ed faces of every description, and among then none more healthy or more contented, than those of their ungrateful and improvident directors !.... But now....where are they, all....the little, famish ed colony which landed here, and the many-coloured crowd of London....where are they, my dear S.......? Gone, where there is no distincti on; consigned to the common earth. Another generation succeeded them: which just as busy and as bustling as that which fell before it, has sunk down into the same nothingness. Another, and yet another billow has rolled on, each emulating its predecessor in height; towering, for its moment, and curling its foaming honors to the clouds, then roaring, breaking, and perishing on the same shore.

Is it not strange, that, familiarly and univer sally as these things are known, yet that each generation is as eager in the pursuit of its earthly objects, projects its plans on a scale as extensive, and labours in their execution, with a spirit as árdent and unrelaxing, as if this life and this world, were to last forever?.... It is indeed a most benevolent interposition of Providence, that these palpable and just views of the vanity of human life, are not permitted entirely to crush the spirits, and unnerve the arm of industry. But at the same time, methinks, it would be wise in man to permit them to have, at least, so much weight with him, as to prevent his total absorption by the things of this earth, and to point some of his thoughts and his exertions, to a system of being,. far more permanent, exalted and happy. Think not this reflection too solemn. It is irresistably

inspired by the objects around me, and, as rarely as it occurs, (much too rarely) it is most certainly and solemnly true, my S................

It is curious to reflect, what a nation, in the course of two hundred years, has sprung up and flourished from the feeble, sickly germ which was planted here! Littie did our short-sighted court suspect the conflict which she was preparing for herself; the convulsive throe by which her infant colony would, in a few years, burst from her, and start into a political importance that would astonish the earth!........ But Virginia, my dear S......., as rapidly as her population and her wealth must continue to advance, wants one most important source of solid grandeur; and that, too, the animating soul of a republic. I mean, public spirit; that sacred amor patriae which filled Greece and Rome with patriots, heroes and scholars. There seems to me to be but one object throughout the state; to grow rich; a passion which is visible, not only in the walks of private life, but which has crept into and poisoned every public body in the state. Indeed, from the very genius of the government, by which all the public characters are at short periodical elections, evolved from the body of the people, it cannot but happen, that the councils of the state must take the impulse of the private propensities of the country. Hence, Virginia exhibits no great public improvements; hence, in spite of her wealth, every part of the country manifests her sufferings, either from the penury of her guardians, or their want of that attention, and noble pride, wherewith it is their duty to consult her appearance.

Her roads and highways are frequently impassable, sometimes frightful....the very few public works which have been set on foot, instead of being carried on with spirit, are permitted to languish and pine, and creep feebly along, in such a manner, that the first part of an edifice, grows grey with age, and almost tumbles in ru ins, before the last part is lifted from the dust.... her highest officers are sustained with so avaricious, so niggardly a hand, that if they are not driven to subsist on roots, and drink ditch-water, with old Fabricius, it is not for the want of republican economy in the projectors of the salaries ....and, above all, the general culture of the human mind, that best cure for the aristocratic disstinctions which they profess to hate, that best basis of the social and political equality, which they profess to love; this culture, instead of becoming a national care, is entrusted merely to such individuals, as hazard, indigence, misfortunes or crimes, have forced from their native Europe, to seek an asylum and bread in the wilds of America. They have only one public seminary of learning; a college in Williamsburg, about seven miles from this place, which was erected in the reign of our William and Mary, and bears their name. This college, in the fastidious folly and affectation of republicanism, they have cndowed with a few despicable fragments of surveyor's fees, &c. converting a body of polite, scientific and highly respectable professors, into a shopboard of contemptible cabbaging taylors. And, then, instead of aiding and energizing the police of the college, by a few civil regulations, permit

ting their youth to run riot, in all the wildness of dissipation; while the venerable professors are forced to look on, in the deep mortification of conscious impotence, and see their care and zeal requited, by the ruin of their pupils and the destruction of their seminary. These are points, which, at present, I can barely touch; when I have an easier seat and writing desk, than a grave and a tomb stone, it will give me pleasure to dilate on them; for, it will afford an opportunity of exulting in the superiority of our own energe-tic monarchy, over this republican body without a soul.*

For the present, my dear S......., I bid you a-dieu.

LETTER VII

Richmond, October 10%.

I HAVE been, my dear S......., on an excur sion through the counties which lie along the eastern side of the Blue Ridge. A general description of that country and its inhabitants, may form the subject of a future letter. For the present, I must entertain you with an account of a most singular and interesting adventure, which I met with, in the course of the tour.

It was one Sunday, as I travelled through the county of Orange, that my eye was caught by a

*British insolence! Yet it cannot be denied, however painful the admission, that there is some foundation for his censures.

cluster of horses tied near a ruinous, old, wooden house, in the forest, not far from the road side. Having frequently seen such objects before, in travelling through these states, I had no difficulty in understanding that this was a place of religious worship. Devotion alone, should have stopped me, to join in the duties of the con. gregation; but I must confess, that curiosity to hear the preacher of such a wilderness, was not the least of my motives. On entering, I was struck with his preternatural appearance.

on.

He

was a tall and very spare old man....his head, which was covered with a white linen cap, his shrivelled hands, and his voice, were all shaking under the influence of a palsy, and a few moments ascertained to me that he was perfectly blind. The first emotions which touched my breast, were those of mingled pity and veneratiBut ah! Sacred God! How soon were all my feelings changed! The lips of Plato were never more worthy of a prognostic swarm of bees, than were the lips of this holy man! It was a day of the administration of the sacrament, and his subject, of course, was the passion of our Saviour. I had heard the subject handled a thousand times: I had thought it exhausted long ago. Little did I suppose, that in the wild woods of America, I was to meet with a man whose eloquence would give to this topic, a new and more sublime pathos, than I had ever before, witnessed. As he descended from the pulpit, to distribute the mystic symbols, there was a peculiar, a more than human solemnity in his air and manner, which made my blood run cold, and r

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