road, though I had heard nothing of it. In Ludlow, Mount Holly, and beyond, there is interesting mountain scenery, not rugged and stupendous, but such as you could easily ramble over-long narrow mountain vales through which to see the horizon. You are in the midst of the Green Mountains. A few more elevated blue peaks are seen from the neighborhood of Mount Holly, perhaps Killington Peak is one. Sometimes, as on the Western railroad, you are whirled over mountainous embankments, from which the scared horses in the valleys appear diminished to hounds. All the hills blush; I think that autumn must be the best season to journey over even the Green Mountains. You frequently exclaim to yourself, what red maples! The sugar-maple is not so red. You see some of the latter with rosy spots or cheeks only, blushing on one side like fruit, while all the rest of the tree is green, proving either some partiality in the light or frosts, or some prematurity in particular branches. Tall and slender ash trees, whose foliage is turned to a dark mulberry color, are frequent. The butternut, which is a remarkably spreading tree, is turned completely yellow, thus proving its relation to the hickories. I was also struck by the bright yellow tints of the yellow-birch. The sugar-maple is remarkable for its clean ankle. The groves of these trees looked like vast forest sheds, their branches stopping short at a uniform height, four or five feet from the ground, like eves, as if they had been trimmed by art, so that you could look under and through the whole grove with its leafy canopy, as under a tent whose curtain is raised.

As you approach Lake Champlain you begin to see the New-York mountains. The first view of the Lake at Vergennes is impressive, but rather from association than from any peculiarity in the scenery. It lies there so small (not appearing in that proportion to the width of the State that it does on the map), but beautifully quiet, like a picture of the Lake of Lucerne on a music box, where you trace the name Lucerne among the foliage; far more ideal than ever it looked on the map. It does not say, "Here I am, Lake Champlain," as the conductor might for it, but having studied the geography thirty years, you crossed over a hill one afternoon and beheld it. But it is only a glimpse that you get here. At Burlington you rush to a wharf and go on board a steamboat, two hundred and thirty-two miles from Boston. We left Concord at twenty minutes before eight in the morning, and reached Burlington about six at night, but too late to see the Lake. We got our

first fair view of the Lake at dawn, just before reaching Plattsburg, and saw blue ranges of mountains on either hand, in New-York, and in Vermont, the former especially grand. A few white schooners, like gulls, were seen in the distance, for it is not waste and solitary like a lake in Tartary; but it was such a view as leaves not much to be said; indeed I have postponed Lake Champlain to another day.

The oldest reference to these waters that I have yet seen, is in the account of Cartier's discovery and exploration of the St. Lawrence in 1535. Samuel Champlain actually discovered and paddled up the Lake in July, 1609, eleven years before the settlement of Plymouth, accompanying a war-party of the Canadian Indians against the Iroquois. He describes the islands in it as not inhabited, although they are pleasant, on account of the continual wars of the Indians, in consequence of which they withdrew from the rivers and lakes into the depths of the land, that they may not be surprised. "Continuing our course," says he, "in this Lake, on the western side, viewing the country, I saw on the eastern side very high mountains, where there was more on the summit. I inquired of the savages if those places were inhabited. They replied that they were, and that they were Iroquois, and that in those places there were beautiful valleys and plains fertile in corn, such as I have eaten in this country, with an infinity of other fruits." This is the earliest account of what is now Vermont.

The number of French Canadian gentlemen and ladies among the passengers, and the sound of the French language, advertised us by this time, that we were being whirled towards some foreign vortex. And now we have left Rouse's Point, and entered the Sorel river, and passed the invisible barrier between the States and Canada. The shores of the Sorel, Richelieu or St. John's river, are flat and reedy, where I had expected something more rough and mountainous for a natural boundary between two nations. Yet I saw a difference at once, in the few huts, in the pirogues on the shore, and as it were, in the shore itself. This was an interesting scenery to me, and the very reeds or rushes in the shallow water, and the tree-tops in the swamps, have left a pleasing impression. We had still a distant view behind us of two or three blue mountains in Vermont and New-York. About nine o'clock in the forenoon we reached St. John's, an old frontier post three hundred and six miles from Boston and twentyfour from Montreal. We now discovered that we were in a foreign country, in a station-house of another nation. This

