence of his mild character and perfect fairness and liberality, even upon the pretenders to these accomplishments, that he lived to disarm even envy itself, and died, we verily believe, without a single

enemy.

SPECIMENS OF AMERICAN LITERA

TURE.

WE have too long been in the habit of despising the literature of the Americans, and have rather unwisely set down their backwardness, in that particular, to the score of a defective genius. There are many reasons, however, which may have readily prevented them from coming into competition with the great writers of this country. Using the same language with ourselves, it is not at all unnatural that they should have been satisfied with the entertainment which we could afford them, without putting their own invention to the rack. There is a diffidence, too, in genius, which often prevents it from coming forward, where it must encounter the rivalry of tried and acknowledged excellence; and the silence of the Americans is no proof that they have not been secretly meditating on the splendid energies which have been exhibited before them. Perhaps we ought rather to draw the contrary conclusion. Even the want of taste which inay appear in their occasional literary efforts, and the defects in their imitations, are no

thing more than might be expected in their circumstances. It is long before the tongue of a child can get round its words. If we are not much mistaken, something of the same kind is to be found in the History of Scottish Literature. For many years it was completely repressed by the ascendancy of English genius. But are we to suppose, that, during that period, the seeds were not in secret operation, from which that harvest of glory has since sprung, which has now fairly placed us on a level with the sister kingdom? There were then doubtless many scholars among us, and many men of genius who read, and admired, and thought,

Vixerunt fortes ante Agamemnona
Multi, &c.

but who scarcely ventured to write, or, if they did, it was to be expected that they would labour for expression, and sometimes be awkward, and at other times, perhaps, turgid. But when Scotchmen once found the free use of their pens, England soon learnt that they were by no means inclined to hide their talent in a napkin. We strongly suspect that America is at this moment passing through a similar noviciate; and we apprehend the time is not far distant when her genius too will be put forth into action. Many of her most promising youths have, for these several years past, been travelling in all directions, storing up all the treasures of modern literature, and even drawing the inspiring breath of Greece and Italy. They have collected great and various libraries in their course, they have become acquainted with the most eminent men in the regions through which they have passed, and have, no doubt, in imagination, already measured their own strength with theirs. Every thing has aided to bring them into contact with all the dead and all the living genius in the world; and we may be assured that they have an ambition to excel in the department of letters no less than in arts or in arms.

It is with great interest, under this persuasion, that we look into every American publication, however inconsiderable, which seems to give any promise of the coming Avatar. An amusing little work has just been put into our hands, called the Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Esq. pub

would I wander about the pier heads in fine weather, and watch the parting ships, bound to distant climes-with what longing eyes would I gaze after their lessening sails, and waft myself in imagination to the ends of the earth.

"Farther reading and thinking, though they brought this vague inclination into more reasonable bounds, only served to make it more decided. I visited various parts of my own country; and had I been merely a lover of fine scenery, I should have felt little desire to seek elsewhere for its gratification: for on no country have the charms of nature been more prodigally lavished. Her mighty lakes, like occans of liquid silver; her mountains, with their bright aerial tints; her valleys, teeming with wild fertility; her tremendous cataracts, thundering in their solitudes; her boundless plains, waving with spontaneous verdure; her broad deep rivers, rolling in solemn silence to the ocean: her trackless forests, where vegetation puts forth all its magnificence; her skies, kindling with the magic of summer clouds and glorious sunshine:-no, never need an American look beyond his own country for the sublime and beautiful of natural scenery.

"But Europe held forth all the charms of storied and poetical association. There were to be seen the masterpieces of art, the refinements of highly cultivated society, the quaint peculiarities of ancient and local custom. My native country was full of youthful promise; Europe was rich in the accumulated treasures of age. Her very ruins told the history of times gone by, and every mouldering stone was a chronicle. I longed to wander over the scenes of renowned achievement-to tread, as it were, in the footsteps of antiquityto loiter about the ruined castle-to meditate on the falling tower-to escape, in short, from the commonplace realities of the present, and lose myself among the shadowy grandeurs of the past.

"I had, beside all this, an earnest desire to see the great men of the earth. We have, it is true, our great men in America: not a city but has an ample share of them. I have mingled among them in my time, and been almost withered by the shade into which they cast me; for there is nothing so baleful to a small man as the shade of a great one, particularly the great man of a city. But I was anxious to see the great men of Europe; for I had read in the works of various philosophers, that all animals degenerated in America, and man among the number. A great man of Europe, therefore, thought I, must be as superior to a great man of America, as a peak of the Alps to a highland of the Hudson; and in this idea I was confirmed, by observing the comparative importance and swelling magnitude of many English tra

vellers among us; who, I was assured, were very little people in their own country. I will visit this land of wonders, therefore, thought I, and see the gigantic race from which I am degenerated.

