neca and Pliny, have received with open arms, with joy and gratitude, the evidences, the resistless demonstrations, which we could now offer them? and besides, though in compliance with the dictates of hot headed bigotry, and a wedding to forms and system, it is the fashion to abuse and belie the rules of action of the heathen world, let any impartial person read the "Carmen Sæculare" of Horace, and then honestly avow his opinion as to the notions of virtue entertained among the great people to whom it was publicly addressed for myself, I never look it through without feeling profound regret, at the remembrance that the popular soil of Rome was doomed to foster the rank weeds of Superstition and Ignorance, in which, if better fortune had planted the tree of liberty and true learning, it would have been joyfully succoured, watered by a thousand rills.

I shall advert to one more point in the Hebrew writings; we are told there, that the different languages in use among men, arose from the circumstances attending the building of the Tower of Babel. I before mentioned, that speech is only a capacity of uttering sounds, very finely varied; singing is the same action of organic structure, more delicately attenuated. The young of our genus, by imitation through hearing, acquire a habit of

speaking, of uttering the same sounds that are used by those about them; if their lungs, and other necessary organs are perfect, the process is easily acquired, though earlier or later, according to the quickness of perception in the individual. This is language by imitation, the usual mode of acquisition of peculiar utterance. If accident deprives the ear of its auditory office before its possessor has acquired facility in imitation, such power of imitation stops short; the medium of communication is lost, and the subject, through the remainder of his life, continues to make use of only the imperfect intonation acquired previously to his loss. If he is born deaf, void of hearing from malformation, dumbness is an inseparable consequence, for he can acquire no articulate sounds; the few natural sounds incidental to his animal life, cannot be said to be acquired. Benevolence has attempted to teach utterance by the sense of sight; by causing the afflicted to watch narrowly, and imitate the proper mode of adjusting the lips, the palate, and the tongue; but the process being artificial, the result, compared with the natural mode, is as nothing.

The other formation of language, is by a series of sounds altogether new: thus, if only half a dozen individuals possessing due powers

of hearing and utterance, and so young as not to have had time to acquire speech by the first mode, were, by accident or design, thrown together on a spot affording due subsistence, they would of course form an original language of their own. They would point to the different objects around them, give specific appellations by common consent, and agree to express feelings and ideas in terms arbitrary, but common to their own society. And thus would appear to have been formed the different languages of man, and their several dialects or variations; many are compounds of the two, modes used by conquerors and the conquered.

We will wish each other "good night," by repeating an old and favorite maxim of mine: "he who will not reason is a bigot, and he who cannot is a fool.” To which we will tack a postscript: "whatever will not bear the examination of reason without shrinking, is in itself unreasonable."

LETTER XI.

AFTER this dissertation, I went to my apartment and slept till day-break; and then awoke in a feverish glow, a feeling, as of having slept for ages; and I threw up the window, in hopes the fresh air of morning would dissipate this excitement of frame. I had stood, gazing on the approach of day but a very short time, before the chill cast over me a drowsiness so heavy, that I had scarce time to throw myself on the bed, before a profound sleep seized me, and I dreamed as follows :

I seemed to feel an undefinable consciousness of having parted from L——, and again crossed the sea. I moved slowly in a path of the woods which surround our village; an unusual gloom seemed to pervade every object; a blue smoky tint hung upon the sky, the forest and the earth: it was certainly light, for I could see far among the trees, and yet it was not the light of morning, of noontide, of evening, of moonshine; it was entirely new and unusual. Besides, I felt a chilling sense of numbness and dread, a foreboding of some

thing terrible and sudden. In an instant the war-whoop was sounded, a party of our nation rushed from a thicket and surrounded me: "Ah!" said the chief, with a grim smile, “you have been absent a long time, but you are welcome home: we too have tarried long, we have patiently awaited your coming; let us hasten." The next moment we stood in the village; a group of our women and children came with looks of impatience and famine : "Give us food," they cried, "we perish with hunger."-"We have brought you none," said the warriors, calmly, "our woods are cut down, the deer are driven back, our hunting ground is no more: but we bring you a sweeter morsel, a friend of the white men, who have done these things!-Behold him!" said they, pointing to me :-the females shrieked, and rushed towards me with fury, the men caught the infection and opened a way for them; all receded, save one, who advanced with weapon uplifted, in act to strike, and that was Thou; when the figure of L- rose through the earth between us, and arrested your arm. "Hold!" he said, "would you shed a brother's blood? shall Indians any longer fight against Indians?"--"He is a traitor, a runaway," cried the crowd," a friend of our oppressors, who have robbed us of the buffalo, the deer, and

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