who cannot open his eyes without seeing sublime peaks, penetrating beyond the clouds, stupendous rocks, and deep and dark caverns, enclosed by frightful precipices, thought I, must possess a vivid impression of the scenes of nature, by which he will be distinguished from those born and brought up in the city, or in the dull, monotonous plain, where there is neither grandeur nor variety. Perhaps there might be a little vanity mingled with these speculations, as it was my lot to draw the first breath of life at the foot of a lofty mountain, and on the bank of a roaring mountain torrent; where the startling reveille was often the hideous howling of hungry wolves. But when I attempted to recollect whether I had, in the days of childhood, ever experienced any sensible impression from the grandeur of surrounding objects, or had ever been led to contemplate these objects of nature with any strong emotion, I could not satisfy myself that any thing of this sort had ever occurred. The only reminiscence was of impressions made by the novelty of some object, not before seen; or some fancied resemblance to something with which I was familiar. Two mountains, somewhat remarkable, were frequently surveyed by me with delight; the House Mountain, and the Jump Mountain; both appertaining to a ridge, called in the valley the North Mountain. The first of these is a beautiful mountain which stands out at some distance from the main ridge, and from the middle of the valley exhibits something of the shape and appearance of a house. From Lexington and its vicinity, the view of this mountain is pleasant and imposing. The idea of its resemblance to a house took strong hold of my imagination; and especially because at the western end there was the resemblance of a shed, which corresponded with such an appendage to the house in which my childhood was spent. And now, when I revisit the place of my nativity, whilst almost every thing else is changed, the House Mountain remains the same, and I gaze upon it with that peculiar emotion which attends the calling up in a lively manner the thoughts and impressions of infancy. The idea of a perfect resemblance to a house was so deeply imprinted on my mind, in relation to this mountain, that I was greatly discomposed and disturbed in my thoughts, when a boy, by having occasion to travel a few miles towards the east end of the mountain, and finding that every resemblance of a house was gone; and when instead of one beautiful, uniform mountain, as smooth and steep as the roof of a house, I now beheld two rough-looking spurs, separated at a considerable distance from each other. This obliteration of a pleasing idea from the mind was painful; and whenever I was in a situation to see the mountain under this aspect, the unpleasant impression was renewed. Every traveller among mountains must have noticed how remarkably they vary their appearances, as he changes his position; and not only so, but from the same site a prominent mountain exhibits a wonderful variety of aspects according to the state of the atmosphere. This I believe is what is called looming, and was much noticed by Mr. Jefferson from Monticello, particularly in relation to that remarkable isolated mountain, called Willis's, which elevates its head to a considerable height, at a great distance from any other mountain or hill. But to return to my favourite, the House Mountain. In the days of my childhood-and perhaps it is still the case-this mountain was commonly burnt over every year; that is, the dry leaves on the ground were burnt. When the fire extended in a long crooked string along the side of the mountain, and especially when near the top, the appearance was grand and beautiful in a very dark night. It had all the appearance of a zigzag fire in the sky; and whenever it occurred, greatly attracted and delighted the boys. It was in those days held as a maxim among boys, that no one ever had ascended, or could ascend to the ridge or summit of the House Mountain; but since that time I understand that not only men, but women, have been successful in reaching the top; and have thence surveyed the varied and delightful landscape of the valley, with its villages, and its farms, its rivers and smaller streams. I can scarcely conceive of a pleasanter prospect than that which might be enjoyed from the summit of the House Mountain. As to the Jump Mountain, it was only occasionally that I got a view of it; and although the descent is very abrupt on the north side, so that the top of the mountain actually seems to project, my mind would have received a slighter impression from it, had not the first view of it been associated with a story told me by an older boy, that the reason why it was called the Jump Mountain, was because, at a certain time, a man had actually jumped off the top of the mountain, and fallen dead at its foot. This made a deep impression on my mind, and although I have seen the mountain hundreds of times since, I believe I never saw it without thinking of the man who took such an awful leap. When that species of taste is developed which delights in landscapes, I have not been able, with any precision, to ascertain. As far as my own experience goes, or rather as far as memory furnishes me with facts, I think that while