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beauties and the benefits of literature, and that what the improved taste of the nation craves, the improved talent of the nation seeks to supply? The reviews and magazines of the present day, such as the KNICKERBOCKER and MIRROR of New York, or our own LITERARY MESSENGER and FARMERS REGISTER, are as superior to similar publications forty years ago as the richest gems of the mine are to the trumpery imitations of them that please the indiscriminating eyes of the savage. We may also refer to the improved style of the debates in our Legislative assemblies with similar feelings of congratulation, with this difference, however, that there have always been a few public speakers who could compare with the best of the present day. But the number of accomplished orators and debaters is far greater now than formerly, after allowing for the increase of our numbers. The Senate of the United States has for some years, been able to boast of orators which would compare with those of England in her best days. Virginia, in the rear of some of her sister states in the successful prosecution of physical science, and in the exhibition of poetical talent, may here claim precedence. And it must be gratifying to those who hear me, to be reminded that a year or two since, no less than seven of the eight or ten of those public speakers whom public opinion had placed foremost in that body, were native Virginians.

cing, and the excess, will, whether it be by way of attaining a high accomplishment, of finding relief from ennut, or of earning a livelihood, devote their leisure exclusively to literature, and thus become the Johnsons and the Goldsmiths, the Southeys and the Scotts, the Campbells and the Byrons of America.

It may be set down as a maxim that the more free and popular a government is, the stronger is the infiuence of popular esteem and popular applause. The greater power of the people gives a higher value and a greater dignity to its approbation. Where men acknowledge no sovereign but his fellow-men, in their corporate capacity, they become the dispenser of public honors of all kinds, and their favor bestows the laurel not only on the warrior's, but also on the poet's brow. Their huzzas cheer and reward the victories of a PERRY or a DECATUR-а JACKSON or a SCOTT-but they also stimulate the intellectual efforts of an IRVING or a COOPER a PINCKNEY or a WEBSTER-a RANDOLPH or a CLAY. Fame is valued according to the number and force of the voices that speak through her trump, and they are never so numerous or so loud as where all are disposed to speak, and every one is free to utter what he thinks.

Here then we find the powerful incentive of public praise, which gives to the object of it, assurance of the esteem of his fellow men; the potent influence of which once made a garland of oak preferred by the highAfter this comparative view of our literary advance-minded victor to a crown of gold; which is at once ment, so grateful to every liberal and patriotic mind, let us turn our eyes to the prospect of its further improvement, and consider what can be done to promote and secure its onward progress.

the cheapest and richest reward of public virtue; which is all, next to a sense of duty, that stimulated WASHINGTON, the pride of America, and the admiration of the world.

We are well warranted in expecting that the same causes which have hitherto operated so beneficially on our literature, will continue to produce the same effects. These causes may be regarded to be principally our civil liberty, and the federative character of our govern-gage in the pursuits of commerce or of war-of specu

ment.

Civil liberty, gentlemen, if experience is a true instructor, is favorable to a development of all the faculties of man; for in a free government he is most sure of receiving the rewards which are due to a successful exertion of those faculties, either in fame, power, popularity, or emolument. If he is successful as an orator or writer, statesman or legislator, to what may he not aspire? We every day see men, both in this country and occasionally in England, occupying the most elevated stations in the land, who have raised themselves to distinction by the force of their virtues or talents. They have all been the artificers of their own fortune,

and if chance and circumstances have concurred to their elevation, they have been such circumstances as are within the reach of every one.

There is moreover an unseen influence which free institutions possess, of imparting force and vigor to every pursuit in which its citizens engage whether it be in amassing wealth, or acquiring glory, whether they enlation or of literature and science. They are likely to be less unduly biassed by the dicta of their preceptors; to be less trammelled by the tyranny of custom-to be more bold, fearless, and adventurous-more pliant and accommodating to uncontrollable circumstances. We see this manifested in various ways. What merchants or navigators exhibit the same vigorous daring enterprise as ours? What explorers of the wilderness? Where has sagacious industry achieved so much in the way of canals, and railroads, and bridges? All this indicates extraordinary mental activity and energy of purpose, which will assuredly one day produce the same salutary effects in letters that it has already achieved in arts and

arms.

