tant, and the way to them exceedingly rough; but, excepting one pass, not dangerous. This, I am confident, very few would attempt in any other place than this; but the scenes around are so grand, as to inspire every one with courage. When we had come within five hundred feet of the falls, we stopped to survey the objects around us, which are in the highest degree grand and terrifick. Above us hung a precipice, an hundred and twenty or thirty feet high, full of loose stones, which are daily falling, and the possibility, that one may fall upon you in passing, inspires the mind with no inconsiderable degree of alarm. Turning our backs to the precipice, we see before us (on the opposite side of the river, placed on a perpendicular rock as high as the falls) Goat island, dividing the falls into two great sheets, four or five hundred feet apart. The farthest are called Little falls, and the other Horse-shoe falls. The former is called little, only in comparison with the Horse-shoe falls; and not being so easy of access, and discharging less water, is seldom visited by strangers, Then looking, as our way leads, we see the main fall, tumbling its prodigious waters into the bed of the lower river, and running off, wildly foaming beneath a cloud of spray in one general roar and confusion, magnificent beyond description.

We now proceeded, the spray wetting us more and more as we advanced, and the rocks becoming more slippery, but not dangerous. Before we arrived at the caverns, about one hundred feet from the falling water, where we took our stand, we were completely drenched by the violent beating of the spray against us, which, driven on by the furious rushing wind, that

issues out of the horrid caverns under the falls, sometimes hid us from a sight of the falling waters and even from each other.

Having halted, Mr. B first cautiously proceeded to get under the pitch, and, returning after a few moments, thinks he went about twenty feet under, but was hid nearly the whole time from us by the spray.

I was the next to attempt, amidst the mighty terrours around, a survey of these caverns, horrible as death, and where he alone seemed to hold empire. Facing the whirlwind, and necessarily disregarding the pelting spray, I crept as fast as the slippery crags would admit, without once stopping to think of danger. I went, as well as I could judge, fifteen or twenty feet under, or beyond the outer edge of the sheet. I durst venture no farther, but, reclining in a posture between sitting and laying, I first seized a small stone to bring away with me, an eternal remembrance of the place I took it from. This done, I paused for a few moments.

.....To attempt to describe my feelings, or to particularise each howling horrour around me, were vain. It is not the thousand riv ers of water, that tumble from above...nor the piled-up precipice of slippery crags, on the top of which you lay...nor the furious whirlwind,drivinglike shot thespray against you, threatening at each gust to throw you into the merciless jaws of death below...nor the thundering roar of the cataract...not all these, that bring each its particular terrour; but the whole of them together, striking the mind at once, appal the senses, and the weakened judgment gives way to the idea, that the rock above, which of

it if supports the mighty

True wit is nature to advantage drest,'

not a ragged gypsy, nor a tawdry strumpet. High, masterly execution is what constitutes a preemi. nent writer. He exhibits the best thoughts, exprest in the best man ner. When he borrows, he improves; what he imitates, he excels. He commands a certain felicity of style, which, though simple, is highly figurative, which convinces by its energy, and charms by its beauty. Of all the ancient poets Pope most resembles Virgil. He has the same correct ness, the same majesty of numbers, allowing for the inferiority of a modern language. There is scarcely a page of Virgil, his Georgics excepted, in which we cannot trace him imitating or translating whole passages from other writers, so that he has fewer pretensions to originality, than almost any poet ancient or modern. And yet what ancient author is so universally read, or affords so much pleasure, Horace perhaps excepted? Pope has more originality than Virgil, but less than Dryden. Yet who reads more of Dryden than a single satire and a single ode? Pope is the poet of the human species, the favourite of all ages, the oracle of all professions. Originality! Fiddledy diddledy.

BAYLE.

BAYLE was a great and original genius. I believe, that it is not generally known, that his character is admirably drawn by Saurin, which I doubt not will be more acceptable to many readers of the Silva, than any original remarks of the present writer. 'He was one of those extraordinary men (says that eloquent preacher) whom the greatest wit cannot reconcile with himself, and whose opposite quali

ties leave us room to doubt, wheth er we ought to look upon him as the best, or as the worst of men. On the one hand, he was a great philosopher, who knew how to distinguish truth from falsehood, who could at one view perceive all the consequences of a principle, and discover how they are linked together. On the other hand, he was a great sophist, who undertook to confound truth with falsehood, and knew how to draw false inferences from the principles he supported. On the one hand, a man of learning and knowledge, who had read all that can be read, and remembered all that can be remembered. On the other hand, ignorant, or at least feigning to be so, with regard to the most common things; proposing such difficulties, as had been a thousand times answered, and urging objec tions, which a schoolboy could not make without blushing. On the one hand, attacking the most eminent men, opening a large field for their labours, leading them through the most difficult roads, and, if he did not vanquish them, giving them at least a great deal of trouble to vanquish him. On the other hand, a man who made use of the worst of authors, to whom he was lavish of his praises; and who disgraced his writings by quoting such names as a learned mouth never pronounced. one hand, free, at least in appearance, from all the passions, which are inconsistent with the spirit of christianity; grave in his discourses, temperate in his diet, austere in his manner of living. On the other hand, employing all the strength of his genius to overthrow the foundations of moral virtue, attacking, as much as lay in his power, chastity, modesty, and all the christian virtues. On the one side,

On the

appealing to the throne of the most severe orthodoxy; going to the purest springs, borrowing his arguments from the least suspected writers. On the other hand, following the paths of hereticks, proposing again the objections of the ancient heresiarchs, lending them new arms, and collecting together in our age all the errours of past ages. May that man, who had been endowed with so many talents, be acquitted before God of the ill use he made of them! May that Jesus, whom he so often attacked, have explated his sins!"