a boy at school, I had no consciousness of the exercise of any such faculty. The love of novelty is almost coeval with our existence; but the love of the beauties of nature is slow in its development, and when there is no culture, it is often scarcely observable in mature age. Some men cast their eye over a lovely landscape with as little emotion as is experienced by the horses on which they ride. The only thought perhaps is, how rich the land? how many barrels of corn, or hogsheads of tobacco, or bushels of wheat, might be raised here to the acre? And even the horse will experience an emotion as elevated as his rider's, if there should happen to be a good clover field in sight. As it relates to objects of sublimity, I have found it, except in a few cases, difficult to distinguish this emotion from mere wonder, or admiration. But in this same valley, and not very remote from the objects of which I have spoken, there is one which, I think, produces the feeling which is denominated the sublime, more definitely and sensibly than any that I have ever seen. I refer to the Natural Bridge, from which the county takes its name It is not my object to describe this extraordinary lusus naturæ, as it may be called. In fact, no representation which can be given by the pen or pencil can convey any adequate idea of the object, or one that will have the least tendency to produce the emotion excited by a view of the object itself. There are some things, then, which the traveller, however eloquent, cannot communicate to his readers. All I intend is, to mention the effect produced by a sight of the Natural Bridge on my own mind. When s boy of fourteen or fifteen, I first visited this curiosity. Having stood on the top, and looked down into the deep chasm above and below the bridge, without any new or very strong emotions, as the scene bore a resemblance to many which are common to that country, I descended by the usual circuitous path to the bottom, and came upon the stream or brook some distance below the bridge. The first view which I obtained of the beautiful and elevated blue limestone arch, springing up to the clouds, produced au emotion entirely new; the feeling was as though something within sprung up to a great height by a kind of sudden impulse. That was the animal sensation which accompanied the genuine emotion of the sublime. Many years afterwards, I again visited the bridge. I entertained the belief, that I had preserved in my mind, all along, the idea of the object; and that now I should see it without emotion. But the fact was not so. The view, at this time, produced a revival of the original emotion, with the conscious feeling that the idea of the object had faded away, and become both obscure and diminutive, but was now restored, in an instant, to its original vividness and magnitude. The emotion produced by any object of true sublimity, as it is very vivid, so it is very short in its continuance. It seems, then, that novelty must be added to other qualities in the object, to produce this emotion distinctly. A person living near the bridge, who should see it every day, might be pleased with the object, but would experience, after awhile, nothing of the vivid emotion of the sublime. Thus, I think, it must be accounted for, that the starry heavens, or the sun shining in his strength, are viewed with little emotion of this kind, although much the sublimest objects in our view; we have been accustomed to view them daily, from our infancy. But a bright-coloured rainbow, spanning a large arch in the heavens, strikes all classes of persons with a mingled emotion of the sublime and beautiful; to which a sufficient degree of novelty is added, to render the Impression vivid, as often as it occurs. I have reflected on the reason why the Natural Bridge produces the emotion of the sublime, so well defined and so vivid; but I have arrived at nothing satisfactory. It must be resolvel into an ultimate law of our nature, that a novel object of that elevation and form will produce such an effect. Any attempt at analysing objects of beauty and sublimity only tends to produce confusion in our ideas. To artists, such analysis may be useful; not to increase the emotion, but to enable them to imitate more effectually the objects of nature by which it is produced. Although I have conversed with many thousands who had seen the Natural Bridge; and although the liveliness of the emotion is very different in different persons; yet I never saw one, of any class, who did not view the object with considerable emotion. And none have ever expressed disappointment from having had their expectations raised too high, by the description previously received. Indeed, no previous description communicates any just conception of the object as it appears; and the attempts to represent it by the pencil, as far as I have seen them, are pitiful. Painters would show their wisdom by omitting to represent some of the objects of nature, such as a volcano in actual ebullition, the sea in a storm, the conflagration of a great city, or the scene of a battle-field. The imitation must be so faint and feeble, that the attempt, however skilfully executed, is apt to produce disgust, instead of admiration." WILLIAM WIRT. WILLIAM WIRT, the eloquent lawyer