ter his return, received information of his appointment, by Presi dent Washington, as consul at Algiers, with powers to negotiate a treaty of peace with the Dey, and to redeem all American citizens held in slavery on the coast of Barbary. He immediately sat out on this mission, and crossed through Spain over to Algiers. Here he soon concluded a treaty with the Dey, in spite of numerous obstacles thrown in his way, by the agents of the French republic, and of several of the other European powers. In the beginning of the next year, he negotiated a similar treaty with Tripoli, and redeemed and sent home all the American prisoners whom he could discover among the captives of the Barbary powers. These humane exertions were made with great hazard and danger, sometimes, it is said, even at the risk of his life. . His residence at Algiers, though attended with some emolument, had so few attractions to a man devoted to the cultivation of literature and science, that, in 1797, he resigned his consulship and returned to Paris. There, it is understood, that he again engaged in some commercial pursuits which were very successful. Thus he acquired a handsome fortune, which he continued to enjoy to the end of his life. As long as France retained the forms of a free constitution, he continued to regard it as his adopted country, and invested a large proportion of his property in landed estates. Among other purchases was that of the splendid hotel of the Count Clermont de Tonnere, in Paris, in which he lived for some years in an elegant and even sumptuous manner. In the rupture between his native country and France, occasioned by the maritime spoliations of the latter, Barlow exerted all his influence and abilities to bring about an adjustment of differences. To assist in attaining this end he published a letter to the people of the United States on the measures of Mr. Adams's administration. This was soon followed by a second part, in which he took a wide range of original speculation on various political topics, especially on the means of avoiding wars, on maritime law, and the rights of neutrals. His opinions are, as usual, novel and daring; and, if not always correct, seldom fail to exercise the mind with thought, and to suggest new and useful views of important truth. His boldest plan, and one which, wild as it may now seem, it is not incompatible with an enlightened philosopher to hope, that the progress of human improvement and civilization will hereafter reduce into practice, is a proposition for a maritime league, which shall watch over and guaranty the rights of neutral commerce, and decide all commercial controversies between nations, by a chancery of delegates from the several states composing the confederacy. These decisions he proposes they should enforce by withdrawing all commercial intercourse from any power which should refuse submission. At the same period he drew up and presented a memoir to the French government, in which he boldly denounces the whole system of privateering as mere "sea robbery," equally impolitic and immoral; insists at large on the right of neutrals to trade in those articles which the policy of the public law of Europe has prohi bited as contraband of war; points out what he conceives to be the true definition of blockade, and proposes that all these points should be embodied into a formal declaration of rights, and prefixed to the constitution then (1797) forming for the French people. The memoir was received with professions of respect; but as it happened that the manufacturers of the constitution were has tening out their work to answer some immediate end, it was thought inexpedient to delay the adoption of the constitution by the consideration of the proposed addition. After an absence of nearly seventeen years from his native land, Barlow at length became desirous of revisiting the scenes of his youth; of witnessing the improvements which his country had made during that time in all the arts of civilized life, and of enjoying his wealth and honours among his early friends and associates. He doubtless pleased his fancy with many schemes of usefulness or of glory; with the hope of forming the public taste, of directing the opinions, and of elevating the character of his countrymen. Among these plans was the publication of the Columbiad, a poem which had been the labour of half his life, and had been gradually expanded from the Vision of Columbus to the bulk of a stately quarto. He therefore sold off all his real estate in France, shipped his books and furniture to America, and after a short visit to England, returned to his native country in the spring of 1805. After visiting different parts of the continent, he finally purchased a beautiful situation in the neighbourhood of Georgetown, VOL. IV. New Series. 19 but within the limits of the city of Washington, where he built a handsome house which he dignified with the well-sounding Greek name of Kalorama. Here he lived in an elegant and hospitable manner, associating, on the most familiar terms, with the president and other distinguished public men. Always full of zeal for the advancement of science, the cultivation of literature, and the improvement of the arts, all of which he justly deemed inseparably connected with the great interests of regulated liberty, he now ardently engaged in an attempt to establish a great national academy, under the immediate patronage of the federal government. This had been a favourite project of General Washington, and was now supported by the approbation of Mr. Jefferson. In the winter of 1806 Barlow drew up a prospectus of a national institution, which he printed at his own expense, and circulated wherever he thought it might produce any effect favourable to the project. In