l> J THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA IN MEMORY OF PROFESSOR EUGENE I. McCORMAC AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS WITH A CRITICAL SKETCH OF TRAVEL IN THE UNITED STATES. BY HENRY T. TUCKERMAN. Here the free spirit of mankind, at length Throws its last fetter* off: and who shall place A limit to the giant's unchained strength, Or curb bis swiftness In the forward race T For thou, ray country, thou shalt never fall, Save with thy children: Who shall then declare The date of thy deep-founded strength, or tell Bow happy, in thy lap, the son* of men sball dwell 7 BBYAHT: The A get. NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER, 124 GRAND STREET. 1864. ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by HENEY T. TUCKEEMAN, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. JOHN P. TROW, PEWTER, 8TEREOTYPEB, AND ELECTROTYPER, 46, 48, & 50 Greene St., New York. Tff PREFACE. THE object d this work is twofold to present a gen- eral view of the traits and transitions of our country, as recorded at different periods and by writers of various nationalities; and to afford those desirous of authentic information in regard to the United States a guide to the sources thereof. Incidental to and naturally growing out of this purpose, is the discussion of the comparative value and interest of the principal critics of our civilization. The present seems a favorable time for such a retrospective review ; and the need of popular enlightenment, both at home and abroad, as to the past development and present condition of this Republic, is universally acknowledged. There are special and obvious advantages in reverting to the past and examining the present, through the medium of the literature of American Travel. It affords striking contrasts, offers different points of view, and is the more suggestive because modified by national tastes. "We can thus trace physical and social development, normal and casual traits, through personal impressions ; and are un- consciously put on the track of honest investigation, made to realize familiar tendencies under new aspects, and, from the variety of evidence, infer true estimates. Moreover, some of these raconteurs are interesting characters either IV PREFACE. in an historical or literary point of view, and form an attractive biographical study. In a work intended to suggest rather than exhaust a subject so extensive, it has been requisite to dismiss briefly many books which, in themselves, deserve special consideration ; but whose scope is too identical with other and similar volumes de- scribed at length, to need the same full examination. It is not always the specific merits of an author, but the contrast he offers or the circumstances under which he writes, that have induced what might otherwise seem too elaborate a discussion of his claims. In a word, variety of subject and rarity of material have been kept in view, with reference both to the space awarded and the extracts given. The design of the work might, indeed, have been indefinitely extended ; but economy and suggestiveness have been chiefly considered. Many of the works discussed are inaccessible to the general reader ; others are prolix, and would not reward a consecutive perusal, though worthy a brief analysis ; while not a few are too superficial, and yield amusement only when the grains of wit or wisdom are separated from the predominant chaif. It is for these reasons, and in the hope of vindicating as well as illustrating the claims and character of our outraged nationality, that I have prepared this inadequate, but, I trust, not wholly unsatisfactory critical sketch of Travel in the United States. Those who desire to examine minutely the his- torical aspects of the prolific theme, will find, in the " Bibliotheca Americana " of Rich, a catalogue of an- cient works full of interest to the philosophical student. Another valuable list is contained in " Historical Nug- gets," a descriptive account of rare books relating to America, by Henry Stevens (2 vols., London, 1853)'; and the proposed " American Bibliographer's Manual," a dic- tionary of all works relating to America, by Joseph PREFACE. V Sabin, of Philadelphia, will, if executed with the care and completeness promised, supersede all other manuals, and prove of great utility. No fact is more indicative of. the increased interest in all that relates to our t country, than the demand for the earlier records of its life, prod- ucts, and history ; * while the foreign bibliography of the war for the Union, 'and the American record and discus- sions thereof, have been already collected or are in process of collection under Government auspices. f * " If the price of old books anent America, whether native or foreign, should continue to augment in value in the same ratio as they have done for the last thirty years, their prices must become fabulous, or, rather, like the books of the Sibyls, rise above all valuation. In the early part of the pres- ent century, the " Bay Hymn Book " (the first book printed in North Amer- ica), then an exceedingly rare book, no one would have supposed would bring $100 ; now, a copy was lately sold for nearly $600, and a perfect copy, at this time, would bring $1,000. Eliot's " Grammar of the Indian Tongues" was lately sold for $160 a small tract. The same author's version of the Scriptures into the Indian language could be purchased, fifty years ago, for $60 ; now it is worth $500. For Cotton Mather's " Magnalia Christi Americana," $6 was then thought a good price ; now, $50 is thought cheap for a good copy. Smith's " History of Virginia," $30 ; now $75. Stith's " History of Virginia," then $5, now $20. Smith's " History of New Jersey," then $2, now $20. Thomas's " History of Printing," then $2, now $15. Denton's " History of New Neth- erlands," $5, now $50. These are but a few out of many hundreds that could be named, that have risen from trifling to extraordinary prices, in the short space of half a century." Western Memorabilia. \ u The importance of this subject has been more directly brought to our notice in the examination of the foundation of a " Collection of European Opinion upon the War," now before Congress for the use of the members, and to be deposited in the Congress Library. This desirable collection is to com- prise the various pamphlets, speeches, debates, and brochures of all kinds that have appeared in reference to the war, from the attack on Fort Sumter to the present day, and to be continued to the end of the struggle. We have the leading editorials, arranged with great care in chronological order, from the most -powerful representatives of the public press in England, France, Germany, &c. ; also, the correspondence from both armies in the field, of the special agents sent for that purpose. The various opinions expressed by emi- nent military and naval writers upon our new inventions in the art of war will well deserve study ; and the horoscope of the future, not only in our own country, but in its influences upon the welfare of the Old World, should be carefully pondered over by all political economists." National Intelligencer. VI PKEFACE. Numerous as are the books of travel in and commen- taries on America ranging from the most shallow to the most profound, from the crude to the artistic, from the instructive to the impertinent so far is the subject from being exhausted, that we seem but now to have a clear view, of the materials for judgment, description, and analysis. It required the genius of modern communica- tion, the scientific progress, 'the humane enterprise, the historical development, and the social inspiration of our own day, to appreciate the problems which events will solve on this continent ; to understand the tendencies, record the phenomena, define the influences and traits, and realize the natural, moral, and political character and destiny of America. YORK, March, 1864. CONTENTS. FAG* INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER I. EARLY DISCOVERERS AND EXPLORERS 13 CHAPTER EL FRENCH MISSIONARY EXPLORATION. Hennepin; Menard; Allouez; Marquette; Charlevoix; Marest; etc.... 87 CHAPTER in. FRENCH TRAVELLERS AN? WRITERS. Chastellux ; L'Abbe Robin ; Duche ; Brissot de Warville ; Crevecoeur ; La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt ; Yolney ; Raynal 68 CHAPTER IV. FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS Continued. Rochambeau; Talleyrand; Segur; Chateaubriand; Michaux; Murat; Brillat-Savarin ; De Tocqueville ; De Beaumont; Ampere; Lafayette; Fisch ; De Gasparin ; Officers ; Laboulaye, etc 110 CHAPTER V. BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. Berkeley ; McSparran ; Mrs. Grant ; Burnaby ; Rogers ; Burke ; Doug- lass; Henry; Eddis; Anbury; Smythe 156 V1U CONTENTS. CHAPTER VI. BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS Continued. PAGB Wansey; Cooper; Wilson; Davis; Ashe; Bristed; Kendall; Weld; Cobbett ; Campbell ; Byron ; Moore ; Mrs. Wakefield ; Hodgson ; Janson ; Caswell ; Holmes and others ; Hall ; Fearon ; Fiddler ; Lyell ; Featherstonaugh ; Combe ; Female Writers ; Dickens ; Faux ; Hamilton ; Parkinson ; Mrs. Trollope ; Grattan ; Lord Carlisle ; Anthony Trollope ; Prentice ; Stirling 193 CHAPTER VII. ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMERICA 252 CHAPTER VIII. NORTHERN EUROPEAN WRITERS. Kalm ; Miss Bremer ; Gurowski, and others ; German Writers : Saxe- Weimar; Von Raumer; Prince Maximilian Von Wied; Lieber; Schultz. Other German Writers: Grund; Ruppius; Seatsfield; Kohl; Talvi; Schaff. 293 CHAPTER IX. ITALIAN TRAVELLERS. National Relations ; Verrazzano ; Castiglione ; D'AUessandro ; Capobian- co ; Salvatore Abbate e Migliori ; Pisani 334 CHAPTER X. AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. John and William Bartram ; Madame Knight ; Ledyard ; Carver ; Jef- ferson ; Imlay ; Dwight ; Coxe ; Ingersoll ; Walsh ; Paulding ; Flint; Clinton; Hall; Tudor; Wirt; Cooper; Hoffman; Olmsted; Bryant ; Government Explorations ; Washington ; Mrs. Kirkland ; Irving. American Illustrative Literature: Biography; History; Manuals ; Oratory ; Romance ; Poetry. Local Pictures : Everett, Hawthorne, Charming, etc 371 CHAPTER XL CONCLUSION. 438 INDEX . . . . 451 INTEODTJCTION. La Terre, says Fontenelle, est ume vieitte coquette. While in so many branches of authorship the interest of books is superseded by new discoveries in science and superior art and knowledge, honest and intelligent books of travel preserve their use and charm, because they describe places and people as they were at distinct epochs, and confirm or dissipate sub- sequent theories. The point of view adopted, the kind of sympathy awakened, the time and the character of the writer each or all give individuality to such works, when inspired by genuine observation, which renders them attractive as a reference and a memorial, and for purposes of comparison if not of absolute interest. Moreover the early travellers, or rather those who first record their personal experience of a country, naturally describe it in detail, and put on record their impressions with a candor rarely afterward imitated, because of that desire to avoid a beaten path which later writers feel. Hence, the most familiar traits and scenes are apt to be less dwelt upon, the oftener they are described ; and, for a complete and naive account, we must revert to' primitive travels, whose quaintness and candor often atone for any incongruities of style or old-fashioned prolixity. A country that is at all suggestive, either through associa- tion or intrinsic resources, makes a constant appeal to genius, to science, and to sympathy ; and offers, under each of these 1 2 INTRODUCTION. aspects, an infinite variety. Arthur Young's account of France, just before the Revolution, cannot be superseded ; Lady Montagu's account of Turkey is still one of the most complete ; and Dr. Moore's Italy is a picture of manners and morals of permanent interest, because of its contrast with the existent state of things. Indeed, that beautiful and unfortu- nate but regenerated land has long been so congenial a theme for scholars, and so attractive a nucleus for sentiment, that around its monuments and life the gifted and eager souls of all nations, have delighted to throw the expression of their conscious personality, from morbid and melancholy Byron to intellectual and impassioned De Stael, from Hans Andersen, the humane and fanciful Dane, to Hawthorne, the intro- spective New Englander. What Italy has been and is to the unappropriated sentiment of authors, America has been and is to unorganized political aspirations : if the one country has given birth to unlimited poetical, the other has suggest- ed a vast amount of philosophical speculation. Brissot, Cob- bett, and De Tocqueville found in the one country as genial a subject as Goethe, Rogers, and Lady Morgan in the other ; and while the latter offers a permanent background of art and antiquity, which forever identifies the scene, however the light and shade of the writer's experience may differ, so Nature, in her wild, vast, and beautiful phases, offers in the former an in- spiring and inexhaustible charm, and free institutions an ever- suggestive theme, however variously considered. The increase of books of this kind can, perhaps, be real- ized in no more striking way than by comparing the long catalogue of the present day with the materials available to the inquirer half a century ago. When Winterbotham, in 1795, undertook to prepare an " Historical, Geographical, Com- mercial, and Philosophical View of the United States " * to meet an acknowledged want in Europe, where so many, con- templating emigration to America, anxiously sought for ac- * Four vols. 8vo., with a series of maps, plates, portraits, &c., London, 1795. "A valuable record of the state of this continent at the end of the last century, selected from all accessible sources." INTRODUCTION. 3 curate knowledge, and often for local and political details, and where there existed so much misconception and such vision- ary ideas in regard to this country he cited the following writers as his chief resource for facts and principles of his- tory, government, social conditions, and statistics : the Abbe Raynal, Dr. Franklin, Robertson, Clavigero, Jefferson, Bel- knap, Adams, Catesby, Morse, Buffon, Gordon, Ramsay, Bar- tram, Cox, Rush, Mitchill, Cutler, Imlay, Filson, Barlow, Brissot, and Edwards. The authenticity of most of these writers made them, indeed, most desirable authorities ; but the reader who recalls their respective works will readily per- ceive how limited was the scope of such, considered as illus- trating the entire country. Dr. Belknap wrote of New Hampshire, Jefferson of Virginia, Bartram of Florida and a few other States ; Ramsay, Gordon, Adams, and Franklin fur- nished excellent political information ; but Morse's Geography was quite crude and limited, and Brissot's account of America was tinctured with his party views. We need not lose sight of the benefits which our early historical authors and natural- ists conferred, while we fully recognize the superior complete- ness and scientific insight of later and better-equipped authors. Dr. Belknap, it will ever be conceded, stands foremost as a primitive local historian, and benign is his memory as the indefatigable student of venerable records when the steeple of the Old South Church, in Boston, was his study ; while, as the founder of the Massachusetts Historical Society, every explorer of New England annals owes him a debt of grati- tude : yet his description of the White Mountains is more valuable for its early date than for those scientific and pic- turesque details which give such interest to the botanical researches of contemporary authors. The data furnished by Catesby and Bartram have still a charm and use for the savant who examines the flora and ichthyology of Florida and the Carolinas notwithstanding the splendid work of Agassiz ; and there are temporary aspects of life at the South noted by Paulding, which give emphasis to the more thorough statistics of Olmsted. 4 INTEODUCTION. To a philosophical reader, indeed, there are few more striking illustrations of character than the diverse trains of thought, sources of interest, and modes of viewing the same subject, which books of travel incidentally reveal : from Herodotus to Humboldt, the disposition and idiosyncrasies of the writers are as apparent as their comparative ability. There is, undoubtedly, great sameness in the numerous jour- nals, letters, and treatises of travellers on America ; only a few of them have any claim to originality, or seem animated by vital relations to the subject ; a specimen here and there represents an entire class ; and to analyze the whole would be wearisome ; yet, in all that bear the impress of discrimination and moral sen- sibility, there is evident the individuality of taste and purpose that belongs to all genuine human work ; and in this point of view these writings boast no common variety : each author looks at his theme through the lens to which his vision is habituated ; and hence we have results as diverse as the medium and the motive of the respective writers. It accords with Talleyrand's political tastes that the sight of Alexander Hamilton one of th.e wisest of the republican legislators should have been the most memorable incident of his exile in America : equally accordant with Ampere's literary sentiment was it that he should find a Dutch gable as attractive as Broadway, because it revived the genial humor of Irving's facetious History : Wilson and Charles Bonaparte found the birds, French officers the fair Quakers, English commercial travellers the manufactures and tariffs, English farmers the agriculture, Continental economists the prison and educational systems, Lyell the rocks and mines, Michaux the trees, sports- men the Western plains, and clerical visitors the sects and missions the chief attraction ; and while one pilgrim be- stows his most heartfelt reflections upon the associations of Mount Vernon, another has no sympathy for any scene or subject but those connected with slavery : this one is amus- ing in humorous exaggeration of the Connecticut Blue Laws, and that one extravagant in his republican zeal ; tobacco and maple sugar, intemperance and prairie hunting, reptiles and INTRODUCTION. 5 elections, the whale fishery and the Indians, manners and morals, occupy, in most unequal proportions, the attention of different writers ; an engineer praises the ingenuity and hardi- hood, while he deprecates the fragility of the " remarkable wooden bridges in America ; " an editor discourses of the in- fluence and abuse of the Press ; a horticulturist speculates on the prospects of the vine culture, and an economist on the destruction of the forests and the desultory system of farm- ing. Chambers, accustomed to cater for useful knowledge for the people, describes public establishments and schools ; while Kossuth's companion Pulskzy looks sharply at the " white, red, and black " races of the land, and speculates therefrom upon democracy and its results ; Lady Stuart Wortley enters into the sentiment of the scenery, and Miss Bremer into the details of domestic economy ; the Earl of Carlisle asks first for Allston's studio on landing, and, with the liberality of a scholar and a gentleman, elucidates the country he has partially but candidly observed, in a popular lecture ; while the Honorable Augustus Murray had too much rare sport in the West, and formed too happy a conjugal tie in America, not to have his recollections thereof, bright and kindly in the record. In a word, every degree of sympathy and antipathy, of refinement and vulgarity, of philosophi- cal insight and shallow impertinence is to be traced in these books of American travel from coarse malice to dull good nature, and from genial sense to repulsive bigotry. And while the field may appear to have been well reaped as re- gards the discussion of manners, government, and industrial resources recondite inquirers, especially the ethnologists, regard America as still ripe for the harvest. Years ago, Le Comte Carli * wrote to his cousin : " Je me propose de vous developper mes idees, ou, si vous le voulez, * " Lettres Americaines," 2 vols. 8vo., Paris, 1788. "In the first part, the author describes the manners and customs of the Americans before their country was discovered by Europeans. He also believes that traces of the religious rites of the Church of Rome were found among them, which resem- bled baptism and the communion of bread and wine." 6 INTRODUCTION. mes songes, concernant les anciens peuples de 1'Amerique que je crois descendus de ces antiques Atlantides si fameux dans 1'histoire des premiers temps." And, within a few months, a London critical journal has mercilessly ridiculed the Abbe Em. Domenech, who published his " Seven Years' Residence in the Great American Deserts ; " in the introduction to which he remarks : " America is not solely an El Dorado for free- booters and fortune seekers ; though few persons have gone thither to gather the fruits of science." He refers to the origin of the Indian tribes and the various theories on the subject, and alludes to the undoubted fact that " numerous emigrations took place at very remote periods ; " and adds : " Africa has become known to us, but America has still a vast desert to which missionaries, merchants, and some rare scientific expeditions have alone penetrated. Its history, its geography, and its geology are still wrapped in swaddling clothes. America is now, comparatively speaking, a new country, a virgin land, which contains numerous secrets. The Government of the United States, to its praise be it, have, of .late years, sent scientific expeditions into the Amer- ican Deserts ; " and he notes the publications of Schoolcraft, Catlin, and the Smithsonian Institute. We have first the old voyageurs in the collection of De Bry and his English prototype Ogilby the quaint, often meagre, but original and authentic records of the first explor- ers and navigators ; then, the diaries, travels, and memoirs of the early Jesuit missionaries ; next, the colonial pamphlets and reports, official, speculative, and incidental, including the series of controversial tracts and descriptions relating to New England and Virginia and other settlements ; the reports of the Quaker missionaries, the travels of French officers who took part in the Revolutionary War, and the long catalogue of English books from the colonial to the cockney era ; while the lives of the Spanish explorers, of the pioneers, the military adventurers, and the founders of colonies fill up and amplify the versatile chronicle. From Roger Williams's Key to the Indian Languages, to Sir Henry Clinton's annotations INTRODUCTION. 7 of Grahame's History of the American War, from De Vries to De Tocqueville, from Cotton Mather * to Mrs. Trollope, from Harmon's " Free Estate of Virginia," published in 1614, to Dr. Russell's fresh letters thence to the London Times ; from Champlain's voyage to Dickens's Notes, from Zenger's Trial f to the last report of the Patent Office the catalogue raisonnee of books of American travel, history, and criticism would include every phase of life, manners, creed, custom, develop- ment, and character, from the imperfect chart of unknown waters to the glowing photograph of manners in the analyt- ical nineteenth century. We find, in examining the library of American travels, that toleration is the charm that invests her to the heart yet bleeding from the wounds of relentless persecution ; and, in the elation of freedom, the page glows with eloquent gratitude even amid the plaints of exile. Mountains, rivers, cataracts, and caves make the child of romance pause and plead ; while gigantic fossil or exquisite coral reefs or a superb tree or rare flower win and warm the naturalist : one lingers in the Baltimore cathedral, another at the Moravian settlement at Bethlehem, and a third in a Uni- tarian chapel at Boston, according to their respective views ; while " equality of condition," small taxes, cheap land, or plentiful labor secures the advocacy of the practical; and solecisms in manners or language provoke the sarcasms of the fastidious. We derive from each and all of these commentators on our country, information, not otherwise obtainable, of the aspect of nature and the condition of the people, at different eras and in various regions : we thus realize the process of national * Cotton Mather's " Magnalia Christ! Americana ; or, the Ecclesiastical History of New England," 2 vols. 8vo., first American ed., Hartford, 1820. f " A Brief Narrative of the Case and Trial of John P. Zenger, Printer of the New York 'Weekly Journal,' for a Libel," 4to., pp. 53, New York, 1770. Governeur Morris, instead of dating American liberty from the Stamp Act, traced it to the prosecution of Peter Zenger, a printer in the colony of New York, for an alleged libel : because that event revealed the philosophy of freedom, both of thought and speech, as an inborn human right, so nobly set forth in Milton's treatise on unlicensed printing. 8 INTRODUCTION. development ; trace to their origin local peculiarities ; behold the present by the light of the past ; and, in a manner, iden- tify ourselves with those to whom familiarity had not blunted the impression of scenes native to ourselves, and social traits or political tendencies too near for us to view them in their true moral perspective. It may therefore prove both useful and interesting, suggestive and entertaining, to follow the steps and listen to the comments of these numerous travellers and critics, and so learn better to understand, more justly to appreciate and wisely love the land of our birth, doubly dear since fratricidal hands have desecrated her fame. After colonial enterprise, republican sympathy, economical zeal, the satirical, the adventurous, and the scientific had thus successively reported to Europe the condition and prospects, the errors and merits of our country, in the height of her material prosperity, broke out the long-matured Rebellion of the Slaveholders ; and while a vast and sanguinary civil war tested to the utmost, the moral and physical resources of the nation, it called forth a new, more earnest and significant criticism abroad. To analyze this would be to discuss the entire foreign bibliography of the war for the Union. We can but glance at its most striking features and important phenomena. The first lesson to be inferred from the most cursory sur- vey of what has been published in Europe on what is there called " the American Question," is the immense and intricate influence and relations which now unite the New to the Old World. Commerce, emigration, political ideas, social inter- ests, literature, science, and religion have, one and all, con- tinued to weave strong mutual ties of dependence and re- ciprocity between Europe and America, to realize the extent and vital importance of which we have only to compare the issues of the European press for a single week with the sparse and obscure publications whereby the foreigner, a century ago, learned what was going on or likely to be achieved for humanity on the great western continent. This voluminous and impressive testimony as to the essential importance of INTRODUCTION. 9 America to Europe, is quite as manifest in the abuse as in the admiration, in the repulsion as the sympathy of foreign wri- ters, during the memorable conflict ; for selfish fear, interested motives, or base jealousy inspired their bitter comments far more than speculative indifference ; while those in a disinter- ested position, actuated solely by philosophical and humane impulses, elaborately pleaded the cause of our national life and integrity as involved in the essential welfare of the civil- ized world. Next to this universal acknowledgment of a mutual stake in the vast conflict, perhaps for us the most sin- gular revelation derived from the foreign discussion of our civil and military affairs has been that of the extraordinary ignorance of the country existing abroad. Apart from wilful political and perverse prejudice, this popular ignorance is doubtless the, cause and the excuse for much of the patent injustice and animosity exhibited by the press toward the United States. The rebellious government organized a social mission to Europe, whereby they forestalled public opinion and artfully misrepresented facts : so that it has been a slow process to enlighten the leaders of opinion, a^d counteract the work of mercenary writers in France and England sub- sidized at the earliest stage of the war. But with all due allowance for want of knowledge and the assiduity of paid advocates of error, through all the pas- sion, prejudice", and mercenary hardihood which have given birth to so much falsehood, malice, and inhumanity in the foreign literary treatment of our national cause in this stupen- dous crisis and climax of social and civil life we can yet dis- tinctly trace the influence and recognize the work of friend and foe in the recent avalanche of new commentators on America: their motives become daily more obvious, their legitimate claims more apparent, and their just influence bet- ter appreciated. History has in store for the most eminent an estimate which will counteract any undue importance attached to their dicta by the acute sensibilities of the passing time, so " big with fate." In an intellectual point of view, the course of English writers is already defined and explained 1* 10 INTRODUCTION. to popular intelligence : the greater part of their insane ill will and perverse misrepresentation being accredited to polit- ical jealousy and prejudice, and therefore of no moral value ; while the evidence of bribery and corruption robs another large amount of vituperation and false statement of all rational significance ; while the more prominent and powerful expositors, as far as position, capacity, and integrity are con- cerned, are, to say the least, not so unequally divided as to cause any fear that truth and justice lack able and illustrious defenders : in the political arena, Roebuck's vulgar anathemas were more than counterbalanced by the sound and honest reasoning of Cobden and the logical eloquence of Bright ; while we could afford to bear the superficial sneers of Carlyle, more of an artist than a philosopher in letters, and the un- worthy misrepresentations of Lord Brougham, senilely aris- tocratic and unsympathetic, while the vigorous thinker and humanely scientific reformer John Stuart Mill so clearly, consistently, and effectively pleaded the claims of our free nationality. And in France, how vain in the retrospect seem the venal lucubrations of pamphleteers and newspaper con- tributors arrayed against the Government and people of the United States when fighting for national existence and against the perpetuity and canonization of the greatest of human wrongs when, in the lecture room of the College of France, the gifted and erudite Edouard Laboulaye expounds the grand and rightful basis of our Constitution, and in the salons of the same metropolis scatters his wit-kindled pages in vindica- tion of our social privileges and civic growth ; and, at the French Academy, Montalembert thus opens his discourse : " Gentlemen, eighty years have elapsed since M. Montyon con- fided to the French Academy the mission of crowning not only lite- rary works useful to morals, but virtuous deeds. It was in the year 1782; at the moment when the peace of America commenced to recompense the glorious cooperation which France had lent to the emancipation of the United States and to the birth of a great free peo- ple, whose greatness and whose liberty shall never perish, if it please God, in the formidable trials ichich it is passing through to-day. Louis XVI. INTRODUCTION. 11 showed himself still animated by the wisdom which had called Male- sherbes and Turgot to his counsels. The Queen Marie Antoinette had given birth to her firstborn ; Madame Elizabeth of France was in her eighteenth year, illuminating Versailles with her virginal graces and her angelic piety that Elizabeth whose bust you see before you, presented by M. Montyon himself, with the inscription * To Virtue,' of which she seemed the most perfect and touching type. Liberty then seemed to rise up pure and fruitful in Europe as in America, and our ancient royalty to be steeped in a new fountain of youth, pop- ularity, and virtue. " How many miscalculations, ruins, and disasters, above all, how many crimes and humiliating failures, since these days of generous illusion, of legitimate enthusiasm and blind confidence ! How many cruel lessons inflicted upon the noblest aspirations of the human heart ! How many motives for not surrendering themselves to the most reasonable hopes except with a salutary humility, but however, without ever abdicating the indissoluble rights of human liberty or banishing to the land of chimeras the noble ambition of governing men by honor and conscience ! " The new comments on America elicited by the war are threefold : first, political speeches ; second, newspaper com- mentaries ; and third, treatises deliberately written and pub- lished. Of the first, the greater part are unavoidably ephem- eral in their influence, and usually called forth by a special phase of the war in its international relations ; the second, especially as regards the leading journal in Great Britain and most famous in the world, have sunk to the lowest conceivable level as a medium of authentic information and a mercenary agency ; in the third department alone has anything of a com- plete and permanent interest been introduced ; and there are pages of De Gasparin, Laboulaye, Mill, Cairnes, Newman, Cochin, and Martin, which deserve to be enshrined as literary illustrations of Christian liberalism and eloquent loyalty to truth and humanity in the defence and illustration of Ameri- can liberty, law, and life, in their magnanimous conflict with injustice, degradation, and cruel sacrilege. When Lafayette, nearly half a century ago, received at the hands of the nation in whose behalf he had fought in his youth, the greatest pop- ular ovation ever granted to a hero, he thus alluded to the 12 INTRODUCTION. Union in one of his replies to the municipal welcomes that greeted his entrance into every city of the land : "A Union, so essential, not only to the fate of each member of the confederacy, but also to the general fate of mankind, that the least breach of it would be hailed with barbarian joy by a universal war- whoop of European aristocracy and despotism." It was in reply to this base " war whoop " that the writers we have mentioned, so eloquently and seasonably advocated the cause and character of our nation. . One of the most curious and interesting of the countless subjects which the history of our memorable conflict will yield to future philosophical investigation, will be its literary fruit and record the bibliography of the war and of this the foreign contributions will afford some remarkable and brilliant specimens. If to ourselves, as a nation, the war for the Union has been a test of extraordinary scope and intensity developing a military and scientific genius, a sanitary enter- prise, an extent of financial resources, a capacity for self-sacri- fice and self-reliance undreamed of in our prior experience ; if it has tested personal character and modified social estimates, and tried absolutely the comparative worth and latent force of our institutions and national sentiment, not less has it tested the political magnanimity, the press, the prejudices, the social philosophy, and humane instincts of Europe ; and if the crisis has evoked much that is mean and mortifying in the spirit of those old communities in their feelings toward our young republic in the bitter hour when the pangs of a second birth are rending her vitals, so also has it called forth memor- able, benign, noble words of cheer and challenge from volun- teer champions of America abroad, in the foremost ranks of her best and most honest thinkers, lovers of truth, and repre- sentatives of humanity. CHAPTEE I. EARLY DISCOVERERS AND EXPLORERS. FROM the time when the existence of this continent was but conjectural to the European mind, and recognized as a fact of nature only in the brain of a poor Genoese mariner, it was looked to, thought of, imagined chiefly in its relation to the Old World, as the completion and resource of her civil- ization a new opportunity, a fresh arena. Gold seekers, * indeed, were prompted to gaze hither by mere cupidity, and Columbus nearly lost his long-solicited aid from the Spanish sovereigns by insisting on hereditary privileges of rule and possession in case of success ; but the idea that warmed the generous purpose of Isabella was the conversion to Chris- tianity of the heathen tribes of America, and the extension of Catholic rule in the world. No candid thinker can look back upon the period of the discovery without tracing a wonderful combination of events and tendencies of humanity, whereof this land seems the foreordained and inevitable goal and consequence. It cannot appear to the least imaginative and philosophical mind as an accident, that the zeal for mari- time discovery should have awakened in Europe simultaneous- ly with the access of new social truth, the sudden progress of * " Les chercheurs d'or out commence, ni voulant qu'or, rien de plus brisant i'homme, Colomb, le meilleur de tous, dans son propre journal, montre cela avec une naivete terrible, qui d'avance, fait fremir de ce que fefont ses successeurs." MICHELET. 