lating, descends in a constant shower of drops and little streams. A person, standing under the shelving part of these rocks, would, in a short time, be wet to the skin.

In the mist, produced by all cataracts, rainbows are ordinarily seen in a proper position, when the sun shines; always, indeed, unless when the vapour is too rare. Twice, while we were here, the sun broke through the clouds, and lighted up, in a moment, the most lucid rainbow, which I ever beheld. In each instance the phenomenon continued a long time, and left us in perfect leisure to enjoy its splendours. It commenced near the precipice, and extended, so far as I was able to judge, at least a mile down the river.

When the eye was fixed upon any spot, commencing a few rods above the precipice, that is, where the cataract begins to be formed, the descending water assumes every where a circular figure from the place where it begins to descend to that where it falls perpendicularly. The motion here remarkably resembles that of a wheel rolling towards the spectator. The section is about one fifth or one sixth part of a circle, perhaps twelve rods in diameter. The effect of this motion of so vast a body of water, equally novel and singular, was exquisitely delightful. It was an object of inexpressible grandeur, united with intense beauty of figure; a beauty greatly heightened by the brilliant and most elegant sea-green of the waters, fading imperceptibly into a perfect white at the brow of the precipice.

The emotions excited by the view of this stupendous scene are unutterable. When the spectator casts his eye over the long ranges of ragged cliffs, which form the shores of this great river below the cataract; cliffs one hundred and fifty feet in height, bordering it with lonely gloom and grandeur, and shrouded every where by shaggy forests; when he surveys the precipice above, stretching with so great an amplitude, rising to so great a height, and presenting in a single view its awful brow, with an impression not a little enhanced by the divison which the island forms between the two great branches of the river; when he contemplates the enormous mass of water, pouring from this astonishing height in sheets so vast, and with a force so amazing; when, turning his eye to the flood beneath, he beholds the immense convulsion of the mighty

mass, and listens to the majestic sound which fills the heavens; his mind is overwhelmed by thoughts too great, and by impressions too powerful, to permit the current of the intellect to flow with serenity. The disturbance of his mind resembles that of the waters beneath him. His bosom swells with emotions never felt, his thoughts labour in a manner never known before. The pleasure is exquisite, but violent. The conceptions are clear and strong, but rapid and tumultuous. The struggle within is discovered by the fixedness of his position, the deep solemnity of his aspect, and the intense gaze of his eye. When he moves, his motions appear uncontrived. When he is spoken to, he is silent; or, if he speaks, his answers are short, wandering from the subject, and indicating that absence of mind, which is the result of labouring contemplation.

All these impressions are heightened to a degree, which cannot be conjectured, by the slowly ascending volumes of mist, rolled and tossed into a thousand forms by the varying blast, and by the splendour of the rainbow successively illuminating their bosom. At the same time, the spectator cannot but reflect, that he is surveying the most remarkable object on the globe. Nor will he fail to remember, that he stands upon a river, in most respects equal, and in several of high distinction superior, to every other; or that the inland seas which it empties, the mass of water which it conveys, the commercial advantages which it furnishes, and the grandeur of its disruption in the spring, are all suitable accompaniments of so sublime and glorious a scene.

LESSON CX.

The Falls of Niagara.-BRAINARD.

THE thoughts are strange that crowd into my brain,
While I look upward to thee. It would seem
As if God pour'd thee from his 'hollow hand,'
And hung his bow upon thy awful front;

And spoke in that loud voice, which seemed to him
Who dwelt in Patmos for his Saviour's sake,

'The sound of many waters;" and had bade
Thy flood to chronicle the ages back,

And notch His cent'ries in the eternal rocks.
Deep calleth unto deep. And what are we,
That hear the question of that voice sublime?
Oh! what are all the notes that ever rung
From war's vain trumpet, by thy thundering side!
Yea, what is all the riot man can make
In his short life, to thy unceasing roar !
And yet, bold babbler, what art thou to Him,
Who drown'd a world, and heap'd the waters far
Above its loftiest mountains ? -a light wave,
That breaks, and whispers of its Maker's might.

LESSON CXI.

Speech of Canuleius.-HOOKE.

