you have completed the chain of railroads to the Mississippi, the fashionable tour will be in the track of our happy "excursion party, to the Falls of St. Anthony." The foreign traveller must go there, and the song of the bridegroom, to many a "Lizzie Lee" will be "Ho! for the Falls of St. Anthony!"

There is a curious diversity in the form of the bluffs. Some have monotonous heavy outlines, like the horizon line to which an Eastern eye is accustomed; others run up to sharp points, like the "Aiguilles" of the Alps; and some stand apart-regular cones-but all are covered with rich prairie turf, gentle declivities, or sharp precipices, the long grass, absolutely shining with the verdure of June, and brilliantly embroidered with flowers, waves over them. The bluffs, at some points, make the shore of the river, then they recede leaving a broad fore-ground of level prairie. They are planted, quite to their summits, with oaks mainly, and trees of other species, as Downing, with his love of nature and his study of art, might have planted them: now in long serpentine walks, and now in copses, and then. so as to cover, with regular intervening clear spaces, the whole front of the declivity, producing the effect of a gigantic orchard. Midway up the bluff, you sometimes see a belt of rock, reminding one of the fragments of Roman walls on the Rhine, but still, above and below it, the same bright green turf. "If we were to put it there, and statue it down," said a practical observer from our rocky New England, "it would not stay!" But the surpassingly beautiful marvels of all, are the mimic castles, or rather foundations of ruined castles, that surmount the pinnacles. These mere rocks of lime and sandstone so mock and haunt you with their resemblance to the feudal fortresses of the Old World, that you unconsciously wonder what has become of the Titan race that built them! and go on wondering, where are the people that planted these magnificent terraces; where the lordly race that has so kept in garden beauty, free from brush and brake, these "grounds," stretching in ever-varying loveliness for hundreds of miles, and tempting you to apply the magnificent insolence of a celebrated phrase, and call the vaunted parks of England a "mere patch," in the comparison But no! no human hand has planted them-no human imagination embellished themno human industry dressed and kept

them. They have the fresh impress of the Creator's hand

"His love a smile of Heaven imprest In beauty on their ample breast."

We glided along past this enchanting scenery, for four days and nights of our blessed week, amidst sunshine, moonlight, and clouds; each variation of the atmosphere serving to add a new charm or reveal a new beauty. Our light boats skimmed the surface of the water like birds; and, with the ease and grace of birds, they dipped down to the shore, and took up their food, their fiery throats devouring it with marvellous rapidity.

The commodore of our joyous little fleet, Colonel Mix-ever honored be his name!-made every arrangement to produce the greatest amount of comfort and enjoyment. No racing was permitted. The sailing was so ordered, that what we saw, by the exciting moonlight, going up, was resplendent, in the full light of day, coming down; and, for it seemed as if the clouds co-operated with the benignant Commodore, what was draped and softened by mist, in our ascension, was unveiled and defined in our descent. The boats, at the approach of evening, were lashed together to allow an extension of social intercourse, and visits were interchanged, and the general voice was of satisfactions and enjoyments without number. The lights of four parallel boats streamed, with charming effects, upon the shores of Lake Pepin, where the river, unbroken by islands, is five iniles wide.

Our creature-comforts, though for once subordinate to the higher wants of our nature, were munificently provided. Morning, noon and night, a table was spread, that in most of its appointments and supplies would have done honor to our first class hotels, and its confections would not have disgraced a French artiste with all the appliances and means of a French cuisine. By what magic art such ices, jellies, cakes, and pyrainids, veiled in showers of candied sugar, were compounded in that smallest of tophets, a steamer's kitchen, is a mystery yet to be solved. Captain Morehouse of the Lady Franklin, the only commander of whom I can speak from personal observation, performed his duty to our hearts' content, and even the civil lads who waited on us did their work as if it were a dainty task, to be done daintily.

Ah, Mr. Butler, why did you not come

with us? You should have seen that beautiful tower of St. Paul's, sitting on its fresh hillside, like a young queen just emerging from her minority. You should have seen the gay scrambling at our landing there, for carriages and wagons, and every species of locomotive, to take us to our terminus at St. Anthony's Falls. You should have seen how, disdaining luxury or superfluity, we-some among us accustomed to cushioned coaches at home-could drive merrily over the prairie in lumber-wagons, seated on rough boards. You should have seen the troups and groups scattered over St. Anthony's rocks (what a picturesque domain the saint possesses!) and you should have witnessed the ceremony performed with dignity by Colonel Johnson, of mingling the water taken from the Atlantic at Sandy Hook, one week before, with the water of the Mississippi; and there and then have remembered that, but three hundred years ago, DeSoto, after months of wandering in trackless forests, was the first European discoverer of this river. What startling facts! What confounding contrasts!

