'with all their country's wishes blest.' Detraction cannot sully the memory of the gallant Lee; and Greene needs no other panegyric, than the simple annals of his country. It is not now that the struggle for their well-earned fame should be revived by their descendants or admirers: and though Mr. Lee, with unquestioned sincerity, repeatedly disavows any disrespect to the character of the defender of the South, we fear, that in analysing the work of Judge Johnson, in a too splenetic vein, of angry and intemperate sarcasm, he has sometimes, unintentionally, subjected himself to such a charge.

Were we to enter into particular specifications, in order to prove our assertion, we might become parties in producing the effect we deprecate. To mention, however, one instance. The biographer and his censor have both contrived to render the education and habits of General Greene, rather ridiculous the former, by recording, in a lugubrious attempt at ease and jocularity, minute circumstances which might have occurred to any other, as well as the subject of his memoir; and the latter, by the tone of derision in which he has alluded to them. According to them, young Greene was a Rhode Island edition of King Pepin, who, it will be remembered, acquired his first relish for polite literature, by studying his horn-book while fulfilling the honourable and useful duty of a scarecrow :when, in fact, General Greene's family was of the highest respectability in his native state; to which, for several generations, it gave the highest functionaries in every department. His education, according to the times and circumstances, was good; and how well he profited by it, appears, not only from the moral and intellectual greatness of his character, as it must be portrayed in American history, but in his off-hand letters, several of which are given in Mr. Lee's book, and of which they constitute by far the most valuable part.

That Judge Johnson's work is dull, and has not answered public expectation, is a fact which cannot be disguised, but on which it might be indecorous to dwell. We have to accuse Mr. Lee of having, in a paroxysm of filial zeal, violated propriety and good manners. Is it dignified, in speaking of heroes, and of the times that tried men's souls, to descend into miserable hyper-criticisms about words and phraseology, and sentences which seem absurd, on account of the printer's mistakes in punctuation? Is it respectful to the powers that be, to call a learned and worthy dignitary, an Associate Judge of our highest judicial tribunal, an attorney,' one speaking of the case of Coriolanus'—and to stigmatize him as 'the assert

er of a falsehood?" Is such language as the following appropriate to the author's subject, and the station of the writer on whom he is commenting?

"The dog in London, who kills rats for a wager, is observed to be much fatigued in crushing those weak and well-fed vermin. Something like this is his situation, who undertakes to expose the countless absurdities and mis-statements of the sketches. One hardship is, that he has to botch up the crazy sentences, in which his honour embarks his pestilential ventures; as the court of Charleston had to translate the lingo of the negro conspirators, in order to show the justice of their sentence."

The conglomeration of allusions, in the second member of this ingenious diatribe, is puzzling and distressing. As for the savoury simile, contained in the first part, Judge Johnson has no reason to complain, since the critic puts himself in the dog's place. Again, is it genteel and nice (to use a Yankee phrase,) in speaking of the sources of the Judge's information, and the use he has made of them, to say he has "turned the waters of Helicon into a horse-pond?"

In truth, (and the truth may with propriety be spoken of so precise a censor as Mr. Lee,) we cannot compliment him exceedingly on his taste in metaphors. He is overfond of them, and hunts them down. Nullum simile quatuor pedibus currit,' says the old statute; but he makes his crawl on as many legs as a centipede, and fairly hunts them from the face of creation-beyond the flaming bounds of time and place.'

We take the closing period of his work, which must be supposed to have been satisfactory to himself.'

Not a glow of passion-not a shade of fault--not a ray of truth-not a line of nature, appears in his portrait of Greene, which exhibits a dim and moonlight countenance of round perfection. Instead of following, as truth and taste would lead, the easy and natural form of Greene's character, the author of the sketches has been guided by the toilsome dulness of his own fancy; has poured the full and meandering flow of the hero's intelligence and virtues, into a canal of his own digging;-as far from nature as from magnificence. No forests overshadow its fountains; no rapids precipitate its stream; no windings diversify its progress; no cataracts dignify its source; no tides accumulate its waters; no navies bound upon its flood; no surges foam along its surface; no billows break upon its shore!

Among all these glows, shades, rays, lines, moons, canals, forests, fountains, rapids, streams, windings, cataracts, tides, navies, floods, surges and billows,-odsbodlikins! what has become of General Greene and his biographer?"

We have no intention of entering into the merits of the controversy between Mr. Lee and Judge Johnson; but we must

