Niagara Falls 



1837 feeling nearly allied to what one might entertain at hearing a 

 person of solid weight and character talked down by a noisy 

 upstart of yesterday, that I found the roar of this stupendous 

 natural phenomenon overpowered by the hissing of a locomotive, 

 which was letting off its steam at the railroad station adjoining. 



The presence of these evidences of human ingenuity was, in 

 other respects, likewise very unpropitious to the feelings which the 

 scene itself was calculated to inspire, and though no enemy to 

 rail-roads or factories in their proper places, I could have wished 

 all vestiges of the one and of the other banished from a spot 

 where nature ought to have been allowed to reign undisturbed 

 and alone. 



1841 



1841 Carlisle, George William Frederick Howard. Two lectures 



Carlisle on the poetry of Pope, and on his own travels in America. Delivered to 



the Leeds Mechanics' Institution and Literary Society, December 5th 

 and 6th, 1850. Leeds. 1850. Pp. 25-26. 



. The first view neither in the least disappointed, or 

 surprised, but it wholly satisfied me. I felt it to be complete, 

 and that nothing could go beyond it; volume, majesty, might, are 

 the first ideas which it conveys; on nearer and more familiar 

 inspection I appreciated other attributes and beauties — the emer- 

 ald crest — the seas of spray — the rainbow wreaths. Pictures 

 and panoramas had give me a correct apprehension of the form 

 and outline ; but they fail, for the same reason as language would, 

 to impart an idea of the whole effect, which is not picturesque, 

 though it is sublime ; there is also the technical drawback in paint- 

 ing of the continuous mass of white, and the line of the summit 

 of the Fall is as smooth and even as a common mill-dam. Do 

 not imagine, however, that the effect could be improved by being 

 more picturesque; just as there are several trivial and unsightly 

 buildings on the banks, but Niagara can be no more spoiled than 

 it can be improved. You would, when on the spot, no more think 

 of complaining that Niagara was not picturesque, than you would 

 remark in the shock and clang of battle that a trumpet sounded 



1072 