You have so long been a Western explorer that you may have forgotten the excitement of seeing, for the first time, ploughing on a prairie. In returning from St. Anthony's to St. Paul's, we all left our vehicle to follow the wheelplough as drawn by six noble oxen; it cleared the tough turf, and upheaved it for the first time for the sun and.the hand of man to do their joint fructifying work upon it. The oxen (not the man) looked like the natural lords of the soil. It was the sublime of ploughing. When will our Poets write their bucolics?

Our next sight, and hard by the ploughing, was one of nature's perfect works-the falls of the Minnesota, poetically called by the Indians, Minnehahalaughing water. Miss Bremer says they deserve their picture, song and tales. So perfect is this Fall in color; in form so graceful, so finished, that by some mysterious accident of association, it brought to my mind at once the Venus de Medici. The last incident of this day's most pleasant circuit, was an unlooked-for visit to the old border fortress of Fort Snelling. We were received with great kindness. Courtesy and gallantry are twin-virtues in military life. The fort has a very beautiful position on a bluff overlooking the meeting of the Minnesota and the Mississippi. A pretty town lies below it. Its naine, Mendota,

means the meeting of the waters. The inhabitants of St. Paul's, with the unstinted Western hospitality that had everywhere awaited us, gave a ball in the evening to the thousand excursionists. Unhappily, long prefatory speeches and the punctual departure of the boats at 11 P.M., cut short its hilarity.

Before we reached Rock Island on our return, our entertainers' generosity having grown by what it fed on, it was announced to us that the excursion was extended to St. Louis. This episode itself deserves an epic! Some of our company could not resist the inviting aspect of the beautiful town of Davenport, and loitered there a day, others posted off by rail, via La Salle. My party preferred the luxurious and dreamy descent of the Mississippi, and winding amidst its islands and embroidered shores, we arrived at St. Louis at dawn on Monday morning.

St. Louis with its old French heart, and thriving young limbs, has more the air of a great and consolidated capital than any other city of the West. Its future destiny may be augured from the fact that in 1830 it had but 12,000 inhabitants-it has now more than 100,000-and that its position is within 300 miles of the centre of North America.

Time in the West is no longer the old man with a single forelock, and a scythe in his hand. He should be painted with the emblems of speed, construction and accumulation. We were astonished at the shipping at the wharves of St. Louis, at its towering warehouses, broad avenues, brilliant shops, and beautiful private residences. And there, where everything is living and stirring-and there would seem to be no place for the dying, no remembrance of the dead-we were shown a cemetery (it has indeed few tenants), not surpassed by Mount Auburn, hardly by Greenwood. We were received at a suburban villa where its proprietor lives with the simplicity of a republican gentleman in the midst of his 1200 acres of Park-land; and at another, adorned with a terraced or hanging garden, made in one of those dimples in the land, peculiar, I believe, to that neighborhood, and there designated by the unhappy name of sink. No wonder that the smiling appellation of dimple should have been suggested by the urbanity of our host, who welcomed us to a teatable that I have never seen equalled in New England, where we fancy we have

a prescriptive right to excel in that prevailing hospitality. Perhaps what most pleased us in St. Louis, and most naturally, was the absence of all obtrusive signs of what we consider the only misfortune of Missouri-the only obstacle to its future pre-eminence--slavery. But this disease has made so little progress there, that there is much reason to expect the heathful young state will throw it off. Some of its best citizens are opposed to it, and we met and heard one, a 66 young man eloquent," who is just entering, with sure promise, political life, and who has the generous boldness to throw himself in the scale against it-God speed him!

St. Louis was, to my own party, a marked place in our great route. We experienced there what has made happy epochs ever since the day that Joseph's brethren fell upon his neck and weptthe most cordial reception from old friends, besides seeing new ones who had almost the flavor of old ones! And finally, each day adding some varying circumstance, some new pleasure, we passed our last Sunday at Niagara, and came out by those glorious and shining gates by which we had entered the West.

Do you ask me if I would live in the West? I answer without hesitation, no!

I saw nothing there so lovely to my eye as the hillsides, the deep, narrow valleys, the poor little lakes, and the very small river of our own Berkshire. But

at these hearth-stones our affections were nurtured, and here in our cemeteries rest and are recorded our holiest treasures. Besides, the old tree uprooted from a sterile hill will not thrive in level ground-be it ever so rich. No. Let the young go. They should. They do go in troops and caravans, and in the vast prairies of the valley of the Mississippi may they perfect an empire of which their Puritan Fathers sowed the seeds on the cold coast of the Atlantic. But let them remember their fathers were proof against poverty. May they be against riches!

In conclusion, permit me to wish long life and happiness to Messrs. Furnum and Sheffield, and their coadjutors in this unprecedented hospitality. If it be more blessed to give than to receive, what must be the amount of their satisfaction? Was ever a company so assembled and so blessed by heavenly and earthly Providence! Day unto day, and night, proclaimed their enjoyment from beginning to end, and no death-no illness-no disaster.

