your hand in their great paw in such a way as almost to break your bones, so do those whom Bruin wraps in his cordial embrace, when he says to them in his affectionate way, 'Come to my arms, my friend, my darling!' fall stone dead.

Emerging out of these thick shades, we soon caught sight of an arm of the lake, and on ascending a hill the lake itself burst with all its charms upon our sight. Water, water, water! I call out for water with an exasperated cry. If you have ever lived on a beach of the far-sounding ocean, or on an armlet of the sea, where you have been wont to walk upon the white sands and pick up pebbles, to see the flouncing of the big porpoises as they disport them in the brine, to hear the stridulous cry of the wild-duck, to watch the electric vivacity of his movements when he dresses his sleek plumes, or stretches out his long neck, and then plumps with a shrill cry of delight into the delicious waves; if you have watched for hours the sails as white as an albatross' wing, or the shadowy fleets by moonlight sailing noiselessly as if through a sea of phosphorus, and on the confines of the spiritland; if your eye has got accustomed to the water with its perpetual movement, and you have then been transferred to land, where all things are solid, all is motionless, and nothing but the fogs which roll in the valleys resemble the heaving deep, how does the heart beat with old affection when you look once more upon a broad and glittering expanse of waves. O pescator dell' unda !

'We arrived at PAGE'S, at the head of the lake, and the place is called Newport. It is as yet destitute of the fashionable follies of its namesake, but it has many charms which have been found out by people in the Canadas, who frequent it in great numbers. The host, among other delicacies, furnishes his table with an abundance of muscalonge. It is a rarity even at the lake, monopolized on the spot, and very few, except as a favor, are sent abroad. The epicure rolls it as a sweet morsel beneath his tongue. A supply of this noble fish had been just brought in. Those which I saw were about as large as a good shad. The host called my attention to a mistake made in THOMPSON'S Gazetteer of Vermont, with reference to the form of the spots, that they are not roundish, but triangular. The muscalonge called forth some remarks at the late Scientific Convention. Professor AGASSIZ knows him, head, tails, fins, and vertebræ. The flesh, I observed, is white, and not red like a salmon.

'There is a little steam-boat which plies once a day to Magog, at the end of the lake, and returns, stopping at Owl's-Head Mountain-House and intervening places; but the captain is very obliging, and will let out any one anywhere; he will also return to the wharf and take you up, if you have tarried too long at your breakfast in consequence of an inordinate appetite for muscalonge. That is more than can be said for any North-River steamboat-captain whatever. I made an excursion in his boat, which is small but comfortable and with a good promenade above :

'THE day was fair, the sun shone bright,

And scattered all the gray fog,

When I embarked with spirits light
Upon Lake Memphramagog.

O Magog !

Fair Magog!

When I embarked, with spirits light,

Upon Lake Memphramagog.'

It is Lake GEORGE on a larger scale, although the waters are not so transparent. It is thirty miles long, and three or four in breadth. At the head of it the scenery is bold and grand, and reminds one of the Hudson River in the neighborhood of the Highlands. Owl's Head (of which I inclose a correct drawing taken by a friend)

is a prominent object in the landscape, and the view from that summit is scarce excelled for extent and variety by that of any other peak:

'Having steamed through the lake, and dined at the 'smiling village' of Magog, we set out to return in the afternoon. At Georgeville, half-way back, the captain found a small party of young persons who wished to attend a circus that night at Magog, and he very kindly consented to put back for their benefit, and also to wait with the boat until the scenes in the ring were concluded. We tarried at Georgeville until one o'clock, when the boat with the play-goers arrived; and at that hour the moon having arisen, and the air being bland and soft, I paced the deck, conversing with a friend, until we reached Newport. Memphramagog is a little gem, and its shores present the most beautiful sites, which are at present unoccupied. The scenery on all hands is exceedingly picturesque. I rode ten or twelve miles to Stanstead, just beyond the line, and there, from a rising ground, saw a most magnificent country, undulating fields as smooth and trim as any in the State of New-York, inclosed by a perfect amphitheatre of mountains whose blue summits were seen all around at the distance of sixty miles. Farther on, when you reach Sherbrook, the landscape is dotted with English cottages. Many and pleasant are the excursions around Newport, and because at present it requires some little pains to reach it, it would be all the more admired as a place of summer resort. I had resolved on starting to fish for muscalonge, and to bring home a large box of them, but it was beyond my ability to catch any. They swim in too deep waters, they are too bashful, too blushing in their modesty as they glide about in the cool, sequestered, and crystalline parlors of the deep. And I wish to confess that to catch many fish is some how or other not in my line. Coax them I won't. They must bite quickly, or I'm off; and when, after a fair trial of half-an-hour or so, they do not estimate their great privileges, I'do n't seem to take no interest in them.'