WHAT an insult upon us is this? If we are not so rich as the Patricians, are we not citizens of Rome as well as they? Inhabitants of the same country?-Members of the same community? The nations bordering upon Rome, and even strangers more remote, are admitted, not only to marriage with us, but to what is of much greater importance-the freedom of the city. Are we, because we are commoners, to be worse treated than strangers? And when we demand that the people may be free to bestow their offices and dignities on whom they please, do we ask any thing unreasonable or new? Do we claim more than their original inherent right? What occasion then, for all this uproar, as if the universe were falling to ruin? They were just going to lay violent hands upon me in the senate house.

What! Must this empire, then, be unavoidably overturned! Must Rome of necessity sink at once, if a Plebeian, worthy of the office, should be raised to the consulship? The Patricians, I am persuaded, if they could, would deprive you of the common light. It certainly offends them that you breathe, that you speak, that you have the shapes of men. Nay, but to make a commoner a consul, would be, say they, a most enormous thing.

Numa Pompilius, however, without being so much as a Roman citizen, was made king of Rome.

The elder Tarquin, by birth not even an Italian, was nevertheless placed upon the throne. Servius Tullius, the son of a captive woman, (nobody knows who his father was) obtained the kingdom, as the reward of his wisdom and virtue. In those days, no man in whom virtue shone conspicuous, was rejected or despised on account of his race and descent. And did the state prosper the less for that? Were not these strangers the very best of all our kings? And supposing, now, that a Plebeian should have their talents and merit, would he be suffered to govern

us ?

But, we find, that, upon the abolition of the regal power, no commoner was chosen to the consulate." And what of that? Before Numa's time, there were no pontiffs in Rome. Before Servius Tullius's days, there was no census, no division of the people into classes and centuries. Who ever heard of consuls before the expulsion of Tarquin the proud? Dictators, we all know, are of modern invention; and so are the officers of tribunes, ædilles, quæstors. Within these ten years we have made decemvirs, and we have unmade them. Is nothing to be done but what has been done before? That very law, forbidding marriages of Patricians with Plebeians, is not that a new thing?

Was there any such law before the decemvirs enacted it? And a most shameful one it is in a free state. Such marriages, it seems, will taint the pure blood of the nobility! Why if they think so, let them take care to match their sisters and daughters with men of their own sort. No Plebeian will do violence to the daughter of a Patrician. Those are exploits for our prime nobles. There is no need to fear that we shall force any body into a contract of marriage. But, to make an express law to prohibit marriages of Patricians with Plebeians, what is this but to show the utmost contempt of us, and to declare one part of the community to be impure and unclean ?

They talk to us of the confusion there would be in families, if this statute should be repealed. I wonder they don't make a law against a commoner's living near a nobleman, going the same road that he is going, or being present at the same feast, or appearing in the same

market place. They might as well pretend that these things make confusion in families, as that intermarriages will do it. Does not every one know that the children will be ranked according to the quality of their father, let him be a Patrician or Plebeian?

In short, it is manifest enough that we have nothing in view, but to be treated as men and citizens; nor can they who oppose our demand have any motive to it, but the love of domineering. I would fain know of you, consuls and Patricians, is the soverign power in the people of Rome, or in you? I hope you will allow, that the people can, at their pleasure, either make a law or repeal one. And will you, then, as soon as any law is proposed to them, pretend to list them immediately for the war, and hinder them from giving their suffrages, by leading them into the field?

Hear me, consuls. Whether the news of the war you talk of be true, or whether it be only a false rumour, spread abroad for nothing but a colour to send the people out of the city: I declare, as a tribune, that this people, who have already so often spilt their blood in our country's cause, are again ready to arm for its defence and its glory, if they may be restored to their natural rights, and you will no longer treat us like strangers in our own country.

But if you account us unworthy of your alliance, by intermarriages; if you will not suffer the entrance to the chief offices in the state to be open to all persons of merit, indifferently, but will confine your choice of magistrates to the Senate alone-talk of wars as much as ever you please-paint in your ordinary discourses, the league and power of our enemies, ten times more dreadful than you do now-I declare, that this people, whom you so much despise, and to whom, you are nevertheless indebted for all your victories, shall never more enlist themselvesnot a man of them shall take arms-not a man of them shall expose his life for imperious lords, with whom he can neither share the dignities of the state, nor in private life, have any alliance by marriage.