declare that in following, in meeting, or in overtaking, in the street, on the road, or in the field, at the theatre, the coffee-house, or at home, he had never overheard Americans conversing without the word DOLLAR being pronounced between them. Such unity of purpose, such sympathy of feeling, can, I believe, be found nowhere else, except, perhaps, in an ants' nest.'-vol. ii. pp. 104, 105.

Bad, however, as the above may be considered, we submit that it is by no means more cruel than the usual strain of American orators when indulging themselves, on the 4th of July, in their annual portraitures of the old country,' and its manners. Mrs. Trollope had the satisfaction of hearing from a Mr. Rush, at Philadelphia, (no relation we hope to the late minister of that name,) a patriotic philippic, of which she gives this specimen :

In looking at Britain, we see a harshness of individual character in the general view of it, which is perceived and acknowledged by all Europe; a spirit of unbecoming censure as regards all customs and institutions not their own; a ferocity in some of their characteristics of national manners, pervading their very pastimes, which no other modern people are endued with the blunted sensibility to bear; an universally self-assumed superiority, not innocently manifesting itself in speculative sentiments among themselves, but unamiably indulged when with foreigners, of whatever description, in their own country, or when they themselves are the temporary sojourners in a foreign country; a code of criminal law that forgets to feel for human frailty,-that sports with human misfortune,-that has shed more blood in deliberate judicial severity for two centuries past, constantly increasing, too, in its sanguinary hue, than has ever been sanctioned by the jurisprudence of any ancient or modern nation, civilized and refined like herself; the merciless whippings in her army, peculiar to herself alone, the conspicuous commission and freest acknowledgment of vice in the upper classes; the overweening distinctions shewn to opulence and birth, so destructive of a sound moral sentiment in the nation, so baffling to virtue. These are some of the traits that rise up to a contemplator of the inhabitants of this isle." vol. ii. pp. 129-131.

Long as our article has become, we must not omit the summing up contained in the author's last two or three pages. We have put in italics one or two sentences which, perhaps, she would have done well to introduce earlier in her work :

I remember hearing it said, many years ago, that it was the "who?" and not the "where?" that made the difference between the pleasant or unpleasant residence. The truth of the observation struck me forcibly when I heard it; and it has been recalled to my mind since, by the constantly recurring evidence of its justness. In applying this to America, I speak not of my friends, nor of my friends' friends. The small patrician band is a race apart; they live with

each

each other, and for each other; mix wondrously little with the high matters of state, which they seem to leave rather supinely to their tailors and tinkers, and are no more to be taken as a sample of the American people, than the head of Lord Byron as a sample of the heads of the British peerage. I speak not of these, but of the population generally, as seen in town and country, among the rich and the poor, in the slave states and the free states. I do not like them. I do not like their principles, I do not like their manners, I do not like their opinions.

SO.

Both as a woman, and as a stranger, it might be unseemly for me to say that I do not like their government, and therefore I will not say That it is one which pleases themselves is most certain, and this is considerably more important than pleasing all the travelling old ladies in the world. I entered the country at New Orleans, remained for more than two years west of the Alleghanies, and passed another year among the Atlantic cities, and the country around them. I conversed, during this time, with citizens of all orders and degrees, and I never heard from any one a single disparaging word against their government. It is not, therefore, surprising, that when the people of that country hear strangers questioning the wisdom of their institutions, and expressing disapprobation at some of their effects, they should set it down either to an incapacity of judging, or to a malicious feeling of envy and ill-will. "How can any one in their senses doubt the excellence of a government which we have tried for half a century, and loved the better the longer we have known it?" Such is the natural inquiry of every American when the excellence of their government is doubted; and I am inclined to answer, that no one in their senses, who has visited the country, and known the people, can doubt its fitness for them, such as they now are, or its utter unfitness for any other people.

