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Show 1836- 1837] Ffagg's Far West 207 flows fast by the oracles of God," or the effect now will be, as it ever has been, only to intoxicate and madden the human race. There is nothing in cold, dephlegmated intellect to warm up and foster the energies of the moral system of man. Intellect, mere intellect, can never tame the passions or purify the heart. Upper Alton, III. XVII " The fourth day roll'd along, and with the night Came storm and darkness in their mingling might. Loud sung the wind above; and doubly loud Shook o'er his turret- cell the thunder- cloud," The Corsair. " These The unshorn fields, boundless and beautiful, For which the speech of England has no name - The prairies." BRYANT. WHOEVER will take upon himself the trouble to run his eye over the " Tourist's Pocket Map of Illinois," will perceive, stretching along the western border of the state, parallel with the river, a broad carriage highway, in a direction nearly north, to a little village called Carlinville; if then he glances to the east, he may trace a narrow pathway striking off at right angles to that section of the state. Well, it is here, upon this pathway, just on the margin of a beautiful prairie, sweeping away towards the town of Hillsborough, 111 that I find myself at the dose of the day, after a long and fatiguing ride. The afternoon has been one of those dreary, drizzly, disagreeable seasons which relax the nerves and ride like an incubus upon the spirits; and my route has conducted me over a broad- spread, desolate plain; for, lovely as m Hillsboro, the seat of Montgomery County, twenty- eight miles from Vandalia, was platted in 1823.- ED. |