and amiable biographer of Patrick Henry, was born at Bladensburg in Maryland, November 8, 1772, in the first descent from a European parentage-his father being a native of Switzerland and his mother of Germany. His father was an innkeeper of the place. He died shortly after his son's birth, and the mother did not long survive. At eight years of age, William was an orphan under the care of his uncle. His education was well provided for at the school of James Hunt, in Montgomery county, a Presbyterian clergyman, in whose house his pupil resided, and where a well stored library was kindly seconded in its influences by the frank manners and instructions of its owner. To this library Wirt owed the germ of that love of reading which bore luxuriant fruit in his later writings. Josephus, Guy of Warwick, Peregrine Pickle, Pope, and Horne's Elements of Criticism, were the mixed company of these early literary acquaintances. When he became an adept in the rigorous studies of the law, Wirt looked back with dismay upon this miscellaneous reading as injurious to the training of his faculties; though, as his biographer Kennedy wisely suggests, probably without cause. If genius is sometimes oppressed by the abundance of material, it may be as often at a loss for its own proper nutriment, which a wider field would have afforded. At fifteen, Wirt had qualified himself to become a private tutor in the family of his schoolmate, Ninian Edwards, who, on his return home, had. sounded the praises of his companion to his father. This gentleman, Benjamin Edwards, was a man of character, education, and political position, whose society and personal encouragement led his young friend onward in his course to the bar, which he finally reached-after preliminary studies with two practitioners, one of whom was the son of his old teacher Hunt-in 1792, his twentieth year. The library with which he commenced practice consisted of "a copy of Blackstone, two volumes of Don Quixote, and a volume of Tristram Shandy." Three years after, he married the daughter of a gentleman of distinction in Albemarle, Virginia-Doctor George Gilmer, a physician, residing at Pen Park, near Charlottesville, at whose well furnished house, rich in books and society, Wirt, again fortunate in home associations, took up his residence. His happy career at this place, in which he participated freely in the hearty life of old Virginia, was terminated by the death of his wife in 1799, when he removed to Richmond. He entered upon public life as Clerk to the House of Delegates, and passed rapidly through various stages of legal success, discharging for a while the duties of Chancellor of the eastern shore of Virginia, and after his second marriage, in 1802, with the daughter of Colonel Robert Gamble, practising law during a residence at Norfolk, and subsequently establishing himself in Richmond, till in 1817, in the Presidency of Monroe, he became Attorney-General of the United States, an office which he filled for twelve years. His practice in the Supreme Court gained him great reputation, where he frequently met his legal antagonist Pinkney. His speech in the prosecution of Burr at Richmond, in 1807, in which he sketched in glowing colors the home of Blennerhasset on the Ohio, will always be associated with that beautiful locality. It has been a popular recitation with schoolboys as one of the "beauties" of American eloquence. On his retirement from the Attorney-Generalship in 1829, Wirt left Washington and took up his permanent residence at Baltimore, where he became actively engaged for the few remaining years of his life in the practice of the law. Wirt died at Washington, whither he had gone in attendance on the Supreme Court, of an attack of erysipelas, February 18, 1834. IIis health, which had been for some time enfeebled, suddenly gave way. It is cheerful to see, in his corres pondence, how his constitutional vivacity and hearty sensibility kept him company to the last. The acuteness of mind and feeling which gave poignancy to his sufferings in the loss of his family-son and two daughters-and the decline of health, enabled him also at times to rise superior to these woes, and from the moments of happiness to extract a keener and purer enjoyment than is known to those who get through life with fewer pains and duller pleasures. The southern temperament lives in Wirt's writings; luxuriant, prodigal, self-reproachful for its uncertain pursuit of advantages, imperfect because its own standard is high-but colored with a warm flush of feeling. Of these literary productions, the earliest was his, Letters of the British Spy, published in the autumn of 1803 in the Argus, a daily newspaper, at Richmond. They were ten in number, written under the mask of papers left by a travelling member of the British Parliament in the bedchamber of his inn, at a seaport town of Virginia, and their purpose was simply literary recreation. There are some local descriptions and some scientific speculation in the manner of Jefferson's Notes on Virginia, but the papers are mainly occupied with the writer's studies of eloquence and observation of the leading public speakers of the country. The sketch of the sermon in the woods by the blind preacher, James Waddell, has entered into the common currency of American literature. The book was very successful on its publication, deriving its interest from its notices of individuals in a classical form. It passed through a number of editions.