What a moment, and what a spectacle for a lover of the "sublime and beautiful!" Could Burke have visited such a scene of mingled magnificence, and grandeur, and terror, what a vivid illustration would he not have added to his inimitable treatise upon that subject! Let the reader picture the scene to himself. There, at the dark hour of midnight, among the ruins of Fort William Henry and Fort George, stood Daniel Wheelwright, alone, like Marius amid the ruins of Carthage,--_in puris naturalibus_; as the insurgent Shays fled on horseback, and in a snow-storm, from the face of General Lincoln--and looking for all the world like a forked radish, as Shakspeare says of Justice Shallow. But albeit ludicrous in his own plight and position, there was nothing of that character in the scene around him, or in his own contemplations. The fire raged with amazing fury and power,--stimulated to madness as it were, by the pitch, and tar, and dried timbers, and other combustible materials used in the constriction of the boat. The lurid flames ascended to a great height,--the smoke rolled upward in majestic volumes, while the light, red as the flames of AEtna, streamed across the lake, gilding the crumbling battlements of the old fort, flushing the face of the waters, and tinging the mountain sides to their very crests. The night-bird screamed with terror, and the beasts of prey fled in wild affright into the deep and visible darkness beyond. This is truly a gloomy place for a lone person to stand in of a dark night--particularly if he has a touch of superstition. There have been fierce conflicts on this spot--sieges, and battles, and fearful massacres. Here have the Briton, and the Gaul, and the painted savage, mingled in the dread fight,--steed rushing upon steed, hands clenched in hands with grappling vigor, while the climbing fire, and the clashing steel, and eyes flashing with maddened fury, and the appalling war-whoop of the Indian, have all combined in adding terror to "the rough frowns of war." Here "hath mailed Mars sat on his altar up to his ears in blood," smiling grimly at the music of echoing cannons, the shrill trump, and all the rude din of arms, until, like the waters of Egypt, the lake became red as the crimson flowers that blossom upon its margin.[1] And if at "the witching hour of night," the unquiet ghosts of murdered sinners _do_ stalk forth to re-visit earth by the pale glimpses of the moon, the slaughter of Fort William Henry might have furnished a goodly number of shadowy companions for the hero of a tale which is no fiction. But I am not aware that any of them came forth to add to the troubles of that memorable night, or divert his mind from what must then have been the absorbing subject of his contemplations. Still, if they had had any desire of mustering for a midnight review, or for a goblin-dance, they lost the best opportunity, probably, that will again occur for ages;--since another such illumination of the