"It has been either my good or evil lot to have my roving passion gratified I have wandered through different countries, and witnessed many of the shifting scenes of life. I cannot say that I have studied them with the eye of a philosopher, but rather with the sauntering gaze with which humble lovers of the picturesque stroll from the window of one print shop to another; caught sometimes by the d lineations of beauty, sometimes by the distortions of caricature, and sometimes by the loveliness of landscape. As it is the fashion for modern tourists to travel pencil in hand, and bring home their portfolios filled with sketches, I am disposed to get up a few for the entertainment of my friends. When I look over, however, the hints and memorandums I have taken down for the purpose, my heart almost fails me to find how my idle humour has led me aside from the great objects studied by every regular traveller who would make a book. I fear I shall give equal disappointment with an unlucky landscape painter, who had travelled on the Continent, but following the bent of his vagrant inclination, had sketched in nooks, and corners, and by-places. His sketch-book was accordingly crowded with cottages, and landscapes, and obscure ruins; but he had neglected to paint St Peter's, or the Coliseum; the cascade of Terni, or the bay of Naples; and had not a single glacier or volcano in his whole collection.

THE VOYAGE.

unbroken; we can trace it back link by link; and we feel that the last of them still grapples us to home. But a wide sea voyage severs us at once. It makes us conscious of being cast loose from the secure anchorage of settled life, and sent adrift upon a doubtful world. It interposes a gulf, not merely imaginary, but real, between us and our homes a gulf subject to tempest, and fear, and uncertainty, that makes distance palpable, and return precarious.

“Such, at least, was the case with my self. As I saw the last blue line of my native land fade away like a cloud in the horizon, it seemed as if I had closed one volume of the world and its concerns, and had time for meditation, before I opened another. That land, too, now vanishing from my view, which contained all that was most dear to me in life; what vicissitudes might occur in it-what changes might take place in me, before I should visit it again. Who can tell when he sets forth to wander, whither he may be driven by the uncertain currents of existence; or when he may return; or whether it may ever be his lot to revisit the scenes of his childhood?

"I said that at sea all is vacancy: I should correct the expression. To one given to day-dreaming, and fond of losing himself in reveries, a sea voyage is full of subjects for meditation; but then they are the wonders of the deep, and of the air, and rather tend to abstract the mind from worldly themes. I delighted to loll over the quarter railing, or climb to the maintop, of a calm day, and muse for hours together on the tranquil bosom of a sunmer's sea. To gaze upon the piles of golden clouds just peering above the horizon; fancy them some fairy realms, and people them with a creation of my own. To watch the gently undulating billows, rolling their silver volumes, as if to die away on those happy shores.

"There was a delicious sensation of mingled security and awe with which I looked down, from my giddy height, on the monsters of the deep at their uncouth gambols. Shoals of porpoises tumbling about the bow of the ship; the grampus, slowly heaving his huge form above the surface; or the ravenous shark, darting, like a spectre, through the blue waters. My imagination would conjure up all that I had heard or read of the watery world beneath me of the finny herds that roam its fathomless valleys; of the shapeless monsters that lurk among the very foundations of the earth, and those wild phantasms that swell the tales of fishermen and sailors.

"Sometimes a distant sail, gliding along the edge of the ocean, would be another theme of idle speculation. How interesting this fragment of a world, hastening to

VOL. V.

rejoin the great mass of existence. What a glorious monument of human invention, that has thus triumphed over wind and wave; has brought the ends of the earth into communion; has established an interchange of blessings; pouring into the sterile regions of the north all the luxuries of the south; has diffused the light of knowledge, and the charities of cultivated life; and has thus bound together those scattered portions of the human race, between which nature seemed to have thrown an insurmountable barrier.

"We one day descried some shapeless object drifting at a distance. At sea, every thing that breaks the monotony of the surrounding expanse attracts attention. It proved to be the mast of a ship that must have been completely wrecked; for there were the remains of handker chiefs, by which some of the crew had fastened themselves to this spar, to prevent their being washed off by the waves. There was no trace by which the name of the ship could be ascertained. The wreck had evidently drifted about for many months; clusters of shell fish had fastened about it, and long sea-weeds flaunted at its sides. But where, thought I, is the crew? Their struggle has long been over-they have gone down amidst the roar of the tempest-their bones lie whitening among the caverns of the deep. Silence-oblivion, like the waves, have closed over them, and no one can tell the story of their end. What sighs have been wafted after that ship; what prayers offered up at the deserted fireside of home. How of ten has the mistress, the wife, the mother, pored over the daily news, to catch some casual intelligence of this rover of the deep. How has expectation darkened into anxiety-anxiety into dread-and dread into despair. Alas! not one momento shall ever return for love to cherish. All that shall ever be known is, that she sailed from her port, and was never heard of more!"

"The sight of this wreck, as usual, gave rise to many dismal anecdotes. This was particularly the case in the evening, when the weather, which had hitherto been fair, began to look wild and threatening, and gave indications of one of those sudden storms that will sometimes break in upon the serenity of a summer voyage. As we sat round the dull light of a lamp, in the cabin, that made the gloom more ghastly, every one had his tale of shipwreck and disaster, I was peculiarly struck with a short one related by the captain.

"As I was once sailing,' said he, in a fine stout ship, across the banks of Newfoundland, one of those heavy fogs that prevail in those parts rendered it impossible for us to see far ahead, even in the day

Dd