Nor does my muse no benefit exhale
From this thy scant indulgence! even here
Hints worthy sage philosophy, are found ;-
Illustrious hints, to moralise my song!
This ponderous heel of perforated hide
Compact, with pegs indented, many a row;
Haply (for such its massy form bespeaks)
The weighty tread of some rude peasant clown
Upbore: on this, supported oft, he stretched,
With uncouth strides, along the furrowed glebe,
Flattening the stubborn clod, till cruel time,
(What will not cruel Time?) on a wry step,
Severed the strict cohesion; when, alas!
He who could erst, with even equal pace,
Pursue his destined way with symmetry,
And some proportion formed, now, on one side,
Curtailed and maimed, the sport of vagrant boys,
Cursing his frail supporter-treacherous prop!
With toilsome steps, and difficult, moves on.

Thus fares it oft with other than the feet
Of humbler villager. The statesman thus
Up the steep road where proud ambition leads
Aspiring, first, uninterrupted, winds

His prosperous way, nor fears miscarriage foul, While policy prevails, and friends prove true; But that support soon failing, by him left On whom he most depended, basely left, Betrayed, deserted, from his airy height Headlong he falls; and through the rest of life, Drags the dull load of disappointment on." Bravo! Master William, these are bright tints of early buds. Perhaps the poet as he sauntered through Bath-when he heard, saw, and said nothing-collected a few facts for after consideration: and the little groups of "Cardy Mums" and gamblers, that he spied in high places and large "Rooms," might have proved the foundation for the following reflections on "the Sofa."

"Whom call we gay? That honour has been long
The boast of mere pretenders to the name.
The innocent are gay; the lark is gay,
That dries his feathers, saturate with dew
Beneath the rosy clouds, while yet the beams
Of dayspring overshoot his humble nest.
The peasant, too, a witness of his song,
Himself a songster, is as gay as he.
But save me from the gaiety of those
Whose head-aches nail them to a noon-day bed;
And save me, too, from theirs, whose haggard eyes
Flash desperation, and betray their pangs
For property stripped off by cruel chance;
From gaiety that fills the bones with pain,
The mouth with blasphemy, the heart with woe.

The paralytic, who can hold her cards,
But cannot play them, borrows a friend's hand
To deal and shuffle-to divide and sort
Her mingled suits and sequences; and sits
Spectatress both and spectacle-a sad
And silent cipher, while her proxy plays.
Others are dragged into the crowded room
Between supporters; and once seated, sit,
Through downright inability to rise,

Till the stout chairmen lift the corpse again.
These speak a loud memento. Yet even these
Themselves love life, and cling to it, as he
That overhangs a torrent to a twig.
They love it, and yet loathe it; fear to die,
Yet scorn the purposes for which they live.

Then wherefore not renounce them? No, the dread-
The slavish dread of solitude, that breeds
Reflection and remorse, the fear of shame,
And their inveterate habits, all forbid."

Of course if the poet had an eye to Bath in these comments, it must have been in the palmy days of Beau Nash,

when gambling and card-playing were at their apex; for every body knows that Bath, in the present tense, is quite innocent of such matters. There is, no gambling and card-playing now; oh, dear no! all is as solemn and silent as the grave; "T. and P. soirées"-tea and prayersbeing the fashion of the times, and the people all running from west to east.

The year 1782 was an eventful period in the life of the poet. In March, his first volume issued from the press; in the summer Mr. Bull engaged him in the translation of Madame Guion, and by means of a small portable printing-press, given him by Lady Austen, who had returned from London to Clifton, he became a printer as well as a writer of poetry. Before the close of the year Lady Austen was settled in the parsonage at Olney-when we knew it, occupied by the Rev. Henry Gauntlett-so that there was plenty of gossiping and chattering, and walking to and from Silver-end; in fact Mr. Unwin is informed, in a letter which he received from the poet in January 1783, that "they passed their days alternately at each other's chateau;" but this intimacy, it appears, only lasted two years, for in 1784 they separated.

