3 soon as they discovered I was a strange boy, they vied with each other in showing me every act of kindness.

M. Bauvais was a tall, dry, old French Canadian, dressed in the costume of the place: that is, with a blue cotton handkerchief on his head, one corner thereof descending behind and partly covering the eel-skin which bound his hair; a check shirt; coarse linen pantaloons on his hips; and the Indian sandal or moccasin, the only covering to the feet worn here by both sexes. He was a man of a grave and serious aspect, entirely unlike the gay Frenchmen we are accustomed to see; and this seriousness was not a little heightened by the fixed rigidity of the maxillary muscles, occasioned by having his pipe continually in his mouth, except while in bed, or at mass, or during meals. Let it not be supposed that I mean to speak disrespectfully, or with levity, of a most estimable man; my object in describing him is to give an idea of many other fathers of families of the village. Madame Bauvais was a large fat lady, with an open cheerful countenance, and an expression of kindness and affection to her numerous offspring, and to all others excepting her coloured domesties, towards whom she was rigid and severe. She was, notwithstanding, a most pious and excellent woman, and, as a French wife ought to be, completely mistress of the family. Her eldest daughter was an interesting young woman; two others were nearly grown, and all were handsome. I will trespass a little on the patience of the reader, to give some account of the place where I was domiciled; that is, of the house in which I lived, and of the village in which it was situated.

The house of M. Bauvais was a long, low building, with a porch or shed in front, and another in the rear; the chimney occupied the centre, dividing the house into two parts, with each a fire-place. One of these served for dining-room, parlor, and principal bed-chamber; the other was the kitchen; and each had a small room taken off at the end for private chambers or cabinets. There was no loft or garret, a pair of stairs being a rare thing in the village. The furniture, excepting the beds and the looking-glass, was of the most common kind, consisting of an armoire, a rough table or two, and some coarse chairs. The yard was inclosed with cedar pickets, eight or ten inches in diameter, and six feet high, placed upright, sharpened at the top, in the manner of a stockade fort. In front, the yard was narrow, but in the rear quite spacious, and containing the barn and stables, the negro quarters, and all the necessary offices of a farm yard. Beyond this, there was a spacious garden inclosed with pickets, in the same manner with the yard. It was, indeed, a garden-in which the greatest variety, and the finest vegetables were cultivated, intermingled with flowers and shrubs: on one side of it there was a small orchard containing a variety of the choicest fruits. The substantial and permanent character of these inclosures is in singular contrast with the slight and temporary fences and palings of the Americans. The house was a ponderous wooden frame, which, instead of being weather-boarded, was filled in with clay, and then whitewashed. As to the living, the table was provided in a very different manner from that of the generality of Americans. With the poorest French peasant, cookery is an art well understood. They make great use of vegetables, and prepared in a manner to be wholesome and palatable. Instead of roast and fried, they had soups and fricassees, and gumbos (a dish supposed to be derived from the Africans), and a variety of other dishes. Tea was not used at meals, and coffee for breakfast was the privilege of M. Bauvais only.

From the description of this house, some idea may be formed of the rest of the village. The pursuits of the inhabitants were chiefly agricultural, although all were more or less engaged in traffic for peftries with the Indians, or in working the lead mines in the interior. But few of them were mechanics, and there were but two or three small shops, which retailed a few groceries. Poultry and lead constituted almost the only circulating medium. All politics, or discussions of the affairs of government, were entirely unknown: the commandant took care of all that sort of thing. But instead of them, the processions and ceremonies of the church, and the public balls, furnished ample matter for occupation and amusement. Their agriculture was carried on in a field of several thousand acres, in the fertile river bottom of the Mississippi, inclosed at the common expense, and divided into lots, separated by some natural or permanent boundary. Horses or cattle, depastured, were tethered with long ropes, or the grass was cut and carried to them in their stalls. It was a pleasing sight, to mark the rural population going and returning morning and evening, to and from the field, with their working cattle, carts, old-fashioned wheel ploughs, and other implements of husbandry. Whatever they may have gained in some respects, I question very much whether the change of government has contributed to increase their happiness. About a quarter of a mile off, there was a village of Kickapoo Indians, who lived on the most friendly terms with the white people. The boys often intermingled with those of the white village, and practised shooting with the bow and arrow; an accomplishment which I acquired with the rest, together with a little smattering of the Indian language, which I forgot on leaving the place.

