ruin been built, in which are placed various figures and fragments of walls and columns, which have been brought from the remarkable ruins lately discovered in Central America or Mexico. The countenances and the headdresses resembled greatly those of Egyptian statues. was struck in particular with a sphinx-like countenance, and a head similar to that of a priest of Isis. This ruin and its ornaments, in the midst of a wild, romantic, rocky, and wooded promontory, was a design in the best taste.

In the evening we left this beautiful Blithewood, its handsome mistress, and our friendly entertainers. We returned home in the night. The cabin in which we sat was close and very hot. Just beside us sat two young men, one of whom smoked and spat incessantly just before Mrs. Downing and myself. "That gentleman needs a Dickens!" said I softly to Mr. Downing. "But then," replied Mr. Downing, in the same under tone, "Dickens would have committed the mistake of supposing him to be a gentleman!"

Of my Blithewood visit I retain the Catskill Mountains and Mrs. D. I made a little sketch of her profile in my album (I took one also of Miss Sedgwick); and she gave me, at parting, a beautiful purse, made with an unusual kind of beads.

Another festivity at which I was present during this time was at Mrs. Downing's grandmother's. It was a family party, on the occasion of her ninetieth birth-day. She lives on the opposite shore; and there assembled this day in her honor children and grandchildren, and grandchildren's children, as well as other near connections, an assembly of from fifty to sixty persons. The little old lady of ninety was still lively and active, almost as much so as a young girl. We ate and drank, and some toasts were proposed. I gave one for "The Home" in America as well as in Sweden. In the afternoon we had a little music. I played Swedish polkas; and a young artist, a

Mr. C., properly a landscape painter, son-in-law of one of the sons or grand-daughters of the family, sang an Italian bravura aria so beautifully, and with such an exquisite voice, that it was really a refreshment to hear him, and one was sure that he had learned the art in Italy.

I have been entertained at two other houses on the Hudson, and saw in the one a beautiful, animated hostess, and many beautiful articles of luxury, but without that elegant arrangement which distinguishes the house of the Downings; and in the other an original old lady, who has been compared among the neighbors to "ma chère Mère" in "The Neighbors," and who really gives occasion for the comparison; besides which, we met there a remarkably excellent man, Dr. H., a firm Swedenborgian, and a more agreeable person to talk with than the generality of Swedenborgians whom I have met with. He has built a house for himself upon one of the terraces of the Hudson. A splendid lodge, of gray stone, is already complete, and people are a little curious to know whether a lady is not coming into the house; and it is maintained that the heart of an amiable young girl in the neighborhood is interested in the question.

N.B.-Dr. H. is very much esteemed and liked, especially by the ladies; but he has hitherto exhibited a heart of stone to their charms.

I have been much pleased at this moment by a visit from Bergfalk, as well as by witnessing his state of mind, and the fresh, unprejudiced view which he takes of the good and evil in this New World; and by his warm feeling for Sweden, and the strong hope which he entertains of her future development. He is fresh and vigorous, and has a pleasure in communicating his thoughts. And although his English is every now and then the most wonderful gibberish that ever was heard, yet his thoughts. find their way through it, and by it, and sometimes in a brilliant manner. Thus, for example, last evening, when

characterizing the faults and the merits of Macaulay's historical work, this was so striking as to cause the otherwise undemonstrative Mr. Downing to exclaim, repeatedly, "Excellent! delightful!"

Mr. Downing was interested by Bergfalk in a high degree, and invited him to spend the night there; but he had already engaged rooms in the town. We accompanied him to his inn; and I gave him Lowell's and Emerson's works to bear him company.

