joined, a number of opinions delivered on this literary performance. Some expressed their unqualified disgust, and thought this feeling ought to have been evinced in some public manner; but these were very few; the greater number admitted that it was the most arrant nonsense they had ever heard; but thought that it was not patriotic to run it down, since, after all, it was the performance of a native American; and some who had noticed my being present, and who supposed it probable that I should give to the world some account of my travels in America, expressed a hope that I should not mention anything so discreditable to the taste of an American audience, in my Journal.

CHAP. XXIV.

- No

Sensitiveness of Americans to foreign censure-Opinion of Mr. Latrobe on American character-Evil effects produced by hotel and boarding house life-Too early introduction of the young to public society-Effects on the taste and manners of the more advanced Disadvantages to married and elderly persons return for this in improved health or vigour-Equal applicability of this to English watering-places-Suggestion of a better mode of making summer excursions Beneficial effects which would flow from its adoption-Deaths of two inmates of the house at Saratoga-Impressive solemnity of a Quaker funeral-Addressof an elder or patriarch of the society-Affecting prayer of the mother of the deceased-Effect produced on the whole assembly

Contrast with more gorgeous funerals Quakers universally friendly to abolition- Many of the American clergy apologists for slavery Prejudices on republicanism and on monarchy-Opinion of Mr. Cooper, the American, on slavery-Fallacies of the arguments used on this subject-Public meeting at Saratoga on education-Public meeting at Ballston on temperance— -Comparison between English and American farmers Differ ences in the appearance of the females.

ONE of the most striking features of the American character, is the extreme sensitiveness of all classes to the opinions of foreigners; and it is only to the fact of their being the opinions of foreigners, that they object; for the same censures, coming from one of their own nation, are scarcely heeded. The North, for instance, will abuse the South in unmeasured terms, both in their public journals and at public meetings, as a set of unprincipled, licentious, reckless slaveholders, sharpers, and gamblers, combined, The South will return the compliment, by calling the

men of the North a set of cold, selfish, calculating, canting hypocrites, desiring to pursue their schemes of pretended philanthropy at the expense of their fellow-citizens, committing acts of fraud and overreaching during the week, and wiping it off with sanctimonious faces and long prayers on Sundays. The democratic party will accuse its political opponents of being tyrants, oppressors, and bloodsuckers, preying on the vitals of the nation, holding the power of the banks, to make themselves a monied aristocracy, and traitors to the liberties of the people. The aristocratic party, here called the Whigs, will denounce the democrats as agrarians, levellers, incendiaries, and plunderers, who desire to seize the property of the rich, and divide it among themselves; and whose designs are fraught with the utmost danger to property, morality, and religion.

It may be doubted, whether either of these parties themselves believe what they say of their opponents. It is hardly possible that they should not know that it is not true. But it serves, or is supposed to serve, the interests of the respective parties so to denounce and vilify each other, that if a collection could be made of all that the American speakers and writers say of all parts and sections of their own country in turn, it might be pronounced, upon their own respective authorities, to be worse than Sodom and Gomorrah in the very height of their wickedness. While this warfare against each other still goes on, however, let but an English traveller venture to express an opinion of the inferiority of the American people to his own countrymen, in any the most trifling particular, whether in beauty or

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healthiness of appearance, dress, manners, accomplishments, taste, or any other quality, and every one will be up in arms against him. This is not because the observations are unjust, for they could not be so deemed by those who say much worse things of each other; but because they are uttered by a foreigner, who is guilty, according to their notions, of an unfit return for the hospitalities he may have received, in speaking even the truth of them, if it does not place them in the most favourable point of view possible.

Among the more sensible and more liberal of the Americans, there are many who think that it is highly advantageous to the nation at large to have its defects pointed out by those who can discern them; for many things are perceptible to the foreign eye, which, from habitual familiarity, escape the native vision; and hence the wise wish of Burns,

"Oh! that the gods the gift would gi' us

To see ourselves as others see us."

I have already quoted the observations of Mr. Nicholas Biddle, of Philadelphia, in his address to the Alumni of Princeton College on this subject; and I subjoin some very just remarks, to the same purpose, from a judicious and impartial observer, Mr. Latrobe, who says,

"Well may the foreigner be surprised at the utter perversity and sensitiveness of mind of by far the greater majority of Americans, of whatever class, in taking to heart, and bitterly resenting, any chance remarks upon the men and manners of a given district, when perhaps not exactly of a laudatory description, thus making the quarrel of one division of the community, the quarrel of all. In this respect, there is doubtless a characteristic nationality of feeling. To see a gentleman of Boston or Baltimore, resenting, by word or deed, the sketch published to the world, of the society of a district of the West, borders on the ludicrous; the more

so as, if untravelled, they are frequently as ignorant of the state of things there, as a stay-at-home Englishman might be supposed to be. It impresses one with the idea, that the inhabitants of the United States-little mercy as they show each other in their stormy political contests, little measure as they hold in their terms of satire and obloquy, defamation, and abuse of parties and individuals, in their public prints are sensitive, as a people, beyond example, to criticism from without, and more particularly so when the observation comes from an inhabitant of Britain. This weakness almost amounts to a national disease."

If these pages shall be read by any friends of mine in America, from whom I have received the kind and friendly attentions for which I freely acknowledge myself their debtor, I shall be blamed perhaps by them for saying, what I nevertheless think to be true, that the habit of living at public hotels and boardinghouses, and being crowded together in large and illassorted assemblages, is highly detrimental to the formation of character in the young, and far more calculated to vulgarize and corrupt the taste than to refine it.

This mode of life introduces the young of both sexes much too early into public life, and under circumstances of the greatest disadvantage. Young children of six and seven years of age are here seen at concerts, balls, and "hops," at hours when they should be in bed; and passing the day in the most frivolous amusements, playing at checquers or backgammon, coquetting and flirting in the gardens, eating and drinking of everything at table, however great the variety, without a single restraint on the full indulgence of their wills, and with no useful or instructive occupation or pursuit for weeks in succession.