Now whether the old women in Silver-end, seeing so many ladies entering the poet's house, and so few gentlemen, began to whisper and make long necks over their tea-cups, whether the scan. mag., in consequence, was published and put into brisk circulation, or whether the green-eyed monster wormed himself into the thoughts of Mrs. Unwin, and induced her to hint to her inamorata her jealousy of the interest and attentions excited and shown elsewhere, (the slightest hint from whom would have been sufficient to shake off a thousand interlopers, however captivating and intellectual, in favour of his bosom friend,) we dare not here take it upon ourselves to determine; but so it was, as before expressed, that Lady Austen did absent herself suddenly and continuously, brought about, no doubt, by the delicate suggestions of the poet; in which transaction his biographer says, that "while it by no means lowered the character of either of the ladies, it exceedingly elevated that of Cowper." One cannot but admire the purity and spotlessness of that mind, with fortitude and caution adequate to the avoidance of the mere appearance of mischief; but this was the characteristic of the man,

"Whose virtues formed the magic of his song."

But suppose we here take a book in hand, and follow the poet to Weston and his favourite 'Alcove.' Well, there he goes, with his dog Beau, and Mrs. Unwin is leaning upon his arm; now he is turning Talbot's corner, then he crosses over to old Stow's the shoemaker, who whistles him a tune as he passes,-now he is trudging by Whitlock's timber yard, and the Misses Smiths' almshouses, and the Feoffee grounds, and is soon out of the parish of Olney. He now makes a pause upon a rising ground-we know the spot well-and is looking over the meadows to the left, referring and reminding his companion of the scene. Let us just keep back a little and listen.

"And witness, dear companion of my walks,
Whose arm this twentieth winter I perceive
Fast locked in mine, with pleasure such as love
Confirmed by long experience of thy worth
And well-tried virtues could alone inspire-
Witness a joy that thou hast doubled long.
Thou know'st my praise of nature most sincere,
And that my raptures are not conjured up
To serve occasions of poetic pomp,
But genuine, and art partner of them all.
How oft upon this eminence our pace
Has slackened to a pause, and we have borne
The ruffling wind, scarce conscious that it blew;

Hence with what pleasure have we just discerned
The distant plough, slow moving, and beside

His lab'ring team, that swerved not from the track,
The sturdy swain diminished to a boy!
Here Ouse slow winding through a level plain
Of spacious meads, with cattle sprinkled o'er,
Conducts the eye along his sinuous course
Delighted. There, fast rooted in their bank,
Stand, never overlooked, our favourite Elms,
That screen the herdsman's solitary hut;
While far beyond, and overthwart the stream,
That as with molten glass inlays the vale,
The sloping land recedes into the clouds,
Displaying on its varied sides, the grace

Of hedge-row beauties numberless, square tower,
Tall spire, from which the sound of cheerful bells
Just undulates upon the list'ning car,

Groves, heaths, and smoking villages remote."

Well done, Cowper! thine is a perfect and beautiful landscape; no dash of the pencil could have rendered it more correct. Every line is true to nature-warm, delicate, and highly poetic. How masterly the strokes, and how difficult to imitate!--what a forlorn hope it seems, and how we feel ourselves abashed, as we endeavour at a distance to look up to thee in our small advances to the temple of Fame! But the poet is moving on towards the 'Peasant's Nest,' let us follow him. He says, and truly—

""Tis perched upon the greenhill top, but close
Environed with a ring of branching elms
That overhangs the thatch, itself unseen,
Peeps at the vale below; so thick beset
With foliage of such dark, redundant growth,

I called the low-roofed lodge the Peasant's Nest.
And hidden as it is, and far remote

From such unpleasing sounds as haunt the ear,
In village or in town, the bay of curs
Incessant, clinking hammers, grinding wheels,
And infants clam'rous, whether pleased or pained;
Oft have I wished the peaceful covert mine.
Here, I have said, at least I should possess
The poet's treasure, silence, and indulge
The dreams of fancy, tranquil and secure.

Vain thought! the dweller in that still retreat,
Dearly obtains the refuge it affords.

Its elevated site forbids the wretch

To drink sweet waters of the crystal well;

He dips his bowl into the weedy ditch,
And heavy laden, brings his beverage home.
Far fetched and little worth, nor seldom wants,
Dependent on the baker's punctual call,
To hear his creaking panniers at the door,
Angry and sad, and his last crust consumed.
So farewell envy of the Peasant's Nest!
If solitude make scant the means of life,
Society for me! thou seening sweet,
Be still a pleasing object in my view;
My visit still, but never mine abode."

