*

place in Downing-street. It is on Sunday, at this time, just after Her Majesty has come from the Chapel Royal, that the most important cabinet business is laid before the council, and decided upon. Some objections have been raised to this custom, but the people generally approve of it. It is on these occasions that, in making a decision, the sovereign has a legislative capacity, but her vote counts as one member only of the cabinet which administers the govern. ment. The powers of church and state, sovereign and people, are balanced in England with much greater nicety than is generally supposed, in America.

The cathedral service is always performed at the Chapel Royal, and the arrangements are grand and beautiful. The choir is composed of regular scholars belonging to the Royal Academy of Music, endowed by the sovereign's private purse, and under the direction of Sir George Smart. One of the best chapels in London, next to the Chapel Royal, is that which is attached to the Foundling Hospital.

Every day in the year, cathedral service is performed throughout all England, and any man who can spare the time, may step into Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's cathedral, or forty others, and enjoy the beauties of a service and a religion, which are supported by the learning, the wealth, and the power of the British nation.

At the chapels of the different continental ambassadors, who reside in London, divine service is performed by Roman Catholic priests, belonging to the respective countries which the ambassadors represent. As the obvious intention is the accommodation of foreign residents, nó person can be admitted, unless with a ticket from bis ambassador. This makes the company select, without being a decided barrier to any one who will take the trouble of applying to any of the ambassadors; otherwise, the crowds who might go to see the grandeur of such a service would be very uncomfortable to those whom the chapels are expressly intended to benefit. Some of these edifices are small, being merely attached to the house of the ambassador; but the others are large, and the service in all of them is impressive and beautiful. There are always great numbers of continental singers in London, and they are very fond of meeting at church, so as to sing together, con amore. The churches of the Roman Ca. tholics yield in magnificence to none in the world, except in point of architecture, and that circumstance is easily accounted for. In these, the solemnity of the High Mass, the heavenly harmony of the voices, the thrilling grandeur of the music, and the splendid composition of the ` English Lecture' which generally closes the service, are all of that sacred character, which would engage the minds of the foreigner or the native; the Christian, or the man whose heart is yet unchanged by the power of God.

The afternoon is the time when each person follows his own inclination, with more reference to personal enjoyment. Some take a late dinner ; some take a glass, or perhaps two; some take a nap; some take a book, and some take out a new suit, to take an airing. The tea-gardens, which are so numerous in and around London, are sure to be well attended in the summer time, and in the winter, friends, relations, and visitors, will meet round the fire, which, finding itself hemmed in by such a semi-circle of red faces, does nothing but

return the compliment; that is to say, with the aid of a few timely visits from the coal-scuttle, and some of the Christmas lumps' sorted out for the purpose.

It is in the afternoon, that the mass of the people congregate toward the parks, where throngs of all classes pass in review before each other. The prince and his butler, the duke and his tailor, the banker and his clerk, the tradesman and his laborer, all meet here on common ground, and exchange salutations. The parks are mostly crowded from two until seven o'clock, and these hours are equally convenient for those who have dined, or for the nobility who are just taking the morning drive.' The inspiring beauty of the scene can only be judged of by the reality. To describe the splendor and magnificence of the equipages, the display of wealth, taste, and elegance, and, above all, the hearty sociality which marks every movement of the people assembled, would require the pen of a poet, and a charmed existence to the imagination.

