French is restored-because till these changes are effected, I am convinced there can be no permanent security, and I should only have the grief of seeing that dear France exposed to new calamities.

This is a very imperfect reminiscence of his theory, as regarded Europe, in which I felt less interested than in what related to my own country. He allowed me afterwards to take a copy of that part of the memoir, which went to prove that the American revolution was owing to the state of our music. This is among my papers, and must be reserved for a future occasion. In the mean time I may be permitted to observe, that though the idea seemed at first wholly preposterous, my opinion was much changed on reading his memoir. I was not indeed fully convinced by it, and there still appeared to be a good deal of fancy in his system. He had been evidently a most accurate observer of facts, and was very sagacious in the results he drew from them. I can do no more now, than state two or three examples of the former. He said that the American revolution, originated, was nourished, and chiefly effected, by the people in New England. That these people were, previous to that revolution, almost wholly without instruments of music, except the drum and fife. That every village had its singing master, and among these men, were to be found some of the most peculiar and marked characters in the country. That their style of singing was borrowed from the frogs, whose strength and modulation of voice were much greater in America than in Europe; the resemblance being so strong, that if an auditor

placed himself about equidistant between a pool tenanted by these creatures, and a singing school, he would find it impossible to tell the difference of the sounds. That the character of their sacred, which was almost their only, music, inspired a selfcontroul, an energy, a foresight, that had the most powerful influence on their conduct. The people he observed, though heretics, were yet very devout, and he had often heard them with astonishment when singing their hymns; an elder read a line, the whole congregation sang it, they then stopped in the midst of the tune, and of the sense, till he read another, which process was continued throughout.-What must not a people be equal to, he asked, who were capable of such self command and suspension of feeling as this practice required? A further proof he said might be found in the change that had taken place since the custom was dropped, as he understood it had been, the present generation had greatly fallen off from the virtues of their ancestors. He had made a critical examination, and many curious comments on that celebrated anthem, now very scarce, which begun-" By the river of Watertown I sat down, and wept for the sins of Boston."

But

this paper which was only intended as an introduction to his theory, is grown to a great length; and justice cannot be done to the author, without giving his system entire,-this must be postponed to some future opportunity.

op

TOWARDS the close of summer in the year pressed with the closeness of a sultry day, I sauntered out into the fields to seek for greater freshness in the open air, taking with me Milton's Paradise Lost. A short walk through some woodland led to an eminence whose summit rising above the surrounding territory, gave an opportunity to any current of air for which I was panting, to reach me unimpeded. The declining sun was still some hours above the horizon, and I found at the base of a huge mosscovered rock of granite, a shelter from its rays. A spreading and majestic walnut cast its broad shadows on the parched ground along side, and gave to the eye at least some refreshment.

The scene around was pleasing, though possessed of no very striking feature. The spot on which I reclined, was in a rough, wild pasture on a range of hills, that formed the western side of an irregular

valley of moderate extent. Immediately below me, a copse of young wood sloped down to the edge of a small brook, rippling through a meadow, bounded by a field of ripening corn. The hills were rocky and barren, 'except where covered with forests. At two different points they sloped away, so as to give an opening for the highways, through this secluded region. The surface of the valley was interspersed with pastures, cultivated fields, meadows and orchards, with several farm-houses and large barns, a cluster of which, at some distance, formed a hamlet. As the eye followed the opening through the hills, these variegated farms were terminated by a plain and wide expanse of meadows, lying on the edge of the sea, whose distant wave almost blending its tints with the sky, might render it doubtful to the sight, which element supported the white sails diminished to the size of a bird, that were skimming along the horizon.

After gazing a while on this quiet scene, and indulging in a little vague reverie which the sight of the ocean seldom fails to awaken; I opened that immortal poem where Hell and Paradise are described with unequalled beauty and sublimity; and the actors in the scenes shadowed out with a grandeur and distinctness, that places them in the regions of imagination, at a distance hitherto unattained by any other human intellect, excepting only him, who "exhausted worlds and then imagined new."

I had nearly concluded the second book, when a rustling sound which had caught my ear for a moment or two, seemed encroaching, and increasing in vio

lence. I looked up and beheld the distant landscape obscured with rolling dust and vapours. A sudden tornado had arisen, which was advancing on the wings of the whirlwind up the valley. The dense blackness of the clouds, the violence, the noise and rapidity of its approach, were appalling. To regain the house was impossible, I drew closer to the rock for shelter, all the objects of the landscape were rapidly hidden from my sight, and the blast reached me so instantaneously, that it seemed to come at one furious bound from a long distance. Confused with its roaring, half suffocated with the dust and leaves, I was torn from my seat and rolled over on the ground.

A moment after I found myself hurled aloft in the eddying whirls of the hurricane, and carried with such dreadful velocity, that in a short space I thought I had ascended some scores of miles in altitude; the force of the wind still seemed to support me and I was dreading the moment when it would cease, and my downward course terminate in my being dashed to atoms. The current that had thus taken me up, seemed to have attained its utmost height and was beginning to fail, when it rose again for a moment with renewed elasticity, and gave me a toss as it where, leaving me to fall but a few feet, on what seemed a bed of vapour, so dense, that it could bear my weight.

Before I could fully recover my breath, or compose my senses to look about, a strange being stalked towards me who was neither a man, though erect in altitude, nor resembling any animal that I had ever before seen; and whose whole appearance was so