animated at the particular interview with him which we remember. It took place at the house of his brother, a London physician, where he was called out of a party to confer on the affairs of Coleridge. He was full of zeal to arrange them to advantage, and spoke very rapidly and eloquently of what his early friend "could do." There was a singular union about him of the man of conscious talent, great adroitness, and profound deference to the claims of his friend. As he was then a much more popular writer than Coleridge, this last feature of his conversation was the more striking. He said, in effect-and seemed to feel-" You know he is the greatest man among us all." Gladly, with such a theme, and such an advocate, would we have heard him talk until midnight. He stands now before us the image of activity, facility, and versatility of mind; of urbanity and perfect good breeding; well dressed as a layman; and frequently springing to his feet to enforce his point.

GIVE ear, O world! my hour is come,
And I will speak, a thunder word
Shall make the roaring torrent dumb,
And by the listening earth be heard.

My hour is come-I feel it now

In failing grasp and trembling knee,
And in the pressure on my brow,
And gathering drops of agony.
The angel waits, and I must soon-
A Titan leaping from the rock-
Strike loud the Century's passing noon,
As with an earthquake's reeling shock.

For this I have in silence hung

For ages waiting, watching, here; For this the cataract has sung

Its siren music in my ear. "Why fear to plunge ?" it ever said; "" is bold, and beautiful and free : O deep and soft my foamy bedCome down, O Rock, and dwell with me."

A heart of stone, to such a song

For ages harped, must yield at length; A grasp of flint may grapple long, But crumbling age will steal its strength. From nature's birth I heard the sound Of falling waters creeping near, And trembled at the shock profound Of rocks that crashed from year to year.

At last I saw Niagara's face

Its bright archangel robe and crown,
And felt the breath and wild embrace
Of floods that strove to drag me down.

Still up I stood-a steadfast wall,

And held my forehead proud and high,
And shook with laughter at the Fall

Until it slowly passed me by.
Ha ha! I echoed back its roar,
And shivered with a stern delight

To think that Time could never more
So try again my rocky might.

And I grew happy in the sound
That vainly poured its tempting song,
The while on wooded slopes around
A thousand summers swept along.
And I was proud to bear the weight
Of Indian monarchs on my head,
And blest to feel the lovelier freight
Of maidens with their tender tread.
At last there came the iron heels

Of those who fought the forest sons ; And, later still, the grinding wheels

And angry roar of English guns. A few years more, and all the wild

421

Grew tame with shapes of man's device;
God's grandest temple was defiled
With haunts of Pride and Avarice.

And yet I joyed that on my head
So many thousands came and went;
'T was good to hear their godlike tread,
Who mused of love omnipotent.

And here they best could stoop and see
An emblem of the rust of Time-

A symbol great of Deity

An image of the Soul sublime. And I-ah! who can boast with me The pressure of so many handsThe wise, the fair, the great, the free, And pilgrims from a hundred lands. But one there was, of lovely mould, My willing brow of wreaths would robIn vain for her so sweet and bold, My pulse a moment ceased to throb.

She heard the torrent's witching words—
Why fear to fall?" and with the spell,
As shining serpents charm the birds.
The torrent charmed-she swooned and fell.

And one there was who, in the night,
For grief and madness sought my brink,
And leapt adown the fearful height-
No one but I beheld him sink.

Oh! I could tell a thousand tales

Of life and death, of woe and mirth,
That now must sleep till God unveils
The secrets of the air and earth.
To-day an angel o'er me stood

A messenger to cast me down ;
To-day the thunder of the flood

Took on a fierce and taunting tone.
"Why fear to fall?" it growled and hissed,
"Will you endure my shaking hate,

The buffet of my furious mist,

Yet fear to dash me with your weight.
Why fear to plunge ?-the strongest fall
And conquerors and empires sink;
The stars themselves shall perish all,
Like falling leaves-and still you shrink!
Why fear to drop?—at latest soon

You must in earth's destruction melt;
Oh! strike so loud the century's noon,
It shall from star to star be felt."

I fear not, O thou roaring tide :

I dare the leap, the whirl, the shock; And now-and Now, to shame your pride, I come-a cataract of rock! Cayuga Lake, July 1, 1850.

