of reflection and inquiry, though without at any time abjuring his more genial self. The grand peculiarity of Montaigne, that which made him a phenomenon, is defined to be his moderation, his sound discretion, his self-possessed discipline, in an age of extremes in things small and great extreme credulity and extreme scepticism-ultraism in the court, the camp, the field; an age of ferment and chaos, of storm and tempest, of many-voiced strife and tumult; an age pronounced by one who lived through the Reign of Terror, the most tragical age in the annals of history. Fénélon (to name a sufficient contrast to the author of the Essays) is carefully delineated-with that lightsome spirit of innocent gaiety, as pure from dissipation as from hypocrisy, the natural impulse of a chaste, placid, equable temperament-with that disposition sweeter than sweetness itself, more patient than patience, which on this account impels M. Sainte-Beuve to murmur against it as faulty and irritating. Saint-Simon, again; almost unrivalled in penetration, and intuitive analysis (so to speak) of human character-in the power of reading minds and hearts à travers face and expression, and of plucking forth the mystery of motive and intention-in perfecting into an art, a science, a system, his piercing detection of what lay beneath the masks of the actors around him-in the burning curiosity, sometimes insatiable and unrelentingly cruel, with which he would anatomise a courtier's soul, and make visible the invisible, on the point of his scalpel. Le Sage, laughing for laughing's sake, without special contempt towards his own age, or hobby of an idea to be set trotting at the expense of his fellow-men; herein distinguishing himself from the satirists of his century, and allying himself to the more genial and jovial race of bygone days. Huet, commemorated by Voltaire as -cet évêque d'Avranche, Qui pour la Bible toujours penche and, alas for the vanity of literature! better known now-a-days by that poor couplet than by his once proverbial and prodigious scholarship, and the reputation of the greatest helluo librorum, and digester of them when swallowed in his omnivorous maw, that ever committed ravages in library stores; perfect examplar of the man of polish, the man of the world, and of l'honnête homme under Louis XIV. Poor bishop! well might he proceed to demonstrate by a process in geometry the fatuity of those who reckon on an income of posthumous renown, or a bill on posterity for twelve months after date of decease.-Fontenelle; in whose case, brain was all in all, and heart totally omitted; who passed through his long existence without one burst of laughter, or one gush of tears, or one fit of passion.-Vauvenargues, a softened, not enfeebled Pascal; the little Abbé Galiani, uttering alternately thoughts "worthy of Vico, if not of Plato," and balderdash unworthy of an ordinary buffoon; Abbé de Choisy, who was never himself save in woman's clothes, and whose ideal summum bonum consisted in dressing and undressing himself all day long, and dreaming about it all night; the Abbé de Chaulieu, debauched and apoplectic, shrewd and serviceable-together with such notables as Voltaire and Rousseau, Boileau and Molière, La Fontaine and Daguesseau, Diderot, Condorcet, Beaumarchais, Bernardin St. Pierre, Florian, Malesherbes, Barnave, Mirabeau, &c., &c., come before the Causeur for judgment. the Of contemporary genius, M. Sainte-Beuve has evidently a special grudge against Lamartine and Chateaubriand. The former he pounces upon, not indeed with the vulturous swoop, or rather perhaps the worrying tenacity, of Cuvilier Fleury (of the Débats), but with a resolute desire to turn him and his sentiment inside out, and show, by shaking it to the winds, what inflated falsity there is in the poet-politician's personal composition and literary compositions. This is not the time, or place, to enter at length into the justice of the strictures on the author of Raphael; we can only refer to the fact, that he is severely handledhis egotism roundly ridiculed-and his questionable morality more than questioned. Chateaubriand, again, is sadly "cut up," notwithstanding the liberal eulogies which besprinkle the detracting page; he is twitted with a whimsical imagination, an enormous and puerile vanity, an undue tendency to voluptuous themes, and especially-in spite of his great name as a pillar of orthodoxy-a deep-seated and desolating scepticism. He is represented as incessantly victimised by a twofold fatuity-that of the man of fashion who would be always young, and that of the littérateur who cannot but be ostentatious. Passion, as a poet, is freely conceded him; but what kind of passion? that which involves the idea of death and destruction, a satanic fury, mingled all the while with a subdued emotion of the pleasurable, altogether composing a strange hybrid epicureanism, peculiar to Chateaubriand, and very unwholesome for society. The unfortunate Memoirs are sarcastically and searchingly interpreted, in a way infinitely displeasing to those enraptured admirers of the noble viscount, to whom their voice d'outre tombe came with so sepulchral a spell of fascination, and who found in their changeful records a recurring series of delights; and indeed the Memoirs have the merit of diversity in matter, if not in manner-as another noble poet has it, Love, war, a tempest-surely here's variety; A bird's-eye view too of that wild, Society; Among the other literary men of this century who come under review in the Causeries, are Villemain, commended as uniting patient meditation with prompt facility of expression, and