e
forests bigger, the plains broader." This statement will do at least
to set against Buffon's account of this part of the world and its
productions.

Linnaeus said long ago, "Nescio quae facies _laeta, glabra_ plantis
Americanis: I know not what there is of joyous and smooth in the aspect
of American plants"; and I think that in this country there are no, or
at most very few, _Africanae bestice_, African beasts, as the Romans
called them, and that in this respect also it is peculiarly fitted for
the habitation of man. We are told that within three miles of the centre
of the East-Indian city of Singapore, some of the inhabitants are
annually carried off by tigers; but the traveller can lie down in the
woods at night almost anywhere in North America without fear of wild
beasts.

These are encouraging testimonies. If the moon looks larger here than in
Europe, probably the sun looks larger also. If the heavens of America
appear infinitely higher, and the stars brighter, I trust that these
facts are symbolical of the height to which the philosophy and poetry
and religion of her inhabitants may one day soar. At length, perchance,
the immaterial heaven will appear as much higher to the American mind,
and the intimations that star it as much brighter. For I believe
that climate does thus react on man,--as there is something in the
mountain-air that feeds the spirit and inspires. Will not man grow to
greater perfection intellectually as well as physically under these
influences? Or is it unimportant how many foggy days there are in his
life? I trust that we shall be more imaginative, that our thoughts will
be clearer, fresher, and more ethereal, as our sky,--our understanding
more comprehensive and broader, like our plains,--our intellect
generally on a grander scale, like our thunder and lightning, our rivers
and mountains and forests,--and our hearts shall even correspond in
breadth and depth and grandeur to our inland seas. Perchance there will
appear to the traveller something, he knows not what, of _laeta_ and
_glabra_, of joyous and serene, in our very faces. Else to what end does
the world go on, and why was America discovered?

To Americans I hardly need to say,--

"Westward the star of empire takes its way."

As a true patriot, I should be ashamed to think that Adam in paradise
was more favorably situated on the whole than the backwoodsman in this
country.

Our sympathies in Massachusetts are not confined to Ne