relation to Greece and Turkey. The
arguments and sentiments do equal credit to his head and heart, and
evince no less his judgment as a statesman, than they do his taste and
erudition as a scholar. This interesting and valuable letter breathes
the true sentiments of rational liberty, such as must be felt by the
great body of the English nation, and such as must, sooner or later,
prevail among the enlightened nations of the earth. How painful to
reflect that this able appeal will produce no favorable effect on the
British ministry, whose decision, it is to be feared, is already made in
favor of the "legitimacy" of the Turkish government!

At four o'clock, I laid by my employments, and went to dine at the
commanding officer's quarters, whence the party adjourned to a
handsomely arranged supper table at Capt. Beal's. The necessity of
complying with times and occasions, by accepting the current invitations
of the day, is an impediment to any system of intellectual employment;
and whatever the world may think of it, the time devoted to public
dinners and suppers, routs and parties, is little better than time
thrown away.

"And yet the fate of all extremes is such;
Books may be read, as well as men, too much."

_13th_. I re-perused Mackenzie's "History of the Fur Trade," to enable
me more fully to comprehend the allusions in a couple of volumes lately
put into my hands, on the "Disputes between Lord Selkirk and the North
West Company," and the "Report of Trials" for certain murders
perpetrated in the course of a strenuous contest for commercial mastery
in the country by the Hudson's Bay Company.

Finding an opportunity of sending north, I recollected that the
surveyors of our northern boundary were passing the winter at Fort
William, on the north shore of Lake Superior; and wrote to one of the
gentlemen, enclosing him some of our latest papers.

_14th_. The gentlemen from the neighboring British post left us this
morning. I devoted the day to my Indian inquiries.

_15th_. I commenced a vocabulary of conversation, in the Odjibwa.

_17th. Native Mythology_.--According to Indian mythology, _Weeng_ is the
God of sleep. He has numerous emissaries, who are armed with war clubs,
of a tiny and unseen character. These fairy agents ascend the forehead,
and knock the individual to sleep. Pope's creation of Gnomes, in the
Rape of the Lock, is here prefigured.

_18th_. It has been said that the Indian languages posses