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The elegant letter of thanks which accompanied the Resolution, was written by Richard Henry Lee: and the grandson of Richard relates, that this mutual authorship remained unknown to them, until, "after the toils and dangers of the Revolution were ended," each produced to the other his original manuscript. Before the war, and during the greater part of its continuance, they respectively served their country, in like manner, on different sides of the Atlantic.

We have already occupied so many pages, that we must be content with subjoining a few mere memoranda of the Signers whom we have not mentioned, in order to remind our readers of their names, and designate their professions.

Chancellor WYTHE, of Virginia-a lawyer; a judge of the purest morals and deepest learning; idle and dissipated until thirty years of age, when he first applied himself to the law: the preceptor of Jefferson.

GEORGE READ, of Delaware-an eminent lawyer. His biography is ample, interesting, and authentic.

WILLIAM WILLIAMS, of Connecticut-originally a town clerk, but liberally educated-then an upright, benevolent merchant; sacrificed the greater part of his gains to the public service.

SAMUEL HUNTINGTON, of Connecticut ;-a mere ploughman until his twentysecond year; afterwards an eminent lawyer; president of congress; chief justice of his state, and governor. His biography highly curious.

WILLIAM FLOYD, of New-York; a farmer; a general; enjoyed a large share of state honours.

GEORGE WALTON, of Georgia-originally an apprentice to a carpenter in Vir. ginia; self-educated to the law; a colonel; wounded in battle; twice governor of Georgia; chief justice; senator of the United States.

GEORGE CLYMER, of Pennsylvania; a merchant; fond of literature; a terse, sententious writer; an efficient and honoured patriot. His biography full and interesting, but diffuse.

"Goodness his delight,

Wisdom his wealth, and glory his reward."

BENJAMIN RUSH; as a physician and an author, omni laude cumulatus; the most celebrated of the American faculty; distinguished also for his political connexions and labours.

MATTHEW THORNTON, of New-Hampshire-a successful practitioner of medicine; army-surgeon before the Revolution; a colonel; president of the provincial convention; a judge of the Supreme Court; a man of wit and humour; continued to practice physic while a judge; wrote political essays for the newspapers, and prepared a metaphysical work for publication, after he was eighty years of age; died in his eighty-ninth year.

WILLIAM WHIPPLE, of New-Hampshire-originally a cabin-boy and sailor; a captain at the age of twenty-one; then a merchant; a general, who fought with Gates, and elsewhere; arranged the capitulation of Bourgoyne; a judge of the superior court. "As a sailor," says the Biography, "he speedily attained the highest rank in his profession; as a merchant, he was circumspect and industrious; as a congressman, he was firm and fearless; as a legislator, he was honest and able; as a commander, he was cool and courageous; as a judge, he was dignified and impartial; and as a member of many subordinate public offices, he was alert and persevering. He bore all his honours with modesty and propriety."

Dr. JOHN WITHERSPOON, of New-Jersey; an eminent and profound divine; president of Nassau-Hall College; a political writer of force and talent; a statesman of great influence and energy. His biography is ample and instructive.

ROBERT MORRIS, of Pennsylvania; a merchant; the unrivalled financier of the Revolution; the pecuniary soul of the cause. His biography, like that of others, needs compression, but is interesting and correct.

ABRAHAM CLARK, of New-Jersey; a surveyor; a lawyer, who gave gratuitous counsel.

FRANCIS LEWIS, of New-York; a merchant and soldier, before the Revolution; very useful as a rebel; his fine estate on Long-Island destroyed by the British, and his wife carried off a prisoner; she died soon after, from the ill-treatment which she experienced. He was ruined by the part which he took on the American side-died in the ninetieth year of his age.

JOHN PENN, of North-Carolina; uneducated in early life; became a lawyer, and eminent, by opsimathy.

JAMES WILSON, of Pennsylvania; a lawyer of rare capacity, and of surpassing faculties as a speaker and writer; an efficient political essayist; the prin cipal advocate of the Constitution of 1787, in the Pennsylvania convention; professor of law; one of the judges of the Supreme Court of the United States. His biography replete with valuable information and political anecdote.

CARTER BRAXTON, of Virginia; a planter; became a merchant; lost all, and died of a broken heart.

JOHN MORTON, of Pennsylvania; a surveyor; speaker of the General Assembly of Pennsylvania; a judge of the supreme court of the commonwealth; gave the casting vote of the Pennsylvania delegation, for the Declaration of Independence; originally a plough-boy.

STEPHEN HOPKINS, of Rhode-Island; a plain farmer; surveyor; became speaker of the Assembly; chief justice; then governor of Rhode-Island; a man of superior sense, and a good and successful writer; a distinguished mathematician and natural philosopher, though his education was slight; and a member of the American Philosophical Society. His signature to the Declaration is the only crooked and feeble one. "As it indicates," says his biographer, " a very tremulous hand, in perfect contrast with the bold and prominent writing of President Hancock, it may have engendered surmises unfavourable to the determined spirit of Mr. Hopkins. We therefore state, that, for a number of years previous, he had been afflicted with a nervous affection; and when he wrote at all, which was seldom, he was compelled to guide his right hand with his left."