Lenox, 1854.

O. M. S.

Fifty Years in both Hemispheres, or Reminisconces of the life of a former Merchant. By VINCENT NOLTE, late of New Orleans. (Redfield.)

ACOSMOPOLITE, ma'am, is a gentle

man whose title is Greek, without that fact, however, making him a Greek nobleman. Κοσμου means "of the world" πоλιTAVOS "a citizen;" consequently kosmopolitanos means "citizen of the world," an idea which is supposed to be clearly expressed to the Anglo-Saxon mind by the modified word which immediately follows the article a in the title of this excellent contribution.

I grant you, my dear madam, the name is a paradox: for the world, not being a city, it is morally impossible for a man to be a citizen of it. All that, however, will be arranged to suit you so soon as we get the Universal Republic.

At present we Americans have a little stretched the Greek in saying citizen of the United States: "citizen of the world" is but a step further.

You would prefer me to define more briefly well then. A Cosmopolite has no country in particular, but makes himself at home in all. As he easily unlearns prejudices, he as easily adapts himself to the most varied practices. While he would possibly prefer a cent franc par tête dinner at Vevour's yet he could, on a pinch, reconcile himself to raw beefsteaks in Abys sinia. He is never astonished at any thing, for he has paid periodical visits to France since 1793. He is easy in his manners, for he has conversed with potentates and great men from the bestarred European, to the simply but improperly costumed native of the Fee

jee Islands. He is accomplished-a bit of an artist in music, painting and literature-knows many languages pretty well-is full of quaint fresh anecdote, and odd atoms of fact overlooked by the class of romance writers fondly called historians.

But, in forgetting his prejudices, he is apt to forget his principles: in becoming cosmopolitan, he generally loses love of country. He is passionately addicted to scandal; and serves you up a character with sauce of a pleasant tartness. He is disposed to caricature-he has an eye considerably keener for faults than for virtues: he is not troubled by modesty and his infacility of being humbugged has begotten in him a too general irreverence, incredulousness and distrust. He reverses our common law maxim, and supposes every man to be guilty until he has proved him to be innocent. If you will allow me, I will illustrate my remarks by some passages in the life of Mr. Vincent Nolte.

This excellent American was a German, born in Italy, on the 21st of November, 1779. On the first page of his autobiography, he compliments his mother on her punctuality-she having been married on the 22d of February. He then mentions that virtue as being characteristic of his family. He is convinced that the family is of Italian origin, a creed which he predicates upon the fact that his remotest genealogical researches have traced them distinctly to Sweden. He, of course, found no support for his conviction until he reached his seventieth year, when a Hungarian informed him that, in the days of Gustavus Adolphus, an Italian officer in the Austrian service, bearing the name of Nolte, had deserted to the camp of the Lion of the North.

Leghorn is the city which claims the glory of his birth, where his father, a Hamburgher, was partner in the house of his uncle, Otto Franck. But when Vincent had attained the age of nine years, the family went home to Hamburgh, where he lived for a while with a senatorial grandfather." Our philosopher never neglects any dignity which sheds, however subdued, a lustre upon himself. At Hamburgh, Vincent was sent to school to a Jerseyman called Geris, who was a drunken old pedagogue, improperly fond of his housekeeper; an indolent, ignorant man, under whom the boy acquired nothing save a high proficiency in the science of robbing orchards

and vineyards. It only took eighteen months, however, to render him an adept in this predatory life; so of course his time was not lost. Papa Nolte, a calm, unimaginative man, endowed with an obese correctness of deportment, and the slow German capacity of being tickled by a joke, soon took Master Vincent to the uncle at Leghorn. Vincent, on leaving home, had a Sunday coat of crimson and gold; and as this happened to be the Hamburgh consular uniform—Uncle Otto being consul-the boy availed himself of carnival to go to the theatre in a travestied consular uniform, wherein he caricatured Uncle Otto to the delight of the author of his being and the unpardoning disgust of his aunt.

Then Vincent went back to Hamburgh, was intrusted to the pedagogical care of Gymnasiums-Professor Karl F. Hip— and astonished that excellent man by learning all he could teach in a preposterously short time. But soon he was sent back to Italy to Uncle Otto, to exchange Schiller for liquorice, soap, oil, brimstone and account-books. It was a very hard case, but he worried through it by the help of making fun of Uncle Otto, and love to the two ballet girls who lived opposite the livery stables. A slight tailor's bill for one year, containing the items of twelve coats of all colors, and twenty-two pairs of small clothes, suggests the possibility of his being addicted to dress. Here he saw Bonaparte for the first time-"a diminutive, youthful-looking man, of pallid and almost yellow hue, whose sleek, yet black hair, like that of the Tallapoochee Indians, hung down over both ears; with a perpetual smile upon the lips, and cold, unsympathising eyes." Murat was with him in his gorgeous uniform, and Hullin, executioner of d'Enghien. Business was at a stand-still in every piazza altars were erected, topped with a statue of Liberty, and at every daily parade the representatives, Garat and Salicetti, made speeches to the soldiery. Uncle Otto's cashier gave Vincent what money he demanded, which was readily expended at a time when his most serious Occupation was sketching the French soldiers in the street. I do not esteem it wonderful that when the books were made up, four years afterwards, a deficit of sixty thousand pezza was discovered.

