when the General and his son were in deep sleep, the boat experienced a startling shock, and stopped short,-confused noises were heard, and then the cries of the captain,-"A snag! a snag!-Lafayette,-the boat." In the midst of the disorder and darkness, the Guest was dragged to the door of the cabin, lifted to the deck, now scarcely tenable,—so much had the vessel heeled-and instantaneously conveyed to the pinnace, which the captain and two sailors had brought to her side. We must refer our readers to M. Levasseur's pages, for the agitating particulars of the disaster, and the escape; in the ample narration of which he has exercised much skill. There are two traits, however, so honourable and expressive, that we cannot refrain from reciting them in a few words. M. Levasseur, as soon as he reached the deck, pushed into the middle of the terrified body of passengers assembled there, exclaiming:-Here is General Lafayette!"Profound silence succeeded to the tumult; a free passage was opened to us; and all those who were ready to spring into the boat, spontaneously checked themselves,-not wishing to attend to their own safety before that of Lafayette was assured ;"-ne voulant pas songer à leur salut avant que celui de Lafayette fût assuré. It must be noted that the boat was believed to be sinking,-that the distance to the shore was unknown-that the danger and the horror were extreme.Again-neither the wreck of the boat, nor the loss of twelve hundred dollars which he had on board, afflicted the captain so heavily as the mishap to the Guest when in his hands. He observed, in agony, the day following-" never will my fellowcitizens pardon me for the perils to which Lafayette was exposed last night." Had the Guest perished, he never would have been pardoned; but, with the rescue, his bitter mortification and grief more than expiated, in public opinion, any degree of imprudence with which he could be charged; and for which, in fact, no other motive could be supposed than honest zeal. The sensation which the tidings of this accident excited over the whole country, illustrated also the keenness of the universal solicitude for the welfare of Lafayette.

Another steam-boat, the Paragon, of large size and remarkable elegance, which was passing down to New Orleans, turned about, exultingly received the stranded crowd of passengers, with such portion of their effects as could be recovered, and bore them to Louisville.

"By a very lucky circumstance for us," says M. Levasseur, "one of our companions in misfortune, Mr. Neilson, was one of the owners of this vessel, and hastened to put it at the disposal of the Tennessee committee, to transport General Lafayette, generously taking on himself all the chances of another misfortune and the loss of insurance."

"The entertainments given to General Lafayette at Louisville, were marred by the stormy weather; but the expression of public feeling was not the less

pleasing to him. The idea of the danger he had incurred, excited in all breasts a tender solicitude, which every one testified with that simplicity and truth of expression only appertaining to freemen. In the midst of the joy occasioned by the arrival of Lafayette, the citizens of Louisville did not forget the noble disinterestedness of Mr. Neilson, to whom they presented the strongest proofs of gratitude. His name was coupled with that of the general, in the toasts they gave at the public dinner. The insurance company declared that the Paragon should remain insured without an additional charge, and the city presented him a magnificent piece of plate, on which was engraved the thanks of the Tennesseans and Kentuckians for the generous manner in which he had risked the greater part of his fortune that the national guest should receive no delay nor inconvenience in his journey."

The General's next movements were to Frankfort, Lexington, thence to Cincinnati,-Vevay,-Pittsburg,-Erie,-Buffalo,

Niagara,-Rochester,-Albany,-Boston. Our author's itinerary, of all this route, abounds with fine incidents, able delineations, and judicious reflections. New America emulated Old America, and lavished courtesies, with proofs of congeniality and advancement which the Guest might have doubted as illusions of his fancy and wishes, if they had been less striking and direct. It was on the 15th of June, that he re-appeared in Boston. In less than four months he had accomplished a journey of more than five thousand miles, such as we have cursorily traced, through sixteen states, in each of which the whole population had clung devoutly to his skirts. His age was then sixty

seven.