* The tenth was published by Harper & Brothers in 1848, with a Biographical Sketch of the Author, by his friend Peter Hoffman Cruse, of Baltimore. An English copy before us, published in London in 1812, has a preface which shows the general estimation in which American literature was held at that recent period, in the Great Metropolis. It says: "The people of the United States of America have so very small a claim on the world for any particular mark of distinction for honours gained in the field of literature, that it is feared the In 1804, Wirt further gave vent to his literary inclinations by the publication of some essays in the Richmond Enquirer, with the title of The Rainbow, which were afterwards collected into a volume. His Old Bachelor, commenced in 1810, was an undertaking of a similar character, a series of essays on the model of the Spectator, which ran through thirty-three numbers of the same journal. The friends who contributed to this joint affair, which sustained something of a dramatic character, were Dabney Carr, whose letter from Squaretoes was much admired in the Virginia circle; Dr. Frank Carr, the Galen; Richard E. Parker, the Alfred; Dr. Girardin, the Melmoth, of the plan, with other contributions by Judge Tucker, David Watson, and Mr. George Tucker. The papers were published in two volumes in 1812, and were favorably received, reaching a third edition in 1818. In the scarcity of American productions at that day, a work of this character was set in bolder relief than it would be at present. The topics discussed are the old grievances of the contemptuous reports of English travellers in the country, and the unjust criticism thereupon in the foreign reviews; female character and education, with pleasant glimpses of the old Bachelor's niece, Rosalie; sketches of the manners and thoughts of Virginia, and, above all, a discussion of the fine arts, their means of development and influences, particularly in relation to oratoryalways a favorite topic with Wirt-of the bar, the senate, or the pulpit. The Sketches of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry, the most important in its subject and interest of Wirt's literary productions, had been commenced in 1804, under the stimulus of the praise awarded to the author's personal sketches in the British Spy. The difficulties of the undertaking, in the first place, to get the material, and in the next to master it in a sober, historical style, are pleasantly recounted by him in a letter to Judge Carr in 1815, when the work was nearly completed.* From hearing so much of the speeches of Henry, and finding so few of them recorded, he thought at one time of writing them out from invention, in the style of Botta and the ancient historians. As it was, his work did not pass without a jest from his friend Jefferson, who contributed to it. The life of Henry appeared at last in 1817. It took at once its position as one of the most animated biographical works in our history, though the warmth of its coloring has been objected to, not without some reason, by the critics. The sober narrative of the historian sometimes breaks into the canter of the jury-addressing lawyer or the stump-speaking politician. There is an appearance of eking out the somewhat scanty material by rhetorical effect. It is not present demand on the English reader may be considered more as a call on British courtesy and benevolence than one of right and equity. In whatever point of view this may appear, the Reader may rely, that the publishers have been induced, from a conviction of the merit of the work, to furnish an impression of the British Spy. They have been enabled to do this by the recent arrival of a gentleman from Baltimore, who brought with him a copy of the work, with the assurance, that no original American literary production had ever obtained so rapid and extensive a circulation; it having, in a very short space ef time, passed through four editions." * Memoir by Kennedy, i. 387-90. likely, however, that the latter has injured its popular reception. The work glows with the southern heart of the writer, and in spite of all defects continues to charm the reader. It has dramatic power, with insight into character; and has certainly done much to stamp the permanent impression on the popular heart and mind of its illustrious subject. Fortunately for the writer's own memory, his biography has found a congenial pen in the ample narrative and affectionate zeal of his friend Kennedy. In 1826, on the nineteenth of October, the anniversary of the surrender at York and of the birthday of Adams, he delivered in the Hall of Representatives, in the capitol, his Eulogy on Adams and Jefferson, which was characterized by his usual fervor. In 1830, Wirt delivered an admirable address before the literary Societies of Rutgers College, in which he exhibited, with eloquence and feeling, the final absolute condition of education being a work of self-culture, and urged upon his young hearers the necessity of a zealous labor, a purpose and disposition in harmony with the country, decision of character, and a manly, high-toned ambition. In the same year he pronounced a discourse at Baltimore, on the 28th October, on occasion of a public celebration of the French Revolution of that date. At one time Wir-as what American author has not?