building was a barn-like structure, looking as if it were the work of the villagers combined, like a log-house in a new settlement. My attention was caught by the double advertisements in French and English fastened to its posts, by the formality of the English, and the covert or open reference to their queen and the British lion. No gentlemanly conductor appeared, none whom you would know to be the conductor by his dress and demeanor; but, ere long we began to see here and there a solid, red-faced, burly-looking Englishman, a little pursy perhaps, who made us ashamed of ourselves and our thin and nervous countrymen-a grandfatherly personage, at home in his great-coat, who looked as if he might be a stage proprietor, certainly a railroad director, and knew, or had a right to know when the cars did start. Then there were two or three pale-faced, black-eyed, loquacious Canadian French gentlemen there, shrugging their shoulders; pitted as if they had all had the small-pox. In the meanwhile some soldiers, red-coats, belonging to the barracks near by, were turned out to be drilled. At every important point in our route the soldiers showed themselves ready for us; though they were evidently rather raw recruits here, they manoeuvred far better than our soldiers; yet, as usual, I heard some Yankees speak as if they were as great shakes, and they had seen the Acton Blues manoeuvre as well. The officers spoke sharply to them, and appeared to be doing their part thoroughly. I heard one, suddenly coming to the rear, exclaim, "Michael Donothy, take his name!" Though I could not see what the latter did or omitted to do, it was whispered that Michael Donothy would have to suffer for that. I heard some of our party discussing the possibility of their driving these troops off the field with their umbrellas. I thought that the Yankee, though undisciplined, had this advantage at least, that he especially is a man who, everywhere and under all circumstances, is fully resolved to better his condition essentially, and therefore he could afford to be beaten at first; while the virtue of the Irishman, and to a great extent the Englishman, consists in merely maintaining his ground or condition. The Canadians here, a rather poor-looking race, clad in grey homespun, which gave them the appearance of being covered with dust, were riding about in caleches and small onehorse carts called charettes. The Yankees assumed that all the riders were racing, or at least exhibiting the paces of their horses, and saluted them accordingly. We saw but little of the village here, for nobody could tell us when the cars would start;

that was kept a profound secret, perhaps for political reasons; and therefore we were tied to our seats. The inhabitants of St. John's and vicinity are described by an English traveller as "singularly unprepossessing" and before completing his period he adds, "besides, they are generally very much disaffected to the British crown." I suspect that that "besides" should have been a because.

At length, about noon, the cars began to roll towards La Prairie. The whole distance of fifteen miles was over a remarkably level country, resembling a western prairie, with the mountains about Chambly visible in the north-east. This novel, but monotonous scenery, was exciting. At La Prairie we first took notice of the tinned roofs, but above all, of the St. Lawrence, which looked like a lake; in fact it is considerably expanded here; it was nine miles across diagonally to Montreal. Mount Royal in the rear of the city and the island of St. Helen's opposite to it, were now conspicuous. We could also see the Sault St. Louis about five miles up the river, and the Sault Vorruan still farther eastward. The former are described as the most considerable rapids in the St. Lawrence; but we could see merely a gleam of light there as from a cobweb in the sun. Soon the city of Montreal was discovered with its tin roofs shining afar. Their reflections fell on the eye like a clash of cymbals on the ear. Above all the church of Notre Dame was conspicuous, and anon the Bonsecours market-house, occupying a commanding position on the quay, in the rear of the shipping. This city makes the more favorable impression from being approached by water, and also being built of stone, a grey limestone found on the island. Here, after travelling directly inland the whole breadth of New England, we had struck upon a city's harbor-it made on me the impression of a seaport to which ships of six hundred tons can ascend, and where vessels drawing fifteen feet lie close to the wharf, five hundred and forty miles from the Gulf; the St. Lawrence being here two miles wide. There was a great crowd assembled on the ferry-boat wharf, and on the quay, to receive the Yankees, and flags of all colors were streaming from the vessels to celebrate their arrival. When the gun was fired, the gentry hurrahed again and again, and then the Canadian caleche drivers, who were most interested in the matter, and who, I perceived, were separated from the former by a fence, hurrahed their welcome; first the broadcloth, then the homespun.

