412 



Monthly Review of Literature, 



[APRIL, 



to be the case, I cannot imagine that the British 

 government can permit such a proceeding. Any 

 one acquainted with the Turks and their govern- 

 ment must be well aware of the difficulty of per- 

 saading-tliem that it is not a national measure; 

 and failing in this, a rupture would in all proba- 

 bility follow. But there is too much cause to fear 

 that that would not be the only unpleasant result ; 

 as in the event of Lord Cochrane'* joining the 

 Greeks, accompanied by frigates and steam ves- 

 sels, there can be little doubt of his obtaining 

 great successes over the Turks, in which case an 

 indiscriminate massacre would probably take 

 place of British subjects residing at Constanti- 

 nople and Smyrna. The mere report of such a 

 powerful acquisition has caused great joy among 

 the Greeks ; but if his lordship's proposed assist- 

 ance is to benefit them,, he must not delay, as 

 otherwise, it is more than probable they will have 

 little need of his services. 



So much for the consul's predictions, and 

 his knowledge of Greeks and Turks ! 



Memoirs of the Life and Travels of 



John Ledyard, by Jared Sparks; 1828 



This is a volume of some interest, and, upon 

 the whole, well executed relative to a man 

 of no common, nay of very uncommon qua- 

 lities a man whose extraordinary energies, 

 unchecked by early discipline, or too master- 

 ful to be checked by discipline, early or late, 

 or any restraints, gentle or severe, drove him 

 centrifugally from the dull routine of ordi- 

 nary life, to roam at large, and seek gratifi- 

 cation in his own peculiar way. He was of 



a temperament too restless to know repose 



too resolute to quail before toil or trouble 



too sanguine to anticipate misfortunes, or to 

 guard against them the vigour and vivacity 

 of his spirit prompted him to active and 

 adventurous employment, and he must find 

 it or die. It was intolerable to his com- 

 pelling ardour to tread in the same path that 

 others had trodden, or to do what others 

 were doing. Distinction was the thing he 

 panted for, and for which he was ready to 

 toil it was of a generous cast, for he sought 

 it only by conferring extraordinary benefits 

 on the world. In the midst of poverty and 

 rags, a sense of independence and desert 

 bade him stand upright before his fellow- 

 men, and forget the superiorities of rank 

 and station. Though soliciting and accept- 

 ing assistance, he had that within that would 

 amply repay powers to face and surmount 

 difficulties which others shrunk from en- 

 countering. Though actually overcoming 

 immense difficulties, under which the mass 

 of mankind must have sunk, in almost 

 every thing he undertook, he was unsuccess- 

 ful he had no luck. Generally the unlucky 

 are the imprudent, and Ledyard must be 

 numbered among those who attempt more 

 than the course and complication of circum- 

 stances, which fetter them on every side, and 

 which they refuse to calculate, allow them to 

 perform. His self-reliance prompted him 

 too often to trust to the chapter of accidents, 

 and they, as they will, failed him. Yet it 

 is no uninstructive spectacle to contemplate 



such a man's career though he took no 

 lesson, he may give one. 



Descended from an American family, 

 John Ledyard was born in 1751, at Groton, 

 in Connecticut, within a few hundred yards 

 of Fort Griswold, so well known in the 

 annals of the American revolution. His 

 rather was captain of a West India trader, 

 and died early, leaving three sons and a 

 daughter, of whom Ledyard was the eldest, 

 and an estate, which he possessed, by some 

 neglect or chicane, reverted to his own 

 father, and was thus lost to his children. 

 After some years, the widow a lady of 

 many excellencies, according to the biogra- 

 pher, of person, character, and intellect 

 married again, and Ledyard was taken into 

 his grandfather's family, and, on the grand- 

 father's death, being transferred to his guar- 

 dian's, a respectable attorney of Hartford, 

 who had married an aunt, was by that 

 gentleman destined for his own profession. 

 But neither the "profound wisdom," says 

 Mr. Sparks, " nor the abstruse learning, nor 

 the golden promises of the law," had any 

 charms for Ledyard. He was for something 

 more stirring and free, and that was not 

 easy to be found. He was now nineteen. 

 For once in his life he deliberated, but 

 chance rather than choice at last decided. 

 Dr. Wheelock, the amiable and pious 

 founder of Dartmouth College an institu- 

 tion established at Hanover, to educate 

 missionaries for the conversion of the 

 Indians had been the intimate friend of 

 the grandfather, and now invited young 

 Ledyard to join him. His mother, too, 

 was earnest in the cause ; and to her wishes 

 and advice he perhaps mainly yielded, 

 though, no doubt, the prospect of difficulties 

 in this "labour of love" had charms for 

 him which the law could not give, and a 

 missionary he would have become, could he 

 have cut the training. To this place he 

 however set out, but in his own way not 

 on horseback the college was far in the 

 interior as others did, but in a crazy gig, 

 where there were no roads, to enable him to 

 carry some theatrical apparatus ; for the 

 thought of nothing but dry and sedentary 

 study was intolerable to him. From the 

 college, before he had been there three 

 months, he suddenly decamped, and, at the 

 end of another three or four months, re- 

 appeared ; after wandering, it is supposed, 

 to the borders of Canada, and the Six 

 Nations apparently with a view to recon- 

 noitre the missionary ground. The view 

 probably was repulsive, for nothing more 

 was heard of missionary schemes. He soon 

 now grew heartily weary of the college, and 

 becoming more irregular than before in his 

 attendance on lectures, and receiving sundry 

 admonitions from the superiors, which he 

 chose to consider as indignities, he resolved 

 to make his escape ; and, even in his escape, 

 must take his own course. He contrived to 

 cut down a large tree on the margin of the 



