The west was a flood of molten gold, fretted with crimson clouds; the great Horse-shoe Fall caught every tint of the glowing heavens, and looked like a vast sheet of flame, the mist rising from it like a wreath of red and violet-coloured smoke. This gorgeous sight, contrasted by the dark pine woods and frowning cliffs which were thrown into deep shade, presented a spectacle of such surpassing beauty and grandeur, that it could only be appreciated by those who witnessed it. Any attempt to describe it must prove a failure. I stood chained to the spot, mute with admiration, till the sun set behind the trees, and the last rays of light faded from the horizon; and still the thought uppermost in my mind was--who could feel disappointed at a scene like this? Can the wide world supply such another? The removal of all the ugly mills along its shores would improve it, perhaps, and add the one charm it wants, by being hemmed in by tasteless buildings,--the sublimity of solitude. Oh, for one hour alone with Nature, and her great master-piece Niagara! What solemn converse would the soul hold with its Creator at such a shrine,--and the busy hum of practical life would not mar with its jarring discord, this grand "thunder of the waters!" Realities are unmanageable things in some hands, and the Americans are gravely contemplating making their sublime Fall into a motive power for turning machinery. Ye gods! what next will the love of gain suggest to these gold-worshippers? The whole earth should enter into a protest against such an act of sacrilege--such a shameless desecration of one of the noblest works of God. Niagara belongs to no particular nation or people. It is an inheritance bequeathed by the great Author to all mankind,--an altar raised by his own almighty hand, at which all true worshippers must bow the knee in solemn adoration. I trust that these free glad waters will assert their own rights, and dash into mist and spray any attempt made to infringe their glorious liberty. But the bell is ringing for tea, and I must smother my indignation with the reflection, that "sufficient for the day is the evil thereof." A Freak Of Fancy. "I had a dream of ocean, In stern and stormy pride; With terrible commotion, Dark, thundering, came the tide. High on the groaning shore Upsprang the wreathed spray; Tremendous was the roar Of the angry, echoing bay. "Old Neptune's snowy coursers Unbridled trode the main, And o'er the foaming waters Plunged on in mad disdain: The furious surges boiling, Roll mountains in their path; Beneath their white hoofs coiling, They spurn them in their wrath. "The moon at full was streaming Through rack and thunder-cloud, Like the last pale taper gleaming On coffin, pall, and shroud. The winds were fiercely wreaking Their vengeance on the wave, A hoarse dirge wildly shrieking O'er each uncoffin'd grave.