against the language generally prevailing here, than similar peculiarities in English writers, for a similar accusation against the purity of the tongue as written and spoken in England. We presume that the press set up by the American missionaries in the Sandwich Islands will furnish a good deal better English, than Mr Bentham's Church-of-Englandism, and we protest our inability to see why we should, as Americans, be made to answer for Mr Barlow's new words, any more than the English public for Mr Bentham's.

We come now to a character, which this writer thinks fit to attribute to the large majority of American travellers in Europe, whom from personal observation he undertakes to say are 'vulgar, vain, and boisterous; of common place and limited acquirements, whose conversation is made up of violent declamations against slavery, [Americé monarchy,] and as loud assertions of the superiority of America, over all the countries of the globe.' Now we presume the writer would not undertake to speak from personal acquaintance, as he does, of any but those whom he had actually had the misfortune to know; and if it is really true, that the great majority of American travellers whom he has known are of this sorry description, he has been more unlucky in the choice of his company, than commonly happens to a man, by no fault of his own. An occasional acquaintance of no very agreeable cast may now and then be forced upon one, and hospitality is sometimes put to severe exercises, by an unjustifiable facility of obtaining introductions. But where the large majority of a man's acquaintance, with any class of men, consists of the vulgar, vain, and boisterous, it is apt to awaken a suspicion of his own fine qualities. There is another unfortunate hint in the description given by this writer of a better sort of American travellers, of whom he has had the good fortune to know several;' a hint which convinces us that this whole discrimination is imaginary, and that he is really in total ignorance of the opinions, which Americans carry to England, form there, or bring back. He says, that among the American travellers he has known, were several, who might be compared with the best specimens of the best classes of any community, that can be named-accomplished gentlemen and scholars, who had crossed the seas for the honorable purpose of enlarging their views, and travelling down their prejudices,' &c. It is this last clause, on which we propose to remark; but would first observe, that New Series, No. 7.

5

the passage we have cited, if sincerely meant, goes well nigh to refute all that has ever been said in England against America, and much that is asserted by this writer, in the sequel of his observations. What, accomplished gentlemen and scholars, who might be compared with the best specimens of the best classes in England!-Where born, where bred, where educated? In America? In Mr Bristed's America; in Mr Fearon's America?-Gentlemen, in that country where the emigrant is told that he must live in loneliness, dejection, and despair, with the certainty of receiving at last, the burial of a dog, and the memorial of a ditch, or puddle?'-Scholars, from a country, where they speak the nauseous ribaldry quoted from Fearon, by his Reviewers? Persons to be compared with the best specimens of English society from that country, where there is a total absence of early religious education; from a country yet in its infancy? Is this agreeable to the nature of human things; and would not the appearance of one, or two, or three such persons as are described, prove the falsehood of the common pictures of America, to the satisfaction of any one, who considers that manners are not formed by the individual, but caught from the circle around, and that education is derived from institutions implying public support and public resort? But we proposed to show that this writer speaks without information on the topic, and that, alike where he praises as where he condemns. He mentions the travelling down of prejudices, as one of the characteristics of respectable American travellers. From the connexion in which this remark is made, it is fair to conclude that it was intended to refer to extravagant republican and anti-Britannic prejudices, and that it is these, that the intelligent Americans travel down in England. On this head, we shall but state the fact, and leave the inference to be made by our readers. It is well known, that, till the close of the late war, a strong partiality for the English name and character was felt by one portion of the American community; a portion which yielded to none other, in any kind of respectability. It is no part of our purpose here to inquire into the grounds of this partiality. We think them to have been natural, nay honorable. It is equally true, that since the late war, this feeling has been declining; a fact equally notorious, but also not one, which we are concerned how to explain. There is no part of America from which more persons, in proportion to the population, have

of late years centre of this who went ab carried this hope moreov Monthly Ma tion of his be

a fact, of wh that almost v with the war name, have ory scarce quence enou cured of the The prejudice sibility to the aggerated esti this have been minuit famam, wealth, and st and private co characters, the admiration, or which he had show that thing idence. But t tive, why the p to England is d simple design of not done us in t goes to England is no longer a fri is an American; absurd misrepres ignorance which the positiveness must have a cons Englishman would ed and soothed by however kind and kind and hearty Estimation in whi

of late years visited Europe, than that which was also the centre of this warm British feeling; and the majority of those who went abroad may therefore fairly be presumed to have carried this prejudice in favor of England with them. We hope moreover that this fact will make the writer in the New Monthly Magazine willing to find among them a fair proportion of his better class of American travellers. And yet it is a fact, of which no one this side the water needs the proof, that almost without exception, those, who have gone abroad with the warmest zeal for every thing which bore the British name, have come back with moderated feelings. Our memory scarce supplies an instance of an individual, of consequence enough to have his opinions known, who has not been cured of the Anglo-mania, if he had it, by going to England. The prejudice they have travelled down has been the insensibility to the worth of their own happy country, and an exaggerated estimate of European superiority. The causes of this have been chiefly two. The one is the old cause, præsentia minuit famam, and the discovery that with all the glory, wealth, and strength of England, all the public magnificence and private comfort, all the noble institutions, the venerable characters, the hearty hospitality which command the respect, admiration, or gratitude of the traveller, there are defects of which he had formed no adequate conception, and which show that things are severely balanced in the system of Providence. But there is another cause and one far more operative, why the partiality which an American traveller carries to England is diminished there and we quote it with the simple design of corroborating the statement, that justice is not done us in that country. It is this,-when an American goes to England he leaves his party politics behind him; he is no longer a friend of England or a friend of France, but he is an American; and he is exhausted with finding the most absurd misrepresentations of his country credited, and the ignorance which prevails with regard to us, equalled only by the positiveness of those who labor under it. Now a man must have a constitution which we are sure no high spirited Englishman would for a moment approve, who could be so bribed and soothed by private courtesies and personal hospitality, however kind and hearty, and no where in Europe are these so kind and hearty as in England, as to be reconciled to this estimation in which his country is held, and ever has been

