barely a mouthful-the Rapids are instantaneously passed-the Whirlpool waded through-and without wasting any breath on the Cave of the Winds, gallops over the Horse Shoe, and clears the Table Rock at a bound.

During one of my early morning rambles, I was overtaken by a thunderstorm. I ran to the shelter of a tavern, upon the Canadian side, and was welcomed by a pretty little black eyed brunette, the only person visible during an hour's sojourn. I peeped through the steamy glass of the windows, and saw the foam of the cataract and the mist of the storm mingling in the driving gust. The heavy rain pattered on the creamy surface of the deep and troubled pool; and the melancholy sough of the wind added depth to the booming sound of the waterfall; while the loud thunderburst awoke the echoes of the trembling rocks, and the forked lightning played amongst the foliage of the tall old trees. But the heaviness of the atmosphere imparted a sad and gloomy tinge to the scene; the cold winds rattled the window frames; the room was damp and chilly; and I was glad to leave gazing upon Nature in her dullest aspect, and turn to the cheering blaze of a wood fire, and the sparkling smile of the young brunette.

Several torn and dog-eared volumes of scrap-books, albums, and journals were scattered about the centretable of the tavern parlor. I opened one of them, to beguile the weary hour-and the little girl, as she hurried to and fro, said-" We have many books full of writing, sir-all the visiters come here during their stay, and nearly all of them write something in our albums; we are famous for our poetry."

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And truly," said I, "if a man has the spirit of poesy within him, the sight of the wonders of Niagara and the beauty of your bewitching smile ought to bring it out of him in some shape or other-and if he wishes any Byronian excitement in the shape of gin and water, or Jonsonian virtue in the article of wine, your bar-room can supply the means. Having the three great sources of inspiration within reach, let us see what results have been produced."

During my stay, I examined nearly a dozen albums, and found not a dozen specimens of tolerable verse. Some of the pages were filled with low and scurrilous remarks upon America by the Canadian tourists, to which illiberal answers were generally appended. A stupid son of John Bull claimed the merit of the Falls for England, because the Horse Shoe Cataract was nearer to the Canadian side; to revenge this illiberality, a valiant Yankee, from Scarborough, in Maine, threatened, in direful pot-hooks, to lick Great Britain out of the map of the world. I remarked that scarcely an observation had been made without incurring the fate of having a rude and frequently vulgar pendant in another hand writing. This conduct must, of course, deter a delicate minded person from expressing his or her thoughts where there existed so positive a certainty of ridicule and insult. It was curious to observe that the vilest scrawls were sure to be signed by the writer's name, with his place of address very conspicuously blazoned; while the few worthy pieces were either without signature or modestly graced with the initials of the scribe.

The generality of the effusions were comically inclined, but few succeeded in raising a smile, unless it was at the sheer nonsense of the thing. "A Yankee's Address to Niagara" must have been written by an escaped school-boy :

Pray how long have you been rearing
At this infernal rate?

I wonder if all your pouring
Could be cypher'd on a slate.

Another down-easter paraded his name in conspicu. ous large text letters, and said, in a homely mixture of rhyme and reason, "I travelled from Massachusetts to see Niagara.”

I came here the Falls to view,

Which are always old and always new!

A neat crow-quill hand writing, bearing the signa ture of a lady from New York, contained the following piece of extraneous foolery. I am sure that she must blush whenever she recollects the silly act:

I saw the foam come tumbling down,
And spoil my ribands and my gown,
Nor heeded it, because I felt
That all around me here there dwelt
A seven horse power of Majesty-
And, overcome, I cried, "Oh, my!"

But, perhaps, the most laughable of the selections that I deemed worthy transcription is a piece of serious intent, written in an upright stiff school-master sort of hand, and signed in full, with name and address. It is much too labored to be extemporaneous.

Sublime the scene! the never ceasing roar!
The solid upright rocks that wall the shore,
And the vast liquid lakes that dash and pour!
On Europe's land the like was never found-
A cataract that shakes the solid ground—
So high! so wide! so many yards around!

Contrast the grandeur and dignity of the above lines with the trifling nature of the following:

Oh, if I were a little fish,
And had a little fin,
To keep my little self afloat,

I swear I would jump in.
And having seen the mighty falls,
And heard the mighty roar,
Myself would be a mighty fish
Henceforth for evermore!

