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propagating a single point of doctrine contrary to common sense, or the most cultivated reason. It flatters no fashionable princely vice, or national depravity. It encourages not the libertine by relaxing any of the precepts of morality; nor does it attempt to undermine the foundations of religion. It denies none of those attributes, which the wisest and best of mankind, have in all ages ascribed to the Deity. Nor does it degrade the human mind from that dignity, which is ever necessary to make it contemplate itself with complacency. None of these things does Astronomy pretend to; and if these things merit the name of Philosophy, and the encouragement of a people, then let scepticism flourish, and Astronomy lie neglected; then let the names of Berkely and Hume, become immortal, and that of Newton be lost in oblivion.'

Again:

'If we consider that infinite variety which obtains in those parts of nature with which we are most intimate: how one order of most curiously organized bodies, infinitely diversified in other respects, all agree in being fixed to the earth, and receiving nourishment from thence: how another order have spontaneous motion, and seek their food on different parts of the earth, whilst by gravity they are confined to its surface, but in other respects diversified like the former: how a third float in, and below the surface of, a dense fluid, of equal weight with their bodies, which would soon prove fatal to both the others: and a fourth consisting of a vast variety too, have this property in common, that by a peculiar mechanism of their bodies, they can soar to great heights above the earth, and quickly transport themselves to distant regions in a fluid so rare as to be scarcely sensible to us: but not to pursue this boundless subject any further, I say, when we consider this great variety so obvious on our globe, and ever connected by some degree of uniformity, we shall find sufficient reason to conclude, that the visible creation, consisting of revolving worlds and central suns, even including all those that are beyond the reach of human eye and telescope, is but an inconsiderable part of the whole. Many other and very various orders of things unknown to, and inconceivable by us, may, and probably do exist, in the unlimited regions of space. And all yonder stars innumerable, with their dependencies, may perhaps compose but the leaf of a flower in the Creator's garden, or a single pillar in the immense building of the Divine Architect. If it shall please that Almighty Fower who hath placed us in a world, wherein we are only permitted " to look about us and to die;" should it please him to indulge us with existence throughout that half of eternity which still remains unspent; and to conduct us through the several stages of his works; here is ample provision made for employing every faculty of the human mind, even allowing its powers to be constantly enlarged through an endless repetition of ages. Let us not complain of the vanity of this world, that there is nothing in it capable of satisfying us: happy in those wants, happy in those restless desires, for ever in succession to be gratified; happy in a continual approach to the Deity. I must confess that I am not one of those sanguine spirits who seem to think, that when the withered hand of Death hath drawn up the curtain of eternity, almost all distance between the creature and creator, between finite and infinite, will be annihilated. Every enlarge

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ment of our faculties, every new happiness conferred upon us, every step we advance towards the perfection of the Divinity, will very probably render us more and more sensible of his inexhaustible stores of communicable bliss, and of his inaccessible perfections.'

We have already mentioned the important services which Dr. Rittenhouse was enabled to render to the state, by his skill in astronomy; his labours for the public, were not, however, confined to this department alone. In 1777, he was appointed Treasurer of Pennsylvania; and he was continued in this office, by an annual and unanimous vote of the legislature, until the year 1789.

It is perhaps to be lamented, that so much of his important time should have been spent in the drudgery of such an office. The following extract of a letter from his friend Mr. Jefferson, written in 1778, will give the opinion of that distinguished statesman on this subject.

'Writing to a philosopher, I may hope to be pardoned for intruding some thoughts of my own, though they relate to him personally. Your time for two years past has, I believe, been principally employed in the civil government of your country. Though I have been aware of the authority our cause would acquire with the world from its being known that yourself and doctor Franklin were zealous friends to it, and am myself duly impressed with a sense of the arduousness of government, and the obligation those are under who are able to conduct it; yet I am also satisfied there is an order of geniuses above that obligation, and therefore exempted from it. Nobody can conceive that nature ever intended to throw away a Newton upon the occupations of a crown. It would have been a prodigality for which even the conduct of Providence might have been arraigned, had he been by birth annexed to what was so far below him. Co-operating with nature in her ordinary economy, we should dispose of and employ the geniuses of men according to their several orders and degrees. I doubt not there are in your country many persons equal to the task of conducting government: but you should consider that the world has but one Rittenhouse, and that it never had one before.'

