I know of a fellow-countryman here, who had ordered some articles of furniture, but finding, when they were brought, that they were badly made, he declined receiving them. After the usual discussion upon these occasions, the indignant fabricant, rising in the majesty of his nationality, exclaimed: "This is very ungenerous treatment, after France has given to your country twenty-five millions of francs.' 'The powers of nature could no farther go I vouch for the substantial truth of this anecdote."

General Cass took more than one opportunity when there was no particular public business demanding his attention, to travel through France, as well as to visit some of the adjacent countries. One observation struck him as making characteristic difference between his own country and those highly improved countries of the old world. Though it seems not to have attracted the attention of travelers, it still forcibly impressed itself upon his mind, and that is the almost entire want of forest trees, of fences and of farm-houses, which form so marked a feature in the American landscape. Once in a while, at rare intervals, a district is found with scattered and stunted trees, which by courtesy is called forest, but which bears little resemblance to the primitive vegetation of the western continent. Hedges and other kinds of enclosures are occasionally met with, but the great body of the country is unenclosed, stretching off like a prairie, till it is lost in the distance. The farming population, especially upon the continent, is collected into villages, and generally upon some site where was the baronial castle, affording in unquiet times the means of protection. There is now the church, and there also is the baker's shop, and the other places of supply which are required by the prevalent habits of life, and the husbandmen go from their villages to their fields in the morning and return at night. A state of things like ours, where every hundred or two of acres has its owner cultivating his farm, living in a neat and comfortable house, and surrounded by everything desirable, is utterly unknown in Europe. The whole country presents a singular aspect of nakedness to the traveler from America.

General Cass also visited England, and with the same mixed emotions of admiration and regret which its scenes of magnificence, of poverty, leave upon the memory of our countrymen. He was present at the gorgeous spectacle of the coronation of the present queen, and in that splendid display, the incident

which struck him with most force, was the placing of the crown, the insignium of power and royalty, upon the head of a female barely eighteen years of age; thus recognizing her the supreme authority in a country which absolutely excludes women from all other political power whatever. Under such circumstances of sex and age, the chief magistrate is but a pageant, and contrivances out of the Constitution must be resorted to, to do the work of the government.

CHAPTER XXIII.

General Cass Visits Italy, Greece, Syria, Egypt-His Tour-His Memoranda-General Reflections-His Return to Paris.

In the spring of 1837, General Cass found that the business of the Legation would admit of his absence from Paris for a few months. Availing himself of this opportunity, he took occasion. to gratify a long-cherished desire, and in May embarked with his family at Marseilles, on board of the historical ship, the Constitution, bearing the flag of the United States, Commodore Elliott commanding, on an excursion to the east. He set sail for Egypt by the way of Constantinople. As this vessel was to touch at all the principal cities along the coast, it afforded the American Minister an opportunity of visiting them consecutively, without unnecessary delay, and, indeed, this was the reason why he sought this conveyance.

He saw, at last, far-famed Italy, her principal cities, and the ruins, which constantly reminded him of her former greatness, in all that wealth and learning could produce. He saw what was once the seat of the Cæsars, and the villas of Cicero and Horace. He wandered among the dilapidations of time, and imagined congregations, uproarious with pleasure, crowding and jostling each other, at the plays and games which fill the classics. He thought of armies, whose combats had shook the earth; he surveyed the site of the Senate House, of the Colliseum, of the Forum -and was lost in wondering at the grandeur of Rome, and the colossal powers which made her mistress of the world! He rested upon the soil where the deathless oratory of antiquity caught its eloquence, and poetry its divinity; and, bowing in meekness to the Great Giver of both, hallowed them in his memory. He wandered in silence upon the banks of the Illissus, and saw in his mind those academic groves, so sacred and dear to every scholar. He traveled along the barren and desolate shores of Greece and Turkey, and pondered on the causes which once covered the land with a thousand cities of commerce. And he came

to the conclusion that nothing can be more useful to the statesman than such a journey, or better fit him for the discharge of the highest offices of the State. He cruised among the islands that stud the Ægean Sea, and, charmed with delight, looked in upon Sicily and Malta.