'I observed no sail-boats at all in Lake Memphramagog, but a number of rude canoes. Indians there are none, although this must have been a favorite huntingground in old times. About forty years ago an interesting relic was found in this vicinity, the work of a red brother, a chart of the rivers St. Francis and St. Lawrence, and also of the great lakes, inscribed with charcoal on beech-bark, with all the points and indentations of the shores correctly drawn. My furlough being up

at the end of the week, I mounted the box of the stage-coach in old style, and after travelling all day so many parasangs, as XENOPHON has it, arrived at the 'smiling village' of Stowe. The next morning at six o'clock, with a chain of majestic mountains on the right, among which the peak of Mansfield stood preëminent, I proceeded in the same way toward my journey's end. We had not gone far, when three enterprising girls came out from a house by the road-side, and stated their wishes to ride upon the box. They were assisted up into the highest seat, and were lively and communicative as they breathed the mountain air. One of them directed my attention to an excavation on the bank of a stream. It was made by a returned Californian, who had found some traces of gold, and bought the farm. When the former owner found out that it contained the precious ore he was dreadful sorry.' I have yet two more excursions which ought to be performed before the season is at an end. One is to the sources of the Saugenay River, and the other to the romantic regions of the Saranac.

F. W. S.'

GOSSIP WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. Among the papers in the last issue of our contemporary, 'Putnam's Monthly,' is one entitled 'The Poetry of War. The very name of the article shocks us- the 'Poetry of War!' In it are discussed the 'ocean style of war,' (generally 'more poetical than land-battles,' more ' picturesque than the regulated movements of a landarmament,') and the more common, 'natural, and congenial land-fights!' Ah! gentlemen, there is but little poetry in war! If there be poetry in it, here it is, as recorded nearly twenty-five years ago in these pages, by the lamented TIMOTHY FLINT :

'AFTER many gorgeous scenes, in which princes have conferred honors and swords upon commanders, who are to go forth and fight manfully for their country and king; after beauty and innocence - strange infatuation! - have smiled upon the future murderers, and with their white,hands have waved them on to their bloody purpose; the terrible pageant, externally all glitter, pomp, and circumstance, and within all horror, disease, corruption, and misery, marches with its squadrons and divisions, its cavalry and artillery, banners displayed, pennons streaming, and martial music resounding; and as the squadrons move on in their regular and serried ranks, the admiring multitude from city, village, and field, gaze with quickened pulses and throbbing bosoms, and say, as the host moves on, 'This is glorious war!'

"The grand army, plundering alike friend and enemy on its passage, has passed the broad stream or mountain-range, or frith of the sea, that separate their country from that of the foe. Long columns of smoke stream up from their line of march, indicating that villages are burned, and fields trampled in the dust; that unoffending peasants that know nothing of the cause of the invasion, contribute their last blanket and last loaf; it may be are harnessed to the artillery to drag forth the cannon to fire upon their kindred and countrymen. Their wives and daughters are violated under their eyes; and their fathers and mothers and helpless infants are left to die of destitution and despair, as they are forced away as prisoners of war. These are the exploits which have been consecrated with fasting and prayer!

'In the progress of march, a distance of country many leagues in extent has been desolated with fire and blood. Before them are green fields and populous villages, and a country bright and beautiful, with all the cheerfulness of cultivation and life. Behind is desolation and strife. Their foe has been preparing to meet them; and now hun

dreds of thousands of soldiers, waiting an appointed signal to murder each other, are separated only by a narrow interval, which the desolation of war has not yet touched. 'We are told that it often happens in such cases, that the sentinels of the opposing armies, the night before battle, meet, exchange salutations and mutual kind oflices, but a few hours before they are called out to cut each other's throats. In what strong relief do such facts present the guilt of those merciless rulers, who thus convert men, formed to love and help each other, into deadly enemies!

'The signal is given to go forth to the terrible work. Forthwith the explosion of artillery, in long-repeated and terrible bursts, is heard. Squadrons of cavalry thunder over the plain. Steel clangs with steel in the desperate conflict of life for life. In the midst of smoke, darkness, and the infernal din of all that is astounding in the last fierce efforts of human nature, wrought up to the infuriated recklessness of revenge and despair, the combatants feel a strange unconcern and indifference to life; a madness like that which arrack and opium give to the desperate Malay; which they feel in no other position; an indifference which renders them careless to consequences, and causes them, with an unblenching eye, to note the streaming carnage, and hear, without feeling, the wild wail of death-groans around them! For a moment the central arena is a melée of infantry and cavalry in wild confusion, in which the clang of sabres is heard over the fierce shouts and the cries of agony. The veteran mercenary, trained to coolness even in this horrid scene, watches with eye and hand, and braced muscle, the moment to thrust home his steel to his opponent's bosom; happy if, while intent on that issue, an unwatched foe seize not the unguarded moment and vital space, and give him the death-blow he was meditating for another. Some of the fallen wretches are uttering loud cries for water. Others implore the passing friend or foe to finish their agony. Over the bodies of the wounded trample the cavalry at the height of their speed. The grinding wheels of the artillery plough over half-expiring victims deep in the soil. Others, still breathing, still supplicating mercy, are thrown beneath masses of the dead into the fosse, to make a bridge of bodies. On this point of fierce conflict, a park of artillery is finally brought to bear: and victors and vanquished, and the untouched warrior in the thickest of the fight, are promiscuously swept away in columns. The loud 'hurrah!' of the conquering assailants, pursuing their foe, is replaced by the low and expiring moans of the dying.

