fined, ill-constructed, and inelegant, nothing can equal his disappointment. Many of the streets are scarcely wide enough to admit of carriages passing each other, and all of them are void of beauty, taste, and regularity. Business is principally transacted in the lower town; in consequence of which, and of its confined situation, it is in a perpetual bustle. The granaries, warehouses, and dwellings, though generally very lofty, are frowned upon by the impending rocky projections of Cape Diamond, which, in some directions, seem to threaten them with instant destruction. The ascent to the town, along the windings of Mountain-street, has been contrived with much art, but is, after all, exceedingly steep; and, in certain parts on the right-hand side, is shaded by obtruding precipices.

upper

After gaining the summit, the aspect of the city becomes more attractive, and is in every respect preferable to that of the lower town. The public buildings, however, exhibit little that can interest those who have been accustomed to view the more splendid and magnificent erections in European

cities.

Much attention is very properly bestowed on the improvement of the fortifications. They are kept in excellent repair, and new defences are added wherever they may be deemed necessary. When viewed from the opposite shore, or from any part of the surrounding country, they present a very noble appearance. The citadel stands on the highest point of Cape Diamond, which is no less

1

than Three Hundred and Fifty feet above the level of the river. When Quebec became the capital of the French Colony, the citadel was built expressly for the protection of the approaches to the city on its Western side, towards the Plains of Abraham; and, proudly frowning over the St. Lawrence, it now extends its immense walls and regular military outworks across the end of those Plains, down nearly to the banks of the river St. James. There are five gates into the city: Port St. Louis, which is the largest, opens to the West, and towards the Heights of Abraham, where the gallant Wolfe breathed his last. Port St. John opens towards St. Foix, which is the road to Montreal. Both these gates are strongly fortified; and the walls, through which they serve as entrances, are there at least fifty feet in thickness. Palace and Hope gates, open to the North; and Prescott Gate, through which we pass to the lower town, opens towards the South. The approaches to all the gates are guarded by batteries and other defences. With its naturally commanding situation, therefore, and its immense fortifications, Quebec must be considered as one of the strongest cities in the uni

verse.

Every account of Quebec, how ample soever it may be, will be considered incomplete, unless it comprise a description of the celebrated Plains of Abraham. To gratify you, therefore, whom I know to feel interested about every circumstance connected with our national glory, I add a slight topo

graphical sketch. Quebec is surrounded by water on three of its sides; and the fourth is open towards the Plains. For the security of this side, on which the city is most vulnerable, the ample military defences have been erected to which I have already alluded. The approach to the Heights from the St. Lawrence, by whose banks they are skirted for several miles above Quebec, is precipitous and difficult; and this was the only mode of access for the British troops under the intrepid Wolfe. A slight bend in the river, nearly two miles above the city, is pointed out to patriotic strangers as the spot where that skilful General landed his army; as is also the narrow sheep-walk, by which they silently climbed up at midnight, in single column, or as they could, to the summit of the Plains, on which they next morning formed in battle array, and gained a victory over the French troops at the very threshold of their almost impregnable fortresses. From the airy ridges, which are on the rocky verge of the river, the Heights of Abraham gradually slope downwards to the less elevated banks of the river St. Charles. In the part nearest to the upper town, they are upwards of a mile in width; and, at a greater distance from Quebec, their breadth increases, in proportion as the two rivers recede from each other and form the sides of a triangle nearly equilateral, of which the base will be an imaginary line drawn across the Plains about four miles from the citadel. This fruitful

tract of table-land presents no remarkable natural features to distinguish it from the bold scenery. in its neighbourhood, but derives its chief attraction from having been the scene of action between the lamented Wolfe and the daring Montcalm.

A statue has been erected by the inhabitants of Quebec to the memory of General Wolfe, who, by his skill and valour, annexed the vast terri-, tory of the Canadas to the British empire. It is a pitiful tribute of a country's gratitude, if gratitude to a conqueror can be supposed to exist in the hearts of those whom he has subjugated: And, indeed,. if we may form our ideas of their feelings at that period from the MAGNIFICENCE of this memento, we must conclude, that detestation and contempt, rather than gratitude and respect, were the principles by which they were actuated. The utmost stretch of human thought would be inadequate to the conception of any thing more beggarly and insignificant. Only picture to yourself a block of wood, about four feet and a half long, rudely cut and scraped with a view to make it convey some faint resemblance of a human body; and then imagine it to be painted in a manner the most fitted to represent a disbanded soldier, on his return from a seven years' campaign to his native village, wasted by wounds and harassed with fatigue, his clothes, the inseparable companions of his toils, just retaining a sufficient portion of red, white, and black, to convince the beholders, VOL. I

E

that they had once been a suit of British uniform. When you have depicted all this in your imagination, you will have a tolerably correct idea of the ludicrous effigy. Still, however, you will not have a perfect notion of it, unless I mention, that, to shield it from the inclement wind and scorching sun of Canada,—or to remove it as far as possible, without totally hiding it, from the public view,-the patriotic managers of this affair have judiciously planted it in a niche, not more than twelve feet from the ground, cut in the angle of a private house, and situate in a part of the city that is by no means the most public or best frequented. Thus partially concealed, the passing stranger would as soon imagine it to be the Ghost of Hamlet,-confessing, by the want of animation in his countenance, that he is forbid

The secrets of his prison-house to tell,

as he would suppose it to be the statue of the British General, if some cunning one had not most sagaciously inscribed the words "JAMES WOLFE" on the PEDESTAL, if I may apply such a term to the stone on which it stands. The man who wrote this inscription is particularly entitled to the gratitude of strangers, for the enlightening addition which he has thus made to the stock of public information; and he reminds us of the judicious conduct of a wary but unskilful artist, who, after having painted