sterner stuff, I pretend not to decide. I have never been perfectly reconciled to rain since that night. I am on much better terms with snow.

When the rain ceased, winter set in, and our roof was soon as solid as frost could make it. I did not remain to test the capacity of our cabin as a conductor of caloric, as I joined a party of wood-choppers who went into the interior to cut wood for the army. I volunteered because I was fond of swinging the axe, and because it was plain that every change must be for the better. We were conducted to a place called the "Nine Partners," but whereabouts that is now, I am not able to say-the surface of the earth having undergone surprising changes since the revolution. We found the place inhabited by a few Dutchmen, with now and then a Yankee evidently located for cheating purposes. I made an arrangement with an honest Dutchman, by which I received board and lodging in exchange for my rations of flour, beef, and New England rum. Rum rations were then much smaller than those dealt out in later times, because (I suppose) elections were then less frequent, and patriotism also required less stimulus.

We were required to cut and cord up one cord of wood a day, a small matter for a stout New England boy; we thus had much leisure for our own physical improvement, and were free from all the forms of military discipline.

We were the first that attempted to determine by actual experiment four example has since been zealously followed by most dealers in wood) how much atmospheric air a wooden outline, eight feet long, four feet high, and four feet wide, can be made to contain. We judged that the wood could be so arranged as to include about fifty-six cubic feet of air, but later dealers have been more successful in their experiments, for I have seen cords sold that contained not less than seventy cubic feet of pure atmospheric air. The purchaser thus bought a combustible and supporter of combustion at the same time; one among many proofs that this is an age of improvement.

My evenings were spent before the huge fire of Hans Van Bramer, as my host was named. Thither the neighboring Dutchmen often repaired, and I had an opportunity of studying this, to me, a new race of bipeds. For a long time their conversation was so exclusively of horses, that I concluded that no other idea could enter their pericraniums, but at length I discovered they were religious as well as equestrian animals. A visiter from a neighboring parish, after partaking largely of continental rum, began to boast of the superiority of his Dominie to all others living or dead, offering to flog any one that doubted the truth of his assertions. This was not relished by the members of Dominie Van Vleer's flock who were present; and least of all by Brom Vaunalten, a notorious drunkard and swearer. The visitor paid but little attention to his demurs, and supported his assertion of the absolute perfection of his Dominie by a volley of oaths, partly English and partly Dutch. Foreseeing a quarrel was likely to arise, and knowing the bitterness of religious feuds, I interposed, and attempted a reconciliation. After duly

extolling Dominie Van Vleer, I proceeded to commend the stranger's Dominie, yielding a full assent to the emphatic declarations that had been made in his favor; still I inferred that as he was confessedly one of the mortal race, he could not be absolutely perfect, appealing to the Heidelberg catechism for proof of the sinfulness of man's nature, and the impossibility of attaining perfection in this lower world. I pressed him to concede that his Dominie must have some trifling defect, preventing absolute perfection, as I saw this was necessary to the restoration of peace and good humor. "Well," said the stubborn fellow at last, "Idon't know but he may have one fault, but only one."

"Well" what is it?"

"Well, I can't say, but that he is apt to be quarrelsome when he is groggy."

This admission was satisfactory to the supporters of Dominie Van Vleer, and the subject was dropped; no person seemed to have any suspicion that grogginess, aside from quarrelling, was at all inconsistent with absolute perfection.

The Dutchmen in whose neighborhood we were carrying on the war against the oaks, professed to be friends to the country, but we suspected they were rank tories: and this suspicion, it was thought, justified the levy of an indirect tax in the shape of turkeys, hens, &c., which was always collected in the night season. Whether their patriotism increased in proportion as their fowls decreased, was never ascertained. For a long time no complaints were made, and in consequence the taxes were increased. At last a collector, in sliding off a hayrick, with a couple of fowls in each hand, slid into a cistern, and remained there in water up to his neck till morning, when the Dutchman discovered him, and after breakfast drew him out. The affair came to the knowledge of the Captain, a stern old puritan whose notions of right and wrong were not in the least modified by the atmosphere of the camp. He inflicted a sound chastisement on the offender, stopped his ration of rum, and gave it to the owner of the fowls.

About mid-winter, when the sleighing was very fine, certain showings led to the suspicion that an assemblage, yclept a tory meeting, was in contemplation. We had little fear that any gathering of the sapient sons of Holland, or of their wheat fed horses, would seriously embarrass the operations of Washington, or ever peril the personal liberty of his heroic wood-choppers; still as it was a self-evident truth that a tory meeting was the worst meeting that could be held on the side of Tartarus, it was in no wise to be permitted. How to prevent it, or rather how to catch them at their sport, was the next question, and like many other questions, we found it was easier asked than answered. Our movements awakened suspicion, and caused those in our neighborhood to lay aside their design, much to our mortification, for we had counted on a joyous time, and future confiscations. Still, as we were pretty well assured as to the night on which the meeting was to be held, we resolved to lie in wait for any that might pass by from a more distant region. Accordingly six of us

