THAT the stupendous cataract of Niagara, with its picturesque associations, should have inspired the homage of many a gifted votary of the muse, need not provoke surprise. Yet any attempt to depict a scene so essentially august and sublime,-transcending, indeed, the limits of the loftiest intellect adequately to portray,— must of necessity fail to present it in all its stateliness and grandeur. Our poet BRAINARD'S lines are, we think, among the best that have appeared on the subject: -- The thoughts are strange that crowd into my brain, As if God poured thee from His "hollow hand," And spoke in that loud voice, which seemed to him And notch His centuries in the eternal rocks. And yet, bold babbler, what art thou to Him That breaks, and whispers of its Maker's might. Brainard is not unknown to fame by his fine poem, The Connecticut River; which commences thus: From that lone lake, the sweetest of the chain, The mountain torrent, with its wintry roar, Springs from its home and leaps upon thy shore: Turn their rough cheeks, and stay thee for thy kiss. The young oak greets thee at the water's edge, Or hear the young fox practising to bark. Dark as the frost-nipp'd leaves that strew'd the ground, The Indian hunter here his shelter found; Here cut his bow and shaped his arrows true, Here built his wigwam and his bark canoe, * Something of the Promethean fire of the Elizabethan age seems to glow in the following lines by PINKNEY, of Maryland : |