the affections of admiring
thousands. Henry Clay undoubtedly felt the germ of his future greatness
while sauntering, in his boyhood days, through the wild and picturesque
slashes of Hanover. Webster, born amid the rugged hills of New
Hampshire, drew the delightful relish of rural life, for which he is so
celebrated, from the landscapes which surrounded his early home, and
laid the foundation of his mighty intellect in the midst of lone and
striking scenery. Bryant could never have written his "Thanatopsis," his
"Rivulet," and his "Green River," but from the inspiration drawn from
his secluded youthful home in the mountains of Massachusetts. Nor, to
touch a more sacred subject, could Jonathan Edwards ever have composed
his masterly "Treatise on the Will," in a pent-up city; but owes his
enduring fame to the thought and leisure which he found, while
ministering, among the sublime mountains of the Housatonic, to a feeble
tribe of Stockbridge Indians.

And these random names are but a few of those whose love of nature early
imbibed, and in later life enjoyed in their own calm and retired homes,
amid the serene beauty of woods and waters, which might be named, as
illustrations of the influence which fine scenery may exercise upon the
mind, to assist in moulding it to greatness. The following anecdote was
told us many years ago, by a venerable man in Connecticut, a friend of
the elder Hillhouse, of New Haven, to whom that city is much indebted
for the magnificent trees by which it has become renowned as "the City
of the Elms:" While a member of the General Assembly of that state, when
Hillhouse was in Congress, learning that he had just returned home from
the annual session, our informant, with a friend, went to the residence
of the statesman, to pay him a visit. He had returned only that morning,
and on their way there, they met him near his house, with a stout young
tree on his shoulder, just taken from a neighboring piece of forest,
which he was about to transplant in the place of one which had died
during his absence. After the usual salutations, our friend expressed
his surprise that he was so soon engaged in tree-planting, before he had
even had time to look to his private and more pressing affairs. "Another
day may be too late," replied the senator; "my tree well planted, it
will grow at its leisure, and I can then look to my own concerns at my
ease. So, gentlemen, if you will just wait till the tree is set, we'll
wal