"The plan of this journey," says M. Levasseur, "had been ably and skilfully contrived by Mr. M'Lean, the postmaster-general, General Bernard, and Mr. George Lafayette; and had been followed with a precision and exactness, that could only have resulted from the unanimity of feeling which animated both the people and the magistrates of the different states; but, during so long a journey, amidst so many dangers, how many accidents might not have happened, one of which, by delaying us only a few days, would have deranged all our calculations, and yet our good luck was such, that we never lost a moment of the time so exactly portioned out, and arrived on the precise day fixed upon.”

All was nearly miraculous. None of our readers who look into the newspapers, can have wholly forgotten how the anniversary for which the Guest practised this signal punctuality, was celebrated by the Bostonians. The secretary has well translated the apposite and eloquent discourse which Mr. Webster delivered on Bunker's Hill, and has circumstantially portrayed the whole glittering pageant. The main prospect was this:

"The procession marched to a vast amphitheatre constructed on the northeast side of the hill, in the centre of which rose a platform, from which the orator of the day could make his voice heard by the fifteen thousand auditors placed in the amphitheatre; all the officers and soldiers of the revolution, some of whom had arrived from distant places to assist at this solemnity, were seated in front of the platform; the survivers of Bunker's Hill forming a small group before them. At the head of these, in a chair, was the only surviving general of the revolution, General Lafayette; and immediately behind, two thousand ladies, in brilliant dresses, appeared to form a guard of honour to the venerable men, and to defend them against the tumultuous approaches of the crowd; behind the la

dies, were more than ten thousand persons, seated on the numerous benches, placed in a semicircular form on the side of the hill, the summit of which was crowded by more than thirty thousand spectators, who, although beyond the reach of the orator's voice, maintained the most perfect silence.

While at Boston, Lafayette accepted invitations from the states of Maine, New-Hampshire and Vermont, where his presence was impatiently coveted, and another from the city of New-York, to lend his auspices to her commemoration of the anniversary of Independence. Accordingly, on the 22d June, he set out for the former states, which he traversed at the average of eleven miles an hour; inhaling the same pure incense, clouds of which had risen and enveloped him from all the other divisions of the Union. On the 3d July, he was again in NewYork, and the day following, the anniversary was personified and hallowed anew, as it were, in the Guest. He made another short sojourn in Philadelphia, in the middle of July; accompa nied a committee from Chester to Lancaster; thence went to Baltimore by the way of Port Deposit and Havre de Grace; reached Washington on the 1st of August, whence he made excursions, along with President Adams, to the residence of Mr. Monroe, in Virginia, and to Monticello; and here he saw the three Ex-Presidents together. The 6th September-his birthday-was distinguished at Washington by a splendid banquet in the President's mansion, and various marks of respect on the part of the municipal authorities and the people. The next day he embarked for France, on board the frigate Brandywine, which was placed at his disposal, for any port of Europe, or term of navigation. After his landing, on the 3d October, at Havre, the midshipmen of the frigate transmitted to him a costly silver urn, "as a testimonial of individual esteem, and collective admiration."

We have merely indicated stages in the latter part of his travels. M. Levasseur treats it as comprehensively and instructively as the other. His concluding chapters show that the public interest in Lafayette suffered no diminution-they force us to acknowledge perennial freshness, an unwearied vigilance, an inexhaustible fertility, in the spirit of gratitude and veneration. Nothing of the kind that spontaneous loyally-as the word is understood in Europe-ever attempted for any monarch, can be compared with these prolonged national transports and obeisances; and the private offerings corresponded with the public. The classical student must recollect the exhortation of the Spartan at the Olympic games, to Diagoras of Rhodes, whose two sons won the palm, or crown, which he had himself carried off in his youth-" Die, die now, Diagoras, for thou canst not be a god"-meaning that he could not become greater-that he had nothing more to desire, on earth. Any European might have said as

