On Tuesday evening, at seven o’clock, we took passage in the steamer Oregon, for Chicago, and soon lost sight of the roofs and spires of Buffalo.  A lady of Buffalo on her way to Cleveland placed herself at the piano, and sang several songs with such uncommon sweetness and expression that I saw no occasion to be surprised at what I heard of the concert of Leopold de Meyer, at Buffalo, the night before.  The concert room was crowded with people clinging to each other like bees when they swarm, and the whole affair seemed an outbreak of popular enthusiasm.  A veteran teacher of music in Buffalo, famous for being hard to be pleased by any public musical entertainment, found himself unable to sit still during the first piece played by De Meyer, but rose, in the fullness of his delight, and continued standing.  When the music ceased, he ran to him and shook both of his hands, again and again, with most uncomfortable energy.  At the end of the next performance he sprang again on the platform and hugged the artist so rapturously that the room rang with laughter.  De Meyer was to give another concert on Tuesday evening at Niagara Falls, and the people of Buffalo were preparing to follow him.

The tastes of our people are certainly much changed within the last twenty years.  A friend of ours used to relate, as a good joke, the conversation of two men, who came to the conclusion that Paganini was the greatest man in the world.  They were only a little in advance of their age.  If such are the honors reaped by De Meyer, we shall not be astonished if Sivori, when he comes over, passes for the greatest man of his time.

The next morning found us with the southern shore of Lake Erie in sight—­a long line of woods, with here and there a cluster of habitations on the shore.  “That village where you see the light-house,” said one of the passengers, who came from the hills of Maine, “is Grand River, and from that place to Cleveland, which is thirty miles distant, you have the most beautiful country under the sun—­perfectly beautiful, sir; not a hill the whole way, and the finest farms that were ever seen; you can buy a good farm there for two thousand dollars.”  In two or three hours afterward we were at Cleveland, and I hastened on shore.

It is situated beyond a steep bank of the lake, nearly as elevated as the shore at Brooklyn, which we call Brooklyn Heights.  As I stood on the edge of this bank and looked over the broad lake below me, stretching beyond the sight and quivering in the summer wind, I was reminded of the lines of Southey: 

  —­“Along the bending line of shore
  Such hue is thrown as when the peacock’s neck
  Assumes its proudest tint of amethyst,
  Embathed in emerald glory.”