14: AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. ideas, and the triumph of mechanical genius. With the fifteenth century the " civilization of the sanctuary " over- leaped its long exclusive boundaries, and, with the invention of printing, became a normal need and law of humanity ; feudalism waned ; the Reformation awoke and set free the instinct of faith and moral freedom ; and just at this crisis a new world was opened, a fresh sphere afforded. As the idea of " geographical unity " the conviction that " the globe wanted one of its hemispheres " was the inspiration of Colum- bus, so to the eye of the thoughtful observer, an equilibrium of the moral world a balance to the human universe was as obvious and imperative a necessity ; for the new ideas and the conflict of opinions and interests, and especially the new and absolute self-assertion, incident to the decay of error and the escape from traditional degradation, made it indispensable to the safety of the innovator, the freedom of the thinker, the scope of the dissenter and reformer, to find refuge and audience in a land whose destinies yet lay undeveloped in the wild freedom of nature, and where prowess of mind as well as of animal courage could work into " victorious clearness " the confused problems of an aspiring civilization, and lay the foundation of an eclectic, liberal, and free community of men " a wider theatre and a new life." Accordingly, with the progress of time and the accumula- tion of historical details, with the profound analysis thereof that characterizes modern research the decline of feudal and ecclesiastical sway in Europe, the Reformation, and the inven- tion of printing are seen to have an intimate relation to and affinity with the discovery of America, in the series of historical events which have resulted in the civilization of the nineteenth century. Nor is this original association of the New and Old World without a vague physical parallel ; for it has been a favorite scientific speculation that there was an ancient union or proximity of the two continents suggested by the fact that the eastern shore of America advances where the opposite shore of Europe recedes. " Firstborn among the continents," says Agassiz, " though so much later in culture and civiliza- EARLY DISCOVERERS AND EXPLORERS. 15 tion than some of more recent birth, America, as far as her physical history is concerned, has been falsely denominated the New World." " America," says Hitter, " although it repeats the contrasts of the Old World, yet the course of its mountain chains is riot from east to west, but from north to south. Its sea coast best endowed with harbors an, is far from giving them a tone of simplici- ty and candor ; they in general assume a smooth and whee- dling tone, which is altogether Jesuitical." Philadelphia, it would appear from the experience of the Marquis, was as famous then as now for its market and household comfort ; for he expresses a fear lest the " pleasures of Capua should FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 67 make him forget the campaigns of Hannibal ; " be therefore determines to leave the luxury of the city, and explore the recent battle fields of Germantown and Brandywine. The public beneficence of Philadelphia, as indicated by the endowment of hospitals and corrective institutions, had al- ready become a marked feature ; but the Marquis comments on a defect, soon after remedied the absence of a public walk. Milton, Addison, and Richardson he found the authors chiefly read by the young women ; and so universal was the interest in and knowledge of civic affairs, that he declares that " all American conversation must finish with politics." His winter journey to Saratoga was a formidable undertak- ing, or would have been to a gentleman unfamiliar with the hardy discipline of the camp ; its principal episodes of interest were the view of Cohoes Falls, and a visit to General Schuy- ler, just after the marriage of his daughter with Hamilton ; he inspected some interesting documents revealing the actual condition of Canada, and expatiates on the novel excitement and exposure of what he calls a " sledge ride." With the present byway scenery of the railroad which intersects the central part of New York State, it is instructive to read his account of that region, through which, by slow stages, he penetrated from town to fort and through a snow-shrouded wilderness. " The country," he tells US, B " which lies between Albany and Schenectady, is nothing but an immense forest of pine trees, untouched by the hatchet. They are lofty and robust ; and, as nothing grows in their shade, a line of cavalry might traverse the wood without breaking their line or defil- ing." Schenectady contained then but five hundred houses " within the palisades ; " diverging from his road, he visited a Mohawk settlement, a few straggling descendants of which tribe the traveller of to-day still encounters, in that vicinity, among the peddling habitues of the railway cars. He also saw, on the way to Fort Edward, the house formerly the home of the unfortunate Jane McRea; startled a bevy of quails, and, at a wayside inn, saw a girl " whom Greuze would have been happy to have taken as a model ; " while, on his 68 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS. chamber table, he found an abridgment of Newton's Philoso- phy, and discovered that his landlord, a surveyor by profes- sion, and incessantly occupied in measuring land, was well versed in Physics. The Marquis, after thus journeying through the northern section of the country, observing its peculiarities, seeking the acquaintance of its leading men, and visiting the scenes of the war, yet fresh in association and destined to become memorably historical, rejoined the French army then stationed at Newport, R. I., whence, after a brief interval, he started on a Southern expedition. The Marquis thus records his method of setting out on a journey into Virginia, eighty-four years ago : " On the eighth of the month I set out with Mr. Lynch, then my aide-de-camp and adj utant, now general ; Mr. Frank Dillon, my second aide, and Mons. la Chevalier d'Oyre, of the engineers, six servants, and a led horse composed our train ; so that our little caravan consisted of four masters, six servants, and eleven horses." At the very outset of the expedition he notes that capricious state of the climate which in our country so often blends the aspect of different seasons ; writing of the month of April, he says : " I regretted to find summer in the heavens, while the earth afforded not the smallest appearance of spring;" the devastations of war were yet fresh ; he sojourned at a house which " had been pillaged by the English ; they had taken the very boots off the owner's legs." On this journey he first made acquaintance with a mocking bird, and gives a lively description of its performance : " Apparently delighted at having an auditor, it kept hopping from branch to branch, and imitated the jay, lapwing, raven, cardinal, &c." He finds " a garden in the English style ; " court houses usually in the cen- tre of counties ; daughters of the isolated planters, " pretty nymphs, more timid and wild than Diana ; " and, approaching the South, observes a different kind of popular amusement and of traffic than prevailed in New England, especialy cock fight- ing and horse trading ; he is struck with the conjugal epithet of his landlord, who calls his wife " honey," which he regards as synonymous with the French term of endearment mon petit FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 69 coeur ; with him the transition from gallant to economical details is easy, and, traversing the then sparsely inhabited region comprised within and around the State of Virginia, he observes the frequent instances, among the inhabitants, of "patriarchal agriculture, which consists in producing only what is sufficient for their own consumption ; " and remarks that " nails are the articles most wanted in these new colo- nies ; for the axe and saw can supply every other want." He visits Monticello, a name signifying little mountain, though he finds it a big one, and the house of Jefferson " in the Italian style, and more architectural than any in the coun- try ; " while the master thereof elicits all his enthusiasm : " Let me describe," he writes, " a man not yet forty tall, and with a mild and pleasant countenance ; but whose mind and understanding are ample substitutes for every exterior grace ; an American who, without ever having quitted his own country, is at once a musician, skilled in drawing, a natural philosopher, legislator, and statesman. Before I had been two hours with him, we were as intimate as if we had passed our whole lives together ; walking, books, but, above all, conversation always varied and interesting, made four days pass away like so many minutes." The twain grew elo- quent about Ossian over a bowl of punch, and speculated upon the genus of American deer, which Jefferson fed with Indian corn, and the Marquis describes as half roebuck and half English deer. They also engaged in a meteorological discussion, and expatiated on the advantages for observations in this then embryo science, afforded by the extent and va- riety of the American climate. . Jefferson stated some inter- esting results of his observations as to the effect of woods in breaking clouds and absorbing exhalations. Political and social questions were not forgotten by the two philosophers : " A Virginian," writes the Marquis, " never resembles a Euro- pean peasant ; he is always a freeman, participates in the gov- ernment, and has the command of a few negroes, so that, uniting in himself the two qualities of citizen and master, he perfectly resembles the bulk of individuals who formed what 70 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. were called the ' people ' in the ancient republics." He also expresses the conviction that " the dignity of man is rela- tive ; " and is struck with the superior riflemen of the Vir- ginia militia ; he finds novel sport in shooting a wood hen, and discovers quite an ideal rustic in the person of a hand- some miller : " He was a young man, twenty-two years of age, whose charming face, fine teeth, red lips, and rosy cheeks recalled to mind the pleasant portrait which Marmontel gives of Lubin." The alternation of pastoral, patriarchal, and aris- tocratic manners, the aboriginal traditions, the grand econom- ical resources observed, and frequent personal discomfort ex- perienced, offered to his thoughtful, susceptible, and adventu- rous mind constant subjects of interest a vivid contrast with the society and condition of the Old World, a freshness and freedom combined with hardihood and privation, an originality of character and vast promise for humanity ; the primitive and the cultivated elements of life were brought into frequent contact ; and the urbane and intelligent French officer seems to have had an eye and a heart for all around him suggestive of the past or prophetic of the future. By a most toilsome and perplexing access, he visited the Natural Bridge of Vir- ginia ; delighted with this wonderful structure, he measured its dimensions with care, and speculated upon its formation with curiosity ; it excited in his mind a kind of " melancholy admiration." Another characteristic scene which impressed him was a conflagration in the woods a feature of the landscape which, to his European vision, was ever fraught with interest ; he records his appreciation of the " strong, robust oaks and im- mense pines, sufficient for all the fleets of Europe," which " here grow old and perish on their native soil." He is much struck with the cheerful spirit with which emigration goes on in the New World, when he encounters, in the lonely wild, a buoyant adventurer " with only a horse, saddle bags, cash to buy land, and a young wife ; " of the latter he observes : " I saw, not without astonishment, that her natural charms were even embellished by the serenity of her mind." The FRENCH TEAYELLER8 AND WRITERS. importance to a traveller of a love of nature and an eye for character, is signally manifest in the American travels of Chastellux. To one destitute of these resources the journey thus described would have been irksome, through its mo- notony and discomfort. But the vivacious and amiable French officer found novelty in the wild creatures, the vegeta- tion, and the people he encountered ; he was constantly alive to the fact that he was traversing a new country, and there- fore bound to observe all its phases ; it is surprising how much he discovered to awaken pleasant memories of his studies and experience in Europe ; how the charms of nature suggested reminiscences of art, and the individuality of char- acter recalled the celebrities of other eras and climes. A vul- gar mind, an ignorant man, would have hastened through the rude domain, and sought amusement only in the more settled and populous districts ; but the resources and character of the country, the eminent among its inhabitants, their sacred struggle for freedom, and the vast possibilities incident to such an extent of territory and to a great political experiment, quickened the sympathies and enlisted the careful observation of the cultivated soldier. The rabbit that runs across his woodland path, the delicate pink blossoms of the peach trees in a settler's orchard, the novel sight of a marmoset caught by the way, a fat and original landlord, tobacco " as a circulating medium," and the magnificent prospect from the summit of the Blue Ridge, suffice to occupy and interest. A fair Vir- ginian recalls to his mind " those beautiful Virgins of Raph- ael ; " he is agreeably surprised at the opportunity of prac- tising Italian with a cook of that nation he finds in a Rich- mond inn, and is eloquent in describing the humming bird, and precise in delineating the sturgeon ; repeats the story of Pocahontas amid the local traditions that endear her memory, and thinks one " must be fatigued with hearing the name of Randolph while travelling in Virginia." It would appear that " young America " was as real then as now : " The youth of both sexes," he says, " are more forward and ripe than with us ; and our maturity is more prolonged." Still he finds 72 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. special charms in the Old Dominion, and thinks the inhabit- ants of Virginia best situated of all the colonists under the English Government. " The' Government," he adds, " may become democratic at the present moment ; but the national character, the spirit of the Government itself, will always be aristocratic ; it was originally a ' company ' composed of the men most distinguished for their rank and birth." He appre- ciates the diversity of political origin and local character in the different sections of the country ; observing that New England was settled "to escape arbitrary power" New York and the Jerseys by necessitous Dutchmen, " who occu- pied themselves more about domestic economy than the pub- lic government ; " that of Pennsylvania he considers a " gov- ernment of property feudal, or, if you will, patriarchal." He describes the domestic luxury of the Virginians as con- sisting in " furniture, linen, and plate, in which they resemble our ancestors, who had neither cabinets nor wardrobes in their castles, but contented themselves with a well-stored cellar and a handsome buffet" In analyzing their domestic life, he makes the just and suggestive remark, " they are very fond of their infants, but care little for their children" which trait, in a measure, explains the facility with which families dis- perse, and the early separation of households, wherein our civilization is so different from that of the Old World. It is both curious and instructive, at this moment, when her soil has been stained and furrowed by contending armies, which rebellious slaveholders evoked by violence because of an indi- rect and legitimate interference with " property in man," to note the calm statement of this disinterested traveller, after free intercourse with all classes of Virginians, eighty years ago : " They seem afflicted," he writes, " to have any slavery, and are constantly talking of abolishing it, and of contriving some other means of cultivating their estates ; " the motives thereto, he says, are various young men being thus disposed from "justice and the rights of humanity," while "fathers complain that the maintenance of their negroes is very ex- pensive." FEENCH TEAVELLEES AND WEITEES. 73 The Marquis, in a subsequent journey, after visiting Con- cord, made a careful observation of Dorchester and Bunker Hill ; and, in reference to the battle at the latter place, he remarks that " without the protection of the shipping, the British could not have embarked to return from Bunker Hill ; the little army in Boston would, in that case, have been almost totally destroyed, and the town must, of course, have been evacuated. But what would have been the result of this ? Independence was not then declared, and the road to negotia- tion was still open ; an accommodation might have taken place between the colonies and the mother country, and animosities might have subsided." While at Portsmouth, N. H., on Sun- day, he attended church, and heard the father of one of Bos- ton's most endeared young divines ; his comment on the dis- course is characteristic both of the writer and of the times : " The audience was not numerous, on account of the severe cold ; but I saw some handsome women, elegantly dressed. Mr. Buckminster. a young minister, spoke with a great deal of grace, and reasonably enough for a preacher. I could not help admiring the address with which he introduced politics into his sermon." One of those old-fashioned brick dwellings, with front yard, wide portal, and broad staircase, wherein of yore abode the colonial aristocracy of New England, still stands, with its venerable trees, in this pleasant town ; and is still the abode of genial hospitality ; there our traveller " drank tea at Mr. Langdon's ; " and, impressed with the pros perous situation and evident wealth of the place, he declares " there is every appearance of its becoming to New England what the other Portsmouth is to old." To those familiar with the old localities and associations of Boston, it is not un- interesting to know, from the journal of the Marquis, that, when, in 1782, he visited the metropolis of New England, he first " alighted at Mr. Brackett's, the Cromwell's Head inn ; and, after dinner, w^ent to the lodgings proposed for me, at Mr. Colson's, a glover, in the Main street." In the evening he attended the " association ball," which, he tells us, " was opened by the Marquis de Vaudreuil with Mrs. Temple ; and 4 74 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. that " the prettiest of the women dancers were Mrs. Jarvis, her sister Mrs. Betsy Broom, and Mrs. Whitmore." He calls on Hancock, who is too ill with the gout to see him ; but is more fortunate in finding Dr. Willard, president of Cam- bridge University ; he meets Mrs. Tudor, Mrs. Morton, and Mrs. Swan at a party ; drinks tea with Mrs. Bowdoin, and finds the younger lady of that name " has a mild and agree- able countenance, and a character corresponding with her appearance ; " he dines with Mr. Breck ; of Mrs. Temple he writes : " Her figure is so distinguished as to make it neces- sary to pronounce her truly beautiful ; " and describes a girl of twelve he meets at the house of one of his Boston acquaint- ance as " neither a handsome child nor a pretty woman, but rather an angel ; " he notes " feather beds " as a local pecu- liarity ; and praises the skill of Dr. Jarvis, and the wisdom of Dr. Cooper. The Marquis of Chastellux, as we have seen, took leave of Washington at Newburgh, in the " parlor on the right " as you enter the low-roofed stone farmhouse, now preserved there as national property, and consecrated as the "head- quarters " of our peerless chief ; " it is not difficult," writes the French officer, " to imagine the pain this separation gave me ; but I have too much pleasure in recollecting the real tenderness with which it affected him, not to take a pride in mentioning it." If an ardent yet judicious appreciation of his character merited such regrets at parting, few of his foreign friends deserved it more than Chastellux, whose written por- trait of the American leader was the most elaborate and dis- criminating of contemporary delineations ; familiar as it is, we cannot better take leave of the courteous and intelligent nobleman and soldier than by quoting it : "Here would be the proper place to give the portrait of General "Washington ; but what can my testimony add to the idea already formed of him? The continent of North America, from Boston to Charleston, is a great volume, every page of which presents his eulo- gium. I know that having had the opportunity of a near inspection, and of closely observing him, some more particular details may be FEENCH TEAVELLEES AND WEITEES. 75 expected from me ; but the strongest characteristic of this respected man is the perfect union which reigns between the physical and moral qualities which compose the individual : one alone will enable you to judge of all the rest. If you are presented with medals of Caesar, of Trajan, or Alexander, on examining their features you will be led to ask what was their stature and the form of their persons : but, if you discover in a heap of ruins the head or the limb of an an- tique Apollo, be not anxious about the other parts, but rest assured that they were all conformable to those of a god. Let not this com- parison be attributed to enthusiasm. I wish only to express the im- pression General Washington has left on my mind ; the idea of a perfect whole which cannot be the product of enthusiasm, but would rather reject it, since the effect of proportion is to diminish the idea of greatness. Brave without temerity, laborious without ambition, generous without prodigality, noble without pride, virtuous without severity he seems always to have confined himself within those limits where the virtues, by clothing themselves in more lively but less changeable and doubtful colors, may be mistaken for faults. This is the seventh year that ho has commanded the army, and that he has obeyed the Congress ; more need not be said, especially in America, where they know how to appreciate all the merit contained in" this simple fact. Let it be repeated that Cond6 was intrepid, Tu- renne prudent, Eugene adroit, Catinat disinterested. It is not thus that Washington will be characterized. It will be said of him, at the end of a long civil war, he had nothing with which he could reproach himself. If anything can be more marvellous than such a character it is the unanimity of the public suffrages in his favor. Soldier, magistrate, people all love and admire him ; all speak of him in terms of tenderness and veneration. Does there then exist a virtue capable of restraining the injustice of mankind, or a glory and hap- piness too recently established in America for Envy to have deigned to pass the seas ? " In speaking of this perfect whole, of which General Washington furnishes the idea, I have not excluded exterior form. His stature is noble and lofty ; he is well made and exactly proportioned ; his physiognomy mild and agreeable, but such as to render it impossible to speak particularly of any of his features, so that, in quitting him, you have only the recollection of a fine face. He has neither a grave nor a familiar air; his brow is sometimes marked with thought, but never with inquietude ; in inspiring respect, he inspires confidence, and his smile is always the smile of benevolence." Nor did the Marquis fail to remember his American friends and advocate their country when returned to his 76 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATOBS. own. He translated the Address to the American Armies, written in heroic verse, in 1782, by Colonel Humphreys ; and, in a letter to Franklin, dated at Paris, June 21st, 1786, he says : " When you were in France there was no need praising the Americans ; for we had only to say, ' Look, here is their repre- sentative.' But, however worthily your place may have since been filled, it is not unreasonable to arouse anew the interest of a kind-hearted but thoughtless nation. Such has been my motive in translating Colonel Humphrey's poem. My success has fully equalled and even surpassed my expectations. Not only has the public received the work with favor, but it has succeeded perfectly at court, especially with the king and queen, who have praised it highly." L'Abbe Robin was a chaplain in the Count Rochambeau's army. He writes in the same genial strain as most of his countrymen, with the peculiar kind of observation and tone of sentiment which marks almost all French travels. He was touched and repelled, at the same time, by the domestic life of New England its religious teachings and exemplary duti- fulness ; while he laments the fragile beauty of her daughters, and speaks of rum as the commodity which served as a con- necting link between Yankeeland and the French colonies. Sunday in the Puritan capital, impresses him strongly, and he discovers, by the dates on the tombstones, that the women there are short lived; the following letter, dated Boston, 14th June, 1781, is a fair specimen of the Abbe's manner of viewing things, while it is a curious picture of the " hub of the universe " eighty years ago : " At last, after two more days of anxiety and peril, and of sickness to me, a favorable breeze sprang up and brought us safely into the roadstead of Boston. In this roadstead, studded with pleasant islands, we saw, over the trees on the west, the houses rising amphitheatre- like, and forming along the hillsides a semicircle of nearly half a league ; this was the town of Boston. " The high regular buildings, intermingled with steeples, appear- ed to us more like a long-established town of the continent than that of a recent colony. The view of its interior did not dissipate the opinion which .was formed at first sight. A fine mole or pier projects FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 77 into the harbor about two thousand feet, and shops and warehouses line its whole length. It communicates at right angles with the prin- cipal street of the town, which is long and wide, curving round to- ward the water ; on this street are many fine houses of two and three stories. The appearance of the buildings seems strange-to European eyes ; being built entirely of wood, they have not the dull and heavy appearance which belongs to those of our continental cities ; they are regular and well lighted, with frames well joined, and the outside covered with slight, thinly-planed boards, overlapping each other somewhat like the tiles upon our roofs. The exterior is generally painted of a grayish color, which gives an agreeable aspect to the view. " The furniture is simple ; sometimes of costly wood, after the English fashion ; the rich covering their floors with woollen carpets or rush matting, and others with fine sand. " The town contains about six thousand houses, or nearly thirty thousand inhabitants, with nineteen churches of all denominations. Some of the churches are very fine, especially those of the Presbyte- rian and Episcopal societies. They are generally oblong, ornamented with a gallery and furnished with pews throughout, so that the poor as well as the rich may hear the gospel with much comfort. " The Sabbath is here observed with much rigor. All kinds of business, however important, cease ; and even the most innocent pleasures are not allowed. The town, so full of life and bustle during the week days, becomes silent like the desert on that day. If one walks the streets, he scarcely meets a person ; and if perchance he does, he will hardly dare to stop and speak. "A countryman of mine, lodging at the same inn with me, took it into his head one Sunday to play a little upon his flute ; but the neighborhood became so incensed that our landlord was obliged to acquaint him with their uneasiness. " If you enter a house, you will generally find each member of the household engaged in reading the Bible ; and it is a very interesting and touching sight to see a parent, surrounded by his family, reading and explaining the sublime truths of the sacred volume. " If you enter a temple of worship, you find a perfect stillness reigns, and an order and behavior which are not found generally in our Catholic churches. " The singing of the Psalms is slow and solemn, and the words of the hymns being in their native tongue, serves to increase the inter- est and engage the attention of the worshippers. The churches are without ornament of any kind ; nothing there speaks to the mind or heart ; nothing to recall to man why he comes there, or what shall- Y8 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS. be his hope of the future. Sculpture and painting trace no sacred events there to remind him of his duties or awaken his gratitude." His Nbuveau Voyage dans VAmerique Septentrionale en Vannee 178\l-, consists of thirteen letters, which were published in Paris in 1782. Of Boston trade at the period he says : "The commerce of the Bostonians embraced many objects, and was very extensive before the war. They furnished Great Britain with masts and yards for the royal navy. They constructed by commission, or on their account, a great number of merchant vessels, renowned for their superior speed. In short, their construc- tion is so light that it is not necessary to be a great connoisseur to distinguish their vessels in the midst of those of other nations. Those which they freighted at their own expense were loaded, for the American islands or for Europe, with timber, clapboards, pitch, tar, turpentine, rosin, cattle and swine, and some peltry. But their principal article of commerce was the codfish which they found near their coast, and particularly in the Bay of Massachusetts. This fish- ery amounted to fifty thousand quintals, which they exported to the other New England provinces, and even to Spain, Italy, and the Med- iterranean. Those of the poorest quality were destined for the ne- groes of the islands. They employ a large number of men, who make excellent mariners. The province of Massachusetts, which has a poor soil, will always be powerful, owing to this branch of commerce ; and if one day this new continent spreads its formidable forces upon the sea, it is Boston that will first advance. In exchange for this mer- chandise, they bring back the wines of Madeira, Malaga, and Oporto, which they prefer to ours, on account of their mildness, and perhaps also from the effect of habit. They take from the islands a good quan- tity of sugar, which they use for their tea, which the Americans drink at least twice a day ; they also bring from there a greater quantity of molasses, which they distil into rum, their ordinary beverage. The importation was so considerable, that before the war it was only worth two shillings a gallon. " Their fishery, their commerce, and the great number of vessels which they build, have made them the coasters of all the Northern colonies. " It is estimated that in 1748 five hundred vessels cleared at this port for a foreign trade, and four hundred and thirty entered it ; and about one thousand vessels were employed in the coasting trade. It appears, however, from the statement of an Englishman, that their commerce has declined. In 1738, they constructed in Boston forty- FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 79 one ships, making a total of 6,324 tons ; in 1743, thirty-eight were built ; in 1746, twenty ; in 1749, fifteen, making in total 2,450 tons. This diminution of the commerce of Boston arises, probably, from the new settlements formed along the coast, which attract to themselves the different branches that their situation may render most favorable. " The great consumption of rum by the Americans induced them to establish commercial relations with the French colonies ; our wines and brandy rendering this liquor little used by us, they flatter- ed themselves with bringing the molasses to a better use. This spec- ulation resulted beyond their expectations ; they had only to give in exchange wood and salt provisions." The following observations indicate the feeling and rela- tions between our countrymen and their Gallic allies : " It is difficult to imagine the opinion that the Americans enter- tained of the French before the war. They regarded them as enslav- ed under the yoke of despotism, delivered up to prejudices and super- stitions, almost idolaters in their worship, incapable of firmness and stability, and occupied only with curling their hair and painting their faces ; unfeeling, faithless not even respecting the most sacred du- ties. The English were eager to spread and strengthen these preju- dices. Presbyterianism [Congregationalism], an implacable enemy of Catholicism, has made the Bostonians, where this sect is dominant, still more disposed to this opinion. "All seemed, at the commencement of the war, to confirm these views. Most of the Frenchmen who first came to America at the rumor of revolution, were men involved in debts and ruined in repu- tation, who announced themselves with titles and fictitious names, obtained great distinction in the American army, received considera- ble advance money, and suddenly disappeared. "The simplicity of the Americans and their inexperience ren- dered these impositions easy. Many of these adventurers even com- mitted crimes worthy of the scaffold. The first merchandise that the Bostonians received from France contributed again to support them in these notions, so unfavorable to our honesty and industry. Even at the present time, French goods are sold, for this reason, at a much lower price than English goods of the same quality. " On the arrival of M. le Count d'Estaing, the people were very much astonished not to see frail and deformed men. They believed that these had been expressly chosen to give them a more advanta- geous idea of the nation. Some with over-florid faces, whose toilet was careless, convinced them that we made use of rouge. 