nor can she have any desire to please, for a withered heart knows no pleasure.

Behind their Majesties, and the princesses stood certain ladies and gentlemen "in waiting." I observed them standing a very considerable time, and thinking it rather singular, I asked the person who sat next to me, "Why they did not sit down?" for they had now been standing two hours. He smiled at my ignorance, and told me it was etiquette. Those who stood behind their Majesties were Earls: I know not what may be the sentiments or feelings of Earls, but of this I am sure, there is not an earldom in England, which could tempt me to stand two hours* behind their Majesties' chairs.

At the close of the entertainment, the royal family were escorted home, under a very strong guard, with drawn cutlasses.

After witnessing all this etiquette, and solemn ceremony, which certainly was well calculated to astonish weak minds, I could not help reverting to our own country, and figuring to myself George Washington, after his return to private life, sitting as foreman of a country jury: or to give a stronger contrast to European mummery, I might mention the late President Adams, who, at a conflagration in

The fact is, the gentlemen in waiting, stand four hours, or during the whole entertainment: the ladies are relieved every two hours.

Philadelphia, stood two hours handing buckets of

water.

Certainly, no man can contemplate with indifference the chief magistrate of six millions of people, dispari genere, alius, alio more viventes,* mixing like a plebeian with plebeians, and feeling more secure in the midst of his fellow citizens, than if he were guarded with a legion of cavalry. Would not Mr. Jefferson be mortified if Congress should vote him a guard? Would he not say, "I never feel more secure, than when surrounded with my fellow citizens: have I lost their confidence that personal protection is thought necessary?"

I should love to dwell on this subject, but it might appear invidious.

Adieu.

* Sallust.

LETTER XVI.

LONDON, JANUARY 30th.

You are quite voluminous in your questions; but they are all interesting, as well to myself, as to you. The most important, "Whether the Constitution of the United States appears, at this distance, more or less capable of supporting itself on its own inherent strength," demands an entire letter; and to satisfy you, a more laboured one than I can at present write: therefore, permit me to echo back the sentiments of yours.

Literature cannot be expected, at present, to flourish in the United States, so luxuriantly, as it will in a few years. The useful naturally precedes the ornamental: cottages were built long before the Temple of the Muses. The equality of condition in the United States, together with the excellent policy of dividing estates equally among all the children, obliges the citizens to become the fabricators of their own fortunes. Either agriculture or commerce ensures the decencies of life to industry or enterprise and the young man, whose talents might have ranked him high on the hill of science, scarce

ly hesitates, whether to prefer a habitation on the fertile banks of the Mississippi, to a more elevated seat on Parnassus. Hence, you find many more men of talent, not to say genius, than scholars. We have a few passable scholars, but not one of them happens to be a man of genius; and we have many citizens of first rate ability, but none of them are scholars. The mere scholar can never claim more than the merit of scholarship; the man of genius, for the reason just stated, is obliged in the early part of life, to neglect his scholarship for worldly pursuits, and by the time he is in easy circumstances, it is too late to become a scholar.

Had D*****, P******, L****** or J*****, preferred the society of the Muses to the courts of law, or the practice of physic, the banks of the Thames had as frequently echoed their labours, as the banks of the Ohio resound with the periods of Burke, the dignified narrative of Robertson, or the more stately tenor of Gibbon: while England, though she could not boast of them as subjects, would assert her claim to them as authors. It is really a loss to the community, that such men, capable of attaining to the highest style of literature, and who might have produced new truths, or destroyed sanctioned error, should suffer their abilities to evaporate with the fleeting occurrences which give rise to their

exertions. Those whom God has indued with superior powers, owe it to patriotism, to their fellow citizens, to posterity, to leave behind them some monument, more durable than a tombstone, and more interesting than "Here lies the body." What though the architecture of their minds indicate different orders! In the collision of contending principles the brightest sparks are elicited. What though the world can scarcely contain the conflicting parties when living, the same monument becomes their memorial when dead! Rousseau and Voltaire met at last in the Pantheon: while Butler and Milton may shake hands in Westminster Abbey. Nor is the benefit to posterity less on this account. The labours of Burke and Paine find a place on the same shelf; nor do the bickerings of Sallust and Cicero derogate from their individual merit. Nature has wisely ordained, that amidst the vicissitudes of human life, the human mind should partake of that vicissitude: otherwise, if eternal principles were adopted, mankind would become too deeply rooted in habit, would be rendered incapable of pursuing the expedient, and would forever conflict with emergency, accident and novel circumstance. A few great moral principles are, and ever have been, acknowledged: but the minor morals and all those principles founded in convenience, vary with time,

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