Such were the place, and the kind of people, where, and among whom, I was about to pass some of the most important years of my life, and which would naturally extend a lasting influence over me. A little difficulty occurred very soon after my arrival, which gave some uneasiness to Madame Bauvais. She felt some repugnance at putting a little heretic into the same bed with her own children. This was soon set right by the good curate, Père St. Pierre, who made a Christian of me, M. and Madame Bauvais becoming my sponsors, by which a relationship was established almost as strong as that formed by the ties of consanguinity. Ever after this, they permitted me to address them by the endearing names of father and mother; and more affectionate, careful, and anxious parents I could not have had. It was such as even to excite a kind of jealousy among some of their own children. They were strict and exemplary Catholics; so, indeed, were most of the inhabitants of the village. Madame Bauvais caused me every night to kneel by her side, to say my pater noster and credo, and then whispered those gentle admonitions which sink deep into the heart. To the good seed thus early sown, I may ascribe any growth of virtue, in a soil that might otherwise have produced only noxious weeds.

NOTICES OF THE AUTHOR'S FATHER JUDGE HI. H. BRACKENRIDGE.*

My father undertook to instruct me in the Latin and Greek. He was himself a most finished classical scholar, having been a tutor at Princeton, and afterwards the principal of an academy on the eastern shore of Maryland; and he was as proud of the success in life of his pupils, and took as much credit to himself for it, as Porson. He considered the classics all in all, and thought no person could be esteemed a

From Recollections of the West.

scholar without them. According to his estimate, even Franklin had no higher claim than that of a strong-minded imperfectly educated man, who would have been much greater if he had been bred at a college, which I think very questionable. We are apt to overrate the importance of those pursuits in which we excel, or to which we have devoted much of our time and application. This I think was the case with him, and he was inclined to place too high a value on the talents of those who were critically versed in the masterpieces of Greece and Rome.

But in my opinion, by far the most valuable portion of my education consisted in his conversation, or rather lectures, for he spoke to me always as to a man. He was near fifty years of age, and had been a remarkable student from his childhood, and was surpassed by few in the depth and variety of his attainments. He appeared to live more in the world of books than of men, and yet his natural genius was of such high order, that it is questionable whether he would not have been greater by depending more on his native resources. His conversation abounded with wit and eloquence, and original views on every subject. The advantages derived from constant association with such a man can be imagined, but can scarcely be appreciated. Although there is no royal road to science, yet the road may be shortened, and rendered more accessible, by the assistance of such a teacher. I had all the benefit of his matured intellect, and highly refined ideas upon a thousand subjects.

At this time my father was unhappily plunged so deep in party politics, that he almost lost sight of

me.

Federalism and democracy were then at their height. He was a supporter of Jefferson and M'Kean, an enthusiast in the cause of France, and, from his high temperament, incapable of pursuing anything in moderation. He was also involved in a personal difference with the presiding judge of the court in which he practised, and fearful that he might be provoked to do something which might be taken advantage of, he resolved to retire from practice. He wrote with the pungency and force of a Junius, and spoke with the inspired eloquence of a Henry; it is, therefore, not to be wondered at, that he soon became a formidable politician. He purchased types and press, and set up a young man as editor of a paper, which he previously named the "Tree of Liberty," with a motto from Scripture-" And the leaves of the tree shall be for the healing of the nation." At this period, with very few exceptions, the professional men, persons of wealth and education, and those in public offices, were on the federal side; and such was the violence of party dissensions, that it put a stop to all the pleasures of social intercourse; party differences and personal animosity almost sig nified the same thing. He wrote a number of things, sometimes in prose sometimes in verse, which I read with great delight and often committed to memory, being of course a violent democrat as well as himself. The great majority, both in town and country, was then on the federal side; but fifty republicans could be mustered in Pittsburgh, and not all these were entitled to put a ticket into the ballot-box. The success in the elections of M'Kean and Jefferson soon effected a numerical change: according to the usual course of things, the strongest side is apt to grow still stronger on that account; and the rising party is apt to continue to rise, as revolutions never go backwards,