Willis Gaylord Clark, as if to shame the beggarly productions of the scribbling tourists, has improvised eight lines of perfect beauty. They constitute a gem that is no disgrace to the coronal encircling the brows of this genuine son of Apollo. Let us hope that the drudgery connected with the direction of a daily paper

will not prohibit the cultivation of his fine vein of poesy he cannot be spared from his pedestal in the gardens of the bi-forked hill. The lines are as follow:

Here speaks the voice of God! let man be dumb,
Nor with his vain aspirings, hither come;
That voice impels these hollow-sounding floods,
And with its pressure shakes the distant woods;
These groaning rocks th' Almighty's fingers piled-
For ages here his painted bow has smiled;
Mocking the changes and the chance of time-
Eternal-beautiful-serene-sublime!

One of the albums was devoted to the registry of the names of the adventurous few who brave the perils of Termination Rock, and earn certificates of having been under the great sheet. A gentleman boasts on one of the pages that he performed the dangerous and useless feat of carrying a deer-hound in his arms to the extremity of the standing place beneath the great Fall-a wag has written a commentary on this folly by asserting that "there was a pretty pair of pups." Another scribbler describes his opinions adjectively thus-" Aquatic, Beatic, Cataratic, Hydrostatic, Pneumatic, and Rheumatic." Another gives a rule of conduct for the visiters:

Yes, traveller, go under,
And midst the wild thunder,
The spray and the dashing,
The stones, and the splashing,
Turn not to one side,

But cling to the guide,

He is safe, though he's black.
Pay when you get back.

A southerner has perpetrated a series of very bad puns in the following lines:

I've drank at least six strong gin slings,
In hopes to give my fancy wings;
I've beat my brains for near an hour,
But cannot feel poetic power.
With pencil pois'd, and asses' skin,
I've walked without-I've sat within-
Trying to fix up something fit
To put my name to when 'tis writ.

Here, bring more gin! I'll raise the steam!

I think I have a transient gleam.

I crawled, undress'd, beneath the sheet,
But frighten'd at the desperate feat,
I sneak'd back rapidly again—
The sheet gave me a counter-pain.
I fear'd, too, lest my giddy head
Should throw me in the river's bed;
And none would bolster my wife's pillow,
If I was laid beneath the billow.
I donn'd my clothes, my money paid,
And nothing by my motion made,
For a cockney friend observed, "I'll bet
Your asses' skin vas made vell-vet."

The following was written by a Philadelphian, who must have felt particularly inspired by the majesty of his subject:

Niagara! Niagara!

I swear you are a staggerer!

I don't wish to be a bragger, or

A consequential swaggerer-
Yet still I vow, Niagara,

Your Falls are quite a staggerer.

Thus much for the poetry of Niagara. I have given the choicest productions of countless visiters to this unequalled scene; 1 have honestly selected the most favorable specimens of the effects of the inspiration derived from contemplating the beauties of nature in her grandest mood.

The subjoined piece of beautiful poetry was copied on a subsequent occasion, and graces the pages of the American Literary Souvenir for the ensuing year:

GREAT Spirit of the Water! I have come
From forth my own indomitable home,
Far o'er the bosom of the eternal sea,
To breathe my heart's deep homage unto thee,
And gaze on glories that might wake to pray'r
All but the hopeless victim of despair.

Flood of the forest! fearfully sublime! Restless, resistless as the flood of time! There is no type of thee-thou art alone, In sleepless glory, rushing on and on.

Flood of the forest! thou hast been to me
A dream, and thou art still a mystery!
Would I had seen thee years and years agone,
While thou wert still unworshipp'd and unknown
And thy fierce torrent, as it rush'd along,
Thro' the wild desert pour'd its booming song,
Unheard by all save him of lordly mood,
The bronz'd and free-born native of the wood.
How would my heart have quiver'd to its core,
To know its God, but half reveal'd before!
In other times, when I was wont to roam
Around the mist-robed mountain peaks of home,
My fancy wander'd to this western clime,
Where all the haunts of nature are sublime,
And thou wert on my dream, so dread a thing,
I trembled at my own imagining:

But I have come from far to gaze upon
Thy mighty waters, and my dream is gone!

Flood of the forest! I have been with thee,
But still thou art a mystery to me!

Years will roll on, as they have roll'd, and thou
Wilt speak in thunder as thou speakest now;
And when the name, that I inscribe to-day
Upon thine altar, shall have pass'd away
From all remembrance, and the lay I sing
Shall long have been but a forgotten thing,
Thou wilt be sung, and other hands than mine
May wreathe a worthier chaplet for thy shrine.