the latter, thrown on the Asiatic shore, will again make a part, and, in time, the whole of that continent, to which, by some philosophers, they are supposed to have been originally attached. It is equally clear that, by this means, the coatinents will not only exchange their materials, but their position; so that, in process of time, they must respectively make a tour around the globe, maintaining, still, the same ceremonious distance from each other, which they now hold.

According to my theory, which supposes an alluvion on the western as well as the eastern coasts, the continents and islands of the earth, will be caused, reciprocally, to approximate, and (if materials enough can be found in the bed of the ocean, or generated by any operation of nature) ultimately to unite. Our island of G. Britain, therefore, at some future day, and in proper person, will probably invade the territory of France. In the course of this process of alluvion as it relates to this country, the refluent waters of the Atlantic will be forced to recede from Hampton Roads and the Chesapeake, the beds whereof will become fertile vallies, or, as they are called here, river bottoms; while the lands in the lower district of the state, which are now only a very few feet above the surface of the sea, will rise into majestic eminences, and the present sickly scite of Norfolk, be converted into a high and salubrious mountain. I apprehend, however, that the present inhabitants of Norfolk would be extremely unwilling to have such an effect wrought in their day; since there can be little doubt that they prefer their present commercial

1

situation, incumbered as it is by the annual visits of the yellow fever, to the elevation and health of the Blue Ridge.

In the course of this process, too, of which I have been speaking, if the theory be correct, the gulph of Mexico will be eventually filled up, and the West India Islands consolidated with the American continent.

These consequences, visionary as they may now appear, are not only probable; but if the alluvion which is demonstrated to have taken place already, should continue, they are inevitable.... There is very little probability that the isthmus of Darien, which connects the two continents, is coeval with the Blue Ridge or the Cordilleras; and it requires only a continuation of the cause which produced the isthmus, to effect the repletion of the gulph and the consolidation of the islands with the continent.

But when? I am possessed of no data whereby the calculations can be made. The depth at which Herculaneum and Pompea were found to be buried in the course of sixteen hundred years affords us no light on this enquiry;, because their burial was effected not by the slow alluvion ard accumulation of time, but by the sudden and repeated eruptions of Vesuvius. As little are we aided by the repletion of the earth around the Tarpeian rock in Rome; since that repletion was most probably effected in a very great degree, by the materials of fallen buildings. And besides, the original heighth of the rock is not ascertained with any kind of precision, historians having, I believe, merely informed us, that it was suffici

C

ently elevated to kill the criminals who were thrown from its summit.

But a truce with philosophy. Who could have believed that the skeleton of an unwieldy Whale, and a few mouldering teeth of a Shark, would have led me such a dance !....Adieu, my dear S..., for the present: May the light of Heaven continue to shine around you!

LETTER III.

Richmond, September 15. YOU enquire into the state of your favorite art in Virginia. Eloquence, my dear S......., has few successful votaries here, I mean eloquence of the highest order: such as that, to which, not only the bosom of your friend, but the feelings of the whole British nation bore evidence, in listening to the charge of the Begums in the prosecuti on of Warren Hastings.

In the national and state legislatures, as well as at the various bars in the United States, I have heard great volubility, much good sense, and some random touches of the pathetic : but in the same bodies, I have heard a far greater proportion of puerile rant, or tedious and disgusting inanity. Three remarks are true as to almost all their orators.

First; they have not a sufficient fund of general knowledge.

Secondly; they have not the habit of close and solid thinking.

Thirdly; they do not aspire at original orna

inents.

From these three defects, it most generally results, that, although, they pour out, easily enough, a torrent of words, yet these are destitute of the light-of erudition, the practical utility of just and copious thought, or those novel and beautiful allusions and embellishments, with which the very scenery of the country is so highly calculated to inspire them.

The truth is, my dear S......., that this scarcity of genuine and sublime eloquence, is not confined to the United States: instances of it in any civilized country have always been rare indeed. Mr. Blair is certainly correct in the opinion, that a state of nature is most favorable to the higher efforts of the imagination, and the more unrestrained and noble raptures of the heart. Civilization, wherever it has gained ground, has interwoven with society, a habit of artificial and elaborate decorum, which mixes in every operation of life, deters the fancy from every bold enterprize, and buries nature under a load of hypocritical ceremonies. A man, therefore, in order to be eloquent, has to forget the habits in which he has been educated; and never will he touch his audience so exquisitely as when he goes back to the primitive simplicity of the patriarchal age.

I have said that instances of genuine and sublime eloquence have always been rare in every civilized country. It is true that Tully and Pliny the younger, have, in their epistles, represented Rome, in their respective days, as swarining with orators of the first class: yet from the specimens which they themselves have left us, I am led to entertain a very humble opinion of ancient elo

quence. Demosthenes we know has pronounced,, not the chief, but the sole merit of an orator to consist in delivery, or as Lord Verulam translates it, in action; and, although I know that the world would proscribe it as a literary heresy, I cannot help believing Tully's merit to have been principally of that kind. For my own part, I confess very frankly, that I have never met with any thing of his, which has, according to my taste, deserved the name of superior eloquence. His style, indeed, is pure, polished, sparkling, full and sonorous, and, perhaps, deserves all the encomiums which have been bestowed on it. But an oration, certainly, no more deserves the title of superior cloquence, because its style is ornamented, than the figure of an Apollo would deserve the epithet of elegant, merely from the superior texture and flow of the drapery. In reading an oration, it is the mind to which I look. It is the expanse and richness of the conception itself, which I regard, and not the glittering tinsel wherein it may be attired. Tully's orations, examined in this spirit, have, with me, sunk far below the grade at which we have been taught to fix them. It is true, that at school, I learnt, like the rest of the world, to lisp " Cicero the ora"tor:" but when I grew up and began to judge for myself, I opened his volumes again and looked in vain for that sublimity of conception, which fills and astonishes the mind, that simple pathos which finds such a sweet welcome in every breast, or that resistless enthusiasm of unaffected passion, which takes the heart by storm. On the conrary, let me confess to you, that, whatever may