THOMAS M'KEAN, of Pennsylvania; a lawyer of great abilities and ardent revolutionary patriotism; chief justice of the commonwealth; governor; died eighty-three years old. His biography entirely authentic, and replenished with instructive details.

JAMES SMITH, of Pennsylvania; lawyer and surveyor; remarkable for facetiousness and eccentricity; practised the law for upwards of sixty years; died a nonagenarian. His article very pleasant.

THOMAS NELSON, of Virginia; educated in England; an opulent planter; active military officer; commander-in-chief of the Virginia militia, whom he bravely and skilfully headed at the siege of York-Town; governor of Virginia; died in reduced circumstances, having made enormous pecuniary sacrifices to the revolutionary cause.

JOSEPH HEWES, of North-Carolina; a successful merchant; bred a Quaker; died when attending congress, in 1779.

GEORGE TAYLOn, of Pennsylvania; on arriving in America from Ireland, bound himself for a term of years as a common labourer, at the iron-works at Durham, on the Delaware, near Easton; was made clerk to the works; the proprietor dying, he espoused his widow, and finally became, himself, owner of the whole; amassed a large fortune; got into the provincial Assembly; a member of business. Nothing more is recollected of him in the vicinity of his residence, than that "he was a fine man and a furious whig."

JOHN HART, of New-Jersey; a farmer, surnamed "honest John;" had never held a public office, when he was chosen a delegate to congress; his farm pillaged and destroyed by the Hessians; his biography possesses a peculiar interest, as a very edifying illustration of the character and course of an American yeo

man.

LEWIS MORRIS, of New-York; gentleman farmer, and large landed proprietor; his whole domain laid waste and ruined by the enemy; had three gallant sons in the field; the celebrated Gouverneur Morris his half-brother.

WILLIAM ELLERY, of Rhode-Island; a well educated lawyer; an early revolutionary patriot; a very useful member of congress throughout the war. "He often," says his biographer, "spoke of the signing of the Declaration of Independence; and he spoke of it as an event, which many regarded with awe, perhaps with uncertainty, but none with fear." He used to relate, that he placed himself beside the secretary, Charles Thomson, and eyed each delegate closely as he affixed his name to the document; and he saw dauntless resolution in every countenance. Ellery died, without pain, at the age of ninety-three, sitting upright in his bed, and reading Tully's Offices, in the Latin.

Of no distemper, of no blast he died,

But fell like autumn-fruit that mellow'd long:
Ev'n wonder'd at because he falls no sooner.
Fate seem'd to wind him up for fourscore years;
Yet freshly ran he on twelve winters more:
Till, like a clock worn out with eating time,
The wheels of weary life at last stood still.”

LYMAN HALL, of Georgia; an emigrant from Connecticut; a well-trained phy. sician; a useful member of congress; made great sacrifices; governor of Georgia, 1783.

OLIVER WOLCOTT, of Connecticut; a graduate of Yale College; captain in the army before the Revolution; studied medicine; a major-general of militia; aided in conquering Bourgoyne; a judge; finally governor of Connecticut.

RICHARD STOCKTON, of New-Jersey; an accomplished lawyer and scholar, unrivalled at the bar of his state. After acquiring a competent fortune in his profession, travelled with much eclat in Great Britain; one of the judges of the supreme court of New-Jersey; embarked early and vehemently in the Revolution; surprised and captured by the enemy, and committed to the common jail at New-York; congress directed general Washington to interfere in his behalf, and threaten retaliation; his health impaired; his property devastated; died prematurely, of complicated afflictions, occasioned by his patriotism.

BUTTON GWINNETT, of Georgia; originally a merchant; became a planter; an enthusiastic rebel; president of the provincial Council; killed in a duel with General M'Intosh, in 1777, at the age of forty-five.

JOSIAH BARTLETT, of New-Hampshire; a successful practitioner of medicine; a leading whig in his province; commanded a regiment; the first who voted in congress for the Declaration, and the second who signed it; chief justice of New-Hampshire; the first republican governor of that state.

PHILIP LIVINGSTON, of New-York; one of the committee of five appointed to prepare the Declaration of Independence; a graduate of Yale College; a pros perous and honoured merchant; conspicuous member of the provincial legisla ture; speaker; died, while attending congress, in 1778, a martyr to his public zeal.

ROGER SHERMAN, of Connecticut; also one of the committee of five; apprentice to a shoemaker, and pursued the business until after he was twenty-two years of age; travelled on foot, with his tools, gaining a livelihood; nourished his mind by various reading; kept a country-store; turned surveyor; applied himself to the law; acquired practice and fame; member of the colonial Assembly; member of the Albany convention of 1754; judge of the superior court of Connecticut, twenty-three years; member of congress from the opening of the first, in 1774, down to the period of his death, in 1793; of great authority and usefulness; a member of the convention that framed the present constitution of the United States; took a considerable and influential part in the debate; a sena tor in congress; a shrewd and ready writer; a logical debater; a model of probity, discretion, and steadfastness; as much revered as any patriot of the times. His biography is full of instruction, but prolix to tediousness.