-meditated a production in the drama, a sentimental comedy, which he had promised to the daughter of the actor Greene, a young lady who perished at the burning of the Richmond Theatre in 1811. The play was written, and is still in manuscript, entitled The Path of Pleasure. In doubt whether he should publish it or not, the author consulted his friends. A letter of Judge Tucker in reply is preserved. It would be doing injustice to Wirt's literary activity to pass over the extensive series of letters preserved in the Memoirs of Kennedy. He was a diligent and painstaking correspondent; his letters containing passages of description, criticism, humor, and sentiment equal to the best in his writings. They are written to members of his family, his wife, his daughters, and his old friends, Francis W. Gilmer, Dabney Carr, William Pope, and his law student S. Teackle Wallis, to whom he addressed an admirable letter on reading and habits of study.* Wirt was deeply affected by the death of his daughter Agnes, at the age of sixteen, in 1831, and gave expression to his feelings in a memoir of her, of which Mr. Kennedy, his biographer, gives this most tenderly touched passage "Young as she was, she seemed to be the seal and connecting bond of the whole family. Her voice, her smile, her animated graceful movements, her countless little acts and expressions of kindness and of love, those 'small sweet courtesies of life,' which she was so continually rendering to all around her, and with such exquisite grace of manner, had made her necessary to the individual happiness of every member of the household. When she was lost to us, it was as * It is printed in Kennedy's Memoirs, ii. 409. if the keystone of the arch had been removed. There was a healthfulness in the glow of her fresh and young affections, which animated the rigid nerves of age, and a pleasantness and beauty in the play of her innocent thoughts and feelings, which could smoothe the brow of care, and light up a smile even in the face of sorrow. To me she was not only the companion of my studies, but the sweetener of my toils. The painter, it is said, relieved his aching eyes by looking on a curtain of green. My mind, in its hour of deepest fatigue, required no other refreshment than one glance at my beloved child as she sat beside me." Mr. Kennedy compares this expression of feeling with a similar tribute on a like occasion in John Evelyn's Diary. In his personal qualities Wirt was most happily constituted of a warm genial temperament, susceptible alike to humor and sentiment, of strong devotional feeling, devoted to his friends and family, and with the orator's gifts for the public, of a manly countenance, a fine musical voice, and a graceful gesture. He was a good classical scholar, well versed in English literature, a hearty reader. At the bar, his eminent professional reputation is preserved with the annals of our highest courts, and in some of their most important causes. JAMES WADDELL, THE BLIND PREACHER-FROM THE BRITISH SPY. Richmond, Oct. 10. I have been, my dear S, on an excursion through the countries 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 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 congregation; 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, 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 veneration. But 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 my whole frame shiver. He then drew a picture of the sufferings of our Saviour; his trial before Pilate; his ascent up Calvary; his crucifixion, and his death. I knew the whole history; but never, until then, had I heard the circumstances so selected, so arranged, so coloured! It was all new: and I seemed to have heard it for the first time in my life. His enunciation was so deliberate, that his voice trembled on every syllable; and every heart in the assembly trembled in unison. His peculiar phrases had that force of description that the original scene appeared to be, at that moment, acting before our eyes. We saw the very faces of the Jews: the staring, frightful distortions of malice and rage. We saw the buffet; my soul kindled with a flame of indignation; and my hands were involuntarily and convulsively clinched. But when he came to touch on the patience, the forgiving meekness of our Saviour; when he drew, to the life, his blessed eyes streaming in tears to heaven; his voice breathing to God, a soft and gentle prayer of pardon on his enemies, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”— the voice of the preacher, which had all along faltered, grew fainter and fainter, until his utterance being entirely obstructed by the force of his feelings, he raised his handkerchief to his eyes, and burst into a loud and irrepressible flood of grief. The effect is inconceivable. The whole house resounded with the mingled groans, and sobs, and shrieks of the congregation. It was some time before the tumult had subsided, so far as to permit him to proceed. Indeed, judging by the usual, but fallacious