self. I was, however, as I told him, nearly as odious as himself at that time; so it was fit that we should be acquainted. On mentioning afterward to his introducer my impression of something like a want of manliness in Garrison's agitation, he replied that I could not know what it was to be an object of insult and hatred to the whole of society for a series of years; that Garrison could bear what he met with from street to street, and from town to town; but that a kind look and shake of the hand from a stranger unmanned him for the moment. How little did the great man know our feelings towards him on our meeting; how we, who had done next to nothing, were looking up to him who is achieving the work of an age, and, as a stimulus, that of a nation!

His conversation was more about peace principles than the great subject. It was of the most practical cast. Every conversation I had with him confirmed my opinion that sagacity is the most striking attribute of his conversation. It has none of the severity, the harshness, the bad taste of his writing; it is as gladsome as his countenance, and as gentle as his voice. Through the whole of his deportment breathes the evidence of a heart at ease; and this it is, I think, more than all his distinct claims, which attaches his personal friends to him with an almost idolatrous affection.

I do not pretend to like or to approve the tone of Garrison's printed censures. I could not use such language myself towards any class of offenders, nor can I sympathize in its use by others. But it is only fair to mention that Garrison adopts it warily; and that I am persuaded that he is elevated above passion, and has no unrighteous anger to vent in harsh expressions. He considers his task to be the exposure of fallacy, the denunciation of hypocrisy, and the rebuke of selfish timidity. He is looked upon by those who defend him in this particular as holding the branding-iron; and it seems true enough that no one branded by Garrison ever recovers it. He gives his reasons for his severity with a calmness, meekness, and softness which contrast strongly with the subject of the discourse, and which convince the objector that there is principle at the bottom of the practice. One day, when he was expressing his pleasure at Dr. Channing having shaken hands with him the preceding day, he spoke with affectionate respect of Dr. Channing. I asked him who would have supposed he felt thus towards

Dr. Channing, after the language which had been used about him and his book in the Liberator of the last week. His gentle reply was,

"The most difficult duty of an office like mine is to find fault with those whom I love and honour most. I have been obliged to do it about -, who is one of my best friends. He is clearly wrong in a matter important to the cause, and I must expose it. In the same way, Dr. Channing, while aiding our cause, has thought fit to say that the abolitionists are fanatical; in other words, that we set up our wayward wills in opposition to the will we profess to obey. I cannot suffer the cause to be injured by letting this pass; but I do not the less value Dr. Channing for the things he has done."

I was not yet satisfied of the necessity of so much severity as had been used. Garrison bore with me with a meekness too touching to be ever forgotten.

He never speaks of himself or his persecutions unless compelled, and his child will never learn at home what a distinguished father he has. He will know him as the tenderest of parents before he becomes aware that he is a great hero. I found myself growing into a forgetfulness of the deliverer of a race in the friend of the fireside. One day, in Michigan, two friends (who happened to be abolitionists) and I were taking a drive with the governor of the state, who was talking of some recent commotion on the slavery question. "What is Garrison like?" said he. "Ask Miss M.," said one smiling friend: "Ask Miss M.," said the other. I was asked accordingly; and my answer was, that I thought Garrison the most bewitching personage I had met in the United States. The impression cannot but be strengthened by his being made such a bugbear as he is; but the testimony of his personal friends, the closest watchers of his life, may safely be appealed to as to the charms of his domestic manners.

Garrison gayly promised me that he would come over whenever his work is done in the United States, that we may keep jubilee in London. I believe it would be safe to promise him a hundred thousand welcomes as warm as mine.

LAKE GEORGE.

"Those now by me as they have been,
Shall never more be heard or seen;
But what I once enjoy'd in them,
Shall seem hereafter as a dream."

G. WITHER.

EVERYBODY Who has heard of American scenery has heard of Lake George. At one time I was afraid I should have to leave the States without having visited the lake which, of all others, I most desired to see, so many hinderances had fallen in the way of my plans. A few weeks before I left the country, however, I was fortunate enough to be included in a party of four who made a trip to the Springs and the lake. It was not in the fashionable season, and for this I was not sorry. I had seen the Virginia Springs and Rockaway in the plenitude of their fashionable glory, and two such exhibitions are enough for one continent.