In the year 1792, he was appointed, by the general government, to the office of director of the Mint of the United States. This was a more congenial and appropriate employment; and had been rendered honourable by being the employment of Newton. It is well known that Dr. Rittenhouse's mechanical skill rendered him a highly useful officer. His want of health obliged him to resign in

1795.

If from these public walks, we follow him into his retirement, we shall find there all the mild and amiable virtues of domestic life. He was a husband, a father, and a friend; and, in every relation, was a model of excellence.

His constitution, naturally feeble, had been rendered still more so, by sedentary labour, and midnight studies; and on the twentysixth of June, 1796, death terminated his career. His last illness was short and painful, but his patience, and his benevolence did not

forsake him. Upon being told that some of his friends had called at his door to inquire how he was, he asked why they were not invited into his chamber to see him.-Because, said his wife, you are too weak to speak to them.-Yes, said he, that is true, but still I could have pressed their hands.'*

Immediately after his death, the American Philosophical Society decreed him the honour of a public eulogium, and this duty was executed in the ablest manner, by the celebrated Dr. Rush. In 1813, a large volume of memoirs of his life was published by his relative, William Barton, Esq. of Lancaster, and although this work is liable to the reproach of being greatly surcharged with erudition extraneous to its object, it is written with much elegance, and forms altogether a very valuable body of information. It is from these sources that we obtained the materials for the foregoing outline.

ART. II.-Travels in Canada and the United States in 1816 and 1817. By Lieutenant Francis Hall, 14th Light Dragoons H. P. London 1818. pp. 543.

THIS, if not an entertaining, is at least a very inoffensive volume. And even that moderate encomium, unfortunately, is no common praise when applied to a book of travels through our country, published by an Englishman and in England.

It is a good humoured narrative of the principal incidents in a voyage across the Atlantic, and a journey through a great part of Canada and the United States, composed in a plain familiar style, and much more remarkable for the candour and good temper which it evinces, than for either originality or profundity of ob

servation.

Lieutenant Hall, it seems, arrived at New York from Liverpool early in the spring of 1816, and after devoting the short and apparently inadequate space of five days to an examination of that city, commenced an extremely arduous tour, whether incited by curiosity merely, or by any more worldly motive, he does not inform us. His five days in New York must however have been most actively employed, if we may judge from the variety of objects that he found time to visit, and the extensive acquaintance with American manners and literature, which he was able (as he thinks) to acquire. The city-hall, the court of sessions, the theatre, the steam-frigate, the forts on Long Island, the hospital, the museum, are all described for the benefit of his countrymen; and he had leisure also to ascertain that 'good dinners are in high esteem among the upper commercial circles,' to have occasion to bear witness to the skill of the cooks and the hospitality of the entertainers,' to find some good works of native growth,' to discover

*This anecdote is extracted from Dr. Rush's Eulogium. It is in the same style of benevolence with the last words of the excellent Wistar.-'I feel love for all mankind.'

the merits of Wilson's Ornithology and Knickerbocker's History, and to learn that there is no American Review or Magazine which even American booksellers would recommend;' besides becoming acquainted with Dr. Mitchell, the great philosopher,' and amassing a fund of information upon the subject of the character of the Americans,' which he spreads into an essay under that head inserted in an early part of the Journal.

After this laudable assiduity in the pursuit of knowledge, he embarked in the steam-boat for Albany.

'The winter had been less severe than usual, which induced the captain to attempt making his way up the Hudson earlier than is customary. These steam boats are capable of accommodating from 2 to 300 passengers; they are about 120 feet in length, and as elegant in their construction as the awkward-looking machinery in the centre will permit. There are two cabins, one for the ladies, into which no gentleman is admitted without the concurrence of the whole company. The interior arrangements on the whole, resemble those of our best packets. I was not without apprehension, that a dinner in such a situation, for above 150 persons, would very much resemble the scramble of a mob; I was however agreeably surprised by a dinner handsomely served, very good attendance, and a general attention to quiet and decorum: Truly, thought I, these republicans are not so very barbarous." Indeed when the cabin was lighted up for tea and sandwiches in the evening, it more resembled a ball-room supper, than, as might have been expected, a stage-coach meal. The charge, including board, from New York to Albany, 160 miles, is seven dollars.

