ccount, for the monarchy of the Hurons and the Republic of the Iroquois. Changes of the same nature have been brought about, and are still gradually occurring in Europe, even under our eyes. A Prussian poet, at a banquet of the Teutonic order, about the year 1400, sang in the ancient Prussian language of the heroic deeds of the ancient warriors of his country. No one understood him, and his only reward was one hundred empty nuts.

In the present day the Bas-Breton, the Basque and the Gaelic, are perishing from hut to hut, as the generations of shepherds and labourers pass away. In the English county of Cornwall the original language became obsolete about the year 1676.

A fisherman there said to some travellers, "I hardly know more than four or five persons who speak Cornish, and they are old people like myself, from sixty to eighty years of age. None of the young people understand a word of it."

Some tribes that formerly lived on the Oronoco exist no longer -there only remain about a dozen words of their dialect, which are uttered from the tops of the trees by parroquets which have regained their liberty, like Agrippina's thrush, which chattered Greek upon the balustrades of the palace at Rome. Such will be, sooner or later, the fate of our modern jargons, which are made up of the remnants of Greek and Latin. Some magpie, escaped from the cage of the last French priest, will be heard to call out from the top of the belfry of a ruin to the unknown people who may succeed us, Accept this, the last effort of a language once known. You will put an end to all further conversation in it."

Be then a Bossuet; and the consequence will be that your chef d'œuvre may survive, in the recollection of a bird, your language your memory in the minds of men.

and

London, from April till September, 1822.

THE FORMER POSSESSIONS OF FRANCE IN AMERICA-REGRETS-PAST FOL LIES-NOTE FROM FRANCIS CONYNGHAM.

SPEAKING of Canada and Louisiana, and inspecting the old map of the original French settlements in America, I am at a loss to understand how the government of my country allowed these colonies, which would have been now an inexhaustible source

of prosperity to us, to pass out of their hands. From Acadia and Canada to Louisiana,-from the mouth of the St. Lawrence to that of the Mississippi, the territory of "New France" encompassed that which formed the confederacy of the first thirteen. United States. The other eleven, with the district of Columbia, the territories of Michigan, the North-West, the Missouri, Oregon, and Arkansas, belonged to us, or would have come into our possession, as they now belong to the United States by the cession. of the English and the Spaniards, who succeeded us in Canada and Louisiana. The whole territory lying between the Atlantic on the north-east, the Polar Sea on the north, the Pacific with the Russian possessions in the north-west, and the Mexican Gulf on the south; that is to say, more than two-thirds of the whole of North America, acknowledged the laws of France. I fear lest the Restoration may prove vain in consequence of the adoption of views contrary to those which I have here expressed. The madness of adhering to precedents-a folly which I never cease to combat -would not be by any means so sad had it only disturbed me by depriving me of the favour of my prince; but it may, perhaps, cause the overthrow of the throne. To be stationary in political affairs is impossible-it is necessary to advance with the progress of human intelligence. Let us respect the dignity given by time; let us look back with veneration to the past ages which are rendered sacred by the memory and the relics of our ancestors; at the same time let us not attempt to retrograde towards them, for they have no longer any thing real in common with us, and should we attempt to seize them they would vanish. The chapter of Notre Dame, at Aix-la-Chapelle, had the tomb of Charlemagne opened, as it is said, about the year 1450. They found the emperor seated in a gilt chair, holding in his skeleton hands the books of the Evangelists, written in letters of gold; before him were placed his sceptre and his shield of gold, by his side lay his "joyeuse," sheathed in a golden scabbard. He was clothed in imperial robes. Upon his head, which was retained in its proper position by a chain of gold, was a piece of linen which covered what had once been his face, and which was surmounted by a crown. They touched the phantom, and it crumbled into dust.

We possessed beyond sea an immense tract of country: it afforded a refuge for the excess of our population, a field for our commerce, and a supply of sailors for our navy.

We are excluded from the New World, where the human race is taking a fresh start.

The English, Portuguese, and Spanish languages serve in Africa, in Asia, in Polynesia, in the Islands of the South Seas, and on the continent of the two Americas, as a vehicle for expressing the thoughts of many millions of human beings; whilst we, deprived of the acquisitions made by our courage and our skill, only hear the language of Colbert and of Louis XIV. spoken under the government of foreign nations in some small districts of Canada and Louisiana. It only remains as a witness of the reverses of our fortune and the faults of our administration.