To-day, Sunday the 21st, as I continue my letter, Bergfalk is again here, and with him a Swedish doctor, Uddenberg, living at Barthelemi, and who came to pay his respects to me. The morning has been intellectually rich to me in a conversation on Lowell's poem of "Prometheus," and the manner in which an American poet has treated this primeval subject of all ages and all poets. Bergfalk again distinguished himself by his power of discriminating the characteristics of the subjects; and nothing like this is ever thrown away upon Mr. Downing. At my request, he read that fine portion of Prometheus's defiance of the old tyrants, in which the poet of the New World properly stands forth in opposition to those of the Old World, because it is not, as in the Prometheus of Eschylus, the joy of hatred and revenge, in the consciousness that the power of the tyrant will one day come to an end; nor as in Shelley, merely the spirit of defiance, which will not yield, which knows itself to be mightier than Zeus in the strength of suffering and of will-no: it is not a selfish joy which gives power to the newly-created Prometheus; it is the certainty which defies the tyrant, and by his strength has prepared freedom and happiness for the human race. That threat with which he arms himself against his executioner, that defiance by which he feels that he can crush him, is prophetic of the ideal future of the New World of America; for much suffering has rendered keen his inner vision, and made of him a seer, and he beholds

"A sceptre and a throne;
The pipings of glad shepherds on the hills,
Tending the flocks no more to bleed for thee;
The songs of maidens pressing with white feet
The vintage, on thine altars poured no more;
The murmurous bliss of lovers underneath
Dim grapevine bowers, whose rosy branches press
Not half so close as their warm cheeks untouched
By thoughts of thy brute lust; the hive-like hum
Of peaceful commonwealths, where sunburn'd toil
Reaps for itself the rich earth made its own
By its own labor, lightened with glad hymns
To an omnipotence which thy mad bolts
Would cope with as a spark with the vast sea-.
Even the spirit of free love and peace,
Duty's own recompense through life and death;
These are such harvests as all master-spirits
Reap, haply not on earth, but reap no less

Because the sheaves are bound by hands not theirs;
These are the bloodless daggers wherewithal
They stab fallen tyrants, this their high revenge

For their best part of life on earth is when
Long after death, prisoned and pent no more,

Their thoughts, their wild dreams even, have become
Part of the necessary air men breathe;

When, like the moon herself behind a cloud,
They shed down light before us on life's sea,
That cheers us to steer onward, still in hope;
Earth with her twining memories ivies o'er
Their holy sepulchres; the chainless sea,
In tempest, or wide calm, repeats their thoughts,
The lightning and the thunder, all free things
Have legends of them for the ears of men.

All other glories are as falling stars,

But universal nature watches theirs :

Such strength is won by love of human kind."

After this came Caroline Downing, with her favorite bard. Bryant, the poet of nature. But Bryant's song also is warm with patriotism, with faith in the future of America, and in her sublime mission. Thus, in that beautiful epic poem, "The Prairies," in which he paints, as words can seldom paint, the illimitable Western fields, in their sunbright, solitary beauty and grandeur, billowy masses of verdure and flowers waving in the wind; above these

the vagrant clouds; and, higher still, the sunshine, gleaming above the vast scene, paradisaic, splendid, and rich, but silent and desolate as the desert. The silence, however, is broken. The poet hears a low humming. What is it? It is a bee, which flies forth over the flowery plain and sucks the honey of the flowers. The busy bee becomes a prophet to the poet; and in its humming flight and its quiet activity he hears the advancing industry of the human race, which will extend itself over the prairies, transform them into a new Paradise, and cause new and yet more beautiful flowers to spring up:

"From the ground

Comes up the laugh of children, the soft voice
Of maidens, and the sweet and solemn hymn
Of Sabbath worshipers. The low of herds
Blends with the rustling of the heavy grain
Over the dark-brown furrows."

Last of all, I come to the poems of Emerson, small in dimensions, but great in their spirit and tone; and read aloud a little dithyrambic poem, which is characteristic of the individuality of the poet. Other American poets speak to society; Emerson always merely to the individual; but they all are to me as a breeze from the life of the New World, in a certain illimitable vastness of life, in expectation, in demand, in faith, and hope-a something which makes me draw a deeper breath, and, as it were, in a larger, freer world. Thus says Emerson's

poem:

"GIVE ALL TO LOVE.

"Give all to love;

Obey thy heart;

Friends, kindred, days,

Estate, good fame;

"Plans, credit, and the muse;

Nothing refuse.

For it is a god,

Knows its own path,

And the outlets of the sky.