We will now attempt to show what Mr. Dickens does not appear to have discovered: that this general courtesy is one of the prominent and necessary results of our political organization.

and rank, we have not thought, that in compensation for our illustration. In opposition to these national offences, and hospitality he was bound to go through the country, eulogiz against the curiosity of the boys, desirous of seeing the ing and bepraising every thing he saw; we should have re-creator of their familiar friend Nicholas Nickleby, Smike, garded him as offering an insult to our self-respect had he and little Nell, we place the unequivocal testimony he gives done so. We can allow for those of another country and us, that his own countrymen are the most rude, disgusting familiar with other institutions, if they find it difficult to and impertinent of fellow-travellers; that, despite the false violate the instinct of human nature, the force of education assertions of preceding writers, we eat at our public tables and the promptings of that happy prejudice which inclines with more leisure and courtesy, than he experienced under us to prefer the defects of home to the perfections of other similar circumstances at home; but above all, that, remarkplaces, and cannot at once exalt the unaccustomed manners able politeness and urbanity pervades our republic, renderof our country, once the familiar ones of their own. We ing even custom-house officers civil and gentlemanly. know that men, accustomed to the use of bad wine, learn to prefer its flavor to the most delicate bouquet of good, and hence we can, very good naturedly allow Mr. Dickens, to pity us because New York does not afford idle population and vagabonds enough to encourage a "Punch and Judy," Har- In England, where men, by fixed institutions, are paled into lequin and "hand organ" in every thoroughfare, according distinct classes, one class is foreign, if not hostile to the to the established usage of the good city of London. Fi- other, and they have no sympathies in common. When, nally, we are not one of those who care what Dickens, or by any chance they come to be promiscuously thrown toany other foreigner "thinks of us;" nor do we suppose that gether, any one who belongs to the elevated, privileged or his opinion will have aught to do with our national destinies. ders, so far from feeling it a duty to render himself agreeable With such feelings, and from having had some observation to his fellows, dreads the contamination of familiarity with in England ourselves, we enter upon a consideration of his those, who, perchance, may be beneath him, and wraps himAmerican notes: premising, that upon this subject of slavery, self in haughty, if not surly reserve. Coldness and even we shall say nothing; because, upon this question, we should brusquerie of manner may thus mark the intercourse of both draw the sword and throw away the scabbard, without equals brought into accidental association, one being ig any beneficial result. It is a subject respecting which, henorant of the claims of the other. Those who are conscious knows nothing, and we cannot receive his fancies for facts; moreover, he is not, individually, responsible for his sentiments, they belong to every Englishman, from the chained naked wretches of the coal mines, and work-worn, white factory slaves, to the sovereign, who, not personally, but whose pageantry, crushes down the whole nation.

of inferiority, when they feel their position to be unknown, attempt to assert a temporary importance by a disgusting affectation, and overacting of arrogance and impertinence. The claims of the female sex have no soothing influence upon this social state of porcupine irritation, as we think it may justly be termed; for whatever the gentleman by birth may yield to the lady known as such, he does not acknowledge as the general right of woman. From these powerful influences, the promiscuous association of men in English conveyances, is marked by any thing else than the courtesy which is every where to be found in our republican omnibus cars, and dirty, rickety stage coaches. We will now endeavor to assign the reasons for our greater national polite

In this work, we see a young and ardent Englishman, with a sensitive and benevolent heart, and a fancy, which, with balloon-like expansibility, inflates itself by vaporizing the smallest fact, and gives itself to the wildest and most rapid wanderings. We see him with honest intentions, endeavoring to discover all the good he possibly can, through a thick obscuration of national prejudice, to write with the decorum due to his new friends; to condemn his own coun-ness. try no farther than it condemns itself, and by some harmless The highest rank known in our social relations, being and caricature exaggerations of minor points, to mingle that of gentlemen, and this being defined by no law, nor mirth and humor with his shreds of truth, sentiment and limited to any occupation, every individual in the republic philosophy, and thus produce as honest a book as would be feels that he has some claim to the character, and aspires, consistent with marketable qualities. Dickens' great talent in some degree, to the manners by which it is distinguished. consisted in his powers of individual description,--of emo- His circumstances and position may prevent him from actions-persons or localities, and its charm arises from the quiring all the arbitrary rules of conventional etiquette, but many harmonious and consistent circumstances, or judi-that courtesy which all know to be essential to the characCiously contracted incongruities by which he surrounds and ter of the gentleman, spontaneously prompts a corresponddevelopes the smallest nucleus of truth, and forces it upon ing manner; and hence, an American mechanic or laborer, our interests and sympathies. In the proof of this, we re- astonishes the English gentleman, by relinquishing a choice fer to his descriptions in the present work; they are pre- seat in a stage coach to any casual female passenger. The eisely similar to those of his previous fictions and possess American citizen does not fear a descent from his station all their interest. His description of the ship and of the by social converse with his casual fellow-passenger, and horrors of sea-sickness, in the second chapter, almost made none have reason to conceal their true position by an asthe chair reel under us, and quite made remembered mise-sumption of arrogant and rude superiority. A polite and res a present reality. See also his description of the re-courteous manner, not one of forms and ceremonies, thus flections and sensations of a prisoner in solitary confine- becomes a national characteristic; it is one of the glorious ment in chapter seventh; but to make it really true, you must suppose Charles Dickens, with all his sensibility and talents, the prisoner.