We have always considered this 'Peasant's Nest,' one of the sweetest little gems in the poet's collection, and in faithfulness and picturesque effect worthy the pen of a Crabbe, or the brush of a Wilkie.

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To all who indulge the vain hope of happiness in seclusion, and think of reaching heaven upon earth, by basking in the sunshine of poetry and romance, the subject affords some salutary precautions and humiliating drawbacks since if the poet found no charms in such retirement, but few can expect to discover them. This 'Peasant's Nest' has been sketched by hundreds of romantic young ladies and gentlemen, anxious to display their taste and fill their scrap books. It was quite a lion for strangers when we

were there ; as also the Rustic Bridge, Colonnades, the Elms, the Groves, &c.

But we are leaving the poet, let us run after him, and view the scenes

"Not distant far, a length of Colonnade
Invites us. Monument of ancient taste
Now scorned, but worthy of a better fate.
Our fathers knew the value of a screen
From sultry suns; and in their shaded walks
And long protracted bowers, enjoyed at noon,
The gloom and coolness of declining day.
We bear our shades about us, self-deprived
Of other screen, the thin umbrella spread,
And range an Indian waste without a trec.
Thanks to Benevolus, he spares me yet
These chestnuts ranged in corresponding lines;
And though himself so polished, still reprieves
The obsolete prolixity of shade.
Descending now-but cautious, lest too fast-
A sudden steep upon a Rustic Bridge,
We pass a gulf, in which the willows dip
Their pendent boughs, stooping as if to drink.
Hence ancle-deep in moss and flowery thyme
We mount again, and feel at every step
Our foot half sunk in hillocks green and soft,
Raised by the mole, the miner of the soil.
He, not unlike the great ones of mankind,
Disfigures carth; and plotting in the dark,
Toils much to earn a monumental pile,
That may record the mischiefs he has done."
(To be concluded in our next.)

"A TIME TO DANCE."

A WORTHY clergyman, who had been suspected of having improperly interfered in influencing some of the young people under his pastoral charge, to absent themselves from a ball that took place in the parish, received, in consequence, the following anonymous note:

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SIR,-Obey the voice of Scripture. Take the following for your text, and contradict it. Show in what consists the evil of that innocent amusement of dancing.—‘A time to weep, and a time to laugh : a time to mourn, and a time to dance.' (Eccles. iii. 4.)

A TRUE CHRISTIAN, BUT NO HYPOCRITE." The minister immediately wrote the following admirable reply, which he inserted in a periodical publication :—

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"MY DEAR SIR (OR MADAM,)-Your request that I would preach from Eccles. iii. 4, I cannot comply with at present, since there are some Christian duties more important than dancing, which a part of my people seemed disposed to neglect. Whenever I perceive, however, that the duty of dancing is too much neglected, I shall not fail to raise a warning voice against so dangerous an omission. In the mean time, there are certain difficulties in the text which you recommend to my notice, the solution of which I should receive with gratitude from 'a True Christian.' 'My first difficulty respects the time for dancing; for although the text declares that there is a time to dance, yet when that time is, it does not determine. Now, this point I wish to ascertain exactly, before I preach upon the subject; for it would be as criminal, I conclude, to dance at the wrong time, as to neglect to dance at the right time. I have been able to satisfy myself, in some particulars, when it is not a time to dance. We shall agree, I presume, that on the sabbath day, or at a funeral, or during the prevalence of a pestilence, or the rocking of be no time to dance. If we were condemned to die, and an earthquake, or the roaring of a thunder-storm, it would * John Courtney Throckmorton, Esq. of Weston Underwood.

were waiting in prison the day of execution, this would be no time for dancing; and if our feet stood on a slippery place beside a precipice, we should not dare to dance. But, suppose the very day to be ascertained, is the whole day, or only a part, to be devoted to this amusement; and if a part of the day only, then which part is the time to dance?' From the notoriously pernicious effects of 'night meetings,' in all ages, both upon morals and health, no one will pretend that the evening is the time to dance; and perhaps it may be immaterial which portion of the daylight is devoted to that innocent amusement. But allowing the time to be ascertained, there is still an obscurity in the text. Is it a command to dance, or only a permission? Or is it merely a declaration of the fact, that as men are constituted, there is a time, when all the events alluded to in the text, do in the providence of God come to pass? If the text be a command, is it of universal obligation? and must old men and maidens, young men and children,' dance obedience? If a permission, does it imply a permission also to refrain from dancing if any are so disposed? Or if the text be merely a declaration that there is a time when men do dance, as there is a time when they die, then I might as well be requested to take the first eight verses of the chapter, and show in what consists the evil of those innocent practices of hating, and making war, and killing men, for which it seems there is a time,' as well as for dancing. There is still another difficulty in the text, which just now occurs to me. What kind of dancing does the text intend? for it is certainly a matter of no small consequence to a true Christian,' to dance in a scriptural way as well as at the scriptural time. Now to avoid mistakes on a point of such importance, I have consulted every passage in the Bible which speaks of dancing; the most important of which, permit me to submit to your inspection.

