coughs, he begins his song,-throwing his head back, and singing low and slow, and very much through the nose. At the end of every verse, he drops his head and shakes it, with solemn emphasis, by way of increasing the effect. The song runs thus:

Come, all ye bold Virginians, I'd have you for to know It's for to help the

Bostons You must prepare to go. Our king, he has fell out with us, And courage seems to

fail;

But I hope the valiant Bostons Will conquer General Gage.

With this little narrative, which derived nearly every thing that could have made it acceptable, from the drollery and comic power of Mr. Pope, and which was no further worthy to be introduced here than as it serves to throw a light upon the bagatelle which foliows, I give the letter.

TO WILLIAM POPE.

MY DEARLY BELOVED BROTHER:

WASHINGTON, August 29, 1821.

I have thought of you oftener and more tenderly this summer than for some time gone by, and sit down to tell you how this has happened.

In the first place, I have had more leisure to think of you, for I have been travelling. In the next place, I have been travelling in a direction full of associations of thought and feeling derived from you, for I have been quite as far to the North, I suspect, as your hero Charles Colley ever was; though, I must confess, the North Star never appeared to the South.

As we passed through Trenton, I thought of your

"Christmas Day in Seventy-Six,"

and that brought you with a group of hearty fellows from Richmond before my mind's eye, and then, naturally enough, I thought again of "Departed Joys," which still more brought up your image to my side whenever I approached an interesting scene of the revolutionary war. At Princeton, where General Mercer fell, the tree was pointed out and is still preserved, and there I saw the tears in your eyes. Then at Kingston, New Brunswick, and New York, and in going up the North River, you were continually with me,—those same eyes of yours sparkling with triumph when gazing on Stony Point as we passed, or flaming with indignation at Arnold's treason when the spot was shown us where the Vulture sloop of war was moored,―or bedewed with sympathy when the grave of the generous and accomplished André was indicated. Then came West Point, the subject of so much solicitude and bloody strife in the revolutionary war, with the ruins of its two old forts, Clinton and Putnam, which stand like two old chroniclers of awful days long since gone by.

So far, however, you were only one of a party associated and grouped together in my recollection: but when, on returning from Lake George, we fell into the route of Burgoyne's invading army, you were, if not all alone, at least the lord of the ascendant. All that I could recollect of "Jack, the king's commander," I chaunted loud and merrily. Oh! thought I, if my dear Pope were but here to give it all to us, how much should we enjoy it, and how much would he enjoy these scenes!

"Then first he came to Canada, next to Ticonderoga,

And leaving those, away he goes, straightway for Saratoga."

Well we did not go to Canada-though we should have done so if Mrs. W. had not got home-sick, and anxious to contract the circuit of our excursion. To Ticonderoga we should have gone from

the head of Lake George, if we could have got a safe boat. But "leaving those, away we went, (Oh! what a falling off,) straightway for Saratoga." We fell upon Burgoyne's track at Sandy-Hill, a beautiful little village on a high and most commanding site, at the point at which you will observe on your map, ascending from Albany, the North River bends at right angles to the west. Thence, going down the river, on the eastern bank, two miles and a half, and within half a mile of old Fort Edward, we were shown the spring at which the Indians who had charge of Miss McRae, stopped to drink when they were discovered and fired on by the whites; and the tree, on the root of which she was found sitting. "She was found after the action was over," say the historians, "tomahawked and scalped and tied to the tree." There being a house near, I borrowed an axe and cut a chip out of that identical root, for you, which, with some other holy relics, I shall send you by the first opportunity. The tree is a flourishing pine stump, fifty feet high,full of balls, the top twisted off by a storm. I wish I could have brought one of the Springs to you, too, for they are the very finest that ever I met with. At Fort Edward there is a little village- and while our horses were watering, I procured a revolutionary bullet or two which had been got out of the wall of the fort. We arrived at the village of Saratoga to dinner, the field on which Burgoyne laid down his arms being immediately before us, about half a mile, now a beautiful piece of meadow-land at the junction of Fish Creek with the North River, which you can also see on the map. I have some relics, also, from this field for you. You remember that Burgoyne was on his retreat, endeavouring to get back to Fort Edward and thence into Canada, when, finding his further retreat cut off, he surrendered on this plain :— so in following his track down, we came to the field of surrender before we came to the battle-ground, where he had, for the first time, become convinced of the erroneous estimate he had made of the American character.

