SILVER CASCADE,

IN THE NOTCH OF THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.

FOR a mountainous region, usually fertile in such accidents of nature, the neighbourhood of the "White Hills" has few waterfalls; of those that are met with in the "Notch," the Silver Cascade is by far the most beautiful; but to be seen to advantage it should be visited after heavy rains. The stream is scanty, but its course from among the deep forest, whence its springs issue into the light, is one of singular beauty. Buried beneath the lofty precipices of the gorge, after ascending towards the Pulpit Rock, by the side of the turbulent torrent of the Saco, the ear is suddenly saluted by soft dashings of this sweetest of cascades; and a glance upwards reveals its silver streams issuing from the loftiest crests of the mountain, and leaping from crag to crag, or spread in a broad thin sheet of liquid light over the edge of some projecting ledge, till it reaches the road, across which it passes, forming a still and transparent pool immediately beneath, before it joins the Saco in the depths of the gorge. It is a beautiful vision in the midst of the wildest and most dreary scenery; and its sudden appearance-for nothing of it is seen till the tourist is immediately under it-is a moment of deep delight to him from the suddenness of the contrast. The lover of nature loves to linger among the wild beauties of this region; and some of the finest ideas of the American painters have been gleaned amongst its solitudes. We believe that the engraving, from a painting by Doughty, will be very interesting to our subscribers.

VOL. II.

VIEW OF NEW YORK, FROM WEEHAWKEN.

WEEHAWKEN is slighted by the traveller ascending to the bolder and brighter glories of the Highlands above; and few visit it except

who, making a blest holiday of a summer's afternoon, crosses thither to set his foot on the green grass, and mount the rocks for a view of our new-sprung Babylon and its waters. There is no part of "the country" which "God made" so blest in its offices of freshening the spirit, and giving health to the blood, as the rural suburb of a metropolis. The free breath drawn there, the green herb looked on before it is trodden down, the tree beautiful simply for the freedom of its leaves from the dust of the street, the humblest bird or the meanest butterfly, are dispensers of happiness in another measure than falls elsewhere to their lot. Most such humble ministers of large blessings have their virtue for "its own reward;" but it has fallen to the lot of Weehawken to find a minstrel, and no mean one, among those for whose happiness and consolation it seems made to bloom. A merchant-poet, whose "works" stand on shelves in Wall Street, but whose rhymes for pastime live in literature, and in the hearts of his countrymen, thus glorifies his suburban Tempe :

"Weehawken! in thy mountain scenery yet,

All we adore of Nature in her wild

And frolic hour of infancy, is met,

And never has a summer morning smiled
Upon a lovelier scene than the full eye
Of the enthusiast revels on-when high

"Amid thy forest-solitudes he climbs

O'er crags that proudly tower above the deep,
And knows that sense of danger, which sublimes
The breathless moment-when his daring step
Is on the verge o the cliff, and he can hear
The low dash of the wave with startled ear,

BIELI

VIEW OF NEW YORK, FROM WEEHAWKEN.

"Like the death music of his coming doom,

And clings to the green turf with desperate force,
As the heart clings to life; and when resume

The currents in his veins their wonted course
There lingers a deep feeling, like the moan
Of wearied ocean when the storm is gone.

"In such an hour he turns, and on his view

66

Ocean, and earth, and heaven, burst before him;
Clouds slumbering at his feet, and the clear blue
Of summer's sky in beauty bending o'er him;
The city bright below; and far away
Sparkling in light, his own romantic bay.

Tall spire, and glittering roof, and battlement,
And banners floating in the sunny air,

And white sails o'er the calm blue waters bent,

Green isle, and circling shore, are blended there

In wild reality. When life is old,

And many a scene forgot, the heart will hold

"Its memory of this; nor lives there one

Whose infant breath was drawn, or boyhood's days

Of happiness were passed beneath that sun,

That in his manhood's prime can calmly gaze
Upon that bay, or on that mountain stand,
Nor feel the prouder of his native land."

31

Weehawken is the "Chalk Farm" of New York, and a small spot enclosed by rocks, and open to observation only from the river, is celebrated as having been the ground on which Hamilton fought his fatal duel with Aaron Burr. A small obelisk was erected on the spot, by the St. Andrew's Society, to the memory of Hamilton, but it has been removed. His body was interred in the churchyard of Trinity, in Broadway, where his monument now stands.

It is to be regretted that the fashion of visiting Haboken and Weehawken has yielded to an impression among the "fashionable" that it is a vulgar resort. This willingness to relinquish an agreeable promenade because it is enjoyed as well by the poorer classes of society, is one of those superfine ideas which we imitate from our English ancestors, and in which the more philosophic continentals are so superior to us. What enlivens the Tuileries and St. Cloud at Paris, the Monte-Pincio at Rome, the Volksgarten at Vienna, and the Corso and Villa Reale at Naples, but the presence of innumerable" vulgarians?" They are considered there like the chorus in a pantomime, as producing all the back-ground effect as necessary to the ensemble. The place would be nothing-would be desolate, without them; yet in England and America it is enough to vulgarize any-the most agreeable resort, to find it frequented by the "people!"

Fanny," a poem, by Fitz-Greene Halleck.