And look, how calmly in yon radiant wave, The dying sun prepares his golden grave. Oh mighty river! oh ye banks of shade! Ye matchless scenes, in nature's morning made, While still, in all th' exuberance of prime, She pour'd her wonders, lavishly sublime, Nor yet had learn'd to stoop, with humbler care, From grand to soft, from wonderful to fair ;Say, were your towering hills, your boundless floods, Your rich savannas and majestic woods, Where bards should meditate and heroes rove, And woman charm, and man deserve her love,Oh say, was world so bright, but born to grace Its own half-organised, half-minded race' Of weak barbarians, swarming o'er its breast, Like vermin gender'd on the lion's crest? Were none but brutes to call that soil their home, Where none but demigods should dare to roam? Or worse, thou wondrous world! oh! doubly worse, Did heaven design thy lordly land to nurse The motley dregs of every distant clime, Each blast of anarchy and taint of crime Which Europe shakes from her perturbed sphere, In full malignity to rankle here?

But hold, observe yon little mount of pines, Where the breeze murmurs and the fire-fly shines. There let thy fancy raise, in bold relief, The sculptur'd image of that veteran chief' Who lost the rebel's in the hero's name, And climb'd o'er prostrate loyalty to fame ; Beneath whose sword Columbia's patriot train Cast off their monarch, that their mob might reign.

How shall we rank thee upon glory's page? Thou more than soldier and just less than sage! Of peace too fond to act the conqueror's part, Too long in camps to learn a statesman's art, Nature design'd thee for a hero's mould, But, ere she cast thee, let the stuff grow cold.

While loftier souls command, nay, make their fate,

Thy fate made thee and forc'd thee to be great.

visitors of the first man in America. With respect to all that is within the house, I shall imitate the prudent forbearance of Herodotus, and say, ra de ev aroppητæ.

The private buildings exhibit the same characteristic display of arrogant speculation and premature ruin; and the few ranges of houses which were begun some years ago have remained so long waste and unfinished, that they are now for the most part dilapidated.

1 The picture which Buffon and De Pauw have drawn of the American Indian, though very humiliating, is, as far as I can judge, much more correct than the flattering representations which Mr. Jefferson has given us. See the Notes on Virginia, where this gentleman endeavours to disprove in general the opinion maintained so strongly by some philosophers that nature (as Mr. Jefferson expresses it) be-litties her productions in the western world. M. de Pauw attributes the imperfection of animal life in America to the ravages of a very recent deluge, from whose effects upon its soil and atmosphere it has not yet sufficiently recovered."- Recherches sur les Américains, part i. tom. i. p. 102.

Yet Fortune, who so oft, so blindly sheds
Her brightest halo round the weakest heads,
Found thee undazzled, tranquil as before,
Proud to be useful, scorning to be more;
Less mov'd by glory's than by duty's claim,
Renown the meed, but self-applause the aim;
All that thou wert reflects less fame on thee,
Far less, than all thou didst forbear to be.
Nor yet the patriot of one land alone,
For, thine's a name all nations claim their own;
And every shore, where breath'd the good and
brave,

-

Echo'd the plaudits thy own country gave.

Now look, my friend, where faint the moonlight

falls

On yonder dome, and, in those princely halls, —

If thou canst hate, as sure that soul must hate,
Which loves the virtuous, and reveres the great,—
If thou canst loathe and execrate with me
The poisonous drug of French philosophy,
That nauseous slaver of these frantic times,
With which false liberty dilutes her crimes,-
If thou hast got, within thy freeborn breast,
One pulse that beats more proudly than the rest,
With honest scorn for that inglorious sonl,
Which creeps and winds beneath a mob's control,
Which courts the rabble's smile, the rabble's nod,
And makes, like Egypt, every beast its god,
There, in those walls-but, burning tongue, forbear!
Rank must be reverenc'd, even the rank that's
there :

So here I pause

and now, dear Hume, we part: But oft again, in frank exchange of heart, Thus let us meet, and mingle converse dear By Thames at home, or by Potowmac here. O'er lake and marsh, through fevers and through fogs,

Midst bears and yankees, democrats and frogs, Thy foot shall follow me, thy heart and eyes With me shall wonder, and with me despise.' While I, as oft, in fancy's dream shall rove, With thee conversing, through that land I love,

2 On a small hill near the capitol there is to be an equestrian statue of General Washington.

3 In the ferment which the French revolution excited among the democrats of America, and the licentious sympathy with which they shared in the wildest excesses of jacobinism, we may find one source of that vulgarity of vice, that hostility to all the graces of life, which distinguishes the present demagogues of the United States, and has become indeed too generally the characteristic of their countrymen. But there is another cause of the corruption of private morals, which, encouraged as it is by the government, and identified with the interests of the community, seems to threaten the decay of all honest principle in America. I allude to those fraudulent violations of neutrality to which they are indetted for the most lucrative part of their commerce, and by which they have so long infringed and counteracted the maritime rights and advantages of this country. This unwarrantable trade is necessarily abetted by such a system of collusion, impos ture, and perjury, as cannot fail to spread rapid contamination around it.

