But although the immediate effects of such writings cannot be constantly perceived, except in solitude, or in the society of select friends, yet they may remotely be productive of the happiest consequences. The mind of a man of genius, during his solitary walks, is crowded with a variety of ideas, which, on being disclosed, would appear ridiculous to the common herd of mankind: a period, however, arrives, at which they lead men to the performance of actions worthy of immortality. The national songs composed by that ardent genius Lavater, appeared at a moment when the republic was in a declining state, and the temper of the times unfavorable to their reception. The Schintzuach society, by whose persuasion they had been written, had given some offence to the French ambassador; and from that time all the measures which the members adopted were decried with the most factious virulence in every quarter. Even the great Haller, who had been refused admission, considering them as disciples of Rousseau, whom he hated; and as enemies to orthodoxy, which he loved; pointed his epigrams against them in every letter I received from him; and the committee for the reformation of literature at Zurich expressly prohibited the publication of these excellent lyric compositions, on the curious pretence, that it was dangerous and improper to stir up a dunghill. No poet of Greece, however, ever wrote with more fire and force in favor of his country than Lavater did in favor of the liberties of Swisserland. I have heard children chaunt these songs with patriotic enthusiasm; and seen the finest eyes filled with tears of rapture while their ears listened to the singers. Joy glowed in the breasts of the Swiss peasants to whom they were sung: their muscles swelled, and the blood inflamed their cheeks. Fathers have, within my own knowledge, carried their infant children to the chapel of the celebrated William Tell, to join in full chorus the song which Lavater composed upon the merits of that great man. I have myself made the rocks re-echo to my voice, by singing these songs to the music which the feelings of my heart composed for them while wandering over the fields, and climbing among the famous mountains where those heroes, the ancestors of our race, signalized themselves by their immortal valor. I fancied that I saw them still armed with their knotted clubs, breaking to pieces the crowned helmets of Germany; and although inferior in numbers, forcing the proud nobility to seek their safety by a precipitate and ignominious flight. These, it may be said, are romantic notions, and can only please solitary and recluse men, who see things differently from the rest of the world. But great ideas sometimes now make their way in spite of the most obstinate opposition, and operating, particularly in republics, by insensible degrees, sow the seeds of those principles and true opinions, which, as they arrive to maturity, prove so efficacious in times of