I could hardly believe the stars were the same; the Great Bear looked like a constellation of suns; and Jupiter justified all the fine things said of him in those beautiful lines from I know not what spirited pen, beginning, "I looked on thee, Jove! till my gaze Shrunk, smote by the pow'r of thy blaze." I always remarked that the first silver line of the moon's crescent attracted the eye on the first day, in America, as strongly as it does here on the third.

I observed another phenomenon in the crescent moon of that region, the cause of which I less understood.

That appearance which Shakespear describes as "the new moon, with the old moon in her lap," and which I have heard ingeniously explained as the effect of _earth light_, was less visible there than here.
Cuyp's clearest landscapes have an atmosphere that approaches nearer to that of America than any I remember on canvas; but even Cuyp's _air_ cannot reach the lungs, and, therefore, can only give an idea of half the enjoyment; for it makes itself felt as well as seen, and is indeed a constant source of pleasure.
Our walks were, however, curtailed in several directions by my old Cincinnati enemies, the pigs; immense droves of them were continually arriving from the country by the road that led to most of our favourite walks; they were often fed and lodged in the prettiest valleys,and worse still, were slaughtered beside the prettiest streams.

Another evil threatened us from the same quarter, that was yet heavier.

Our cottage had an ample piazza, (a luxury almost universal in the country houses of America), which, shaded by a group of acacias, made a delightful sitting- room; from this favourite spot we one day perceived symptoms of building in a field close to it; with much anxiety we hastened to the spot, and asked what building was to be erected there.
"'Tis to be a slaughter house for hogs," was the dreadful reply.
As there were several gentlemen's houses in the neighbourhood, I asked if such an erection might not be indicted as a nuisance.
"A what ?" "A nuisance," I repeated, and explained what I meant.
"No, no," was the reply, "that may do very well for your tyrannical country, where a rich man's nose is more thought of than a poor man's mouth; but hogs be profitable produce here, and we be too free for such a law as that, I guess." During my residence in America, little circumstances like the foregoing often recalled to my mind a conversation I once held in France with an old gentleman on the subject of their active police, and its omnipresent gens d'armerie; "Croyez moi, Madame, il n'y a que ceux, a qui ils ont a faire, qui les trouvent de trop." And the old gentleman was right, not only in speaking of France, but of the whole human family, as philosophers call us.
The well disposed, those whose own feeling of justice would prevent their annoying others, will never complain of the restraints of the law.