ascribed his lively faith and his fervent devotion, to the more immediate influence of the divine spirit.' Rom. Emp. After the death of Constantine, his nephew, the apostate, Julian, reviving the edicts of Adrian, and attempting to destroy the monuments erected by christian piety and to restore the pagan temples, approached Jerusalem, and his army from afar viewed the walls of the holy city, which were profaned in their eyes by the triumph of the cross, and the devotion of the christians. He artfully associated the Jews with him, by holding out the prospect of rebuilding their temple, whose restoration was secretly connected with the ruin of the christian establishments; but the joint efforts of power and enthusiasm were unsuccessful. Heaven itself seemed to counteract their endeavours; convulsions of nature opposed their attempts, earthquakes, whirlwinds, and fire overthrew their newly erected temples, and the death of Julian soon put an end to the measures of this persecutor of the christians. In the succeeding reigns the christian power was restored, and obtained an easy and lasting victory; and though Jerusalem was afterwards possessed by the Saracens and Turks, until wrested from them by the intrepid heroes of christianity, the chivalrous crusaders; yet the spots sacred to christians have always been kept holy and unprofaned since the power of the pagans was extirpated. Sailing through the Hellespont to the Egean sea, amidst the sublime scenery of Tenedos and Mount Ida, the delighted traveller stored with Grecian lore and elevated by the view of scenes consecrated by history and the bold achievements of ancient heroes, beholds near Sigeum the tombs of Achilles and Patroclus, and afar off at the foot of cape Rhoetus the tomb of Ajax. The prediction of the prophetic poet is verified, and the imagination is carried back through a lapse of three thousand years, to the moment, When all the sons of warlike Greece surround The destin'd tomb and cast a mighty mound: more. High on the shore the growing hill they raise, May point Achilles' tomb, and hail the mighty ghost.* A veneration for these celebrated tombs, hallowed by their antiquity, has preserved them free from the ravages of time and the rude hand of the barbarian, though the empire against which the heroes warred, long since was rent from its old foundations, and even the ruins of Troy are now no The wars of Troy, and the sublime poem of Homer have been termed a fiction; that they are not founded on fable, these monuments, where travellers in all ages have poured forth the tribute of their homage, remain a lasting testimony. Sages and heroes who have visited these mementos of ancient glory have confessed the inspiration of the place. At the tomb of Achilles, Homer poured forth his enthusiastic admiration of great and sublime virtues; and standing on the sacred spot, invoked the ashes of his mighty hero, received the inspiration of his character, and threw it glowing with poetic fire into his immortal lines. There the young aspiring hero of Macedon, paid his vows to the illustrious shade, anointed with oil the venerated pillar, and call * It may be remarked that Cowper's translation of Homer, though not possessing the sweetness and melody, or the many exquisite beauties of Pope's, is perhaps throughout more nervous, more true to the author, and has more of the spirit of the original, as may be observed by comparing the above passage. Around both urns we piled a noble tomb, (We warriors of the sacred Argive host,) On a tall promontory shooting far Into the spacious Hellespont, that all Who live and who shall yet be born, may view Thy record, even from the distant waves. Cowper. Homer says nothing about the mighty ghost' introduced by Pope to make up the harmony of his rhyme, and Cowper has judiciously arranged his lines without it. ing upon the manes of the departed warrior, exclaimed with sublime rapture, Oh Achilles! thou wert happy in thy glorious life! happy in such a friend as Patroclus! happy in such a poet as Homer, to immortalize thy memory!' (To be continued.) M. ART. III.-Notes on the Missouri River, and some of the Native Tribes in its Neighbourhood.