It is seen, by the foregoing heads, that the Signers consisted of lawyers, doctors, merchants, farmers, and a few rich planters; each of which description could boast members that towered in the most exalted class of the revolutionary worthies: and with regard to these, no province of the confederation could

properly exult over the other, so happily were they distributed throughout the whole. Whatever has been brought to light, in their confidential letters and papers, concerning their sensations, views, and measures, is calculated to enhance their repute for probity, wisdom, firmness, and patriotism. Making that allowance for foibles and mistakes, which is the claim of human infirmity, and for the natural partiality of those who have furnished the materials of these Lives, it is yet impossible to have perused them, and not to be persuaded that no people were ever blessed with a grand council more admirably prepared, in spirit and capacity, to achieve the most momentous of national enterprises, and furnish the largest contingent to the records of honour. If the Declaration of Independence be, of itself, excellent and glorious, it is rendered more so by the characters of the Signers; not such as they are lauded by chosen encomiasts, but as they are proved to have been by their performances, their sacrifices, and those remains, originally of a private nature, but now divulged, which lay bare their secret feelings, thoughts, and designs, unsusceptible of doubt or misconstruction. The degree in which they acted, so perilously and strenuously, upon principle, not less than sentiment, and with reference to probable future rather than present or personal ills, is, we may affirm, unparalleled in the examples of collective public virtue. They pledged their lives and property, made prodigious efforts, underwent the sharpest trials, voluntarily and mainly for abstract right; for the mere sense of regulated liberty, and for the political dignity, more than the vulgar welfare, of their descendants. All their political speculations, too, had a sure anchorage in religion, morals, law, and order. Many of them fought with the armies; and all seem to have been endued with that "courage of the cabinet" which Burke justly proclaims to be more powerful and far less common than the valour of the field. To them, he, their admirer and ally, might and doubtless would have applied his own language, used of true statesmen and patriots generally: "Their fortitude is very different from the unthinking alacrity of the common soldier, or common sailor, in the face of danger and death; it is a cool, steady, deliberate principle, always present, always equable; having no connection with anger; tempering honour with prudence; incited, invigorated, and sustained, by a generous love of fame; informed, moderated, and directed, by an enlarged knowledge of its own great public ends; flowing in one blended stream from the opposite sources of the heart and head; carrying in itself its own commission, and proving its title to every other command, by the first and most difficult command, that of the bosom in which it resides."

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ART. VI.-Précis du Système Hieroglyphique des anciens Egyptiens, ou Recherches sur les Elémens premiers de cette Ecriture Sacrée, &c. Par M. CHAMPOLLION le jeune: Paris, Treuttel Wurtz, 1824, pp. 410, avec un volume de planches.

We cannot consider as the least important of the discoveries which embellish the present age, that by which the key to the sacred writing of the ancient Egyptians has been furnished. It is in truth a discovery as unexpected as it is singular: that the records and monuments of a people which had reached a high degree of civilization at a period centuries before the date of the carliest profane historian, and which for upwards of fifteen hundred years had remained as a sealed book, should be at once unfolded to our perusal, is an incident that must awaken and excite attention; and while we feel disposed to hail it with joy, as about to open to us information in relation to the history, the sciences and the arts of that mysterious nation, we hesitate in our belief, and are led to inquire, whether it be possible that this long-attempted task has at last been executed, and what second Edipus has solved the riddle of the primeval Sphynx ?

After Judea, the seat of the people that by a constant miracle was made the depository and witness of our revealed religion, and Greece, the cradle of our science and the nursery of our arts, Egypt would naturally next attract the attention of those who take a pleasure in inquiring into the history of the human race. But there is such an air of mystery thrown around that country, by a variety of circumstances, as to render our curiosity far more intense in regard to it than to any other. Every important fact of Jewish history is recorded in a language which, in its rabbinical dialect, has scarcely ceased to be spoken; we are familiar with the characters, the manners, and the customs of its several ages; and the modern traveller, with the book of inspiration in his hand, can trace the wanderings of the Patriarchs, the conquests of its law-givers, and the dominions of its kings: moreover, of all its princely and sacred edifices, not one stone has been left upon another, to tell where they once stood, or to lead the pilgrim to search among their ruins for additional evidence of the truth of those writings, of which, the very obliteration of every monument of art, is perhaps the most solemn and striking confirmation.

The existence of the Greeks, in such a state as to be worthy of the attention of enlightened curiosity, is comparatively modern. We care little for the piracies of the islanders, or the petty wars of the earlier inhabitants of that country; it is only when its arts and its literature had reached such a degree of per

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