the old, leafy Puseyites of Nature, calling us back to the past, but,
like their Oxford brethren, calling in vain; for neither in polemics nor
in art can we go backward in an age whose motto is ever "Onward."

The population of Lowell is constituted mainly of New Englanders; but
there are representatives here of almost every part of the civilized
world. The good-humored face of the Milesian meets one at almost every
turn; the shrewdly solemn Scotchman, the transatlantic Yankee, blending
the crafty thrift of Bryce Snailsfoot with the stern religious heroism
of Cameron; the blue-eyed, fair-haired German from the towered hills
which overlook the Rhine,--slow, heavy, and unpromising in his exterior,
yet of the same mould and mettle of the men who rallied for "fatherland"
at the Tyrtean call of Korner and beat back the chivalry of France from
the banks of the Katzback,--the countrymen of Richter, and Goethe, and
our own Follen. Here, too, are pedlers from Hamburg, and Bavaria, and
Poland, with their sharp Jewish faces, and black, keen eyes. At this
moment, beneath my window are two sturdy, sunbrowned Swiss maidens
grinding music for a livelihood, rehearsing in a strange Yankee land the
simple songs of their old mountain home, reminding me, by their foreign
garb and language, of

"Lauterbrunnen's peasant girl."

Poor wanderers, I cannot say that I love their music; but now, as the
notes die away, and, to use the words of Dr. Holmes, "silence comes like
a poultice to heal the wounded ear," I feel grateful for their
visitation. Away from crowded thoroughfares, from brick walls and dusty
avenues, at the sight of these poor peasants I have gone in thought to
the vale of Chamouny, and seen, with Coleridge, the morning star pausing
on the "bald, awful head of sovereign Blanc," and the sun rise and set