from want of interest, or of gratitude for his varied | off and bringing into intimate relation with the and valuable communications. rest every considerable city. These railroads are The conclusion at which we arrive, which has not wild enterprises destined, like too many of never been forced upon us so strongly by any for- our own, to swallow up irretrievable capitalmer tour in America as by these manly, sensible, framed with no sober calculation of the necessities and fearless volumes, is still growing astonishment of the land-magnificent, luxurious, and proporat the resources of this great country. Here is an tionately wasteful; but prudently conceived, and immense continent, not like old Asia, at times at first, at least, economically managed, only allowovershadowed into a seeming unity by some one ing greater speed, comfort, luxury, on such lines Assyrian, or Babylonian, or Persian, or Mahome-as those between New York and Boston. Betan empire, and at the death of the great con-hind the Alleghanies to the east, nature has queror, or the expiration at least of his dynasty, achieved that which, on a small scale, magnificent breaking up again into conflicting kingdoms, or monarchs have attempted in Europe-a system of almost reduced to the primitive anarchy of hostile internal navigation unrivalled in its extent, and tribes not like Europe, attaining something like of which even America! enterprise has far from unity, first by the consolidating and annealing approached the limits. Instead of running up power of the Roman empire, and afterwards in a singly into the central land-as in the old contiwider but less rigorous form by the Church; in nent the Ganges, the Indus, the Volga, the Nile, later times by the balance of power among the the Niger, the Danube, the Rhine, each divided great monarchies-a balance only maintained by from other great rivers by ridges of impenetrable perpetual wars and by immense military establish-mountains-the Mississippi receives her countless ments in times of peace. The new world is born and immense tributaries, ramifying and intersectas it were one; a federation with much of the ing the whole region from the borders of Canada, vigor of separate independent states, with no neces- from the Alleghanies to within a certain distance sary, no hereditary, principles of hostility, but of the Pacific. She is carrying up the population rather bound together by the strongest community almost of cities at once to every convenient fork, of interests; one in descent, at least with one race to every situation which may become an emporiso predominant that the rest either melt away into um; and then receiving back into her spacious it, or, if they remain without, are each, even the bosom and conveying to the ocean the accumulatcolored population, so small comparatively in num- ing produce, the corn, the cotton, even the pelbers, that they may continue insulated and outly- tries of the west. Almost in the centre of this ing sections of society, with no great danger to empire is a coal-field, or rather two coal-fields, of the general harmony; one in language, and that which we believe the boundaries are not yet ascerour noble, manly, Anglo-Saxon, the language of | tained—but in Sir Charles' geological map (in his Shakespeare, Milton, Bacon, and Locke, now former volumes) they blacken a space which, acspoken over portions of the globe infinitely more cording to the scale, might furnish out several extensive than ever was any other tongue; one in great kingdoms in the Old World. By a singular religion, for from the multiplicity of sects, as we provision the clear-burning and smokeless anthrahave observed, must result a certain unity-at cite on the west side of the Apalachian ridge furleast religious difference, spread equably over all nishes its inexhaustible fuel for the hearths and the land, cannot endanger the political unity. The manufactures of the more polished and stately means of communication throughout this immense cities, for the gayer steamboats on the Hudson continent are absolutely unexampled, both from the and the Delaware; the heavier and more opaque, natural distribution of the lakes, and seas, and riv- that of the Illinois, seems destined to adumbrate ers, and from the discoveries of modern science, the manufacturing towns on the Ohio. Those which are seized, adapted, and appropriated with treasure-fields, quarries, as they are at present the restless eagerness of a people fettered by no rather than mines, require hardly any expense to ancient hereditary prejudices, active even to the work them. If steam is still to be, as no doubt it overworking of their physical constitutions, spec- must be, the great creator of wealth, of comfort, ulative so as to hazard everything-even, in the of commerce, this fact might alone almost justify case of repudiation, that good-faith which is the our boldest visions as to the expansion and durafoundation of credit-for rapid advantage. There tion of American civilization. In California the are no local attachments, at least in the masses, to United States may appear to have acquired the check that adventurous passion for bettering their more doubtful and dangerous command of the precondition, which turns the faces of the men west- cious minerals to an unexampled extent. And ward with a resolute uniformity, (Sir Charles Ly- over this progressive world, this world which, even ell met one man moving eastward, and that one at its present gigantic strides, will not for an imonly from a temporary motive of curiosity.) Along mense period have reached its actual boundary, the whole range of coast there is steam navigation, which-even if it swallow up no more Texas, no from New England to Georgia. West of the Al- more of Mexico, if it merely absorb into itself its leghany ridge, besides the noble rivers, also crowd- own prairies and forests, if it people only its half ed with steamboats, which are so many splendid of Oregon-will still have "ample space and high roads for travel and for commerce, there is a verge enough"-some elements of civilization line of railroads and electric telegraphs, branching seem to spread, if not with equable, with unlim the light from a greater number of individuals."