H. W. PARKER.

From the Spectator. DR. BIGSBY'S SHOE AND CANOE. *

UPWARDS of thirty years ago, Dr. Bigsby was sent to Canada, in medical charge of a large detach

ment of a German rifle regiment in the pay of Great Britain; but this limited duty appears to have merged in a larger sphere of action, shortly after his arrival at Quebec. When a typhus fever raged at the settlement of Hawksbury, he was selected by the colonial government to visit the district; and he was subsequently named secretary and medical officer to the commissioners appointed to survey the boundary-line from the Lake of the Woods (north latitude 49°, east longitude 94°) to the Atlantic; though the latter part of the boundary was not fixed till Lord Ashburton, much to Lord Palmerston's discomfort, settled the question. These duties, combined with an active mind, a taste for geology, exploration, and the beauties of nature, with a frank and sociable disposition, took Dr. Bigsby over the greater part of Canada, in the course of the seven or eight years he remained there. Medical duty sent him up the Ottawa; science, friends, and a love of rambling, induced excursions to various places on and near the St. Lawrence, between Lake Ontario and the river Saguenay; his office as medical attendant upon the surveying parties in the service of the boundary commissioners carried him round the great lakes, (then but little known,) up their principal feeding rivers, to the forts of the Hudson's Bay Company, and to the river La Pluie and the Lake of the Woods. Of his adventures, and the wild countries he then explored, Dr. Bigsby gives an account in this book, somewhat oddly called The Shoe and Canoe; intermingling his narrative with discussions on various moot points of colonial policy, and occasionally correcting his five-and-twenty years' old pictures by incidental observations as to how matters now stand.

The most valuable parts of the book, as may be supposed, are those in which human nature appears, especially where it is probable that the circumstances still remain the same. The following hint to intending emigrants of the well-educated class is as true now as when the opinion was formed, although the particular districts in which it was formed have long since been "filled up."

I was sorry to observe, in the more retired parts of Canada, that when the difficulties are surmounted, and all is secure and comfortable, the settler is apt to fall into a dull and moping state. There is now little to interest; the farm and the boys work well by themselves; neighbors are distant. There is no stimulus at hand preservative of the domestic proprieties. All are necessarily careless of dress

The Shoe and Canoe; or, Pictures of Travel in the Canadas. Illustrative of their Scenery and of Colonial Life with Facts and Opinions on Emigration, State Policy, and other points of public interest. With numerous Plates and Maps. By John J. Bigsby, M. D., late Secretary to the Boundary Commission under Art. VI. and VII., Treaty of Ghent. In two volumes. Published by Chapman and Hall.

in summer, while in winter a whole wardrobe of old clothes is called for at once. In summer, while on travel in an open boat, I have not seen my coat for a month together.

The females, I am bound to say, bear a woodland

life far better than the men; are cheerful, active, and tidy in their persons. I have been often very pleased with their healthy, satisfied, and smart appearance, while mounting their Dearborn spring wagon on Sundays to go to church, driven by a brother.

Strong drink is the bane of Canada West, especially on outlying farms, and still more especially, I fear, among half-pay officers. All goes on soberly and pleasantly while the buildings and land are getting up and into order; but as soon as this is done time hangs heavily, annoyances arise, vain regrets are felt, infirm health is apt to follow; when the only resource seems to be the whiskeypleasant part of English and military life, and bottle. The man begins to remember only the laments his chair and plate at the regimental mess. He is very glad of an invitation to dine with the little garrison twenty miles off: and in the end sinks into the sot, and drags his sons, if he have any, down with him.

The gentleman settler is unfit for the gloom of the woods, and should select a ready-made farm, be done any day on reasonable terms.

not more than ten miles from a town.

This can

A raw country and their population will seldom suit the great capitalist. The delicate habits in which he has been educated will be subject to an endless succession of shocks and jars—intolerstimulus of a darling project. Here is one great able, unless neutralized by the natural or morbid defect in Wakefield's beautiful scheme of colonizing with capital and labor combined. As a rule, capital refuses to go where the owner must accompany it; the scheme halts, and is in fact defeated. It is very unsafe to send out capital to take care of itself. 66 I will not go; for I can find in England tolerable employment for my capital, and can at the same time enjoy the thousand nameless agrémens and conveniences of an old country."

As a specimen of the daily small annoyances that are here met with. A large capitalist invested built and furnished a house in the English style. in iron mines and forges in Canada West. He He had occasion to advertise for tenders to clear some land. A master wood-cutter, an offhanded Yankee, thinking of nothing but timber and dollars, came with his offer. He was introduced into the parlor, bright with its newly-papered walls and figured carpet. The American, as he struggled for his price, balancing his chair against the wall, rubbed his wet, greasy hair against the paper; when Mr. Charles Hayes begged him to keep his head off the wall, which he instantly did, but soon afterwards, very unconsciously, rolled his quid, and spat on the new carpet. Mr. C. remonstrated; when the woodman waxed warm, and said, " Neighbor, I see we are not likely to do business. are a hard man, and make bothers. You know I'll do cheap, and yet we don't progress." "Yes," said the Englishman, "we shall progress, if you will step out with me into the garden;" where, in fact, terms were agreed upon in a few minutes.

