EDITOR'S

TABLE.

OUR 'UP-RIVER' CORRESPONDENT AT NIAGARA.

Our 'Up-River' corre

spondent is 'just himself' in the following letter, which, however, we are compelled to say, is not finished in the present number; the 'remainder by next mail' not having arrived as we go to press :

"NIAGARA! Niagara! careering in thy might,

'Inter Boreales, March, 1856.

The fierce and free Niagara shall be my theme to-night.'

'LAST summer, when the sultry heats of August had continued many days, and the sun glared as it did on the streets of Marseilles, at the time when DICKENS began to write 'LITTTE DORRIT;' when the forest leaves had faded from their lively tints, and vegetation lost its crispness; when the garden from which I had anticipated so much pleasure had, after a too brief experiment with the hoe, been given over to the dominion of weeds; when the god-made straw, and scarcely less if not more delicious rasp, had been succeeded by the seedy, tough-skinned whortle (huckle) berry; and the crackling, scarlet radish, luscious peas, (of which a smart beau once remembered to have eaten one,) asparagus, (we call it sparrow-grass,) were followed by the common vegetable people, the beet, the turnip, and the rancorous cabbage (0 ye blooming cauliflowers! I name you not in any gardening of mine;) when violets, sweet roses, and the last woodbine were followed by a coarse yet gorgeous pomp of less redolent flowers; when raged the dog-star, beasts of burden panted, and gave up the ghost; when brain-work was a most intolerable tax, and every kind of labor craved a short respite: I started off one day in search of recreation. With a divided choice of places, I had packed up my trunk for a ten days' journey. At first I thought of the Polyfloisboean Sea. Then my heart turned with fond affection to ever-glorious Hudson River; again I longed to look on the romantic cliffs of Saugenay; but at last resolved to breathe the air of the great lakes, and set my face toward Niagara. After some hours of dusty travel through a country where the woods and tangled marshes were in a state of conflagration, and the fiery torrent roared like a furnace, sweeping down all lesser obstacles, and, where a stout resistance was made, dashed upward like water in a liquid spray, and every twig became a burning bush, and the lofty pine, as if it knew the splendor of an autumnal bloom, shook off from its crown a multitude of fiery blossoms; we passed, with glowing axles, as we neared the lake, through the

midst of a watery labyrinth of pools and inlets, and after a long discordant shriek from the steam-whistle, stopped for the sake of getting rid of a little dust at ROUSE'S Point.

'ROUSE'S Point is associated with the most pleasant reminiscences of northern travellers. They may have been flying with hot haste on the wings of the wind, and with all the auxiliary power of steam; they may, in the urgency of their business, or in the ardor of their enterprise, have been desirous to push on; but here they stop. As the jurisconsults say: 'May it please the court, here we rest.' Lake Champlain washes the very steps of the hospitable domicil, as the Atlantic rolled upon the doorway of Mrs. PARTINGTON. An immense carriage-house is under the same extended roof, filled with gigantic engines, ponderous cars. Beasts of burden have no accommodation here. Oats are not found in their original form. It is a place of entertainment for man. A great brassy bell is rung at certain canonical hours, and let all who will, be it twenty or a thousand, sit down and partake freely. Every one must say his own grace. Between the proprietors of this hospice, (which, to those who travel to the far north, is like that of St. BERNARD - a sort of half-way house on the way to the highest Alp,) and betwixt other proprietors, there is a tacit agreement that here travellers shall be detained, though against their will, and whether necessary or not, for the very sake of hospitality; that they shall be compelled to walk for three or four hours on the wharf which forms the threshold of the establishment, to exercise the grace of patience, and study out the beauties of Lake Champlain. The major portion of those who arrive here stay all night. ROUSE's Point is the greatest stopping-place in this Union. You may fly past St. Alban's with scarce time to eat a cracker; you may be whisked through burning woods, through flames and smoke and pools of water, without delay; you may regulate your stages like those of an oratorical sentence, with due pauses, such as the comma, the semicolon, and the colon; but at ROUSE's Point you come to a full stop.

'A whole day's dusty travel next brought us to Ogdensburgh, where nothing remarkable is to be seen. There are no lions; not long ago there might have been a few wolves; a stray fox may even now pick up a few tit-bits around the suburbs The hotel is pretty good. It is more than that. I ate of a dish at the table, for which I would very much like to have the receipt. I looked out from the windows upon a mansion which BECKFORD might have admired. It was very large, lofty, and completely embosomed in foliage, with extensive wings, out-houses, and a pleasant garden, and the grounds, occupying about the same space as a square in a great city, were surrounded by a brick wall twenty feet high, over which the vines crept and close-set trees towered, presenting an impervious barrier to profane eyes. It was a safe and secluded refuge from a naughty world.