* Vol. ii., pp. 336–338. ited advance. There is no bound to the appetite, I menting in a higher ratio even than the populaif not for intellectual improvement, for intellectu- tion; and, secondly, there is a fixed determination al entertainment. With Sir Charles Lyell we on the part of the people at large to endure any have full confidence in the palled craving for one and newspapers beyond their reach. Several poltaxation, rather than that which would place books leading to the sober and wholesome demand for iticians declared to me, that not only an income the other; once awaken the imagination and the tax, but a window tax, would be preferred; and feelings, the reason will rarely remain in torpid slum-"this last," said they, "would scarcely shut out ber. This almost passion for reading appears to be universal; newspapers perhaps first, (and newspapers are compelled to become books,) and then books accompany man into the remotest squattings in the backwoods, are conveyed in every steamboat, spring up with spontaneous growth in every settlement, are sold at prices which all can afford. From later intelligence than that of Sir Charles Lyell, we are assured that the sale of Mr. Macaulay's History has reached at least one hundred thousand. We recommend our author's statements on these subjects, of which we have room but for a fragment, to the consideration especially of our men of letters : Of the best English works of fiction, published at thirty-one shillings in England, and for about sixpence here, it is estimated that about ten times as many copies are sold in the United States as in Great Britain; nor need we wonder at this, when we consider that day laborers in an American village often purchase a novel by Scott, Bulwer, or Dickens, or a popular history, such as Alison's Europe, (published at thirteen pounds in England, and sixteen shillings in America,) and read it at spare moments, while persons in a much higher station in England are debarred from a similar intellectual treat by considerations of economy. It might have been apprehended that, where a daily newspaper can be bought for a halfpenny, and a novel for sixpence, the public mind would be so taken up with politics and light reading, that no time would be left for the study of history, divinity, and the graver periodical literature. But, on the contrary, experience has proved that, when the habit and facility of reading has been acquired by the perusal even of trashy writings, there is a steady increase in the number of those who enter on deeper subjects. I was glad to hear that, in proportion as the reading public augments annually, the quality of the books read is decidedly improving. About four years ago, 40,000 copies were printed of the ordinary common-place novels published in England, of which sort they now only sell about 800. It might also have been feared that the cheapness of foreign works unprotected by copyright, would have made it impossible for native authors to obtain a price capable of remunerating them highly, as well as their publishers. But such is not the case. Very large editions of Prescott's "Ferdinand and Isabella," and of his "Mexico," and Peru," have been sold at a high price; and when Mr. Harper stated to me his estimate of the original value of the copyright of these popular works, it appeared to me that an English author could hardly have obtained as much in his own country. The comparative cheapness of American books, the best editions of which are by no means in small print, seems at first unintelligible, when we consider the dearness of labor, which enters so largely into the price of printing, paper, and binding. But, first, the number of readers, thanks to the freeschools, is prodigiously great, and always augCCLXXV. LIVING AGE. VOL. XXII. 23 The great cities, it is true, can never be as the ancient capitals of Europe. America, perhaps the world, will hardly see again a new Cologne, or a new Strasbourg, a new St. Peter's, or a new St. Paul's any more than new Pyramids, a new Parthenon, or a new Coliseum. Yet we cannot but think that peace and wealth may beyond the Atlantic achieve great things, though of a different character; and this assuredly should be the aim of her artists, especially of her architects. Whether Trinity Church, now the pride of the Broadway in New York, will bear the rigorous judgment of our Gothic Purists, or stand as high even as our best modern churches, may, notwithstanding Sir Charles Lyell's opinion, admit of doubt. But we have heard only one opinion of the great Croton aqueduct; a work which for magnificence, ingenuity, science, and utility, (as pouring pure and wholesome water, even to the luxury of noble fountains and waterworks, throughout the whole city of New York,) most nearly approaches the days of old Roman greatness. The expenditure of almost the whole of the great Giraud bequest, (half a million sterling,) on building alone, leaving hardly anything for the endowment of the college, may in one sense have been very unwise, and indeed wrong; but as showing at least a noble ambition for architectural grandeur, even if not in this respect successful, may not be without its use. But so long as we hear of such legacies as those of Mr. Lowell, 70,000l. sterling; of Mr. Astor for a public library, of a much larger amount-and we believe that those public-spirited acts