But there is another cause of improvement to be found in the character of our government, the influence But in the government of one or a few, men can with of which is not yet fully felt. By reason of the sepadifficulty emerge from the obscurity in which they are ration of the States, the spirit of emulation, that exerts born, and if now and then we see examples of extra-so propitious an influence on the character of a people, ordinary elevation from the humble ranks of life, they are exceptions which attract notice and excite wonder by their rarity. By far the greater number who attain rank and power, and high station, owe it mainly to the accident of birth. This difference must give a powerful incentive to exertion, and it is exercise and exertion which are the chief sources of excellence.

It is true that the character of our government has a tendency to give intellectual pursuits a particular direction. They hold out especial encouragement to the talents for public speaking, or for the duties of the politician and statesman, and to the arts of winning the public favor. But the disadvantage of this condition of things must be regarded as temporary, and not likely long to impede the other influences that have hitherto had so extensive and salutary an operation. So long as the educated classes of our citizens are not more than sufficient to fill the learned professions, and to supply the public offices, their intellectual culture will be directed that way which is likely best to qualify them for those dignified duties. But the number of educated and cultivated minds is rapidly advan

may be expected to be particularly active here. Need I remind you that those nations which have been most conspicuous and illustrious have all felt the force of national emulation? France and England owe much of their success in letters, arts, and arms to the rivalship of more than two centuries. Even the division of Great Britain between the English and Scotch, has had a sensible effect; though ever since the union, it has been the sentiment of generous emulation that has animated them, rather than a rivalship inflamed by anger and hatred. It was this spirit among the little Grecian states which kept their faculties ever on the stretch, and goaded them on in the pursuit of excellence, not only in arms, but also in literature, the fine arts, and philosophy, until the most successful of them far transcended the other portions of the world; and in some departments of skill have never yet found their equals among the thousands of millions that have lived after them.

It is partly to the greater force which this desire of superiority exercises in a large city, that it has always been found the most favorable theatre for genius and

talents of every kind. Here competitors in every profession and pursuit are placed side by side, and their respective merits being so accurately measured and compared, the rival candidates are urged to redouble their exertion for superiority. We know the force of this principle in juvenile instruction, and while men in a populous city are like children in a public school, those who are dispersed over the country may be compared to the children who are instructed at home.

has made them what they are, to their mothers, than to their fathers.

A disposition to encourage domestic literature must aiso have a good effect. It must be recollected that the American writer, laboring under the disadvantages that have been mentioned, is placed in competition with the writers of a nation that are second to those of no other on the globe; and that the consciousness of this disadvantage is calculated to repress and dispirit the efforts of the native author.

"The beings of the mind, are not of clay;
Essentially immortal, they create
And multiply in us a brighter ray,
And more beloved existence."

This principle of emulation must always exert more influence among the American people from their being Let us constainly bear in mind, gentlemen, that, next distributed into separate States, having their govern- to a character for virtue and integrity, we should be ments, laws and institutions independent of each other; most ambitious of obtaining one for letters. This is a and the more distinct are their interests, the more con-higher glory than distinction in wealth, power, or arms. trasted their general character, the stronger is this spirit For likely to be. Hence the dissimilarity between the Northern and the Southern States, if it occasionally give rise to some illiberal and inconvenient prejudices, is also productive of this good effect. And though it has hitherto shown itself principally in efforts to obtain the power and patronage of the general government, or in jealousy and disappointment at not having obtained them, it may hereafter also manifest itself in literary rivalship. Of this we have already seen some symptoms, in the reviews and magazines. We also occasionally see signs of it between New York and Philadelphia, and between Boston and New York. The West, the ardent, generous West, also shows its ambition to excel, and that affords a sure presage of excellence. We there behold a boldness, a freedom from the dominion of habits and prejudices that is most auspicious to originality; and there, if any where, we may expect in time to see new modes of administering pleasure or interest to the intellectual tastes of mankind.

