• This spirited Song is from 'The Adventures of a Poet, a Tale told in Rhyme,' by F. W. THOMAS, Esq., author of Clinton Bradshaw,' etc. We have been permitted to peruse the poem in manuscript; and are so impressed with the life and variety of incident which pervade it, and the ease and grace of its execution, that we cannot omit the expression of a hope that it may soon be given in a printed form to the public. The selfcomplacent tone of the stalwart boatmen of the West, will remind the reader of DIBDIN's sailor who 'pitied the poor devils ashore 'in a hurricane whose music was so welcome to him on the deep.

ED. KNICKERBOCKER.

THE 'EMPIRE

STATE OF NEW YORK.

BY AN FNGI ISHMAN.

THE above is but a significant title. New-York justly merits the appellation of the Empire State.' Considered only as one of many independent commonwealths linked together in a peaceful union, what an idea must her grandeur convey of the American confederacy; of the strength of the chain which binds together such unwieldy masses, and renders the compact firm and enduring! It is a harmony which, if it continues, will be more wonderful than any save that of the spheres.

We enter into few statistics; we merely state the impressions of an inhabitant of the Old World at taking a general survey of this portion of the New; a glance at those great features which strike. the mind of the most casual observer. New-York possesses in herself whatever would be necessary to constitute a great Empire, if distinct and separate; cities, towns, villages, rivers, lakes, mountains, soil, productions, and the most celebrated wonders in the world of nature and art. In extent equal to Great-Britain, she is magnificent in population, dominion, in developed and undeveloped resources. Within her limits Nature has exhausted every element of the beautiful or the sublime. The ocean thunders on her East, and the Great Cataract upon her West. Erie and Ontario are two great seas upon her borders, where the mariner may lose sight of land; whose billows are equal to those of the ocean, in storms which wreck the shipping destined for her provincial ports. The mighty river St. Lawrence, with its thousand islands, separates her from the British possessions on the North. On the North-east stretches Lake Champlain, one hundred and twenty miles, with all its variety of scene, from the low and swampy shore, to the boundary of steep mountains close to the water's edge, or the cliffs where a hollow, murmuring noise is heard when the breeze blows, from the waters splashing in the crannies of the rocks. There are islands encom

It

passed with rocks, shores ornamented with hanging woods, and mountains rising behind each other, range after range, with a magnificence which cannot be described; but richer than all is she, when she receives the waters of Horicon, the loveliest of lakes! embosoms two hundred islands, and is shadowed on either side by high mountains, while its waves are of such delicious purity as to reveal the slightest object which sparkles upon its bottom at any depth.

New-York has within it the sublime mountain scenery of the Kaätskills, where the eagle wheels over their hoary summits, and the winds receive an edge which sometimes kills the flowers of May in the valley. It has primeval forests where the axe has not sounded,

and a few red men yet linger amid their gloom; and it has plains which stretch themselves for miles, like the prairies of the far West. It has solitudes where the foot of man has scarcely trod; and yet for three hundred miles, from the Hudson to the great lakes, it has city after city, town after town, village after village, in one unbroken chain, rising like magic on the borders of lakes or in the heart of vallies, where a few years since reigned the silence of nature; a proud attestation of the superiority of the Saxon race. Situated in a most favored zone, with skies hanging over it for the greatest portion of the year unclouded as those of Italy, it enjoys the four seasons, with their accompanying blessings, in equal distribution; the spring with its gradual advances; the luxury of summer; the autumn with its prodigal abundance; and that which enhances all these, and is likewise full of sublimity, the snows of winter. Whoever has sailed upon its rivers, or clambered its mountain-sides, or descended into its vallies, or gazed upon its cataracts, but most of all, has become acquainted with its works of art, must acknowledge that this is preeminently the EMPIRE STATE.