I now became a student in earnest, devoting at least thirteen or fourteen hours out of the twenty

four to my books, under the instruction of my father, when he was permitted by the duties of his circuit to remain at home. All my wants were kindly attended to by my step-mother, leaving me nothing to think of but my books. Our house was but little resorted to, except by literary men; in fact books and reading formed the occupation of its inmates. My little sister read the newspapers at three years old, my youngest brother was learning his Latin and French at six or seven, and the elder at fourteen was translating Longinus, and the two works of Xenophon-the Anabasis and Cyropedia, into literal English, line for line, and word for word, and then putting it into idiomatic English, writing sentence by sentence, under the direction of my father, who considered this, with his lectures and instructions, a practical course of rhetoric. As to himself he never dined out or invited to dinner, and was unwilling to see company until after tea; when persons dropped in to hear his conversation, in which none excelled him, although during the day it was difficult to get him to say a word except on business. It was indeed a treat to hear him speak when he chose to unbend. He was an improvisateur of the first order. I have heard him relate a story, when the illusion was so perfect, that the hearer would suppose there were half a dozen characters on the stage. Jeffrey, in one of the numbers of the Edinburgh Review, says that Matthews was inferior to him in relating a story. He was entirely different; there was no buffoonery or broad humour, either in the choice of his subject or in his manner. Compared to the stories of Matthews, it was genteel comedy or tragedy compared to broad farce. He generally walked about, and seemed to require this, in order to give full play to his powers. It is remarkable, that what he said on the bench while seated, had nothing of his usual eloquence; and when he was eloquent there, which was but seldom, he rose upon his feet.

He frequently dictated to me, sometimes chapters for "Modern Chivalry," sometimes essays for various newspapers, chiefly on European polities, with which he was singularly conversant. It was difficult to keep pace with him. He directed the punctuation of every sentence as he went along. He had been in this habit for a great many years. His hand-writing had become so bad, that it was almost impossible for any one to decipher it; so much so that a trick was once played upon him by a gentleman, who sent back one of his letters which he could not read, first tearing off the signature and putting his own in the place of it; my father attempted in vain to make out the scrawl! He would have been an over match for Napoleon in bad handwriting. He often dictated his verse as well as his prose. I remember when a small boy, having committed to memory some lines on General Wayne, which were composed in bed, and dictated in the morning to one of the students. They were the first lines of poctry I ever committed. No one was ever more careless in preserving his compositions. He troubled himself as little about them as he did for the fugitive effusions of his discourse. He once dictated to me a Pindaric ode on hearing the report of the death of Governor M'Kean, which turned out to be false.

The lines on Wayne have been much admired: as they will occupy but little space I will transcribe them. Some of the thoughts are like Byron's. Indeed I have often thought there was a remarkable resemblance in some of the features of their minds, and modes of thinking on a variety of subjects. It is curious that they both chose the same subject for a poem, and a very out of the way subject it was-the judgment upon poor George the Third in the other world! The lines on Wayne are as follows:

The birth of some great men, or death,

Gives a celebrity to spots of earth;

We say that Montcalm fell on Abraham's plain; That Butler presses the Miami bank;

And that the promontory of Sigeum

Has Achilles's tomb.

Presq Isle saw Wayne expire.

The traveller shall see his monument;
At least his grave. For this,

Corroding jealousy will not detract;
But allow a mound-

Some little swelling of the earth,
To mark the interment of his bones.
Brave, honest soldier, sleep-
And let the dews weep o'er thee,
And gales shall sigh across the lake;
Till man shall recognise thy worth,
And coming to the place will ask,
"Is this where Wayne is buried ?"

ADAMS AND JEFFERSON.*

ADAMS and JEFFERSON are gone-Let us mourn the sad reality of their loss-let us rejoice in the glory of their departure-let us condole with that solitary and venerable man, the companion of their glory, CARROLL, the model of the accomplished gentleman, the scholar, and the patriot. Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, have passed to another, and a happier existence, but their names will be associated here, as the FOUNDERS OF A MIGHTY REPUBLIC. Washington, by the suffrage of all posterity, and of the universe, has been assigned the first place; not because he wielded the sword, and crowned the great work with success, but because his virtues as a citizen, his abilities as a statesman, his a thority as a magistrate, his godlike purity and disinterestedness as a patriot, placed him beyond the reach of envy, of rivalry, of competitio 1. Nor should we conclude, that because Adams and Jefferso have not been seen ut the head of legions, they were destitute of the courage and capacity for command; such minds cannot be allied to fear, and those who ruled the destinies of nations might have commanded armies.

We may seek in vain through the whole range of history, for a parallel to the lives and deaths of Adams and Jefferson. It would have been remarked as extraordinary, if any one of our revolutionary worthies had departed amid the glory of this anniversary; still more if that one had been instrumental in bringing about the great event; but when it shall be told, that both the author and the advocate of the declaration, so pregnant with the fate of unboru millions, departed on that day, after having lived the exact period of half a century from its date, it will require all the weight of cotemporary evidence, to place it on the records of history, and all the faith of posterity to give it credit. It was natural that the minds of both should linger upon that most brilliant moment of their lives, and that it should be the last spot of earthly vision to fade from their view; but that a secret sympathy should exist between their kindred spirits, calling them to wing their flight to the regions of immortality at the same moment, is a circumstance at which we must pause, and adore the inscrutable designs of Provi dence.