presenting a fine example of moral and literary growth; Victor Cousin, equally adroit at deciphering a musty manuscript, and at idealising its significance by the enthusiasm of artist and orator; Guizot, grave and emphatic; Thiers, sprightly and energetic; St. Marc Girardin, clear-sighted opponent of the Werter or René "green and yellow melancholy;" Montalembert, the impassioned apologist of Rome; Lacordaire, the trumpet-tongued militant churchman; Alfred de Musset and Théodore Leclercq, both famous for their Proverbes Dramatiques; Béranger, Balzac, Jasmin (the barber-poet of the South), Bazin (historian and historical romancer), Armand Carrel, Mignet, Hégésippe Moreau and Pierre Dupont (two recent French poets the former a kind of Chatterton in life and death, the latter a democratically disposed minstrel of too mobile temperament); such are specimens of the company to be found at the Monday réunions chez M. Sainte-Beuve. Long may he preside there in the same pleasant spirit-making no more enemies than need be, and as many friends as he deserves. UP THE HUDSON, ALBANY, TROY, BUFFALO, ERIE AND ONTARIO, TORONTO-DOWN THE ST. LAWRENCE, MONTREAL, QUEBEC-BACK BY LAKE CHAMPLAIN AND BELLOWS FALLS, TOWARDS BOSTON. BY J. W. HENGISTON, ESQ. RETURNING to New York as a starting-point for the north, I took the upper line of railway from Baltimore to Philadelphia, which only requires the help of steam-boat to cross the Susquehanna at Havre-deGrace a good large town on the banks of this fine, wide, but shallow river even here near its mouth the banks look very inviting, contrasting pleasantly with the more level and more sandy parts of Maryland, and partaking more of Pennsylvania in its looks, its crops, its everything -for they are here close on their northern border. The steamer, a large and fast one, shot us across in a twinkling, though the stream is at least a mile wide. We passed the Schuylkill about four miles below Philadelphia; putting to four horses to sundry divisions of a long train in the suburbs, and trotting into Broad-street, and to the corner of Highstreet. Here the fire-engine brigades of the city, drawn up, awaited our arrival in all the pomp and circumstance of banners, uniforms, bands, &c. This muster was to welcome the Baltimorian brigades, or some of their own return companies-for now is the great season (the fall) of their visits reciprocal from city to city; and our cars were crammed with these annihilators of fire, in full dress: their black-glazed and iron and brass-bound hats and helmets encircled by wreaths of flowers-some had nosegays-all presented by their fair friends. The bearing of these young fellows was excessively hilarious and jolly, being well charged at starting at the various "bars" and "changes," and rushing out at every station as we came along to keep up the rum and whisky ardour. However, I observed not one of them beyond a very pardonable elevation, and they trundled themselves out, and formed on one side of the rails in Broad-street in perfect marching order-the whole moving off through the principal streets of the city, to the great delight of all the world. Their bands, too, were in handsome uniforms, and played, I thought, very well. I think it was on this occasion I saw a company from Jersey City on a visit here, dressed in the exact uniform (blue and buff) of Washington, and the patriot armies who conquered their independence-longskirted coats, knee-breeches, white-topped boots, and enormous cockedhats, with an immense upright feather! They caused quite a sensation, and some little tittering in Chesnut-street. Such changelings we lords of the earth are! all hinges on time, circumstance, and place! But after all, it requires no great abstraction to consider our dresses, whether in the last or the present century, as highly absurd and grotesque. own present triangle cocked-hats, shell-jackets, paltry gold lace, enormous epaulettes, &c., are carried about with all the jauntiness of high fashion. Why need a very handsome young fellow, an officer, too, with his old strap-epaulettes (these were volunteers) look so terribly out of conceit of himself, and shuffle along as if ashamed of his old war-gear? Still, it was considered as little inferior to real Bloomer in comicality. Our I took the lower railway (a single line of rail, as most of them are) across the Jersey, from Camden City, along the left bank of the Delaware, by Bordentown, Brunswick, and to South Amboy, at the mouth of the Rariton, a muddy little tide-river; but Perth Amboy opposite, at its mouth, is a pretty town; and Staten Island, across this arm of the sea inlet, quite charming. This is the south end of this pretty island. All along this channel, up to New York, its shore is lined by farms, villages, country seats, and villas, till, as it nears the bay of New York, there is a perfect chain of them, with their gardens or grounds, coming down to the water, where they keep boats for pleasure, or to dredge for oysters— these waters being alive with the oyster fishermen. The Jersey waterside, a little way above Amboy, is one flat of grazing meadows or swamp, with Elizabeth Town in sight, on a gentle elevation, five or six miles off. : The New York steamer from Amboy is exactly like the Delaware ones I have described very complete and very fast-though not equal to the north and east river ones in size and speed: one of which, the Isaac Newton, laying at the slips a few hundred yards higher up, I immediately went on board of, as she was going to start for Albany in an hour after we got to the wharf at the west side of the Battery. I had no time to look