'Spent a part of a day profitably, in getting out dust, grit, cinders, from hair, eyes, nose, mouth, pores, and garments; in brushing, switching, shaving, bathing, washing, cleansing; then embarking on a splendid steamer, bade farewell to the heat of the dog-star, to unpleasant smells, unpleasant sights, and the labors of travelling, to be launched upon the broad waves of the St. Lawrence. Passed some never-to-be-forgotten hours in gazing at the scenery of the enchanting panorama, floating past the Thousand Islands:

'MOLES that dot the dimpled bosom

Of the sunny summer sea.'

Well may the author of 'Black Hawk, an Epic Poem,' sing:

'St. Lawrence is a most tremendous river,'

since it is seven hundred miles long, and opens its mouth a hundred miles wide, and, with a headlong rapidity and vivacity which belong to no other American stream, pays its large tribute to the sovereign sea. Some of its islets seem like mere rocks or tufts wrenched away from the main, while others are covered with verdure, and beautiful as the paradise of BLENNERHASSET. Methought that for a space I should love to be a hermit, a recluse, an anchorite, or else an artist, a pilgrim, a lover of nature, or, passing still lower in the grade of saintliness, an ennuyée, a sportsman, or an epicure, with my cave scooped out, my hut built, my tent pitched, or else my house erected on one of those lovely islands, where I could wander to the marge, recline beneath my bower, read my book, and say my prayer; sit upon a rock, look upon the rising and the setting sun, fix my easel and paint my picture, or range about with dog and gun, to shoot the wild-fowl, or voyage in a light canoe, and shoot the rapids. Plaudite!

'THOMAS MOORE's songs, for their tenderness and musical cadence, though not to be matched for true and genuine loyalty to BURNS, sink deep into the soul; and among others the 'Canadian Boat-Song,' with its chorus, now came back upon my ears in faintest echoes from the past. I have read the life of 'LITTLE,' but what in the name of fine lords and ladies brought 'the Epicurean' to these backwoods I have almost forgotten. Before he began to feast on cream and honey, nectar and ambrosia, and other god-like diet, I believe that he was a petty pensioner of government in some West-India Island, and was thence wafted hither as to the nearest mainland. Those who can write most tenderly, are sometimes devoid of tenderness, and there is this against him, that in the midst of cordial greetings inspired by better than Anacreontic feeling, and in the midst of scenery like this, he wrote the bitterest and most malignant diatribe against the universal Yankee nation, wherein he characterizes them as

'POOR of heart, yet prodigal of words,

Born to be slaves, yet struggling to be lords;
Who pant for freedom while they spurn control,
And talk of rights with rapine in their soul.'

'While seated luxuriously at the extreme prow of the boat, on a coil of rope, where it would not be necessary to respond to the injunction, 'Make room for the ladies,' sailing among the 'Thousand Islands,' (felix nomen!) the last rays of the setting sun gilding the waves of that noble river, a Greek lyric, the 'Song of HARMODIUS and ARISTOGEITON,' commencing,

'HARMODIUS dear, thou art not dead,'

and making allusion to the 'Islands of the Blest,' came floating through my brain. But the pleasant reverie was disturbed; the bell rang, the rustling of ropes and tramp of feet was heard. We had attained Cape St. Vincent. Soon after that the night closed in, and we pushed out, as into a shoreless ocean, upon the waters of Lake Ontario. I walked listlessly for an hour in the gilded cabin of the boat, then went reluctantly to my state-room, and tried to sleep until the break of day.

'Bright and early the next day we were opposite Fort Niagara, and soon touched the opposite shore, where we had to exercise the grace of patience two hours, waiting for the engine to steam up which was to carry us to Suspension Bridge. Ascended the high bluff, and seeing a plain but well-built English Church pleasantly situated in the midst of a grove of trees, felt a desire to look at the inside of it, and just then the man who held the keys, with a keen perception of what I wanted, crossed the path, turned the bolt, and let me in. The interior did not cor

respond with the outside. In the United States a church-building of the same pretensions with respect to size, would be rich in gilded prayer-books, soft cushions, and expensive upholstery. Here was nothing of the kind, although some people of 'quality' must have taken their seats in it on Sundays, judging from the sort who were buried in the adjoining grave-yard. With us a few fashionable worshippers in the rural districts frequently frighten away the common people by a display of riches. Enough on this point.

'I had once seen Niagara, but for a few hours, and now resolved to feast leisurely upon the spectacle, to rise up early and to sit up late, and to make the most of one week's stinted allowance. A year has nearly passed, and shall I now bring forth my journal? Niagara can be better felt than talked about.

