1790. The force of this reply is confirmed by the softness, or, at least, friability of others of these stones, even in their interior, after they have become cool enough to admit of being touched.

3d. Atmospherick stones, and the substances, containing native iron, may have one and the same origin, notwithstanding certain diversities in them; few genera being without their species, and few species, without their varieties.

4. It may still be wise to hold

as somewhat dubious, a doctrine so novel as that of the analogy in question; and particularly, till our principal specimens of native iron, shall have been more thoroughly examined, than they yet appear to have been.

Leaving then the rest of this part of our subject to mineralogists and chemists, we shall next attend to atmospherick stones, as a branch of natural philosophy; and this inquiry will occupy our three remaining heads.

AMONG the choir of countless genii, whom Jupiter created for men, in order to superintend, and to bless the short period of a painful existence, was the dim sleep. "What have I to do (said he, surveying his dusky form) in the midst of my dazzling brethren? how sadly I look in the band of the sports, of the joys, and of the loves! it may be, that I am welcome to the unhappy, whom I lull to oblivion of their cares; it may be, that I am welcome to the weary, whom I do but strengthen to renew toil: but not to those who are neither weary nor woe-begone, whom I only in. terrupt in the circle of their joys." "Thou errest, said the father of genii, and of men; thou, in thy dusky form, shalt be a genius, dear to all the world. Dost thou not think that sports and joys fatigue? in truth, they tire sooner than care and want, and bequeath to their pampered host, the most loathsome sloth. And even thou, continued Jupiter shalt not be without thy pleasures, but shalt often surpass therein, the whole company of thy brothers." With these words, he

reached out the grey horn, full of pleasing dreams: "Hence, added he, scatter thy poppy seeds, and the happy, no less than the miserable of mankind, will wish for thee, and love thee above all thy brethren. The hopes, the sports, and the joys, herein contained, were caught by the charmed fingers of thy sisters, the graces, on the most redolent meads of paradise. The etherial dews, that glitter on them, will image to every one, whom thou wouldst bless, his own wish, and as the goddess of love has sprinkled them with celestial nectar, their forms will be radiant with a glowing grace, which the cold realities of earth cannot attain. From amid the rosy band of the pleasures, gladly will men haste to thy arms. Poets will sing of thee, and strive to rival thy enchantments, in their songs. Even the innocent maid shall wish for thee; and thou wilt hang on her eyelids, a sweet, a welcome god." The complaint of Sleep was now changed into thankfulness and triumph, and he was united to the loveliest of the graces-to Pasithea.

ART. 13.

The Life of George Washington, commander in chief of the American forces, during the war which established the independence of his country, and first president of the United States. Compiled under the inspection of the honourable Bushrod Washington, from original papers bequeathed to him by his deceased relative, and now in possession of the author. To which is prefixed an introduction, containing a compendious view of the colonies planted by the English on the continent of North America, from their settlement to the commencement of that war, which terminated in their independence. By John Marshall. Vol. 1. Philadelphia, printed and published by C.P. Wayne. 1804.

WE owe an apology to our readers for the long delay of our notice of a work, which, whether we consider the grandeur of its subject, or the great and merited reputation of its author, presents itself with higher claims to attention, than any one, which it has hitherto been our fortune to examine. The cause of the delay we will frankly confess.

Distrusting our own competency to a task, requiring so much preliminary knowledge, and so much curious research; and desirous that a work of so much importance should be examined by judges better capable of appreciating its merits and defects, we have successively applied to several gentlemen, who have all the requisites, which knowledge, talents and taste can give. Our hopes of success have been confident, till within the last six months; but either because the undertaking has been found by our friends less inviting than it appeared at a distance; or, because engaged in more important avocations, or possibly because the Anthology has appeared too humble a vehicle for their labours; from some all these causes, hopes have been entirely disappointed. We are at last compelled to trust to our own resources, and we presume we shall not be suspected of too much humility when we express our fears, that we bring to the task little other claim to attention than that of impartiality and fidelity. We may however venture to say, that our survey of the work has cost us labour, We have consulted all the accessible authorities

or

our

of Judge Marshall, and examined most of them with minuteness and care. Where we have doubted we have sought and obtained confidence from a gentleman, who leaves us only to regret, that he has not himself attempted, what he has shown us he is so able to perform. If therefore there should be any one, who thinks, that after this confession of our previous want of familiarity with the subject, our opinions are advanced with too much confidence, we may remind him, that our assertions are fortified by better authorities than our own, and that Teucer may be daring, when sheltered behind the buckler of Ajax.

