and hollows of Lafayette and his associates will be lighted up by the splendor that pours into them from the west. It searches and reveals all the markings of the torrents; it gilds the tautness of the rocky tendons that stretch from the summits to the valleys, and that run sometimes in hard lines and sometimes in curves full of rebellious energy, like a tough bow strung to the utmost tension; and it pours upon the

innumerable populace of trees which the mountain sides support one wide blaze of purple, which slowly burns off upward, leaving twilight behind it, and gleaming on the barren crests, long after the valley, which stretches in view for twenty miles, is dimmed with shade.

As we clomb,

The Valley, opening out her bosom, gave

Fair prospect, intercepted less and less,

O'er the flat meadows, far off,

And yet conspicuous, stood the old Church-tower,
In majesty presiding over fields

And habitations seemingly preserved
From the intrusion of a restless world

By rocks impassable and mountains huge.

Soft heath this elevated spot supplied,

And choice of moss-clad stones, whereon we couched
Or sate reclined; admiring quietly

The general aspect of the scene; but each
Not seldom over-anxious to make known
His own discoveries; or to favorite points
Directing notice, merely from a wish
To impart a joy, imperfect while unshared.
That rapturous moment never shall I forget
When these particular interests were effaced
From every mind!-Already had the sun,
Sinking with less than ordinary state,
Attained his western bound; but rays of light-

Now suddenly diverging from the orb
Retired behind the mountain tops or veiled

By the dense air-shot upwards to the crown
Of the blue firmament-aloft and wide:

And multitudes of little floating clouds,

Through their ethereal texture pierced-ere we,
Who saw, of change were conscious-had become
Vivid as fire; clouds separately poised,-
Innumerable multitude of forms

Scattered through half the circle of the sky;
And giving back, and shedding each on each,
With prodigal communion, the bright hues
Which from the unapparent fount of glory

They had imbibed, and ceased not to receive.

We have thus far been engaged with the aisles and galleries, the fonts and crypts, of this mountain cathedral of Franconia, but have not attempted to mount the spire which springs from a corner of the northerly entrance. Mount Lafayette, which is now ascended by a bridle path that winds into the forest about midway between the two hotels, is a little over five thousand feet in height-higher therefore than the loftiest of the mountains of Scotland. In form and character it is unlike Mount Washington, although in geological structure it is essentially similar. It differs in expression, to the eye of an artist who studies its outlines from the occasional openings along the steep ascent, as a keen, nervous temperament differs from a square-shouldered, burly, and bilious frame.

It does not require so long a ride on horseback to reach the peak of Lafayette as to scale Mount Washington; but the average ascent is more steep, and after heavy rains the mud will be found more troublesome than the sharpness of the angles that must be climbed. One unacquainted with mountain paths, and the trustworthy competence of the ponies, whose hoofs get used to striking fire from the primeval granite of their upper stairways, would imagine, on the first ascent to the peak, that there was great danger in the expedition, and would think, no doubt, that it was a remarkable chance or Providence that returned him safely. But the peril is not worth thinking of. The mules of the Andes are not more surefooted than the horses prove to be that mount far above the nests of the eagles, on the sharp fin-like ridges of Lafayette, from which, on one side, tremendous gorges sweep, and on the other the most lovely of level landscapes are displayed. Any man with two legs that can sit upright on a horse needs have no fear of making the adventure. Indeed, even the bipedal condition is not essential. When we made our last ascent of the mountain, a friend was of the party whom accident had robbed of one of the natural supports which are impartially supplied to the human race. His genius, however, has supplied the deficiency not only in his own case, but for a multitude of others, whose gratitude is a noble part of his reward, by a limb almost as good for walking as nature furnishes, and relieved from numberless inconveniences and ills which we must take with the more supple organism of flesh and blood. He mounted the horse at the Profile House, and did not dismount till he could put Dr. Palmer's artificial leg, in company with the real limb which Nature gave him, on the rocky apex of Lafayette. We could add graceful testimony to the attractions of Franconia, as well as to the versatility of our companion, if we could print the poem which he wrote on the excursion, that falls under our notice as these pages are passing through the press.