"And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her, with timbrels and with dances.' (Exod. xv. 20.) This was on account of the overthrow of the Egyptians in the Red sea.

"The daughter of Jephthah came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances.' (Judges xi. 34.) This also was on account of a victory over the enemies of Israel.

"The yearly feast in Shiloh was a feast unto the Lord, in which the daughters of Shiloh went forth in dances. (Judges xxi. 21.) This was done as an act of religious worship.

"And David danced before the Lord with all his might;' but the irreligious Michal 'came out to meet David, and said, How glorious was the king of Israel to-day, who uncovered himself to-day in the eyes of the handmaids of his servants, as one of the vain fellows shamelessly uncovereth himself!' (2 Sam. vi. 14, 20.)

"Dancing it seems was a sacred rite, and was usually performed by women. At that day, it was perverted from its sacred use by none but vain fellows' destitute of shame. David vindicates himself from her irony, by saying, 'It was before the Lord;' admitting, that had this not been the case, her rebuke would have been merited.

"On account of the victory of Saul and David over the Philistines, the women came out of all the cities of Israel, singing and dancing.' (1 Sam. xviii. 6.)

"Let them praise his name in the dance.' (Ps. cxlix. 3.) "Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing.' (Psalm xxx. 11.) The deliverance here spoken of was a recovery from sickness, and the dancing an expression of religious gratitude and joy.

"As soon as he came nigh unto the camp, he saw the calf and the dancing.' (Exod. xxxii. 19.) From this it appears that dancing was a part also of idol worship.

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"O virgin of Israel, thou shalt again be adorned with thy tabrets, and go forth in the dances of them that make merry.' (Jer. xxxi. 4.) This passage predicts the return from captivity, and the restoration of the Divine favour, with the consequent expression of religious joy.

"We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented. (Matt. xi. 17.) That is, neither the judgments nor the mercies of God produce any effect upon this incorrigible generation. They neither mourn when called to mourn ing by his providence; nor rejoice with the usual tokens of religious joy, when his mercies demand their gratitude. "Now his elder son was in the field; and as he came, and drew nigh unto the house, he heard music and dancing.' (Luke xv. 25.) The return of the prodigal was a joyful event, for which the grateful father, according to the usages of the Jewish church, and the exhortations of the psalmist, praised the Lord in the dance.

"A time to mourn, and a time to dance.' (Eccles. iii. 4.) Since the Jewish church knew nothing of dancing, except as a religious ceremony, or as an expression of gratitude and praise, the text is a declaration that the providence of God sometimes demands mourning, and sometimes gladness and gratitude.

"But when Herod's birthday was kept, the daughter of Herodias danced before them, and pleased Herod. In this case, dancing was perverted from its original object to purposes of vanity and ostentation.

"Wherefore do the wicked live, become old, yea, are mighty in power? They send forth their little ones like a flock, and their children dance. They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave. Therefore they say unto God, Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways. What is the Almighty, that we should serve him; and what profit shall we have, if we pray unto him?' (Job xxi. 7, 11.) Their wealth and dancing are assigned as the reason of their saying unto God, 'Depart from us,' and of their not desiring the knowledge of His ways, or of serving Him, or praying to Him.

From the preceding quotations it will sufficiently appear, 1.-That dancing was a religious act, both of the true, and also of idol worship.

2.-That it was practised exclusively on joyful occasions, such as national festivals or great victories.

3. That it was performed by maidens only. 4. That it was performed usually in the day-time, in the open air, in highways, fields or groves.

5. That men who perverted dancing from a sacred use to purposes of amusement, were deemed infamous.

6. That no instances of dancing are found upon record in the Bible, in which the two sexes united in the exercise, either as an act of worship or amusement.