You

The voyageurs appear frequently, from the nature of Dr. Bigsby's travels, and are minutely described. They are not so fresh to the reading

public as they were a generation ago, but they have interest still. The following introduces one in a great storm on Lake Erie.

We were three nights and two days exposed to its fury, driving from side to side of this narrow lake, but with a generally easterly course.

We should have perished, I verily believe, but, with God's help, for our stout commander and his brave crew. The waves swept away boats, binnacle, deer, turkeys, &c. &c., and strewed the sand of the lake bottom in great quantities upon the deck, and the table-cloth of a sail which we ven

tured to hoist.

Nobody thought of cooking, and few of eating; I confess to a couple of biscuits. I remained much in my berth, on account of the violent motion of the vessel, with simply a shirt on, white jane trousers, and light shoes, ready for a jump and a swim. I certainly thought (with the others) that| our safety was very problematical. Of course, I felt for myself; but I also regretted the loss of all our surveys, and of our very valuable instruments. The shipwreck would have cost the public very many thousand pounds.

Once only was I nearly on deck to survey the scene; but I had hardly got high enough to see standing on the companion ladder-when a large wave, opaque with mud, soused me on the face, and drove me down again, accompanied by not a little

He had scarcely uttered the vow when the vessel quivered under a tremendous blow, and was buried for a moment beneath a great wave. Grénier shouted out that he would pay for six masses. Another shock. The poor man, in an agony, doubled the weight of the candle, set his teeth spasmodically, and never spake more until the storm had ceased; for he saw all his summer wages a-melting.

The Indians, too, are not so new subjects as they were before Cooper's novels and Irving's tales; but they still have freshness enough to excite attention, and Dr. Bigsby was thrown a good deal amongst them. This is a tale that was told in the course of the survey of the Lake of the

Woods.

He now daily begged his father to put him to death, and so end his miseries.

The surrounding Indians took alarm at all this. The father, as is usual in great emergencies, called a council. It sat several times, and, after much deliberation, ordered the lunatic to be strangled by his own father, the giver of his life.

The father obeyed. The youth, after listening to a long speech, and assenting aloud to every separate observation, bared his neck to the cord, and soon ceased to breathe. His body was burnt, lest he should rise again.

The parent never looked up more.

MAN'S FREE-WILL CIRCUMSCRIBED BY GOD'S PROVIDENCE.-For a man is circumscribed in all his ways by the providence of God, just as he is in a ship; for although the man may walk freely upon the decks, or pass up and down in the little continent, yet he must be carried whither the ship bears him. A man hath nothing free but his will, and that indeed is guided by laws and reasons; but although by this he walks freely, yet the divine Providence is the ship, and God is the pilot, and the contingencies of the world are sometimes like the fierce winds, which carry the whole event of things whither God pleases.-Jeremy Taylor, vol. 12, p. 454.

COVENANT PROPOSED, 1628.-"If," said Rous, a man meet a dog alone, the dog is fearful, though never so fierce by nature; but if that dog have his master by him, he will set upon that man from whom he fled before. This shows that lower natures being backed with the higher, increase in courage and strength; and certainly man, being backed with omnipotency, is a kind of omnipotency. All things are possible to him that believeth; and where all things are possible there is a kind of omnipotence. Wherefore, let us now, by the unanimous consent and resolution of us all, make a vow and a covenant henceforth to hold fast, I say, to hold fast to our God and our religion, and then may we from henceforth certainly expect prosperity on this kingdom and nation. And to this Covenant let every man say Amen."-Rushworth, part 1, p. 646.

CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE GENTRY IN CUMBERLAND.-In Cumberland the people had joined in a sort of confederacy to undermine the estates of the gentry, by pretending a tenant right; which there is a customary estate, not unlike our copy-holds; and the verdict was sure for the tenant's right, that all was going, resolved to put a stop to it, by whatever the case was. The gentlemen, finding serving on common juries. I could not but wonder to see pantaloons and shoulder-knots crowding the common clowns, but this account was a satisfaction.-Rodger North, Life of Lord Keeper Guildford, vol. 1, p 273.

among

THE Consequence of the extreme lowness of rents was, that the landlords were poor and domineering, the tenants obliged and obsequious. It was also undoubtedly a principal inducement with the lords to retain such vast tracts of land in demesne.— Whitaker's History of Craven, p. 76–7.