General Cass visited Attica, and from thence made an excursion farther into Greece. He paused at Eleusis-venerable as the scene of the great Pagan mysteries. Its massive monuments attested the sanctity of the place; and as he roamed among them, these silent monitors of history recalled to his memory the deeds and days of other times. Continuing his journey, he soon reached the mountainous ridge which bounds Attica to the north, and forms a barrier broken by ravines, admirably adapted to defensive warfare; and, on attaining its summit, a glorious prospect offered itself to his eyes, enriched by recollections of the past, and impressive from its present features.

Before him was the great plain of Boestia, and under his feet the ancient city of Platea, with its gigantic walls here and there, erect or prostrate, looking as though a human footstep had not disturbed the site of this unfortunate city since its capture and destruction, so vividly described by Thucydides. Near by was a little muddy brook, the Asopns, winding its way through the plain, and reminding him of many a sluggish stream he had crossed, at the risk of his neck, in the Western prairies; and upon its bank was the famous field where Mardonius, the lieutenant of the great king, was defeated. In the distance was the Acropolis of Thebes, so renowned in history and fable, and between him and the city of Cadmus, was the battle-ground of Leuctra, where Epaminondas conquered and fell. After examining the environs of Platæa, and endeavoring to comprehend the plan of operations of the contending armies, and the true site of their struggle, he at length found one of the little tumuli described by Herodotus, as erected by the Greeks, over the remains of their countrymen who fell in this battle, and which attested the veracity of the historian, and the true theater of the conflict. He ascended its low summit, and thought of those who were beneath him, and looked around upon all this scene of precious recollections, with feelings difficult for him to describe, and, of course, for us to pen. He thought of the affecting but fruitless appeal which the inhabitants of this devoted city made, three generations later, when they invoked the memory

of these parentalia, to turn away the wrath of their countrymen. The story is told by Thucydides, in the third book of his History of the War of the Peloponnesus, and an instructive lesson it furnishes to every federative people-a lesson, where we might read our own fate, had we not, by a beautiful political constitution, organized our system of government, so as to protect the States against one another by subjecting each to all, in those questions where rival communities are not less subject than individuals to the infirmities of human passions.

He went to Athens, and mused upon its past glories. Thence he went to Marathon, and stood upon its glorious plain. Sterile and secluded, it yet contained that lowly mound, where the Athenians, who fell in the great day of Grecian deliverance, found a tomb and a monument. It had survived the revolutions of their country, and out-lived Turkish domination. When General Cass visited this lonely shrine, everything was desolate. No human habitation was in view. The little bay was unruffled, the plain quiet in its solitude, and the mountain impressive in its rugged nakedness. There seemed to be nothing between him and Themistocles; and the beautiful remark of Pericles in his funeral oration, presented itself with all the freshness of association, and all the vigor of truth.

"The whole earth," said the renowned orator, "is the tomb of illustrious men, and this is not a tomb, known in one place only by vain inscriptions, but one which extends itself wherever their glory is spread." Yes, a world, unknown to the ancient Greeks, has arisen since their sun went down, and yet the glory of their philosophers, warriors, and patriots, has penetrated its recesses, and General Cass, as one of the pilgrims from its distant shores, had come to offer his tribute to their memory.

He desired to visit those old regions so interesting from their history and associations, and he had it in view also to collect and transmit to the government useful information respecting the condition of that portion of the world, and the means of facilitating our commercial and political intercourse with it.

The route-to follow the itinerary more closely-lay along the Mediterranean, and some of it within sight of the Alpine scenery, to Genoa, known as the "city of palaces "-an epithet it well deserves from the magnificent buildings with which it is filled, the remnant and memorial of the proud republic, now degenerated