To their children, for we may now call them our fathers, it is a pleasing reflection, that if ever for a moment, the warm and sincere friendship, which had commenced with the morning of our liberties, had been clouded by the demon of party long before the close of their lives, it had been renewed into the most generous ardor, beyond the power of malevolence. In the lives of these great men, the historian will delight to trace the numerous points of coincidence. They were both educated in the profession of the law, a profession, which, in a free country, in

*The conclusion of the author's "Eulogy," 1826. VOL. 1. — 13

a government of laws, and not of men, when liberally pursued, deserves to be considered as the guardian of its liberties. Before our revolutionary contest, they had both been engaged in preparing the minds of their countrymen for the separation, and with Franklin, were probably among the first to foresee its necessity, and pursue a systematic plan for its accomplishment. As members of the first congress, the one from the principal colony of the north, the other of the south, they took the lead in bringing forward and sustaining the important measure; they displayed at the same time those characteristics, which, according to the author of Anacharsis, constitute true courage-they knew their danger, feared it, yet encountered it with unshaken firmness. To both were confided the most important trusts abroad; first, to negotiate peace and amity with the nations of Europe, and next, as the first representatives of our government, at the two principal courts; Jefferson to that of Paris, and Adams to that of London. They both filled in succession the second station in the government; and were both afterwards elevated to the first. For many years after their retirement, they were both the objects of peculiar veneration to their countrymen. They saw, in the simple retirement of private citizens, those distinguished men, who had been the chief magistrates of a great people, and who had filled a station more dignified than that of kings. In their great age, we are reminded of the celebrated philosophers of Greece; and much is to be ascribed to the power of that intellect, which they preserved unimpaired, so highly cultivated, so habitually exercised; whose embalming influence almost controlled and retarded the decay of nature. The closing scene of their lives rendered the coincidence almost perfect. But the doom of man is inevitable. If virtues, and talents, and good services could secure immortality on earth, our WASHINGTON had still lived. Let us not then repine at the unvarying laws of nature, and of nature's God, which have created the vicissitudes of day and night, the changes of the seasons, and have appointed a time for every living thing to die. Under the guidance of hope and faith, let us keep in view the celestial light, which, if steadily pursued, will conduct us safely through this vale of trouble and disappointment, to the regions of happiness and immortality, where we shall meet again with those whom we esteemed, and loved, and venerated on earth. O illustrious names of WASHINGTON, FRANKLIN, JEFFERSON, ADAMS! delightful to every American ear-dear to humanity-ever living in the remembrance of posterity! Cities may disappear-empires may fall-monuments may be crumbled into dust-but unless the light of civilization and science shall be extinguished by an eternal night of barbarism, your fame and your honors shall endure FOR EVER.

FRANCIS GLASS.

THE author of the Vita Washingtonii is known to us only from the few facts presented in the pleasant English preface to the work by the editor, Mr. J. N. Reynolds,* from which we find that the author was educated in Philadelphia, became a teacher in the interior of Pennsylvania. where he formed an unhappy marriage, and his means not sufficing for the maintenance of a rapidly increasing family, he removed in 1817 or

Mr. Reynolds is the author of a "Voyage of the United States' Frigate Potomac, 1531-1884," published at New York in 1835. He was a prominent advocate of the Exploring Expedition to the Pacific and South Seas, on which subject he published an address in 1836; he has also contributed several spirited nautical sketches to the Knickerbocker Magazine.

1818 to the Miami country, where he led a va- ! grant life as a teacher in various places.

In 1823 Mr. Reynolds, who had passed through a portion of the course of studies at the Ohio University, being unable to return to the institution, made inquiries for a competent instructor with whom he could complete his classical education, and hearing of Glass in this connexion, determined to visit him. "I found him," says Mr. Reynolds, "in a remote part of the county, in a good neighbourhood of thrifty farmers, who had employed him to instruct their children, who, in general, were then acquiring the simplest rudiments of an English education. The school-house now rises fresh on my memory. It stood on the banks of a small stream, in a thick grove of native oaks, resembling more a den for Druidical rites, than a temple of learning. The building was a low log-cabin, with a clapboard roof, but indifferently tight-all the light of heaven, found in this cabin, came through apertures made on each side in the logs, and these were covered with oiled paper to keep out the cold air, while they admitted the dim rays.