We started under the auspices of a bright frosty morning. The first few minutes were naturally spent by me in examining the machinery, by means of which our huge leviathan with such evident ease, won her way against the opposing current: but more interesting objects are breaking fast on the view; on our right are the sloping sides of New York Island, studded with villas, over a soil from which the hand of cultivation has long since rooted its woodland glories, substituting the more varied decorations of park and shrubbery, intersected with brown stubbles and meadows; while on our left. the bold features of nature rise, as in days of yore, unimpaired, unchangeable; gray cliffs, like aged battlements, tower perpendicularly from the water's edge to the height of several hundred feet.* Hickory, dwarf oak, and stunted cedars, twist fantastically within their crevices, and deepen the shadows of each glen into which they occasionally recede; huge masses of disjointed rocks are scattered at intervals below; here the sand has collected sufficiently to afford space for the woodman's hut, but the narrow waterfall, which in summer turns his saw-mill, is now a mighty icicle glittering to the morning sun; here and there a scarcely perceptible track conducts to the rude wharf, from which the weather-worn lugger receives her load of timber for the consumption of the city. A low white monument near one of these narrow strands marks the spot on which the good and gallant Hamilton offered the sacrifice of his life to those prejudices, which noble minds have so seldom dared to despise. He crossed from the state of New York to evade the laws of his country;

* The whole of this ridge closely resembles Undercliff in the Isle of Wight.

and bow to those of false shame and mistaken honour. His less fortunate adversary still survives in New York, as obscure and unnoticed as he was once conspicuous.'

The navigation being impeded by floating ice, he was obliged to leave the boat at Fishkill, and prosecute his journey by land; this mishap however does not appear to have excited his spleen as it would that of most of his countrymen; at least he certainly did not view Poughkeepsie with a jaundiced eye, when he drew the following picture:

Poughkeepsie was the first country town, or rather village, I had seen; and as the features of all are much alike, it shall be described for a specimen. Houses of wood, roofed with shingles, neatly painted, with generally from four to six sash windows on each floor, two stories high, and a broad viranda, resting on neat wooden pillars, along the whole of the front: Such is the common style of house-building through the whole state. It unites to cleanly neatness a degree of elegance, confined in England to the cottage ornée; but here common to all houses; very few sink to a meaner fashion: this seems strange to the eye accustomed to a hundred wretched hovels for one habitation of graceful comfort; but poverty has not yet wandered beyond the limits of great towns in America; in the country every man is a land owner, and has competence within his grasp; " O fortunatos nimium sua si bona norint.”

Making a stay of a few days only at Albany, our author proceeded northwardly into Canada, making his way through deep snows and in intensely cold weather, over the frozen surface of Lake Champlain, with a resolute endurance of hardship in an amateur tourist, equally admirable and unaccountable.

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'The snow,' he says, 'which had hitherto been partial, now began to impede the progress of our wagon, which had been moving at the rate of three and a half miles per hour. We were frequently obliged to alight, and walk down steep hills, thickly encrusted with ice and snow. fine bear had preceded us, as we discovered by his large round foot prints, but he was not complaisant enough to show himself from some craggy knoll, and welcome us to his solitude. A small ground squirrel was the only specimen of bird or beast we encountered.'

And when upon the lake over which the road lay,

The keen blasts of the north, sweeping over its frozen expanse, pierced us with needles of ice; the thermometer was 22° below zero; buffalo hides, bear skins, caps, shawls and handkerchiefs were vainly employed against a degree of cold so much beyond our habits. Our guide, alone of the party, his chin and eye-lashes gemmed and powdered with the drifting snow, boldly set his face and horses in the teeth of the storm. Sometimes a crack in the ice would compel us to wait, while he went forward to explore it with his axe, (without which, the American sleigh-drivers seldom travel,) when, having ascertained its breadth, and the foothold on either side, he would drive his horses at speed, and clear the fissure, with its snow ridge, at a flying leap; a sensation we found agreeable enough, but not so agreeable as a good inn and dinner at Burlington.

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