'Whether the government has made the people what they are, or whether the people have made the government what it is, to suit themselves, I know not; but if the latter, they have shewn a consummation of wisdom which the assembled world look upon may admire.

and

'It is matter of historical notoriety that the original stock of the white population now inhabiting the United States, were persons who had banished themselves, or were banished from the mother country. The land they found was favourable to their increase and prosperity: the colony grew and flourished. Years rolled on, and the children, the grand-children, and the great grand-children of the first settlers, replenished the land, and found it flowing with milk and honey. That they should wish to keep this milk and honey to themselves, is not very surprising. What did the mother country do for them? She sent them out gay and gallant officers to guard their frontier; the which they thought they could guard as well themselves; and then she taxed their tea. Now, this was disagreeable; and to atone for it, the distant colony had no great share in her mother's grace and glory. It was not from among them that her high and mighty were chosen; the

rays

rays which emanated from that bright sun of honour, the British throne, reached them but feebly. They knew not, they cared not, for her kings nor her heroes; their thriftiest trader was their noblest man ; the holy seats of learning were but the cradles of superstition; the splendour of the aristocracy but a leech that drew their "golden blood." The wealth, the learning, the glory of Britain, was to them nothing; the having their own way everything. Can any blame their wish to obtain it? Can any lament that they succeeded? And now the day was their own, what should they do next? Their elders drew together, and said, “Let us make a government that shall suit us all; let it be rude, and rough, and noisy; let it not affect either dignity, glory, or splendour; let it interfere with no man's will, or meddle with any man's business; let us have neither tithes nor taxes, game laws nor poor laws let every man have a hand in making the laws, and no man be troubled about keeping them; let not our magistrates wear purple, nor our judges ermine; if a man grow rich, let us take care that his grandson be poor, and then we shall all keep equal; let every man take care of himself, and if England should come to bother us again, why then we will fight all together."

Could anything be better imagined than such a government for a people so circumstanced? Or is it strange that they are contented with it? Still less is it strange that those who have lived in the repose of order, and felt secure that their country could go on very well, and its business proceed without their bawling and squalling, scratching and scrambling to help it, should bless the gods that they are not republicans.

So far all is well. That they should prefer a constitution which suits them so admirably, to one which would not suit them at all, is surely no cause of quarrel on our part; nor should it be such on theirs, if we feel no inclination to exchange the institutions which have made us what we are, for any other on the face of the earth. But when a native of Europe visits America, a most extraordinary species of tyranny is set in action against him: and as far as my reading and experience have enabled me to judge, it is such as no other country has ever exercised against strangers. The Frenchman visits England; he is abîmé d'ennui at our stately dinners; shrugs his shoulders at our corps de ballet, and laughs à gorge déployée at our passion for driving, and our partial affection for roast beef and plum pudding. The Englishman returns the visit, and the first thing he does, on arriving at Paris, is to hasten to le Théatre des Variétés, that he may see "Les Anglaises pour rire," and if, among the crowd of laughers, you hear a note of more cordial mirth than the rest, seek out the person from whom it proceeds, and you will find the Englishman. The Italian comes to our green island, and groans at our climate; he vows that the air which destroys a statue cannot be wholesome for man; he sighs for orange trees and maccaroni, and smiles at the pretensions of a nation to poetry, while no epics are chaunted through her streets. Yet we welcome the sensitive southern with all kind

ness,

ness, listen to his complaints with interest, cultivate our little orange trees, and teach our children to lisp Tasso, in the hope of becoming more agreeable.