It is impossible that such a writer can be really truthful, however great his determination to be so; truth may be his purpose, but imagination involuntarily touches the point of his pen.

results of our republican institutions, and should teach us to regard the instructions of those institutions, rather than the lessons of every foreigner who assumes to correct and improve our manners.

Mr. Dickens reiterates the ridicule of preceding English writers respecting our disposition to inquire concerning the business, dwelling place, and destination of our fellow In common with all other English travellers, he discovers travellers, and to be equally communicative respecting saliva and tobacco to be the great abominations of our land. our own affairs. Although it be sometimes annoying, it We have no disposition to deny or to defend these peculiari- may be well before we determine upon correcting this chaties, but we are inclined to think that the feathery shower racteristic, to inquire, whether the national peculiarities in of saliva flowing from the car-windows, was merely a " Boz" which it originates, can be advantageously changed for those

value; national institutions only open for pay; and the Tower, St. Pauls, and Westminster Abbey are the recipi ents of shillings; "The tricks of trade" is a necessary phrase in the vocabulary, and are an essential part of the business for which every apprentice pays a premium to learn.

which dictate an opposite course among the way-farers of not over-taxed labor; hence social relations and enjoyments, England? At the risk of laying ourselves amenable to the relaxation and a disposition to spend money perhaps too charge of defending a national weakness, we will endeavor carelessly, mingle with our useful and profitable pursuits; to expose the spirit of our inquisitiveness, and to show, and hence there is never seen in the United States that that when it is changed for manners better suited to his condensation of thought and effort in the pursuit of gain, taste, we shall have lost much of our national virtue. The which is a prominent characteristic of those classes which circumstances which we have enumerated as leading to in England are thrown upon their exertions for a livethat courtesy among us, which is wanting on the other side lihood, and which the crowded competition for life renof the water, it will readily be perceived, have a close rela- ders necessary to all such, whether authors, professional tion to the present subject; but, the chief source of this men or trades-people, as they are called. Nothing is given trait is found in, and is the proof of the want of, that general gratuitously: literature, advice and minutes are measured distrust with which he so hastily and erroneously charges by money; courtesy and common civility are limited to the us; and the habitual dwelling of this distrust in an En-prospect of reward, and the chance of winning a customer glishman's bosom, renders our inquisitiveness peculiarly an- from a competitor; garbage and cinders have a commercial noying to him. A home-bred American citizen has not habituated himself to question, whether the man beside him in a stage coach, or at the dinner table of a steam-boat, is a haughty lordling above his communion, or a finished swindler of London graduation, interested in concealing his own movements, and dangerous to trust with ours. He feels that all around him, are, like himself, plain, unpretend- As before stated, we have not been led to these remarks ing people, upon honest business; each has nothing to con- by any supposition that Mr. Dickens' opinions are imceal, and does not fear to trust his neighbor: the common portant to us. Our object has been to show that our pecusympathy which pervades our people, leads to an inter-liarities are the result of the good in our institutions; that change of information upon each other's business, home, and destination. This feeling and practice has greater extent as we get remote from the sea-board, and from foreign influence. We allude to the American people, and not to those travelled exceptions, who have learned to despise the honesty of home manners, and to cloak themselves in the envelopes of imported corruption. There are yet other, popular relations, which sustain and nourish this inquisitive propensity and render it an essential part of our na-and inquisitiveness, and that he should not like the rough tional character. Our citizens with a vast continent before them, fulfil the purposes of their destiny, and do not sit down, generation after generation, in one place and to one pursuit; we scatter from one end of the union to the other and members of the same family dwell in various and dis-"it would be between Good and Evil, the living light and tant points; hence when a promiscuous company is gathered together in a travelling conveyance, each one may have come from the neighborhood of some acquaintance, friend or relative of the other, and by free inquiry and communication, a very pleasant association may be formed between strangers by the bond of a distant mutual friend. We have in much travel throughout our whole country, scarcely ever failed to experience or to witness such discoveries; these impulses foreigners cannot, of course, appreciate.

