Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 1 (Stockdale).djvu/16

 form his own judgment. He will perhaps agree with us, that the Author writes with the modesty and perspicuity which become a philosopher, who all along recollects that he is composing a narrative, and not a declamation. He has, in our opinion, with great taste and judgment, generally abstained from those rhetorical flourishes, which give an air of bombast to too many of the works of his countrymen, even when treating of subjects which demand accuracy rather than ornament. Most of his reflections are pertinent and just, and not so far pursued as to deprive the reader of an opportunity of exercising his ingenuity by extending them farther.

This chaste and unaffected manner of writing may be considered as an internal mark of the fidelity of his narrative. He had no weak or deformed parts to conceal with flowery verbiage, and therefore he rejected its meretricious aid. As another, and a still stronger proof of our Author's fidelity, we may mention his occasional censure of the conduct of Officers, not excepting the Commander in Chief himself, when their conduct happened not to appear quite deserving of that general approbation, which he seems willing to bellow. A man must be very conscious of having honestly executed his own mission, and of faithfully