These circumstances of our political and social condition may therefore be expected to continue their benignant influence on the advancement of letters and science in the United States; and it only remains for us now to notice the modes by which we may best encourage and assist that influence.

We should, in the first place, do all in our power to advance the cause of education, both in its elementary, and more difficult branches of knowledge. The seed that is sown in the humblest country school, if it chance to fall on a fruitful soil, may shoot up into luxuriance and become the lordly oak, the pride of the forest. But in general, the distinguished man of civilized society is so much the creature of artificial culture, he is like the same oak in a city. It has been planted there, and its size and growth have been in proportion to the care with which it has been nurtured, until it could support itself by its own inherent vigor. We ought then to be unsparing in our efforts to provide adequate schools, academies, and colleges: to endow them liberally; and to improve their internal economy, regulations, and discipline, to the utmost. The nation seems now fully sensible of the importance of juvenile instruction. The number of schools and colleges has been greatly multiplied within a few years, but I fear that their character has not advanced in the same proportion as their number.

Let us remember too, that a taste for literature and science, besides what it has done for the well-being of society, affords to individuals the best security against vicious and immoral habits; and that it is essential to the preservation of civil liberty: that for a people to be capable of administering their own affairs wisely, they must be well instructed. They must understand the elementary principles of government, of legislation, and political economy; must be well acquainted with the human character, and be able to distinguish between their real and their pretended friends, through all the disguises which crafty ambition or love of gain may throw around them. We are then urged to the intellectual improvement of the people, whether we regard the happiness, the safety, or the dignity of the nation. The votary of literature in our country has indeed much to stimulate his efforts. There are some who now hear me, who may live to see the population of these states amount to some 50 or 60 millions; and in 25 years afterwards, they will reach 100 millions without having as dense a population as there is at this time in Massachusetts. With so numerous a people, all speaking the same language, and agreeing in the great fundamental principles of religion, morals and government; but having endless diversities of manners, habits, usages and institutions, what a field is presented for the suc cessful cultivator of English literature! The writer of the next generation, who is so fortunate as to win the public favor, will, besides hearing his name re-echoed from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Hudson's Bay to the Mexican Gulf, have a greater number of readers than are now living on the habitable globe. His gains, if gain should be his object, will be as much greater than Byron's or Scott's, as theirs were greater than those of their predecessors. And though minds best qualified to delight the world by the productions of their genius, may find their highest reward in the glory they acquire, yet even they will see, in the extensive sale and circulation of their works, the surest indications of that glory.

In consequence of the great multiplication of books, all over Europe, within the last forty or fifty years, and Associations such as that it is now my pleasure to their continued further increase, it has been appreaddress, should be multiplied and be supported with hended by some that literature must eventually suffer untiring zeal. All such institutions concur to introduce a decline. They say that if books thus go on increasa literary spirit, to give it a wider diffusion and a more ing, it will be impossible for any one reader, however vigorous growth. This spirit is the more to be cher-diligent, to read them all; and that the conviction of ished, as affording the best counteraction to the love of gain, if it is likely to prove stronger in a democracy, as has been supposed, than in those governments in which there are privileged orders of men.

We should also encourage public libraries and library companies, which will at once favor a taste for reading and afford the means of gratifying it. Nor ought we to neglect female education, since it devolves on the mother to give the first direction to the child's thoughts and acts. I have come to the conclusion, from no very slight or hasty course of observation, that more distinguished men owe the impetus which

this fact will proportionally discourage men from writing, or from qualifying themselves to write ; and that literature may thus, like the Roman vestal, be buried under the wealth she had too eagerly coveted.