At the age of eighteen, Uncle Otto sent his family to a country seat, near Florence, next door to Villa Pandolfieri. Now, in this villa lived a banker and his

torn

lovely daughter, to whom Vincent at once made violent love; meaning it, he says, mere pastime; but the young lady took it seriously to heart;" so that at last the aunt had to write to his parents, and Vincent, who had learned nothing of his profession at Leghorn, was away from his pastime and sent off to Hamburgh. This was the residence of many of the French émigrés, Talleyrand and Madame de Genlis, Dumouriez and Louis Philippe were there, and the young man's time glided on for a year or two, divided between society, invoices, newspapers squib-writing, caricaturing his friends, and playing in private theatricals. Old Nolte failed, and got up again and scolded his son for a presumptuous and unfixed fellow. This set Vincent to work at his mercantile books, which he studied for a while and then started for Nantes, to begin the practice of their precepts.

On his way he stops at Paris to have a look at the Emperor, just then proclaimed at Moreau, Georges Cadoudal, &c. Some statements of Nolte's are not to be found in standard histories; as, that on his first imperial review, Napoleon's horse fell down and rolled with his rider, ominously in the dust; or, that he was brusque, brutal, insolent, above all to men of literature and science, and to merchants; that his genius was equalled by the commercial genius of Ouvrard; that Moreau was the idol of the people and the middle class, and guiltless of the charges brought against hin; and many other such matters. And then he goes on his way to Nantes, and copies circulars of the prices of land and molasses in the counting-room of M. Labouchère, He has mighty commercial friends, this Vincent Nolte: the Barings, the Hopes and the Parishes, who believe in his genius and believe well. For he draws up such far-seeing, well-combined plans for vast mercantile operations in America, that he is chosen to put them into execution and sent to New Orleans with powers of attorney, as secret agent for those great merchants and for Ouvrard

Napoleon had oppressed and maltreated Ouvrard, and Napoleon had conquered Spain-but Spain in a treaty with France, had made herself liable to pay an annual subsidy of seventy-two millions of francs, which was now (1804) partly due, and required negotiation. Napoleon had need of Ouvrard, for there was war between France and Great Britain; sil

66

ver was absolutely necessary: there was no silver but in Mexico; the British cruisers were all over the sea, and Napoleon ordered Ouvrard to find a means of getting those dear dollars safe into France. There they could come only as private property under a neutral flagsay the American flag. So Vincent Nolte was sent over to become an American citizen-to receive the dollars, and to ship them as his own to France. Little thought New Orleans of its new citizen, for the city was a nest of pirates." Beluche, Lafitte, Dominique and others walked boldly through the streets, and the whole population was but 16,000 (now about 150,000). One day, however, they learned that a ship had arrived from Vera Cruz, freighted with $200,000, and then another with $150,000, and then another with $150,000-and all for the new citizen. Vincent Nolte was instantly asked to dinner by the most respectable people. He went, saw, and caricatured. Then he got the yellowfever, and a kind friend, one Zacharias, told him he had better make his will and die. Nolte obstinately refused to do either, and stuck to his purpose. Indeed, he had not time to die, for Spain had given an order upon Cuba for $700,000, which he must live to collect. The fever left him; he went to Cuba-talked to the Governor-General, who said he did not understand money matters, and declined to take a bribe; but the cashier-general, the minister of finances, understood the former, and was particularly inclined to the latter. Nolte displayed sciencedealt about a few thousand dollars, and received a check upon the viceroy of Mexico for $945,000, which included interest. The check was paid; the amount sent to France, and our cosmopolite started for New Orleans, where he would infallibly have arrived but for a little accident, which will be found recorded in the next paragraph.

He was wrecked on the Florida reefs.

It appears, so far as I can gather, that the captain had a social castom of getting excessively drunk in company with the mate; the consequence of which was that a storm threw the ship into a nautical position, of which your narrator does not know the name, but which appears to have been exceedingly uncomfortable. Let us say on her beam-ends, with the fore-top-gallant clewlines dismasted, and her weather-vang unshipped. The result was, that she went to the bottom, while Nolte went to shore on a raft.