80 AMEEICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. " Notwithstanding my being a Frenchman and Catholic priest, I receive daily new civilities in many good families of this city. But the people still retain their first prejudices. I have lately seen a proof of this in an event which has at the same time served to make me better acquainted with their character. The house where I lodged took fire; it belonged to a Frenchman. One can imagine what emotion this sight would produce in a city built of wood. The people ran thither in crowds, but when they arrived there, they re- mained only spectators of the scene. I caused the doors to be closed, in order to arrest the currents of air, and sealed the chimney, whence the fire was, hermetically with a wet cloth, causing water to be poured upon it without intermission, that it might retain its damp- ness. The women of the house were enraged at the sight of their flooded and dirty floor. If I had not made myself the master, they would have preferred to let the danger, increase. " The arrival of the army of M. le Count de Rochambeau at Rhode Island spread terror there. The country was deserted, and those whom curiosity led to Newport found the streets empty. All felt the importance of dissipating these prejudices, and exercising self-respec'u has contributed to this. The superior officers established the strict- est discipline ; the other officers employed that politeness and ameni- ty which has always characterized the French nobility ; the private soldier, even, has become gentle and circumspect, and in a year's so- journ here, not one complaint has been made. " The French at Newport are no longer a trifling, presumptuous, noisy, and ostentatious people ; they are quiet and retiring, limiting their society to that of their guests or visitors, that they may become daily more dear to them. These young noblemen, whose fortune, birth, and court life would naturally lead them to dissipation, luxury, and extravagance, have given the first example of simplicity and frugality ; they have shown themselves as affable and familiar as if they had lived entirely among similar people. This elevated con- duct has brought about an entire revolution in the minds of people. Even the Tories cannot help loving the French, while blaming the cause which they uphold, and their departure afflicts a thousand times more than their arrival alarms." An interesting evidence of the vast promise, soqial and economical, with which the extent, resources, and political prospects of America inspired thoughtful and enthusiastic observers at this period, may be found in the characteristic expressions of a clergyman, born in Philadelphia, but of FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 81 Huguenot origin, whose rhetoric and writing were much admired in his own day, and whose name is not wholly unfa- miliar in our own, from the circumstance that, at the sugges- tion of Samuel Adams, he opened the old Continental Con- gress of 1774 with prayer. Three years previously, while assistant minister of Christ Church, Philadelphia, were pub- lished the Letters of Tarnoc Caspipina, in which Jacob Duche thus speaks of the country, just before the Revolution : " My attachment to America, I am apt to think, proceeds from the prospects of its growing greatness. In Europe, architecture, gardening, agriculture, mechanics are at a stand ; the eye is weary with perpetual sameness ; after roaming over the mag- nificence of churches and palaces, we are glad to fix our gaze awhile upon a simple farmhouse or straw-built cottage ; we feel a particular delight in tracing the windings of a beautiful river. The objects of Art, as well as those of Nature, in this New World, are, at present, in such a state as affords the highest entertainment ; here and there, in the midst of ven- erable woods, scarce a century ago the haunts of roaming savages, are fields of corn and meadows. Within the compass of a mile we behold Nature in her original rusticity and Art rising by rapid advances. I see learning stripped of all scho- lastic pedantry and religion restored to gospel purity." The transition state, the strong contrasts, the process of develop- ment, and the opportunity of going back to first and true principles in civil and social life, hinted at in such views, con- stituted the great attraction which the New World offered to philosophical and benevolent minds. This it was that urged Berkeley's prophetic muse and gracious enterprise, and, a cen- tury before, the " Church Militant " declared George Herbert's " Prophecy," in the " Country Parson," realized in America. Duche's reputation, however, has a less amiable and honor- able side ; of him it has been written : " He, whose sublime prayer as chaplain of the Continental Congress, melted the hearts of his audience every time he bent to repeat it, fell away from his loyalty, and enjoys the sole infamy of having sought to corrupt Washington. While the wretch was pray- 4* 82 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. ing to Almighty God for the success of the Revolution, his heart was black with treason." One of those extraordinary children of the time who, with- out any remarkable endowments or adaptation for the career of politics, were whirled into that sphere of thought and action by the tides of the French Revolution, came to America in 1788, and, like Ceracchi, the sculptor, not only derived new ideas and enthusiasm from his visit, but became a martyr to his convictions and the circumstances of his native land. We find the record * of his observations in the New World quoted with deference by his contemporaries ; it was trans- lated more than once into English, f and seems to have been more permanently attractive than any other of the several political treatises from the same pen ; one of Brissot's biogra- phers calls him an ecrivain mediocre et un dissateur monotone et verbeux ; yet, with all his speculative hardihood and French sentiment, many of his remarks on our country at the time are characteristic and noteworthy. Born in 1754, at the vil- lage of Ouarville, near Chartres, he subsequently modified his local appellation into Warville, for the prestige of an English name while under surveillance ; placed in the Bastile for the hardiesse de ses ecrits contre Vinegalite des rangs, he was liber- ated through the influence of the Duke of Orleans, whose sympathy in his behalf had been excited by Madame de Gen- lis ; and the association thus induced led to his marriage with one of the ladies of the Duchess and to his embassy to Eng- land on a secret mission as lieutenant of police. Having vainly sought to advance his fortunes in that country, he crossed the ocean early in 1788 ; and, in the following year, left our shores on account of the terrible political and social crisis which convulsed his own country. He soon became * Nouveau Voyage dang les Etats Urns de 1'Amerique Septentrionale, fait on 1788, 3 vols., Paris, 1791. f Brissot de Warville's New Travels in the United States of America, per- formed in 1788, 8vo., London, 1792. Brissot's Travels in the United States hi 1788, with Observations on the Genius of the People and Government, &c., 8vo., 1794. FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. OD prominent as a journalist in Paris, was bold and unscrupulous as an advocate of revolution, and soon drew upon himself the bitter attacks of rivals and opponents, one of whom, Morande, issued a pamphlet charging Brissot with the basest conduct while in England, and proposing to make Brissoter the synonyme of Voler. Undaunted by scandal, he took an active part in forwarding the petition of the Champs du Mars, whereby he alienated Lafayette, with whom he osten- sibly and ardently sympathized ; chosen a deputy, and, on ac- count of his foreign travels, placed on the diplomatic commit- tee, Brissot advocated war with Europe, attached himself to Delessart, then at the head of foreign affairs, and, with the disgrace of the latter, became the object of invective from Camille Desmoulins and of persecution from Robespierre. Brissot reverted to his original theories, denounced those who were attached to the king, was accused of federalism, which he had defended as the true principle of the American Gov- ernment, and of conspiracy against the French republic. He drafted the declaration of war against England and Holland ; and never ceased, with tongue and pen, to attack the colonial proprietors and plead for their slaves ; so that he was consid- ered a prime instigator of the St. Domingo insurrection: proscribed on the last of May, 1795, he was soon after arrest- ed at Moulins, and perished, by the guillotine, during the following October. There was something anomalous in his character ; of feeble constitution, he was energetic and perti- nacious ; an adventurer, he failed to seize opportunities for advancing his own interest ; without being a man of pleasure, he neglected his wife and children, leaving them without the means of subsistence ; of this he sincerely repented at last, and died bravely. He accomplished little practical good, while convinced he could regenerate his country. His Voyage cwx Mats Unis was first published at Paris in 1791. Brissot expatiates on the religious tolerance he found pre- vailing in Boston in 1788. " Music," he writes, " which was proscribed by their divines as a diabolical art, begins to form a part of their education ; you hear, in some rich houses, the 84: AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. pianoforte." He notes the absence of cafes in that city, and the existence of clubs "not held at taverns, but at each other's houses." " A favorite amusement," he adds, " is to visit the country in parties, and drink tea, spruce beer, and cider ; " he notes the " distilleries of rum at Watertown, des- tined for the coast of Guinea," and declares that " two mala- dies afflict the State emigration west and manufactures." He exults in the sight of his native authors in the library of Harvard College : " The heart of a Frenchman palpitates," he writes, " to find Racine, Montesquieu, and the Encyclopedic, where, a hundred and fifty years ago, smoked the calumet of the savage." Hancock was then Governor, Jarvis the lead- ing physician, and Willard president of Harvard College, each of whom Brissot seems to have appreciated ; and he compli- ments as leaders in Boston society, Wigglesworth, Sullivan, Lloyd, Dexter, and Wendall ; he explores Bunker Hill, and visits John Adams, whom he compares to Epaminondas. He suggests the establishment of diligences in Massachusetts ; and describing his journey from Boston to New York, commends the white sheets of Spenser and the cheap breakfast at Brook- field. He is vexed at the tolls ; sees Colonel Wadsworth at Hartford, and remembers that Silas Dean is a native of Weathersfield, where the immense fields of onions duly im- press him. New Haven interests him as having " produced the celebrated poet Trumbull, author of the immortal McFingal ; " at Fairfield, " the pleasures of the voyage ended," and thenceforth there was " a constant struggle with rocks and precipices." At New Rochelle he sees Mr. Jay, and at Rye finds an excellent inn. He witnessed Fitch's steamboat experiment on the Delaware ; and was interested in the "places fortified by the English," as he approached New York. The market, the blacks, and the Quakers of Philadel- phia are subjects of curious observation ; the calmness and the costume of the latter fascinated him to such a degree that, for a while, he abjured the use of hair powder and other luxu- ries of the toilet ; and describes with interest a Quaker farm, meeting, and funeral. Of the social characteristics of the FRENCH TEAVELLEES AND WEITEKS. 85 people, especially in the Eastern States, he thus speaks : " La proprete sans luxe est une *des caracteres physiognomonique de cette purete morale ; et cette proprete se retrouve par-tout a Boston, dans 1'habillement, dans les maisons, dans les eglises ; rien de plus charmant que le coup d'reil d'un eglise ou d'un meeting. Je ne me rappellerai jamais sans emotion le plaisir que je rassentis, en entendant un fois le respectable ministre Clarke qui a succede docteur Cooper." But, like most of his countrymen who then visited and described the young re- public, his warmest admiration was reserved for " the Father of his Country," whom he visited, and thus describes as only a Frenchman would: "This celebrated general is nothing more at present than a good farmer. His eye bespeaks great goodness of heart ; manly sense marks all his answers, and he is sometimes animated in conversation ; but he has no charac- teristic feelings which render it difficult to seize him. He announces a profound discretion and a great diffidence in him- self ; but, at the same time, an unshaken firmness, when once he has made a decision. His modesty is astonishing to a frenchman. He speaks of the American war and of his vic- tories as of things in which he had no direction. He spoke to me of Lafayette with the greatest tenderness." Brissot passed three days at Mount Yernon, and, according to his own statement, was " loaded with kindness." The after career and melancholy fate of Brissot lends a peculiar interest to his narrative ; inconsistently combined and imperfectly manifested in his life and nature, we find the philosopher and the republican (wherein he declared Priestley and Price were his models), the philanthropist, the man of letters, the editor, and the politician. He criticized Chastellux defended Amer- ica ; according to his opponents, " fled with a lie," and yet, by undisputed testimony, died with courage. He thought our lawyers superior ; and calls Isaiah Thomas the Didot of America : associating with Franklin, Madison, Hamilton, and other eminent citizens, he learned highly to estimate the in- fluence of free institutions upon human character. Among other pleasant sojourns in New England he delighted to re- 86 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. member the " Laurels," where he was entertained by Dr. Dai- ton, while on his way from Newburyport up the Merrimac. In his apostrophe to this beautiful stream, Whittier gracefully alludes to Brissot' s enjoyment thereof: " Its pines above, its waves below, The west wind down it blowing, As fair as when the young Brissot Beheld it seaward flowing, And bore its memory o'er the deep To soothe a martyr's sadness, And fresco, in his troubled sleep, His prison walls with gladness." Brissot, seeking to unite economical with social philoso- phy, devotes no inconsiderable portion of his work to the commerce and commodities of the New World ; like other sojourners of that era, he is beguiled into speculative remarks as to the maple tree as a substitute for the sugar cane ; coin- cident with his visit was the initial movement in behalf of the negroes, which then enlisted the best sympathies of the new republic ; anti-slavery societies had just then been established in various parts of the country, and their object was freely discussed in regions where, in our day, law and social tyranny barred all expression thereon. Brissot rejoiced in Washing- ton's views and purposes in this regard : " It is a task," he writes, " worthy of a soul so elevated, so pure, and so disin- terested, to begin the revolution in Virginia, to prepare the way for the emancipation of the slaves." He was not always a true prophet, as for instance, when he remarks : " Albany will soon yield in prosperity to a town called Hudson." The spectator of two, and the actor and victim in one revolution, there is a certain pensive charm in his earnest appreciation of the political and social advantages of America : " The United States," he declares, " have demonstrated that the less active and powerM the Government, the more active and powerful the people " a moral fact eminently illustrated by the recent history of the nation. He appreciated the essential influence of personal character to attain civic prosperity : " There can FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 87 be no durable revolution," he observes, " but where reflection marks the operation and matures the ideas : it is among such men of principles that you find the true heroes of humanity the Howards, Fothergills, Penns, Franklins, Washingtons, Sidneys, and Ludlows." He invokes his erratic countrymen who wish for " valuable instruction " to ponder his record : " Study the Americans of the present day, and see to what degree of prosperity the blessings of freedom can elevate the industry of man ; how they dignify his nature and dispose him to universal fraternity ; by what means liberty is pre- served ; and that the great secret of its duration is good morals." Thus enthusiastic as a republican, and recognizing so warmly the simplicity of rural and the intrepidity of working life in America, Brissot looked with suspicion upon the encroachments of fashion and wealth upon manners and tastes. It is amusing to read his account of New York and find so many coincidences at the present day in her social tendencies, and to compare the limited indulgences then prac- ticable with the boundless extravagance now so apparent. Thus he wrote of the commercial metropolis of the New World in 1788 : " The presence of Congress, with the diplomatic body and the concourse of strangers, contributes much to extend here the ravages of luxury. The inhabitants are far from complaining of it ; they prefer the splendor of wealth and the show of enjoyment to the sim- plicity of manners and the pure pleasures which result from it. If there is a town on the American continent where the English luxury displays its follies, it is New York. You will find here the English fashions : in the dress of the women you will see the most brilliant silks, gauzes, hats, and borrowed hair ; equipages are rare, but they are elegant: the men have more simplicity in their dress ; they dis- dain gewgaws, but they take their revenge in the luxury of the table ; luxury forms already a class of men very dangerous to society ; I mean bachelors ; the expense of women causes matrimony to be dreaded by men. Tea forms, as in England, the basis of parties of pleasure : many things are dearer here than in France ; a hairdresser asks twenty shillings a month ; washing costs four shillings the dozen." Lafayette, in his letter introducing Brissot to Washington, 88 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. writes : " He is very clever, and wishes to write the history of America." It is a singular coincidence that while he praises the inns of the country, which were so generally complained of by English travellers, he expresses a national repugnance to a habit now so prevalent among his country- men as, in the view of some of the late critics, to have essen- tially modified their disposition of mind, if not of bodily tem- perament. " The habit of smoking," observes Brissot, in his account of New York, " has not disappeared with the other customs of their fathers the Dutch. They use cigars. These are leaves of tobacco rolled in the form of a tube six inches long, and are smoked without the aid of any instru- ment. This usage is revolting to the French, but it has one advantage it favors meditation and prevents loquacity." It is characteristic of this writer's political prepossessions that, while he found " decency, neatness, and dignity " in the taverns, when dining with General Hamilton he recognized in his host the " countenance of a determined republican." Much ridicule has been expended upon that artificial rural enthusiasm which once formed a curious phase of French literature, wherein the futile attempt was made to graft the ancient Arcadian on the modern rustic enjoyment of nature. This incongruous experiment originated in Italy, and found its best development in the pastoral verse of Guarini and San- nazzaro ; but when the Parisian pleasure-seekers affected the crook and simplicity of shepherd life when box was trimmed into the shape of animals and fountains, grottos and bowers, in the midst of fashionable gardens, and the scent of musk blended with that of pines and roses the want of genuine love of and sympathy with nature became ludicrously appa- rent ; the manners and talk of the salon were absurd in the grove, and the costume and coquetry of the ballroom were reproached by the freedom and calm beauty of woods and waters. The hearty love of country life which is an instinct of the English, and has found such true and memorable ex- pression in the poetry of Great Britain, finds an indifferent parallel in the rhymes of Gallic bards or the rural life of the FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 89 gentry of France. But there is a vein of rural taste and feel- ing, of a more practical kind, native to the French heart a combination of philosophic content and romance a love of the free, independent life of the wilderness, a capacity of adap- tation to new conditions, and a facility in deriving satisfac- tion from inartificial pleasures, which, when united to the poetical instinct, makes nature and agricultural life a singu- larly genial sphere to a Frenchman. The sentiment of this experience has been eloquently uttered by St. Pierre, Chateau- briand, and Lamartine ; its practical realization was long evi- dent in the urbane, cheerful, and tasteful colonists of Canada and of the West and South of the United States ; and the writings of French travellers there and in the East, abound in its graceful commemoration. The literature of American travel is not without memorable illustrations thereof; and one of the best is a book, which, although the production of a Frenchman, was originally written in English under the title of " Letters of an American Farmer." * It is a most pleasing report of the possible resources and charms of that vocation, when it was far more isolated and exclusively rural than at present, w'hen town habits had not encroached upon its sim- plicity or fashion marred its independence. Somewhat like a prose idyl is this record ; Hazlitt delighted in its naive enthu- siasm, and commended it to Charles Lamb as well as in the Quarterly, as giving " an idea how American scenery and man- ners may be treated with a lively poetic interest." " The pictures," he adds, " are somewhat highly colored, but they are vivid and strikingly characteristic. He gives not only the objects but the feelings of a new country." The author of this work, Hector St. John Crevecceur, was of noble birth, a native of Normandy, born in 1731 ; he was sent to England when but sixteen years old, which is the cause of his early and complete mastery of our language. In 1754 he came to New York, and settled on a farm in the adjacent region. * " Letters from an American Farmer, conveying some Idea of the Late and Present Interior Circumstances of the British Colonies in North America," by J. H. St. John Crevecoeur, 8vo., London, 1782. 90 AMEBICA AND HEE COMMENTATORS. The British troops repeatedly crossed over and lingered upon his estate during the war of the Revolution, much to his annoyance and its detriment. His affairs obliged him to return to France in 1780, and he was allowed to pass through the enemy's lines in order to embark with one of his family ; but the vessel was intercepted by the French fleet then off the c,oast, and Creveco3ur was detained several months under suspicion of being a spy. After his release he reembarked for Europe, and reached his paternal home safely, after an absence of twenty-seven years. In 1783 he returned to New York to find his dwelling burned to the ground, his wife dead, and his children in the care of friends. He brought with him, on his return to America, a commis- sion as French consul at New York a situation which he honorably filled for ten years, when, once more returning to his native land, he resided at his country seat near Rouen, and subsequently at Sarcelles, where he died in 1813. All ac- counts agree in describing him as a man of the highest prob- ity, the most benevolent disposition, rare intelligence, and engaging manners. Washington esteemed him ; he made a journey in Pennsylvania with Franklin, on the occasion of the latter's visit to Lancaster to lay the corner stone of the German college. The account of the incidents and conversa- tion during this trip recorded by Crevecoaur, are among the most characteristic reminiscences of the American philosopher extant. His " Letters of an American Farmer " were pub- lished in London in 1782. He translated them into his native tongue.* They have a winsome flavor,' and picture so delec- t ably the independence, the resource?, and the peace of an agricultural life, just before and after the Revolution, in the more settled States of America, that the reader of the present day cannot feel surprised that he beguiled many an emigrant from the Old World to the banks of the Ohio and the Dela- ware. But this charm originated in the temper and mind of the writer, who was admirably constituted to appreciate and * " Lettres d'un Cultivateur Americain, traduites de 1'Anglois," 2 vols., 8vo., Paris, 1784. FJRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 91 improve the advantages of such an experience. He found on his beautiful farm and among his kindly neighbors, the same attractions which Mrs. Grant remembered so fondly of her girlhood's home at Albany. Among the best of his letters are those extolling the pleasures and feelings of a farmer's life in a new country, and those descriptive of Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, and Charleston, the notice of Bartram the naturalist, and the account of the Humming Bird. Nor was this the author's only contribution to the literature of Ameri- can travel. In 1801, the fruit of his leisure after his final return to Normandy, appeared in the shape of a work in the publication of which he indulged in a curious literary ruse. It was entitled " Voyage dans la haute Pennsylvania et dans 1'Etat de New York, par un Membre Adoptif de la nation Oneida, traduit par 1'Auteur des Lettres d'un Cultivateur Americain." It needed not this association of his first popu- lar venture with this new book of travels in the same coun- try, to pierce the thin disguise whereby he announced the latter as printed from MSS. found in a wreck on the Elbe ; for the author enjoyed the eclat of success in the Paris salons, while elsewhere his kindliness and wisdom made him a great favorite. These two works have the merit and the interest of being more deliberate literary productions than any that preceded them. There is a freshness and an ardor in the tone, which is often magnetic ; and in the material, a curious mixture of statistics and romance, matter of fact and senti- ment, reminding the reader at one moment of Marmontel, and at another of Adam Smith ; for it deals about equally in sto- ries and economical details : many of the most remarkable Indian massacres and border adventures, since wrought into history, dramas, and novels, are narrated in these volumes fresh from current traditions or recent knowledge. The author was on intimate terms with the savages, and had been made an honorary member of the Oneida tribe. He gives a clear and probably, at the time, a novel account of the differ- ent States, their productions, condition, &c. Keenly appreciating the relation of landed property to citi- 92 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. zenship, exulting in the independence of an agricultural life in a free country, and alive to all the duties and delights of domestic seclusion, his letters breathe a wise and grateful sense of the privileges he enjoys as an American farmer : " The instant I enter on my own land," he writes, " the bright idea of property, of exclusive right, of independence, exalts my mind. Precious soil, I say to myself, by what singular custom of law is it that thou wast made to constitute the riches of the freeholder? What should we American farmers be without the distinct possession of that soil ? It feeds, it clothes us ; from it we draw our great exuber- ancy, our best meat, our richest drink the very honey of our bees comes from this privileged spot. No wonder we should thus cherish its possession no wonder that so many Europeans, who have never been able to say that such a portion of land was theirs, cross the Atlantic to realize that happiness. This formerly rude soil has been converted by my father into a pleasant farm, and in return it has established all our rights ; on it is founded our rank, our freedom, our power as citizens, our importance as inhabitants of such a district. These images, I must confess, I always behold with pleasure, and extend them as far as my imagination can reach ; for this is what may be . called the true and only philosophy of the American farmer. Often when I plough my low ground, I place my little boy on a chair which screws to the beam of the plough ; its motion and that of the horses please him ; he is perfectly happy, and begins to chat. As I lean over the handle, various are the thoughts which crowd into my mind. I am now doing for him, I say, what my father formerly did for me : may God enable him to live, that he may perform the same operations for the same purposes, when I am worn out and old. I release his mother of some trouble while I have him with me ; the odoriferous furrow exhilarates his spirits and seems to do the child a great deal of good, for he looks more blooming since I have adopted the practice : can more pleasure, more dignity be added to that pri- mary occupation ? The father, thus ploughing with his child and to feed his family, is inferior only to the emperor of China, ploughing as an example to his kingdom." Very loving and observant are his comments on the aspect, habits, and notes of birds ; they remind us of the spirit with- out the science of our endeared ornithologists, Audubon and Wilson. " I generally rise from bed," writes Crevecoeur, " about that indistinct interval, which, properly speaking, is FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 93 neither night nor day ; for this is the moment of the most universal vocal choir. Who can listen unmoved to the sweet love tales of our robins, told from tree to tree ; or to the shrill catbird ? The sublime accents of the thrush from on high, always retard my steps that I may listen to the delicious music." A long discussion with Dr. Franklin during their memorable journey in 1787, as to the origin of the aboriginal tribes and the mounds of the West, which of late years have so interested ethnologists, is reported at length by this assidu- ous writer ; we thence learn that this new and extended interest was foreseen by the venerable philosopher, who re- marked to his companion : " When the population of the United States shall have spread over every part of that vast and beautiful region, our posterity, aided by new discoveries, may then, perhaps, form more satisfactory conjectures." The religion and politics of the country are defined in these epistles. The Quakers, the weather, the aspect of the land, excursions, speculations, anecdotes, and poetical epi- sodes are the versatile subjects of his chronicle : several old- fashioned engraved illustrations give a quaint charm to the earlier editions ; domestic fetes, mafille Fanny, and the trans- planting of a sassafras tree, alternate in the record with re- flections on the war of the Revolution, the " Histoire de Rachel Bird," and"La Pere Infortune !" There is a naive ardor and the genial egotism of a Gallic raconteur and philosopher, in the work which survives the want of novelty in its econom- ical details and local descriptions. During Creveco3ur's visit to Normandy, five American sailors were shipwrecked on that coast, and he befriended them in their great need and peril, with a humane zeal that did credit to his benevolent heart. A gentleman of Boston in New England was so impressed with this kindness to his unfortunate countrymen, that, hearing of "the destruction of the generous Frenchman's homestead far away, he made a long and hazardous journey in search of the deserted chil- dren, discovered, and cherished them till the father's arrival enabled him to restore them in health and safety. The ardent 94 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. style of Crevecceur's writings, and that tendency to exaggera- tion incident to his temperament, caused his books to be criti- cized with some severity as incorrect, highy colored, and prolix ; yet the vital charm and ingenuous sentiment of the enthusiast, combined with his tact as a raconteur, and his love of nature and freedom, made these now neglected works pop- ular at the time and long subsequent to their original publi- cation. One of the most striking instances of the historical value of authentic and detailed records of travel, is the use which philosophical annalists, like De Tocqueville, have made of Arthur Young's observations in France. This intelligent and enthusiastic agricultural writer chronicled, as a tourist, the practical workings of the old regime in regard to the peasant- ry and rural districts, so as to demonstrate the vital necessity of a revolution on economical and social principles alone. A disciple of this writer, whose integrity and patriotism as well as painstaking research make up in no small degree for his limited scientific knowledge and want of originality, prepared a large and well-considered work from a careful survey of the American States and their statistics in 1795. The Duke de La Rochefoucault-Liancourt commanded at Rouen, when the Constituent Assembly, of which he was a member, dissolved ; subsequently he passed many months in England, and then visited this country. His " Voyage dans les Etats Unis," and his efficiency in establishing the use of vaccination in France, cause him to be remembered as a man of letters and benevo- lence ; he reached a venerable age, and won the highest re- spect, although long subject to the unjust aspersions of parti- san opponents whom his liberal nature failed to conciliate. There is little of novel information to an American reader in his voluminous work, except the record of local features and social facts, which are now altogether things of the past ; yet the fairness and minute knowledge displayed, account for the value and interest attached to this work for many years after its appearance. It is evident that the Duke de La Rochefou- cault travelled as much to beguile himself of the ennui of FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 95 exile and the disappointments of a baffled patriot, as on account of his inquiring turn of mind. He occupied himself chiefly with economical investigations, especially those con- nected with agriculture ; the process whereby vast swamps and forests were gradually reduced to tilled and habitable domains, interested him in all its stages and results. He describes each town, port, and region with care and candor ; and it is a peculiarity of his Travels that they contain many elaborate accounts of certain farms and estates in different sections, whence we derive a very accurate notion of the methods and the resources of rural life in America soon after the Revolution. The Duke was a philosophical traveller, con- tent to journey on horseback, making himself as much at home with the laborer at the wayside as with the gentleman of the manor ; and seeking information with frankness and patience wherever and however it could be properly acquired. The lakes, bays, roads, the markets, manufactures, and seats he examines, in a business-like way ; complains of all crude arrangements, and bears the hardships then inseparable from travel here, like a soldier. Indians and rattlesnakes, corn and tobacco, the Hessian fly, pines, maples, negroes* rice planta- tions, orchards, all the traits of rural economy and indigenous life, are duly registered and speculated upon. He visited, with evident satisfaction, the battle grounds of the Revolution, and complacently dwells on Yorktown, the grave of Ternay at Newport, and the grateful estimation in which Lafayette was held. He seems to have well appre- ciated our leading men in public life and society ; Jefferson, Marshall, Jay, Hamilton, Adams, and Burr figure in his polit- ical tableaux, and he was the guest of General Knox, in Maine. He sums up the character of the Virginians as a people noted for dissipation, hospitality, and attachment to the Union / of the special characteristics of the different States he was singu- larly cognizant ; and notes the slow adoption of vaccination, the adaptation of soils, and the existence of wild hemp on the shores of Ontario. Apart from the specific information contained in his 96 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. " Voyage dans les Etats Unis d'Amerique," the Paris edition of which, printed in 1800, consists of eight volumes, 8vo., there is little to attract the reader of warm sympathies or decided tastes. An English translation was published in quarto.