--

We are not at all superior to the rest of Europe in our endurance of censure; nor is this wish to profit by it at all peculiar to the English; we laugh at, and find fault with, our neighbours quite as freely as they do with us,-and they join the laugh, and adopt our fashions and customs. These mutual pleasantries produce no shadow of unkindly feeling; and as long as the governments are at peace with each other, the individuals of every nation in Europe make it a matter of pride, as well as of pleasure, to meet each other frequently, to discuss, compare, and reason upon their national varieties, and to vote it a mark of fashion and good taste to imitate each other in all the external embellishments of life. The consequence of this is most pleasantly perceptible at the present time in every capital of Europe. The long peace has given time for each to catch from each what was best in customs and manners, and the rapid advance of refinement and general information has been the result. To those who have been accustomed to this state of things, the contrast upon crossing to the new world is inconceivably annoying; and it cannot be doubted that this is one great cause of the general feeling of irksomeness and fatigue of spirits which hangs upon the memory while recalling the hours passed in American society. A single word indicative of doubt, that anything, or everything, in that country is not the very best in the world, produces an effect which must be seen and felt to be understood. If the citizens of the United States were indeed the devoted patriots they call themselves, they would surely not thus encrust themselves in the hard, dry, stubborn persuasion, that they are the first and best of the human race, that nothing is to be learnt but what they are able to teach, -and that nothing is worth having which they do not possess. The art of man could hardly discover a more effectual antidote to improvement than this persuasion; and yet I never listened to any public oration, or read any work, professedly addressed to the country, in which they did not labour to impress it on the minds of the people. To hint to the generality of Americans that the silent current of events may change their beloved government, is not the way to please them; but in truth they need be tormented with no such fear. As long as by common consent they can keep down the pre-eminence which nature has assigned to great powers,-as long as they can pres vent human respect and human honour from resting upon high talent, gracious manners, and exalted station, so long may they be sure of going on as they are.

I have been told, however, that there are some among them who would gladly see a change; some who, with the wisdom of philosophers, and the fair candour of gentlemen, shrink from a profession of equality which they feel to be untrue, and believe to be impossible. I can well believe that such there are, though to me no such opinions were communicated, and most truly should I rejoice to see power

pass

pass into such hands. If this ever happens, if refinement once creeps in among them, if they once learn to cling to the graces, the honours, the chivalry of life, then we shall say farewell to American equality, and welcome to European fellowship one of the finest countries of the earth.'-vol. ii., p. 262-271.

Here we stop. Whatever may be said as to particular points of this lady's description of America, it must be allowed to be a remarkable fact, that almost every English liberal accustomed to the social habits of the upper classes in this country, who has recently travelled in the United States, appears to have come back a convert to the old-fashioned doctrines of Toryism. Captain Hall went out with his head quite exalted as to the ineffable advantages of republican institutions-an ultra-whig in Church and State; we all know the result of his experiences. We have now before us the story of a lady who also carried with her to the New World the most exaggerated notions of liberalism, and who seems to have returned, if possible, a stouter enemy of all such notions than the gallant captain himself; and if certain MS. journals, which we have been allowed to peep into, were printed, the catalogue would include names of even higher importance than these. Mr. Thomas Moore did not, indeed, return unwhigged, but he has dealt with American manners not less hardly than Mrs. Trollope.

R. Southey

ART. III.-Fables, and other Pieces in Verse, by Mary Maria Colling; with some Account of the Author. In Letters to Robert Southey, Esq., P. L. By Mrs. Bray, author of 'Fitz of Fitzford,'The Talba,' &c. &c. London. 1831.

THIS very pleasing volume contains a tale which may be presented here both as a contrast and companion to the melancholy story of Lucretia Davidson.

Mrs. Bray (who is well, and deserves to be yet better, known for her historical novels), observed some four or five years ago, among several poor women who used to sit immediately under the reading-desk, in Tavistock Church, a young woman very neatly dressed, and remarkable for a countenance as intelligent as it was pleasing. Upon inquiring who she was, it appeared that she was a servant in the family of a gentleman of the place; and that she had the character of being a clever girl, and fond of poetry. Some time after, she took her seat in the pew, near Mrs. Bray, belonging to the family in which she lived. That lady inquired no further concerning her, though she never failed to look on her with peculiar interest, for her expressive features and her decorous behaviour;