DANA. APE ANN would almost appear to have been designed CAPE by Nature to afford a home to a poet; and especially to a poet like DANA, who has always been a lover of the coast scenery of his native New England, and whose genius has contributed so much to invest it with ideal beauty. For here, within the easy limits of morning drives, may be seen all the varieties of land and sea that give a peculiar picturesqueness to these shores, from Portland round to Newport. Added to this, the country inland is broken into hills, rocks, dells, meadows, woodlands, farms, and fields, in the most charmingly confused manner imaginable; the landscapes change every moment, and there are never wanting new ones enough to last till it becomes pleasant to revisit those with which the eye is familiar. The old roads wind in and out and up and down with a most alluring sinuosity; I know of one where for nearly five miles the forest trees almost join hands overhead, and the curves are calculated upon such exceedingly short radii (to borrow a phrase of the railway en gineers) that one can never see more than a hundred rods in advance; for the next five miles the way goes over high granite rolling hills, with magnificent ocean views from their bare summits, and deep green vales between, lined with orchards, cornfields, and meadows, and thickly sown with ancient farmhouses. This is near Squam Ferry, as the road goes towards Essex. If he chooses, the explorer may turn aside through a gateway, and a mile or two over loose sand and sand-cliffs, that look like huge snow-drifts, will bring him to a desolate peninsular beach, that stretches away, I know not how far, to the northward. This beach is one of the finest, and by fishermen one of the most dreaded on the coast; it is very wide, and as smooth and almost as hard as a marble floor; the sand in the distance appears almost perfectly white. Somewhere on it is a buried farm, but the peninsula is now uninhabited, and accessible only at one extremity. To ride or walk on this apparently interminable waste, with no companion but the marching waves, that loom up so threateningly, and seem so loudly impatient for another victim that one becomes almost afraid of them, is not the least of Cape Ann's poetical attractions to "the man of fine feeling, and deep and delicate and creative thought: "such an one as the IDLE MAN has identified himself with by the very substance and eloquence of his description, in the essay he has entitled "Musings." In another direction, the road which leads to the beautifully situated old town of Gloucester, and thence goes quite round the shore of the Cape, offers views no less various and interesting. Rock, beach, headland and island alternate with each other for the whole distance; and the gen eral sterility of the scenery, with the sense of loneliness and desolation it inspires, reach a climax at the extremity or "pitch of the Cape," where Thatcher's Island with its cold lighthouses stands out into the Atlantic surges. Further round, towards Rockport, are some high hills, from which the ocean appears almost encircling the horizon; broad and blue, of that deep ultramarine hue peculiar to our northern waters, it rises upward half-way to the sky, and the distant sails which dot it over literally "hang in the clouds." I shall always remember one early morning here, when the breeze blew fresh and the white-caps gleamed in the latter dawning; the horizon line was as clear as in a picture, and the surf was foaming joyfully upon the ledges. Some of the precipices here and elsewhere on the Cape are not excelled for grandeur by those of Nahant. Rockport is in itself a curiosity—a little thriving village stretched along a narrow shore, and just able to preserve itself from being washed into the deep. A strong sea-wall scarcely protects a little basin of a harbor, in which some fifty fishing schooners are usually lying. Many of the immense blocks of granite composing this wall were moved from their places in the great gale of 1851, and the whole would have probably gone had the gale continued another tide. Beyond, and forming a part of Rockport, is Pigeon Cove, where are extensive granite quarries, hewn into the pine-covered cliffs. The scenery here will bear Othello's description: "Rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose heads touch heaven." Or if the whole of Cape Ann were to be described in brief, it could hardly be more aptly done than in the language of one who has profited by an observation of American scenery which the perplexed Othello could hardly have enjoyed : "The hills Rock-ribb'd, and ancient as the sun-the vales Stretching in pensive quietness between; The venerable woods- rivers that move In majesty, and the complaining brooks That make the meadows green; and pour'd round all Such is the vicinity in which DANA has found a home congenial with his spirit. But I know not how to describe it, or how to speak of him in connection with it, except by drawing from the actual. Let me then, as necessary to the purpose, beg the reader's indulgence in asking him to transport himself to the place where I am at this moment writing. It is an old farmhouse, about four miles by the road from Dana's residence, though but for the projecting ledges and deeply indented coves it would be much nearer. From my window, looking westward over the meadows near the shore, I can almost see there. It is a bright August morning; so calm that the swell is scarce audible on the beautiful willow-lined beach just below me. Looking seaward are the rocky islets visible from Mr. Dana's house, and the high point on which stands a solitary oak, long a watcher over the waters, but blasted the early part of this summer by lightning; inland are meadows and far-off farmhouses, with deep green-wooded hills in the distance. Around me all is |