* Although the work is the chief source of the Duke de La Rochefoucault's literary reputation, it is justly char- acterized, by an intelligent French critic, as a froide compila- tion, sans imagination et sans V esprit $ artiste. Both this writer, Chastellux, and other of their countrymen, gave satis- factory facts in regard to American military and political leaders, who can be most fairly estimated by competent for- eign critics : the former describes Stirling, and the latter Simcoe, Knox, and others. The Duke sums up, in the last chapter of his voluminous work, his impressions and convictions : like Brissot, he praises the Quakers for their civic virtues ; he notes what he calls the " prejudice " among the men against " domestic ser- vitude," a feeling in which the women then did not share ; of the freedom of action accorded the latter, he speaks with a Frenchman's national surprise, and adds that, when married, " they love {heir husband because he is their husband ; " he expatiates on the need of a more thorough educational sys- tem ; physically, however, he thinks the Americans had the advantage of Europeans in their habits of sporting and use of the rifle, and deems the liberty enjoyed by children the best method of teaching them self-reliance ; he describes the prevalent manners as essentially the same as those which exist in the provincial towns of England ; he praises the hospitality and benevolence of the people ; and says that drunkenness is " their most common vice," and " the desire of riches their ruling passion ; " " the traits of character common to all," he adds, " are ardor for enterprise, courage, greediness, and an advantageous opinion of themselves." Such are some of the opinions formed by this noble but somewhat prosaic traveller * " Liancourt's (Duke de La Rochefoucault) Travels through the United States, the Country of the Iroquois, &c.,inthe years 1795, '96 and '97," 2 vols. 4to., large folding maps, London, 1799. FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 97 immediately after the Revolutionary war, when, as he ob- serves, the Americans " having for the most part made their fortunes by their own industry, labor had not become repug- nant to them." He ends his work with the most benign wishes for the prosperity and integrity of the nation. That gifted and solitary pioneer of American fiction, Charles Brockden Brown, among his numerous and ill- rewarded but most creditable literary labors, made a transla- tion of Volney's once noted book on America.* The career and the character of this writer must be understood in order to estimate aright his writings, and especially those that belong to the sphere of political and social speculation. Born in one of the provinces of France, just before the commencement of that memorable chaos of thought and action which ushered in the Revolution, of a studious and independent habit, he early manifested that boldness of aim and originality of convic- tion which marked the adventurous and the philosophic men of his day. Changing his name, and accustoming himself to hardships, he aspired to an individuality of life and a free- dom from conventionalities, somewhat akin to the motive that made Byron a wanderer and Lady Stanhope a contented sojourner in the desert. The passion for travel early pos- sessed him, and he equipped himself therefor by adopting a stoical regime, and acquiring the historical and philological knowledge so essential to satisfactory observation in foreign countries. An invalid from birth, his sequestered habits and sensitive temper gave a misanthropic tinge to his disposition, while his limited means induced a remarkable frugality ; the result of which circumstances and traits was to make Yolney a morbid man, but a speculative thinker and a social non- conformist. Like Bentham and Godwin, but with less geni- ality, he professed to disdain the tyranny of custom, and to seek the good of humanity and the truth of life, in the neg- lected and superseded elements of society, so hopelessly * "View of the Soil and Climate of the United States of America," trans- lated by Charles Brockden Brown, with maps and plates, 8vo., Philadelphia, 1804. 5 98 AMERICA ANTX HER COMMENTATORS. overlaid by blind habit and unreasoning acquiescence. Like all Frenchmen, in carrying out this programme as a written theory, he is rhetorical, and, in practice, more or less gro- tesque ; yet with enough of ability and original method to excite the curious, and suggest new ideas to less adventurous minds, however more sound judgment and holier faith might repudiate his principles. Professedly a social reformer, and at war with the life and law around him, he, like so many other civilized malcontents, turned ardently to the East. A Breton and a peer of France, there is much in Volney to remind us of Chateaubriand the same passion for knowl- edge, love of travel, political enthusiasm, romantic egotism, vague and vaunted sentiment ; but there the parallel ends : for Chateaubriand's conservatism, social relations, and opin- ions, literary, political, and religious, separate him widely from Volney, although their experience of vicissitude was similar. The genius of the author of Atala was pervasive, and is still influential and endeared ; while the writings of Volney are comparatively neglected. He was born in 1755, and known, in youth, as Constantine Francois Count de Chasseboeuf a name he not unwisely discarded when seek- ing the honors of authorship. After his early education was completed, he converted his little patrimony into money, and travelled through Egypt and Syria, lived for months in the Maronite convent on Mount Lebanon, to acquire the Oriental languages, studied Arabic with the Druses, and sojourned in an Arab tent. Not the least remarkable fact of his three years of Eastern life, was that the sum of a thousand dollars defrayed the entire expense thereof a result he attributes to his simple habits and hardihood, and his facile self-adaptation to the modes of life prevalent among those with whom he became domesticated. Volney's Travels in the East, based, as they were, on such unusual opportunities for observation, and written con amore, as indicative of his opinions not less than his adventures, proved eminently successful, and drew attention to his claims as a scholar and thinker, and indirectly led to his appoint- FRENCH TRAVELLEES AND .WRITERS. 99 ment to an official station in Corsica, where he knew Bona- parte. Volney's ambition, however, seems to have originally tended to philosophical eminence rather than political distinc- tion. He was a profound hater of tyranny, and too inde- pendent and fastidious, as well as physically sensitive, to engage heartily in the struggles of party : he loved rather to speculate freely, and to wander, observe, theorize, protest, and portray. Having established himself at Auteuil, near Paris, he became intimate with the literary men of the day, embraced the Liberal cause, and, as deputy from Anjou, in 1789, proved an effective speaker. In 1791 he published " Les Ruines ; or, Meditations on the Revolutions of Em- pires " the work that embodies at once his scepticism, senti- ment, historical speculations, and humanitarian ideas ; a work whose rhetoric and vaguely sad but eloquent tone won the imaginative as it repelled the religious. It was regarded as among the most dangerous of the many sceptical works of the day. The remarks on sects and religion excited Joseph Priestley to a vigorous protest. Volney declined the pro- posed controversy ; and there is something absurd to the English reader (who, if candid and intelligent, must know that a more honest and humane philosopher than Priestley never lived) in the assertion of the author's biographer, that the malevolence of a rival writer's jealousy, and not a love of truth, led to the original challenge. Volney was a radi- cal, and a victim of the Revolution. He accompanied Poz- zo di Borgo to Corsica, and endeavored to establish sugar cultivation there. Failing therein, he returned to Paris, to suffer persecution in the reign of terror ; and, on the fall of Robespierre, regained his liberty, after ten months' imprison- ment. In 1794 he was appointed professor of history in the Normal School, on the philosophy of which subject he ably lectured; and, in 1795, embarked at Havre, " with that dis- gust and indifference which the sight and experience of injus- tice and persecution impart," intending to settle in the United States. He tells us that the prospect that allured him thither was certain facts in regard to that country wherein he con- 100 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. sidered it surpassed altogether the rest of the civilized world as a home for the man of independent mind, brave individu- ality, enterprise, and misfortune. These were, first, an immense territory to be peopled ; second, the facility of acquiring landed property ; and third, personal freedom. Although Volney found these privileges extant and estab- lished, neither his antecedents nor his disposition were auspi- cious to their realization. In his famous Treatise, he had traced the fall of empires, and speculated on the origin of government and laws ; the prejudices and errors of mankind he considers the cause of social evil, and advocates a return to normal principles, recognizing, however, no basis of faith as the foundation of social prosperity. Montesquieu and Montaigne, Rousseau and Godwin, have made the essential truths of social reform patent ; the question of their prac- tical organization remains an unsolved problem, except as regards individual fealty. Combe and Spurzheim showed that the violation of the natural laws was the root of human misery. Buckle illustrates the historical influence of super- stition upon society ; and Emerson throws aphoristic shells at fortified popular errors, or what he considers such, that ex- plode and sparkle, but fail to destroy : all and each of these and other kindred theorists expose evil far better than they propose good ; repudiate, but do not create ; and this vital defect underlies the philosophy of Yolney, which is desti- 'tute of the conservate elements of more benign and recep- tive minds. It eloquently depicts wrong, ingeniously ac- counts for error, but offers no positive conviction or practical ameliorations whereon the social edifice can firmly rise in new and more grand proportions.* His Utopian anticipations of a political millennium in America were disappointed ; and per- * " The conclusion to which Volney makes his interlocutor come, is, that nothing can be true, nothing can be a ground of peace and union which is not visible to the senses. Truth is in conformity with sensations. The book is interesting as a work of art ; but its analysis of Christianity is so shocking that its absurdity alone prevents its becoming dangerous." Critical History of Free Thought, by A. S. FARRAR, M. A. FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 101 sonal resentment, imprudence, and egotism aggravated this result. His visit was abruptly closed ; and the record thereof became, for these reasons, incomplete, and warped by prejudice, yet not without special merit, and a peculiar interest and value. Volney's difficulties as an emigrant were complicated by political excitement incident to the troubles in France, the arrogant encroachments of Genet, and the partisan strife thus engendered. In the words of his biographer, " the epi- demic animosity against the French breaking out, compelled him to withdraw " a course rendered more imperative, ac- cording to the same authority, " by the attacks of a person who was then all powerful." He was charged with being a secret agent of his Government, conspiring to deliver Louisiana to the Directory ; and we are gravely told that " the world would be astonished at the animosity of John Adams," who, Volney declares, " had no motive but the rancor of an author, on account of my opinion of his book on the Constitution of the United States." In these state- ments, those cognizant of the attempted interference of for- eigners, sustained by party *zeal, and the just indignation and firm conduct of Washington, at that memorable crisis, can easily understand why Volney found it expedient to relin- quish his purpose to settle in America. On returning to France, he was a senator during the consulship of Napoleon ; and, in 1814, a member of the Chamber of Peers. He died in Paris in 1820. The following year his works were col- lected and published in eight handsome volumes. " I am of opinion," he writes, " that Travels belong to history, and not to romance. I have, therefore, not described countries as more beautiful than they appeared to me ; I have not repre- sented their inhabitants more virtuous nor more wicked than I have found them." Yolney made the reflections, historic and speculative, in- duced by the contemplations of " solitary ruins, holy sepul- chres, and silent walls," the nucleus and inspiration for the utterance of his theories, of life and man. He apostrophizes 102 AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATORS. them as witnesses of the past, and evokes phantoms of buried empires to attest the causes of their decline, and the means and method of human regeneration. There is a nov- elty in this manner of treating great questions ; and this, combined with rhetorical language, a philosophical tone, and no inconsiderable knowledge, explains the interest his work excited. Stripped of glowing epithets and conventional terms, there is, however, little originality in his deductions, and much sophistry in his reasonings. Like Rousseau, he reverts to the primitive wants and rights of humanity ; like Godwin, he advocates a return to the normal principles of political justice as the only legitimate basis of social organ- ization ; and, like the enthusiasts of the first French Revolu- tion, he claims liberty and equality for man as the only true conditions of progress ; while he ascribes to ignorance and cupidity the evils of his lot and the fall of nations. In common, however, with so many speculative reformers of that and subsequent periods, his practical suggestions are altogether disproportioned to his eloquent protest ; and his estimate of Christianity fails to recognize its inherent author- ity as verified by the highest and most pure moral intuitions, and confirmed by the absolute evidence manifest in the character, influence, and truths made patent and pervasive by its Founder. As a traveller, Volney wrote with remarkable intelligence ; as a student of history, his expositions were often comprehensive and original ; as a moralist, he grasped the rationale of natural laws and duties ; and as a linguist, his attainments were remarkable. There is more pique than candor in his reply to Priestley's letter controverting his atheistical views. His labors as professor in the Normal School of Paris, as administrator in Corsica, as a political representative, and an economical writer, indicate rare assi- duity, insight, and progressive zeal. His biographer claims that from his " earliest youth he devoted himself to the search after truth ; " extols " the accuracy of his views and the justness of his observations" his moral courage, and the originality of his system " of applying to the study of FRENCH TEAVELLEKS AND WRITERS. 103 the idioms of Asia a part of the grammatical notions we pos- sess concerning the languages of Europe " and of his doctrine " that a state is so much the more powerful as it includes a greater number of proprietors that is, a greater division of property." Erudite, austere, a lover of freedom, and a seeker for truth, whatever might be the speculative tenden- cies of Yolney, his information and his philosophic aspira- tions won him friends and honor at home and abroad ; but his sceptical generalizations repel as much as his adventurous individuality attracts. His visit to this country is thus alluded to by his biographer : " Disgusted with the scenes he had witnessed in his native land, he felt that passion re- vive within him, which, in his youth, had led him to visit Africa and Asia. Then, in the prime of life, he joyfully bade adieu to a land where peace and plenty reigned, to travel among barbarians ; now, in mature years, but dismayed at the spectacle of injustice and persecutions, it was with diffi- dence, as we learn from himself, that he went to implore from a free people an asylum for a sincere friend of that lib- erty that had been so profaned." Although imbittered by personal difficulties and acrimo- nious controversy, the sojourn of Yolney in the United States was not given to superficial observation, but to scien- tific inquiry. In this respect, his example was worthy of a philosopher ; and it is a characteristic evidence of his assidu- ity, that he improved his acquaintance with the famous Miami chief, Little Turtle, when the latter visited Philadelphia, in 1797, on treaty business, to make a vocabulary of the lan- guage of that aboriginal tribe. i His work* on this country, published in England with additions, is less rhetorical, on account of the subjects dis- cussed, than his other writings ; singularly devoid of per- sonal anecdote, and, but for the description of Niagara Falls, and the bite of a rattlesnake, comparatively unpicturesque * Volney's (C. F.) " View of the Climate and Soil of the United States, &c., and Vocabulary of the Miami Language," 8vo, maps and plates, London. 1804. 104: AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. and unadventurous as a narrative. It anticipates somewhat the later labors of savans and economists, and sets forth with acumen many of the physical features, resources, and charac- teristics of the country. It possesses an extrinsic interest quite unique, from the antecedents and literary reputation of the author ; and it is in the latter character that he is remembered, as identified with the progress of infidelity but original, philosophic, and liberal. Catharine of Russia recognized his merit ; Holbach introduced him to Franklin ; and he solaced his wounded pride, after leaving this country, by reverting to the consideration manifested for him by Washington. He is the first foreign writer of eminence who made the climate of North America a subject of study and scientific report ; and his views and facts have been and are still often referred to as authoritative, notwithstanding their limited application. His description of the action and influ- ence of winds is highly picturesque, and his observations on rain and electricity noteworthy. When Volney, in his preface, advises Frenchmen not to emigrate to America, because the laws, language, and man- ners are uncongenial, though better adapted to the English, Scotch, and Dutch, he adds : " I say with regret, my experi- ence did not lead me to find ces dispositions fraternelles I had looked for." The political exigencies at the time of his visit, and personal disappointment, evidently warped the philosopher's candid judgment ; and he confesses feeling obliged thereby to give scientific rather than social commen- taries on America. His analysis and description of the soil and climate are brief. He begins with the geographical situation, discusses the marine, sandy, calcareous, granite, mountain, and other regions, the Atlantic coast, and the Mis- sissipi basin. Subsequent geological researches, the progress of meteorological and ethnological science since his day, com- bine to render Volney's tableaux more curious than satisfac- tory or complete. He has specific remarks 011 New Hamp- shire, based on a then current history of that State by Samuel Williams, many facts and speculations in regard to the FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 105 aborigines, and interesting notes respecting the French colo- nists. Volney's visit was long remembered by our older citi- zens. A Knickerbocker reminiscent, in describing the local associations of " Richmond Hill," in the city of New York a domain now marked by the junction of Yarick and Van- dam streets speaks of the Lispenard meadows once flanking the spot, and of the adjacent forest trees, where the echo of the sportsman's gun often resounded ; and, in allusion to the mansion itself, notes the curious fact that the first opera house was built upon its site ; that the elder Adams resided there when Congress met in New York ; and that the dwell- ing became the home of the notorious Aaron Burr, among whose guests he mentions Volney, " whose portly form gave outward tokens of 'his tremendous vitality, while the Syrian traveller descanted on theogony, the races of the red men, and Niagara." * We have a curious glimpse of Volney during his tour in this country, from another venerable reminiscent : " Some thirty or more years ago, at the close of a summer's day, a stranger entered Warrentown. He was alone and on foot, and his appearance was anything but prepossessing ; his gar- ments coarse and dust-covered, like an individual in the hum- bler walks. From a cane resting across his shoulder was sus- pended a handkerchief containing his clothing. Stopping in front of Turner's tavern, he took from his hat a paper, and handed it to a gentleman standing on the steps. It read as follows : 4 The celebrated historian and naturalist, Volney, needs no recommendation from G. Washington.' " It is said that the idea of his celebrated work on the Ruins of Empires was first suggested in the cabinet of Franklin. Herein he elaborately proclaims and precisely defines the law of decay as the condition of humanity in her most magnificent social development ; and states, with the eloquence of scientific logic, the right, necessity, and duty of * " Old New York," by Dr. Francis. 5* 106 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. toleration then a doctrine but casually recognized as a philosophical necessity. It was objected to this work, in addition to its sceptical generalization, that, in describing sects, he misrepresented their creed and practice. A merit, however, claimed for Yolney, and with reason, is his freedom from egotism when writing as a philosopher. There is a remarkable absence of personal anecdote and adventures both in his work on the East and his American travels. One of his biographers claims that the topographical descriptions in the latter are written in a masterly style, and that his re- marks on the course and currents of the winds denote origi- nal insight and observation. The same writer, however, states that his character, which was naturally serious, became morose as he advanced in life. It was his original purpose to treat of America as a political essayist and social philosopher. He intended to trace " the stock, the history, language, laws, and customs ; to expose the error of the romantic colonists, who gave the name of a virgin people to their descendants a combination of the inhabitants of old Europe Dutch, Germans, Span- iards, and English from three kingdoms ; to indicate the differences of opinions and of interests which divide the New England and Southern country the region of the Atlantic and that of the Mississippi ; to define republicanism and federalism," &c. A profound admirer of the liberty of the press and of opinion, he would have explained the antag- onism between the followers of Adams and of Jefferson. In a word, the scope of his work, as at first projected, resem- bled that so ably achieved by his more consistent and judi- cious countryman, De Tocqueville. Instead of this, Volney wrote in a scientific vein. He treats of the winds, tempera- ture, qualities of soil, local diseases ; and writes as a natural- ist and physiologist, instead of making the great theme subservient to his political theories. There is much con- densed knowledge and remarkable scientific description ; interesting accounts of Florida, the French colony on the Scioto, and others in Canada, with curious remarks on the FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 107 aborigines. The style and thought as well as scope of the work, although thus partial in its design, are superior to most of those which preceded it. Another Frenchman, who enjoyed considerable literary renown in his day, was instrumental, though not in the character of a traveller, in making America and her political claims known in Europe. Born at St. Geniez, Guienne, in 1711, and dying at Paris in 1796, the life of the Abbe Ray- nal includes a period fraught with extreme vicissitudes of government and religion, whereof he largely partook in opin- ion and fortune. Bred a Jesuit, he went to Paris, and, from some elocutionary defects, failed as a preacher at St. Sulpice, became intimate with Yoltaire, Diderot, and D'Alembert, and abandoned theology for philosophy. Familiar with the writings of Bayle, Montaigne, and Rousseau, he became an ardent liberal and active litterateur ; first compiling memoirs of Ninon de L'Enclos, then writing " L'Histoire du Stathou- derat" a branch of the noble theme since so memorably unfolded by our countryman Motley; the "Histoire du Parle- ment d'Angleterre ; " articles in the " Cyclopaedia ; " literary anecdotes, &c. But the work which for a time gave him most celebrity, was written in conjunction with Diderot " Histoire philosophique et politique des Etablissements et du commerce des Europeens dans les Indes." The first edition appeared in 1770. In the second, ten years after, his direct attacks upon the existing government and religion caused the work to be prohibited, and its author condemned to imprison- ment; which latter penalty he escaped by flight. In 1781 appeared his " Tableau et Revolutions des Colonies Anglaises dans 1'Amerique Septentrionale," * whose many errors of fact were indicated in a pamphlet by Tom Paine. Elected a deputy, his renunciation of some of his obnoxious opinions failed to conciliate his adversaries ; and, despoiled by the Revolution, he died in poverty, at the age of eighty-four. Incorrect and ^desultory as are the Abbe Raynal's writings, *"The Abbe Raynal on the Revolution in America," 12mo., Dublin, 1781. 108 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. and neglected as they now are, his advocacy of the American cause, and description of the country, drawn apparently from inadequate yet sometimes authentic sources, on account of a certain philosophical tone and agreeability of style, were for some years read and admired. As we recur to them in the ninth volume of the latest edition of his chief work, wherein they are now included, we obtain a vivid idea of the kind of research and rhetoric then in vogue, and can imagine how to foreign minds must then have appeared the problem of our nascent civilization. The Abbe's biographer claims that he was personally very agreeable, and possessed of a fine figure ; that the vivacious discussions and literary fellowship of the Paris salons en- livened and enlarged the acquisitions of this eleve of the cloister who " succeeded in the world," and, though he did not understand the science of politics, and often contradicted himself, was, notwithstanding, an ardent and capable de- fender of human rights, and a true lover of his race. It is a curious fact, that he was a warm admirer and eloquent eulo- gist of Sterne's fair friend, Eliza Draper ; and a more inter- esting one, that he was among the very earliest to protest against the cruelties then practised against the negro race. He draws a parallel, at the close of his history, between the actual results of European conquests in America, and their imagined benefits. The new empire multiplied metals, and ,made a grand movement in the world ; but, says the Abbe, " le mouvement ne'st pas le bonheur," and the Western em- pire " donne naissance au plus infame, au plus atroce de tous les commerces, celui des esclaves." Chiefly occupied with the West India Islands; what is said of North America is dis- cursive. He describes the process of civilization in brief; the Puritan, Dutch, and Catholic leaders ; Penn, and Lord Balti- more ; the settlement of Georgia and Carolina ; the trees, grain, birds, tobacco, and other indigenous products ; notes the imported domestic animals, and the exported wood and metals ; discusses the probable success of silk and vine cul- ture in the southern and middle regions, and gives statistics FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 109 of the population, and partial accounts of the laws, currency, municipal and colonial systems, &c., of the several States ; and then, in outline, describes the Revolution. A love of freedom, and a speculative hardihood and interest in human progress and prosperity, imbue his narratives and reasonings, though the former are often incorrect, and the latter inade- quate. According to the habit of French authors of those days, the Abbe occasionally turns, from disquisition to oratory ; and it is amusing to read here and now the oracular counsel he gave our fathers : addressing the " peuples de TAmerique Septentrionale," in 1781 : " Craignez," he says, " 1'affluencede Tor qui apporte avec le luxe la corruption des moeurs, le mepris des lois ; craignez une trop inegale repartition des richesses ; garantissez-vous de 1'esprit de conquete ; cherchez Paisance et la sante dans le travail, la prosperite dans la cul- ture des terres et les ateliers de 1'industrie, la force dans les bonnes mosurs et dans la vertu ; faites prosperer les sciences et les artes ; veillez a 1'education de vos enfans ; n'etablissez aucune preference legale entre les cultes. Apres avoir vu dans le debut de cet ouvrage, en quel etat de misere et de tenebres etait 1'Europe a la naissance de 1'Amerique, voyons en quel etat le conquete d'un monde a conduit et pousse le monde conquerante." He laments the fanaticism of Massa- chusetts ; tells the story of Salem witchcraft, and the per- petuation in the New of the cruel laws of the Old World ; says epidemics like the small pox acquire new virulence in America ; praises the Long Wharf of Boston, and compares the dwellings and furniture of that city to those of London. CHAPTER IY. FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS CONTINUED. KOCHAMBEAU ; TALLEYRAND ; s GUR ; CHATEAUBRIAND ; MICHAUX ; MURAT ; BRILLAT-SAVARIN ; DE TOCQUEVILLE ; DE BEAUMONT ; AMPERE, AND OTHERS ; LAFAYETTE ; FISCH ; DE GASPARIN ; OFFICERS; LABOULAYE, ETC. SOME of the most pleasing and piquant descriptions of America, and life there, at the period of and subsequent to the Revolutionary War, are to be found in the memoirs and correspondence of French allies and emigres. In some in- stances, as we have seen in the case of Chastellux, Brissot, the Abbe Robin, and others, instead of an episode, our Gallic visitors have expanded their observations into separate vol- umes ; but even the casual mention of places and persons, character and customs that are interwoven in the biography and journals of some of the French officers, are noteworthy as illustrations of the times, especially in a social point of view. We find them in the memoirs of De Lauzun, De Segur, De Broglie, and other of the gallant beaux who made themselves so agreeable to the pretty Quakers at Newport, where they were so long quartered ; and left, as in the case of Yosmeneul, traditions of wit, love, and dancing the evanescent record whereof still survives in the initials cut on the little window panes .of the gable-roofed houses with their diamond rings, and were long rehearsed by venerable ladies of Philadelphia and Boston. Among these incidental glimpses of America as her scenes and people impressed a FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. Ill noble militaire, are many passages in the Memoirs of Count Rochambeau, who is so prominently represented beside Washington in the picture of the surrender of Yorktown, at Versailles. Born in 1725, and soon distinguished as a sol- dier, in 1780 he was sent as the commander-general of six thousand troops, to assist our Revolutionary struggle. He landed at Newport, R. I., and acted in concert with Wash- ington against Clinton in New York, and against Cornwallis at Yorktown. On his return to France, he was made mar- shal, and commander of the Army of the North, by Louis XVI. He was gradually superseded by more energetic officers, became the object of calumny to the journalists, and vindicated himself in a speech before the Assembly, who passed a decree approving his conduct. He retired to his estate at Vendome, resolved to abandon public affairs. He was arrested, and narrowly escaped death under Robespierre like so many of his eminent countrymen who had become well known on this side of the ocean. In 1803 he was pre- sented to Bonaparte, who conferred on him the cross of the Legion of Honor. He died in 1807, and, two years after, his " Meinoires " were published. Count Rochambeau describes at length the military oper- ations of which he was. a witness in America, and looks at the country, for the most part, with the eyes of a soldier. He repudiates all idea of writing in the character of a pro- fessed author, and both the style and substance of his auto- biography are those of a military memoir. Still he records many significant facts, geographical and economical. He notes the agricultural resources of those parts of the country he visited, describes the houses, ports, and climate, and gives an interesting account of Arnold's treason first re- vealed to Washington in connection with a journey under- taken by the latter to meet him ; and of many of the subse- quents events connected therewith he was a witness. But the most attractive feature of Rochambeau's American reminiscences is his cordial recognition of the popular mind and heart. He appreciated, better than many more super- 112 AMEEICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. ficial observers, the domestic discipline, the religious tolera- tion, and the genuine independence of character which then formed our noble distinction in the view of liberal Europeans. He remarks the unequal interest in the war in different localities : " En distinguant d'abord les commercans des agri- coles, les habitudes des grandes villes maritimes de ceux des petites villes ou des habitans de 1'interieur, ou ne doit pas etre etonne que les commercans et ceux qui, dans ces ports, avaient une relation ou des interets directs avec le gouverne- ment Anglais, aient t6moigne moins de zele pour la revolu- tion que les agricoles." Boston was an exception ; and the Northern States seconded the Revolution which the violence of the British and Hessians precipitated. The equal for- tunes of the North favored democracy, while the large pro- prietors of the South formed an aristocracy. He says of American women : " Les filles y sont libres jusqu'a leur mariage. Leur premiere question est de savoir si vous etes marie ; et, si vous Fetes, leur conversation tombe tout a plat." Sometimes in youth, though going to church with parents, " elles n' aient pas encore fait choix d'une religion ; elles disent qu'elles seront de la religion de leur maris." They observe, he says, " une grande propriete." He describes a settlement " par mettre le feu a la foret (to clear). II seme en suite, entre les souches, toutes sortes de grains, qui crois- sant avec la plus grande abondance, sous une couche de feuilles, pourries et reduites en terreau vegetal forme pen- dant un tres-grand nombre d'annees. II batit son habitation avec les rameaux de ces arbres places 1'un sur 1'autre, soutenus par des piquets. Au bout de vingt ou trente ans, lorsqu'il est parvenu a desancher et a rendre la terre ameublie, il songe a construire une maison plus propre " and later one of brick ; " on y fait au moins quatre repas, interrompu par un travail modere, et le petit negre est continuellement occupe a defaire et a remettre le couvert. " Dans les grands villes," he adds, " le luxe a fait plus de progres. Le pays circonscrit sous le nom des Etats Unis, avec les arrondissemens qu'ont cedes les Anglais, par la paix FRENCH TEAVELLEES AND WEITERS. 