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poet, who speaks of Bacchus' cast coat: this is little better than a riddle, and even those who discern it, will take a little time to reflect, that, according to the heathen mythology, Bacchus was the god of wine; wine is kept in casks, and therefore, an empty cask, or at least an useless one, may be called Bacchus' cast coat.

(3) A third enemy to simplicity, is an affectation of learning: This spoils simplicity many ways; it introduces terms of art, which cannot be understood, but by those who are adepts in a particular branch. Such persons have been long exposed to ridicule, under the name of pedants. Sometimes, indeed, the word pedantry has been in a manner confined to those addicted to classic literature, and who intermix every thing they say with scraps, taken from the learned languages; but this is quite improper; for lawyers, physicians, dunces, or schoolmasters, are equally ridiculous, when they fill their discourse with words drawn from their partícular

art.

(4) The only other enemy to simplicity I shall mention, is, an ambition to excel. This, perhaps, should not have been so much divided from the rest, as to be made the great principle from which the rest proceed. Nothing more certainly renders a man ridiculous, than an over-forwardness to display his excellence; he is not content with plain things, and particularly with such things as every body might say, because these would not distinguish him.

On the whole, as I observed on sublimity, that one of the best and surest ways to attain it, was to think nobly, so the best way to write simply, is to think simply, to avoid all affectation, to attempt to form your manner of thinking to a noble self-denial. A man little solicitous about what people think of him, or rather having his attention fixed on quite another purpose, viz. giving information, or producing conviction, will only attain to a simple manner of writing, and indeed he will write best in all respects.

Witherspoon's Lectures.

[graphic]

DESCRIPTIVE

Singular Natural Walls on the Banks of the Missouri.

WE came to a high wall of black rock, rising from the water's edge on the south, above the cliffs of the river: this continued for about a quarter of a mile, and was succeeded by a high open plain, till three miles further a second wall, two hundred feet high, rose on the same side. Three miles further, a wall of the same kind, about two hundred feet high and twelve in thickness, appeared to the north these hills and river cliffs exhibit a most extraordinary and romantic appearance: they rise in most places nearly perpendicular from the water, to the height of between two and three hundred feet, and are formed of very white sand stone, so soft as to yield readily to the impression of water, in the upper part of which lie imbedded two or three thin horizontal stratas of white freestone insensible to the rain, and on the top is a dark rich loam, which forms a gradually ascending plain, from a mile to a mile and a half in extent, when the hills again rise abruptly to the height of about three hundred feet more. In trickling down the cliffs, the water has worn the soft sand stone into a thousand grotesque figures, among which with a little fancy may be discerned elegant ranges of freestone buildings, with columns variously sculptured, and supporting long and elegant galleries, while the parapets are adorned with statuary: on a nearer approach they represent every form of elegant ruins; columns, some with pedestals and capitols entire, others mutilated

and prostrate, and some rising pyramidically over each other till they terminate in a sharp point. These are varied by niches, alcoves and the customary appearances of desolated magnificence: the illusion is increased by the number of martins, who have built their globular nests in the niches and hover over these columns; as in our country they are accustomed to frequent large stone structures. As we advance, there seems no end to the visionary enchantment which surrounds us. In the midst of this fantastic scenery are vast ranges of walls, which seem the productions of art, so regular is the workmanship: they rise perpendicularly from the river, sometimes to the height of one hundred feet, varying in thickness from one to twelve feet, being equally broad at the top as below. The stones of which they are formed are black, thick, and durable, and composed of a vast portion of earth, intermixed and cemented with a small quantity of sand, and a considerable portion of talc or quartz. These stones are almost invariably regular parallelipeds of unequal sizes in the wall, but equally deep, and laid regularly in ranges over each other like bricks, each breaking and covering the interstice of the two on which it rests; but though the perpendicular interstice be destroyed, the horizontal one extends entirely through the whole work: the stones too are proportioned to the thickness of the wall in which they are employed, being largest in the thickest walls. The thinner walls are composed of a single depth of the parallelipeds, while the thicker ones consist of two or more depths: These walls pass the river at several places, rising from the water's edge much above the sandstone cliffs which they seem to penetrate; thence they cross in a straight line on either side of the river, the plains over which they tower to the height of from ten to seventy feet, until they lose themselves in the second range of hills: sometimes. they run parallel in several ranges near to each other, sometimes intersect each other at right angles, and have the appearance of walls of ancient houses or gardens.

LEWIS AND CLARKE

Cascade of the River Missouri.

THE river immediately at its cascade is three hundred yards wide, and is pressed in by a perpendicular cliff on the left, which rises to about one hundred feet and extends up the stream for a mile; on the right the bluff is also perpendicular for three hundred yards above the falls. For ninety or a hundred yards from the left cliff, the water falls in one smooth even sheet, over a precipice of at least eighty feet. The remaining part of the river precipitates itself with a more rapid current, but being received as it falls by the irregular and somewhat projecting rocks below, forms a splendid prospect of perfectly white foam two hundred yards in length, and eighty in perpendicular elevation. This spray is dissipated into a thousand shapes, sometimes flying up in columns of fifteen or twenty feet, which are then oppressed by large masses of the white foam, on all which the sun impresses the brightest colours of the rainbow. As it rises from the fall it beats with fury against a ledge of rocks which extend across the river at one hundred and fifty yards from the precipice. From the perpendicular cliff on the north, to the distance of one hundred and twenty yards, the rocks rise only a few feet above the water, and when the river is high the stream finds a channel across them forty yards wide, and near the higher parts of the ledge which then rise about twenty feet, and terminate abruptly within eighty or ninety yards of the southern side. Between them and the perpendicular cliff on the south, the whole body of water runs with great swiftness. A few small cedars grow near this ridge of rocks which serve as a barrier to defend a small plain of about three acres, shaded with cottonwood, at the lower extremity of which is a grove of the same tree, where are several Indian cabins of sticks; below the point of them the river is divided by a large rock, several feet above the surface of the water, and extending down the stream for twenty yards. At the distance of three hundred yards from the same ridge is a second abutment of solid perpendicular rock, about sixty feet high, projecting at right angles from the small plain on the north for one hundred and thirty four yards into the river. After leaving this, the Missouri again spreads itself to its usual distance of three hundred yards, though with more than its ordinary rapidity.

Ibid.

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