wever, the similitude ends. There
is nothing to be said respecting the comparative features of Charles the
Bold and Chactas, except that the Indian possessed those qualities of
the heart which most ennoble human nature.

To the readers of Scott's novels, however (for he is certainly the
"Great Unknown"), this pleasing poetical romance, with all its sparkling
passages, will present one glaring defect--it is not sufficiently
descriptive. We rise from the perusal of it with no definite ideas of
the scenery of the valley of Underlach. We suppose it to be sublime and
picturesque, and are frequently told so by the author; but he fails in
the description of particular scenes. Scott manages otherwise. When he
sends Baillie Nicoll Jarvie into the Highlands, he does not content
himself with generalities, but also brings before the mind such groups
and scenes as make one fear and tremble. To produce this excitement is
literary power.

_23d_. I devoted the time before breakfast, which, with us, happens at a
late hour, to the _Edinburgh Review_. I read the articles on Greenough's
"First Principles of Geology," and a new edition of Demosthenes. When
shall we hear the last panegyric of the Grecian orator, who, in the two
characteristics of his eloquence which have been most praised,
simplicity and nature, is every day equalled, or excelled, by our
Indian chiefs?

Greenough's Essays are bold and original, and evince no weak powers of
observation and reasoning. But he is rather a leveler than a builder. It
seems better that we should have a poor house over our heads than none
at all. The facts mentioned on the authority of a traveler in Spain,
that the pebbles in the rivers of that country are not carried down
streams by the force of the current, are contradicted by all my
observations on the rivers of the United States. The very reverse is
true. Those streams which originate in, or run through districts of
granite, limestone, graywacke, &c., present pebbles of these respective
rocks abundantly along their banks, at points below the termination of
the fixed strata. These pebbles, and even boulders, are found far below
the termination of the rocky districts, and appear to owe their
transportation to the force of existing currents. I have found the
peculiar pebbles of the sources of the Mississippi as low down as St.
Louis and St. Genevieve.

I resumed the perusal of Marshall's "Life of Washington," which I had
laid by in the fall. L