But the very hypothesis, in assuming that further productions of intellect will be checked by the redundancy of previous productions, supposes that consequence of the evil which will effectually bring its remedy, which is a diminution of the supply until it is level with the demand. Such a redundancy, when it is felt, may indeed have the effect of discouraging trivial, or second rate productions. It may also call into exist

ence new and strange creations of a misapplied ingenuity, by way of provocative to man's incessant craving for novelty, but it can do no more. The means of communicating instruction, or interest, or delight, to the minds of others, are as exhaustless as is the desire to receive them, and by far the larger part of these means every generation has to provide for itself. It is true that so far as concerns human passions and feelings, or the beauties of scenery, or poetical imagery, there are natural limits, and the best part of the stock may be preoccupied, or nearly so; but even these may be served up again in a form, which when modified by the ruling taste of the day, may not only seem to have the recommendation of novelty, but give more lively pleasure than pictures of the same natural features, painted according to the taste of other times. It is with language as with dress, though the materials are the same as they were centuries ago, silk, cotton and wool, feathers and flowers, gold, diamonds and pearl, yet the diversified modes in which they can be combined, are infinite; and though the belles of the present day may now and then seem to tread in the steps of their grandmothers, it will generally be found, on a closer inspection, that there is some important modification of the ancient prototype; and that, at all events it has, to the eyes for which it was intended, the charm of novelty, so as to make each succeeding generation manifest the same lively sensibility to ornament, and the same exquisite taste in gratifying it, as when Belinda was thus exhibited at her toilet more than 120 years since:

"And now, unveiled, the toilet stands display'd,
Each silver vase in mystic order laid,

First rob'd in white, the nymph intent adores,
With head uncover'd, the cosmetic powers.
A heavenly image in the glass appears,
To that she bends, to that her eyes she rears!
Th' inferior priestess, at her altar's side,
Trembling, begins the sacred rites of pride.
Unnumbered treasures ope at once, and here
The various offerings of the world appear;
From each she nicely culls with curious toil,
And decks the goddess with the glittering spoil.
This casket India's glowing gems unlocks,
And all Arabia breathes from yonder box.
The tortoise here and elephant unite,
Transform'd to combs, the speckled and the white;
Here files of pins extend their shining rows,
Puffs, powder, patches, bibles, billet-doux."
Now awful beauty puts on all its arms," &c.

As to science, that is, and must ever be, continually progressive, and every new discovery seems but the prolific parent of many more. It forms a new stem from which spring numerous ramifications, each of which branches out again, and thus leads to new facts and new laws of matter. The fear then is utterly groundless, that there can be any necessary check to intellectual activity, either in the class of writers or readers. And as to the supposed influence of the multiplicity of books, or the character of subsequent works in encouraging quaintness, affectation, or licentious novelty, we must trust to the natural growth of good taste for the prevention or correction of this evil. To resume my former illustration, the same danger might seem to exist as to dress; and yet it has been steadily advancing for the last fifty years towards simplicity, and losing much of the very forced and artificial character it formerly assumed.

I had intended, Mr. President, to have said something in behalf of cultivating CLASSICAL LEARNING, as the best means of forming a good taste, and as affording the most improving exercise to the mental faculties; and also to have dwelt on the advantages of SIMPLICITY in writing and speaking; but the unexpected length to which this discourse has been already extended, forbids me from further tasking your patience.

On the whole then, the prospects before us, gentlemen, are no less brilliant and grand in our literature, than in national power and opulence, if we are only true to ourselves; and the sun of civilization, which has been travelling to the west, as far back as history re

cords, will, when it has completed its circle round the earth, by traversing the American continent, be found to have still increased in splendor, in its course; and as it shone more brightly in Greece and Rome, than it had done in Asia; and in England and France, than in Rome or Greece-so, if the auguries do not prove deceitful, its progressive brightness will continue with us, and when it shall be setting to Europe, it will here in its meridian,* beam with an effulgence that the world has never yet witnessed.

* Some of our readers may not know, that when it is sunset at London or Paris, it is noon on the Mississippi.-Editor.

THE FORESTER'S SERENADE. Awake! gentle dreamer, and hide thee with me, Where the free and the fearless dwell; A sylvan home is waiting for thee, Deep, deep in the shade of the dark waving tree, That hangs o'er the Forester's dell.

