me, perhaps, of the French garrisons and their Indian allies,--of
Abercrombie, Lord Howe, and Amherst,--of Ethan Allen's triumph and St.
Clair's surrender. The old soldier and the old fortress would be emblems
of each other. His reminiscences, though vivid as the image of
Ticonderoga in the lake, would harmonize with the gray influence of the
scene. A survivor of the long-disbanded garrisons, though but a private
soldier, might have mustered his dead chiefs and comrades,--some from
Westminster Abbey, and English churchyards, and battle-fields in Europe,
--others from their graves here in America,--others, not a few, who lie
sleeping round the fortress; he might have mustered them all, and bid
them march through the ruined gateway, turning their old historic faces
on me, as they passed. Next to such a companion, the best is one's own
fancy.

At another visit I was alone, and, after rambling all over the ramparts,
sat down to rest myself in one of the roofless barracks. These are old
French structures, and appear to have occupied three sides of a large
area, now overgrown with grass, nettles, and thistles. The one in which
I sat was long and narrow, as all the rest had been, with peaked gables.
The exterior walls were nearly entire, constructed of gray, flat,
unpicked stones, the aged strength of which promised long to resist the
elements, if no other violence should precipitate their fall.--The roof,
floors, partitions, and the rest of the wood-work had probably been
burnt, except some bars of stanch old oak, which were blackened with
fire, but still remained imbedded into the window-sills and over the
doors. There were a few particles of plastering near the chimney,
scratched with rude figures, perhaps by a soldier's hand. A most
luxuriant crop of weeds had sprung up within the edifice, and hid the
scattered fragments of the wall. Grass and weeds grew in the windows,
and in all the crevices of the stone, climbing, step by step, till a tuft