than inquisitive.
Thirsting for strong emotions, he would be satisfied; teeming with the
recollections and visions of the past, he traversed the places hallowed
by his early affections with the fondness of a lover who returns to the
home of his bliss, of a mature man who revisits the scenes of his
infancy. He cared not to enquire what was true or what was legendary in
these time-hallowed traditions; he gladly accepted them as they stood,
and studiously averted all enquiry into the foundation on which they
rested. He wandered over the Peloponnesus or Judea with the fond ardour
of an English scholar who seeks in the Palatine Mount the traces of
Virgil's enchanting description of the hut of Evander, and rejects as
sacrilege every attempt to shake his faith.

"When Science from Creation's face
Enchantment's visions draws,
What lovely visions yield their place
To cold material laws!"

Even in the woods of America, the same ruling passion was evinced. In
those pathless solitudes, where no human foot had ever trod but that of
the wandering savage, and the majesty of nature appeared in undisturbed
repose, his thoughts were still of the Old World. It was on the historic
lands that his heart was set. A man himself, he dwelt on the scenes
which had been signalized by the deeds, the sufferings, the glories of
man.

Michaud's mind is akin to that of Chateaubriand, and yet different in
many important particulars. The learned and indefatigable historian of
the Crusades, he has traversed the shores of the Mediterranean--the
scene, as Dr Johnson observed, of all that can ever interest man--his
religion, his knowledge, his arts--with the ardent desire to imprint on
his mind the scenes and images which met the eyes of the holy warriors.
He seeks to transport us to the days of Godfrey of Bouillon and Raymond
of Toulouse; he thirsts with the Christian host at Dorislaus, he shares
in its anxieties at the siege of Antioch, he participates in its
exultation at the storming of Jerusalem. The scenes visited by the vast
multitude of warriors who, during two hundred years, were precipitated
from Europe on Asia, have almost all been visited by him, and described
with the accuracy of an antiquary and the enthusiasm of a poet. With the
old chronicles in his hand, he treads with veneration the scenes of
former generous sacrifice and heroic achievements, and the vast and
massy structures erected on either side during those terr