He too may speak of the stars, for he sees them shoot perhaps
when the astronomer does not. The good sense of this author is
very conspicuous. He is a traveller who does not exaggerate, but
writes for the information of his readers, for science, and for
history. His story is told with as much good faith and
directness as if it were a report to his brother traders, or the
Directors of the Hudson Bay Company, and is fitly dedicated to
Sir Joseph Banks. It reads like the argument to a great poem on
the primitive state of the country and its inhabitants, and the
reader imagines what in each case, with the invocation of the
Muse, might be sung, and leaves off with suspended interest, as
if the full account were to follow. In what school was this
fur-trader educated? He seems to travel the immense snowy
country with such purpose only as the reader who accompanies him,
and to the latter's imagination, it is, as it were, momentarily
created to be the scene of his adventures. What is most
interesting and valuable in it, however, is not the materials for
the history of Pontiac, or Braddock, or the Northwest, which it
furnishes; not the _annals_ of the country, but the natural
facts, or _perennials_, which are ever without date.
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