in its winding course, traversed the astonishing distance of one
hundred and seventy miles." And this the candid American thinks it fair to
contrast with the scale of the Mississippi. Now, it is hardly worth while
to answer a pure falsehood gravely, else one might say that no Englishman
out of Bedlam ever thought of looking in an island for the rivers of
a continent; nor, consequently, could have thought of looking for the
peculiar grandeur of the Thames in the length of its course, or in the
extent of soil which it drains: yet, if he _had_ been so absurd, the
American might have recollected that a river, not to be compared with the
Thames even as to volume of water--viz. the Tiber--has contrived to make
itself heard of in this world for twenty-five centuries to an extent
not reached, nor likely to be reached very soon, by any river, however
corpulent, of his own land. The glory of the Thames is measured by the
density of the population to which it ministers, by the commerce which
it supports, by the grandeur of the empire in which, though far from the
largest, it is the most influential stream. Upon some such scale, and not
by a transfer of Columbian standards, is the course of our English mails to
be valued. The American may fancy the effect of his own valuations to our
English ears, by supposing the case of a Siberian glorifying his country in
these terms:--"These rascals, sir, in France and England, cannot march half
a mile in any direction without finding a house where food can be had and
lodging; whereas, such is the noble desolation of our magnificent country,
that in many a direction for a thousand miles, I will engage a dog shall
not find shelter from a snow-storm, nor a wren find an apology for
breakfast."]

THE VISION OF SUDDEN DEATH.

[THE reader is to understand this present paper, in its two sections of
_The Vision_, &c., and _The Dream-Fugue_, as connected with a previous
paper on _The English Mail-Coach_. The ultimate object was the Dream-Fugue,
as an attempt to wrestle with the utmost efforts of music in dealing with
a colossal form of impassioned horror. The Vision of Sudden Death contains
the mail-coach incident, which did really occur, and did really suggest
the variations of the Dream, here taken up by the Fugue, as well as other
variations not now recorded. Confluent with these impressions, from the
terrific experience on the Manchester and Glasgow mail, were other and more
general impression