:

held, to this contumely with which she is too often treated. Accordingly it is a fact, exceedingly notorious, that the warm attachment to England carried to that country by many of the most respectable Americans, who have visited it, has been much diminished on their return. If there be exceptions to this, they are but exceptions. And no single

circumstance not of greater consequence, is a matter of more familiar observation, than that a voyage to England is the sovereign remedy for an excessive attachment to that country. Philosophical and candid minds will of course prevent this from running to the opposite extreme. They will not allow the estimation, in which they hold the land of their fathers, the land from which they derive their language, their laws, and their manners, to be permanently affected by the unkindness or injustice with which America is treated in England. They do not allow that England and the great treasure of its illustrious names belong so exclusively to the present generation of men, that we, whose fathers were Englishmen and in whose country English principles of liberty have taken deeper root and produced finer fruit than they have done in their own soil, are not entitled to our full share of the inheritance. But we repeat the assertion, that if, among the prejudices of intelligent and liberal Americans, alluded to by this writer, coolness to England is to be reckoned, for one instance where this prejudice is travelled down, we are acquainted with ten, where it is travelled up ;-and that in general, it is only on his return to his native land, and by studious abstinence from the vehicles of aspersion, and by dispassionate weighing of the great merits of the English character, and fond gazing on the bright spots in their history, that the best disposed American becomes able at last again to say,

'England, with all thy faults, I love thee still."

The next subject of remark, which is suggested to us, is treated in a series of sentences pleasant enough in themselves, and which, if meant only as pleasantry, would have called for no reply from us, as containing a charge against the American character. If, however, any thing serious is intended, as we presume, from the pains which the writer is at, to ring the changes on one idea, through a page or more of his essay, then we would rejoin, that to one half of his charge there is no foundation in fact, and that what is true of it, instead of being,

as he de nothing b tion of ou

"This in peculiarity Other nati citizen of contemplat the pride o through a achieveme

an Ameri discount h over the fu of the Troj on the pass beware how of a respect all." He is grandfather system of ra

ty is to pay cipations) is sions, and Malthus in other, he bo to be, and ch which "the appeal to the traveller com three or four advised to su

tury shall der So in matter ton, and New millions of a attend to othe then the worl

founder our a

crepid old atn

as he designs it, a matter of ridicule and reproach, reflects nothing but honor on our country. We quote for the edification of our readers a part of the passage in question.

This irritable and exaggerated self love arises from a striking peculiarity in the foundation of an American's national vanity. Other nations boast of what they are or have been-but a true citizen of the United States exalts his head to the skies, in the contemplation of the FUTURE grandeur of his country. With him, the pride of pedigree is reversed. Others claim respect and honor, through a line of renowned ancestors; an American glories in the achievements of a distant posterity. Others appeal to history; an American to prophecy. The latter modestly calls on us to discount his predictions, and, on no better security, to hand him over the full amount of ready praise. His visions are like those of the Trojan prince in Elysium, gazing with anticipated rapture on the passing forms of his illustrious descendants. You must beware how you speak of a worthy native of Kentucky, as the son of a respectable planter. No, no, "you do'nt catch the thing at all." He is to be considered and duly venerated as the great grandfather of some immortal warrior, legislator, or poet. This system of raising a fictitious capital of renown, which his posterity is to pay off (an invention much resembling our financial anticipations) is the secret of an American's extraordinary pretensions, and of his soreness when they are not allowed. With Malthus in one hand, and a map of the back settlements in the other, he boldly defies us with a comparison of America, as she is to be, and chuckles with precocious exultation over the splendors which the geometrical ratio" is to shed upon her story. This appeal to the future is his never failing resource. If an English traveller complains of their inns, and hints his dislike to sleeping three or four in a bed, first he is a calumniator; and next he is advised to suspend his opinion of the matter, until another century shall demonstrate the superiority of their accommodations. So in matters of literature and science, if Shakspeare, and Milton, and Newton be named, we are told to "wait till these few millions of acres be cleared, when we shall have idle time to attend to other things, only wait till the year 1900 or 2000 and then the world shall see how much nobler our poets, and profounder our astronomers and longer our telescopes than that decrepid old atmosphere of yours could produce.""

This is very pleasant. We are not sure that it is meant for any thing more, and with pleasantry no one is ill-natured enough to enter strictly into judgment. If, however, the writer means to be believed for a moment as speaking truth,