In the stage-coach two persons were already seated--an English emigrant and his wife, with whom I quickly made acquaintance after my usual fashion. The circumstances and the story of this man I thought worth noting--not because there was anything uncommon or peculiarly interesting in his case, but simply because his case is that of so many others, while the direct good sense, honesty, and intelligence of the man pleased me exceedingly. He told me that he had come to America in his own behalf and that of several others of his own class--men who had each a large family and a small capital, who found it difficult to _get on_ and settle their children in England. In his own case, he had been some years ago the only one of his trade in a flourishing country town where he had now fourteen competitors. Six families, in a similar position, had delegated him on a voyage of discovery: it was left to him to decide whether they should settle in the United States or in the Canadas; so leaving his children at school in Long Island, "he was just," to use his own phrase, "taking a turn through the two countries, to look about him and gather information before he decided, and had brought his little wife to see the grand Falls of Niagara, of which he had heard so much in the old country." As we proceeded, my companion mingled with his acute questions, and his learned calculations on crops and prices of land, certain observations on the beauty of the scenery, and talked of lights and shades and foregrounds, and effects, in very homely, plebeian English, but with so much of real taste and feeling that I was rather astonished, till I found he had been a printseller and frame-maker, which last branch of trade had brought him into contact with artists and amateurs; and he told me, with no little exultation, that among his stock of moveables, he had brought out with him several fine drawings of Prout, Hunt, and even Turner, acquired in his business. He said he had no wish at present to part with these, for it was his intention, wherever he settled, to hang them up in his house, though that house were a log-hut, that his children might have the pleasure of looking at them, and learn to distinguish what is excellent in its kind.