SONG

ОР

THE EVIL SPIRIT OF THE WOODS.1

Qua via difficilis, quaque est via nulla.

Ovid. Metam. lib. iii. v. 227.

Now the vapour, hot and damp,
Shed by day's expiring lamp,
Through the misty ether spreads
Every ill the white man dreads;
Fiery fever's thirsty thrill,
Fitful ague's shivering chill!

Hark! I hear the traveller's song,
As he winds the woods along ;-
Christian, 'tis the song of fear;
Wolves are round thee, night is near,
And the wild thou dar'st to roam-
Think, 'twas once the Indian's home!"

Hither, sprites, who love to harm, Wheresoe'er you work your charm, By the creeks, or by the brakes, Where the pale witch feeds her snakes, And the cayman loves to creep, Torpid, to his wintry sleep: Where the bird of carrion flits, And the shudd'ring murderer sits, Lone beneath a roof of blood; While upon his poison'd food, From the corpse of him he slew Drops the chill and gory dew.

Hither bend ye, turn ye hither, Eyes that blast and wings that wither! Cross the wand'ring Christian's way, Lead him, ere the glimpse of day, Many a mile of madd'ning error, Through the maze of night and terror, Till the morn behold him lying On the damp earth, pale and dying. Mock him, when his eager sight Seeks the cordial cottage-light;

1 The idea of this poem occurred to me in passing through the very dreary wilderness between Batavia, a new settlement in the midst of the woods, and the little village of Buffalo upon Lake Erie. This is the most fatiguing part of the route, in travelling through the Genesee country to Niagara.

2 "The Five Confederated Nations (of Indians) were settled along the banks of the Susquehannah and the adjacent country, until the year 1779, when General Sullivan, with an army of 4000 men, drove them from their country to Niagara, where, being obliged to live on salted provisions, to which they were unaccustomed, great numbers of them died. Two hundred of them, it is said, were buried in one grave, where they had encamped."-Morse's American Geography.

3 The alligator, who is supposed to lie in a torpid state all the winter, in the bank of some creek or pond, having previously

Gleam then, like the lightning-bug,
Tempt him to the den that's dug
For the foul and famish'd brood
Of the she-wolf, gaunt for blood;
Or, unto the dangerous pass
O'er the deep and dark morass,
Where the trembling Indian brings
Belts of porcelain, pipes, and rings,
Tributes, to be hung in air,
To the Fiend presiding there! 5

Then, when night's long labour past,
Wilder'd, faint, he falls at last,
Sinking where the causeway's edge
Moulders in the slimy sedge,
There let every noxious thing
Trail its filth and fix its sting;
Let the bull-toad taint him over,
Round him let mosquitoes hover,
In his ears and eyeballs tingling,
With his blood their poison mingling,
Till, beneath the solar fires,
Rankling all, the wretch expires!

ΤΟ

THE HONOURABLE W. R. SPENCER.

FROM BUFFALO, UPON LAKE ERIE.

Nec venit ad duros musa vocata Getas.
OVID. ex Ponto, lib. i. ep. 5L

THOU oft hast told me of the happy hours
Enjoy'd by thee in fair Italia's bowers,
Where, ling'ring yet, the ghost of ancient wit
Midst modern monks profanely dares to flit,
And pagan spirits, by the pope unlaid,
Haunt every stream and sing through every shade.
There still the bard who (if his numbers be
His tongue's light echo) must have talk'd like
thee,-

The courtly bard, from whom thy mind has caught
Those playful, sunshine holidays of thought,

swallowed a large number of pine-knots, which are his only s tenance during the time.

4 This was the mode of punishment for murder (as Charle tells us) among the Hurons. "They laid the dead body upon pos at the top of a cabin, and the murderer was obliged to remain several days together, and to receive all that dropped from the carcass, not only on himself but on his food."