much to Lafayette, when he touched the shore of his native country, on his return from such an interchange of sympathies, and such a succession of triumphs, before which those of the Greek festivals dwindle into insignificance. Lord Bacon has included it in his aphorisms-that he who has a wife and children has given hostages to futurity. We may observe that the country which has manifested such feelings, and proclaimed such principles, as the Americans poured forth to their Guest,-which has solemnized in the face of the world such rites in the name of Independence and Liberty,—has thus pledged itself to all coming ages, for a perpetual observance of order and justice, and a stanch tenaciousness of freedom and dignity. The statements in these volumes imply, or rather demonstrate, abundance, comfort, improvement of manners and condition, elevation and vivacity of character, in every district of our Union-an extraordinary diffusion of those blessings: and they refute the charge of boorishness, asperity, unsociable and uncourtly habits, which has been so often preferred against the republicans of America. The homage of these communities to Lafayette, was, for the most part, as refined and delicate as it was generous and durable; -it had not those,qualities, only among the opulent and best educated classes; it was paid in some of its most ingenious and beautiful forms, by the mass of the nation, and the humblest individuals.

ART. XI.-Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies, from the papers of Thomas Jefferson. Edited by THOMAS JEFFERSON RANDOLPH: Charlottesville: 1829. 4 vols. 8vo.

We know not that there has ever fallen in our way, such food for various reflection, as is offered in these remarkable and interesting volumes. In most works, whether the perusal be light or careful, the reader is satisfied to receive the impressions of the writer; to expect the portion of anecdote or imagination, of fact, argument, or opinion, which he intends to communicate; and to acknowledge his obligations, and form his decisions of excellence or inferiority, as his own feelings or views may correspond with what he has read: his great object is to imbue himself with the ideas of the writer, rather than to indulge his own speculations; to court the excitement which genius offers to him, by its brilliant and captivating inventions; and to lay up the stores of incident and wise conclusion, which are the offspring of research and thought. But we have been struck, in the perusal of these volumes, with their constant and irresistible tenden

ey to lead away the mind from their immediate subject, into a long train of speculation, on topics not more numerous than interesting, yet really embracing a vast field of inquiry and opinion. They contain the stores, gradually increasing through a long life, which were heaped together by a mind eminently contemplative, and under circumstances which presented at one time the richest scope for variety of incident, and at another for calm and multiplied reflection. For nearly half a century, the life of the writer was the story of one constantly upon the stage, to bear a conspicuous share in the great drama of the times; and for the residue, it was the retirement and repose which calm the thought as much by the entire change, as the actual seclusion, and which as they are accompanied with no further and unsatisfied cravings of ambition, are free from that morbid and feverish sensibility, which so often renders the hermit the victim of inward tumults, as incessant and enslaving as the actual turbulence of life. It was not the fancied seclusion of Cicero, who stole an uncertain hour to indulge with a few friends, in his little island of the Fibrenus, visions of happier times, when virtue, and philosophy, and eloquence, and wisdom should sway mankind, while in fact they were themselves bustling leaders in scenes of political strife, that absorbed their thoughts and actions, and scarcely allowed this casual and hasty relaxation. It was not the seclusion of Horace, who shut out the fumum et opes beatæ Romæ, only to bind uninterrupted the garland of ease and pleasure round his brow, to smile at the folly which could find pleasure in incessant toil, and to win from the kindness of the muse, the fame which he would have despised, if purchased at the cost. of labour or of care. It was not the patient thoughtful seclusion of Newton, who added each pebble which he collected on the shore of truth, to a single but lofty monument of science. It was not the self deceiving seclusion of Bolingbroke, whose anxious thoughts forever turned to one country, while he affected to laugh at the weakness he himself unconsciously displayed;* who believed or boasted that he enjoyed unmoved tranquillity of mind, while he forever sighed to pursue again that brilliant career of eloquence, of genius, of wit, of fashion, and of power, the recollection of which alone consoled him, amid the loveliest scenes of rural peace in a foreign land. Even more than all these, it was not the visionary seclusion of Rousseau, commenced in vanity and disgust-continued in querulous and incessant sighs after that singular notoriety and flattery, which were the homage of those who paid them, more to the fashion of the day, than to himself and leaving as its sole memorial, pages of eloquence,

A wise man looks on himself as a citizen of the world; and when you ask him where his country lies, points, like Anaxagoras, with his finger to the heavens.-Reflections on Exile. 105.