113 de 1783, pourra comporter un jour plus de trente millions d'habitans sans a gener." He recognizes the complete division of church and state in our democratic system : " Par ces precautions, la religion n'entra pour rien dans les deliberations politiques ; chacun professa son culte avec exactitude ; la sanctification du dimanche s'y observoit avec exactitude ; " and, like so many other sojourners of that period, he attests that "1'hos- pitalite est la vertu la plus generalement observee." An incident related by his companion, illustrates the popular respect for law : u At the moment of our quitting the camp," writes Count Segur, " as M. de Rocharabeau was proceeding at the head of his columns, and surrounded by his brilliant staff, an American approached him, tapped him slightly on the shoulder, and, showing him a paper he held in his hand, said : c In the name of the law I arrest you.' Several young officers were indignant at this insult offered to their general ; but he restrained their impatience by a sign, smiled, and said to the American, ' Take me away with you, if you can.' No,' replied he ; ' I have done my duty, and your excellency may proceed on your march, if you wish to put justice at defiance. Some soldiers of the division of Soissonnais have cut down several trees, and burnt them to light their fires. The owner of them claims an indemnity, and has obtained a warrant against you, which I have come to execute.' " Rochambeau was much impressed with the state of, reli- gion in America, and especially the voluntary deference to the clergy, coexistent with self-respect and self-reliance in matters of faith, so manifest at the era of the Revolution. " They reserve," he writes, " for the minister the first place at public banquets ; he invokes a blessing thereon ; but his prerogatives, as far as society is concerned, extend no far- ther ; and this position," he adds, obviously in view of cleri- cal corruption in Europe, " should lead naturally to simple and pure manners." Another anecdote, illustrative of the times and people, is 114: AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. related with much zest : " Je hasarde," he says, " d'inter- rompre ici Pattention du lecteur, par le recit d'une historiette qui ni laisse pas de caracteriser parfaitement les rnoeurs des bons republicans du Connecticut." He then states that, being on his way to Hartford, to confer with Washington, and accompanied by the Count de Ternay, who was an in- valid, the carriage broke down, and his aide was sent to find a blacksmith to repair it. The only one in the vicinity, being ill with fever and ague, refused, and declared a hat full of guineas would not induce him to undertake the job ; but when the Count explained to the resolute Vulcan, that if his vehicle was not repaired, he could not keep his appointment with Washington, u I am at the public service. You shall have your carriage at six to-morrow morning," said the black- smith, " for you are good people." Such instances of disin- terested patriotism, and superiority to the blandishments of rank and money, among the mechanics and farmers, struck Rochambeau and his companions as memorable evidences of the effect of free institutions and popular education upon national character. Another famous Frenchman, at a later period, received quite a different impression finding in the isolated material- ism of American border life a hopeless dearth of sentiment and civilized enjoyment, which, in his view, though habitu- ated to the sight of starving millions and effeminate cour- tiers, more than counterbalanced the independence and pros- pective comfort of the masses thus bravely secured. When Talleyrand was a temporary exile in the United States, he visited a colony of his countrymen, and wrote thus of the American backwoodsman : " He is interested in nothing. Every sentimental idea is banished from him. Those branches so elegantly thrown by nature a fine foliage, a brilliant hue which marks one part of the forest, a deeper green which darkens another all these are nothing in his eye. He has no recollections associated with anything around him. His only thought is the number of strokes which are necessary to level this or that tree. He has never planted ; FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 115 he is a stranger to the pleasure of that process. Were he to plant a tree, it never could become an object of gratification to him, because he could not live to cut it down. He lives only to destroy. He is surrounded by destruction. He does not watch the destiny of what he produces. He does not love the field where he has expended his labor, because his labor is merely fatigue, and has no pleasurable sentiment attached to it." Few men born in the Eastern States, especially if they have visited Europe, can fail to realize a certain forlorn re- moteness in the sensation experienced, when surrounded by the sparsely inhabited woods and prairies, akin to what Talley- rand describes. The back country of the Upper Mississippi seems more oppressively lonely to such a traveller than the interior of Sicily. The want of that vital and vivid connec- tion between the past and present ; the painful sense of new- ness ; the savage triumph, as it were, of nature, however beautiful, over humanity, whose eager steps have only in- vaded, not ameliorated her domain seem, for the moment, to leave us in desolate individuality and barren self-depend- ence. But the experience Talleyrand compassionated was and is but a transition state a brief overture to a future social prosperity, where sentiment as well as enterprise has ample verge. Count Segur, the French ambassador to Russia and Prus- sia, was born in 1753, and his first youth was educated under that ehevalresque social luxury that marked the reign of Louis XV. Of noble birth, and commencing life as a courtier, he experienced to an unusual extent, the vicissitudes, the disci- pline, and the distinction incident to his age and country. He was an accomplished military officer and diplomatist, an author, a politician, a voyageur, and a peer; and, withal, seems to have been an amiable, liberal, and brave gentleman. He came to America in 1783, with despatches to Rocham- beau, to whom he was appointed aide, with the rank of colonel ; and, after various and provoking delays and priva- 116 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. tions, joined the French camp and his own regiment on the Hudson River. The circumstances of his landing were such as to predis- pose a less heroic and gracious nature to take an unfavorable view of the New World ; for battle, shipwreck, the loss of his effects, great discomfort, and a series of annoyances and mishaps attended him from the moment his battered ship ran aground in the Delaware, within sight of the enemy's fleet, until he reached his commander's quarters, after a wearisome and exposed journey. Yet few of his gallant countrymen looked upon the novelties of life, manners, and scenery around him with such partial and sympathetic eyes. Per- haps it was by virtue of contrast that the young courtier of Louis conceived a strong attachment for the Quakers of Philadelphia ; and this feeling received a fresh and fond impulse from the charms of the beautiful Polly Lawton, of Newport. The sight of the American forests inspired him ; and the independent character, probity, and frugal contentment of the people was the constant theme of his admiration. " I experienced," he writes, " two opposite impressions one produced by the spectacle of the beauties of a wild and sav- age nature, and the other by the fertility and variety of industrious cultivation of a civilized world. Indigence and brutality were nowhere to be seen ; fertility, comfort, and kindness were everywhere to be found ; and every individual displayed the modest and tranquil pride of an independent man, who feels that he has nothing above him but the laws, and who is a stranger alike to the vanity, to the prejudices, and to the servility of European society. No useful profes- sion is ever ridiculed or despised. Indolence alone would be a subject of reproach." He was, at first, astonished to find men of all vocations with military titles. The " wild and savage " prospect around West Point delighted him. He dined with Wash- ington, and describes the toasts and the company with much zest. He enjoyed a week's furlough at Newport, and, with FRENCH TEAVELLEES AND WEITEES. 117 his brother officers, gave a ball there. Quartered with a family at Providence, he learned to love the simplicity of domestic life in America. One of his general observations on the country has now a prophetic significance : " The only dangers which can menace, in the future, this happy republic, consisting in 1780 of three millions, and now (1825) num- bering more than ten millions of citizens, is the excessive wealth which is promised by its commerce, and the corrupting luxury which may follow it. Its Southern provinces should foresee and avoid an- other peril. In the South are to be found a very large class of poor whites, and another of enormously wealthy proprietors; the fortunes of this latter class are created and sustained by the labor of a popu- lation of blacks, slaves, which increases largely every year, and who may and must be frequently driven to despair and revolt by the con- trast of their servitude with the entire liberty enjoyed by men of the same color in other States of the Union. In a word, this difference of manners and situation between the North and South ; does it not lead us to apprehend in times to come a separation which would en- feeble and perhaps break this happy confederation, which can pre- serve its power only in being firmly locked and united together ? Such was the sad thought which ended my last conversation with the Chevalier de Chastellux, on the eve of his departure from the army." * Like so many other visitors, he was struck with the re- semblance of Boston to an English town, with the beauty of its women, and with the preaching of Dr. Cooper. In a letter written on embarking for the West Indies, he ex- presses keen regret at leaving America, dwells with much feeling upon the kindness he had received and the opportuni- ties he had enjoyed there, and descants upon the purity of manners, equality of condition, and manly self-reliance which, combined with the natural advantages of the country and the freedom of its institutions, made America to him a subject of the most interesting speculation and affectionate interest. Another Frenchman, whose name and fame are far more illustriously identified with the political vicissitudes and influ- ential literature of his times, saw somewhat of America, and * " Memoires," &c., par M. le Comte de Segur, torn, i, pp. 412, 413, Paris, 1825. 118 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. reported his impressions with characteristic latitude and sen- timent. The scene of his best romance is laid in one of the Southern States ; but the description of nature and percep- tion of Indian character are far removed from scientific pre- cision. Yet over all that Chateaubriand wrote, however warped by egotism or rendered melodramatic by exaggera- tion, there breathes an atmosphere of sentiment, whereby a certain humanity and eloquence make significant what would otherwise often seem unreal and meretricious. He loved nature, and, by virtue of a vivid imagination and intense consciousness, connected all he saw with his own life and thought. His visit to our shores forms an interesting episode in his " Memoires d'outre Tombe." After crossing the At- lantic, he was becalmed off the shores of Maryland and Vir- ginia, and had leisure to appreciate the beautiful skies ; imprudently bathed in waters infested with sharks ; trav- ersed woods of balsam trees and cedars, where he observed with infinite pleasure the cardinal and mocking birds, the gray squirrels, and a " negro girl of extraordinary beauty." The contrast between these wild charms and the cities was most uncongenial to the poetical emigrL He " felt the archi- tectural deformity " of the latter, and declares, sadly, that " nothing is old in America excepting the woods." But his chief disappointment consisted in the discovery that the modes of life and tone of manners were so far removed from what he had fondly imagined of the ideal republic. "A man," he writes in 1791, "landing, like myself, in the United States, full of enthusiasm for the ancients a Cato, seeking, wherever he goes, the austerity of the primitive manners of Rome must be exceedingly scandalized to find everywhere elegance in dress, luxury in equipages, frivolity in conversation, inequality of fortunes, the immorality of gaming houses, and the noise of balls and theatres. In Philadelphia I could have fancied myself in an English town. There was nothing to indicate that I had passed from a mon- archy to a republic." Reasoning from historical facts and analogy, one would imagine that a foreign visitor could only FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 119 expect to find Anglo-Saxon traits, local and social, in those American communities directly founded by English emi- grants. Yet Dickens expressed the same disappointment in Boston, at the similarity of the place and people to what was familiar to him at home, that Chateaubriand confesses, half a century previous, in the city of Brotherly Love. The allusion to Roman names and manners, so common with French writers in their political criticisms, would strike us as extremely artificial, were it not that the drama and the academic talk in France, at that time, continually adopted the characters and history of Greece and Rome as the stand- ard and nomenclature of an era in every respect essentially different a pedantic tendency akin to the Arcadian terms and tastes which so long formalized the degenerate muse in Italy. It is not, indeed, surprising that the republican enthu- siasts of the Old World should have been disenchanted in the New, when they found w r hat is called " society " but a tame reflection of that from which they had fled as the result of an effete civilization. But the complaint was as unreasonable as unjust ; for, in all large and prosperous com- munities, an identical social, conventional system prevails. In America, however, this .sphere was very limited, nd, at the dawn of the republic, embraced remarkable exceptions to the usual hollowness and vapid display ; while, in the vast domain beyond, the rights, the abilities, and the self-respect of human beings found an expression and a scope which, however different from Roman development, and however unsatisfactory to a modern Cato, offered a most refreshing contrast to and auspicious innovation upon the crushing, hopeless routine of European feudalism. The political dis- appointment of the author of Atala induced him to write against the Quakers. He found Washington was " not Cin- cinnatus, for he passed in a coach and four ; " but when he called on the President with a letter of introduction, he recognized in his surroundings " the simplicity of an old Roman no guards, not even a footman." Chateaubriand's object was to promote an expedition, set on foot in his own 120 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. country, for the discovery of the long-sought and much- desired " Northwest Passage." It appears that Washington rather discouraged the enterprise ; upon which the compli- mentary instinct was aroused in his guest, who, with the usual misapprehension of foreigners as to the character of our Revolution, and of our matchless chief's relation thereto, replied, " It is less difficult to discover the Northwest Passage than to create a nation, as you have done." And we can easily imagine the amused and urbane " Well, well, young man," with which Washington dismissed the subject. He showed Chateaubriand the key of the Bastile. In describing their interview, the French authdr compares him with Bona- parte ; and, in allusion to his own feelings on the memorable occasion, significantly declares, "I was not agitated." A startling experience in his subsequent journey, was encounter- ing, in the wilderness of New York State, a dancing master of his country teaching the Iroquois to caper scientifically. Indeed, the great pleasure derived from his visit was that afforded by the salient contrast of a nascent civilization with the wild beauty of nature. He was awestruck when, in the heart of the lonely woods, the distant roar of Niagara struck his ear ; and few have approached that shrine of won- der and grace with more reverence and delight. The great lakes of the interior, the coast fisheries, the isolated sugar camp in the maple groves, and the aspect, rites, and traits of the aboriginal tribes, excited the earnest curiosity and grati- fied the adventurous sentiment which afterward found such copious inspiration in a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, a sojourn in Rome, exile in England, and a conservative and pathetic plea for outraged Christianity in his native land. " It is impos- sible," he writes, " to conceive the feelings and the delight experienced on seeing the spire of a new steeple rising from the bosom of an ancient American forest." The transition from the political essayist to the natural historian is refreshing. The zest with which Michaux de- scribes some of the arborescent wonders of the West is as pleasant as his intelligent discussion of economical facts and FEENCH TEAVELLEES AND WEITEES. 121 Puritan domesticity in the East. Dr. .Michaux, in the year 1802, visited the country westward of the Alleghanies and the Carolinas, under the auspices of the Minister of the Inte- rior. He found delightful companions in the trees, and charming hospitality among the -flowers ; and, contrasting the vegetation of the Southern with that of the Western States, gave to his countrymen a correct and impressive idea of the products and promise of the New World, as an arena for botanical investigation, and a home for the enterprising and unfortunate.* He describes new species of rhododen- dron and azalea ; expatiates on the varieties of oak and wal- nut ; gives statistics of size, grouping, and diversities in the native forests ; points out indigenous medicinal and floral products, and discourses genially of the cones of the mag- nolia, the fish and shells of the Ohio, the salt licks of Ken- tucky, and bear hunting in the Alleghanies. In a word, his brief and discursive journal illustrates that delightful series of Travels, whose inspiration is the love of nature, and whose object is the exposition of her laws and productions, with which Nuttall, Wilson, Audubon, Lyell, and Agassiz have so enriched scientific literature on this continent. And while it is interesting to compare the more copious and special narra- tives of these endeared writers with that of Michaux, and realize the advancement of knowledge and scientific zeal since he wrote, it is no less cheering to witness the social progress of the West especially the effects of the temper- ance reform and the success of the grape culture and revert therefrom to the earnest protest of this amiable writer, who, as a Frenchman and a naturalist, was revolted at the perver- sion of nature's best gifts which the current habits of the population evinced. "The taverns, and especially that in which we lodged," writes Michaux of the valley of the Ohio, fifty years ago, " were filled with drunkards, who made a frightful uproar, and yielded to excesses so horrible as to be * " Travels to the Westward of the Alleghany Mountains in Ohio, Ken- tucky and Tennessee," &c., by Dr. F. A. Michaux, translated by Lambert, 8vo., 1805. 6 122 AMEKICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. scarcely conceived. The rooms, the stairs, the yard were covered with men dead drunk ; and those who were still able to get their teeth separated, uttered only the accents of fury and rage. An inordinate desire for spirituous liquors is one of the characteristics of the country in the interior of the United States. This passion is so powerful, that they quit their habitations, from time to time, to go and get drunk at the taverns. They do not relish cider, which they think too mild. Their distaste for this salutary and agreeable beverage is the more extraordinary, since they might easily procure it at little expense, for apple trees of every kind succeed won- derfully in this country." It has been charged against Michaux, that he accepted a commission from Genet to raise troops in Kentucky and Louisiana. Among the political refugees who found safety and com- fort in the United States after the fall of Napoleon, were two sons of the dashing and brave but superficial and unfor- tunate Murat. One dwelt many years in New Jersey, where Joseph Bonaparte, with benign philosophy, enjoyed the ele- gant seclusion of a private gentleman so much more than he had the cares and honors of royalty ; and, among the extra- ordinary vicissitudes that mark the history of individuals associated with European politics in our day, the marvellous restoration of Murat to fortune in France, under the imperial success of Louis Napoleon, is to the people of that little town in New Jersey " stranger than fiction ; " for the refugee was a boon companion and needy adventurer among them; for years supported by his accomplished wife and daughter, who kept a most creditable school, and maintained their self- respect with dignity and tact. The other brother, Achille, found a home and a wife, with slaves and a plantation, near Tallahassee, Fla., and seems to have enjoyed his adopted coun- try with the zest of a sportsman and the adventurous spirit of his race, and easily to have reconciled himself to the in- congruities of such a lot. Nine years of residence made him familiar with the country ; and, when an honorary colonel in the Belgian army, he presented to a comrade the manuscript FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 123 wherein, to inform a friend in Europe, he had written at length his impressions and convictions in regard to the United States. After his death, it was translated and pub- lished in this country.* The distinction of the work is, that it is written by a foreigner whose experience of the country and whose sympathies are almost as exclusively Southern, as if he was a bigoted native instead of a stranger in the land. He considers agriculture the primal and pervasive interest ;. he advocates slavery both on practical and metaphysical grounds ; he considers Charleston, S. C., the centre of all that is polished and superior in American society ; he shares and repeats the obsolete prejudices about " Yankees," founded upon the days of blue laws and peddling ; he prophesies the political ascendency of the Southern States, and deems the " spirit of calculation " elsewhere " marvel- lously connected with the observance of the Sabbath." Yet he is enthusiastic in his admiration of and firm in his trust in the "principles of liberty" and the system of government. He is proud and happy in his American citizenship, grateful for the prosperous home and independent life here enjoyed, and throughout his observations there is a singular combi- nation of the political enthusiast and the man of the world, the militaire and the advocate, the lover of pleasure and the devotee of freedom. There is little said about the beauties of nature, few criticisms on manners ; but the processes whereby the Indians are dispossessed, the forest occupied, the hunter superseded by the squatter, the latter by the settler, and the Territory made a State, are given with the details only obtain- able through long personal observation. One chapter is devoted to the history of parties ; another to the administra- tion a of justice ; one to religion, and one to finance. Our national means of defence, the Indians, and the new settle- ments are described and discussed ; and thus a large amount * Murat's (Achille) " Moral and Political Sketch of the United States of America," 8vo., London, 1833. " America and the Americans," by the late Achille Murat, New York, 1849. 124: AMERICA AND HER CdMMENTATORS. of correct and valuable information is given. But it is evi- dent the writer is acquainted intimately with only one sec- tion of the country ; that the new, and not the old communi- ties, have been the chief scene of his observation; and, while there is much both fair and fresh in his comments, they refer in no small degree to local and temporary facts. Murat writes, however, with acute and sympathetic intelligence, from .a material point of view ; and it is interesting to contrast his speculations of thirty-seven years ago with the events of the hour. "The English minister," he writes in 1827, " wishing to stop emigration to the United States, descended so far as to induce mercenary writers to travel, and promul- gate, through the press, false statements against our people and Government. In all these works, which had an extensive circulation with John Bull, and thereby influenced his mind, the subject of slavery has been the avowed and principal topic." On which subject he thus argues : " A man meets a lion, and has the indubitable right to appropriate the skin of the animal to his own particular purpose ; while, on the other hand, the lion has an equal right to the flesh of the man. The difference is, one defends his skin, the other his flesh ; hence it follows that the spontaneous objection in each be- comes an obstacle to the other, and which either has the right to destroy. By an individual right we are by no means to understand a natural right. A man has undoubtedly no claim to the possession of another man in relation to that man, but possesses this claim in relation to society. If I mistake not, public opinion in the Southern States is, that slavery is necessary, but an evil. I, however, am far from considering the question in this point of view. On the con- trary, I am led to consider it, in certain periods of thg his- tory or existence of nations,' as a good." His pro-slavery argument, when at all original, is undis- guised sophistry, and compares absurdly with his recogni- tion of the principles of civil liberty and self-government ; while no foreigner has more cordially entered into the re- deeming spirit of individual self-reliance and a controlling FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 125 public opinion, as means and methods of social progress and safety. The plan and scope of the work are such as to render it useful and interesting to educated Europeans who contem- plate emigration. Its economical details and political philoso- phy are comparatively unauthoritative now, facilities of travel and more comprehensive and elevated criticism hav- ing made the questions and facts clear and familiar. The " America and Americans " of Achille Murat^is, therefore, a work more interesting from the circumstance^ and history of its author, than from its intrinsic novelty or value. In that ingenious work wherein the rationale of luxury is so genially expounded the " Physiologic du Gout " there is an episode, wherein the same kindly and cordial estimate of republican manners and economy characteristic of French travellers in America, is naively apparent. The author, though chiefly known by a work which associates his name with the pleasures of the table, was, in fact, a philosopher whose cast of mind was judicial rather than fanciful ; and who, in his most popular book, under the guise of epicurean zest, grapples with and illustrates profound truths. An inde- fatigable student, a keen sportsman, and a conscientious offi- cial, Brillat-Savarin, from the moment his early education was completed, filled important situations, such as deputy, mayor, president of the civil tribunals, and judge of the bureau of cassation, in his native province ; with the exception of three years of exile during the Revolution, which he passed in this country, and chiefly in New York, gaining a subsistence by teaching his native language and regulating a theatrical orchestra. He alludes to his sojourn as an era of pleasant experiences. He made numerous friends in America, and attributes this to his facility in adopting the habits and man- ners of the country, and his knowledge of the language ; although his quotations are often amusingly incorrect. A scholar, musician, man of the world, and jurist, his culture and his endowments were such as to make him an appreciative observer of life and institutions here ; for he united rare powers of observation and reflection with adequate sensibil- 126 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. ity to the beautiful and the true. He was so tall, that his brother judges called him the drum major of the court of cassation. He was an habitue of Madame Recamier's charming salon. Balzac expressed the opinion that no writer, except La Bruyere and La Rochefoucauld, ever gave to French phrases such vigorous relief. Since the death of Brillat-Savarin, science has thrown new light upon many sub- jects connected with those so agreeably discussed in the " Physiologic du Gout ; " still the scope and style of the work give it prominence. The application of science to gas- tronomy, of taste and wisdom to the art of human nutrition, was thus initiated in a most attractive manner, and the inci- dental relations of the subject shown to be identical with the best interests of society. The author varies his disquisition by logical, anecdotical, and eloquent alternations. His per- sonal experience is often made to illustrate his speculative opinions. In the chapter devoted to " Coq d'Inde," or " Din- don," after describing the turkey as the most beautiful gift which the New World has made to the Old, treating as para- doxical the tradition that it was known to the ancients, de- scribing its introduction to Europe by the Jesuits, discussing its natural history, its financial importance, and its gastro- nomic value, he thus describes an exploit du professeur : "During my residence at Hartford, in Connecticut, I had the pleasure of shooting a wild turkey. This exploit deserves to be transmitted to posterity, and I record it with the more complaisance, inasmuch as I/was the hero. A venerable American farmer had in- vited me to sport on his domain ; he lived near the least-settled por- tion of the State ; he promised me excellent game, and authorized me to bring a friend. Mr. King, my companion, was a remarkable sportsman ; he was passionately fond of the exercise, but, after hav- ing killed his bird, he regarded himself as a murderer, and made the victim's fate the subject of moral reflections and interminable elegies. On a beautiful morning in October, 1794, we left Hartford on hired horses, hoping to reach our destination, five mortal leagues distant, before the evening. Although the route was scarcely indicated by travel, we arrived without accident, and were received with that cordial and unpretending hospitality which is expressed in actions rather than words: in short, we were immediately made to feel FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 127 comfortable and at home men, horses, and dogs according to their respective wants and convenience. Two hours were spent in exam- ining the farm and its dependencies ; I would describe all this in de- tail, but I prefer to introduce to the reader the four beautiful daugh- ters of Monsieur Bulow, to whom our visit was an important incident. Their ages ranged from sixteen to twenty ; they were radiant with the freshness of health, and they possessed that simplicity, ease, and frankness which the most common actions develop into a thousand charms. Soon after our return from the walk, we were seated at a table abundantly provided ; a superb piece of corned beef, a fine stew, a magnificent leg of mutton, plenty of vegetables, and, at each end of the table, enormous jars of excellent cider, with which I could not be satiated. When we had proved to our host that we were genuine sportsmen, at least in regard to appetite, the conversation turned upon the object of our visit. He pointed out the best places for game, the landmarks whereby we could find our way back, and the farmhouses at which we could procure refreshments. During this discussion the ladies had prepared some excellent tea, of which we drank several cups ; after which, ascending to a double-bedded room, we enjoyed the delicious sleep induced by exercise and good cheer. The next morning, after partaking of refreshment ordered to be in readiness by Monsieur Bulow, we started for a day's sport, and I found myself, for .the first time, in a virgin forest. I wandered there with delight, ob- serving the effects of time, both productive and destructive; and amused myself by following the different periods in the life of an oak, from the moment it breaks through the mould with two little leaves, until all that remains of it is a long black trace the dust of its heart. Mr. King reproached me for these abstract musings ; and we began the sport in earnest; shooting numerous small but fat and tender partridges : we bagged six or seven gray squirrels, which are much esteemed here ; and, at last, my happy star brought us into the midst of a flock of wild turkeys. They followed, at short intervals, one after the other, with rapid, brief flights, and uttering loud cries. Mr. King shot first, and ran on ; most of the flock were soon out of range, but the largest bird rose ten paces before me ; I fired instantly, and he fell dead. One must be a sportsman to conceive the delight which this beautiful shot occasioned me. I seized the superb fowl, and a quarter of an hour afterward heard Mr. King calling for aid ; hastening toward him, I found that the assistance he craved was help in finding a turkey which he pretended to have shot, but which had mysteriously disappeared. I put my dog on the trace ; but he only led us among thickets and brambles, which a man could hardly penetrate ; it was necessary to abandon the pursuit, which my com- panion did in a fit of ill humor that lasted all the rest of the day. 128 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. The remainder of our sport does not merit description. In returning, we became confused in the woods, and ran no small risk of passing the night there ; but the silvery voices ot the ladies Bulow and the shouts of their father, who had the kindness to seek us, guided us back. The four sisters were in full dress : fresh robes, new girdles, beautiful bonnets, and bright shoes, proclaimed that they had made a toilette in our honor ; and I had, on my side, equal intention to make myself agreeable to these ladies, one of whom accepted my arm with as much candor and propriety as if she had been my wife. On reaching the house we found a supper already served ; but, before partaking of it, we seated ourselves an instant near a bright fire, which had been kindled, although the weather did not make it indis- pensable ; we found it, however, most welcome. This custom is, doubtless, adopted from the aborigines, who always have a fire on their hearth ; perhaps thence came the tradition of Francis de Sales, who said a fire was desirable twelve months in the year. We ate as if half famished, and finished the evening with an enormous bowl of punch ; and a conversation, wherein our host was more free than the previous evening, occupied us far into the night. We talked of the War of Independence, in which Monsieur Bulow had served as a supe- rior officer ; of La Fayette, who grows continually in the grateful appreciation of the Americans, and whom they always designate by his title the Marquis ; of agriculture, which then was enriching the United States, and finally of that dear France which I love all the more since I was obliged to quit her shores. To vary the conversa- tion, M. Bulow, from time to time, said to his oldest daughter : ' Maria, give us a song ; ' and she sang, without being urged, and with an embarrassment that was charming, the national song, the com- plaint of Queen Mary, and trial of Major Andre, which are very pop- ular in this country. Maria had taken a few lessons, and, in this isolated region, passed for an adept ; but her singing derived all its merit from the quality of her voice, at once sweet, fresh, and em- phatic. The next day we left, notwithstanding the most friendly re- monstrances ; for I had indispensable duties to fulfil. While the horses were preparing, Monsieur Bulow took me aside and said, ' You see in me, my dear sir, a happy man, if there is one on earth : all that you see around and within is mine. These stockings my daughters knit ; my shoes and garments are provided by my flocks and herds ; they contribute, also, with my garden and fields, to furnish a simple and substantial nourishment ; and, what is the best eulogy upon our Gov- ernment, is the fact, that thousands of Connecticut farmers are not less content than myself; whose doors, too, like my own, are with- out locks. The taxes here are not large ; and, when they are paid, we can sleep in peace. Congress favors our industry with all its FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 129 power ; manufacturers are eager to take whatever surplus produce we have to sell ; and I have money laid up, and am about to dispose of grain at twenty-four dollars a ton, which usually sells for eight. All this comes from the liberty we have conquered and founded upon good laws. I am master in my own domain ; and it will surprise you to know that I never hear the sound of a drum, except on the Fourth of July, the glorious anniversary of our independence, and never see uniforms, soldiers, or bayonets.' During the whole period of return I was absorbed in profound reflections ; and you may well believe that these last words of Monsieur Bulow occupied my mind. At lasft had another subject of meditation : I thought how it was best to have my turkey cooked and served. I was not without perplexity, as I feared it would be difficult to find at Hartford all the requisite means ; for I wished to dispose of my trophy in the most effective and bril- liant manner. I make a painful sacrifice in suppressing the details of profound study the aim whereof was to treat in a distinguished man- ner the American guests whom I had engaged for the banquet. Suf- fice it to say that the wings of the partridges were served aupapil- lote, and the gray squirrels cour bouillonnes au mn de Mad&re. As to the turkey, which constituted our only plate of roast, it was charm- ing to behold, fragrant to inhale, and delicious to the taste : so much so that, until the last morsel had disappeared, we heard from all sides of the table the exclamations : Tres-lon, extremement Ion ! 