It was about noon on the 12th of May when we alighted shivering from the railcar at Saratoga. We hastened to the Adelphi, and there found the author of Major Jack Downing's Letters and two other gentlemen reading the newspapers round a stove. We had but little time to spare ; and, as soon as we had warmed ourselves and ascertained the dinner hour, we set forth to view the place and taste the Congress water. There is nothing to be seen but large white frame houses, with handsome piazzas, festooned with creepers (at this time only the sapless remains of the garlands of the last season). These houses and the wooden temple over the principal spring are all that is to be seen, at least by the bodily eye. The imagination may amuse itself with conjuring up the place as it was less than half a century ago, when these springs bubbled up amid the brush of the forest, their qualities being discovered by the path through the woods worn by the deer in their resort to it. In those days the only edifices were a single loghut and a bearpound; a space enclosed with four high walls, with an extremely narrow entrance, where it was hoped that bears might get in during the dark hours, and be unable to VOL. II.-U

find their way out again. Times are much changed now. There are no bears at Saratoga but a two-legged species from Europe, dropping in, one or two in a season, among the gentry at the Springs.

The process of bottling the Congress water was in full activity when we took our first draught of it. Though the utmost celerity is used, the water loses much of its virtue and briskness by bottling. The man and boy whom we saw filling and corking the bottles with a dexterity which only practice can give, are able to despatch a hundred dozen per day. There are several other springs, shedding waters of various medicinal virtues; but the Congress fountain is the only one from which the stranger would drink as a matter of taste.

The waterworks are just at hand, looking like a giant's shower-bath. At the top of the eminence close by there is a pleasure railroad; a circular track, on which elderly children may take a ride round and round in a self-moving chair; an amusement a step above the old merry-go-round in gravity and scientific pretension. But for its vicinity to some tracts of beautiful scenery, Saratoga must be a very dull place to persons shaken out of their domestic habits, and deprived of their usual occupations; and the beauties of the scenery must be sought, Saratoga Lake lying three miles, Glen's Falls eighteen, and Lake George twenty-seven miles from the Springs.

At dinner Mr. R., the gentleman of our party, announced to us that he had been able to engage a pretty double gig, with a pair of brisk ponies, for ourselves, and a light cart for our luggage. The day was very cold for an open carriage; but it was not improbable that, before twenty-four hours were over, we might be panting with heat; and it was well to be provided with a carriage in which we might most easily explore the lake scenery if we should be favoured with fine weather.

The cart preceded us. On the road, a large white snake made a prodigious spring from the grass at the driver, who, being thus challenged, was not slow in entering into combat with the creature. He jumped down and stoned it for some time with much diligence before it would lie down so that he might drive over it. As we proceeded the country became richer, and we had fine views of the heights which

cluster round the infant Hudson, and of the Green Mountains of Vermont.

We were all astonished at the splendour of Glen's Falls. The full though narrow Hudson rushes along amid enormous masses of rock, and leaps sixty feet down the chasms and precipices which occur in the passage, sweeping between dark banks of shelving rocks below, its current speckled with foam. The noise is so tremendous that I cannot conceive how people can fix their dwellings in the immediate neighbourhood. There is a long bridge over the roaring floods which vibrates incessantly, and clusters of sawmills deform the scene. There is stonecutting as well as planking done at these mills. The fine black marble of the place is cut into slabs, and sent down to New-York to be polished. It was the busiest scene that I saw near any water-power in America.

Lake George lies nine miles beyond Glen's Falls. We saw the lake while we were yet two miles from Caldwell, the pretty village at its southern extremity. It stretched blue among the mountains in the softening light; and we anticipated what our pleasures were to be as we looked upon the framework of mountains in which this gem is set. We had just emerged from a long and severe winter. We had been walking streets in every stage of thaw; and it was many months since we had loitered about in the full enjoyment of open air and bright verdure, as we hoped to do here. This trip was to be a foretaste of a long summer and autumn of outdoor delights.

The people at the inn were busy cleaning, in preparation for summer company; but they gave us a welcome, and lodged and tended us well. Our windows and piazza commanded a fine view of the lake (here just a mile broad), of the opposite mountains, and of the white beach which sweeps round the southern extremity of the sheet of waters, as transparent as the sea about the Bermudas.

As we had hoped, the next morning was sunny and warm. We employed it in exploring the ground about Fort William Henry, which stands on an eminence a little way back from the water, and is now merely an insignificant heap of ruins, The French and Indians used to pour down upon the settlements in the plains by the passes of the Lakes Champlain and George, and near these passes were fought some of the severest battles recorded in American history. The mount