e waters.

A poet could not have gone to bed on such a night, and amid such a
scene of gloomy grandeur as this. But the agent of the Lady-of-the-Lake
was not distinguished for enthusiasm of that sort, and he turned into
his berth--having no oyster-supper to eat--at a very early hour, and
betook himself to dreaming--not "of antres vast and desarts idle,"--or
of what is sublime and glorious in creation,--but of piston-rods and
safety-valves--pence and passengers. But his repose was disturbed in a
manner alike unexpected and unwelcome; by a catastrophe, too, which had
well-nigh deprived the world of the farther services of Mr.
Wheelwright, and his biographer of the pleasing duty of extending these
memoirs beyond the present chapter. In plain terms, at about half-past
twelve o'clock he was awakened by a choking sensation, and sprang upon
his feet, already half suffocated by smoke. The awful truth of the
cause was literally _flashing_ around him upon all sides. The
Lady-of-the-Lake--the first of the fair upon whom he had ever in fact
bestowed his affections--was not only on fire, but the flames had
already made such progress in the work of destruction as at once to
preclude the hope of extinguishing them. From the cabin windows, the
appearance rendered it certain that the whole structure was wrapped in
a sheet of flame. In the next instant, the fire burst through the
dividing partition of the cabins, obliging our hero to fly in his
night-gown, with his inexpressibles under his arm. Thus, coatless and
bootless, he leaped on shore, when delay a second longer would have
effectually prevented his ever recounting the tale.

What a moment, and what a spectacle for a lover of the "sublime and
beautiful!" Could Burke have visited such a scene of mingled
magnificence, and grandeur, and terror, what a vivid illustration would
he not have added to his inimitable treatise upon that subject! Let
the reader picture the scene to himself. There, at the dark hour of
midnight, among the ruins of Fort William Henry and Fort George, stood
Daniel Wheelwright, alone, like Marius amid the ruins of Carthage,--_in
puris naturalibus_; as the insurgent Shays fled on horseback, and in a
snow-storm, from the face of General Lincoln--and looking for all the
world like a forked radish, as Shakspeare says of Justice Shallow. But
albeit ludicrous in his own plight and position, there was nothing of
that character in the scene around him, or in his own cont