0, mon cher monsieur, quel glorieux morceau ! " From a region of vast promise, the United States had .become one of accomplished destiny, so far as the establish- ment of a novel and extensive free government is concerned ; and the results, economical, political, and social, in full de- velopment. Accordingly, the exploration of the agriculturist and manufacturer, the comments of the practical emigrant, and the social gossip, began to give way to the speculations of the philosopher ; science investigated what curiosity had originally observed ; and our country won the earnest thought of the humanitarian analyst, intent upon tracing laws of civil life and popular growth under the extraordinary physical, moral, and social influences of the New World. A young Frenchman who came to America as commissioner, to report upon our system of prison discipline, in 1830, subsequently published a work on the United States quite different in scope and aim from those we have before noted. Whatever may be 6* 130 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. thought of Alexis de Tocqueville's views of " Democracy in America," that treatise began a new era in the literature of American travel.* It seriously grasped the problems of human life, destiny, and progress involved in an Anglo-Saxon repub- lic on the immense scale of these United States. The pecu- liar claim and character of De Tocqueville's work is, that, ignoring, in a great measure, the superficial aspects and casual trait|of the country and people, he has patiently and pro- foundly examined and reported the elementary civic life thereof, with a view to ascertain and demonstrate absolute political and social truth. A brief analysis, or even a run- ning commentary on such a treatise, would do it no justice ; and a more elaborate discussion is inconsistent with the limits qf a volume like this. The necessity for either course is obviated by the fact that De Tocqueville's work is so familiar to all thinkers, and so accessible to all readers. To indicate the scope and motives of the author, we have but to recur to his own introductory statement : " It is not merely to satisfy a legitimate curiosity that I have examined America. My wish has been to find instruc- tion by which we may ourselves profit. Whoever should imagine that I have intended to write a panegyric, would be strangely mistaken, and, on reading this work, he will per- ceive that such is not my design. Nor has it been my object to advocate any form of government in particular ; for I am of opinion that absolute excellence is rarely to be found in any legislation. I have not even affected to discuss whether the social revolution, which I believe to be irresistible, is ad- vantageous or prejudicial to mankind. I have acknowledged this revolution as a fact already accomplished, or on the eve bf accomplishment ; and I have selected the nation from * " De la Democratic en Amerique," par A. de Tocqueville, 4 vols., 8vo., Paris, 1836-'41. De Tocqueville's " Democracy in America," translated by Henry Reeve, Esq. ; edited, with notes, the translation revised and in great part rewritten, and the additions made to the recent Paris editions now first translated, by Francis Bowen, Alford Professor of Moral Philosophy hi Harvard University ; 2 vols., post 8vo. FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 131 among those who have undergone it, in which its develop- ment has been the most peaceful and the most complete, in order to discern its natural consequences, and, if it be pos- sible, to distinguish the means by which it may be rendered profitable. I confess that in America I saw more than America ; I sought the image of democracy itself, with its inclinations, its character, its prejudices, and its passions, in order to learn what we have to fear or to hope from its progress." Thus it is universal principles, and not special traits, that M. de Tocqueville discusses. It is because of the identity of American development with human destiny, and not as a fragmentary phenomenon and a peculiar nationality, that he deemed it worthy of his conscientious study. In the first part of his work, he shows " the tendency given to the laws by the democracy of America ; " in the second, " the influ- ence which the equality of conditions and the rule of democ- racy exercise on civil society." The mere mention of such texts indicates at once the vastly superior aim and higher motives of De Tocqueville, when compared with so many other commentators on America. Not as a social critic, a natural- ist, a complacent vagabond, a pedantic raconteur, or a viva- cious gossip, but as a humane philosopher, does he approach the problem of American life, institutions, and destiny. Hence the permanent value and present significance of his work, than which no abstract political treatise was ever so frequently quoted and referred to in the current discussions of the hour. The prophetic wisdom of his work proves how justly he declared : " I have undertaken not to see differently, but to look farther than parties ; and, while they are busied for the morrow, I have turned my thoughts to the future." The mature and wholesome fruit of such conscientious intelligence has long been recognized both at home and abroad. " M. de Tocqueville," writes Vericour, " has revealed to Europe the spirit of the American laws, deduced from a comprehensive survey of usages and institutions. He has decomposed, with a firm and skilful hand, the curious 132 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. mechanism of this new government. In a calm and dispas- sionate spirit he- investigates its action, effects, impulses, and destinies, gradually leading his reader to a profound knowl- edge of America ; while, upon manifold questions of the gravest interest to Europe, affecting its future progress and welfare, he throws unexpected streams of light." With the fondness for broad generalization from inadequate premises, and for specific inferences from casual facts, which makes so many of his countrymen philosophize charmingly, but at ran- dom, De Tocqueville yet seized upon some vital principles of our national life, clearly and truly illustrated some normal tendencies and traits of our civil and social character, and initiated a method of observation and discussion more thoughtful, authentic, and wise than any one of his more superficial predecessors. No one can read his work without finding it full of valuable suggestions, and often profoundly significant. He looked upon the country with the eye of a philosopher ; and, however the prejudices of his own country and culture may have exaggerated some and obscured other perceptions, the spirit of his survey was comprehensive, humane, and acute. The geographical peculiarities of the country, the origin of her Anglo-American colonists, and their different national elements, are briefly considered. The " advanced theory of legislation " of the first laws enacted ; the Puritan as distinguished from the English character of the colonists ; the system of townships in New England ; the predominance of popular will ; the ideas of honor, of equality, administration, prerogative, suffrage, law ; the alle- giance to education and religion, trial by jury, the Federal Constitution each distinctive form and feature of our politi- cal system is described and considered ; and then the reflex influence of these upon manners, language, labor, family life, letters, art, and individual character, is more or less truly indicated our restlessness of temper, monotonous social experience, devotion to physical well-being, absorption in the immediate, unchastened style of speech and writing, mate- rialism, subservience to public opinion. The unique privi- FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 133 leges and peculiar dangers born of our political condition, are defined and delineated, not, indeed, with strict accuracy, but often with salutary wisdom and rare perspicacity. Alexis de Tocqueville was born at Paris, in 1805. He studied for some time at the College of Metz ; travelled with one of his brothers in Italy and Sicily ; was attached, after his return, to the court of justice at Versailles, where his father, the Count de Tocqueville, was prefect. While per- forming the duties of Juge-Auditeur, he found time to engage with ardor in political studies. After the Revolution of 1830, he obtained from the Ministry of the Interior a mis- sion to America, for the purpose of examining our system of prison discipline. In 1831 he came to the United States with his friend M. de Beaumont, and, after a year's residence, returned to Paris, and soon after published the first two vol- umes of his " Democracy in America " a work that estab- lished his reputation as an original and systematic thinker on political questions and social science. He married an English lady ; became a member of the Chamber of Deputies, being reflected from Valognes for nine successive years. Mean- time he was chosen a member of the Institute, received an academy prize, and published the additional volumes of his work on America. Eminently conscientious and useful in public, and happy in domestic life, De Tocqueville continued to think, write, and speak on subjects of vital social interest, until the failure of his health enforced a life of retirement, which was peculiarly congenial to his studious habits and elevated sympathies. "There ever seemed to stand before his imagination," says a recent critic, " two great moral figures, sufficient to occupy his entire being, ever correlative, continually intermingled: the one, France, her Revolution and its consequences ; the other, England, her constitutional lib- erty and its gigantic democratic development in the United States of America." With all his recognition of democracy as the inevitable political tendency and test of humanity, lie thoroughly understood how few were able to conceive or enjoy the legitimate fruits of liberty as an inspiration of 134: AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. character. " It enters," he writes, " into the large hearts God has prepared to receive it ; it fills them, it enraptures them : but to the meaner minds which have never felt it, it is past finding out." He was one of the deputies arrested on the 2d of Decem- ber, 1851, at the time of Napoleon III.'s coup d'etat, and was confined for a time at Vincennes. " Here," writes his friend and biographer, De Beaumont, " ended his political life. It ended with liberty in France." We have the same authority for a beautiful and harmonious estimate of his character both as a writer and a man. He died at the age of fifty-four, in 1859. " I have said," remarks his intimate companion and faith- ful biographer, " that he had many friends ; but he experi- enced a still greater happiness that of never losing one of them. He had also another happiness : it was the knowing how to love them all so well, that none ever complained of the share he received, even while seeing that of the others. He was as ingenious as he was sincere in his attachments ; and never, perhaps, did example prove better than his, ' com- bien Tesprit ajoute de charmes a la bonte." " Good as he was, he aspired without ceasing to become better ; and it is Certain that each day he drew nearer to that moral perfection which seemed to him the only end worthy of man He was more patient, more labo- rious, more watchful to lose nothing of that life which he loved so well, and which he had the right to find beautiful he who made of it so noble a use ! Finally, it may be said to his honor, that at an epoch in which each man tends to concentrate his regard upon himself, he had no other aim than that of seeking for truths useful to his fellows, no other pas- sion than that of increasing their well-being and their dig- nity." An episode of De Tocqueville's American tour, published after his death, evinces a sensibility to nature and a power of observation in her sphere, which are rarely combined with such logical tendencies as his political disquisitions manifest. FRENCH TEAVELLEES AND WEITEES. 135 It is a remarkable fact, that a visit to one of the oldest seats of civilization, in his youth, inspired him with that love of economical and humane studies which led, in his prime, to the sojourn in and the examination of the United States. His biographer tells us that, during De Tocqueville's tour in Sicily, " witnessing the misery inflicted on the people by a detestable Government, he was led to reflect on the primary conditions on which depends the decay or the prosperity of nations." We learn, from the same authority, that his mis- sion to the United States was a pretext for, not the cause of, investigations there. The secret of his liberal and earnest spirit of inquiry, whereby his work attained permanent sig- nificance and philosophic value, is to be found not less in the character than the mind of De Tocqueville ; for his intimate friend and the companion of his travels assures us, that " the great problem of the destiny of man impressed him with daily increasing awe and reverence." It is this senti- ment, so deep and prevailing, which enabled him, as a social and political critic, to rise " above the narrow views of party and the passions of the moment ;" for it was his noble dis- tinction as a writer, a citizen, and a man, " in a selfish age, to aim only at the pursuit of truths useful to his fellow crea- tures." De Tocqueville was surprised and attracted by the " admirable and unusual good sense of the Americans." He entered with singular zest into the freshness and adventure of border life, enjoyed a bivouac in the forests of Tennessee, and a " fortnight in the wilderness," where he saw the In- dian, the pioneer, and the different classes of emigres; noting the sensations and the sentiment of this experience, with as much accuracy and relish as breathe from his specu- lations on the institutions and the destiny of the New "World. He found " mosquitoes the curse of the American woods," yet realized therein the " soft melancholy, the vague aversion to civilized life, and the sort of savage instinct" which so many poetical and adventurous minds, from Boone to Chateaubriand, have acknowledged under the same influ- ences. His analysis of .the French, American, half-caste, and 136 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. Indian inhabitants of the new settlements is discriminating ; and he was keenly alive to the contrast of this new life and its primitive conditions to that he had known in Europe. " Here," he writes, " man still seems to steal into life." The uniform tone of character, and the similarity of aspect incident to the fact that the dwellers in the woods of America are, with few exceptions, emigrants from civilized communities, struck De Tocqueville forcibly, accustomed as he was to a peasant class, and those diversities of character which spring from feudal distinctions. His remarks on this subject are true and sug- gestive*: " In America, more even than in Europe, there is but one society, whether rich or poor, high or low, commercial or agricultural ; it is everywhere composed of the same elements. It has all been raised or reduced to the same level of civilization. The man whom you left in the streets of New York, you find again in the solitude of the far West ; the same dress, the same tone of mind, the same language, the same habits, the same amusements. No rustic simplicity, nothing characteristic of the wilderness, nothing even like our villages. This peculiarity may be easily explained. The portions of territory first and most fully peopled have reached a high degree of civilization. Education has been prodigally bestowed ; the spirit of equality has tinged with singular uniformity the domestic habits. Now, it is re- markable that the men thus educated are those who every year mi- grate to the desert. In Europe, a man lives and dies where he was born. In America, you do not see the representatives of a race grown and multiplied in retirement, having long lived unknown to the world, and left to its own efforts. The inhabitants of an isolated region arrived yesterday, bring with them the habits, ideas, and wants of civilization. They adopt only so much of savage life as is absolutely forced upon them ; hence you see the strangest contrasts. You step from the wilderness into the streets of a city, from the wild- est scenes to the most smiling pictures of civilized life. If night does not surprise you, and force you to sleep under a tree, you may reach a village where you will find everything, even French fashions and caricatures from Paris. The shops of Buffalo or Detroit are as well supplied with all these things as those of New York. The looms of Lyons work for both alike. You leave the high road ; you plunge into paths scarcely marked out ; you come at length upon a ploughed field, a hut built of rough logs, lighted by a single narrow window ; you think that you have at last reached the abode of an American FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WKITEKS. 137 peasant ; you are wrong. You enter this hut, which looks the ahode of misery ; the master is dressed as you are ; his language is that of the towns. On his rude table are books and newspapers ; he takes you hurriedly aside to be informed of what is going on in Europe, and asks you what has most struck you in his country. He will trace on paper for you the plan of a campaign in Belgium, and will teach you gravely what remains to be done for the prosperity of France. You might take him for a rich proprietor, come to spend a few nights in a shooting box. And, in fact, the log hut is only a halting place for the American a temporary submission to necessity. As soon as the surrounding fields are thoroughly cultivated, and their owner has time to occupy himself with superfluities, a more spacious dwelling will succeed the log hut, and become the home of a large family of children, who, in their turn, will some day build themselves a dwell- ing in the wilderness." As was inevitable, De Tocqueville, in describing and dis- cussing our governmental institutions, made some mistakes. Looking at the organization of the central and State Govern- ments in the abstract, he could not perceive any guarantee for the supremacy of the former in case of serious dissatisfac- tion on the part of a State. To one familiar with the mili- tary and administrative system of Europe, it is not surprising that the national power should appear inadequate and un- sanctioned in such a contingency ; but farther consideration would have modified this scepticism, had the sagacious and honest critic been more practically acquainted with the latent agencies at work. The fact is to be found in the history of the Constitution itself, wherein it is made apparent that the surrender of State sovereignty to national law was regarded as absolute, and not experimental. The hesitation of some States, the arguments for and against union, so able, deliber- ate, and earnest, and the entire tone and tactics of the peer- less Convention which, at last, gave authority to that great instrument of republican rule, all show that the compact was a vital and permanent inauguration of popular sentiment and embodiment of popular will. Less binding affiliations had been tried under the old Confederacy, and the indepen- dent coexistence of the several States had brought the 138 AMEEICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. country to the verge of ruin, before the wise and patriotic instincts of the people led them to merge the life of States, so flickering and fugitive, into that of a nation so self-subsist- ent and powerful ; and to the maintenance thereof the people thus became forever pledged, and hence prepared to defend and enforce what they had calmly and voluntarily decreed. Hence the resources of all the States became pledged to the integrity of the nation ; precisely as, in so many instances, in the history of other Governments, the will of the majority has made the law, the system, the form, and the foundation, thenceforth the object of loyal support, protection, and faith. Kecent events have, indeed, proved the fallacy of De Tocque- ville's remark, that " if one of the States desires to withdraw its name from the compact, it would be difficult to disprove its right of doing so, and the Federal Government would have no means of maintaining its claims either by force or right." Even this experiment has never yet been tried, no legitimate and free expression of the desire " to withdraw its name from the compact " ever yet having been made by the constitutional voice of any State. The " secession" of 1861 was effected by as flagrant violation of State as of Federal law. The prescience and wisdom of De Tocqueville are em- phatic in what he says of the dangers attending our insti- tutions. Herein, instead of seeking in the form of govern- ment itself the only causes for vigilance, and finding sophis- tical arguments to decry republican manners and culture, after the prejudiced style of most English writers, he notes the local and incidental influences, the facts of nature and of his- tory peculiar to America, as threatening to the integrity of the republic especially the disproportionate increase of cer- tain States ; the jealousy of the slaveholders and their eco- nomical theories ; the conflict between free and slave labor, and the consequences thereof; the sudden growth of popula- tion ; universal suffrage without equal or adequate education ; the frequency of elections and utters thereon many philo- sophical arguments full of insight and sympathy. " There are, at the present time," he observes, " two great nations in FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 139 the world, which seem to tend toward the same end, although they started from different points : I allude to the Russians and the Americans. The world learned their existence and their greatness at almost the same time. The Anglo-Ameri- can relies upon personal interest to acomplish his ends, and gives free scope to the unguided exertions and common sense of the citizens ; the Russian centres all the authority of soci- ety in a single arm. The principal instrument of the former is freedom ; of the latter, servitude. Their starting point is different, and their courses are not the same ; yet each of them seems to be marked out by the will of Heaven to sway the destinies of half the globe." " It was my intention," observes De Tocqueville, " to depict, in another work, the influence which the equality of condition and the rule of democracy exercise upon the civil society, the habits, and the manners of the Americans. I begin, however, to feel less ardor for the accomplishment of this object since the excellent work of my friend and travel- ling companion, M. de Beaumont, has been given to the world.* The grave statistical work with which the name of De Beaumont was identified, made his advent as a romance writer a surprise. But he aspired to no such title. His " Marie " deals with historical and social facts under a very thin disguise of fiction, adopted rather to give free scope to speculation in the form of imaginary conversations, than to subserve dramatic effect. The thread of the story is evolved from what the author found to be a prevalent and permanent social prejudice. He relates an incident which occurred in a Northern city during his sojourn in America, which made a great impression upon his mind. A gentleman of dark com- plexion, and regarded as a mulatto, was forcibly ejected from the theatre, simply and only because of his color. M. de Beaumont sought to trace the extent and ascertain the force of this " barri^re place entre les deux races par un prejuge * " Marie, ou L'Esclavage aux ^tats Unis, Tableau de Moeurs Americaines," par Gustave de Beaumont, Bruxelles, 1825. 140 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. sociale';" and this forms the inspiration of his story, wherein the course of true love does not run smooth because of a difference, not of character, refinement, or position, but of chemical proportions in the blood of the lovers. Much ro- mantic emotion and no little social and moral philosophy are ingeniously deduced from this circumstance. If there are few startling incidents, there is a charming tone and grace of style. If the " situations " are not dramatic, they are often picturesque. Extreme statements occur in the discussions, but they are modified by explanations given in the copious notes appended to the story. While antipathies of race and the problem of slavery constitute the serious and pervading themes, manners and customs in general are illustrated and considered with reference to the institutions of the United States. There is little originality in these topics or their treatment. They have long been staple texts for theoretical and practical criticism by the pulpit and the press. M. de Beaumont, or rather his imaginary characters, comment on the materialism, the devotion to gain, the absence of taste, the nomadic habits, the unimaginative spirit, and the monoto- nous routine of American life. Elections, emeutes, Sundays, sects, domestic and social tendencies and traits, are deline- ated often in a partial or exaggerated way, yet, on the whole, with candor, and in much more pleasing and finished lan- guage than we often find in books of travel. Our sociable arrangements are attributed in part to our comparative equal- ity of condition, which is also justly declared to promote marriage, whereas rank, in France, discourages it. The total separation of church and state, and the consequent mul- tiplicity of sects, however favorable to religious convictions, are described as wholly opposed to the development of art. An industrial career being the destiny of the American, he is soon in the way of gaining at least subsistence, and a home and family of his own is the natural consequence ; so that one of the rare things in America, according to this observer, is "an old boy of twenty-five " in other words, a young bachelor; FEENCH TEAVELLEES AND WEITEES. 