which have been produced, by the same events, on the general interests of mankind. We come, as Americans, to mark a spot, which must be forever dear to us, and our posterity. We wish, that whosoever, in all coming time, shall turn his eye hither, may behold that the place is not undistinguished where the first great battle of the revolu. tion was fought. We wish, that this structure may proclaim the magnitude and importance of that event to every class and every age. We wish, that infancy may learn the purpose of its erection from maternal lips, and that weary and withered age may behold it, and be solaced by the recollections which it suggests. We wish, that labor may look up here, and be proud, in the midst of its toil. We wish, that, in those days of disaster, which, as they come upon all nations, must be expected to come on us also, desponding patriotism may turn its eyes hither, and be assured that the foundations of our national power still stand strong. We wish, that this column, rising towards heaven among the pointed spires of so many temples dedicated to God, may contribute also to produce, in all minds, a pious feeling of dependence and gratitude. We wish, finally, that the last object on the sight of him who leaves his native shore, and the first to gladden his who revisits it, may be something which shall remind him of the liberty and glory of his country. Let it rise, till it meet the sun in his coming; let the earliest light of morning gild it, and parting day linger and play upon its summit. Albums and the Alps.-BUCKMINSTER. You find, in some of the rudest passes in the Alps, homely inns, which public beneficence has erected for the convenience of the weary and benighted traveller. In most of these inns albums are kept to record the names of those, whose curiosity has led them into these regions of barrenness, and the album is not unfrequently the only book in the house. In the album of the Grand Chartreuse, Gray, on his way to Geneva, recorded his deathless name, and left that exquisite Latin ode, beginning, "O! tu severi religio loci ;" an ode which is indeed "pure nectar." It is curious to observe in these books the differences of national character. The Englishman usually writes his name only, without explanation or comment. The Frenchman records something of his feelings, destination, or business; commonly adding a line of poetry, an epigram, or some exclamation of pleasure or disgust. The German leaves a long dissertation upon the state of the roads, the accommodations, &c., detailing at full length whence he came and whither he is going, through long pages of crabbed writing. All In one of the highest regions of the Swiss Alps, after a day of excessive labour in reaching the summit of our journey, near those thrones erected ages ago for the majesty of Nature, we stopped, fatigued and dispirited, on a spot destined to eternal barrenness, where we found one of these rude but hospitable inns open to receive us. There was not another human habitation within many miles. the soil, which we could see, had been brought thither, and placed carefully round the cottage, to nourish a few cabbages and lettuces. There were some goats, which supplied the cottagers with milk; a few fowls lived in the house; and the greatest luxuries of the place were new-made cheeses, and some wild Alpine mutton, the rare provision of the traveller. Yet here Nature had thrown off the veil, and appeared in all her sublimity. Summits of bare granite rose all around us. The snow-clad tops of distant Alps seemed to chill the moon-beams that lighted on them; and we felt all the charms of the picturesque, mingled with the awe inspired by unchangeable grandeur. We seemed to have reached the original elevations of the globe, o'ertopping forever the tumults, the vices and the miseries of ordinary existence, far out of hearing of the murmurs of a busy world, which discord ravages, and luxury corrupts. We asked for the album, and a large folio was brought to us, almost filled with the scrawls of every nation on earth that could write. Instantly our fatigue was forgotten, and the evening passed away pleasantly in the entertainment which this book afforded us. I copied the following French couplet : "Dans ces sauvages lieux tout orgueil s'humanise; "Signed, p. ed. trénir.' I wish I could preserve the elegance, as well as the condensed sentiment of the original : Still are these rugged realms; e'en pride is hushed; Interview with Robert Southey.