PARNELL AND VOLTAIRE.

THE story of the hermit, which Parnell tells in verse, Voltaire relates in prose, precisely in the same order, in his romance of Zadig. Quere, which is the plagiary, or have they both borrowed the story from another? Voltaire continued an author for more than sixty years, but still I think that Parnell must have been his senior. Few have written so well as Voltaire on such an infinite variety of subjects; but in every department of literature he has been excelled by some. His immortality would have been more secure, had he confined his genius to any one species of composition, though his temporary popularity would have been less extensive.

I

might transpose the paragraphs as you read without injury. The style is indeed more pure and classical than that of Thomson, which abounds with gorgeous epithets and ill-sounding compound adjec tives. But the latter has infinitely the advantage in the superiour interest which he excites, in more vigour of conception, in greater tenderness and delicacy, and in every poetical embellishment. give the Seasons an annual perusal, and they always afford me fresh pleasure. I have never been able to read the Task a second time. As to Cowper's productions in rhyme, if any man can read them at all, I shall rather applaud his patience, than imitate his example. He seems to have no ear for harmony, so that, were we not acquainted with his age, we should scarcely suspect him of being a modern. Though there may be harmony without poetry, there can be no good poetry without harmony. The want of this indispensible requisite constitutes the principal charge of Horace against Lucilius, as the possession of it in a pre-eminent degree gives to Virgil and Pope the exalted rank which they hold among the poets of their respective countries. The satires and epistles of Horace we probably know not the true method of reading. We cannot at present discover in them that harmony, the want of which he censures in Lucilius, and which, for this very reason, they must undoubtedly possess. I once endeavoured to read Cowper's Homer, but I found it an herculean task, and I was no Hercules. It may possess every other merit, but certainly wants the power of keeping its readers awake. The first lines of the Seasons are ridiculous, as they contain absurd imagery. Observe.

Come, gentle Spring, therial mildness, come ! And from the bosom of yon dropping cloud, While musick wakes around, veiled in a shower Of shadowing roses, on our plains descend.

I quote from memory, but I believe correctly. Now reduce this to painting, and what kind of picture does it present? Spring, an allegorical personage, is described as descending from the bosom of a dropping cloud (quere, what does the cloud drop?) while musick wakes around. What musick, vocal, or instrumental? non liquet, veiled in a shower of shadowing roses. If Thomson had often written as ill as this, there would be no comparison between him and Cowper. But at present, as a poet, I think the latter decidedly inferiour. Though he may possess no passage so faulty as the one just quoted, yet he seldom rises above the level of mediocrity. Notwithstanding that the style of Cowper is unusually chaste, yet is there a sombre cast of thought, which seems to proceed from a mind not altogether sound and at ease.

EDUCATION.

EDUCATION has been greatly improved in this country of late years. But though much has been done, yet much remains to be done. Our literary discipline is well calculated for common purposes, and our professional men are little inferiour to those of other countries in the knowledge of their profession. But here our claims to praise must end. Our lawyers are mere lawyers, our physicians are mere physicians, our divines are mere divines. Every thing smells of the shop,and you will, in a few minutes conversation, infallibly detect a man's profession. We seldom meet here with an accomplished character, a young man of fine genius and very general knowledge, the scholar and the gentleman, united. Such a character is not

uncommon in Europe, but is here a rara avis inteṛris. Whence proceeds this difference? From the inferiority of education among us. Our schoolmasters receive a mere pittance, and are consequently men of inferiour talents. Every man, capable of instructing well, follows some profession or business, able to support him. A preceptor, without genius, can never inspire a pupil with the love of learning. Instead of reading Virgil and Horace with the enthusiasm of an amateur, and of explaining them with the taste and acuteness of a Busby, he will barely require a verbatim translation, and a knowledge of the rules of grammar. The spirit and beauties of the au thor remain without notice; and what has never been taught will seldom be discovered. They go to college with but a smattering of learning, and often leave it with still less. For the same system of economy pervades our academick walls, and a college tutor receives rather less than a Boston labourer. Those, who are qualified for nothing else, consequently become tutors, and our guides to Parnassus are themselves ignorant of the road that leads thither.

The schoolmaster's of Europe, particularly of Great-Britain, arc amply rewarded for their labours, and generally consist of the best scholars in the kingdom. The employment is honourable and lucrative, and is almost always rewarded with some distinguished ecclesiastical preferment, the preceptors themselves being always clergymen of the established church. I shall close this article with the character of Dr. Sumner, master of Harrow-school, drawn by his pupil, Sir W. Jones, in the preface to his treatise on Persian poetry. The translation of course must be very inferiour to the