This resolution was afterwards carried into effect: the statue which it decreed was executed by Houdon, and occupies a conspicuous place, in a spacious area in the centre of the capital at Richmond, in Virginia.
[282]. Chief-Justice Marshall, in his Life of George Washington.
[283]. “If the example of all the republics that have preceded us did not authorize the hope, that history will not find us guilty of ingratitude, but only of delay, the national neglect of the memory of Washington would be sufficient to repress every sentiment of patriotism and public spirit. Of this neglect, aggravated by the solemn steps taken by congress to obtain a right to remove the body of the Founder of our Liberties to a place of public and honourable sepulture, and the abandonment of that right when obtained, it is painful to speak—nor is it necessary. There is not wanting a general sentiment of the disgrace which the nation suffers, while the body of Washington rests upon a trussle, crouded into a damp and narrow vault, in which the rapid decay of the wooden support must in a few years mingle his ashes with those of his worthy but unknown relations. Exertions not altogether worthy of the object, but such as the present fashion of finance authorizes, are made, to give to his memory that honour in other cities, which is denied him in the metropolis of the Union.” [See the Ann. Oration delivered before the Society of Artists, in Philadelphia, in May, 1811, by B. H. Latrobe, Esq.]
[284]. Mr. B. H. Latrobe, in speaking of the great improvement in architecture recently manifested in Philadelphia, notices the peculiar advantages derived to that city, from the valuable marbles in its vicinity. “The beautiful marble,” says he, “with which this neighbourhood abounds, and the excellence of all other building materials, give to Philadelphia great advantages in this branch of the fine arts.” (See Mr. Latrobe’s Annual Oration, delivered before the Society of Artists, in Philadelphia, May 8th, 1811.) The correct taste and superior skill of this gentleman, as an Architect and Civil Engineer, are well known in the United States. In Philadelphia, the Bank of Pennsylvania will, more especially, remain a lasting monument of his talents in architectural science, as well as of the excellent quality of the marble (for such purposes) of which that edifice is constructed.
[285]. The Right Hon. David Stewart Erskine, is the present Earl.
[286]. John Napier, called Baron of Merchiston, in Scotland, was the eldest son of Sir Archibald Napier, of Merchiston, and was born in the year 1550. As Lalande, in his Astronomie, observes—“he deserves to be celebrated in a book on Astronomy, for his invention of Logarithms, which he published in 1614. He had,” continues Mr. Lalande, “at first concealed the principle of this discovery: but Kepler soon penetrated it; and the son of Napier, in an edition of his father’s work, which he published, explained the ground of the principles.”
The son here mentioned, Sir Archibald, was promoted to the peerage by Car. I. in the year 1657, and was ancestor of the present Lord Napier.
An account of the Life and Writings of the Inventor of Logarithms was published by the Earl of Buchan. W. B.
[287]. See this Postscript, in the Appendix.
[288]. The Abbé Raynal. The Count de Buffon had conceived an opinion, which he endeavoured to establish by ill-founded arguments, that the animals common both to the Old and the New World, are smaller in the latter: that those peculiar to the New World, are on a smaller scale: that those which have been domesticated in both hemispheres, have degenerated in America: and, that, on the whole, this portion of the world exhibits fewer species. But Raynal went further: he has applied this “new theory” (as Mr. Jefferson calls it) of the ingenious French Naturist, to the race of men, descendants of Europeans, in America. Mr. Jefferson has shewn the erroneousness of these theories, founded on palpably mistaken facts.