Volney's Lectures on History, which were attended by an immense
concourse of auditors, became one of his chief claims to literary glory.
When forced to interrupt them, by the suppression of the Normal school,
he might have reasonably expected to enjoy in his retirement that
consideration which his recent functions had added to his name. But,
disgusted with the scenes he had witnessed in his native land, he felt
that passion revive within him which, in his youth, had led him to visit
Africa and Asia. America, civilized within a century, and free only
within a few years, fixed his attention. There every thing was new,--the
inhabitants, the constitution, the earth itself. These were objects
worthy of his observation. When embarking for this voyage, however, he
felt emotions very different from those which formerly accompanied him
into Turkey. Then in the prime of life, he joyfully bid adieu to a
land where peace and plenty reigned, to travel amongst barbarians;
now, mature in years, but dismayed at the spectacle and experience of
injustice and persecution, it was with diffidence, as we learn from
himself, that he went to implore from a free people an asylum for a
sincere friend of that liberty that had been so profaned.

Our traveller had gone to seek for repose beyond the seas. He there
found himself exposed to aggression from a celebrated philosopher, Dr.
Priestley. Although the subject of this discussion was confined to the
investigation of some speculative opinions, published by the French
writer in his work entitled The Ruins, the naturalist in this attack
employed a degree of violence which added nothing to the force of his
arguments, and an acrimony of expression not to be expected from a
philosopher. M. Volney, though accused of Hottentotism and ignorance,
preserved in his defence, all the advantages that the scurrility of
his adversary gave over him. He replied in English, and Priestley's
countrymen could only recognize the Frenchman in the refinement and