t himself a house near Washington, and called it Kalorama. Jefferson
and the Democrats received him with open arms; he embraced them with
equal warmth, and was a very great man for some time. A new edition of
the "Columbiad" completed his fame,--an edition gotten up at his own
expense, with engravings by his friend Robert Fulton; the paper, type,
illustrations, and binding, far superior to anything as yet produced by
American publishers. At the request of the President, Barlow went back
to France as Minister, in the place of General Armstrong. It was the
winter of the Russian campaign. A personal interview with the Emperor on
the subject of the Berlin and Milan Decrees seemed necessary, and Barlow
hurried to Wilna to meet him. The weather was unusually severe, the
roads rough, and the accommodations wretched. Cold and exposure brought
on a violent illness; and Barlow expired in a miserable hut near Cracow.
The "Columbiad" is an enlargement, or rather a dilution, of the "Vision
of Columbus," by the addition of some two thousand verses. The epic
opens with Columbus in prison; to him enters Hesper, an angel. The angel
leads Columbus to the Mount of Vision, whence he beholds the panorama of
the Western Continent he had discovered. Hesper acts as showman, and
explains the tableaux as they roll on. He points out the geographical
features of America, not forgetting Connecticut River; relates the
history of Mexico and of Peru, and explains the origin of races,
cautioning Columbus against the theory of several Adams. Turning north,
he describes the settlement of the English colonies, and narrates the
old French War of General Wolfe and the American Revolution, with the
customary episodes,--Saratoga, Yorktown, Major Andre, Miss McCrea, and
the prison-ships. Finally, the angel predicts the glory of the world's
future,--perpetual peace, unrestricted commerce, public works, health
and longevity, one universal language. The globe, "one confederate,
independent sway," shall

"Spread with the sun, and bound the walks of day;
One central system, one all-ruling soul,
Live through the parts, and regulate the whole."

There is evidently no room for the serpent Secession in Barlow's
paradise. This grand federation of the terrestrial ball is governed by a
general council of elderly married men, "long rows of reverend sires
sublime," presided over by a "sire elect shining in peerless grandeur."
The delegates hold their sessions i