at this wooden "castle" close by, nor its "garden," which consists perhaps of a few flower-pots, for no ground is there more than what it stands on at the edge of the Battery-walk. This castle, however, is the place chosen for fêtes and receptions of illustrious strangers on their landing it contains a hall or large assembly room; here lately Jenny Lind was so obstreperously and expensively welcomed, and here, since I landed, Kossuth tried to speak, to thank the American world for his enthusiastic reception; but the crowd made such an uproar in their great joy that he was fain to sit down, merely (after many vain efforts to be heard) observing, that as they would not hear him, he would hold his tongue. Alas! what is enthusiasm and the talk of liberty, which not even America can understand! After all the fuss among ourselves first, and next here about this Hungarian hero, in one short year he grows out of fashion! now, "none so low to do him reverence"-Punch and all are mum! Poor man-worn out talking, he quits, nothing loth, the noisy halls of Columbia, ibi omnis effusus labor, and sits down quietly at Bayswater. Several of these immense and most magnificent steamers leave New York for Albany every evening: one, the Troy (though not so large or fine), started at the same instant as the Isaac Newton; we were very full of passengers, deck and cabin. I have spoken of the internal economy of these great river steamers, but I must say a word of the extravagant fitting out of this very famous one, only eclipsed in size by the New World. The great cabin or saloon of this immense fabric is one mass of gilding on a white ground, in the Gothic style, springing up in groined arches, about twelve feet, more profusely gilt than Horace Walpole's gallery at Strawberry Hill; the skylights above of stained glass, the range of state-room doors richly panelled, carpets, mirrors, ottomans, arm-chairs, lounges, &c., tapestry and velvet; in short, nothing afloat was ever finer, and all perfect, except perhaps in taste and delicacy as to colours and patterns, but that hardly to be found fault with. The building and fitting of these boats must be something quite enormous; they seem never to consider expense; everything is handsome, and on the most ample scale, always excepting of late years their tables. Still I must say, in this too the steamers are much better than the hotels after all. Their appointments, too, are on a grand scale-clerks, stewards, engineers, stokers, the crew, servants very numerous and well dressed; those of the great cabin, the waiters (mulattoes) in velvet caps and jackets alike, with a smart esprit du corps, which tells well. Ten to one you do not find out who the captain is, unless you pitch on the greatest swell on board, or mark who sits at the head of the ladies' end of these half-mile tables, for you never hear an order or a word above their breath. All these steamers steer forward before the funnels, in a centre, elevated, glazed wheel-house, on the upper deck, where the pilots, mates, and occasionally the captain, congregate. Why do we still persist in leaving our helmsmen unsheltered, and our engineers on our railway engines? In the States they are always protected by a glass screen or frame-the Americans dare all man dares do, but they know the severity and risk of facing wind, rain, and cold, totally exposed as our helmsmen and engineers are. As there was the Troy opposition steamer, as fast a boat as ourselves (neck and neck the whole way), the fare was very low-a dollar and a quarter; but the sleeping cabin charged separate, half a dollar, with a great rush to the office to secure berths and tickets for tea (that is, hot water). We soon passed the Palisades, a remarkable range of high rocks on the Jersey shore-in sight above from New York-and while an immense mob besieged the lower dining saloon (in gold and white columns, as splendid as that above), the door kept closed by a woolly-headed Janus some minutes after the gong had clamoured round. This manoeuvre is understood to allow the ladies (husbands, brothers, cousins, particular friends, or chance acquaintance) to get seated at the best ends; then comes the rush of "outer barbarians," or bachelors, who have not by hook or crook the smallest nodding acquaintance among the fair. We all know, however, what a supper crush is of white cravated gentlemen-very gentle-whether in days of old at Rothschild's or Lafitte's, Demidoff's or Borghese's, or nearer home in our own polite circles, and at Guildhall or the Mansion-house. The thing is not new, only here it is periodical, and quite in an undress sans cérémonie. Night and a dense fog closed round us as we advanced, but the Hudson and its fine hills have been often described. In the morning we found ourselves at anchor six or seven miles short of Albany; the river most unusually low (curious rolling waves followed our track in shallow water), added to the fog, had compelled our stop; we had left our opposition steamer, the Troy, a little once or twice, but she was now fairly alongside. Indeed, during the night, I had heard the ringing of ours and her bell at intervals. We soon proceeded as the sun rose, but with barely water enough to carry us up. The only inconvenience to those going further was, that we lost the morning train to the west; and Albany, though a good large town, and the seat of government of the state, is a stupid, dull place, where one would not willingly throw away an hour; so, having deposited my carpet-bag in State-street at an hotel, I crossed the river to Green Bush, a straggling village opposite, not much grown of |