ic in its simplicity, and withal composed
with obvious artistry:

See him as he lies there in the sun, kicking his heels in the air and
cracking jokes with his brother. Does he look like a hero? See him
now in the hour of his glory, when at sunset the whole village empties
itself to behold him, for to-morrow their favourite young partisan
goes out against the enemy. His head-dress is adorned with a crest
of war-eagle's feathers, rising in a waving ridge above his brow, and
sweeping far behind him. His round white shield hangs at his breast,
with feathers radiating from the centre like a star. His quiver is at
his back; his tall lance in his hand, the iron point flashing against
the declining sun, while the long scalp-locks of his enemies flutter
from the shaft. Thus gorgeous as a champion in panoply, he rides round
and round within the great circle of lodges, balancing with a graceful
buoyancy to the free movements of his war-horse, while with a sedate
brow he sings his song to the Great Spirit.

That is the language of classicism. The epithets are not far-sought.
They come naturally to the mind. The hero's shield is round and white;
his lance is tall; long are the scalp-locks of his enemies. Thus would
Homer and Virgil have heightened the picture, and Park-man is clearly
attentive to the best models. Even when he describes what his eye
has seen he cannot disengage his impression from the associations of
literature. It is thus that he sets before us Braddock's line of march:

It was like a thin, party-coloured snake, red, blue, and brown, trailing
slowly through the depth of leaves, creeping round inaccessible heights,
crawling over ridges, moving always in dampness and shadow, by rivulets
and waterfalls, crags and chasms, gorges and shaggy steeps. In glimpses
only, through jagged boughs and flickering leaves, did this wild
primeval world reveal itself, with its dark green mountains, flecked
with the morning mist, and its distant summits pencilled in dreamy blue.

As you read these words you are less keenly conscious of a visual
impression than of a verbal effect, and it may be said without reserve
that never for a page of his many volumes does Park-man forget the
demands of dignity and restraint.

Excellent as is the style, it is never American. Parkman does not reveal
his origin in a single phrase. He has learned to write not in his own
land, but in the England of the eighteenth century. When he speaks
of "the pa