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June 8.

We have already exchanged "the bloom and ravishment of spring" for all the glowing maturity of summer; we gasp with heat, we long for ices, and are planning venetian blinds; and three weeks ago there was snow lying beneath our garden fences, and not a leaf on the trees! In England, when Nature wakes up from her long winter, it is like a sluggard in the morning,—she opens one eye and then another, and shivers and draws her snow coverlet over her face again, and turns round to slumber more than once, before she emerges at last lazily and slowly, from her winter chamber; but here, no sooner has the sun peeped through her curtains, than up she springs, like a huntress for the chase, and dons her kirtle of green, and walks abroad in full-blown life and beauty. I am basking in her smile like an insect or a bird!—Apropos to birds, we have, alas! no singing birds in Canada. There is, indeed, a little creature of the ouzel kind, which haunts my garden, and has a low, sweet warble, to which I listen with pleasure; but we have nothing like the rich, continuous song of the nightingale or lark, or even the linnet. We have no music in our groves but that of the frogs, which set up such a shrill and perpetual chorus every evening, that we can scarce hear each other speak. The regular manner in which the bass and treble voices respond to each other is perfectly ludicrous, so that in the midst of my impatience I have caught myself laughing. Then we have every possible variety of note, from the piping squeak of the tree-frog, to the deep, guttural croak, almost roar, of the bull-frog.

The other day, while walking near a piece of water, I was startled by a very loud deep croak, as like the croak of an ordinary frog, as the bellow of a bull is like the bleat of a calf; and looking round, perceived one of those enormous bull-frogs of the country seated with great dignity on the end of a plank, and staring at me. The monster was at least a foot in length, with a pair of eyes like spectacles; on shaking my parasol at him, he plunged to the bottom in a moment. They are quite harmless, I believe, though slander accuses them of attacking the young ducks and chickens.

There is considerable beauty around me—not that I am going to give you descriptions of scenery, which are always, however eloquent, in some respect failures. Words can no more give you a definite idea of the combination of forms and colours in scenery, than so many musical notes: music were, indeed, the better vehicle of the two. Felix Mendelssohn, when a child, used to say, "I cannot tell you how such or such a thing was—I cannot speak it—I will play it to you!"—and run to his piano: sound was then to him a more perfect vehicle than words;—so, if I were a musician, I would play you Lake Ontario, rather than describe it. Ontario means the beautiful, and the word is worthy of its signification, and the lake is worthy of its beautiful name; yet I can hardly tell you in what this fascination consists: there is no scenery around it, no high lands, no bold shores, no picture to be taken in at once by the eye; the swamp and the forest enclose it, and it is so wide and so vast that it presents all the monotony without the majesty of the ocean. Yet, like that great ocean, when I lived beside it, the expanse of this lake has become to me like the face of a friend. I have all its various expressions by heart. I go down upon the green bank, or along the King's Pier, which projects about two hundred yards into the bay. I sit there with my book, reading sometimes, but oftener watching untired the changeful colours as they flit over the bosom of the lake. Sometimes a thunder-squall from the west sends the little sloops and schooners sweeping and scudding into the harbour for shelter. Sometimes the sunset converts its surface into a sea of molten gold, and sometimes the young moon walks trembling in a path of silver; sometimes a purple haze floats over its bosom like a veil; sometimes the wind blows strong, and the wild turbid waves come rolling in like breakers, flinging themselves over the pier in wrath and foam, or dancing like spirits in their glee. Nor is the land without some charm. About four miles from Toronto the river Humber comes down between high wood-covered banks, and rushes into the lake: a more charming situation for villas and garden-houses could hardly be desired than the vicinity of this beautiful little river, and such no doubt we shall see in time.

The opposite shore of the bay of Toronto is formed by a long sand-bank, called "the Island," though, in fact, no island, but a very narrow promontory, about three miles in length, and forming a rampart against the main waters of the lake. At the extremity is a light-house, and a few stunted trees and underwood. This marsh, intersected by islets and covered with reeds, is the haunt of thousands of wild-fowl, and of the terrapin, or small turtle of the lake; and as evening comes on, we see long rows of red lights from the fishing-boats gleaming along the surface of the water, for thus they spear the lake salmon, the bass, and the pickereen.

The only road on which it is possible to take a drive with comfort is Yonge Street, which is macadamised for the first twelve miles. This road leads from Toronto northwards to Lake Simcoe, through a well-settled and fertile country. There are some commodious, and even elegant houses in this neighbourhood. Dundas Street, leading west to the London district and Lake Huron, is a very rough road for a carriage, but a most delightful ride. On this side of Toronto you are immediately in the pine forest, which extends with little interruption (except a new settlement rising here and there) for about fifty miles to Hamilton, which is the next important town. The wooded shores of the lake are very beautiful, and abounding in game. In short, a reasonable person might make himself very happy here, if it were not for some few things, among which, those Egyptian plagues, the flies and frogs in summer, and the relentless iron winter, are not the most intolerable; add, perhaps, the prevalence of sickness at certain seasons. At present many families are flying off to Niagara, for two or three days together, for change of air; and I am meditating a flight myself, of such serious extent, that some of my friends here laugh outright; others look kindly alarmed, and others civilly incredulous. Bad roads, bad inns—or rather no roads, no inns;—wild Indians, and white men more savage far than they;—dangers and difficulties of every kind are threatened and prognosticated, enough to make one's hair stand on end. To undertake such a journey alone is rash perhaps—yet alone it must be achieved, I find, or not at all; I shall have neither companion nor man-servant, nor femme de chambre, nor even a "little foot-page" to give notice of my fate, should I be swamped in a bog, or eaten up by a bear, or scalped, or disposed of in some strange way; but shall I leave this fine country without seeing anything of its great characteristic features?—and, above all, of its aboriginal inhabitants? The French have a proverb which does honour to their gallantry, and to which, from experience, I am inclined to give full credence—"Ce que femme veut, Dieu veut." We shall see.