Seeing then, that this trait is the result of a wide spread sympathy; is the best evidence of freedom from distrust, and of mutual confidence, and marks the absence of corruption of character sufficient to destroy this confidence, we trust that this peculiarity may long continue to call forth the ridicule of those travellers whose previous associations and education unfit them to discover the salutary principles and humanizing institutions from which it emanates.

our republican organization is productive of social, as well as political advantages; and that neither Mr. Dickens nor any other foreigner is fitted-by his national education, to become the rule for us. We have no disposition to quarrel with him for his peculiar views, and we think he has been, considering national prejudice, generous. He has discovered food where more illiberal writers have overlooked it. It is but natural that he should quarrel with our tobacco-spitting,

roads of our new continent as well as the macadamised ones of old England. We cheerfully take all the scolding for these, for his testimony in relation to the Lowell factory girls, and his remark, that, contrasted with his own country,

deepest shadow." We should be angry with his strictures upon our congress if we did not know that his sentiments might have been copied from our own papers, and it is fully compensated for by his admission, that among our representatives are men "striking to look at, hard to deceive, prompt to act, lions in energy, Crichtons in varied accomplishment, Indians in fire of eye and gesture, Americans in strong and generous impulse."

As a literary production the work will not add to his fame; fortunately, it is not necessary to it. His descriptions of places, pigs, negro drivers and travelling companions are true to " Boz" if not to reality, and had the entire work been of this character it would have possessed an interest in which it is now deficient.

"AMERICAN NOTES FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION.

BY CHARLES DICKENS."

One other charge, that of devotion to money, has been The anxiously expected work of Dickens on the U. S., is brought against us, is stereotyped for insertion into every out at last, and its arrvival has created a much greater senBritish author and is conveyed by the expression, "the uni-sation, than its perusal will sustain ; for in spite of its taking versal dollar;" Mr. Dickens passes it on. We should scarce title, we much doubt, whether these "Notes" will be taken allude to this but for the absurd inconsistency of such a charge emanating from an English writer. It is true, that we have no classes in our country with their wealth secured by law beyond the consequences of their extravagance, who are removed from the necessity of useful exertion, and need never talk or think of dollars in the abundance of that wealth poured into their coffers by a hard worked population to which the idea of dollars for themselves, is beyond the farthest flight of hope. It is true, that none of us are placed above a care for the means of existence, and it is equally true that those means are within the reach of healthful and

into " general circulation," after the present "run" has been supplied, and the first issue exhausted; being a very depreciated currency, as regards value, to all the other issues from the same quarter; but proving that Dickens has learnt by his trip to America, that secret of Banking, by which, waste paper is converted into good current coin; although, like many of our Bankers, he has lost credit while making cash. By this time, we suppose the work has been swallowed by the whole reading public, and to his enemies, it must have afforded the most intense gratification; for it is one of the most suicidal productions, ever deliberately

published by an author, who had the least reputation to lose. Į readable, since nothing written by him is ever totally destiNot that the whole work exhibits the impress of wilful malignity and deliberate injustice towards a nation, from which, both as an author and a man, he has received the highest favors; but because, it is utterly weak, frivolous, and inconclusive throughout, adding another to the many proofs of the fact, that he who attempts to perform a task, for which both his frame of mind, and previous opportunities have rendered him unfit, can only succeed in making himself ridiculous, and detracting from the real merit which he may possess. As a writer of a peculiar class of fictions, and master of the comic, "Boz" has had no rival; but when after a four months' run over a country like ours, he presumes to pass judgment on our national character and institutions, amazement at his audacity is only merged into pity for his folly, and the reader is irresistibly reminded of a similar undertaking, which he himself has graphically described on the part of a certain Pickwick Club," to perform the same service for the "unexplored Parishes" of England; with a similar result since the Hero of the "Notes for general circulation," is a fac simile of Mr. Pickwick in every particular, but the "gaiters" and the benevolence, which that indivividual is made to possess.