On opening the volumes of Judge Marshall every reader is surprized to find the history of North America, instead of the life of an individual, and this as it is the most obvious, we imagine to be the most popular objection to the work. Yet it is to be recollected, that the precise boundary between history and biography is not always easily adjusted. In writing the lives of publick characters the limit between them is entirely artificial. Their biography is in truth history, or at least the line of separation between them, is so indistinct, so unmarked by any natural division, that the biographer has nothing to remind him that he is passing the limit of his own province, and invading the territories of the historian. The biographer of Washington will feel this truth more than of any other character in the whole compass of history. To Washington we are indebted for every thing for which a nation can be grateful to an individual, and from his accession to office till his death, his name is in some way connected with every publick event of importance in our history. Even those events in which he did not

personally share are necessary to be known in order to appreciate the circumstances, which contributed to his success, and to know also the full extent of the difficulties with which he was compelled to struggle. We do not hesitate to say therefore, that in our opinion, Judge M. is completely justified in interweaving with his biography a history of the American revolution, and of the events which succeeded it. The early history of our country, with which the work commences, is however a voluntary offering, and to defend it is rather less easy. We concede to Judge Marshall the necessity of giving such a survey of preceding events as to make the reader acquainted with the genius, character and resources of the people about to engage in the revolutionary contest. But we confess that we think this object would have been better attained by a disquisition on the nature and causes of the revolution; an undertaking for which the habits of thought and investigation of Judge Marshall peculiarly fits him. This plan we think would have included a survey of all the principal events of our early history; and while it would have given greater scope for the display of his philosophical genius, than mere narration admits, he would not have been tied down to that minute and rigid exactness with which in a historian we cannot dispense. Our most serious objection to the mode he has adopted is the very great addition which it makes to his already laborious task, and we cannot forbear to wish that the time which he has bestowed on it, had been devoted to the perfection and elaboration of his necessary duties. We are the more disposed to quarrel with this part of his plan because we think that it has contributed to produce what in our

view is the greatest general objection to his performance, that it is too uniformly historical; that we see too few tracts of the private character of Washington; that he is always presented to us in the pomp of the military or civil costume, and never in the ease and undress of private life. We complain not that there is too much history, but that there is too little biography. With the same documents, the same life might be written a century hence when none shall survive, who have seen the man, and remember any of those single and unimportant peculiarities, which constitute the charm of biography, and form the most strongly marked distinction between it and history. We scarcely know a little fact in these volumes, which a professed historian would not feel obliged to incorporate into his work, though not perhaps quite so much in detail. This cannot have arisen from any insuperable difficulties in his subject, because we have often seen the same difficulties successfully combated. We think, for example, Judge Marshall might have found a nearly faultless model for his undertaking, in Tacitus' Life of Agricola. Though Agricola was a mere soldier by profession, and though his life was distinguished by no other important circumstances, than the conduct of a campaign, yet has his biographer contrived to keep our interest perpetually centered in his hero; and at the conclusion of the work has given us a portrait of him, which, for perfection of outline and delicacy of touch, challenges comparison with any thing ancient or modern. It would be easy to find other proofs of the practicability of uniting biography and history. But it is time to attempt to estimate what we already possess, without indulging in useless wishes of imagin

ary and perhaps impossible improve

ment.

The work before us obviously takes three grand divisions; the first, embracing the early history of our country; the second, the American war; and the last, the establishment of the constitution and the political administration of the first President.

We know not whether to number it among the advantages or infelicities of the historian of our country, that so few important events are even doubtful. We have none of that indulgence to give to the fables of antiquity, which Livy thinks should be conceded to them, because they render the origin of nations consecrated and august. In the early history of North America, nothing is fictitious and scarcely any thing exaggerated. Yet is it not a subject either mean or uninteresting. The spectacle of a new country peopled by civilized men in a refined age; bringing with them the opinions, habits, and arts of civilization; freed from those fetters of feudality and superstition, against which the reason of mankind has so long and in every other country except Great Britain, unsuccessfully contended; occupying too a coun try of every variety of climate and circumstance, which can contribute to develope and modify the human character; it must be confessed that this is a spectacle, as grand and imposing as can be well conceived. Whether we are sufficiently distant from the æra of these events, to judge of them with impartiality is rather doubtful; but that a connected narration of them can be made interesting and attractive, we think Judge Marshall has successfully shown. The principal merit, however, of a piece of history must consist in the general arrangement of the materials, in the selection of those which are