141 From Baltimore the reader is transported to un foret merge, and refreshed with some delicious landscapes ; for De Beaumont, as well as his friend and companion De Tocque- ville, had a keen eye for nature in the New World, and de- scribes her wild and characteristic features with vivid truth and feeling. Few modern books of travel in America give a more complete, authentic, and interesting sketch of the condition of the different Indian tribes. They and the ne groes occupy a large space in the descriptions and discussions of this work, and obviously enlist the warmest and most intelligent sympathies of the author. His comments on the lack of artistic enthusiasm, of ban gout and tact fin et subtil in literature, and on the intensely practical tone of mind, the pride and jealousy of which money is the motive and object, the want of time for sentiment and gallantry, the Artisan ferocity, and the dearth of romance and repose, are some- times extravagant, but often piquant and just, and not unfre- quently amusing from their partial recognition of latent facts and feelings whereby their power and prevalence are essen- tially modified. We are told there is no heureuse pauvrete in America, and no small theatres, and as consequent upon the latter defect a lamentable want of dramatic talent and taste ; and that, while love is wholly in abeyance to interest, our charitable institutions are original and effective. The extreme " facilite de s'enricher et d'arriver au sacerdoce," it is declared, produces serious and often sinister social results. As with all Frenchmen, the different relative positions of the sexes, and the character and career of women in America and in France, excite frequent comment. " Les femmes Americaines," we are told, " ont, en general, un esprit orn6 mais peu d'imagination et plus de raison que de sensibilite ; pour toute fille qui a plus de seize ans la mariage est la grand interet de la vie. En France elle le desire ; en Amerique elle le cherche : chez nous la coquetterie est une passion ; en Ame'rique un calcul." He is touched with the fragility of constitution which makes the beauty of our women so pro- verbially transient, and observes that their girlish days are 14:2 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. the- most free and happy ; for while, in France, marriage brings a liberty to the wife unknown to the maiden, in America it ends the irresponsible gayety, and initiates " les devoirs austeres au foyer domestique." There is much truth and wisdom in many of the generalizations in M. de Beau- mont's graceful supplement to M. de Tocqueville's stern analysis of facts. But, while the reasoning and principles of the latter are quite as, if not more significant to-day than when they were written, many of the former's comments have lost their special application, and may now be quite as justly appropriated by his own countrymen as by Americans so completely, in a quarter of a century, has chivalric France become material, and money overpowered rank, sub- sidized political aspirations, and made uniform, luxurious, and mercenary the standard tone and traits of social life ; while, in America, new and momentous practical issues have suc- ceeded the speculative phase of slavery, and a direct physical and moral conflict between its champions and those of free constitutional government, has developed unimagined re- sources of character and results of democratic rule, which may yet purify and exalt the national ideal and the social traits, so as to make wholly traditional many of the worse "blots on the escutcheon" so emphatically designated by this and other humane and enlightened commentators on America. Another of De Tocqueville's most congenial friends was J. J. Ampere, so long the amiable and accomplished profes- sor of belles lettres in the College of France, and the biogra- pher of the author of " Democracy in America " judiciously refers to Ampere's " Promenade en Amerique " * as an excel- lent illustration of his friend's philosophical work, giving the facts and impressions which confirm and explain it. Not only did community of opinion and mutual affection suggest this relation between the two authors, diverse in plan and power as are their respective books on this country ; but it * " Promenade en Amerique^" par J. J. Ampere, de 1' Academic Fra^aise, Paris, 1855. FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 143 was when reading De Tocqueville's " Democracy," during a trip up the Rhine, that Ampere conceived the desire and purpose to visit the United States. Looking up from the thoughtful page to some ruined tower or memorable scene, he had the relics of feudalism before his eyes, while his mind was occupied with the modern development of humanity in the most free and fraternal civic institutions. He had trav- elled in Greece, Italy, and the East, and brought a scholar's wisdom and a poet's sympathy to the illustration of that experience ; and now, under the inspiration of his friend's treatise on the condition and prospects of the Western repub- lic, he felt a strong interest in the experiment whereby he could compare the New with the Old World, and observe the most intense life of the present as he had explored the calm monuments of the past. Ampere's record of his American tour is singularly unpretending. It resembles, in tone and method, the best conversation. The style is pure and ani- mated, and the thoughts naturally suggested. He describes what he sees with candor and geniality, criticizes without the slightest acrimony, and commends with graceful zeal. And yet, simple and unambitious as the narrative is, it affords a most agreeable, authentic, and suggestive illustration of De Tocqueville's theories. " Toujours," he exclaims, " la negli- gence Americaine ! " in noting a shower of ignited cinders falling upon cotton bales on the deck of a crowded steam- boat ; and, in describing the substitute for bells in the hotel at New Orleans, he remarks : " Les sonnettes sont remplacees par un appareil electro-magnetique. En ce pays, non-seule- ment la science est applique a 1'industrie, mais on 1'emploie aux offices les plus vulgaires. Au lieu de tirer le cordon d'une sonnette on fait jouer une pile de Volta." The arrival of Kossuth gave Alnp^re an excellent oppor- tunity to note the phases of popular feeling in America. He has that catholic taste and temper so essential to a good trav- eller. He takes an interest in whatever relates to humanity, and his extensive reading and cosmopolitan experience place him en rapport with people and things, historical associations, 144: AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS . and speculative opinions, with the greatest facility. While devoting attention to those subjects which have always occu- pied intelligent travellers in America, he sought and enjoyed, to an uncommon extent, the companionship of men of letters and of science, and, when practicable, secured them as cice- roni. On this account his work gives more exact and full information in regard to the intellectual condition and scien- tific enterprises of the country than any similar record of the same date. His intellectual appetite is eager, his social affini- ties strong, and his love of nature instinctive : hence the vari- ety and vividness of his observations. He describes a sunset and a political fete, analyzes a sermon as well as a theory, can feel the meditative charm of Gray's Elegy while roam- ing, on an autumn afternoon, through Mount Auburn, and patiently investigate the results of the penitentiary system in a model prison. Observatories, ornithological museums, the maps of the Coast Survey, the trophies of the Patent Office, private libraries and characters, the antiquities of the West and the social privileges of the East, schools, sects, botanical specimens, machines, the physiognomy of cities and the aspects of primeval nature, embryo settlements and the process of an election, an opera or a waterfall are each and all described and discussed with intelligence and sympathy. He recalled Irving's humorous description of New York at the sight of a Dutch mansion ; examined the process of the sugar manufacture in Louisiana, discussed glaciers and geol- ogy with Agassiz, jurisprudence with Kent, Mississippi mounds with Davis, and the Alhambra with Irving. He contrasts the German and New England character in Ohio, traces the history of parties and the character of statesmen at Washington, and utters his calm but earnest protest against slavery while describing the hospitality of Carolina. He portrays with care and feeling the representative charac- ters of the land, and is picturesque in his scenic descriptions, drawing felicitous comparisons from his experience in Italy and the East. He calls Agassiz a veritable enfant des Alpes, and Sparks the American Plutarch ; recognizes the military FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 145 instinct of the nation, since so remarkably manifest, and aptly refers to Volney, Chateaubriand, and other French travellers. Sometimes his distinctions are fanciful : as when he attributes the different aspects under which he saw Long- fellow and Bryant the one in his pleasant country house, and the other at his editorial desk to political instead of professional causes ; but, usually, his insight is as sagacious as his observation is candid. He writes always like a scholar and a gentleman, and, as such, is justly revolted by the indif- ference exhibited toward travellers in this country, on the part of those in charge of public conveyances. He truly declares the absence of indications and information in this regard a disgrace to our civilization, and gives some strik- ing examples of personal inconvenience, discomfort, and hazard thus incurred. Indeed, when we remember that Ampere, during his sojourn among us, was more or less of an invalid, his good nature and charitable spirit are magnani- mous, when left to wander in wet and darkness from one car to another, obliged to pass sleepless nights on board of steamers recklessly propelled and overloaded, robbed of his purse at a Presidential levee, and subjected to so many other vexations. He was much interested in discovering what he calls a veine europeenne pervading the educated classes, and was agreeably surprised to find so often an identity of cul- ture between his old friends in Europe and new ones in America, which made him feel at home and at ease. He pro- tests against the bombastic appellatives to which the Ameri- cans are prone. He was gratified to find his illustrious father's scientific labors recognized by a professor at the Smithsonian Institute, and his own archaeological research by a lecturer at New Orleans. The sound of the bell saluting Mount Vernon, as he glided down the Potomac, touched him as did the " tintement de TAngelus dans la campagne Ro- maine." He felt, like most of his countrymen, the " tristesse du dimanche " in America, but, unlike them, found congenial employment in a critical examination of the hymns, the homi- lies, and the character of the various denominations of Prot- 7 146 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. estant Christians. Amused at the universality of the term " lady " applied to the female sex in America, he yet soon learned to recognize, in this deference, a secret of the social order where no rank organizes and restrains. Quakers and Mormons, cotton and architecture, aqueducts and Indians, Niagara and the prairies, a slave auction and a congressional debate, are with equal justice and sensibility considered in this pleasant " Promenade en Amerique," which extends from Canada to Cuba and Mexico, and abounds in evidences of the humane sympathies, the literary accomplishment, and the social philosophy of the author. One of the most deservedly popular French economical works on the United States is that of Michael Chevalier. It contains valuable and comparatively recent statistical infor- mation, and is written with care, and, in general, with liberal- ity and discrimination. The " Voyage dans 1'Interieure des feats Unis," by M. Bayard (Paris, 1779) ; Godfrey de Vigny's "Six Months in America" (London, 1833); the " Essais Historiques et Politiques sur les Anglo-Americaines," by M. Hilliard d'Ubertail (Brussels, 1781), and the "Re- cherches " on the same subject, by " un citoyen de Virginie " (Mazzei), as well as the account of the United States fur- nished " L'Univers, ou Histoire et Descriptions des Tous les Peuples " a work of valuable reference, by M. Roux, who was formerly French Minister in this country, of which he gives a copious though condensed account are among the many works more or less superseded as authorities, yet all containing some salient points of observation or suggestive reasoning. " La Spectateur Americaine," of Man drill on, Cartier's " Nouvelle France," Bonnet's " Etats Unis a la fin du 18 me Centurie," Beaujour's " Aperu des feats Unis," Gentry's "Influence of the Discovery of America," and Grasset's " Encyclopedic des Voyages," afford many sugges- tive and some original facts and speculations. Lavasseur's " Lafayette in America," * and Count O'Mahony's " Lettres * "Lafayette in America in 1824-'25 ; or, A Journal of a Voyage to the United States," by A. Lavasseur, Secretary to General Lafayette, 2 vols., 12mo., Philadelphia, 1829 FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 14:7 sur les Etats Unis," contain some curious details and useful material. To these may be added, as more or less worthy of attention, of the earlier records, the " Memoires de Baron La Honton," * and later, the " Observations upon Florida," by Vignoles,f and the volumes of Claviere, Soutel, Engle, Fran- chere, Palessier, Bossu, Hariot, Chabert, Bouchet, Hurt- Binet, &c. Besides the more formal records of tours in America, and episodes of military memoirs devoted thereto, the inci- dental personal references in the correspondence of the gal- lant officers and noblemen of France who mingled in our best local society, at the Revolutionary era, afford vivid glimpses of manners and character, such as an ingenious modern novelist would find admirable and authentic materiel. It was a period when republican simplicity coalesced with the refine- ments of education and the prestige of old-school manners, and therefore afforded the most salient traits. Some of the most ardent tributes to American women of that date were written from Newport, in Rhode Island, by their Gallic admirers ; and in these spontaneous descriptions, when stripped of rhetorical exaggeration, we discern a state of society and a phase of character endeared to all lovers of humanity, and trace both, in no small degree, to the institu- tions and local influences of the country. The Due de Lau- zun, when sent into Berkshire County, because his knowledge of English made his services as an envoy more available than those of his brother officers, seems to regard the errand as little better than exile, and says, " Lebanon can only be com- pared to Siberia." Attached to the society of Newport, and domesticated with the Hunter family, he is never weary of expatiating upon the sweetness, purity, and grace of the women of " that charming spot regretted by all the army." * La Honton'a (Baron) " Memoires de 1'Amerique Septentrionale, ou la Suite des Voyages, avec un petit Dictionnaire de la Langue du Pais," 2 tomes, 12mo., map and plates, Amsterdam, 1705. f Vignoles' (Charles) " Observations upon the Floridas," 8vo., New York, 1823. 148 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. And when De Vauban there introduced the Prince de Bro- glie to a pretty Quakeress, the former writes that he " sud- denly beheld the goddess of grace and beauty Minerva in person." It is a striking illustration of the social instinct of the French, that manners, character, and personal ap- pearance occupy so large a space in their commentaries on America. " Other parts of America," says another officer, " were only beautiful by anticipation ; but the prosperity of Rhode Island was already complete. Newport, well and regularly built, contained a numerous population. It offered delightful circles, composed of enlightened men and modest and hand- some women, whose talents heightened their personal attrac- tions." This was in 1782, ere the commercial importance of the port had been superseded, and when the belles of the town were the toast and the triumph of every circle. La Roche foucault and other French tourists, at a later period, found the prosperity of the town on the wane, and the social distinction modified ; yet none the less attractive and valuable are the fresh and fanciful but sincere testimonies to genuine and superior human graces and gifts, of the French memoirs. But such casual illustrations of the candid and kindly observation of our gallant allies, fade before the consistent and intelligent tributes of Lafayette, whose relation to America is one of the most beautiful historical episodes of modern times. After his youthful championship in the field, and his mature counsels, intercessions, and triumphant advo- cacy of our cause in France (for, " during the period," says Mr. Everett, " which intervened, from the peace of '83 to the organization of the Federal Government, Lafayette per- formed, in substance, the functions of our Minister"), when forty years had elapsed, he revisited the land for which he had fought in youth, to witness the physical and social, the moral and intellectual fruits of " liberty protected by law." And during this whole period, and to the time of his death, he was in correspondence, first with Washington and the leading men of the Revolution, and later with various per- FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WEITEES. 149 sonal friends. In his letters from and to America, there is constant indirect testimony to and illustration of the charac- ter of the people, the tendencies of opinion, the means and methods of life and government, founded on observation, intercourse, and sympathy, and endeared and made emphatic by his devotion to our spotless chief, his sacrifices for our cause, and his unswerving devotion to our political prin- ciples ; hi a word, by his vigilant and faithful love of America. In 1824, De Pradt, formerly archbishop of Malines, and deputy to the Constituent Assembly from Normandy, a volu- minous political writer, published " L'Europe et FAmerique," in two volumes, the third of his works on this subject, " in which he gives an historical view of the principles of gov- ernment in the Old and New Worlds." Judicious critics pro- nounce his style verbose and incorrect, and his views partial and shallow. His motto is, " Le genre humain est en marche et rien ne le fera retrograder." Several of the French Protestant clergy have visited the United States within the last few years, and some of them have put on record their impressions, chiefly with regard to the actual state of religion. In many instances, however, the important facts on this subject have been drawn from the copious and authentic American work of Dr. Baird.* Among books of this class, are " L'Amerique Protestante," par M. Rey, and the sketches of M. Grandpierre and M. Fisch. The latter's observations on Religion in America, originally appeared in the " Revue Chretien," but were subsequently embodied in a small volume, which includes observations on other themes.f The latter work, though limited in scope, and the fruit of a brief visit, has an interest derived from the circumstance that the worthy pasteur arrived just before the fall of Sum- ter, and was an eyewitness and a conscientious though terse reporter of the aspects of that memorable period. He recog- * " Religion in America," by Robert Baird, D. D. f " Les Etats Unis en 1861," par Georges Fisch, Paris, 1862. 150 AMERICA AND HEfR COMMENTATORS. nizes in the Americans " un peuple qui n'avait d'autre force publique que celle des id^es ; " and deprecates the hasty judg- ment and perverse ignorance so prevalent in Europe in regard to " une grande lutte ou se debattant les interets les plus eleves de la morale et de la religion ; " and justly affirms that it is, in fact, " le choc de deux civilizations et de deux re- ligions." M. Fisch, however, disclaims all intention of a complete analysis of national character. His book is mainly devoted to an account of the religious organization, condi- tion, and prospects of America, especially as seen from his own point of view. Many of the details on this subject are not only correct, but suggestive. He writes in a liberal and conscientious spirit. His sympathies are Christian, and he descants on education and faith in the United States with intelligent and candid zeal. Indeed, he was long at a loss to understand what provision existed in society to check and calm the irresponsible and exuberant energy, the heterogene- ous elements, and the self-reliance around him, until con- vinced that the latent force of these great conservative prin- ciples of human society were the guarantee of order and pledge of self-control. There is no people, he observes, who have been judged in so superficial a manner. America he regards as having all the petulance of youth, all the naivete of inexperience : all there is incomplete in the process of achievement. This was his earliest impression on landing at New York, the scene whereof was " un bizarre melange de sauvagerie et de civilization." But, after his patience had been nearly exhausted, he entered the city, emerging with agreeable surprise from muddy and noisome streets into Broadway, to find palaces of six or seven stories devoted to commerce, and to admire " les figures fines et gracieuses, la demarche legere et libre des femmes, les allures vives de toute la population." The frank hospitality with which he was received, and the interesting study of his specialite as a tra\- eller, soon enlarged and deepened his impressions. He has a chapter on "La lutte presidentielle " which resulted in Lin- coln's election, the phenomena whereof he briefly describes. FRENCH TRAVELLERS AJSD WRITERS. 151 Then we have a sketch entitled " Statistique religieuse des iStats Unis ; " followed bv judicious comments on the " Unite de 1'figlise Americaine, son esprit et son influence." He considers Henry Ward Beecher an improvisatore " mais c'est 1'improvisation du genie ; " and says, " L'on va entendre M. Beecher comme on irait a theatre." He describes succinctly the system of public instruction ; alludes to the progress of art and letters ; expatiates on Venergie and Vaudace of the Americans ; is anecdotical and descriptive ; praises the land- scapes of Church and the sculpture of Crawford, Powers, and Palmer ; gives a chapter to the " Caractere national," and another to " L'esclavage aux tats Unis ; " closing with hopeful auguries for the future of the country under " le re veil de la conscience," wherein he sees the cause and scope of " la crise actuelle ; " declaring that " la vie puissante de 1'Amerique reprendra son paisible cours. Elle pourra se reprendre avec une puissance incomparable sur une terre renouvelee, et le monde apprendra une fois de plus que TEvan- gile est la salut des nations, comme il est celui des individus." Brochures innumerable, devoted to special phases of American life, facts of individual experience, and themes of social speculation, swell the catalogue raisonnee of French writings in this department, and, if not of great value, often furnish salient anecdotes or remarks ; as, for instance, M. August Carlier's amusing little treatise on " La Mariage aux 3tats Unis," the statement of one voyageur who happened to behold for the first time a dish of currie, that the Americans eat their rice with mustard, and the disgust natural to one accustomed to the rigorous municipal regime of Paris, ex- pressed by Maurice Sand, at the exposure, for three 'days, of a dead horse in the streets of New York. Xavier Eyma's " Vie dans le Nouveau Monde" (Paris, 1861) is one of the most recent elaborate works, of which a judicious critical authority observes : " He has given two goodly octavos to a solid criticism and descrip- tion of American ' men and institutions ; ' two more octavos to a his- tory of the States and Territories ; one volume to the ' Black-Skins,* 152 AMEEICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS. in which he sketches with Admirable fidelity the peculiarities and the iniquities of slave life in the South ; and one volume to the ' Ked- Skins,' in which he shows the Indian tribes as they are. Besides these, he has told of the islands of the West Indies, of their corsairs and buccaneers, and of the social life of the various classes in Amer- ica, native and immigrant, and has devoted one amusing volume to ' American Eccentricities.' In such a mass of material there must of course be repetition ; nor are any of the views especially profound. M. Eyma is in no sense a philosopher. He loves story-telling better than disquisition, and arranges his materials rather for romantic effect than for scientific accuracy." Finally, we have the prolific emanations of the Paris press on the war for the Union ; pamphlets evoked by venal- ity, abounding in sophistical arguments, gross misstatements, and prejudice ; editorials written in the interest of partisans, and a mass of crude and unauthentic writing destined to speedy oblivion. A valuable contribution to the national cause was made, of late, by our able and loyally assiduous consul at Paris,* in a volume of facts,, economical, political, and sci- entific, drawn from the latest and best authorities, published in the French language, and affording candid inquirers in Europe precisely the kind of information about America they need, to counteract the falsehood and malignity of the advo- cates of the slaveholders' rebellion. Army critics and corre- spondents from France, some of them illustrious and others of ephemeral claims, have visited our shores, and reported the momentous crisis through which the nation is now pass- ing. The Prince de Joinville has given his experience and observation of the battles of the Chickahominy ; and several pleasant but superficial writers have described some of the curious phases of life which here caught their attention, dur- ing a hasty visit at this transition epoch. Apart from viru- lent and mercenary writers, it is remarkable that the tone of French comment and criticism on the present rebellion in America has been far more intelligent, candid, and sympa- thetic than across the Channel. Eminent publicists and pro- fessors of France have recognized and vindicated the truth, * John Bigelow, Esq. FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 153 and sent words of faith and cheer across the sea. In his lec- tures, and extravagant but piquant and suggestive " Paris dans PAmerique," Laboulaye has signally promoted that bet- ter understanding and more just appreciation of the struggle, and the motives and end thereof, which now begin to pre- vail abroad. De Gasparin's " Uprising of a Great People " fell on American hearts, at the darkest hour of the strife, like the clarion note of a reenforcement of the heroes of humanity. Cochin, Henri Martin, and others less eminent but equally honest and humane, have echoed the earnest pro- test and appeal ; which contrasts singularly with the indiffer- ence, disingenuousness, and perversity of so many distin- guished writers and journals in England. Herein we per- ceive the same diversity of feeling which marks the earliest commentators of the respective nations on America, and the subsequent feelings manifested toward our prosperous repub- lic. Mrs. Kemble, in a recent article on the " Stage," ob- serves that the theatrical instinct of the Americans creates with them an affinity for the French, in which the English, hating exhibitions of emotion and self-display, do not share. With all due deference to her opinion, it seems to us her rea- soning is quite too limited. The affinity of which she speaks, partial as it is, is based on the more sympathetic temperament of these two races compared with the English. The social character, the more versatile experience of American life, assimilate it in a degree, and externally, with that of France, and the climate of America develops nervous sensibility ; while the exigencies of life foster an adaptive facility, which brings the Anglo-American into more intelligent relations with the Gallic nature than is possible for a people so egotis- tic and stolid as the English to realize. But this partial sym- pathy does not altogether account for the French understand- ing America better : that is owing to a more liberal, a less prejudiced, a more chivalric spirit ; to quicker sympathies, to more scientific proclivities, to greater candor and humanity among her thinkers. They are far enough removed in life and character to catch the true moral perspective ; and they 7* 154: AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATORS. have few, if any, wounds of self-love to impede their sense of justice in regard to a country wherewith their own history is often congenially and honorably associated. Yet anomalous and sad will it seem, in the retrospect, that to a nation alien in blood and language, we are indebted for the earliest and most kindly greeting in our hour of stern and sacrificial duty and of national sorrow, instead of receiv- ing it (with rare exceptions) from a people from whom we inherit laws, language, and literature, and to whom we are united by so many ties of lineage, culture, and material interests. Humane, just, and authoritative, indeed, is the language of those eminent Frenchmen, Agenor de Gasparin, Augustin Cochin, Edouard Laboulaye, and Henri Martin, addressed to a committee of loyal Americans, in response to their grateful recognition of such distinguished advocacy of our national cause ; and we cannot better close this notice of French writers on America, than with their noble words : " Courage! You have before you one of the most noble works, the most sublime which can be accomplished here below a work in the success of which we are as interested as yourselves a work the success of which will be the honor and the consolation of our time. " This generation will have seen nothing more grand than the abolition of slavery (in destroying it with you, you destroy it every- where), and the energetic uprising of a people which in the midst of its growing prosperity was visibly sinking under the weight of the tyranny of the South, the complicity of the North, odious laws and compromises. " Now, at the cost of immense sacrifices, you have stood up against the evil ; you have chosen rather to pour out your blood and your dollars than to descend further the slope of degradation, where rich, united, powerful, you were sure to lose that which is far nobler than wealth, or union, or power. u Well, Europe begins to understand, willingly or unwillingly, what you have done. In France, in England, everywhere your cause gains ground, and be it said for the honor of the nineteenth century, the obstacle which our ill will and our evil passions could not over- come, the obstacle which the intrigues of the South could not sur- mount, is an idea, a principle. Hatred of slavery has been your cham- pion in the Old "World. A poor champion seemingly. Laughed at, FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 155 scorned, it seems weak and lonely. But what matters it ; ere the account be closed, principles will stand for something, and conscience, in all human affairs, will have the last word. " This, gentlemen, is what we would say to you in the name of all who with us, and better than ourselves, defend your cause in Europe. Your words have cheered us ; may ours in turn cheer you ! You have yet to cross many a dark valley. More than once the impossi- bility of success will be demonstrated to you ; more than once, in the face of some military check or political difficulty, the cry will be raised that all is lost. What matters it to you ? Strengthen your cause daily by daily making it more just, and fear not ; there is a God above. " We love to contemplate in hope the noble future which seems to stretch itself before you. The day you emerge at last froin the anguish of civil war and you will surely come out freed from the odious institution which corrupted your public manners and degraded your domestic as well as your foreign policy that day your whole country, South as well as North, and the South perhaps more fully than the North, will enter upon a wholly new prosperity. European emigration will hasten toward your ports, and will learn the road to those whom until now it has feared to approach. Cultivation, now abandoned, will renew its yield. Liberty for these are her miracles will revivify by her touch the soil which slavery had rendered barren. " Then there will be born unto you a greatness nobler and more stable than the old, for in this greatness there will be no sacrifice of justice." CHAPTEK Y. BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. BERKELEY; MCSPARRAN; MRS. GRANT; BURNABY; ROGERS; BURKE; DOUGLASS ; HE1TOY ; EDDIS ; ANBURY ; SMYTHE. " THEEE * are more imposing monuments in the venerable precincts of Oxford, recalling the genius which hallows our ancestral literature, but at the tomb of Berkeley we linger with, affectionate reverence, as we associate the gifts of his mind and the graces of his spirit with his disinterested and memorable visit to our country. In 1725, Berkeley published his proposals in explanation of this long-cherished purpose ; at the same time he offered to resign his livings, and to consecrate the remainder of his days to this Christian undertaking. So magnetic were his appeal and example, that three of his brother fellows at Oxford decided to unite with him in the expedition. Many eminent and wealthy persons were induced to contribute their influence and money to the cause. But he did not trust wholly to such means. Having ascertained the worth of a portion of the St. Christopher's lands, ceded by France to Great Britain by the treaty of Utrecht, and about to be dis- posed of for public advantage, he undertook to realize from them larger proceeds than had been anticipated, and sug- * From the author's " Essays, Biographical and Critical." BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 157 gested that a certain amount of these funds should be de- voted to his college. Availing himself of the friendly inter- vention of a Venetian gentleman whom he had known in Italy, he submitted the plan to George I., who directed Sir Robert Walpole to carry it through Parliament. He ob- tained a charter for ' erecting a college, by name St. Paul's, in Bermuda, with a president and nine fellows, to maintain and educate Indian scholars, at the rate of ten pounds a year, George Berkeley to be the first president, and his companions from Trinity College the fellows.' His commission was voted May 1 1th, 1 726. To the promised amount of twenty thousand pounds, to be 'derived from the land sale, many sums were added from individual donation. The letters of Berkeley to his friends, at this period, are filled with the discussion of his scheme ; it absorbed his time, taxed his ingenuity, filled his heart, and drew forth the warm sympathy and earnest cooperation of his many admirers, though regret at the pros- pect of losing his society constantly finds expression. Swift, in a note to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, says : * I do hum- bly entreat your excellency either to use such persuasions as will keep one of the first men of the kingdom for learning and genius at home, or assist him by your credit to compass his romantic design.' 4 1 have obtained reports,' says one of his own letters, ' from the Bishop of London, the board of trade and plantations, and the attorney and solicitor-general ; ' ' yesterday the charter passed the privy seal ; ' ' the lord chan- cellor is not a busier man than myself ; ' and elsewhere, ' I have had more opposition from the governors and traders to America than from any one else ; but, God be praised, there is an end of all their narrow and mercantile views and en- deavors, as well as of the jealousies and suspicions of others, some of whom were very great men, who apprehended this college may produce an independency in America, or at least lessen her dependency on England.' Freneau's ballad of the ' Indian Boy,' who ran back to the woods from the halls of learning, was written subse- quently, or it might have discouraged Berkeley in his idea of 158 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. the capacity of the American savages for education ; but more positive obstacles thwarted his generous aims. The king died before affixing his seal to the charter, which de- layed the whole proceedings. Walpole, efficient as he was as a financier and a servant of the house of Brunswick, was a thorough utilitarian, and too practical and worldly wise to share in the disinterested enthusiasm of Berkeley. In his answer to Bishop Gibson, whose diocese included the West Indies, when he applied for the funds so long withheld, he says : ' If you put the question to me as a minister, I must assure you that the money shall most undoubtedly be paid as soon as suits with public convenience ; but if you ask me as a friend whether Dean Berkeley should continue in America, expecting the payment of twenty thousand pounds, I advise him by all means to return to Europe.' To the project, thus rendered unattainable, Berkeley had devoted seven years of his life, and the greater part of his fortune. The amount realized by the sale of confiscated lands was about ninety thousand pounds, of which eighty thousand were devoted to the marriage portion of the princess royal, about to espouse the Prince of Orange ; and the remainder, through the influ- ence of Oglethorpe, was secured to pay for the transporta- tion of emigrants to his Georgia colony. Berkeley's scheme was more deliberate and well-considered than is commonly believed. Horace Walpole calls it ' uncertain and amusing ; ' but a writer of deeper sympathies declares it ' too grand and <,pure for the powers that were.' His nature craved^the united opportunities of usefulness and of self-culture. He felt the obligation to devote himself to benevolent enterprise, and at the same time earnestly desired both the leisure and the re- tirement needful for the pursuit of abstract studies. The prospect he contemplated promised to realize all these objects. He possessed a heart to feel the infinite wants, intellectual and religious, of the new continent, and had the imagination to conceive the grand destinies awaiting its growth. Those who fancy that his views were limited to the plan of a doubtful missionary experiment, do great injus- BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 159 tice to the broad and elevated hopes he cherished. He knew that a recognized seat of learning open to the poor and un- civilized, and the varied moral exigencies of a new country, would insure ample scope for the exercise of all his erudition and his talents. He felt that his mind would be a kingdom wherever his lot was cast ; and he was inspired by a noble interest in the progress of America, and a faith in the new field there open for the advancement of truth, as is evident from the celebrated verses in which these feelings found ex- pression : ' The Muse, disgusted at an age and clime Barren of every glorious theme, In distant lands now waits a better time, Producing subjects worthy fame. 1 In happy climes, when from the genial sun And virgin earth such scenes ensue, The force of art by nature seems outdone, And fancied beauties by the true ; ' In happy climes, the seat of innocence, Where nature guides and virtue rules ; Where men shall not impose for truth and sense The pedantry of schools ; ' Then shall we see again the golden age, The rise of empire and of arts, The good and great inspiring epic rage, The wisest heads and noblest hearts ; * Not such as Europe breeds in her decay ; Such as she bred when fresh and young, When heavenly flame did animate her clay, By future poets shall be sung. * Westward the course of empire takes its way ; The four first acts already past, A fifth shall end the drama with the day ; Time's noblest offspring is the last.' In August, 1728, Berkeley married a daughter of the Honorable John Foster, speaker of the Irish House of Com- 160 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. mons, and, soon after, embarked for America. His compan- ions were, his wife and her friend, Miss Hancock ; two gen- tlemen of fortune, James and Dalton ; and Smibert the painter. In a picture by the latter, now in the Trumbull gallery at New Haven, are preserved the portraits- of this group, with that of the dean's infant son, Henry, in his mother's arms. It was painted for a gentleman of Boston, of whom it was purchased, in 1808, by Isaac Lothrop, Esq., and presented to Yale College. This visit of Smibert asso- ciates Berkeley's name with the dawn of art in America. They had travelled together in Italy, and the dean induced him to join the expedition partly from friendship, and also to enlist his services as instructor in drawing and architecture, in the proposed college. Smibert was born in Edinburgh, about the year 1684, and served an apprenticeship there to a house painter. He went to London, and, from painting coaches, rose to copying old pictures for the dealers. He then gave three years to the study of his art in Italy. 