The varieties of out-door attractions can scarcely be enumerated. For those who prefer aquatic amusements, there is the Thames, with all its panoramic changes of scenery. The bridges, of which there are nine, are any one of them an agreeable promenade. The parks, squares, and gardens, areall open to the public; even Kensington Gardens, the private property of the royal family, are thrown open from April to October, and are rendered decidedly the most fashionable resort. The ladies who visit these gardens, all appear to dress as if they expected to meet some of the royal owners during their walk. The gardens are so contrived as to exhibit every possible view which a landscape can possess. The air is scented with the most beautiful flowers, and all the perfumes of the toilet. The colors of the ladies' dresses, as their fair owners glide among the noble trees on the parterre, would enliven the eye of the most melancholy misanthrope. The endless varieties of the walks and views are such as to form a kaleidoscope of pleasure to the senses, and a sublime vision to the soul. On the mounds which overlook some parts of the wall that is built round the gardens, are ranged in solid phalanx the 'flower and chivalry' of Britain, the young men of the day, who have gallopped up to view the passing river of fashion, grace and beauty, but are prevented from coming any nearer, by an order which forbids any mounted person or vehicle from entering the gardens. Many a love-scene is enacted in the bowers with which these noble gardens are ornamented; many a couple find themselves taken prisoners when the gates are closed at ten o'clock at night; and many a fair one has been helped over the garden wall, and compelled to show her ankles to her lover, in order to save her character at home. It is but justice to the ladies to remark, however, that in England, at midsummer, the approach of night is scarcely noticeable until ten o'clock, even to those who are not 'courting.'

All the mails in England are so contrived as to leave London at night, and arrive in the morning. On Sunday evening, however, the mail coaches go out one hour earlier than usual, having no letter-bags to wait for, since the post-office department transacts no business whatever on the Sabbath. The mail coaches going out of town is generally the signal for the people to return homeward, after the

a

ramble or the evening walk. Then are the streets thronged with merry pedestrians, who pace along with a sort of half-lively and halfweary shuffle, on the smooth pavement of the main thoroughfares to the town. The steady old citizen, who has walked to church with his wife, and both sat in the same pew, in the same church, for half a century, joins in the current, and essays to walk as gay as one of his own apprentices, who is dashing through the streets with a lighthearted swagger, accompanied probably by the first young lady that he has ever mustered courage enough to ask out with him. Many families are so situated, that it is only on Sunday the different members can all meet round the table of those whom they have been accustomed to venerate as the head of the family;' and many are the expressions of tenderness as the last psalm is sung, the last glove put on, the last song encored, the last joke perpetrated, or the last piece of parental advice received.

Notwithstanding so much has been written and said about the different ways of observing the Sabbath in London, it is now generally conceded, by old denizens and impartial judges, that there is no city in Europe where more deference for the day is voluntarily paid; and certainly there are few places in the world, where the same liberty of expression and unanimity of observance exists at the same time, and on the same subject. Thus, whatever amusement may be proposed, it is always taken for granted that the amusement is secondary to the religious purposes of the day. In a metropolis with so many inhabitants, and under a government of so much real freedom, it is natural for a people so situated to follow out their own

of the manner in which they shall occupy the hours of their Sunday; but with regard to deferential respect and holy reverence for the day, no people are more united and firm. The fact of not using the day with sufficient zeal, is a fault for which many of them are open to censure; but the general principle of holy regard for the Sabbath is thoroughly implanted in the breast of Englishmen, and is acknowledged in other ways than in mere show. London is always too well provided with great and good men, of all denominations, ever to allow public opinion to relapse into any general desecration of the Sabbath. During the last half century, the different denominations appear to have been engaged in a race on the road of improvement toward the spiritualization of the intellect. The glorious example of the government, the immense influence of the established clergy, the untiring zeal of the dissenters, and the philosophical spirit of the age, all combine to make London itself one of the largest and best-filled churches in the world for the adoration of the heart. The crowded state of the streets, just before and after the performance of divine service, furnishes a pleasing proof of the influence of toleration, and the blessings of religion. Upward of six hundred churches are open for every individual, from the orthodox Episcopalian to the wandering tribes of Judah, and even the debating Materialist. This is the true toleration of catholicity, and the catholicity of toleration. In this respect, New-York and London are very similar, and it is a similarity which does essential honor to both cities, as the pioneers of civil and religious liberty, all over the world.

N. D.

LINES

WRITTEN BY LORD FITZGERALD, OF IRELAND, THE NIGHT BEFORE HIS EXECUTION.