'AT eleven o'clock on a bright warm morning we got into a carriage somewhere near the Suspension Bridge, and a few minutes after saw the white smoke ascending from the great cauldron; and the cry, 'There it is!' soon burst from every lip as the Horse-Shoe Fall appeared in sight. I was sorry to be taken unawares and compelled to view it until I got ready, and so shut my eyes and kept them shut until the carriage stopped at the Clifton House. Hungry and dusty, one does not like to have the sight for which he has travelled five hundred miles enjoyed and over in a second. For my part, I wished to have one good hour for luxurious anticipation, and therefore took a bath, put on a clean suit of apparel, and partook of a late breakfast, instead of rushing out on the piazza with greedy and irreverent haste to stand unbaptized in the presence of sublimity and before the most majestic shrine of Nature on the whole earth. When the moment came, I threw open the window of my chamber and stepped forth on the long piazza of the Clifton Hotel. On the opposite side of it was a lawn, close-clipped and rolled, of the most delicious freshness, bedewed as it was by perpetual spray. The American Cataract, Goat Island, and Horse-Shoe Fall were in full view. The house stands a little back from the almost perpendicular precipice which overlooks the river - perhaps the most choice position for a mansion, with respect to scenery, which the world affords. The Canada shore presents decided advantages over the American. On the latter you look on only half the picture, but on the other take in with one glance the whole. From the hotels on the one side you can see nothing, whereas without stirring from the piazza of the Clifton House, you may carry away the best daguerreotype of the spectacle which can be had from any point. I will add that about the doors may be found a more importunate set of hackney-coachmen, black and white, than on any wharf in New-York. Not one in a dozen of them remains quietly on his box; but they thrust their whips beneath your nose if you are only going as far as TableRock. They profane the place by their reiterated cries, which smack more of NIBLO's Garden than of Niagara Falls; one professing that he is full of legendary lore, and repeating doggerel about Miss MARTHA RUGG, and the rest clamoring about BROCK's monument, Whirlpool, Burning Spring, and LUNDY's Lane. They absolutely drown the cataract, in which they ought to be drowned; and you have to run the gauntlet of these fellows every time you step out of doors.

'Went for a first walk in the direction of Table-Rock. Discretion is the better part of valor. I kept off it, and had not the least curiosity to go under it, although a single file of young men, in water-proof dresses, preceded by the guide, crossed the path and went down the winding stair-case to the Cave of the Winds, where you can see scarcely any thing, but have your ears stunned, your skin drenched,

and run the risk of being mashed as flat by some falling rock as the clown in the pantomime. At Niagara you are carried above the Falls, under the Falls, up to the Falls, almost into the Falls, all but over the Falls.'

6

GOSSIP WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. - We have not been in the regular receipt of our handsomely-executed contemporary, The National Magazine,' but if all the numbers have been as good as those for January and February, we have lost much in missing their perusal. We are glad to see, that although issued under the auspices of the great Methodist Society, it does not ignore humor and playful satire. In the February issue there is a capital paper' On Strengthening the Language.' The critic speaks of reduplicating adjectives in poetry, as used by many writers, and especially by Mr. LONGFELLOW in his refrain:

'A BOY's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts,'

(lines the real meaning of which we fear must have escaped us,) and goes on to remark:

"THE Reiterating Process in Literature is just the reverse of what is known as the Cesarean operation in surgery. It aims to strengthen the language by repetition, as in this verse of the well-known song:

'My love is like the red, red rose.'

How the repetition of the adjective intensifies the idea, beautifies the language, and converts into poetry what would otherwise have all the flavor and the toughness of prose! Beside, to say,

'My love is like the red rose,'

is not only prosaic, but does not impart that sanguineous idea which was evidently intended. A red rose may mean one of the common cabbage-province variety; but a red-red rose is evidently something of a deeper tinta brilliant crimson or bright scarlet. We have nothing to say in favor of the poet's choice, supposing the red red to apply to his love's hair, or eyes, or even nose. In fact, any part of her except her lips we should rather not have red red; but then tastes differ, and we are not disposed to be quarrelsome.

Another verse, from a very soft and amatory poet, elucidates with still greater dulcifying power the forceful nature of the repeating process. We are personally acquainted with the author, and tender him the thanks of the community, hoping he may be as successful in storming the citadel of his beloved's heart as he has been in strengthening our debilitated English:

'On! my love, she has blue, blue eyes;

She is known by her small, small feet;
Does she hear, does she hear my sighs?
Does she know she is sweet, sweet, sweet?'

That is, of course, does she know that she is, in the estimation of her admirer, exceedingly sweet the sweetest of all the damsels of his acquaintance? Forceful language, very! But the beauties of the verse are too apparent to need analyzing. Let us proceed.

'What an expressive title was that given to a recent publication, 'The Wide, Wide World!' How the iteration expands the mental vision, and adds strength, solidity, grandeur to the language. That second 'wide' is powerfully tonic, and fully equivalent to an ordinary-sized Burgundy-pitch plaster in its strengthening qualities.'

'ANY body can make poetry, and make it out of the baldest prose, by a little attention to this trick, a trick unknown to POPE or SHAKSPEARE. In illustration: We propose, for instance, to take a short jaunt into the country, and when informing you of our in