"The seats, or benches, were of hewn timbers, resting on upright posts, placed in the ground to keep them from being overturned by the mischievous urchins who sat on them. In the centre was a large stove, between which and the back part of the building, stood a small desk, without lock or key, made of rough plank, over which a plane had never passed ; and, behind this desk, sat Professor Glass when I entered his school.

"There might have been forty scholars present; twenty-five of these were engaged in spelling, reading, and writing, a few in arithmetic, a small class in English grammar; and a half a dozen, like myself, had joined his school, for the benefit of his instruction in the Greek and Latin languages, preparatory to a more extended course in one of the Ohio seminaries.

"The moment he learned that my intention was to pursue the study of the languages with him, his whole soul appeared to beam from his countenance. He commenced in a strain which in another would have seemed pedantic, but which, in fact, was far from being so in him.

"The following imperfect sketch, drawn entirely from memory, may serve to give some idea of his peculiar manner: Welcome to the shrine of the Muses, my young friend, Salve! Xaige ! The temple of the Delphian God was originally a laurel hut, and the Muses deign to dwell, accordingly, even in my rustic abode. "Non humilem domum fastidiunt, umbrosamce ripam." Here, too, the winds hold converse, Eurus, and Caurus, and Argestes loud," and the goddesses of the Castalian fountain, the daughters of the golden-haired Mnemosyne, are sometimes silent with the lyre, "cithara tacentes," that they may catch the sweet murmurs of the harp of Eolus. Here, too, I, the priest of the muses, Musarum sacerdos, sing, to the young of either sex, strains before unheard, Virginibus puerisque canto. Plutus, indeed, that blind old deity, is far away; and far away let him be, for well has the prince of comic poets styled him a filthy, crooked, miserable, wrinkled, bald, and toothless creature!" ξυπῶντα, κυφόν, άθλιον, ξυσόν, μαδῶντα, νωδόν. Η

Glass had already commenced the Life of Washington in Latin, which formed the darling object of his life, but his progress had been greatly interrupted by his poverty. By the aid of his new friend, he was enabled to remove to Dayton, where he could pursue his literary labors with greater convenience. His friend also agreeing to find a publisher for the Life, Glass returned to the work with renewed energy, and ere the close of the following winter, delivered the manuscript.

Mr. Reynolds soon after left the country. On his return the only intelligence he could obtain of the Latinist was that he had died during his friend's absence. The precise place and date were alike unknown.

Glass's work appeared in 1835, from the press of the Harpers, with the title, Georgii Washingtonii, America Septentrionalis Civitatum Foederatarum Prasidis primi, Vita, Francisco Glass, A.M. Ohioensi, Literis Latinis Conscripta. It forms an openly printed volume of two hundred and twenty-three pages. Its latinity has generally met the approval of scholars, and it has been used as a text-book by teachers.

PINKNEY'S TRAVELS IN FRANCE.

A very pleasant and readable tourist's book was published in London in 1809, in 4to., by Lt. Col. Pinkney, of the North American Native Rangers as the author is described in the title-page. We regret that we know nothing of him personally beyond what this book affords; for it invites further acquaintance. Its title is set forth at lengthTravels through the South of France and in the Interior of the provinces of Provence and Languedoc, in the years 1807 and 1808, by a route never before performed, being along the banks of the Loire, the Isère, and the Garonne, through the greater part of their course, made by permission of the French government. The Quarterly received the volume with a professional sneer, to which it had a double incentive in the book being written by an American and preferring France to England. We find it, however, not forgotten in 1814, when it reappeared in a handsomely printed octavo. Lately Leigh Hunt, who has introduced several entertaining scenes from it in his "Book for a Corner," speaks of the sensation which it created thirty years ago, when it set all the world upon going to France to live on the charming banks of the Loire. It might well make Englishmen, spite of anti-Gallican prejudices, out of conceit with their fogs and east winds by its delightful pictures of the south of France, the purity and salubrity of the atmosphere, the out-of-door life of idyllic shepherds amidst abundant fruits and flowers, and the easily excited gaiety which overpowered the hardships of poverty.

Lt. Pinkney sailed from Baltimore for Liverpool in April, 1807, and very seldom afterwards troubles his reader with a date, a deficiency not unusual with books where information of the kind is most needed. Arriving in the early summer at Calais he purchases a Norman horse, upon whose back he manages before he gets through, counting cross-roads and deviations, to accomplish his two thousand miles, reaching Marseilles, the end of his journey, spite of the additional year on the title-page, in the follow