-By a Military Gentleman attached to the Yellow Stone Expedition in 18 9. THE force destined to form military establishments on the Missouri, consists of the 6th regiment of infantry, and the 1st rifle regiment; these troops were concentrated in the neighbourhood of St. Louis, early in the month of June. The eclat of the expedition was increased by the novelty of having part of the transportation for the troops, and provisions up the Missouri, to consist of four large steam-boats, belonging to the contractor. The success of the expedition was not however entirely dependant upon the result of this experiment in steam navigation; preparations were made in anticipation of its failure. Attached also to the expedition was a small steam boat belonging to the government, for the accommodation of the scientific men who accompanied it; it was intended to have drawn but very little water, and have moved with uncommon velocity. Our present advanced post is at the Isle Aux Vaches, seventy miles beyond Fort Osage, forty from the junction of the Kanses, and about four hundred from the mouth of the Missouri; to this point the troops will move in detachment; from there they must be embodied. The appearance of the Missouri at its junction with the Mississippi, is dark and gloomy, no settlements are to be seen to break the uniform forlorn aspect of its shores, and its turbid, yellow water, rushes turmoiled through a channel choaked with sand-bars, and filled with trunks of trees, whose tops projecting above the water seem posted like sentinels to forbid the approach of navigation; its current overwhelms that of the Mississippi, whose limpid stream endeavours in vain to avoid the conjunction-at certain seasons a union of the waters does not take place until they reach below St. Louis, and so convinced are the inhabitants of this town of the superior salubrity of the Missouri water, that on these occasions they go a considerable distance to obtain it for domestic uses. Belle Fontaine is eighteen miles up the Missouri; it was formerly a military post, and is still a depot for ordnance and other military equipments. An instance of the encroachment of the river upon its banks is evident at this place; the main channel now flows, where in 1806 the fort stood, and the garden which was two hundred paces in rear of the fort, is now on the verge of the river; the bank is not unfrequently washed away from one to three hundred yards in a few seasons; this is a serious objection to the formation of settlements on the rich bottoms upon the immediate margin of the river. St. Charles, thirty-six miles from the mouth of the river, is one of the early French establishments in this country; at the period of Lewis and Clarke's expedition, it was our most remote western settlement; since that time it has considerably increased. The change of government in 1803 appears to have been but little relished by the inhabitants of Upper Louisiana. They speak with respect and affection of the mild and equitable rule of the Spanish colonial government, which exacted nothing from them in the shape of taxes, but required a tacit acquiescence in the orders, and a respectful deportment towards the persons of their superiors, and to be ready to render their military services whenever necessary, and to interfere in no shape, in the administration of the government. Under such institutions, the value of civil privileges was entirely lost sight of, and so little did they appreciate what we consider inestimable rights, that they regarded the trouble of elections and the labour of occasionally judging for themselves as grievous impositions; with that wonderful pliability of temper, however, for which Frenchmen are remarkable, they have accommodated themselves to their new government and countrymen with the same facility as they did to the native Indians, with whom they were first associated. The emigrants to this country are principally from the states of Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia. The current of the Missouri is rapid; immense piles of drift wood accumulate upon points or sand-bars round which the water flows with redoubled velocity; these impediments, together with the immense number of sand bars and trees planted every where in the channels render the navigation extremely difficult. The country on the Missouri, is more healthy than that on the Ohio, Mississippi, or any other of the western waters. The current of the Missouri, confined to a deep and narrow channel is no where sluggish; no aquatic vegetables are generated in the space between its high and its low state of water, the decay of which in other rivers produces pestilential miasmata; the dryness also of the immense prairies by which it is surrounded, and, above all, the circumstance that this river never overflows its banks, contribute to produce this superior salubrity. The Ohio rises sixty feet perpendicularly from its lowest stages of water; the Missouri not more than from ten to twelve-in conversing with emigrants from the banks of the Ohio, they all agree that here their families are more healthy; they remark also that they are less troubled with rust and mould, and that liquids lose more by evaporation here than where they formerly resided, owing doubtless to that purity and dryness of the atmosphere which preserves also the body from disease. The absence of moisture, however it may contribute to the health, will be a serious obstacle to the agricultural prosperity of the country; no inconvenience is now felt, because the set |