There linger the hours of beautiful bloom,

And when the gay Summer is past, 'Neath the angry clouds of Winter's gloom, Still smile we, my love, though our leafless home May shake with the terrible blast.

And softly, and sweetly, at Eve's silent hours,
When earth seems fading away,

A holy calm, from heaven's fair bowers,
Shall brightly shadow that sleep of our's,
With visions too pure for day.

Oh come!-'tis the moment when all things are still,
Save the leaves on the trembling trees,

Or the plaintive wail of the lone whip-poor-will,
Or the moan of the stream, as it winds round the hill,
Or the voice of the murmuring breeze.

Why linger, my love?-the glorious stars

Tho' the moon rides high, and the night slowly wears,
Are glistening brightly for thee-
Yet tarry we not till morning appears-

In shadow and silence we flee.

Thro' yonder wild mazes together we'll stray,

Where the wolf and fierce panther roam, Ere the skies grow light with opening day, O'er mountain and valley away-let's awayFar, far, to the Forester's home.

LEXICOGRAPHIC ACUMEN.

In Johnson's Dictionary is this article: "Curmudgeon, a vicious way of pronouncing caur mechant-An unknown correspondent." By the last three words Johnin the Gentleman's Magazine—but Ash copied the word son acknowledges his obligation to an anonymous writer into his Dictionary thus: "Curmudgeon-from the French cœur, unknown, and mechant, correspondent."

JOURNAL

OF A TRIP TO THE MOUNTAINS, CAVES AND SPRINGS

OF VIRGINIA.

By a New-Englander.*

TO CHARLES E. SHERMAN, Esq., of Mobile, Ala. These fragments of a Diary, kept during a tour made in his society, are respectfully and affectionately inscribed, by his friend and fellow-traveller,

THE AUTHOR.

-Virginia! Yet I own

I love thee still, although no son of thine!
For I have climbed thy mountains, not alone,-
And made the wonders of thy vallies mine;
Finding, from morning's dawn till day's decline,
Some marvel yet unmarked,-some peak, whose throne
Was loftier,--girt with mist, and crowned with pine:
Some deep and rugged glen, with copse o'ergrown,-
The birth of some sweet valley, or the line

ment arising out of the detention of the other boat, Providence was filled with hordes of applicants, who, unfortunately, had taken up all the state-rooms, berths, settees, cots and pegs, on which a poor wight could sleep, lie or hang. This was a damper. Ma'am Judy was weathered by your unlucky friend in a recumbent posture, upon "the soft side of a pine board," and his rheumatic bones had to suffer racking in an out of the way hole, away forward, which they call the salooncabin.

From Boston to Canton, we came along in a fine easy car, in which we could sit or stand as we pleased, and the seats in which were made as is usual in coaches, width-wise and very comfortable. At Canton we took to our feet, to go down and up a deep valley, over which a most splendid viaduct of massy granite is in the progress of erection, an ingenious and stupendous work indeed. We then got into a long jolting omnibuslooking car, in which we rode side-wise, and although we went over the road rapidly, the noise of this crablike mode of progression materially marred the pleasure of the thing. However we finished our journey at last, so far as rails (and I suppose you hope as far as railing also,) are concerned, *—and here am I, at table, between the jingling of champagne glasses on one side, and the rattling of dice on the other, as a whist party and a pair of backgammon players are amusing themselves at their respective games. What a love of excitement is suddenly contracted upon coming on board a steamboat! People in such a predicament seem to think they ings-Sleepers in Steamboats--New York, New Jersey, and Philadelphia--Judge Marshall-Baltimore---Page's--Ripshall die of ennui, if a source of amusement is not imRaps-Hampton Roads-James River-Steamboat Racing--mediately opened to them, so soon as they place their feet on board.

Traced by some silver stream that murmurs lone:
Or the dark cave, where hidden crystals shine,
Or the wild arch, across the blue sky thrown.

CHAPTER L

*

Wilde.

Locomotive from Boston to Providence-Railroads and rail

Arrival at Richmond.