of generosity do not stand alone-there can be no room for despair. Though the Capitol at Washington be but a cold and feeble attempt to domiciliate classic formsthough bold and creative originality be more difficult of attainment to those born late into the world in art even than in letters; the great Transatlantic cities will gradually have their great, we trust, characterestic American monuments. If we had believed the story for an instant, we certainly should have shared in the alarm-we perhaps should not have been without some jealousy, if brother Jonathan had bought and carried off the On the other hand, we most Apollo Belvedere. lowing sentence-"Many are of opinion that the small *As some drawback to this we must subjoin the folprint of cheap editions in the United States, will seriously injure the eyesight of the rising generation, especially as they often read in railway cars, devouring whole novels, printed in newspapers, in very inferior type. Mr. Everett, speaking of this literature, in an address to the students of Harvard College, said, 'If cheap it can be called, which begins by costing a man his eyes, and ends by perverting his taste and morals.'"-Vol. ii., p. 339. cordially rejoice in the place which the young | dentially designed for steam-navigation? IntelAmerican sculptor, Power, has taken even in lectually delightful as it may be to follow out Italy. That such statues as his exquisite Greek Slave should be set up in American halls by American hands would be to us a source of unfeigned satisfaction, not merely for the gratification of the present, but as an omen of the future. For, as the future of America, to be a glorious future, must be a future of peace, so we would hope that it may be fruitful in all which embellishes, and occupies, and hallows, and glorifies peace. 66 such a piece of philosophical reasoning as that in Sir C. Lyell's second volume, (p. 304,) where, from certain footmarks on slabs of sandstone, which could only have been made by air-breathing animals, (all others being too light to make such deep impressions even when the stones were in a state of fluid mud,) the date of the primal existence of this class of animals is ascertained;-nevertheless, we are more inclined to lose ourselves in wondering speculations as to the short time which must elapse before the first footprints of man, at least of civilized man, in the lands west of the Mississippi will be utterly untraceable through the broad strata of culture and population which even one century will spread perhaps to the Pacific. We seem irresistibly compelled to look onward; we are seized, as it were, and carried away by the advancing tide to the still receding haven, till we are lost in a boundless ocean. That clouds, heavy, blackening, awful thunder clouds, loom over this wide horizon of the future, who that knows the mutability of human things, the wild work which fortune or fate, or rather divine Providence, makes of the most sagacious conjectures-what wise and reflective American will attempt to disguise from himself? There is surely enough to check and subdue the overween 66 Sir Charles Lyell must excuse us, if with these wonderful prospects of centuries to come, expanding their cloudy wings before us," we have been less willing to look back to those ages behind ages, which are the study and the revelation of his important science. Interesting as it may be, under his sure guidance to be told that a hundred thousand years must have passed in forming the land at the mouth of the Mississippi, we are more absorbed in the thought of the few years which have beheld on the banks of that wide river and its affluents, cities arising beyond cities, and those cities peopled with thousands on thousands of free, industrious, in many respects, as far as is given to man, happy human beings; province after province yielding to possession, to cultivation, to production the production of harvests now poured without stint, and we suppose destined to be stilling national pride, which prevails among the vulmore profusely poured, upon our shores. The Indian corn, we ought to have observed, appears by no means one of the least precious gifts of this region. The aboriginal tribes so wither away before the invader, that his occupation of the land can hardly be called usurpation. Instructive as it is to be initiated in the growth of those 63,000 square miles of coal, (First Tour, p. 88,) the gradual transformation of terrestrial plants into this store of fuel, garnered up it might seem for endless generations, with the vegetable texture still apparent throughout under the microscope; and flattened trunks of trees, now transmuted into pure coal, and erect fossil trees in the overlaying strata; instructive to trace all the geological and all the chemical processes in this immense laboratory; yet to us there is something even more surprising in the application of those inexhaustible treasures by that race of beings for whom the Almighty Creator in his boundless Providence may seem to have entombed them in the earth. What can be more strange than their sudden revelation, as it were, in these enormous quantities, just when is most apparent the practical dependence of man, in his most crowded state of civilization, on powers which his ancestors, content to warm their hearths and to cook their provisions with bright and useful fuel, dreamed not to be latent in this coarse and ordinary product of the earth? Who shall conjecture the incalculable re-masses. But separate interests may grow up, in sults of the use, perhaps the improvement, of the nature of things cannot but grow up; the north steam-power in a country where railroads are of and the south, the west and the east, may be arsuch comparatively easy construction, and the rayed against each other. The