decided with himself, he stopped, and addressed her in nearly the following words: "Madam, I have always esteemed your character and endowments, and I am fully sensible of the noble principles by which you are actuated on this oc casion; nor has any man in the whole continent more confidence in the integrity of his friend than I have in the honour of Mr. Duchey. But I am here entrust. ed by the people of America with sovereign authority. They have placed their lives and fortunes at my disposal, because they believe me to be an honest man. Were I, therefore, to desert their cause, and consign them again to the British, what would be the consequence? to myself perpetual infamy; and to them endless calamity. The seeds of everlasting division are sown between the two countries; and, were the British again to become our masters, they would have to maintain their dominion by force, and would, after all, retain us in subjection only so long as they could hold their bayonets to our breasts. No, madam, the proposal of Mr. Duchey, though conceived with the best intention, is not fram. ed in wisdom. America and England must be separate states; but they may have common interests, for they are but one people. It will, therefore, be the object of my life and ambition to establish the independence of America in the first place; and in the second, to arrange such a community of interests between the two nations as shall indemnify them for the calamities which they now saffer, and form a new era in the history of nations. But, madam, you are aware that I have many enemies: congress may hear of your visit, and of this letter, and I should be suspected were I to conceal it from them. I respect you truly, as I have said; and I esteem the probity and motives of Mr. Duchey, and therefore you are free to depart from the camp, but the letter will be transmitted without delay to congress." pp. 40, 41, 42, 45.

ON THE DISADVANTAGES OF PRINTING.

THE benefits afforded by the art of printing to science, literature, morals and freedom, have long been a favorite and fruitful theme of panegyric. To point out one of the disadvantages attending that celebrated invention is the purpose of the present essay.

When books could only be multiplied by means of manuscript copies, it was indispensible to their reputation that they should be written with the greatest care. The labour of reading such volumes was to be overcome by the interest of the subject, or the charm of the style: and the expense of transcribing them was so great, that none but excellent works could obtain an extensive cir

culation. On this account the writers of antiquity were frequently obliged to recite their own compositions in public. Those who were opulent could collect admiring audiences; while the others, especially the unfortunate bards, were sometime unable to obtain either purchasers or auditors for their productions. But the publicity which many works acquired in this manner would enable their authors to improve them before they were published in volumes. The young authors, too, who have seldom been rich in any age or country, were probably obliged for some time to copy their own works; and they would naturally endeavour, in order to diminish the labour of so disagreeable a task, to cultivate terseness and brevity of style. But whether a writer copied his manuscript, or employed an amanuensis for that purpose, each new copy became, as it were, a new edition of the work, susceptible of whatever amendments the author's own judgment, or the criticism of others, might suggest.

To these circumstances, we may in a great degree attribute the remarkable correctness of the classical writers. Their periods are finished to faultlessness. Their phrases are pregnant with meaning. They seem to have been studious of crowding the greatest possible quantity of thought into the smallest possible number of words: and hence their writings have acquired a monumental solidity that promises a duration beyond all the other works of man.

It is chiefly in this precision, terseness and energy of style, that our modern authors are excelled by those of antiquity. How many historians have we who, in vigour and subtilty of intellect, in moral and political philosophy, in general knowledge, and perhaps in genius, are equal or superior to Herodotus, Sallust, Livy, or even to Tacitus himself; but how few of the former can we compare with them in the immaculate style of their language?

The ancient authors could employ their whole lives in perfecting their writings; whereas those whose works are circulated by the press can only correct them, after the first publication, when new editions are demanded. But the improvements we now find in a book which has gone through four or five editions, are not more than what might be expected-were printing unknownafter a hundred manuscript copies of it had been made.

Our writers may indeed correct their works while in the press: though this cannot be done without much annoyance. The bookseller complains of the increased expense; the printer is vexed at what he considers an unnecessary delay; the compositor grumbles at his additional labour, (although he is paid for it) and even the printer's devil growls at being obliged to run back and forwards with the proof sheets. To avoid this persecution, the author is often induced to let his pages go to press in an imperfect

state.