Steamboat President, July 8, 1835. Your correspondent is a quiet man and hates a fuss, or he would hardly have composure enough to sit down so quietly and collectedly, as he is now doing, to write you an account of himself, considering the traveller's disappointment to which he has been doomed. He thought, and experience had taught him that he was right in the conjecture, that to take a trip to New York in the good "President, Bunker," was the very realization of all that is comfortable in the way of travelling; so starting from the city of notions by the "Whistler" locomotive, and shooting over the forty intervening miles between that and its sister city, at the rate of five and twenty miles an hour, he marched up to the gentlemanly clerk of the said steamer, to secure a good berth in which to stretch his invalid limbs while going round that most lovely of capes, Point Jadith. But by some misunderstanding, a disappoint

I have been taking a stroll round the boat, to see how the land lies, what way we are making, what the weather is, and who, if any body, had stolen my birth. We are half way to New York, are going at the rate of thirteen miles an hour, the night is cloudy but mild, and the steward and I turned a big bully of a fellow out of my narrow accommodations in "the saloon cabin." I am sure they were not worth stealing. My Hector showed fight, and now stands glowering at me like a chained mastiff. Cannot help it, my dear fellow,-take my rheumatics and you may and welcome-and I'll sit up all night and scribble. He shogs off upon this fair proposal; it must have been convincing of his reason, and assuaging of his

wrath.

have my

berth

How queerly folk appear while asleep! I should not like to occupy one of those settees or cots as they call them, all conglomerated as they are into a dense mass; it is so disagreeable to have a half dozen waking stran*This Journal is made up from a series of letters, written in gers making game of your dreaming disclosures, as you 1835, for some of the northern papers, which at the time attrac- lie there on your back, talking about your most private ted some attention, not only at the north, but in other parts of the country. There had at that time been little said, and less affairs, with as much sang froid as if you were but exwritten, in relation to the now more generally known watering changing the time of day with your hearers. And places, which these letters describe; and to that cause, rather then how singularly people differ in their ideas of comthan to any merit discernible in their composition, was to be fort on these occasions! One twists a yellow bandanna attributed the interest at first so generally taken in them. It is round his head for a night cap, while another puts on at the suggestion of a friend who was induced to try the virtues of the Virginia waters, by the descriptions of their qualities the real thing, in the shape of a red silk bag, a white set forth in these ephemeral letters, and who experienced a per-knit skull-cover, or a black velvet toupee. One fellow fect cure of his complaints by doing so, that they are now em- sleeps in his clothes like "my man John," in the nurbodied in this form. If they shall induce a single additional sery song, who "went to bed with his trowsers on."

eure of any of those numerous "ills that flesh is heir to," the
writer will not regret the toil of editing them anew.
Washington, July 4th, 1837.

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Another is very particular in arranging himself to rest, with all the minute particularity to the little observances of the toilet in which he is so fond of indulging at home,―he places his watch and pocket-book under his pillow, folds away his coat smoothly, and puts his boots orderly under his "cot" in such wise as to keep them out of the reach of that shilling loving caitiff, John, who brings them all shining in the morning, and looks glowering if he gets not his awmous. One lies on his pillow as Nero reclined on his, laughing at the woes of the good citizens around him, who, as he grows merry and boisterous in his enjoyment of the varied scene before him, toss about as if on the rack to get one wink of sleep under his merciless inflictions: while another sneaks off quietly to bed, and from mere habit drops to sleep in despite of all the noise and bustle that surround him. The lucky berth-holders retire with a kind of dignified reserve to their respective places of comparative ease, the aristocrats of the steamer, while the deck passengers lie about on the luggage and freight, covered with old plaid cloaks, with carpet bags for pillows. Thus the Steamboat is but a map of busy life-and furnishes to the contemplative mind a lesson not unworthy of its study.

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Steamboat Trenton, July 9. The warm weather is beginning to thaw people out from their winter quarters, and to set them in motion towards the North, South, East and West, for recreation and health. The steamboats, railroads, and public houses literally swarm with travellers, and all seem determined to make up for the lost time which the cruel cold weather has caused to hang so heavily on their hands.