7. That there is no instance upon record, of social dancing for amusement, except that of the vain fellows,' devoid of shame; of the irreligious families described by Job, which produced increased impiety, and ended in destruction; and of Herodias, which terminated in the rash vow of Herod, and the murder of John the Baptist. "I congratulate you, sir, on the assured hope w which you seem to have attained, that you are a true Christian,' and on the meekness and modesty with which you have been able to express it; and most sincerely do I join with you in the condemnation of all 'hypocrites.'

I am, affectionately yours, &c."

THE LEARN-EVERYTHING YOUNG LADY. MANY a tear has been shed over "The Sorrows of Werter," many a sigh breathed for "The Sorrows of Rosalie." Never having met with either of these dismally-sounding

productions, I cannot, of course, presume to decide on their capabilities for exciting the "melting mood;" but of one thing I am sure-their griefs, whatever they may have been, must fall short of mine.

I am an only daughter. My parents, long before I was born, determined that I should be what I think is best defined by the expression of 'a learn-everything young lady.' In pursuance of their scheme, I was named Aspasia. My father would have preferred Corinne, but my mother liked Aspasia better; and, after a sharp dispute, during which my mother looked like Xantippe, I became Aspasia. Alas! when and where shall I find a Pericles? "Tis true, that the mayor of a small French country town, where I once resided, piqued himself on resembling him; but, though he did cut down all the trees, build a new meatmarket, paint the gates of the public gardens scarlet, mend the roads till they were impassable, set up monuments to the "memory of nobody," and triumphal arches of roses and ribands, and speechify the money out of our pockets, yet I could never see the likeness.

To return-my father, who is "a very clever man," took me in hand as soon as I could repeat "The Beggar's Petition" and the "multiplication table;" tell what England is bounded by; describe how Henry VIII. killed his wives; and work that horrid sum "a privateer and two hundred and fifty men took a prize," &c. (how fervently I used to wish they never had taken one, or that it had been empty), all which accomplishments I owed to my mother. Under his care, I was instructed in navigation, which he said would be " very useful;" and algebra-"absolutely necessary for keeping household accounts, and making out washing bills," "dialling," that I might spend a month making something to tell the hour by, instead of looking at the timepiece on the table; geometry, trigonometry, and conic sections (in the course of which every thing in the house, including mamma's stock of winter oranges, was cut into pyramids and parabolas); a little gunnery and fortification("most particularly useful"); fractions and decimals, and the cube root and perspective; and the use of the globes, and mapping, and astronomy, and I think, that's all; and then back I went to mamma, and a whole synod of masters and governesses. They taught me-compassionate reader-seven languages! Does it not make you shudder? Yes; seven languages were actually dinned into my poor unfortunate head, by as many professors. Oh! the agonies of Greek verbs and Latin cases! "luo, lueis, luei"—"dominus, domini, domino," German genders, where young women are neuter; and French genders, where a whole army of dark desperadoes are feminine (and a soldier on duty is feminine, too, till his guard is over, and then, I suppose, he is masculine again). The Italian abbreviations, where two letters stand for fifty others, and the Spanish j's and e's which spoiled my face and pushed my front teeth out of their places. Pause here awhile, kind reader, and drop a tear; but do not linger-greater sorrows are yet to be recorded.

My mother decided that I had a great genius for music, and a striking talent for drawing; and, at this moment, I draw in pencil, India ink, sepia, paint in oils and watercolours, and etch; play the harp, piano-forte, and guitar, and have taken lessons in thorough bass and the key-bugle! When I arrived at this pitch of perfection, my mother considered it was time I should be made useful. Accordingly, I was initiated into the mysteries of sewing and felling-whipping and gathering, &c.

The cook taught me to make pies, the coiffeur to dress hair, an embroideress to flourish, a washerwoman to smallplait, a milliner to make flowers; and nothing but a sudden and inevitable change of residence saved me from learning to manufacture baskets, fish trout, shoot sparrows, stuff

birds, stick butterflies, and knit stockings. To add to all this, nature has endowed me with a propensity to scribble prosy rhyme and rhymy prose-in fact just what might be expected from a head where Homer floats in batter-pudding, and music mixes with mathematics. Having then "this nice little talent," my mother, of course, expects me to exercise it frequently. The consequence is, that it is only an additional misery. I have other employments, too, engrossing and absorbing-they engross paper, and absorb ink, but of them I will not speak now-suffice it to say, they are public duties, and of the highest importance.

