LIFE AND CHARACTER 21 



nature impressed him. He believed that Buffon, with whom he 

 was not in agreement, had nevertheless " sufficiently established 

 a truly wonderful Instinct in animals . . ." '^^ His own account 

 of the Creek Confederacy agrees, he informs us, with that of 

 " monsieur Duprat." The story of these Indians " concerning 

 their country and people, . . . the progress of their migration, 

 &c. is very similar to that celebrated historian's account of the 

 Natches." '"^ 



Of general cultural influences upon him, the classics and 

 the writers of the eighteenth century deserve special mention. 

 Classical references and analogies come to him spontaneously, 

 indicating a complete assimilation. Speaking of the Snake Bird 

 he remarks: " I doubt not but if this bird had been an inhabi- 

 tant of the Tiber in Ovid's days, it would have furnished him a 

 subject for some beautiful and entertaining metamorphoses." ^^ 

 The '" enchanting Vale of Keowe " reminds him of the " Fields 

 of Pharsalia or the Vale of Tempe." " Ruminating upon the 

 sin of dissimulation he finds some extenuation for the " dis- 

 simulation practiced by the wife of Ulysses." He " allows," 

 however, that "there was more Heroism in the virture of the 

 Wife Lucretia. . . " ^^ Further ruminating on the typically 

 eighteenth-century problem of Reason as a check on our Pas- 

 sions, he finds that " the Great and most Illustrious Characters 

 on Record demonstrate that they seldom were attended or 

 influenced by this divine Monitor, as Nimrod, Alexander, Julius 

 Caesar, Hanibal, & even Cato," ^® and he comes to the con- 

 clusion that all human passions must " in some degree ... be 

 regulated by Reason " and that we " must observe operations 

 of these in man," for, he quotes, " ' The proper study of Man- 

 kind is man.' " ^° His knowledge of Pope is attested to by 

 another quotation from that poet's work. In a letter to a 

 nephew he recalls that " Hills peep o'er Hills, and Alps on 

 Alps arise." ®^ 



philosophical discourse ; it contains numerous interlineations and shows the marks 

 of many erasures. ''''Ibid., 354. 



''* Ibid. See chapter II. ^' Lengthy dissertation in Bartram Papers, I. 



" Travels, 465. " Ibid. 



'"^ Ibid. 133. ^'' Ibid. From Pope's Essay on Man, II, 2. 



*^ Essay on Criticism, II, 32. For the complete letter, see appendix. 



