fall. But no: the descent was as beautiful and sublime, as the elevation had been rapid and enthusiastick. 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 means 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, deathlike 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) & slowly stretching forth the palsied hand which holds it, begins the sentence

"Socrates died like a philosopher"-and then pausing, raised his other, pressing them both, clasped together, with warmth and en

ergy to his breast, lifting his "sightless balls" to heaven, and pouring his whole soul into his tremulous voice- but Jesus Christlike 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 the sublimity of Massillon, or the force ofBourdaloue, had fallen far short of the power which I feel from the delivery of this simple sentence. The blood which, just before, had rushed in a torrent upon my brain, and in the violence and agony of my feeling had held my whole system in suspence, now ran back into my heart with a sensation which I cannot describe; a kind of shuddering, delicious horrour! The paroxysm of blended pity and indignation, to which I had been transported, subsided in the deepest fell 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 gives you the impression that this incomparable minister had any thing of shallow, theatrical trick in his manner, it does him great injustice. I have never seen in any other orator, such an union of simplicity and majesty. He has not a gesture, an attitude, 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 peculiar emphatick 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 I 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 ny 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, rob'd in the sable garb of woe,

with haggard eyes the poet stood,

(loose his beard and hoary hair

stream'd like a meteor to the troubled air!)
and with a Poet's hand and Prophet's fire.
struck the deep sorrow on his lyre.

57

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 divine an orator, should be permitted to languish and die in obscurity, within eight miles of the metropolis of Virginia?

LETTER VIL

BRITISH SPY.

LETTER VI.

RICHMOND, OCTOBER 15.

MEN of talents in this country, my dear S*******, have been generally bred to the profession of the law; and indeed, throughout the United States, I have met with few persons of exalted intellect, whose powers have been directed to any other pursuit. The bar, in America, is the road to honour; and hence, although the profession is graced by the most shining geniuses on the continent, it is encumbered also by a melancholy group of young men who hang on the rear of the bar, like Goethe's sable clouds in the western horizon. I have been told that the bar of Virginia was a few years ago pronounced, by the Supreme Court of the United States, to be the most enlightened and able on the Continent. I am very incompetent to decide on the merit of their legal acquirements; but, putting aside the partiality of a Briton, I do not think either of the gentlemen by any means so eloquent or so erudite as our countryman, Erskine. With your permission, however, I will make you better acquainted