Arriving at New York this morning, and finding the city empty and hot, and the hotels full and incommodious, I concluded to hasten onward, and accordingly took the steamer Swan, at seven o'clock, reached Amboy in the usual time, and proceeded at the leisurely pace of fifteen miles an hour upon the railroad, as far as Bordentown, where we again take steamboat. Pray tell me if the hot weather is any excuse for such tardiness in locomotive engines? Here was 1 flying over those Providence rails at the rate of five and twenty miles, but yesterday-voila! the difference! And now I am in the bragging vein, let me remark that the railroads from Boston, are incomparably superior to these Jersey

ones.

There is more care in the construction, the cars are far more commodious, and the whole is quite another affair, in every respect. I suppose there is no more perfect railroad in the country than that from Boston to Lowell, if indeed there be in the world.

The general appearance of that part of New Jersey through which we journeyed this morning is by no means indicative of much susceptibility of cultivation. The soil is red and clayey,-and for the most part barren, on the track we traversed to-day. There are interspersed here and there, spots of something more promising in the way of farming and gardening,-but they are rare. The place of Joseph Bonaparte is the most elegant of any on this part of the route-but it struck me that it appeared to less advantage, and in worse condition than formerly. There evidently wants the careful, tasteful and interested supervision of the proprietor. Near this, we were much gratified and

refreshed by the reception of an abundance of ripe cherries and other fruit from the children that surround the cars at every stopping place, and earn their fips by these grateful dispensations. Fruit of all kinds is abundant and good here, and we are promised a profusion of it in Philadelphia.

The Delaware upon which I am now sailing, looks lovely, in this clear summer afternoon. The beautiful farm houses, country seats, and villages with which it is studded on each side, form a succession of picturesque landscapes, unrivalled by any which were presented during yesterday's sail. At the pretty village of Bristol, we took in and landed passengers, and among several taken up at Burlington, a short distance lower down, were several good humored, jolly Dutchmen, and their brisk buxom frouws, going to carry the produce of their gardens to Philadelphia. The former spoke not, but smoked their pipes in silent quietude, while the good women arranged their tidy baskets upon the deck, and sat down to watch them, and see the fashions. But the city of Brotherly Love is in sight, and I must break off.

Philadelphia, July 10.

After being bandied about from pillar to post, from the United States to Head's, from Head's to the Tremont (for they have a "Tremont House" here too) and from thence to the Congress Hall, I at length obtained a room sufficiently large to hold my bed and myself, and learned to be thankful for even so much. The travelling mania has really begun to rage with a violence proportioned to its restraint hitherto. The city is filled with strangers, while its own citizens are fast deserting it.

I cannot like Philadelphia. I have given it a fair trial, and many fair trials,-but I do not " cotton to" its stiffness, its preciseness, its coldness, its cold water washings, its white wooden window shutters, its everlasting red brick walls, unrelieved by anything light or lively in the shape of Venitian blinds, verandahs, porticoes, porches, or piazzas. It looks very well on a printed plan, but it is a very odd city in reality. And then its narrow paved streets, innocent of McAdamization and gas light,* its thousands of watch boxes for people to break their heads against at every corner, and its toleration of that disgusting nuisance,-cigar-smoking, by men calling themselves gentlemen, in its streets at evening,-combine to render it far from delightful to me. It is true, there are the United States Bank, the Mint, the Fair Mount Water Works, and the new Exchange, to relieve all this sameness and monotony: but I am constrained to confess that I consider the constant self-gratulation and boasting of the Philadelphians upon the score of these attractions as almost destructive of the pleasure to be derived from an examination of them. I hope I am not too censorious.

The melancholy news of Judge Marshall's demise met me as I came from the steamboat yesterday. It is certainly a great event in our history. The loss of John Marshall is a public incident, and viewed aright is full of public interest. As the historian of Washington, he is the historian of America,-as the presiding justice of the highest court in the United States during a long and most interesting period of its history,

This was in 1935, be it remembered.

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