As a remedy for the evil in question, we beg leave to propose a rule, much less severe than the well known precept of Horace. Instead of urging an author to the hard forbearance of keeping his piece from the public, and withholding his own name from celebrity, for the long term of nine years, we recommend him to copy his piece three times at least; and if his taste be not vicious, or his vanity incorrigible, we venture to predict that the last copy would not contain many unnecessary expressions. The labour of copying is wonderfully efficacious in diminishing the length of one's periods.

The modern writers most distinguished for their style have all been laborious correctors of their works. Hume spent years in improving and polishing his essays, which nevertheless would seem, from the perspicuous simplicity of their style, to have been written with very little effort. Robertson is said to have composed his histories on small slips of paper, and to have perfected each sentence before he proceeded to a new one. Rousseau tells us in his confessions that he always transcribed several times whatever he intended for the press; and that the Nouvelle Heloise, the most eloquent and beautiful of all his works, was frequently copied by him for the perusal of his friends and patrons before it was published. Burke, too, the Cicero of our age, was careful almost to fastidiousness in the correction of his writings. His letter to the duke of Bedford, consisting of only a few sheets, was three months in the press, and was so often altered by him during that time, that the expense of printing it amounted to ten times more than it would have cost, if it had been printed without alteration.

Let us suppose that printing were forever abolished: how small a proportion of our literature would survive that noble art: how few, comparatively, would be the books we should be at the expense of purchasing, and the pains of perusing in manuscript volumes. After the lapse of a few centuries from the destruction of the press, there probably would not remain in general circulation more than one out of a hundred of those works which are now found in every extensive library: but this remnant of our literature would, like the productions of Greek and Roman genius now extant, be the admiration of all after ages.

It is not easy to account for the great difference between the impressions made by the same thought when very well, and when very poorly expressed. We are, however, made sensible of that difference by the publications we daily peruse, and even in our familiar conversations with each other. Style, indeed, seems as important to a writer, as clocution and action to an orator. A badly written book, and a coldly delivered discourse, will equally fail of success, however valuable the maiter which the one or the other may contain. On the other hand, how many productions, especially of the poetical kind, have obtained celebrity without any other beauty than that of language to recommend them; and how many speeches are listened to with pleasure when delivered with a fine elocution, and animated gestures; but which, when they appear in print, are insipid, or even nauseous.

These considerations, we trust, will induce the powerful and aspiring writers of our own country to pay more attention than they have hitherto given to the attainment of a fine style, and not to disdain the humble, but very important task of correcting and copying their manuscripts. They may thus overcome the inconvenience which it is the object of this essay to describe and provide against; and entertain the cheering hope that their names will be associated with those of the illustrious classic authors, and their works handed down to the remotest posterity, to instruct and delight the innumerable nations of our race, to whom our language is destined to convey the first lessons of religion, virtue, and freedom.

DURING THE LATE WAR, BETWEEN BRITISH AND AMERICAN VESSELS.

(Continued, from our July number, from the British Naval Chronicle.)

"WE next have the pleasure of recounting the capture of a very formidable South sea cruiser, of tar and feathering memory-no less a personage than the boisterous champion of "free trade and sailors' rights"-Mr. David Porter. His frigate, the Essex, is, I trust, safe in a British port. The particulars of her capture have already been detailed in the public prints. Unlike all the letters of the American "heroes" captain Hillyar makes no boast of succeeding in a contest in which he was so evidently superior. We wish, for his sake, the Cherub had been absent. As it was, the following estimate of the force engaged will show that the numbers were not quite so disproportionate, as between our three frigates and their opponents: and yet those actions were blazoned forth, from one end of the Union to the other, as "splendid victories,' "" brilliant achievements," and even with unblushing hardihood-equal combats!