Ah, the pleasure, if we have been long pent in the city, of tasting the freshness of the mountain air by the ascent of the steep wilderness on horseback! Each cell of the lungs is a breathing and joyous

palate. Cheerily we cross the trees which brutal winter tempests have uprooted and tilted over to die athwart the path! And how charmingly the sounds of the wilderness fall on the ear, the twitter of the birch leaves, the deeper tone of the beech, the sigh of the hemlock, and the long-drawn moan of the pine! When the horse stops for rest, listen to the tap of the woodpecker on some withered trunk, a death drum to nests of bugs and knots of worms, that think themselves safe against such detective police; next to the whirr of a startled partridge; soon to the slender, long-drawn, honeyed whistle of the fife-bird, ending with a clear and thrice-repeated dactyl, as if calling some distant friend by the name of " Peabody;" and then to the hysteric chatter or scatter-brained squirrels, and the brisk clock-winding which they parody in their throats! Have our readers ever seen Mr. Thoreau's vivid description of a squirrel? We will quote part of it. "One would approach at first warily by fits and starts, like a leaf blown by the wind, now a few paces this way, with wonderful speed and waste of energy, making inconceivable haste with his 'trotters' as if it were for a wager, and now as many paces that way, but never getting on more than half a rod at a time. Then suddenly pausing with a ludicrous expression and a gratuitous somerset, as if all the eyes in the universe were fixed on him,-for all the motions of a squirrel, even in the most solitary recesses of the forest, imply spectators as much as those of a dancing girl,—wasting more time in delay and circumspection than would have sufficed to walk the whole distance,-I never saw one walk,-before you could say 'Jack Robinson,' he would be in the top of a young pitch-pine, winding up his clock and chiding all imaginary spectators, soliloquizing and talking to all the universe at the same time" And to this inspiration of the lungs and ear in the forest, must be added the expectation of grand scenery towards which we are riding, and the zest which the ever-shifting network of light and shadow over the tree trunks and the leaves affords to the eye.

Lafayette is so differently related to the level country, as the Duke of western Coös, that the view from his upper shoulders and summit

has an entirely different character from that which Mount Washington commands. In the first place, the Mount Washington range itself is prominent in the landscape, and the sight of it with all its northerly and western braces certainly does much to make up for the large districts which it walls from vision. Of course, with the exception of this range, there is no other mountain whose head intercepts the sweep of the eye. But it is the lowlands that are the glory of the spectacle which Lafayette shows his guests. The valleys of the Connecticut and Merrimack are spread west and southwest and south. With what pomp of color are their growing harvests inlaid upon the floor of New England! Here we see one of Nature's great water-colors. She does not work in oil. Every tint of the flowers; all the gradations of leaf-verdure; every stain on the rocks; every shadow that drifts along a mountain slope, in response to a floating cloud; the vivid shreds of silver gossamer that loiter along the bosom of a ridge after a shower; the luxurious chords of sunset gorgeousness; the sublime arches of dishevelled light,-all are Nature's temptation and challenge to the intellect and cunning of the artist to mimic the splendor with which, by water and sunbeams, she adorns the world.

When we can see them from the proper height and in their relations, common facts wear a ravishing beauty. It is so in the realm of science when we mount to a grand generalization; it is so when we merely rise in space, and see the common fields and farms reduced to patches of color on the earth's robe. There is no house on the summit of Lafayette, and therefore we cannot hide a moment from whatever grandeur or loveliness the day supplies.

See yonder little cloud, that, borne aloft
So tenderly by the wind, floats fast away
Over the rocky peaks! It seems to me
The body of St. Catherine, borne by angels!

It is the precursor of others that roll out of the northwest, to wrap the peak in cold gray mist for a few moments. But it is only that they may be torn away again, and that we may be surprised by