ruder, the more spreading network of rivers might seem provi- tumultuous, the more uneducated west, may be gar. We must in justice to ourselves touch on some of these dangers. One of them, though we do not know how far it extends over the Union, is the effect of the climate. In New England especially there seems a certain delicacy of health, a general care-worn" expression, a kind of premature old age, which, with other circumstances, shows that our Anglo-Saxon race is not perfectly acclimated. This may be aggravated, but is not entirely caused, by the busy, exhausting, restless life of the great body of Americans. The fevers and agues of the back settlements will probably disappear, with the swamps and marshes, before cultivation and drainage; the vigorous health of Kentucky and some other of the back settlements may eventually renew the youth, if renewal be necessary, of the earlier race, which seems to want the robust look, the clear and ruddy complexion of the Englishman.-(See Lyell, vol. i., pp. 154-5.) But this danger will probably bring its own cure; every succeeding century will adapt the race more completely to their climate. Their political dangers are more serious and inevitable. That which is their strength and pride, their independence, is their greatest peril. There is no great repressive, no controlling power, nothing to drag the wheel of popular rule, either in the constitution of the Federation or in the States. In each the senates must obey the mighty will of the : able to dictate at Washington not the soundest policy, policy which may be fatal, but which must be adopted from fear of separation, and the consequence of separation. In each State there is the same danger the predominance of the turbulent many—or those who, self-multiplied by their noise and activity, represent themselves, and are believed to be, the many-over the quiet, the wise, and the educated. We have great faith, we need hardly say, in the effects of true and real education; but here is the rub-can sound political education travel as fast as population? That which, to all appearance, is most feared by the calmer immediate speculators, is indeed too much in human nature not to justify serious apprehension-the quiescence of those who ought from their superior intelligence to govern, but are too easy and happy to strive and wrestle for their proper influence. 355 at once adopt the language of that not very imi- in believing that all "rumors of wars" with Eng This applies equally to the states and to individuals: Kentucky and Illinois may lord it over New England and New York; and if Kentucky and Illinois become more civilized, states yet un-land have passed away; but any other great war, named, unsettled, still further west, may lord it in we conceive, might arrest for centuries the proSo long as gress of Transatlantic civilization-might split up their turn over Kentucky and Illinois. the subjects of collision are but the election of a pres- the Union into the chronic condition of the old ident, or even a tariff, this predominance may be world, that of separate and, before long, hostile comparatively innocuous; but when it comes to states-might raise up in one a military despotism, Before we close these hastilywar or peace-war, not with Texas or Mexico, formidable to all. but with European nations, or even with Canada, written but not less deliberately-considered opinif Canada should grow up into a rival power-ions on the expediency, the necessity of peace, to then may the United States be exposed, at least, to the chances of loss and defeat, or, escaping them, to the proverbial consequences of military glory and success. We have the most sovereign contempt for Mr. Cobden and his international arbitration for the European peace societies, which have the most fatal effect, that of casting ridicule on what is in itself a righteous cause; but, if Americans, we should hardly refrain from joining with Mr. Sumner-though even in America peace societies, have, we know not why, somewhat of a bustling, officious, and somewhat ridiculous air. We should hail the more legitimate denunciations of war as unchristian by her Channings and Deweys; as American patriots and Christians we should never cease to cry peace! peace! That which is utterly, hopelessly, as seems at present, impossible in Europe, seems, by a wonderful combination of circumstances, of easy practicability in America. This vast continent may, if it will, exhibit to the wondering annals of mankind centuries barren of warlike glory, safe from the miseries of war. The United States may at length relieve republican governments from that heavy charge registered against them by all history--and too much countenanced by their own proceedings in Texas and in Mexico-that democracies are as ambitious and aggressive as the most absolute monarchies. What has America to gain-what may it not lose by war? the development of American wealth, happiness, Thus far that spirit has not been wanting-the sovereign people, on more occasions than we are aware of here, has not scrupled to use the old At Providence, world arms against "the mob." Sir C. Lyell was in the midst of the fierce discussions about Oregon; fiery news-writers were brandishing their pens-wild backwoodsmen poising their rifles; they would have had the country the soldiers were ordered, some short time ago, to fire on "the people," and did fire to put down a riot which rose out of the destruction of houses of ill-fame; they did the same at Philadelphia, during boat without one, is the water telescope or tube, of three or four feet in length, which they carry in their boats with them when they go a fishing. When they reach the fishing ground, they immerse one end of this telescope in the water, and look through the glass, which shows