Having walked over the field of surrender, and pulled some boughs from a tree near the spot at which Burgoyne's marquee was pitched, we moved down the river in the evening, and, about an hour by sun, came to the house in which the celebrated British General Frazier breathed his last. This house was the quarters of the German general, the Baron Reidesel; and, on the day on which Frazier was killed, the Baroness Reidesel (who, with two or three small children, had followed her husband into the war) was engaged in preparing dinner for Bugoyne, Philips, Frazier and Auckland, who were to dine on that day by invitation with her husband. The table had been already set out for dinner, when the action began, and after some time poor Frazier was brought in wounded, not to dine, but to die. The Baroness' letters have been published, in which she gives a most interesting account of all these particulars,-which you will find in Wilkinson's Memoirs; or you may read all that is affecting or touch

ing in regard to these incidents, collected by Mr. Silliman in his tour to Canada, which I will send you as soon as I can procure the book. The generous sensibility evinced by Frazier, after he knew that his wound was mortal, has given me much tenderness for his memory. The Baroness says he was continually apologizing to her for the trouble he was giving her, and that while sitting in the other room (there were but two, and they were very small) she could hear his groans and exclamations-"O fatal ambition!"-"Poor General Burgoyne!"-" My poor wife!" He was killed, it seems, by one of Morgan's riflemen. Silliman says he had the anecdote from one Dick Brent, and Brent from Morgan himself. In the action of the 7th October, 1777, Frazier was the soul of the British army, and was just changing the disposition of a part of the troops, to repel a strong impression which the Americans had made and were still making on the British right, when Morgan calling together two or three of his best marksmen, and pointing to Frazier, said "Do you see that gallant officer? that is General Frazier-I respect and honour him-but it is necessary he should die." This was enough,-Frazier was immediately carried from the field mortally wounded. But you will read it all in Wilkinson or Silliman.

Well, sir, as I was saying, we arrived at this same house at about an hour by sun; and as good fortune would have it, before we alighted another traveller rode up, having just returned from viewing the battle-field, accompanied by old Ezra Buel, who had been a guide to the American army in both the battles of the 19th September and the 7th October, and was with our troops 'till the surrender. He is now seventy-seven, and his usual gait of riding is twelve miles per hour, on a very hard riding horse. You will see honourable mention made of him by Silliman. Not at all fatigued with the excursion from which he had just returned, he wheeled about again, and accompanied us with the utmost alacrity. Then You should have been with me, my dear Pope-to walk over the fields which had been the theatre of such desperate strife-where the great cause of American liberty, too, was staked on the issue.

"And so"-thought I-"this is the field on which the famous battles of Stillwater were fought, four-and-forty years ago! How did these grounds swarm with armed men!" "Here Morgan was posted" -said the old man, interrupting my meditations-" Here was Arnold, then a patriot and an excellent soldier," &c. And so the old gentleman arranged the field and conjured up before my eyes the whole host. Then he painted the battles with great spirit showed by what accidents they had commenced on both occasions-and how they became general-depicted the struggles in particular parts of the field -and enabled me to imagine, at times, that I saw and heard all the tumult, agitation, shouting, thunder and fury, of a long and well-contested field. Good Heavens-what a warming illusion !---Morgan's

eye of fire and bugle voice:— - Arnold's maniac and irresistible impetuosity the rattling of musketry, the sharp cracking of the rifles, the deafening roar of artillery, the animating shout of the soldiery, the war-whoop of the Indians, the encouraging and applauding cries of the officers, the charge, the retreat, the rapid and regular evolution at one point, the disorderly movement at another, the headlong confusion, the groans of the dying, the cry for quarter, ghastly and bleeding wounds, the severed limbs, men and horses mingled on the plain in one wide scene of indiscriminate blood and carnage. Oh what an uproar then!- How still and quiet now!! Where are they all! What is that your plough is turning up?" "Only a skeleton." "What yet!-to this day!" "Even yet-our ploughs are constantly striking against cannon-balls or dead men's bones, or turning up grape-shot or bullets." "Then

I guess the people were not idle on that day." "You may depend, friend, they were busy." "I believe it but I have a friend in Virginia who would be glad to have some of the bullets that were fired in those great battles-battles that gave the first decided turn to the American Revolution." "To be sure; there is a ball, which has been, rolling about the yard for some time; you shall have the bullets too; and you, John, go up in the loft and bring down that skull.” "Thank you: excuse me from the skull-it will not be convenient to carry it--but the ball and the bullets I will gladly take." And so I did.

We went to several other houses which have been all built since; for it was then entirely wood, except Freeman's farm, which you will see mentioned in the books; and at all these houses bullets and bones were offered,—even the little children handling and offering the human bones, with as total an absence from all emotion as if they were chicken's bones, or dry sticks. Having examined the battle-grounds of both days, and walked, listened to my guide, and sighed 'till my heart was full and heavy, I returned to my quarters and slept, very little to my honour, without dreaming, for I was too much fatigued to sleep fancifully. The next morning I took another ride with old Ezra, to see the American encampment, and, above all, Gates' head-quarters. The house is still standing. It is a small, red, hip-roofed, one-storied old house that has quite a revolutionary look. "And here," the old man said, "the General remained during both the battles;" which were fought, at least, a mile from this house, and certainly out of sight. This," the old guide said, "he was told, was right,-as it was the General's business to be at one place always, to receive information and give orders." Yet the old fellow's look had a glimpse of passing cunning, as much as to say, "A bad excuse is better than I could not help thinking, myself, that it was not exactly in the style of Napoleon. But what do you think of these armies resting here, in the opposite encampments, their sentinels within hail of

none.

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