5"We find also collars of porcelain, tobacco, ears of maize. skins, &c. by the side of difficult and dangerous ways, on rocks at by the side of the falls; and these are so many offerings mas to the spirits which preside in these places." See Cha, Jerect a Letter on the Traditions and the Religion of the Savages of Caris, Father Hennepin too mentions this ceremony; he also "We took notice of one barbarian, who made a kind of sacride upon an oak at the Cascade of St. Antony of Padua, upon the river Mississippi."—See Hennepin's Voyage into North America

In which the spirit baskingly reclines,
Bright without effort, resting while it shines,-
There still he roves, and laughing loves to see
How modern priests with ancient rakes agree;
How, 'neath the cowl, the festal garland shines,
And Love stills finds a niche in Christian shrines.

There still, too, roam those other souls of song, With whom thy spirit hath commun'd so long, That, quick as light, their rarest gems of thought, By Memory's magic to thy lip are brought. But here, alas! by Erie's stormy lake, As, far from such bright haunts my course I take, No proud remembrance o'er the fancy plays, No classic dream, no star of other days Hath left that visionary light behind, That ling'ring radiance of immortal mind, Which gilds and hallows even the rudest scene, The humblest shed, where genius once has been !

All that creation's varying mass assumes
Of grand or lovely, here aspires and blooms;
Bold rise the mountains, rich the gardens glow,
Bright lakes expand, and conquering' rivers flow;
But mind, immortal mind, without whose ray,
This world's a wilderness and man but clay,
Mind, mind alone, in barren, still repose,

Nor blooms, nor rises, nor expands, nor flows.
Take Christians, Mohawks, democrats, and all
From the rude wig-wam to the congress-hall,
From man the savage, whether slav'd or free,
To man the civilis'd, less tame than he,-
'Tis one dull chaos, one unfertile strife
1 Betwixt half-polish'd and half-barbarous life;
Where every ill the ancient world could brew
Is mix'd with every grossness of the new;
Where all corrupts, though little can entice,
And nought is known of luxury, but its vice!

Is this the region then, is this the clime For soaring fancies? for those dreams sublime, Which all their miracles of light reveal To heads that meditate and hearts that feel? Alas! not so-the Muse of Nature lights Her glories round; she scales the mountain heights, And roams the forests; every wondrous spot Barns with her step, yet man regards it not. She whispers round, her words are in the air, But lost, unheard, they linger freezing there,2

This epithet was suggested by Charlevoix's striking description of the confluence of the Missouri with the Mississippi. "I believe this is the finest confluence in the world. The two rivers are ch of the same breath, each about half a league: but the Missouri is by far the most rapid, and seems to enter the Mississippi ake a conqueror, through which it carries its white waves to the <mposite shore, without mixing them: afterwards it gives its colour to the Mississippi, which it never loses again, but carries quite down to the sea."--Letter xxvii.

2 Alluding to the fanciful notion of "words congealed in northern sir."

Without one breath of soul, divinely strong, One ray of mind to thaw them into song.

Yet, yet forgive me, oh ye sacred few, Whom late by Delaware's green banks I knew; Whom, known and lov'd through many a social eve, 'Twas bliss to live with, and 'twas pain to leave.3 Not with more joy the lonely exile scann'd The writing trac'd upon the desert's sand, Where his lone heart but little hop'd to find One trace of life, one stamp of human kind, Than did I hail the pure, th' enlighten'd zeal, The strength to reason and the warmth to feel, The manly polish and the illumin'd taste, Which,-'mid the melancholy, heartless waste My foot has travers'd,- oh you sacred few! I found by Delaware's green banks with you.

Long may you loathe the Gallic dross that runs
Through your fair country and corrupts its sons;
Long love the arts, the glories which adorn
Those fields of freedom, where your sires were born.
Oh! if America can yet be great,

If neither chain'd by choice, nor doom'd by fate
To the mob-mania which imbrutes her now,
She yet can raise the crown'd, yet civic brow
Of single majesty,-can add the grace
Of Rank's rich capital to Freedom's base,
Nor fear the mighty shaft will feebler prove
For the fair ornament that flowers above ;·
If yet releas'd from all that pedant throng,
So vain of error and so pledg'd to wrong,
Who hourly teach her, like themselves, to hide
Weakness in vaunt, and barrenness in pride,
She yet can rise, can wreathe the Attic charms
Of soft refinement round the pomp of arms,
And see her poets flash the fires of song,
To light her warriors' thunderbolts along ;-
It is to you, to souls that favouring heaven
Has made like yours, the glorious task is given :-
Oh! but for such, Columbia's days were done;
Rank without ripeness, quicken'd without sun,
Crude at the surface, rotten at the core,
Her fruits would fall, before her spring were o'er.