It was early in the afternoon when we stepped ashore, with a single companion.

I soon found my way to the church of Notre Dame. I saw that it was of great size and signified something. It is said to be the largest ecclesiastical structure in North America, and can seat ten thousand. It is two hundred and fifty-five and a half feet long, and the groined ceiling is eighty feet above your head. The Catholic are the only churches which I have seen worth remembering, which are not almost wholly profane. I do not speak only of the rich and splendid like this, but of the humblest of them as well. Coming from the hurrahing mob and the rattling carriages, we pushed aside the listed door of this church, and found ourselves instantly in an atmosphere which might be sacred to thought and religion, if one had any. There sat one or two women who had stolen a moment from the concerns of the day, as they were passing; but, if there had been fifty people there, it would still have been the most solitary place imaginable. They did not look up at us, nor did one regard another. We walked softly down the broad-aisle with our hats in our hands. Presently came in a troop of Canadians, in their homespun, who had come to the city in the boat with us, and one and all kneeled down in the aisle before the high altar to their devotions, somewhat awkwardly, as cattle prepare to lie down, and there we left them. As if you were to catch some farmer's sons from Marlboro', come to cattle-show, silently kneeling in Concord meeting-house some Wednesday! Would there not soon be a mob peeping in at the windows? It is true, these Roman Catholics, priests and all, impress me as a people who have fallen far behind the significance of their symbols. It is as if an ox had strayed into a church and were trying to bethink himself. Nevertheless, they are capable of reverence; but we Yankees are a people in whom this sentiment has nearly died out, and in this respect we cannot bethink ourselves even as oxen. I did not mind the pictures nor the candles, whether tallow or tin. Those of the former which I looked at appeared tawdry. It matters little to me whether the pictures are by a neophyte of the Algonquin or the Italian tribe. But I was impressed by the quiet religious atmosphere of the place. It was a great cave in the midst of a city; and what were the altars and the tinsel but the sparkling stalactics, into which you entered in a moment, and where the still atmosphere and the sombre light disposed to serious and profitable thought? Such a cave at hand, which you can enter any day, is worth a thousand of our churches which are open only Sundays-hardly long enough for an airing-and then filled with

a bustling congregation-a church where the priest is the least part, where you do your own preaching, where the universe preaches to you and can be heard. In Concord, to

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be sure, we do not need such. Our forests are such a church, far grander and more sacred. We dare not leave our meetinghouses open for fear they would be profaned. Such a cave, such a shrine, in one of our groves, for instance, how long would it be respected? for what purposes would it be entered, by such baboons as we are? I think of its value not only to religion, but to philosophy and to poetry; besides a reading room, to have a thinking room in every city! Perchance the time will come when every house even will have not only its sleeping rooms, and dining room, and talking room or parlor, but its thinking room also, and the architects will put it into their plans. Let it be furnished and ornamented with whatever conduces to serious and creative thought. I should not object to the holy water, or any other simple symbols if it were consecrated by the imagination of the worshippers.

I heard that some Yankees bet that the candles were not wax, but tin. A European assured them that they were wax; but, inquiring of the sexton, he was surprised to learn that they were tin filled with oil. The church was too poor to afford wax. As for the Protestant churches, here or elsewhere, they did not interest me, for it is only as caves that churches interest me at all, and in that respect they were inferior.