THIS volume can hardly lay claim to so comprehensive a title as Correspondence of Charles the Fifth, inasmuch as the letters in it form but a small portion of those which exist in the archives at Vienna, and much of what it does contain has appeared in the Archiv für Geographie Histoire, Staats und Kriegskunst, under the superintendence of Baron Hormayr. The correspondence, how ever, is new to the English public, and possesses some interest to English readers, from its connexion with persons and events that occupy a conspicuous place in English history. The first section relates to the efforts of Wolsey to obtain the popedom on two occasions, after the deaths of Leo and Adrian; and Mr. Bradford, the editor, seems to think that the correspondence establishes the good faith of the emperor. But we really cannot see it. His letters and instructions contain nothing but general expressions of hopes and good-will, of a cold and guarded character, and which, had they been much stronger, could easily have been neutralized by private instructions. The second section is longer, and refers to Bourbon's desertion of Francis, his connexion with the emperor, the battle of Pavia, the capture and imprisonment of the French king, the manner in which Charles tried to make the most of him, and the final peace which he granted when Francis threatened to resign the crown. The third section consists of letters from Chapuys, the Capucius of Shakspeare's Henry the Eight, who was the Emperor's ambassador at the court of London. His communications are upon the subject of Wolsey's downfall, and the efforts made on both sides touching Queen Katherine's divorce; they also contain sketches of persons, remarkable and obscure, as well as glimpses of manners and repetitions of that gossip of the day which the ambassador considered information. As far as the correspondence is concerned, this section is the most attractive. Its subject has the greatest interest for English readers; and Capucius writes in a better, closer, and more lively style than the other ambassadors; which last, again, write better than their master, who is very dry and cold. This news or gossip of 1550 about Wolsey is curious.

Eight days ago the king ordered the cardinal to be brought here; on hearing which, the said cardinal abstained from food for several days. It is said that he hoped rather to end his life in this manner than in a more ignominious and dishonorable one, of which he had some fears; and in consequence of this abstinence he has been taken ill on the road, and is

*Correspondence of the Emperor Charles V. and his Ambassadors at the Courts of England and France, from the Original Letters in the Imperial Family Archives at Vienna; with a connecting Narrative and Biographical Notices of the Emperor and some of the most distinguished Officers of his Army and Household; together with the Emperor's Itinerary from 1519-1551. Edited by William Bradford, M. A., formerly Chaplain to the British Embassy at Vienna. Published by Bentley.

not yet arrived. They say, also, that a lodging is prepared for him in the Tower, in the same part that the Duke of Buckingham occupied; many reasons are assigned for his arrest, but they are all mere conjectures.

A gentleman told me, that, a short time ago, the king was complaining to his council of something that had not been according to his wish, and exclaimed, in great wrath, that the cardinal was a very different man from any of them, for conducting twice over, he left them in displeasure. Since this all things properly; and, having repeated the same the duke, the lady, [Anne Boleyn,] and the father, have never ceased plotting against the said cardinal, and the lady especially, who has wept and lamented over her lost time and honor, and threatened the king that she would go away. They say the king has had enough to do to quiet her; and even though in his eyes, not to leave him, nothing would satisfy he entreated her most affectionately, and with tears her but the arrest of the cardinal. The pretext given out was, that he had written to Rome to be reinstated in his possessions, and to France for support and credit; that he was beginning to resume his former splendid habits of living; and that he was trying to corrupt the people. Now, cardinal into their hands, and have discovered what however, they have got the physician of the said they looked for.

The said physician, ever since the second day of his coming here, has been, and still is, treated as a prince in the house of the Duke of Norfolk; which clearly shows that he has been singing to the right

tune.

the Pope's Nuncio, who interrogated him very Johan Jocquin would not say a word about it to closely; but he told the Venetian ambassador, that by the doctor's own confession the cardinal had solicited the Pope to excommunicate the king, and to lay an interdict on the kingdom if the king did not dismiss the lady from court, and treat the queen with proper respect. By this means he hoped, it against the government, and in the confusion to is said, to cause a rising throughout the country seize upon the management of affairs again himself.

This is the end of all his greatness.

Sire, the Cardinal of York, died on St. Andrew's day, about forty miles from hence, at the place where the last King Richard was defeated and killed; they are both buried in the same church. which people already begin to call "the tyrant's sepulchre." [Rather, "the burial-place of tyrants" la sepulture de tyrans.]

of his death. On his arrest he for several days There are many different reports as to the cause refused to take any nourishment, and since then it is said that he either took or was given something to hasten his end. On Monday, the captain of the guard arrived to conduct him hither; and they supped together with apparent relish. Very soon afterwards the cardinal was taken so ill that they did not think he could have outlived the night. He lingered, however, till Wednesday, and prepared for his end like a good Christian. At the time of receiving the holy sacrament, he protested that he had never undertaken anything to his soverSince his death the court has eign's prejudice. been very busy; but his benefices have not yet been disposed of, and it is said that the king will retain them some time longer for his own use.

Of these stories the abstinence is credible