THOUGHTS AT NIAGARA.

Numbers have labored to describe this imposing spectacle, but no pen can exhaust the subject, or do full justice to its grandeur. It is great, indescribable, mighty; and the sensations it produces are indefinite, confused, and wholly unlike and above the emotions raised by other scenes and other causes. It would be presumption to offer a description; although the image of the passing moment is so deeply fixed in the mind, that all else can be dismissed at pleasure, and the imagination conduct us, as often as we will, to a seat on Table-Rock where we can again see the dashing waters roll up in billows above the verge, then gliding over, literally tumble into myriads of particles before they are lost in the rising spray.

One idea impressed me strongly, while enjoying this triumph of Nature's eccentricities; that the Canada Fall was to the American as Great Britain to the United States. Both of the same majestic pattern, equally lofty, created by the same stream, and side by side; but the former more powerful, more irresistible, more overwhelming; while the latter possesses another kind of beauty, less angry, less furious, less threatening, but yet grand and magnificent, and, take away the other fall, incomparable.

Undoubtedly in ages past this mighty tide rolled over in an unbroken sheet; but having worn away in a slow retreat to its present position, a rock unyielding and immovable separated the stream into two unequal divisions; and, judging from the past, the future would seem to forewarn changes equally great. The Canada Fall, however, can gain nothing by the wearings of time. It can have no larger proportion, no higher ledge; but on the other hand, some shifting rock, some rupture in the bed of the river above, may direct the larger share into the American channel, and the relative character of the two be reversed.

The comparison to some extent will hold of the two governments. Our ancestors were common. The same language, the same literature, and the same religion supplied, and continues to supply us both; and although a rock impassable has divided us, we continue in civilization to stand side by side. Great Britain, however, stretches her dominion through the world. The channel of her power is deeper, and its full current sweeps along with irresistible force. She has attained her full meridian, and stands forth the mammoth power of the present age; with her ensign unfurled to every breeze, and her ambassadors upon every isle. She draws within her influence 'earth's remotest bounds;' but, if we rightly estimate the indications of the times, her political meridian has no higher degree; and when she moves from her present position, it is even more probable that she will 'hasten to her setting' than be borne along in her present attitude by the shifting currents of time.

Our republic, in contrast with it, presents the figure of aspiring, expanding youth, and vigorous age. The youth of the parent stock; but, being educated in a different school, and upon another soil, and having shaped out a separate course, founded upon the experience of the past, has formed juster estimates of the dignity and independence of man; of his social immunities; of his inborn liberty; of his equality of right with all mankind; and of his constituting a part of the national sovereignty, rather than its appendage. His free-born genius has unfolded while struggling for these essential principles; and guided by their inspiration, he stretches forward in the career of intellectual and moral expansion, promising ere long to excel immeasurably the sturdy parent, whose genius is encumbered by prejudice, aristocracy, and regalism, and blunted by long and arduous toil.

Unlike the two Falls in extent, neither Great Britain, nor any civilized nation, possesses such a valuable, continuous, and available territory as constitutes the American republic. It reaches, with hill and plain, river and mountain, from ocean to ocean. The waters of the Missouri wander for five thousand miles through its breadth, and yet find their source and discharge within its limits. If, excepting Russia, we double all the kingdoms and States of Europe, and suppose the area to be extended over the Union, an empire as large as Spain would still be left: indeed it is almost impossible to appreciate the territorial magnitude of this grand confederacy, on the imposing scale on which its government is instituted.

For the beautiful and grand in natural scenery, it is saying little to assert that ours is unrivalled. From that variety which stirs the milder feelings, up to that which rouses the highest emotions, it seems to furnish the whole catalogue of the pleasing and the sublime. It offers to us 'rivers that move in majesty;' the bright and gentle scenery of the inland lake,

and lastly, Niagara's rushing tide, the triumph of the grand in nature.

The comparison might be continued in some other respects. The American Fall presents a plain, bold, and widely extended front, while the Canadian is sinuous, and bears deeper marks of the surges' wild career. In like manner the English government has been irregularly extended by the convulsions of time; enlarging its empire by every vicissitude, and swelling its resources even by calamity. Its institutions also have been essentially modified, almost revolutionized, during the long struggles for the emancipation of mind. On the other hand, ours exhibits the same unbroken and formidable outline by which it was originally bounded. Not a fragment has crumbled, but it has rather been rendered geographically complete. Relying upon no foreign possessions for its magnitude; upon no navy or army for its strength; it trusts the future to the guidance of the American mind; those mighty energies now unfolding in the sunny atmosphere of free institutions, and cultivating in that republican school which recognizes no degradation but ignorance, and no distinction save substantial and virtuous worth.

Leaving any farther comparisons, which are idle except as a mere matter of novelty, it may not be amiss to consider the pretension so often reiterated, that our institutions are levelling. What does this vague charge mean? Do they obstruct personal effort, or the pursuit of happiness, or the cultivation of the mind? Do they draw from the husbandman his earnings, from the artisan the fruits of his skill, from commerce its reward? No; so far from shackling man, the philosophy of all Americanism seems to be to open wide the gates to the field of human exertion; inviting every citizen freely to enter and reap according to his abilities; and emphatically to make the utmost of the powers which the Deity has bestowed. Where then is the prostrating tendency detected by the aristocrat in our institutions? It must be because they do not establish and sustain a Patrician race, exalted by territory, wealth, and prerogative. If this is the levelling into which such charges may be resolved, it has precisely a contrary effect, and is much more a matter of commendation than reproach. Republicanism does not seek the elevation of a few, but of all; and this principle is one of profound wisdom, guiding more directly to national greatness than any other political maxim, aside from its inherent justice to man. We have yet to learn that intellect and moral worth require the sustenance of hereditary wealth and place; while ignorance coupled with arrogance would merit contempt, no matter how it was habited. On the other side, aristocracies organized and sustained by law have in all ages, without doubt, produced more misery among men than all the desolations of faction, the rapacity of military commanders, and the tyranny of kings combined. We need no American mandarins to wrest by legitimatized oppression that free, unbroken spirit from the great mass of citizens which must constitute the energy of the nation. Our republic, however, does recognize an order of Patricians, though it rises high above the region of factitious distinctions. Taking the monument for its emblem, the corner-stone of the order is virtue. The pedestal, intellect. The shaft, mental progress, and usefulness to man. The summit, grandeur, sublimity of character. It is composed of Franklins, Marshalls, Washingtons, and the ascendancy of such Patricians is founded on the grateful appreciation of the people of eminent usefulness and exalted worth. If the Pisos, Antoniuses, and Scipios of Rome, together, with the swarming host of Europe's privileged characters shall fade even from the page of history, our Washington and Franklin will live 'through the still lapse of ages,' with perpetual freshness in the minds of men. Such men need no commemorative column, sculptured with their deeds or lineage; and as Napoleon dated his patent of nobility from the battle of Monte Notte, so does theirs bear date with the commencement of their public usefulness.

Turning once more to the Falls of Niagara. Our national boundary divides it, assigning a part to the British empire, thus forming a natural but most remarkable division, the centre of a raging river and a mighty fall. We can all cordially approve the poetical exclamation of a distinguished Englishman:

Aquarius.