Life and Letters of Joel Barlow, LL.D., Poet, Statesman, Philosopher: With Extracts from His Works and Hitherto Unpublished Poems

ON the 11th of September the tedious quarantine was finished, and the exile hastened to his wife and friends in Paris. The city was the same, but the Republic had changed. The victories of the young general, Bonaparte, in Italy, had given her prestige, and put an entirely different face on the politics of Europe. The strained nature of French relations with America alone gave the poet uneasiness. Restored to his wife, his books, his friends, he settled down to a life of scholarly and literary retirement, enough disturbed by incursions of business, society, and politics to prevent its becoming stagnant. In a letter to Donaldson, written in 1800, he estimates his losses by the mission to Algiers at $20,000; but this was probably a hypothetical loss -- the amount which he would have made had he remained. His fortune, thanks to the prudent management of his wife, had been kept intact; indeed, by the rise in French securities, of which he held or controlled a large block, it had been considerably added to. A future of happiness and contentment seemed his lot. His chief occupations for the next seven years were of a literary character, though he watched with intensest interest the progess of political movements in both Europe and America. We will notice first his literary enterprises: fiction excepted, these covered the entire range of literature -- poetry, history, translations, and essays on political, economic, and scientific questions. His activity in this direction was intense. A vast array of notes and the prospectus for a contemplated "History of the French Revolution" were prepared at this time. He had published, before accept

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