say, that we have observed none of those studied and intentional misrepresentations which Mr. Lee has thought proper to charge upon the Judge. On the contrary, we think the sketches characterized by a candor, liberality and independence of spirit, honourable to their author. We were well aware, that the Judge had fallen into occasional mistakes; and we will admit that Mr. Lee has proved him so, in some instances, which had escaped our, obersvation. But his occasional errors cannot be considered as a sufficient ground for the impeachment of his general accuracy; nor can they justify Mr. Lee's violent attack upon the personal character of the Judge, nor upon the merits of his work. Johnson had before him Colonel Lee's Memoirs of the Southern War, and having advantage of original documents, and of reference to some of the distinguished officers who served under General Greene, it was natural that he should take some pains to correct its errors. He may not always have been discreet in his observations; and has, perhaps, revived some discussions, which it would have been better to have suffered to rest. Still, these are minor charges; and he has, no doubt, brought them into notice, from his wish to give a correct delineation of all the events, connected, in any manner, with the task he had undertaken. He may sometimes have fallen into errors, equal to those he intended to correct. This, however, is by no means peculiar to himself, but must happen to every one who has to select his materials from various sources, and to attempt to reconcile conflicting authorities. The historian who writes of his own time, and of events which happened within the sphere of his own observation, will find it difficult to give an accurate account of the minor circumstances which took place; and yet he may be exceedingly accurate as to those of interest and moment. How often does it happen, that witnesses of equal credibility differ so materially, in their incidental statements, as to render it difficult, if not impossible, to ascertain the accuracy of their details. From this reason, we apprehend that Lee's memoirs may frequently be incorrect, as well as Johnson's sketches. He was a witness to many of the events he relates; and his statements in regard to those are entitled to the greatest confidence. But when that testimony is met by other witnesses, of equal means of information, it is, to say the least, a fair subject for criticism and inquiry. Judge Johnson has done no more than to examine into Lee's statements, and to give his own opinion upon the subject. He had no interests to subserve in his sketches; but endeavoured sim

ply, to the best of his ability, to deal equal justice to all. He may have been misled by others, or have fallen into mistakes from his own negligence or misapprehension; if so, he has barely been guilty of a very ordinary fault with all historians.

Colonel Lee was perhaps the best partizan officer in the army of the revolution. He was brave, intelligent and active; and was of infinite service to General Greene, in the southern department. His brother officers loved and admired him ; but even they have been known to criticise his conduct. To mention a single instance the absence of Lee from his cavalry, when he should have been prepared to receive the orders of his General, to make the decisive charge upon the enemy, which alone was wanting to ensure the victory, was not in character with his usual spirit of enterprise. Nor does the laboured apology of the son altogether exculpate the father. We are willing to admit, that he was usefully employed; and that his absence was excuseable; but he lost the opportunity of achieving new laurels for himself, of adding to the fame of his General, and of bestowing yet brighter honours upon the American army. That he did his duty, has never been questioned; and he was, on that account, entitled to a share in the honours of the day. But we doubt whether he executed any thing worthy of the high character he sustained, or answered the expectations of his General; and we are therefore inclined to think, that he was not entitled to any great share of praise. The soldier who manfully performs his duty, may command our respect; but it is the generous spirit of self-devotion, leading him, without much consideration of personal consequences, into great and perilous enterprises, on which he must found his hopes of military fame. Much praise is not to be acquired, at least is not deserved, by ordinary efforts. Fortune does not always present the means of successful exertion; but the man who neglects to use them, when within his reach, has no reason to complain of her fickleness, or to charge upon others, the faults which arise from his own indolence or neglect.

With much manly frankness, Colonel Lee has admitted some of his occasional faults and neglects. These faults were never of a nature to do him material injury in his military character. The memoirs of the southern war necessarily placed him in a conspicuous point of view, as every account of that war must place him. Still, with the fairest intentions on his part, it is but reasonable to suppose, that he may sometimes, without being aware of the fact, have magnified his own importance with his General, and the services he rendered in the field. He Vol. I. No. 1.

10

could not play the modest part of the chaplain and historian of Lord Anson's voyage; for it was almost constantly necessary for him to allude to his own services, in order to elucidate the events of the war. While, therefore, we make no complaints aganist Colonel Lee, for the account he has given of his own part in the campaigns of the south, we think it perfectly rea sonable, that others should examine his statements, detect his errors, and divide, when justly due, some of the honours of the southern war, amongst other officers of equal merit and distinc tion.

The utility of the 'Sketches' and of the 'Campaign of 1781,' and indeed of most, if not all the works connected with the history of our revolution, consists in their collecting a body of information for future historians. In common with other narrations, biographies and sketches, they may serve at least as hints, often as vouchers for the future historian, who shall write the classical history of our republic, when time, with its ordinary effects, shall have given to the incidents of our revolutionary struggle, the only interest which they seem to want, by shedding over them the mellow colouring of antiquity. Imagination cannot work upon materials of recent character; and the sober pages of history are perused with greater pleasure, when they recall events beyond the memory of man. It is only after the lapse of ages, that we form ideal pictures of heroes, orators, legislators and sages, and think of them as beings of a superior kind, to those with whose ordinary infirmities nearness of time or place has made us acquainted. It is then that trivial incidents become of wondrous interest, and every particular circumstance, as well as every minute relic, derives its charm from the power of association. The historian employs them in his estimate of character; the philosopher contemplates in them the causes and the means whereby great changes were effected; and the poet weaves them into immortal verse.

Singing glory to the souls

Of the brave

[We received the article, the commencement of which follows, too late to insert it entire, in this number. This circumstance we regret; as, independently of its intrinsic interest, it is the only account yet published, which may be deemed official, of Captain Parry's expedition. It was written by an officer in his service, and addressed to a gentleman, well known in the scientific world for his indefatigable exertions in the pursuit of physical dis covery. By him it was transmitted to this city.]