There, on those rivers where the basket-boats once sailed, rise the taut spars of England's navy.

Where the rude hamlet rested on its banks in rural solitude, the never-weary din of commerce rolls through the city of the world.

The locomotive rushes like a thunder-clap upon the rail; the steamer ploughs against the adverse wind, and, rapid as the lightning, the telegraph cripples time.

The once savage land is the nucleus of the arts and civilization.

The nation that from time to time was oppressed, invaded, conquered, but never subjected, still pressed against the weight of adversity, and, as age after age rolled on, and mightier woes and civil strife gathered upon her, still the germ of her destiny, as it expanded, threw off her load, until she at length became a nation envied and feared.
It was then that the powers of the world were armed against her, and all Europe joined to tear the laurels from her crown, and fleets and armies thronged from all points against the devoted land, and her old enemy, the Gaul, hovered like his own eagle over the expected prey.
The thunder of the cannon shook the world, and blood tinged the waves around the land, and war and tumult shrieked like a tempest over the fair face of Nature; the din of battle smothered all sounds of peace, and years passed on and thicker grew the gloom.