Here I would again pause, to ask if my case be not one of heart-rending bitterness; but the worst is yet to come! Dear reader, you doubtless imagine that all this was taught as such things usually are-carelessly and slightlymind forgotten as soon as acquired-passing over my the light breezes of summer sweep over the calm bosom of a lake, leaving no trace of their rapid passage when the momentary ripple has subsided. Oh that it were so! but, alas! it is far otherwise.

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Before I conclude, I will give you an idea of our usual conversation, and a "sketchy view" of my dismal employments. At breakfast, my father asks if I have "looked at my navigation lately;" fears I shall forget my fortification; asks now if the beef were a fort, and the chocolate the enemy, how I would commence the attack; and arranges the lumps of sugar like the cannon-balls in a barrack-yard, and makes me tell him "the contents" by the proper rule. Mamma hopes I shall not forget my German; fears I am too much fascinated by the Italian; begs I will remember my Greek ode; inquires after my Latin translation; desires I will practise, the first thing, or thinks that I had better paint; requests that I will not allow the pudding to slip my memory; brings me my stockings to mend; gives me a particular list of all the tapes that are off, and buttons "absent without leave ;" and puts a "broad R" (as they say in the navy) for ragged, against the names of every thing in my wardrobe! Well, the day wears on; I do first one thing, then another; my mother always follows me, and repeating what yet remains to be achieved. Visitors come, and dinner comes, and the pudding does not come, and then scolding comes, and an anathema is pronounced against the Greek and the mathematics, by mamma, and a hint is thrown out against the stitching and hemming by papa; and all is confusion. Night comes at last, and I retire, after washing out, like Lady Macbeth, "the spots" of ink, and paint, and earth-for I garden and study botany occasionally, to act over again in my sleep the deeds of the day; to fight with Schiller's ghosts or Homer's heroes, or fancy myself a second edition of the "Prometheus Vinctus."

I have said enough; such a tale needs no comment. I would not impair its simple truth by a single figure of speech. It must awaken the sympathies of many unfor tunates of my tribe, and perhaps touch the hearts of some It is an mothers who have hitherto resembled mine. appeal from the "learn-everything young ladies," the mental "factory children" of the nineteenth century, to the people of England. I trust it will be heard and answered!-New Monthly Magazine.

THE MISSOURI RIVER.

THE Missouri river is, perhaps, different in appearance and character from all other rivers in the world; there is a terror in its manner which is sensibly felt the moment we enter its muddy waters from the Mississippi. From the mouth of the Yellow Stone river, which is the place from whence I am now writing, to its junction with the

Mississippi, a distance of two thousand miles, the Missouri, with its boiling, turbid waters, sweeps off, in one unceasing current; and in the whole distance there is scarcely an eddy or resting-place for a canoe. Owing to the continual falling-in of its rich alluvial banks, its water is always turbid and opaque, having at all seasons of the year the colour of a cup of chocolate or coffee, with sugar and cream stirred into it. To give a better definition of its density and opacity, I have tried a number of simple experiments with it at this place, and at other points below, at the results of which I was exceedingly surprised. By placing a piece of silver (and afterwards a piece of shell, which is a much whiter substance) in a tumbler of this water, and looking through the side of the glass, I ascertained that those substances could not be seen through the eighth part of an inch; this, however, is in the spring of the year, when the freshet is upon the river, rendering the water undoubtedly much more turbid than it would be at other seasons; though it is always muddy and yellow, and from its boiling and wild character and uncommon colour, a stranger would think, even in its lowest state, that there was a freshet upon it.