Believe me, Spencer, while I wing'd the hours Where Schuylkill winds his way through banks of flowers,

Though few the days, the happy evenings few, So warm with heart, so rich with mind they flew,

3 In the society of Mr. Dennie and his friends, at Philadelphia, I passed the few agreeable moments which my tour through the States afforded me. Mr. Dennie has succeeded in diffusing through this cultivated little circle that love for good literature and sound politics, which he feels so zealously himself, and which is so very rarely the characteristic of his countrymen. They will not, I trust, accuse me of illiberality for the picture which I have given of the ignorance and corruption that surround them. If I did not hate, as I ought, the rabble to which they are opposed, I could not value, as I do, the spirit with which they defy it; and in learning from them what Americans can be, I but see with the more indignation what Americans are.

That my charm'd soul forgot its wish to roam,
And rested there, as in a dream of home.
And looks I met, like looks I'd lov'd before,
And voices too, which, as they trembled o'er
The chord of memory, found full many a tone
Of kindness there in concord with their own.
Yes, we had nights of that communion free,
That flow of heart, which I have known with thee
So oft, so warmly; nights of mirth and mind,
Of whims that taught, and follies that refin'd.
When shall we both renew them? when, restor❜d
To the gay feast and intellectual board,
Shall I once more enjoy with thee and thine
Those whims that teach, those follies that refine?
Even now, as wand'ring upon Erie's shore,
I hear Niagara's distant cataract roar,
I sigh for home,-alas! these weary feet
Have many a mile to journey, ere we meet.

Ο ΠΑΤΡΙΣ ΩΣ ΣΟΥ ΚΑΡΤΑ ΝΥΝ ΜΝΕΙΑΝ ΕΧΩ.

1 I wrote these words to an air which our boatmen sung to us frequently. The wind was so unfavourable that they were obliged to row all the way, and we were five days in descending the river from Kingston to Montreal, exposed to an intense sun during the day, and at night forced to take shelter from the dews in any miserable hut upon the banks that would receive us. But the magnificent scenery of the St. Lawrence repays all such difficulties.

Our voyageurs had good voices, and sung perfectly in tune to gether. The original words of the air, to which I adapted these stanzas, appeared to be a long, incoherent story, of which I could understand but little, from the barbarous pronunciation of the Canadians. It begins

Dans mon chemin j'ai rencontré
Deux cavaliers très-bien montés;

And the refrain to every verse was,

A l'ombre d'un bois je m'en vais jouer,

A l'ombre d'un bois je m'en vais danser.

I ventured to harmonise this air, and have published it. With

FAINTLY as tolls the evening chime
Our voices keep tune and our oars keep time.
Soon as the woods on shore look dim,
We'll sing at St. Ann's our parting hymn.*
Row, brothers, row, the stream runs fast,
The Rapids are near and the daylight's past.

Why should we yet our sail unfurl? There is not a breath the blue wave to curl; But, when the wind blows off the shore, Oh! sweetly we'll rest our weary oar. Blow, breczes, blow, the stream runs fast, The Rapids are near and the daylight's past.

Utawas' tide! this trembling moon Shall see us float over thy surges soon. Saint of this green isle! hear our prayers, Oh, grant us cool heavens and favouring airs. Blow, breezes, blow, the stream runs fast, The Rapids are near and the daylight's past.

out that charm which association gives to every little memorial of scenes or feelings that are past, the melody may, perhaps, be thought common and trifling; but I remember when we have entered, si sunset, upon one of those beautiful lakes, into which the St. Lavrence so grandly and unexpectedly opens, I have heard this sin pie air with a pleasure which the finest compositions of the first masters have never given me; and now there is not a note of it which does | || not recall to my memory the dip of our oars in the St. Lawre the flight of our boat down the Rapids, and all those new and fanciful impressions to which my heart was alive during the whole of this very interesting voyage.

The above stanzas are supposed to be sung by those opges who go to the Grand Portage by the Utawas River. For se ac count of this wonderful undertaking, see Sir Alexander Mackenzie's General History of the Fur Trade, prefixed to his Journal.

2" At the rapid of St. Ann they are obliged to take out part, if not the whole, of their lading. It is from this spot the Canadian consider they take their departure, as it possesses the last church m the island, which is dedicated to the tutelar saint of voyagers."Mackenzie, General History of the Fur Trade.