Israel Potter

Chapter 22

SOMETHING FURTHER OF ETHAN ALLEN; WITH ISRAEL'S FLIGHT TOWARDS THE

WILDERNESS.

Among the episodes of the Revolutionary War, none is stranger than that

of Ethan Allen in England; the event and the man being equally uncommon.

Allen seems to have been a curious combination of a Hercules, a Joe

Miller, a Bayard, and a Tom Hyer; had a person like the Belgian giants;

mountain music in him like a Swiss; a heart plump as Coeur de Lion's.

Though born in New England, he exhibited no trace of her character. He

was frank, bluff, companionable as a Pagan, convivial, a Roman, hearty

as a harvest. His spirit was essentially Western; and herein is his

peculiar Americanism; for the Western spirit is, or will yet be (for no

other is, or can be), the true American one.

For the most part, Allen's