University of Virginia Library

POSTSCRIPT.

THE preceding pages were written several
years ago; during which time
the Captain has continued his travels: and
having been favoured with his journal,
I have occasionally made extracts, and put
them in the form of a continued history.
Whether I shall publish any more, will
depend on the reception of this.

I had first begun this work in verse,
and have a volume by me, about two parts
in three as large as Butler's Hudibrass;
from which composition, I have extracted
this; thinking it might be more acceptable
in prose. When I visit this city next, I may
produce that in verse, and let the people
take their choice.

It is a happiness to a man to be able
to amuse himself with writing. For
it is not every one that can play upon
the violin, or the flute; and the fingers

must be employed some way. I
may be blamed in not chusing some subject
worthier of my studies, and requiring
a profound research. It might profit the
world more; but it would amuse myself
less. Omnis labor improbus; all toil is
grievous. However, I have not been
wholly inattentive to severer studies. I
have several law tracts by me; for which
I mean, in due time, to solicit a subscription.
Nonum prematur in annum, in every
work of moment, ought to be observed.

There are some light things which I
may in the mean time throw out; a comparison
of Thucydides with Livy; thoughts
on the Egyptian hieroglyphics; on the
Carthaginian commerce; a comparison
of the French and English eloquence; a
supplement to Buffon, containing a description
of several genera of animals, not
taken notice of by him; hints for the improvement
of the microscope; on the use
of the Masoretic points; on the recent
origin of the earth; on the criminal code
of the Siamese, &c.

If the world will excuse these, I will give
them my word for it, they shall be troubled
little more; for except the examining
my law tracts, I shall drop my pen, finding

it, as I advance in life, more adviseable
to apply myself to making money. What
things have been written, and are now
lying by me, may occasionally see the
light.

It is a good deal owing to my solitary
residence in the western country, at a distance
from books and literary conversation,
that I have been led to write at all.
It was necessary to fill up the interstices
of business. If I should remain in that
country, the same circumstances may lead
me to write still. If I should remove to
this city, or the seat of the federal government,
I shall avoid the tedium by other
means.

I wish the present book, to sell for at
least as much as will defray the expence
of printing; for I have no inclination to
lose by it. If I had a little time to stay
in town, I could give it some celebrity by
extracts, and remarks upon it; publishing
for and against. For it is of no consequence
how a book is made famous, provided that
it is famous.

The truth is, as I have said, I value this
book for little but the stile. This I have
formed on the model of Xenophen, and
Swift's Tale of a Tub, and Gulliver's Travels.

It is simple, natural, various, and
forcible. I hope to see it made a school
book; a kind of classic of the English
language.

In looking over it, I find in the whole
work, but one word I would alter; it
is near the beginning; where I say figure
on the stage, instead of appear, or
make a figure on the stage. I have carefully
avoided the word unfounded instead of
groundless, a word in vogue, among members
of Congress especially. The word
commit, is good, but being lately introduced,
and too much hackneyed, I have
not used it.

Language being the vestment of thought,
it comes within the rules of other dress;
so that as slovenliness, on the one hand,
or foppery, on the other, is to be avoided
in our attire; so also in our speech, and
writing. Simplicity in the one and the
other, is the greatest beauty.

We do not know at what time the Greek
language began to be written as it was by
Hesiod or Homer. But we find it to have
continued with little or no change, from
that time to the latest writers among the
Byzantine historians, a period of more
than 3000 years. The Roman language

is considered as improving from the time
of Ennius to the Augustine age. The language
of the orators, poets, and historians
of that time is the standard. It was not
so much in the use of particular words, as
an affectation in the thought, that Seneca
is censured as corrupting the language
of the Romans. But Tacitus, after
him, writes in a pure stile; and I have
found but one conceit in expression, in his
whole history: meaning to give the geography
of a country of a certain tribe of
the Germans; they are, says he, separated
from the Sequani by mount Jura, from
the — by the lake —, from the —
by the river —, and from the Atabani
by mutual fear. I do not find so much
fault with the stile of Pliny, as the heaviness
of his thoughts and expressions. However,
the Latin stile of writing retained its
propriety and other excellencies tolerably
well, till the monks got possession of it,
and brought it down to a jargon that is
now exploded; and we recur to the pure
originals of Horace, Virgil, Cicero, and
Sallust.

The French language is corrupting fast;
and not in the use of words, but in the
affectation of surprise, in the structure of

the sentence, or the turn of the expression.
Mirabeau was free from this; but
not the Abbe Raynal. To give an example:
meaning to say, which he might have
done in a simple manner, that about this
time the English cast their eyes upon Goa,
as a place where, &c. stating the advantages
of such a port; he begins by telling
you, that the English had occasion for such
a port, which, &c. enumerating the advantages;
and after this, with surprize
comes upon you, and tells you, they wanted
Goa. Enfin, says he; that is, in fine
they wanted Goa.

The English language is undoubtedly
written better in America than in England,
especially since the time of that literary
dunce, Samuel Johnson, who was totally
destitute of taste for the vrai naturalle, or
simplicity of nature.

The language of the Scots writers is
chaste, but the structure of the sentence
of the academic Dr. Robertson, especially
offends in this particular; his uniformity
of period striking the ear with
the same pulse, as the couplets of our
rhyme in Dryden and Pope. Hume is
before him in this respect, writing as naturally
as a man speaks; his stile rising

and falling with the subject, as the movements
of the mind themselves.

I am quite out of patience with this postscript.
I have written it, the Printer informing
me that he had a few pages of the last
sheet to fill, which must be left blank unless
I had something more; but as I am in a
hurry about some small matters, and have no
disposition to write, I believe I shall conclude,
and let him leave the remainder
blank, or put in a paragraph of his own,
if he chuses it.

It just strikes me to add, that I am this
moment come from being admitted a Counsellor
in the supreme court of the United
States; having written the preceding part
of this postscript just before the court sat.

In consequence of my admission in this
honourable court, I feel myself inspired
with a consciousness of new dignity, and
am determined to relinquish the indulgence
of all these light amusements, and
apply myself for the future to fathom the
profound depths of the legal oceans and
rivers.

Vale,
Valete,
Camenæ.