FOUND AMONG THE MSS. OF AN AMERICAN LADY.

DEAR Ireland, my country! the hour

Of thy pride and thy splendor hath passed,

And the chain which thou spurned, in thy moment of power,
Hangs heavy around thee at last.

Thou art chained to the wheel of the foe,

By links which the world cannot sever;

With thy tyrant through storm and through calm thou shalt go,
And thy sentence is bondage for ever!

I PASSED a month or two of the last autumn in rambling over the western part of New-York, visiting the beautiful country of the central lakes; the shores of the Ontario and Erie; spending a few days at Rochester, Niagara, and Buffalo; and like a true Yankee, indulging in sundry speculations on the future growth, population, and wealth, of this prosperous portion of the state. The Ridge-Road, the Falls of the Genessee, the ever-to-be-remembered scenes of the Niagara, were of course not overlooked; but few things during my wanderings interested me more, than the course of a tornado through the magnificent pine forests that abound in the southern tier of counties; and from which millions of lumber, that now finds its way to Pittsburgh, by the way of Olean and the Allegany, or to Baltimore and Philadelphia, by the way of the Tioga and its branches, will, when the Hudson and Erie rail-road is completed, pass to New-York for a market.

I had entered the rich valley of the Genessee, the only river that crosses the whole width of the state; had passed upward to near

Angelica, the county town of Allegany county; where I first saw the effect of a whirlwind or hurricane, such as could only have been equalled in that native country of the tornado, the West-Indies. The storm occurred on the 25th of July, and commencing near the western boundary of the county, swept across nearly its whole extent from east to west. Its course was from a little north of west, to the same degree south of east. The day was very hot and sultry, and where the gale first became severe, some fifteen miles from where I crossed its track, it was only considered a violent thundergust, such as is experienced every summer; but it soon acquired such force, as, in places, to sweep every thing before it. In its progress, the same violence was not at all times excited; some places seemed wholly passed over ; while in the same direction, and only at a short distance, whole forests were uprooted or crushed. In the words of one who was a witness to its progress, 'It seemed to move by bounds, sometimes striking the earth with terrible effect, and then receding from it,' which indeed it is most likely, from appearances, was the case.

In passing up the valley of the river, the pine forests are generally found on what may be called the second bank; up to which the river frequently sweeps in its windings over the rich alluvian that constitutes what is emphatically called the Genessee Flats. This alluvial tract is the most of it under cultivation, and occasional incursions have been made on the pine-covered hills that bound the upper part of the valley; but in most instances, the forests verge on the alluvian. Over this too, nearly on the line of the Genessee Valley canal from Rochester to Olean, passes the main road up and down the river. In the town of Belfast, where the tornado passed, some three or four miles below Angelica, the river washes the eastern bank, leaving the cultivated lands on the west side mostly, and of course these had to be passed by the gale, after it descended from the hills on the west, before the pine woods on the eastern side were reached. Some few buildings on the east side of the river, to the north of the woods, fell within the limits of the gale, and were dashed to the earth in an instant. At the point of contact between the valley road, (which is here forced by the river on to the secondary bank) and the track of the tornado, the former passes through what was, before the wind, one of the finest pine groves on the river; the trees averaging upward of two feet in diameter, and from a hundred to one hundred and thirty feet in height, straight as arrows, and thickly planted. Through this grove, the road, winding to the south-east, passed for more than a mile, of which the track of the whirlwind covered about three quarters of a mile.

In approaching from the north, the traveller's attention is first arrested by the multitudes of tall pine stumps, splintered and shattered, standing some forty or fifty feet high, and presenting a most

When the track of the whirlwind is reached, near the wood, the buildings unroofed, or still nearer, crushed and scattered like the card playhouses of children, leave no doubt as to the agency employed in their destruction,

I have been much interested in the beautiful theory of storms, advanced by Mr. Redfield, of New York, and illustrated and defended by him with so much ability in the 31st volume of Silliman's Journal;

novel aspect.