IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA. 203 



"The veneration with which they picture her ivy-clad towers, * 

 and the throb with which they caught the names of places long 

 familiar to memory, and hallowed by historical events, to all of 

 which they felt their claim inherited from their ancestors, whether 

 from the Thames, or Tweed, or Shannon. 



" To all of this I have, I say, listened with great pleasure, 

 and with a full sympathy in feelings at once natural and gener- 

 ous ; yet can I hardly admit them to possess more forces ou 

 their nature to be more exciting, or richer in the material whence 

 Fancy frames her chequered web, than the recollections awa- 

 kened in a well-stored imagination, by a near approach to the 

 shores of America. Although diiTering widely, these are to 

 every philosophic mind, especially to a subject of Britain, at 

 least equally stirring. 



" When it is first remembered, that on the long line of coast 

 extending from the St. Lawrence to tlie Gulf of Mexico there 

 was not, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, one European 

 family settled, or a Christian voice that woke the forest with the 

 name of God ; and a civilized man from Canada to Fonda, who 

 placed his foot upon the soil to call it home* Yet now, within 

 this immense range may be reckoned the mightiest states of the 

 Union; and over its wide circumference are settled great cities, 

 towns aspiring to be cities, and villages fast growing into busy 

 towns, possessing a population, which for wealth, hardly need 

 yield to the oldest countries of Europe, and in the general 

 diffusion of intelligence and education offering indeed to most 

 of these an example worthy of their imitation. 



" When it is called to mind that the waters of her vast line of 

 coast, now daily ploughed by thousands of busy prows, were at 

 this same not very distant day, as desert as her swamps, and as 

 unfurrowed, except where the canoe of the scared Indian left its 

 light track behind, when driven from the shelter of some near 

 river: — silent and shadowless, except when the sail of the ad- 

 venturous explorer flitted slowly over the waves, as he steered 

 his doubtful course filled with the many wonders seen and 

 fancied by his watchful crew, some band of daring spirits, 

 tempted hither in search of gold, or wild adventure, perhaps to 

 perish suddenly by the arrow of the savage, or slowly to wither 

 beneath the influence of the climate — God I what wonderful 

 changes have been wrought here, and what a living marvel is 

 this land ! Changes, which it has required the labour of ages to 

 accomplish elsewhere, have been effected by the energy of a few 