And who is the monarch whose rule now replaces that of the French King over the Canadian forests? The same who caused this note to be written to me yesterday

"MY LORD VISCOUNT,

"I am commanded by his Majesty to invite your Excellency to dine and sleep at the palace on Thursday, the 6th inst.

"Your very humble and obedient servant,

"FRANCIS CONYNGHAM."

It was a part of my fate to be tormented by princes. But I pause-I re-cross the Atlantic-I have the arm reset which was broken at Niagara. I lay aside my bearskin dress and resume my embroidered apparel-I go from the wigwam of an Iroquois to the royal lodge of his Britannic Majesty-the monarch of the three united kingdoms and lord of the Indies-I leave my host with the pierced ears, and the little savage girl adorned with pearls, wishing my Lady Conyngham the gentleness of Mila, together with that age which belongs only to the young spring, those days which precede the month of May, and which our French poets call "l'Avrillée."

Revised in December, 1846.

London, from April till Sept., 1822.

THE ACCOUNT ORIGINALLY WRITTEN IN AMERICA-THE LAKES OF CANADA -FLOTILLA OF INDIAN CANOES-RUINS OF NATURE-VALLEY OF THE TOMB-DESTINY OF RIVERS.

THE tribe of the young girl with the pearls set out. My guide, the Dutchman, refused to accompany me beyond the cataract. I paid him, and joined some traders who were setting out to descend the Ohio. Before starting I cast a glance upon the Canadian lakes-there is nothing so sad as the aspect of these lakes. The plains of the ocean and of the Mediterranean afford highways for nations, and their shores are, or were, inhabited by races numerous, powerful, and civilised. The Canadian lakes present nothing but open waters surrounded by desert land: solitudes which divide other solitudes-shores without inhabitants overlook waters without ships;-you land from desert waves upon a desert strand. Lake Erie is more than 100 leagues in circumference ; the nations which dwelt upon its banks were exterminated by the Iroquois two centuries ago. It is fearful to see the Indians venturing their bark canoes upon this lake so celebrated for tempests, and which was formerly the habitation of thousands of snakes.

These Indians hang up their garments at the head of their canoes, and launch into the midst of the eddies caused by the turbulent waves. The waves, on a level with the gunwale of the canoes, appear ready to swallow them up. The hunters' dogs, with their paws upon the gunwale, utter short barks, while their masters, preserving a profound silence, strike the waters with their paddles in regular time. The canoes advance in single file: at the prow of the foremost a chief stands upright, and repeats the diphthong "oah"-o with a full and prolonged intonation, a with a short and quick tone. In the hindmost canoe is another chief, also standing, who manages a branch in the form of a rudder. The other warriors squat on their heels at the bottom of the canoes. Through the fog and the spray are only to be seen the feathers with which the heads of the Indians are adorned, the outstretched necks of the howling dogs, and the shoulders of the

two Sachems, the pilot and the steersman ;-as one might say, the gods of the lakes. The rivers of Canada are without annals in the Old World. How different is the fate of the Ganges, the Euphrates, the Nile, the Danube, and the Rhine!

How much sweat and blood have conquerors poured forth in order to cross in their course those waters which a goatherd can step across at their source.

London, from April till Sept., 1822.

THE COURSE OF THE OHIO.

LEAVING the lakes of Canada we came to Port William, at the confluence of the rivers Ohio and Kentucky. There the landscape displays a most extraordinary magnificence. This splendid country is, however, called Kentucky--from the name of the river which flows through it, and which signifies the "River of Blood."

It owes this name to its beauty. During the space of two centuries the tribes in alliance with the Cherokees disputed its occupation with those of the Iroquois. Will the European races which now people the banks prove more virtuous and free than the exterminated savages? Is there not slave-labour in this country of man's primitive independence, under the lash of their masters? Do no prisons and gibbets replace the open hut and the tall tulip-tree in which the birds built their nests? Will the riches of nature give rise to no new wars? Will Kentucky cease to be the "land of blood," and will the monuments of art prove a greater ornament to the banks of the Ohio than the monuments of nature?

After passing the Wabach, the great Cypress, the Cumberland River, the Cherokee or Tenessee, and the Yellow Banks, we arrive at a strip of land often flooded when the waters are high. Here the confluence of the Mississippi and the Ohio takes place, in latitude 36 deg. 54 min. north. The two rivers, offering equal resistance, slacken their speed. They run alongside of each other in the same channel without mingling, for some miles :-as two great races, originally separate, but subsequently amalgamated, form only one nation; as two illustrious rivals share the same couch after the battle; as man and wife, descended from hostile races,