But the Bay of New-York, rivalling the noblest in the world for its depth, expansiveness, and beauty of its rising shores, is another feature which deserves to be mentioned; and then we come to a city, destined also to stand in the first class. Accustomed as I had been to entertain an unpardonable prejudice and ignorance concerning the New World, and almost to confound the name of American with the red aborigines, it was with unfeigned surprise that I found myself in such a city, stunned with the hum of her incessant bustle and commerce, in the midst of somewhat fresh but stately buildings, and mingling with the crowds in a thoroughfare, considering its extent, one of the most magnificent in the world. Enthusiasm banished every prejudice. I beheld on all sides the aspect of a luxurious metropolis; well-furnished shops, churches, public buildings, and private dwellings, which would have graced any city of Christendom. Fountains in various parts were throwing up their waters to a great height, and with profuse liberality. A river flowed through the streets, brought from a distance of forty-five miles by an aqueduct, in design and execution one of the most bold, stupendous works of any age or country; yet some of my countrymen, who profess to write books, have not even alluded to it.

Surrounded by so many wonders, I looked for something to remind me of the past; to convince me that all this was not the work of magic, or of a few years. I could not persuade myself that the Indian ever rambled through the forests which covered the site of this city, and that the canoe shot silently over the waters where I beheld such a forest of masts. Just then, attracted by the sound of music, and the eager looks of a crowd, I observed twelve Indians, (among them were some handsome women) standing on a balcony which fronted the main street of the city, wrapped in blankets, with painted faces, and ornamented with a variety of gew-gaws. They were Sioux, who had come on under the care of an agent, and were exhibited as a show. The crowd gazed for a few moments, and

passed on with indifference: but it was a spectacle calculated to plunge one into the most serious reverie. Here were the descendants of the original possessors of the soil; the same class of men whom Columbus described when he kissed the soil of which he took possession; children of the same frailties, ornamented in the same manner, the worshippers of the same spirit! Here was the bustling Present; they were the representatives of the Past; the poor children whose fathers once possessed this whole continent, now gazed at, as if they were cannibals from the South Seas! As they stood erect on the balcony, unconscious of the ardent gaze of the crowd, dignified, silent, and unmoved, they seemed to me like antique pictures hung upon a wall, in a garb and costume long since obsolete. They carried with them their arrows and their tomahawks, but these had long ago become powerless against the arts of civilized man. They looked down upon the Saxons, and saw the race which had destroyed their's. Around them the marble and the granite were piled in stately buildings; the columns of Christian temples rose before them, and the interminable streets of a great city. I gazed again at the poor children of the forest, then at the accumulating crowd, and all the evidence of power which I saw around; and the juxtaposition appeared to illustrate most forcibly the forces and resource of two races of men. The twelve Sioux on the balcony, with their blankets, hatchets, and store of arrow-heads, were to the physical strength and arts of the surrounding people what the whole race of the red men is now to the race of the whites.

The greatness of the city of New-York, which is the metropolis of the whole country, belies its provincial name, and its prosperity attests its unrivalled position near the sea. According to the present ratio of its increase, in less than twenty years it will number over half a million of inhabitants, and in less than a century will attain the rank which London now holds. The Old World pours in its wealth perpetually, and it is the great centre and mart of commerce for the New. Thither all the streams of commerce converge and meet. The cold regions of the North, the cotton-growing South, the great valley of the Mississippi, and beyond the Rocky mountains to Astoria, the wild regions of the utmost West contribute to its wealth. But passing by the feature of a great city, what a river has NewYork! I refer not to any of those which lie upon her borders, and are shared by other states or nations, but to the HUDSON, which is all her own. I thank GOD,' wrote the elegant IRVING, Soon after his return to his native State, from a long residence abroad, 'I thank GOD that I was born on the banks of the Hudson! I fancy I can trace much of what is good and pleasant in my own heterogeneous compound, to my early companionship with this glorious river. In the warmth of my youthful enthusiasm, I used to clothe it with moral attributes, and almost to give it a soul. I admired its frank, bold, honest character; its noble sincerity and perfect truth. Here was no specious, smiling surface, covering the dangerous sand-bar or perfidious rock; but a stream deep as it was broad, and bearing with honorable faith the bark that trusted to its waves. I gloried in