his friends, till the day he died. That part of the journal which
contained a description of this journey is mostly destroyed. Here and
there is a fragment. I cannot select, for the pages are very scanty;
but I do not withhold the following fragments, because they indicate a
better and more cheerful frame of mind than the foregoing.

"On reaching the ferry-house, a rude structure of boards at the foot of
the cliff, I found several of those wretches devoid of poetry, and lost
some of my own poetry by contact with them. The hut was crowded by a
party of provincials,--a simple and merry set, who had spent the
afternoon fishing near the Falls, and were bartering black and white
bass and eels for the ferryman's whiskey. A greyhound and three
spaniels, brutes of much more grace and decorous demeanor than their
masters, sat at the door. A few yards off, yet wholly unnoticed by the
dogs, was a beautiful fox, whose countenance betokened all the sagacity
attributed to him in ancient fable. He had a comfortable bed of straw
in an old barrel, whither he retreated, flourishing his bushy tail as I
made a step towards him, but soon came forth and surveyed me with a keen
and intelligent eye. The Canadians bartered their fish and drank their
whiskey, and were loquacious on trifling subjects, and merry at simple
jests, with as little regard to the scenery as they could have to the
flattest part of the Grand Canal. Nor was I entitled to despise them;
for I amused myself with all those foolish matters of fishermen, and
dogs, and fox, just as if Sublimity and Beauty were not married at that
place and moment; as if their nuptial band were not the brightest of all
rainbows on the opposite shore; as if the gray precipice were not
frowning above my head and Niagara thundering around me.

"The grim ferryman, a black-whiskered giant, half drunk withal, now
thrust the Canadians by main force out of his door, launched a boat, and