objects some 10 or 15 fathoms deep as distinctly as if they were within a few feet of the surface; by which means, when a shoal of fish comes into their bays, the Norwegians instantly prepare their nets, man their boats, ly to survey the ground with their glasses, and and go out in pursuit. The first process is minutewhere they find the fish swarming about in great numbers, then they give the signal, and surround the fish with their large draught nets, and often catch them in hundreds at a haul. Without these telescopes their business would often prove precarious and unprofitable, as the fish, by these glasses, are as distinctly seen in the deep, clear sea of Noris not only used by the fishermen, but it is also found aboard the navy and coasting vessels of Norway. When their anchors get into foul ground, or their cables warped on a roadstead, they immediately apply the glass, and, guided by it, take steps to put all to rights, which they could not do so well without the aid of the rude and simple instrument his own hands without the aid of a craftsman. This which the meanest fisherman can make up with instrument has been lately adopted by the Scotch fishermen on the Tay, and by its assistance they have been enabled to discover stones, holes, and uneven ground, over which their nets travel, and have found the telescope answer to admiration, the minutest object in twelve-feet water being as clearly could not be used with advantage in the rivers and seen as on the surface. We see no reason why it bays of the United States. the attack on the Roman Catholics; and now at New York, in the disgraceful disturbances around the theatre. Thus far, too, the public voice has been strongly and unequivocally in favor of public order. There has been no maudlin sympathy for lawless rioters; the press has been, almost with one voice, on the side of authority; the attempt to get up a popular demonstration was an utter failure. It has been seen that the only true mercy is to stop a riot at once-if not, as with us on a recent occasion, by the civil force-at.all events, to stop it. There are dangers which must be imminent under the broadest republican forms. Only free and popular institutions like our own and those of the United States, and the spirit they in-way, as gold fish in a crystal jar. This instrument spire into the citizens, can prevent them from becoming calamities. But these slight outbreaks from insignificant causes, we must acknowledge, cast somewhat dark shadows before them; if more deeply-rooted causes of discontent should spring up-if with the spreading cities there should be quarters inhabited perhaps by multitudes of a particular race or class, and so bonded together by common passions-quarters into which education does not equably penetrate-which there is no strong police to overawe-our only trust is that there will be an instantaneous tact and sympathy among those to whom order is life, which will combine them into a more commanding league. We trust that, not neglecting measures of precaution in improving, as far as they may, the condition of their more abject fellow-citizens, they will never be wanting in resolution to confront and crush these insurrections of communism, (for such | even in free America may be their form,) and not scruple to hazard their lives for what is dearer than life. There must be moreover, no self-gratulation in more remote towns, that it is but one city which has thus become a city of desolation. The rapid communication of revolutionary wildfire, more swift and terrible than the conflagration over leagues of prairie land—this fearful rapidity is an essential part of its nature; one city a prey to its ravages, who will insure the rest? If the waters of the Hudson reflect its red light, how long will it be before it glares on the Mississippi or the Ohio? May Heaven avert the omen-may one human community grow up as a great peace society, peace external and internal, peace with all its blessings! NORWEGIAN WATER TELESCOPES.-An instrument which the people of Norway have found of so great utility that there is scarcely a single fishing *It was impossible, as we hear from all quarters, and cannot refrain from repeating, to surpass the coolness, self-command, gentlemanly, we might add Christian, bearing of Mr. Macready. 66 THE title of one of Mr. Matthews' pieces. "Earth, Air, and Water," gave rise, according to Theodore Hook, to a somewhat curious blunder. He despatched one evening a clever and ingenious Scotch acquaintand on the following morning asked his opinion of ance with the newspaper orders to the Lyceum; the performance. The gentleman said that it was rather comical upon the whole, but that there was a little too much matter of fact about it, and that as for fun he did not think quite so much was made of it as might have been. Hook asked if the rest of he attributed to there being but few people in the the audience laughed; he said not much, but this house. "Well, but," said the editor," surely you liked the songs-did you not think Matthews a very droll person?" The gentleman replied that there were no songs, and that he did not think Matthews so very droll; he had a good deal of quiet humor certainly, and an admirable delivery; he had never seen a more gentlemanly man in his life, bating that, perhaps, he was a little too fat. Hook was completely puzzled-a dull entertainment, no songs, a thin house, and a fat performer!-it was past comprehension, till a reference to the play-bill showed that his Scotch friend, having visited the theatre on the Wednesday, had been listening unsuspectingly to Mr. Bartley's Lecture on the Structure of the Universe, which was delivered on the alternate nights, and which he was quite convinced was no other than the celebrated representation of the great humorist. |