—GRISCOM. ON alighting at Keswick, I inquired for the house of Robert Southey; for it is in this poetic region that the laureate has fixed his residence; remote from the confusion and irritations of the metropolis; but holding a daily intercourse, by the rapid conveyance of the mail, with that great fountain of intelligence, and deriving all that he may wish from the prolific stores of Paternoster-Row. His house is situated on an eminence, with a fine prospect before it; a plain and unimposing, but comfortable mansion. I was introduced to him in his library up stairs, and was met with an ease and politeness, which distinguished at once the man of kind feeling, of good sense, and good society. He has still an air of youthfulness in his countenance, and his manners are lively and animated. There are few men, I should presume, in England, who are spending their lives more classically, in a more agreeable literary retirement, than Robert Southey. His library occupies several rooms. The fertility of his mind, and the activity of his researches, appear to leave him at no loss in the selection of a subject for the employment of his genius; and the different productions of his pen are too well known to need any remarks from me upon their various merits. His early life was spent in Bristol. It was in that neighbourhood that Coleridge,* Lovell, and himself, all *The youthful enthusiasm, which dictated this romantic idea, is very beautifully referred to in an essay in the first volume of "The Friend," by Coleridge; whose prose writings should be more extensively known in this country than they are.-ED. fellow commoners at Oxford, attached themselves to three sisters of a respectable family, whom they married; and, in the ardour of youthful anticipation, and with those highwrought notions of worldly happiness, which always have much more of poetry than of sober judgment in them, they resolved, with their wives, to embark for the United States, to settle themselves in a retired spot on the banks of the Susquehannah, there to plant an Arcadia, and there to spend a life of primitive simplicity and Elysian enjoyment Happily for their comfort, and the credit of English literature, the scheme was given up. Southey is about forty-five years of age. His person is of the middle size, and his looks and manners are indicative of frankness and amiableness of character. In the same house, but in separate apartments, the two sisters of his wife, the widow of Lovell, and the wife of Coleridge, the poet, also reside. The former of these two, who lost her husband soon after her marriage, has employed herself in instructing the daughters of her brother-in-law. Cole ridge lives, I believe, altogether in London; the separation from his wife arising more from his eccentricities and singularities than from any breach of family agreement. His two sons remain with their mother, and I have understood that Southey, with a liberality that does him the highest honour, takes upon himself the responsibility of their education, and the utmost harmony prevails in the family. In rising to take leave, after an hour of delightful conversation, Southey proposed to walk with me on the margin of the lake. We had a charming ramble of half a mile along a path which presented, at various points, beautiful views of the Derwent-water. This end of the lake is diversified with islands, some of which are adorned with elegant mansions. Boats, neatly painted, and adapted to excursions of pleasure, are kept by many of the inhabitants of Keswick. The grounds, through which we walked, belonged formerly to the Earl of Derwent-water; but, becoming confiscated to the crown, they were appropriated to the support of Greenwich Hospital, to the funds of which they still contribute. We walked to a point which gave us a view of the southern termination of the Jake, and the entrance of Borrowdale. The scenery is wild and beautiful, reminding me of Lake George in our own state, but more subdued and enriched by cultivation. Skiddaw, one of the highest mountains in Cumberland, rises a little to the north of Keswick. Its summit is about three thousand feet above the level of the sea, equalling, in point of elevation, the highest peak of the High-lands, through which the Hudson passes, just below Newburgh. Southey informed me that he had made an excursion to the top of this mountain with Sir Humphrey Davy. Near the summit the latter discovered a mineral of rare occurrence, (if I recollect rightly, the chiastolite,) found only in clay-slate, which appears to be the prevailing formation of this mountain.-Our walk along the Derwent having extended as far as my limited time would admit, we returned to one of the village inns, where I parted with a person, whose conversation and suavity of manners, more than the poetry and the prose, which have placed him among the most prominent of living authors, have left an impression which I shall delight in cherishing. Christmas.-IRVING. THERE is nothing in England that exercises a more delightful spell over my imagination than the lingerings of the holyday customs and rural games of former times. They recall the pictures my fancy used to draw in the May-morning of my life, when as yet I only knew the world through books, and believed it to be all that poets had painted; and they bring with them the flavour of those honest days of yore, in which, perhaps with equal fallacy, I am apt to think the world was more home-bred, social, and joyous, than at present. I regret to say, that they are daily growing more and more faint, being gradually worn away by time, but still more obliterated by modern fashion. They resemble those picturesque morsels of Gothic architecture, which we see crumbling in various parts of the country, partly dilapidated by the waste of ages, and partly lost in the additions and alterations of latter days. Poetry, however, clings with cherishing fond |