standard of my own weakness, I began to be very uneasy for the situation of the preacher. For I could not conceive, how he would be able to let his audience down from the height to which he had wound them, without impairing the solemnity and dignity of his subject, or perhaps shocking them by the abruptness of the fall. But-no; the descent was as beautiful and sublime, as the elevation had been rapid and enthusiastic. The first sentence, with which he broke the awful silence, was a quotation from Rousseau, "Socrates died like a philosopher, but Jesus Christ, like a God!" I despair of giving you any idea of the effect produced by this short sentence, unless you could perfectly conceive the whole manner of the man, as well as the peculiar crisis in the discourse. Never before did I completely understand what Demosthenes meant by laying such stress on delivery. You are to bring before you the venerable figure of the preacher; his blindness, constantly recalling to your recollection old Homer, Ossian and Milton, and associating with his performance, the melancholy grandeur of their geniuses; you are to imagine that you hear his slow, solemn, well-accented enunciation, and his voice of affecting, trembling melody; you are to remember the pitch of passion and enthusiasm to which the congregation were raised; and then, the few minutes of portentous, death-like silence which reigned throughout the house; the preacher removing his white handkerchief from his aged face, (even yet wet from the recent torrent of his tears,) and slowly stretching forth the palsied hand which holds it, begins the sentence, "Socrates died like a philosopher"-then pausing, raising his other hand, pressing them both clasped together, with warmth and energy to his breast, lifting his "sightless balls" to heaven, and pouring his whole soul into his tremulous voicebut Jesus Christ-like a God!" If he had been indeed and in truth an angel of light, the effect could scarcely have been more divine. Whatever I had been able to conceive of the sublimity of Massillon, or the force of Bourdaloue, had fallen far short of the power which I felt from the delivery of this simple sentence. The blood, which just before had rushed in a hurricane upon my brain, and, in the violence and agony of my feelings, had held my whole system in suspense, now ran back into my heart, with a sensation which I cannot describe-a kind of shuddering delicious horror! The paroxysm of blended pity and indignation, to which I had been transported, subsided into the deepest self-abasement, humility and adoration. I had just been lacerated and dissolved by sympathy, for our Saviour as a fellow creature; but now, with fear and trembling, I adored him as-“ a God!" If this description give you the impression, that this incomparable minister had anything of shallow, theatrical trick in his manner, it does him great injustice. I have never seen, in any other orator, such a union of simplicity and majesty. He has not a gesture, an attitude or an accent, to which he does not seem forced, by the sentiment which he is expressing. His mind is too serious, too earnest, too solicitous, and, at the same time, too dignified, to stoop to artifice. Although as far removed from ostentation as a man can be, yet it is clear from the train, the style and substance of his thoughts, that he is not only a very polite scholar, but a man of extensive and profound erudition. I was forcibly struck with a short, yet beautiful character which he drew of our learned and amiable countryman, Sir Robert Boyle: he spoke of him, as if "his noble mind had, even before death, divested herself of all influence from his frail tabernacle of flesh;" and called him, in his peculiarly emphatic and impressive manner, "a pure intelligence: the link between men and angels." This man has been before my imagination almost ever since. A thousand times, as I rode along, I dropped the reins of my bridle, stretched forth my hand, and tried to imitate his quotation from Rousseau; a thousand times 1 abandoned the attempt in despair, and felt persuaded that his peculiar manner and power arose from an energy of soul, which nature could give, but which no human being could justly copy. In short, he seems to be altogether a being of a former age, or of a totally different nature from the rest of men. As I recall, at this moment, several of his awfully striking attitudes, the chilling tide, with which my blood begins to pour along my arteries, reminds me of the emotions produced by the first sight of Gray's introductory picture of his bard: On a rock, whose haughty brow, Frowns o'er old Conway's foaming flood, With haggard eyes the poet stood; (Loose his beard and hoary hair Streamed, like a meteor, to the troubled air :) Guess my surprise, when, on my arrival at Richmond, and mentioning the name of this man, I found not one person who had ever before heard of James Waddell !! Is it not strange, that such a genius as this, so accomplished a scholar, so d'vine an orator, should be permitted to languish and die in obscurity, within eighty miles of the metropo is of Virginia! To me it is a conclusive argument, either that the Virginians have no taste for the highest strains of the most sublime oratory, or that they are destitute |