le that Louis de Saint Veran will be
viewed by posterity only as the gallant defender of his country, while
his cruel apathy on the shores of the Oswego and of the Horican will be
forgotten. Deeply regretting this weakness on the part of a sister muse,
we shall at once retire from her sacred precincts, within the proper
limits of our own humble vocation.

The third day from the capture of the fort was drawing to a close, but
the business of the narrative must still detain the reader on the shores
of the "holy lake." When last seen, the environs of the works were
filled with violence and uproar. They were now possessed by stillness
and death. The blood-stained conquerors had departed; and their camp,
which had so lately rung with the merry rejoicings of a victorious army,
lay a silent and deserted city of huts. The fortress was a smoldering
ruin; charred rafters, fragments of exploded artillery, and rent
mason-work covering its earthen mounds in confused disorder.

A frightful change had also occurred in the season. The sun had hid
its warmth behind an impenetrable mass of vapor, and hundreds of human
forms, which had blackened beneath the fierce heats of August, were
stiffening in their deformity before the blasts of a premature November.
The curling and spotless mists, which had been seen sailing above the
hills toward the north, were now returning in an interminable dusky
sheet, that was urged along by the fury of a tempest. The crowded mirror
of the Horican was gone; and, in its place, the green and angry waters
lashed the shores, as if indignantly casting back its impurities to
the polluted strand. Still the clear fountain retained a portion of its
charmed influence, but it reflected only the somber gloom that fell
from the impending heavens. That humid and congenial atmosphere which
commonly adorned the view, veiling its harshness, and softening its
asperities, had disappeared, the northern air poured across the waste of
water so harsh and unmingled, that nothing was left to be conjectured by
the eye, or fashioned by the fancy.

The fiercer element had cropped the verdure of the plain, which looked
as though it were scathed by the consuming lightning. But, here and
there, a dark green tuft rose in the midst of the desolation; the
earliest fruits of a soil that had been fattened with human blood.
The whole landscape, which, seen by a favoring light, and in a genial
temperature, had been found so lovely, appeared n