secreted ourselves in a pine wood, and waited with great composure for some of the King's loyal subjects to appear. At length a well filled sleigh came within hail, and was stopped. At first they were unable to answer one question, save in Dutch, but a display of a bright bayonet in the moonlight led them to recollect their English. As they could give no satisfactory account of themselves, they were arrested in the name of the Continental Congress--their hands bound behind them, and committed to the discretionary care of the corporal, who marched them back a mile or two, and then bade them go home, promising a feathery coat if caught again. The rest of our party took seats in the sleigh, and ordered the driver to proceed to his original destination, under pain of blood-letting with our bayonets. He seemed at length to yield to the necessity of the case, having stipulated for his personal safety, and that of his horses, on condition that he brought us safely to the place of meeting. He then drove on at a fast trot, evincing a high degree of care and skill. We were in high spirits, thinking of the confusion we should occasion in the midst of the loyal band by our unexpected appearance, when our exultation was suddenly checked by a fall of some twenty feet. As the snow was deep, we suffered no material injury. The rascal had contrived to spill us out over a precipice, and to save himself and sleigh from going His horses were quickly turned, and put to their full speed. We succeeded with great difficulty in regaining the road, when a five-mile walk brought us to our quarters, somewhat more wearied and wise than when we left them. This was the commencement of the formation of an opinion that I still hold, that Dutch tricks are oftentimes quite equal to Yankee ones.

over.

For some time after our inglorious overthrow, we had but little intercourse with the inhabitants, as we were satisfied that they were in possession of the facts of the case. I withdrew from Van Bramer's board and was reinstated in the mess. The time passed very gloomily, and I looked earnestly for the appearance of some tokens of coming spring. One day, under the influence of melancholy feelings, after our task was done, I strayed for some distance into the forest. My attention was at length arrested by the track of a snow-shoe of unusual appearance, and the next moment I saw a dark figure stealing away amid the trees of the forest. There could be no mistake. It was an Indian, and doubtless an hostile one. I returned with all convenient speed and gave the alarm. It was apparent that we were in a no very enviable situation. The savages had received information respecting us, probably from our tory friend, who so dexterously unloaded his sleigh, and had come to secure our scalps. These we were not at all disposed to part with, but how to keep them afforded matter for grave enquiry. The savage I had seen was doubtless a scout, and probably a large party lay concealed at no great distance. Our arms were out of order-flints missing-cartridges wet, and but a small supply of them-for powder was scarce in those days. What was to be done? Our captain was absent, a sergeant and corporal were the only officers present. It was concluded that nothing could

be done that night but to watch, and if attacked, to defend ourselves as well as we could. We posted our sentinels, and lay on our arms all night without sleep-the roar of the winds often being transposed by fancy into the warwhoop of the savage. The night passed without disturbance, and in the morning we resolved in council that we would make the best of our way to the army, and not stay to be scalped. As we were beginning to make preparations to set out, our commander arrived, and despatched a scout to learn something of the force of the enemy, as they could easily be tracked on the snow. We soon fell on the trail of the Indian I saw the day before, and followed it without meeting with any others for a number of miles; we then returned satisfied that there was but one Indian in the neighborhood at present, and as we were about forty in number, we judged it would be safe to maintain our position, which we did with complete success.

THE Ode to the Sun, in the present number of the Democratic Review, though now printed for the first time, was written many years ago. The author was a young clergyman of the Wesleyan persuasion, himself some years dead. Though evidently very imperfect-the first inchoate effluence of the mind that conceived itthis production will be admitted to be, in many respects, remarkable, and contains evidences of an exquisite poetical power; at times replete with beauty, and frequently evincing a grandeur of conception that approaches the sublime.

It was intended by the author as the commencement of a lengthened poem in the Spenserian stanza, to be called "THE SUN," and to have embraced the illustration, in verse, of the noble range of subjects for poetry which can be readily imagined as connected with the historical and astronomical phenomena of that luminary. The universality and unmixed good of its agency in sustaining life, and producing the beauty, harmony, and fertility of the material universe, naturally inspiring a religious awe and veneration in the darkness and infancy of the human mind, and the effects of this feeling in the sun-worship of the ancient world;-the Chaldaic poetry;the eternal and mysterious architecture of Egypt;—the Cromlechs and "unchiselled piles" of the aboriginal Celts, with the "satanic rites" of the "hoary Druid with his knife upraised; "-the Ghebers of Persia, and the golden temples of Peru, a realm ruled by the children of the Sun, with the illustrations which history supplies of these grand and solemn rites of the primitive races of mankind-would have formed a portion of the subject, susceptible in a high degree of poetical interest and grandeur. The great historic actions recorded by sacred and profane writers, which contemporaneous phenomena of the Sun would have connected with the subject, from the miracle of Joshua-where the command of the General of the Lord,

"Winged with the power that poised thee in the sky,"*

Made the sun "stand still upon Gibeon,""-to the thick darkness that fell on the face of the earth at the crucifixion, would have afforded episodes worthy the noblest pencillings of the heroic muse. Finally, the effects of the sun, upon the climate of the various countries of the earth, were intended to furnish the poet in their description with opportunities of selecting, from the infinite varieties of the human race and manners, the themes best adapted for the exercise of imagination and description, and would have produced a panorama of striking subjects of greater variety, sublimity, and interest, than the Pilgrimage of Childe Harold.

A line from the original draft. Among other disjecta membra of a similar kind, we select the following, probably intended as a part of the Ode or Proem which we have given

Here it may be proper to observe that the verses between the lines of asterisks (pages 31 and 32) were evidently intended to occupy another place in the poem.