this pamphlet, after urging with a liberal and enlightened zeal, the utility and importance of a great national academy, he proposes to erect at the seat of government an institution which should combine the two great objects of scientific investigation and of instruction, together with national views, by uniting a university to a learned society, formed on a plan resembling that of the national institute of France, and adding to both a military and naval academy, and a school of fine arts, and thus forming an establishment on so liberal a scale, that no rudiment of learning should be too humble for its notice, no height of improvement above its ambition, and no portion of our widely-extended territory too remote for the influence of its vigilant activity in the collection and diffusion of knowledge. Although strong opposition was made to this plan by the friends of different state institutions, many influential men of both political parties having expressed their opinions in its favour, it was thought proper to bring it forward without delay. On March 4th, 1806, Mr. Logan, of Pennsylvania, brought into the senate of the United States a bill to incorporate a national academy, founded substantially upon the plan proposed in Mr. Barlow's pamphlet. It was passed to a second reading, and referred to a committee, but on the third reading a motion was made to amend it by striking out the word "national." This was strenuously op posed by Dr. Mitchill, a gentleman who, in every part of his public life, has uniformly supported the interests of science and learning. But the vote was strong in favour of the amendment, and was carried without a division. The bill was again referred to a select committee, who never reported, and thus ended this favourite and laboured project of Mr. Barlow. He now devoted himself to the revision and publication of his poem; and in 1808 the Columbiad made its appearance in the most magnificent volume which had ever issued from an American press, and one which might almost vie with the most splendid publications of Didot and Bulmer. It was adorned by a number of excellent engravings, executed in London by the first artists; every thing else was of American workmanship. This edition was inscribed, in an elegant and affectionate dedication, to Robert Fulton, a gentleman whose skill in practical mechanics and spirit of liberal enterprise have since rendered him one of our most valuable citizens. Barlow had long lived on terms of confidential intimacy with Mr. Fulton, and had been accustomed to regard him as his adopted son. The high price at which this edition of the Columbiad was sold was by no means suited to the state of our literary market, and after the sale of a few copies, the rest remained undisturbed on the shelves of the bookseller. A cheaper edition was found necessary to extend the reputation and circulation of the work, and it was In reprinted in 1809, in 2 volumes, 12mo. In the same year it was republished in London, by Philips, in an elegant royal 8vo. spite of these aids, the Columbiad never acquired the popularity which it had enjoyed in its primitive form. It now aspired to the dignity of a philosophical poem; and the narrative part, to which it had owed much of its former reputation, was nearly overwhelmed by political declamation and philosophical discussions: it did not, however, escape the attacks of critics of every rank. The poet had unfortunately laid himself open to the most puny assailants by the frequent use of many strangely pedantic and uncouth words of his own coinage, for which he was deservedly censured, though with unnecessary asperity of language. There were, besides, other faults, both of plan and execution, of a more serious character; these were remarked upon, with their usual severity, by the Edin burgh Reviewers, as well as by several other critical journals of this country and of Great Britain, Barlow bore these attacks without making any formal defence, yet with less dignity than be came a philosopher, attributing them all to political enmity, and, like Sir Fretful Plagiary in the play, often expressing his utter contempt and disregard of all his assailants. These literary accusations were soon followed by one of a more serious nature. Barlow, during his residence abroad, had been intimately connected, both in politics and in private friendship, with M. Gregoire, who had raised himself by his revolutionary zeal and political versatility, united with winning manners, and an active mind, from the rank of a curate to that of Bishop of Blois, president of the convention, and afterwards senator. He had also attained some reputation as a man of letters. His character, though disgraced by political inconsistency, is amply redeemed by the rare merit of having, through the most tempestuous periods of the revolution, nobly sustained the cause of morals and of learning, and of having boldly and steadily avowed his adherence to the religion of his youth, at a time when such a profession was attended not only with the certain loss of power, but with no small personal danger. Barlow had presented Gregoire with a copy of his splendid edi. tion of the Columbiad. The last plate in the volume is entitled "the destruction of prejudices," in which are represented envoys from all parts of the globe, casting down the symbols of delusion of their various systems, into one common heap, before the genius of the human race. Among these are discerned the mitre and the cross. The plate refers to these lines of the poem, -here at last Fraud, folly, error, all their emblems cast. Swords, sceptres, mitres, crowns, and globes, and stars, The union of the cross, that sacred symbol of Christianity so Tear to the catholic church, with the emblems of prejudice and |