Logan, Cresap, and Rogers. 151 



I shall examine (unnecessary as it may seem to do tliis) 

 the two speeches, exhibiting their vast and essential dif- 

 ferences, and their slender resemblances to each other. 



The opening of Logan's speech, as published by Mr. 

 Jefferson, is truly beautiful. I hardly know any thing, 

 of the same kind, and within the same compass, that is 

 more so. It would not have disgraced one of Ossian's 

 heroes, in the days of Fingal*. Not Tacitus himself 

 could have formed a finer sentence for a British chieff . 

 " I appeal to any white man to say, if ever he entered 

 Logan's cabin hungry, and he gave him not meat ; if 



* Notwithstanding what has very recently been said upon the 

 subject of the poems of the Caledonian bard, I think that we may 

 still, with safety, say with Mr. Gibbon: " Something of a doubt- 

 ful mist still hangs over these Highland traditions ; nor can it be 

 entirely dispelled by the most ingenious researches of modern 

 criticism." The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Ejh- 

 pire. Vol. I. p. 145. Philadelphia edition. If I do not greatly 

 mistake, the time is not very distant, when we shall all believe, 

 that Ossian no more sung such poems as those which Mr. Mac- 

 pherson has published, than that Logan composed the speech- 

 which every one admires in the JVotes of Mr. Jefferson. For 

 philosophers, it is not necessary to " indulge the pleasing supposi- 

 tion, that Fingal lived, and that Ossian sung." 



t Sec the speech of Galgacus, in the Gennaiiia of the Roman 

 Iiistorian. I do not assert, that Tacitus was in the habit of fabri- 

 cating speeches for his chiefs, his emperors. Sec. But this is 

 believed by Dr. Whitaker; and what this very learned writer has 

 said on the subject, deserves the attention of every one, even of the 

 greatest admirers of Tacitus. See \Vhitaker's Review of " Gili- 

 ioji'a Hiitory," inic. p. 4 — 12. London: 1791. But Tacitus ha^ 

 wot yet, I think, been proved to be criminous. 



