ns of Lombardy, from the highest eminence
of the Appenines, between Bologna and Florence, and from the crater
summit of Vesuvius, but I never was more delighted and impressed (owing,
perhaps, in part to the susceptible state of my feelings) with the
beauty, effulgence, and even sublimity of atmospheric phenomena, and the
softened magnificence of surrounding objects, than in witnessing the
setting sun the 23rd of June, from the unruffled bosom of Lake Erie, a
few miles east of Port Dover, and about a mile from the thickly wooded
shore, with its deepening and variously reflected shadows. And when the
silent darkness enveloped all this beauty, and grandeur, and
magnificence in undistinguishable gloom, my mind experienced that
wonderful sense of freedom and relief which come from all that suggests
the idea of boundlessness--the deep sky, the dark night, the endless
circle, the illimitable waters. The world with its tumult of cares
seemed to have retired, and God and His works appeared all in all,
suggesting the enquiry which faith and experience promptly answered in
the affirmative--

With glorious clouds encompassed round
Whom angels dimly see;
Will the unsearchable be found;
Will God appear to me?

My last remark is the vivifying influence and unspeakable pleasure of
visiting scenes endeared to me by many tender, and comparatively few
painful recollections. Amid the fields, woods, out-door exercises, and
associations of the first twenty years of my life, I have seemed to
forget the sorrows, labours and burdens of more than two score years,
and to be transported back to what was youthful, simple, healthy,
active, and happy. I can heartily sympathise with the feelings of Sir
Walter Scott when, in reply to Washington Irving, who had expressed
disapprobation in the scenery of the Tweed, immortalized by the genius
of the Border Minstrel, he said,--

It may be partiality, but to my eyes these gray hills and all this
wild border country have beauties peculiar to themselves. I like
the very nakedness of the land. It has something bold, and stern,
and solitary about it. When I have been for some time in the rich
scenery of Edinburgh, which is ornamented garden land, I begin to
wish myself back again among my honest gray hills, and if I did not
see the heather at least once a year I think I should die.

Dr. Ryerson was very bold and skilful in the management of a sail boat