Maps and Pictures 



something, as a letter from the Viscount Santarem, in Paris, com- 1851 

 mended him to me as a " very distinguished artist," but the note re * co,t 

 arriving last summer, while I was absent, I had never seen Mr. 



Lebron. I requested my friend, Mr. , of New York, on 



whose judgment I place more reliance than on that of any other 

 connoisseur whom I know, and who has himself a very pretty col- 

 lection of pictures, to write me his opinion of the work. He fully 

 confirmed Bulwer's report ; and I accordingly bought the picture, 

 which is now in my own house. 



It is about five feet by three and a half, and exhibits, which is 

 the most difficult thing, an entire view of the Falls, both on the 

 Canada and American side. The great difficulty to overcome is 

 the milky shallowness of the waters, where the foam diminishes 

 so much the apparent height of the cataract. I think you will 

 agree that the artist has managed this very well. In the distance a 

 black thunderstorm is bursting over Goat Island and the American 

 Falls. A steamboat, the " Maid of the Mist," which has been 

 plying for some years in the river below, forms an object by which 

 the eye can measure, in some degree, the stupendous proportions 

 of the cataract. On the edge of the Horseshoe Fall is the frag- 

 ment of a ferry-boat which, more than a year since, was washed 

 down to the brink of the precipice, and has been there detained 

 until within a week, when, I see by the papers, it has been carried 

 over into the abyss. I mention these little incidents that you may 

 understand them, being somewhat different from what you saw 

 when you were at Niagara ; and perhaps you may recognize some 

 change in the form of the Table Rock itself, some tons of which, 

 carrying away a carriage and horses standing on it at the time, 

 slipped into the gulf a year or more since. 



I shall send the painting out by the " Canada," February 1 2th, 

 being the first steamer which leaves this port for Liverpool, and as 

 I have been rather unlucky in some of my consignments, I think it 

 will be as safe to address the box at once to you, and it will await 

 your order at Liverpool, where it will probably arrive the latter 

 part of February. 



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