For the distance of one thousand miles above St. Louis, the shores of this river (and, in many places, the whole bed of the stream) are filled with snags and raft, formed of trees of the largest size, which have been undermined by the falling banks, and cast into the stream; their roots becoming fastened in the bottom of the river, with their tops floating on the surface of the water, and pointing down the stream, forming the most frightful and discouraging prospect for the adventurous voyager. Almost every island and sand-bar is covered with huge piles of these floating trees, and when the river is flooded, its surface is almost literally covered with floating raft and drift-wood; which bids positive defiance to keel-boats and steamers, on their way up the river. The scene is not, however, all so dreary; there is a redeeming beauty in the green and carpeted shores which hem in this huge and terrible deformity of waters. There is much of the way through, where the mighty forests of stately cotton wood stand, and frown in horrid darkness and coolness over the filthy abyss below; into which they are ready to plunge headlong, when the mud and soil in which they are germed and reared has been washed out from underneath them, and is with the rolling current mixed, and on its way to the ocean. The greater part of the shores of this river, however, are without timber, where the eye is delightfully relieved by wandering over the beautiful prairies; most of the way gracefully sloping down to the water's edge, carpeted with the deepest green, and in distance, softening into velvet of the richest hues, entirely beyond the reach of the artist's pencil.

Such is the character of the upper part of the river especially; and as one advances to its source, and through its upper half, it becomes more pleasing to the eye, for snags and raft are no longer to be seen, yet the current holds its stiff and onward turbid character. It has been, heretofore, very erroneously represented to the world, that the scenery on this river was monotonous, and wanting in picturesque beauty. This intelligence is surely incorrect, and that because it has been brought perhaps by men who are not the best judges in the world of Nature's beautiful works; and, if they were, they always pass them by, in pain or desperate distress, in toil and trembling fears for the safety of their furs and peltries, or for their lives, which are at the mercy of the yelling savages who inhabit this delightful country. One thousand miles or more of the upper part of this river was, to my eye, like fairy-land; and, during our transit through that part of our voyage, I was most of the time riveted to the deck of

the boat, indulging my eyes in the boundless and tireless pleasure of roaming over the thousand hills, and bluffs, and dales, and ravines; where the astonished herds of buffaloes, of elks, of antelopes, sneaking wolves, and mountain goats were to be seen bounding up and down and over the green fields; each one and each tribe, band, and gang, taking their own way, and using their own means to the greatest advantage possible, to leave the sight and sound of the puffing of our boat; which was, for the first time, saluting the green and wild shores of the Missouri with the din of mighty steam.

From St. Louis to the falls of the Missouri, a distance of two thousand miles, is one continued prairie; with the exception of a few of the bottoms formed along the banks of the river, and the streams which are falling into it, which are often covered with the most luxuriant growth of forest timber. The summit level of the great prairies stretching off to the west and the east from the river, to an almost boundless extent, is from two to three hundred feet above the level of the river; which has formed a bed or valley for its course, varying in width from two to twenty miles. This channel or valley has been evidently produced by the force of the current, which has gradually excavated, in its floods and gorges, this immense space, and sent its débris into the ocean. By the continual overflowing of the river, its deposits have been left and lodged with a horizontal surface, spreading the deepest and richest alluvion over the surface of its meadows on either side; through which the river winds its serpentine course, alternately running from one bluff to the other, which present themselves to its shores in all the most picturesque and beautiful shapes and colours imaginable-some with their green sides gracefully sloped down in the most lovely groups to the water's edge; whilst others, divested of their verdure, present themselves in immense masses of clay, of different colours, which arrest the eye of the traveller with the most curious views in the world. These strange and picturesque appearances have been produced by the rains and frosts, which are continually changing the dimensions, and varying the thousand shapes of these denuded hills, by washing down their sides, and carrying them into the river.

Amongst these groups may be seen tens and hundreds of thousands of different forms and figures, of the sublime and the picturesque: in many places, for miles together, as the boat glides along, there is one continued appearance, before and behind us, of some ancient and boundless city in ruins-ramparts, terraces, domes, towers, citadels, and castles, may be seen; cupolas and magnificent porticoes, and here and there a solitary column and crumbling pedestal, and even spires of clay which stand alone, and glistening in distance, as the sun's rays are refracted back by the thousand crystals of gypsum which are imbedded in the clay of which they are formed. Over and through these groups of domes and battlements (as one is compelled to imagine them), the sun sends his long and gilding rays, at morn or the evening, giving life and light, by aid of shadows cast to the different glowing colours of these claybuilt ruins, shedding a glory over the solitude of this wild and pictured country which no one can realise unless he travels here and looks upon it.—Catlin's Notes on the North American Indians.

REMARKABLE INSTANCE OF CANINE FIDELITY.

IN the autumn, when the siege of Fort Stamvi, in America, was raised, the following occurrence took place at the fort :-Captain Greg, one of the American officers left in the garrison, went out one afternoon with a corpo