might perhaps have contemplated till sunrise; but the music of a lute, made more harmonious by a voice, struck upon my ear, and I felt the delight of fancying myself suddenly transported as in a dream to what are called the regions of enchantment. A lute upon the mountain! said I, and turned to that side whence the melody proceeded, and discovered through the dark verdure of the trees, the white walls and garden paling of a cottage. I approached it and be held a young peasant with a lute, on which he was playing with exquisite address. A woman, seated on his right, kept looking on him with infinite affection. At their feet, on the turf, were many children, boys and girls, and old people, all in attitudes of pleasure and attention.

When I first made my appearance, several of the children came to meet me, looked at each other, and said among themselves, What gentleman is this? The young musician turned his head, but did not leave off playing. I held out my hand; he gave me his, which I seized with a sort of transport. Every one now rose up and made a circle round us. I informed them as concise ly as I could, of my business in that quarter of the country, and at such a time of night. We have not an inn for many miles about, remarked the youthful peasant; we live far from any road; but if you are content to put up with a cottage and poor people, we will do our best to entertain you. You are fatigued,

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I fancy. Didier, bring a chair. Excuse me, sir; I owe my neighbours the evening entertainment I am now giving them. I would not take the chair, but laid myself upon the grass, as the rest did. Every one had now resumed his former posture; and the silence I had interrupted took place again.

The young man immediately began to play upon his mountain lute; and to sing a favourite ballad, which he did with so much sweetness, that I could see tears stand trembling in the eye of every listener by the time he had repeated the first couplet. After he had finished, the whole company rose up, wiping tears from their eyes. They wished each other a good night with perfect cordiality. The neighbours with their children went away, and none were left, except an old man upon a seat beside the door, whom till now I had not noticed; the musician, with the woman sitting by him; Didier, the young boy whose name I recollected; and myself.

Dear sir, said the old man, you are content, I fancy, with your evening's entertainment? you shall repose in my bed. No, father, interrupted Didier, who came running from the barn, I have been spreading me some straw; and it is my bed the gentleman shall lie in, if he pleases. I was forced to promise I would yield to this last offer. Didier, upon this, held out his hand; the old man rested on his shoulder and went in, after wishing me a good night: we soon followed into the cottage, where, to my

In the summer of 1837, I visited with some friends the memorable location of the battle of Brandywine, which, commencing at Chad's Ford, was fought in a space of about four miles, including Osborne's Hill, the farm of Samuel Jones, and the cemetery of Birmingham Meeting House, all of which are in the vicinity of the large and beautiful village of Westchester.

It was at that delightful season when the close of summer is blending with the commencement of autumn that I made this pilgrimage to a place which is now

classic ground. This part of Chester County is extremely beautiful, both by nature and cultivation. It was settled chiefly by quakers and other highly respectable people, who came over in the time of William Penn and even at this day the land is mostly occupied by their descendants. There are very few sections of our ever-changing country that retains so much of their primitive aspect. In the depth of one of these lovely vallies I was shown a farm house at least a century old, built (like most others in the neighborhood) of dark grey stone,

and bearing every mark of what in America is considered antiquity. In it was born more than eighty years ago a quaker lady with whom I am intimately acquainted in Philadelphia, and who in mind and conversation still retains the vigour that has characterized her through a long and exemplary life.

There is yet standing on Osborne's Hill a tree, under which Lord Percy made a hasty breakfast on the morning of the battle while the distant sound of the cannon at Chad's Ford rose heavily and distinctly on the air, in indication of the coming fight. Lord Percy was heir to the dukedom of Northumberland, and colonel of one of the British regiments. By a singular co-incidence, he had dreamed on the preceding night, that he was killed in battle by a shot from the enemy: a dream which is naturally not unfrequent with military men engaged in active warfare, and which, in course, is often realized. It is said when Lord Percy reached the summit of Osborne's Hill and looked down on the surrounding country, he exclaimed, "This is the very place that I saw in my dream!"-Impressed with the belief that he should never behold the rising of another sun, he made bequests of his horse, sword, &c. to some of his brother officers, and gave directions with regard to the disposal of his body. In the afternoon of that day his melancholy anticipations were indeed fulfilled.

While looking round on this beautiful country of hill and valley, and farm

and forest, intersected with the clear and ever winding waters of the Brandywine, and now reposing in the calm light of a lovely afternoon, my first feeling was to wonder how men could have met in deadly strife, fighting with desperate fury, and killing each other in the midst of such sweet and tranquil scenery. So slightly has this favoured region been disturbed by the hand of change, that sixty years ago, and at the same season, the Brandywine hills must have looked nearly as they do at present, till the hour arrived when they became the theatre of a sanguinary and mortal conflict raging round the homesteads of a sect whose creed is peace. From these heights had been discerned the glittering bayonets and scarlet uniforms of the approaching enemy, and the smoke wreaths that denoted their frequent encounter with detachments of the American army endeavouring to arrest their progress. Here had resounded the wardrum and the trumpet, the volleying musket-fire, the loud thunder of cannon, the shouts of the assailants, the shrieks of the wounded, and the groans of the dying. Here the meadow grass had become slippery with blood, and the orchard came crashing down, split asunder with shot. Here walls were overleaped, fences levelled, and barns became temporary fortresses; so also did houses deserted by their affrighted inhabitants; and even the sanctuary of the grave-yard was invaded.

When we came to Birmingham Meet

I ing House we availed ourselves of the offered services of an old man who has a house and grounds on the opposite side of the road, and who, during forty years, exercised the united professions of schoolmaster and sexton. Ennion Cooke is still in the enjoyment of a green old age, healthy, alert, intelligent and kind: and we found him the right sort of a cicerone. He unlocked for us the venerable meeting-house, in the windowshutters of which are holes made by bullets; and he showed us the dark stains on one part of the floor, said to have been caused by the blood of the wounded that were carried thither. Some of the benches on which these sufferers were laid remained long discoloured with similar marks.

During the battle, the American soldiers were for a while in possession of the meeting-house yard, and thus fired on their assailants over the stone fence. The British leaped into the inclosure, and the fight was obstinately disputed over the graves of the peaceful followers of William Penn. Some of the slain were next day interred among them. Our guide informed us that many years afterwards in digging the grave of old Mr. Jones, he found the remains of three British officers, designated as such by the remnants of their uniform, the but tons being those of the 72d regiment, bearing, beside the number, the stamp of G. R. surmounted with a

crown.

These buttons, the old sexton informed

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by one, to various visitors who were desirous of having them to show as mementos of the battle of Brandywine.

The ghastly relics of the three British officers were all re-interred by our informant in the same place in which he had first discovered them, and he showed us the spot. No tomb-stones being permitted in a quaker cemetery, the quiet farmers and their wives and children here mingle their dust with those of the fierce warriors whose graves are unknown to their friends across the ocean, and of whose names no record has been made.

"There is a tear for all that die,' and I could not look at this green and lowly mound, to which had extended the fragrant thyme planted by the hand of affection on some of the adjacent graves, without thinking of the grief and desolation that the fate of these men must have carried to their homes beyond the Atlantic. Perhaps, indeed, no positive tidings of the time and manner of their deaths ever arrived there; it being only certain that they returned no more.

Alas! how much domestic suffering has been caused by war: even by that most noble, rational, and fortunate of all, the war of the American people to obtain their independence. And how horrible to think of the far more bloody contests that have desolated Europe

"For the glory of heroes, the splendour of thrones."

After a division of the British army