Montreal makes the impression of a larger city than you had expected to find, though you may have heard that it contains nearly sixty thousand inhabitants. In the newer parts it appeared to be growing fast like a small New-York, and to be considerably Americanized. The names of the squares reminded you of Paris-the Champ de Mars, the Place d'Armes, and others, and you feel as if a French revolution might break out any moment. Glimpses of Mount Royal rising behind the town, and the names of some streets in that direction make one think of Edinburgh. That hill sets off this city wonderfully. I inquired at a principal book-store for books published in Montreal. They said that there were none but school-books and the like; they got their books from the States. From time to time we met a priest in the streets, for they are distinguished by their dress, like the civil police. Like clergymen generally, with or without the gown, they made on us the impression of effeminacy. We also met some Sisters of Charity, dressed in black, with Shaker-shaped

black bonnets and crosses, and cadaverous faces, who looked as if they had almost cried their eyes out, their complexions parboiled with scalding tears; insulting the daylight by their presence, having taken an oath not to smile. By cadaverous I mean that their faces were like the faces of those who have been dead and buried for a year, and then untombed, with the life's grief upon them, and yet, for some unaccountable reason, the process of decay arrested.

"Truth never fails her servant, sir, nor leaves him With the day's shame upon him."

They waited demurely on the sidewalk while a truck laden with raisins was driven in at the seminary of St. Sulpice, never once lifting their eyes from the ground.

The soldier here, as every where in Canada, appeared to be put forward, and by his best foot. They were in the proportion of the soldiers to the laborers in an African ant-hill. The inhabitants evidently rely on them in a great measure for music and entertainment. You would meet with them pacing back and forth before some guard-house or passage-way, guarding, regarding and disregarding all kinds of law by turns, apparently for the sake of the discipline to themselves, and not because it was important to exclude any body from entering that way. They reminded me of the men who are paid for piling up bricks and then throwing them down again. On every prominent ledge you could see England's hands holding the Canadas, and I judged by the redness of her knuckles that she would soon have to let go. In the rear of such a guardhouse, in a large gravelled square or parade ground, called the Champ de Mars, we saw a large body of soldiers being drilled, we being as yet the only spectators. But they did not appear to notice us any more than the devotees in the church, but were seemingly as indifferent to fewness of spectators as the phenomena of nature are, whatever they might have been thinking under their helmets, of the Yankees that were to come. man wore white kid gloves. It was one of the most interesting sights which I saw in Canada. The problem appeared to be how to smooth down all individual protuberances or idiosyncrasies, and make a thousand men move as one man, animated by one central will, and there was some approach to success. They obeyed the signals of a commander who stood at a great distance, wand in hand, and the precision, and promptness, and harmony of their movements could not easily have been matched. The harmony was far more remarkable than that of any quire or band, and obtained, no doubt, at a

Each

greater cost. They made on me the impression, not of many individuals, but of one vast centipede of a man, good for all sorts of pulling down; and why not then for some kinds of building up? If men could combine thus earnestly, and patiently, and harmoniously to some really worthy end, what might they not accomplish! They now put their hands, and partially perchance their heads, together, and the result is that they are the imperfect tools of an imperfect and tyrannical government. But if they could put their hands and heads, and hearts and all together, such a co-operation and harmony would be the very end and success for which government now exists in vain-a government, as it were, not only with tools, but stock to trade with.

I was obliged to frame some sentences that sounded like French in order to deal with the market women, who, for the most part, cannot speak English. According to the guide-book the relative population of this city stands nearly thus two-fifths are French Canadian; nearly one-fifth British Canadian; oneand-a-half-fifth English, Irish, and Scotch; somewhat less than one-half-fifth Germans, United States people, and others. I saw nothing like pie for sale, and no good cake to put in my bundle, such as you can easily find in our towns, but plenty of fair-looking apples, for which Montreal Island is celebrated, and also pears, cheaper, and I thought better than ours, and peaches, which, though they were probably brought from the South, were as cheap as they commonly are with us. So imperative is the law of demand and supply that, as I have been told, the market of Montreal is sometimes supplied with green apples from the State of New York some weeks even before they are ripe in the latter place. I saw here the spruce wax which the Canadians chew, done up in little silvered papers, a penny a roll; also a small and shrivelled fruit which they called cerises mixed with many little stems somewhat like raisins, but I soon returned what I had bought finding them rather insipid, only putting a sample in my pocket. Since my return, I find on comparison that it is the fruit of the sweet viburnum (viburnum lentago), which with us rarely holds on till it is ripe.

