Note III-2 — Chapter III · ITINERARY, CONCLUDED: LEECH LAKE TO ST. LOUIS, FEBRUARY 1ST-APRIL 30TH, 1806.

Voy. en Égypte et en Syrie, etc., 2 vols., 8vo, Paris, 1787; tr. Eng., London, 1787, etc. Constantin François Chassebœuf, Comte de Volney, b. Craon, Anjou, Feb. 3d, 1757, d. Paris, Apr. 25th, 1820, is best known in letters by his celebrated work, commonly called "Volney's Ruins," i. e., Les Ruines ou Méditations sur les Révolutions des Empires, etc., orig. ed. 1791, numberless trans. and eds. down to the present time. The illustrious author was the peer of Voltaire or Paine in philosophy and religion, and underwent the usual vicissitudes of free-thinkers of his time, from the prison to the peerage. His intellect was clear and profound, his erudition vast and varied; so they called him an "infidel"—whatever they may have meant by that—and having given him the name would have hanged him had he been hangable. His researches were chiefly in the fields of history, geography, archæology, linguistics, statecraft, and priestcraft, all of which he illuminated to the great inconvenience of political and ecclesiastical demagogues. Nullum tetigit quod non ornavit; the clergy, however, he adorned with a touch that Voltaire himself might have envied. Count Volney was in the U. S. in 1795-6-7; his controversy with the meritorious but somewhat obtuse Priestley, on the unquestionable unorthodoxy of his Ruins, brought his more formal scientific works into prominence, and accentuated the fame of his most imperishable treatise. Cheap editions of the Ruins abound, usually including the tract originally entitled La Loi Naturelle; this is a little catechism designed by a great philosopher to kindly help little fools out of some of their folly; it is quite worthy to rank with Paine's Age of Reason. Volney's complete works were edited by A. Bossange, 8 vols., Paris, 1820-26. Pike was in good company on the 3d, while he nursed his sore feet.