It wants but one qualification to be perfect and complete; that, it had originally when fresh from the hands of its Divine Maker; and of that man has rifled it--I mean solitude .-- Palace hotels are very convenient things; energy and enterprise are very valuable qualities, and natural features of American character which I admire; but, seeing how universally everything is sacrificed to the useful and dollar-making, I dread to contemplate the future: for visions rise before me of the woodman's axe levelling the forest timber on Goat Island, which at present shrouds the town; and fancy pictures a line of villas, shops, and mills, ending in a huge hotel, at the edge of the cataract.

I trust my vision may never be realized.

But my hopes are small; for I invariably observed that, in clearing ground, scarce any attention had been paid to aught else but the best method of getting the best return for the labour bestowed.
Now, reader, I have not told you as yet what my impressions were, as I stood on the balcony gazing at Niagara; and, I pray you take not offence, when I add that I have not the slightest intention of trying to record them.

Writing frankly, as I feel, I have said enough for you to glean something of the turn they took, and to see that they were impressions which a pen is too feeble an agent adequately to express.

I shall not tax your patience with Table Rock and Goat Island points of view, American and Canadian falls, the respective beauties of the Straight Line and the Horse-shoe; I do not purpose clothing you in Mackintosh, and dragging you with trembling steps along the slimy pathway between the Falls and the rock, to gaze on the sun through the roaring and rolling flood; nor will I draw upon your nerves by a detail of the hair-breadth escapes of Mr.Bumptious and Mrs.Positive, who, when they got half-way along the said path, were seized with panic, and only escaped a header into the boiling caldron by lying flat on their stomachs until the rest of the party had lionized the whole distance, when the guide returned and hauled them out by the heels, like drowned rats out of a sink-hole; nor will I ask you to walk five miles with me, to see the wooden hut, built over a sulphur spring within ten feet of the river, and which is lit by the sulphuretted hydrogen gas thereof, led through a simple tube.
All these, and the rapids above, and the whirlpool below, and the four-and-a-half million horse-power of the Falls, have been so often described by abler pens and more fertile imaginations, that the effort would be a failure and the result a bore.
I have in my possession a collection from the various albums at Niagara; it opens with the following lines by Lord Morpeth, now Earl of Carlisle-- "There's nothing great or bright, thou glorious Fall! Thou may'st not to the fancy's sense recal; The thunder-riven cloud, the lightning's leap, The stirring of the chambers of the deep, Earth's emerald green, and many-tinted dyes, The fleecy whiteness of the upper skies, The tread of armies thickening as they come, The boom of cannon and the beat of drum, The brow of beauty and the form of grace, The passion and the prowess of our race, The song of Homer in its loftiest hour, The unresisted sweep of human power, Britannia's trident on the azure sea, America's young shout of liberty! Oh! may the waves that madden in thy deep, There spend their rage, nor climb the encircling steep,-- And till the conflict of thy surges cease, The nations on thy banks repose in peace!" There are other effusions equally creditable to their authors; but there is also a mass of rubbish, from which I will only inflict two specimens.
One, evidently from the pen of a Cockney; and the other, the poetical inspiration of a free and enlightened.
Cockney poet-- "Next to the bliss of seeing Sarah, Is that of seeing Niagara." Free and enlightened-- "Of all the roaring, pouring, Spraying streams that dash, Niagara is Number One, All to immortal smash!" Not desiring to appear to as great disadvantage as either of the two last-quoted writers, I decline the attempt; and, while saving myself, spare the public.
I think, reader, that I have a claim upon your gratitude for not expatiating at greater length upon a theme from which it were easy to fill chapter upon chapter; for, if you are generous, you will throw a veil over the selfish reasons that have produced so happy a result.