I stood on the deck of the steamer John Munn, late in the afternoon, when the second and third ferry-boats arrived from La Prairie, bringing the remainder of the Yankees. I never saw so many caleches, cabs, charettes, and similar vehicles collected before, and doubt if New York could easily furnish more. The handsome and

substantial stone quay, which stretches a mile along the river side, and protects the street from the ice, was thronged with the citizens who had turned out on foot and in carriages to welcome or to behold the Yankees. It was interesting to see the caleche drivers dash up and down the slope of the quay with their active little horses. They drive much faster than in our cities. I have been told that some of them came nine miles into the

city every morning and return every night, without changing their horses during the day. In the midst of the crowd of carts, I observed one deep one loaded with sheep with their legs tied together, and their bodies piled one upon another, as if the driver had forgotten that they were sheep and not yet mutton. A sight, I trust, peculiar to Canada, though I fear that it

is not.

THE

existence of occult or latent powers in the human organism, entirely transcending the bounds of every-day experience, as well as the materialist's conception of nature and her immutable laws, is not of recent discovery. Archæologists assert that pictorial representations of the process commonly known as magnetizing a human subject have been found in the Egyptian catacombs; and there is no other mode of accounting for the marvels recorded of ancient Egyptian priestcraft, the later Grecian Oracles, or some of the feats of Hindoo jugglery, half so easy or probable, as that which supposes the operators in either case to have possessed a competent knowledge of what is popularly designated Mesmerism, Psychology, Clairvoyance, &c., &c. Medical books of observation, written centuries ago, record phenomena of like nature with those of Clairvoyance, and equally without the domain of vulgar probability. That sick persons, especially when near death, have often exhibited a condition termed Coma, Trance, or Catalepsy, wherein the soul would seem to have shaken off its carnal fetters, and taken cognizance of whatever attracted its regard in absolute defiance of physical impediments, is as well established as any fact of unusual occurrence. in which a mortally diseased, keenly suffering, partially or wholly insane person has perceived and simultaneously described occurrences, both ordinary and extraordinary, which were taking place at a very considerable distance, sometimes in remote apartments of the edifice wherein he lay, but of which it was absolutely impossible that he should know any thing through the medium of the senses,—are

Cases

abundantly authenticated. That Swedenborg perceived and proclaimed the existence of a great conflagration in a far distant city, is a fact no longer disputed; as also that he, on other occasions, evinced a power of cognition beyond the range of the senses. Others have possessed this faculty, and have left indubitable proof of its exercise. "Second sight" and its kindred pretensions had probably a basis of reality, as with the Oracles; but, the faculty ceasing or being withdrawn, its place was supplied, so far as it might be, by deceit or simulation, more or less conscious, until finally the whole degenerated into sheer craft or imposture. As the false coin or note implies the pre-existence of a genuine counterpart, to which the counterfeit owes its transient currency; as hypocrisy implies the pre-existence of genuine faith and love; so do the very mockeries of a prescience above the reach of the senses imply and demonstrate a preceding verity. Can you imagine such a fraud as the Delphic Oracle at last became, deliberately plotted and originated by men conscious that they had no power of divining or foreseeing beyond that possessed by all human kind?

It is now some seventy years since Mesmer startled the learned and polite world, by the proclamation of his discovery as to the power which one human being might, under certain circumstances, exert and maintain over the nerves, the motions, and even the perceptions and will of another. The curious and the restless welcomed him for the usual nine days as a magician, or seer; the learned and scientific listened impatiently while they must, then shrugged their shoul