'Such is BATTLE! Forty thousand young and vigorous men lie dead or dying on the field. Thousands of war-horses are scattered in confusion among them. Greedy and heartless plunderers, the vampires of battle, are gathering up the wrecks, stripping the dead, and giving the last fatal thrust to the wounded; while intermingled among them are friends, relatives, children, parents, wives, searching and yet fearing to find among the fallen those dear to them as life. Such is the central part of the picture: while burning towns, and a smoking and a desolated country, in all the visible distance, form the back-ground.

‘Extravagant, and abhorrent, and out of nature as this spectacle may seem, it has been represented with the reality of horrors a hundred-fold more revolting in every period of history, and in the fairest portions of every civilized country.

"The battle, however, is past; a battle fiercely contested from the rising to the setting sun of a summer's day. What heart would not sicken at the horrid spectacle? What ruler, whose nature was not waxing fiendish, but would pause before he yielded any contribution of influence to produce a scene thus abhorrent and accursed in the sight of GOD and men! My heart bleeds at the sight! for all these fallen were my brethren; with nerves as susceptible, hopes and fears as intense as my own; and they had equal claims to continue to caress their children, behold the bright sun, and exult in feeling life, and admiring God's beautiful creation? I look abroad where yesterday there were so many thousands of men, with hearts beating warm, so many villages, groves, farmhouses, peasants, birds singing in the branches, and the hope of harvest waving in the breeze. It now presents smouldering ruins; a soil polluted with blood, and covered with corses a picture all loathsomeness and horror. The scent of carnage has

already allured the birds of prey, and they are sailing above this scene of human madness and depravity, presenting at least one of COUSIN's vaunted 'compensations' of the horrors of war - a gale, which has brought the vultures a gratuitous feast.

'Were I to follow the letters and messengers to forty thousand dwellings, announcing to mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, widows, orphans, the names of the slain; were I to attempt to delineate the general result of sweeping disease in all the immediate vicinity of the battle; and of individual poverty, helplessness, and despair, blasting the bereaved cottages, (for most of the fallen were dwellers in humble cabins,) the picture of misery would be too vast and indistinct to produce a clear perception of the result. Life-blood poured out as water may have swollen to a river, without presenting the eye and the heart with a distinct conception of the amount of misery which had been caused in consequence.'

Such, brother 'Putnam,' is the true 'POETRY OF WAR!' Read 'A Voice from Sebastopol,' a work by a Polish captain in the Russian army, recently published by MURRAY of London, and you will see that in no respect is the foregoing picture over-drawn, even in our time, when 'peace on earth and good will toward men' ought to have more nearly approached the accomplishment of its 'perfect work.' Captain HODASEVICH'S account of the crawling along the ground, after the great battle, of the hundreds of poor mutilated wretches, all groaning in agony, and such as could, holding up the mangled remains of their torn limbs, makes quite a 'verse' in the last piece upon the vaunted 'poetry of war.' A PLEASANT Correspondent in Chicago, Illinois, from whom we shall be glad to hear again, writes us 'as per margin:''In your July number appeared some very graceful lines, entitled 'NIGHT: ' in response to which I inclose a dozen, not so pretty, upon 'MORN:' and forthwith the writer proceeds to hold forth as followeth :

'I HEAR through the drooping vine-leaves
That over the lattice lie,

The feathered minstrels' carol sweet
Salute the eastern sky,

As the goddess unlocks the gates of day,

And the waking world rolls by.

'It has ceased, but the notes still linger

Upon the fragrant air;

And the gentle lesson is left behind
To teach us everywhere,

To welcome the dawn of HEAVEN'S light
With the melody of prayer.'

1

'THE above is only a pretext for the introduction to the notice of your readers of the following 'hincidents,' quorum pars minima fui, having been an eye-witness and participator therein —an accessory before, at, and after the fact. They came upon me 'in a heap,' as stars are marshalled in constellations and great men come in groups; and as a solitary laugh is a very poor sort of thing, here goes: 'On a visit of condolence to my friend M suffering under severe affliction in the loss of a beloved mother, I had the misfortune of listening to the ensuing ⚫ consolation' administered to my friend and his father, by a sympathizing female in weeds, something between a MIGGS and a widow WATTLE, who was more than suspected of designs on one or the other, nobody knew which, and she did n't caro: Oh! it's no use to mourn! To cry for spilled milk never did any good! Depend upon it, nobody gains nothing by sorrowing: and I'm sure I ought to know, for I've buried a father and a mother, two husbands, and any QUANTITY OF OTHER