1 Smibert,' says Horace Walpole, c was a silent and mod- est man, who abhorred the finesse of some of his profession, and was enchanted with a plan that he thought promised tranquillity and an honest subsistence in a healthy and elysian climate, and, in spite of remonstrances, engaged with the dean, whose zeal had ranged the favor of the court on his side. The king's death dispelled the vision. One may con- ceive how a man so devoted to his art must have been ani- mated, when the dean's enthusiasm and eloquence painted to his imagination a new theatre of prospects, rich, warm, and glowing with scenery which no pencil had yet made com- mon.' * Smibert was the first educated artist who visited our shores, and the picture referred to, the first of more than a single figure executed in the country. To his pencil New England is indebted for portraits of many of her early states- men and clergy. Among others, he painted for a Scotch * "Anecdotes of Painting," vol. iii. BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 161 gentleman the only authentic likeness of Jonathan Edwards. He married a lady of fortune in Boston, and left her a widow with two children, in 1751. A high eulogium on his abilities and character appeared in the London Courant. From two letters addressed to him by Berkeley, when residing at Cloyne, published in the Gentleman's Magazine, it would appear that his friendship for the artist continued after their separation, as the bishop urges the painter to recross the sea and establish himself in his neighborhood. A considerable sum of money, and a large and choice collection of books, designed as a foundation for the library of St. Paul's College, were the most important items of the dean's outfit. In these days of rapid transit across the Atlantic, it is not easy to realize the discomforts and perils of such a voyage. Brave and philanthropic, indeed, must have been the heart of an English church dignitary, to whom the road of preferment was open, who was a favorite com- panion of the genial Steele, the classic Addison, and the bril- liant Pope, who basked in the smile of royalty, was beloved of the Church, revered by the poor, the idol of society, and the peer of scholars ; yet could shake off the allurements of such a position, to endure a tedious voyage, a long exile, and the deprivations attendant on a crude state of society and a new civilization, in order to achieve an object which, how- ever excellent and generous in itself, was of doubtful issue, and beset with obstacles. Confiding in the pledges of those in authority, that the parliamentary grant would be paid when the lands had been selected, and full of the most san- guine anticipations, the noble pioneer of religion and letters approached the shores of the New World. It seems doubtful to some of his biographers whether Berkeley designed to make a preliminary visit to Rhode Island, in order to purchase lands there, the income of which would sustain his Bermuda institution. The vicinity of that part of the New England coast to the West Indies may have induced such a course ; but it is declared by more than one, that his arrival at Newport was quite accidental. This con- 162 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. jecture, however, is erroneous, as in one of his letters, dated September 5th, 1728, he says : ' To-morrow, with God's bless- ing, I set sail for Rhode Island.' The captain of the ship which conveyed him from England, it is said, was unable to discover the Island of Bermuda, and at length abandoned the attempt, and steered in a northerly direction. They made land which they could not identify, and supposed it inhabited only by Indians. It proved, however, to be Block Island, and two fishermen came off and informed them of the vicin- ity of Newport harbor. Under the pilotage of these men, the vessel, in consequence of an unfavorable wind, entered what is called the West Passage, and anchored. The fisher- men were sent ashore with a letter from the dean to Rev. James Honyman. They landed at Canonicut Island, and sought the dwellings of two parishioners of that gentleman, who immediately conveyed the letter to their pastor. For nearly half a century this faithful clergyman had labored in that region. He first established himself at Newport, in 1704. Besides the care of his own church, he made frequent visits to the neighboring towns on the mainland. In a letter to the secretary of the Episcopal mission in America, in 1709, he says : ' You can neither believe, nor I express, what excel- lent services for the cause of religion a bishop would do in these parts ; these infant settlements would become beautiful nurseries, which now seem to languish for want of a father to oversee and bless them ; ' and in a memorial to Governor Nicholson on the religious condition of Rhode Island, in 1714, he observes: i The people are divided among Quakers, Anabaptists, Independents, Gortonians, and infidels, with a remnant of true Churchmen.' * It is characteristic of the times and region, that with a broad circuit and isolated churches as the sphere of his labors, the vicinity of Indians, and the variety of sects, he was employed for two months, in 1723, in daily attending a large number of pirates who had * Hawkins's " Historical Notices of the Missions of the Church of England in the North American Colonies," p. 173. BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 163 been captured, and were subsequently executed one of the murderous bands which then infested the coast, whose extra- ordinary career has been illustrated by Cooper, in one of his popular nautical romances. When Berkeley's missive reached this worthy pastor, he was in his pulpit, it being a holiday. He immediately read the letter to his congregation, and dismissed them. Nearly all accompanied him to the ferry wharf, which they reached but a few moments before the arrival of the dean and his fellow voyagers. A letter from Newport, dated January 24th, 1729, that appeared in the New JEngland Journal, published at Boston, thus notices the event : * Yes- terday arrived here Dean Berkeley, of Londonderry, in a pretty large ship. He is a gentleman of middle stature, and of an agreeable, pleasant, and erect aspect. He was ushered into the town by a great number of gentlemen, to whom he behaved himself after a very complaisant manner. Tis said he purposes to tarry here about three months.' We can easily imagine the delightful surprise which Berkeley acknowledges at first view of that lovely bay and the adjacent country. The water tinted, in the clear autumn air, like the Mediterranean ; the fields adorned with symmet- rical haystacks and golden maize, and bounded by a lucid horizon, against which rose picturesque windmills and the clustered dwellings of the town, and the noble trees which then covered the island ; the bracing yet tempered atmos- phere, all greeted the senses of those weary voyagers, and kindled the grateful admiration of their romantic leader. He soon resolved upon a longer sojourn, and purchased a farm of a hundred acres at the foot of the hill whereon stood the dwelling of Honyman, and which still bears his name.* There he erected a modest homestead, with philosophic taste choosing the valley, in order to enjoy the fine view from * The conveyance from Joseph Whipple and wife to Berkeley, of the land in Newport, is dated February 18th, 1729. 164 AMEKICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS. the summit occasionally, rather than lose its charm by familiarity. At a sufficient distance from the town to insure immunity from idle visitors ; within a few minutes' walk of the sea, and girdled by a fertile vale, the student, dreamer, and missionary pitched his humble tent where nature offered her boundless refreshment, and seclusion her contemplative peace. His first vivid impressions of the situation, and of the difficulties and consolations of his position, are described in the few letters, dated at Newport, which his biographer cites. At this distance of time, and in view of the subse- quent changes of that region, it is both curious and interest- ing to revert to these incidental data of Berkeley's visit. ' NEWPORT, IN RHODE ISLAND, April 24, 1729. * I can by this time say something to you, from my own expe- rience, of this place and its people. The inhabitants are of a mixed kind, consisting of many sects and subdivisions of sects. Here are four sorts of Anabaptists, besides Presbyterians, Quakers, Indepen- dents, and many of no profession at all. Notwithstanding so many differences, here are fewer quarrels about religion than elsewhere, the people living peacefully with their neighbors of whatever per- suasion. They all agree in one point that the Church of England is the second best. The climate is like that of Italy, and not at all colder in the winter than I have known everywhere north of Rome. The spring is late, but, to make amends, they assure me the au- tumns are the finest and the longest in the world ; and the sum- mers are much pleasanter than those of Italy by all accounts, foras- much as the grass continues green, which it does not there. This island is pleasantly laid out in hills and vales and rising ground, hath plenty of excellent springs and fine rivulets, and many delightful rocks, and promontories, and adjacent lands. The provisions are very good ; so are the fruits, which are quite neglected, though vines sprout of themselves of an extraordinary size, and seem as natural to this soil as any I ever saw. The town of Newport contains about six thousand souls, and is the most thriving place in all America for its bigness. I was never more agreeably surprised than at the first sight of the town and its harbor.' ' June 12, 1729. I find it hath been reported in Ireland that we intend settling here. I must desire you to discountenance any such report. The truth is, if the king's bounty were paid in, and the charter could be removed hither, I should like it better than Ber- BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 165 muda. But if this were questioned before the payment of said money, it might perhaps hinder it and defeat all our designs. I snatch this moment to write, and have time only to add that I have got a son, who, I thank God, is likely to live.' ' May 7. This week I received a package from you via Phila- delphia, the postage of which amounted to above four pounds ster- ling of this country money. I am worried to death by creditors, and am at an end of patience, and almost out of iny wits. Our little son is a great joy to us : we are such fools as to think him the most per- fect thing of the kind we ever saw.' To the poet, scenery of picturesque beauty and grand- eur is desirable, but to the philosopher general effects are more congenial. High mountains, forests, and waterfalls appeal more emphatically to the former, and luxuries of cli- mate and atmosphere to the latter. Accordingly, the soft marine air and the beautiful skies of summer and autumn, in the region of Berkeley's American home, with the vicinity of the seacoast, became to him a perpetual delight. He alludes, with grateful sensibility, to the l pleasant fields,' and ' walks on the beach,' to ' the expanse of ocean studded with fishing boats and lighters,' and the ' plane trees,' that daily cheered his sight, as awakening ' that sort of joyful instinct which a rural scene and fine weather inspire.' He calls New- port ' the Montpelier of America,' and appears to have com- muned with nature and inhaled the salubrious breeze, while pursuing his meditations, with all the zest of a healthy organization and a susceptible and observant mind. A few ravines finely wooded, and with fresh streams purling over rocky beds, vary the alternate uplands ; from elevated points a charming distribution of water enlivens the prospect ; and the shore is indented with high cliffs, or rounded into grace- ful curves. The sunsets are remarkable for a display of gor- geous and radiant clouds ; the wide sweep of pasture is only broken by low ranges of stone wall, clumps of sycamores, orchards, haystacks, and mill towers ; and over luxuriant clo- ver beds, tasselled maize, or fallow acres, plays, for two thirds of the year, a southwestern breeze, chastened and moistened by the Gulf Stream. 166 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. Intercourse with Boston was then the chief means on the island of acquiring political and domestic news. A brisk trade was carried on between the town and the West Indies, France, England, and the Low Countries, curious memorials of which are still visible, in some of the old mansions, in the shape of china and glass ware, of obsolete patterns, and faded specimens of rich brocade. A sturdy breed of Narraganset ponies carried fair equestrians from one to another of the many hospitable dwellings scattered over the fields, on which browsed sheep and cackled geese, still famous in epicurean reminiscence ; while tropical fruits were constantly imported, and an abundance and variety of fish and fowl rewarded the most careless sportsman. Thus blessed by nature, the acci- dental home of the philosophic dean soon won his affection. Intelligent members of all denominations united in admira- tion of his society and attendance upon his preaching. With one neighbor he dined every Sunday, to the child of another he became godfather, and with a third took counsel for the establishment of the literary club which founded the Red- wood Library. It was usual then to see the broad brim of the Quakers in the aisles of Trinity Church ; and, as an in- stance of his emphatic yet tolerant style, it is related that he once observed, in a sermon, ' Give the devil his due : John Calvin was a great man.' * We find him, at one time, writing a letter of encouragement to a Huguenot preacher of Provi- dence, and, at another, visiting Narraganset with Smibert to examine the aboriginal inhabitants. His own opinion of the race was given in the discourse on ' The Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts,' delivered in London on his return. To the ethnologist it may be interesting, in reference to this subject, to revert to the anecdote of the portrait painter cited by Dr. Barton. He had been employed by the Grand Duke of Tuscany to paint two or three Siberian Tartars, presented to that prince by the Czar of Russia ; and, on first landing in Narraganset with Berkeley, he instantly recognized the In- * Updike's " History of the Narraganset Church." BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 167 dians there as the same race as the Siberian Tartars an opin- ion confirmed by Wolff, the celebrated Eastern traveller. During his residence at Newport, Berkeley became ac- quainted with the Rev. Jared Elliot, one of the trustees of Yale College, and with the Rev. Samuel Johnson, an Episco- pal minister of Stratford, Conn., who informed him of the condition, prospects, and wants of that institution. He after- ward opened a correspondence on the subject with Rector Williams, and was thus led, after the failure of his own col- lege scheme, to make his generous donations to a seminary already established. He had previously presented the col- lege with a copy of his writings. In 1732, he sent from England a deed of his farm in Rhode Island, and, the con- ditions and descriptions not being satisfactory, he sent, the ensuing year, another deed, by which it was provided that the rents of his lands should be devoted to the education of three young men, the best classical scholars ; the candidates to be examined annually, on the 6th of May ; in case of dis- agreement among the examiners, the competitors to decide by lot ; and all surplus funds to be used for the purchase of classical books. Berkeley also gave to the library a thousand volumes, which cost over four hundred pounds the most valuable collection of books then brought together in Amer- ica. They were chiefly his own purchase, but in part con- tributed by his friends. One of the graduates of Yale, edu- cated under the Berkeley scholarship, was Dr. Buckminster, of Portsmouth, N". H. Unfortunately, the income of the property at Newport is rendered much less than it might be by the terms of a long lease. This liberality of the Bishop of Cloyne was enhanced by the absence of sectarian preju- dice in his choice for the stewardship of his bounty of a col- legiate institution where different tenets are inculcated from those he professed. That he was personally desirous of in- creasing his own denomination in America, is sufficiently evinced by the letter in which he directs the secretary of the Episcopal mission there to appropriate a balance originally contributed to the Bermuda scheme. This sum had remained 168 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. at his banker's for many years unclaimed, and he suggests that part of it should be devoted to a gift of books for Har- vard University, ' as a proper means to inform their judg- me,nt, and dispose them to think better of our church.' His interest in classical education on this side of the water is also manifested in a letter advocating the preeminence of those studies in Columbia College.* It is a remarkable coincidence that Berkeley should have taken up his abode in Rhode Island, and thus completed the representative character of the most tolerant religious com- munity in New England, by the presence of an eminent Epis- copal dignitary. A principal reason of the variety, the free- dom, and the peace of religious opinion there, to which he alludes, is the fact that, through the liberal wisdom and fore- sight of Roger Williams, that State had become an asyknn for the persecuted of all denominations from the neighboring provinces ; but another cause may be found in the prevalence of the Quakers, whose amiable tenets and gentle spirit sub- dued the rancor and bigotry of fanaticism. Several hundred Jews, still commemorated by their cemetery and synagogue, allured by the prosperous trade and the tolerant genius of the place, added still another feature to the varied popula- tion. The lenity of Penn toward the aborigines, and the fame of Fox, had given dignity to the denomination of Friends, and their domestic culture was refined as well as morally superior. Enterprise in the men who, in a neighbor- ing State, originated the whale fishery, and beauty among the women of that sect, are traditional in Rhode Island. We were reminded of Berkeley's observations in regard to the natural productions of the country, during a recent visit to the old farmhouse where he resided. An enormous wild grapevine had completely veiled what formed the original * " I am glad to find a spirit toward learning prevails in these parts, par- ticularly in New York, where, you say, a college is projected, which has my best wishes. Let the Greek and Latin classics be well taught ; be this the first care as to learning." BERKELEY'S Letter to Johnson. MOORE'S Sketch of Columbia College, New York, 1846. BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 169 entrance to the humble dwelling ; and several ancient apple trees in the orchard, with boughs mossy with time, and gnarled by the ocean gales, showed, in their sparse fruit and matted twigs, the utter absence of the pruning knife. The dwelling itself is built, after the manner common to farm- houses a century ago, entirely of wood, with low ceilings, broad fireplace, and red cornice. The only traces of the old country were a few remaining tiles, with obsolete designs, around the chimney piece. But the deep and crystal azure of the sea gleamed beyond corn field andT sloping pasture ; sheep grazed in the meadows, hoary rocks bounded the pros- pect, and the mellow crimson of sunset lay warm on grass slope and paddock, as when the kindly philosopher mused by the shore with Plato in hand, or noted a metaphysical dia- logue in the quiet and ungarnished room which overlooks the rude garden. Though, as he declares, ' for every private rea- son ' he preferred ' Derry to New England,' pleasant was the abode, and grateful is the memory of Berkeley, in this rural seclusion. A succession of green breastworks along the brow of the* hill beneath which his domicile nestles, by reminding the visitor of the retreat of the American forces under Gen- eral Sullivan, brings vividly to his mind the Revolution, and its incalculable influence upon the destinies of a land w T hich so early won the intelligent sympathy of Berkeley ; while the name of Whitehall, which he gave to this peaceful do- main, commemorates that other revolution in his own coun- try, wherein the loyalty of his grandfather drove his family into exile. But historical soon yield to personal recollections, when we consider the memorials of his sojourn. We asso- ciate this landscape with his studies and his benevolence ; and, when the scene was no longer blessed with his presence, his gifts remained to consecrate his memory. In old Trinity, the organ he bestowed peals over the grave of his firstborn in the adjoining burial ground. A town in Massachusetts bears his name. ISTot long since, a presentation copy of his 4 Minute Philosopher ' was kept on the table of an old lady of Newport, with reverential care. In one family, his gift 8 170 AMEEIOA AND HEK COMMENTATORS. of a richly wrought silver coffee pot, and, in another, that of a diamond ring, are cherished heirlooms. His rare and costly books were distributed- q.t his departure, among the resident clergy. His scholarship at New Haven annually furnishes recruits to our church, bar, or medical faculty. In an adja- cent parish, the sacramental cup was his donative. His leg- acy of ingenious thoughts and benign sentiment is associated with hanging rocks that are the seaward boundary of his farm ; his Christian ministry with the ancient church, and his verse with the progress of America." A brave clerical resident of South Kingston, R. I., where he died in 1757, wrote a brief but useful and interesting account of the English settlements in America. He de- scribes, in a series of letters, the Bermudas, Georgia, and the northern dominions of the crown as far as Newfoundland. As one of the founders of the Episcopal Church in America, an intimate friend of Berkeley, and a respected and efficient minister of Narraganset, the Rev. James McSparren's " His- torical Tract " has a special authority and attraction. One of the most pleasing and naive memorials of social life in the province of New York in her palmy colonial days, is to be found in the reminiscences of Mrs. Grant, a daughter of Duncan McVickar, an officer of the British army,. who came to America on duty in 1757. This estimable lady, in the freshness of her youth, resided in Albany, and was intimate with Madam Schuyler, widow of Colonel Philip Schuyler, and aunt to the general of the same name so prominent in the war of the Revolution. The four years which Mrs. Grant passed in America, made an indelible and charming impres- sion on her mind. She married the Rev. James Grant, of Laggan, Invernesshire, and, in 1801, was left a widow with eight children. Nine years after, she removed to Edinburgh, where she became the centre of a literary and friendly circle, often graced by the presence of Sir Walter Scott and other celebrities. He secured her a pension of a hundred pounds. Mrs. Grant's conversation was of unusual interest, owing to her long experience, and, for that period, varied reading. BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 171 She was ambitious of literary distinction. Her "Letters from the Mountains," for their descriptive ability and inde- pendent tone, won no inconsiderable popularity. Jeffrey re- marks that her " poetry is not very good ; " while Moir pays her the somewhat equivocal compliment of declaring that she " respectably assisted in sustaining the honors of the Scottish Muse." But she is chiefly remembered as a writer by her " Memoirs," and they have served many novelists, historians, and biographers as a little treasury of facts wherewith to delineate the life and the scenery of those days, not else- where obtainable. Notwithstanding his moderate estimate of her other literary efforts, Jeffrey gave Mrs. Grant credit, in the Edinburgh Review, for this autobiography, as " a very animated picture of that sort of simple, tranquil, patriarchal life, which was common enough within these hundred years in the central parts of England, but of which we are rather inclined to think there is no specimen left in the world." It was not, however, merely the reproduction of this attractive and primitive kind of life that lent a charm to these Me- moirs. Many of the features of that Albany community, its habits, exigencies, and aspects, were novel and curious ; and the lively record thereof from the vivid impressions of such a woman, at her susceptible age, gives us a remarkably clear though perhaps somewhat romantic idea of what the mano- rial and colonial life of the State of New York was, and wherein it differed from that of Virginia and New England. In her day, the amiable and intelligent author of the "Memoirs of an American Lady" enjoyed no little social consideration from her literary efforts unusual as such a dis- tinction was with her sex at that period and from her kindly and dignified character.' De Quincey, when quite a youth, met her in a stage coach, and cherished very agreeable recol- lections of her manners. "I retain the impression," he writes, " of the benignity which she, an established wit, and just then receiving incense from all quarters, showed, in her manners, to me, a person utterly unknown." 172 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. According to Mrs. Grant, " The summer amusements of the young were simple, healthful, and joyous. Their principal pleasure consisted in what we now call picnics, enjoyed either upon the beautiful islands in the river near Albany, which were then covered with grass and shrubbery, tall trees and clustering vines, or in the forests on the hills. When the warm days of spring and early summer appeared, a company of young men and maidens would set out at sunrise in a canoe for the islands, or in light wagons for ' the bush,' where they would fre- quently meet a similar party on the same delightful errand. Each maiden, taught from early childhood to be industrious, would take her work basket with her, and a supply of tea, sugar, coffee, and other materials for a frugal breakfast, while the young men carried some rum and dried fruit to make a light, cool punch for a midday beverage. But no previous preparations were made for dinner, ex- cept bread and cold pastry, it being expected that the young men would bring an ample supply of game and fish from the woods and the waters, provision having been made by the girls of apparatus for cooking, the use of which was familiar to them all. After dinner, the company would pair off in couples, according to attachments and affinities, sometimes brothers and sisters together, and sometimes warm friends or ardent lovers, and stroll in all directions, gathering wild strawberries or other fruit in summer, and plucking the abun- dant flowers, to be arranged into bouquets to adorn their little par- lors and give much pleasure to their parents. Sometimes they would remain abroad until sunset, and take tea in the open air ; or they would call upon some friend on their way home, and partake of a light evening meal. In all this there appeared no conventional re- straints upon tke innocent inclinations of nature. The day was always remembered as one of pure enjoyment, without the passage of a single cloud of regret." In 1Y59-'60, a kindly and cultivated minister of the Church of England made a tour of intelligent observation in the Middle States ; and fifteen years after, when the aliena- tion of the colonies from Great Britain had passed from a speculative to a practical fact, this amiable divine gave to the public the narrative of his Amerian journey. There is a pleasant tone, a wise and educated spirit in this record, which make ample amends for the obvious influences of the writer's religious and political views upon his impressions of the coun- BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 173 try and the people. The Rev. Andrew Burnaby was a native of Lancastershire, an eleve of Westminster School, and a graduate of Queen's College, Cambridge. He became vicar of Green wich in 1769, and obtained credit as an author by a volume of sermons, and an account of a, visit to Corsica. His book on America was " praised and valued " as a fair and agree- able report of " the state of the colonies " then called the " Middle Settlements." The author states, in his preface, that its appearance during " the present difficulties " may ex- pose him to misrepresentation ; but he asserts the candor of his motives, and frankly declares that, while his " first attach- ment " is for his native country, his second is to America. Burnaby landed from Chesapeake Bay, and his book (a thin quarto) opens with a description of Virginia, where he sojourned with Colonel Washington. He is struck with the efficiency of lightning rods, and the efficacy of snakeroot, and with the abundance of peaches, which are given as food to the hogs. He describes the variety of squirrels, the indige- nous plants and birds, the ores and crops of the Old Domin- ion. The women there, he says, " are immoderately fond of dancing, and seldom read or endeavor to improve their minds." He notes the " prodigious tracts of land " belong- ing to individuals, and then a wilderness, and, like so many other travellers there, is impressed with the comparative im- provident habits of the people. " The Virginians," he says, " are content to live from hand to mouth. Tobacco is their chief staple, and they cultivate enough to pay their mer- chants in London for supplying those wants which their plan- tations do not directly satisfy." On the other hand, he cele- brates the virtuous contentment of the German settlers on the low grounds of the Shenandoah. Their freedom, tran- quillity, and " few vices " atone, in his estimation, for the absence of elegance. He attended a theatre in a " tobacco house " at Marlborough, and enjoyed a sixteen hours' sail along the Chesapeake to Frederickstown. " Never," he writes, " in my life, have I spent a day more agreeably or with higher entertainment." Much of this zest is to be 174: AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. ascribed to the good clergyman's enjoyment of scenery, fresh air, and fine weather. The streams, the woods, and the mountains of the New World elicit his constant admiration. A salient trait of his journal is the positive character he con- fidently assigns to the inhabitants of the different colonies. Sometimes it is evident that their respective religious and political tendencies enlist or repel his sympathies, and there- fore modify his judgment, but, at other times, his opinion seems to be the result of candid observation ; and it is inter- esting to compare what he says on this subject, with later estimates and present local reputations. Of Philadelphia he remarks : " There is a public market held twice a week, almost equal to Leadenhall. The people there are quiet, and intent on money getting, and the women are decidedly handsome." He notes the' stocking manufacture of the Ger- mans, and the linen made by the Irish in Pennsylvania. He thinks the New Jersey people " of a more liberal turn than these neighbors of theirs," and is enthusiastic about the Falls of the Passaic. He recognizes but two churches in New York Trinity and St. George's and declares the women there " more reserved " than those of the colony of Penn. He speaks of a memorable social custom of New York " turtle feasts," held at houses on the East River, where, also, ladies and gentlemen, to the number of thirty or forty, were in the habit of meeting " to drink tea in the afternoon," and return to town " in Italian chaises," one gentleman and one lady in each. The good doctor evidently is charmed with these snug arrangements for a legitimate tete-a-tete, and men- tions, in connection therewith, a practice not accordant with the greater reserve he elsewhere attributes to the New York belles. " In the way " (from these turtle feasts and tea drinkings), " about three miles from New York, there is a bridge, which you pass over as you return, called the Kissing Bridge, where it is part of the etiquette to salute the lady who has put herself under your protection." Like most Englishmen, Burnaby finds a rare combination of scenery, climate, and resources on Long Island, and makes BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 175 especial mention of one feature. " About sixteen miles from the west end of it there opens a large plain, between twenty and thirty miles long and four or five miles broad. There is not a tree growing upon it, and it is asserted there never was. Strangers are always carried to see this plain, as a great curi- osity, and the only one of the kind in North America." What would he have thought of a Western prairie ? He is reminded in Hellgate of Scylla and Charybdis ; and the aspect and climate of Newport, R. I., charm him. " There is a public library here," he writes, " built in the form of a Grecian temple, and by no means inelegant." The Quakers, the Jews, and the fortified islands are duly noted ; but the multiplicity of sects in the Providence Plantations evidently does not conciliate the doctor's favorable opinion. He speaks of the buttonwood trees, then so numerous and flourishing on the island ; " spruce pines," and the beer made from their " tender twigs ; " of the abundant and excellent fish, and hardy sheep, as well as of the superior butter and cheese. Of Newport commerce then, he says : " They im- port from Holland, money ; from Great Britain, dry goods ; from Africa, slaves ; from the West Indies, sugar, coffee, and molasses ; and from the neighboring colonies, lumber and provisions." Of manufactures he observes, " they distil rum, and make spermaceti candles." The people of Rhode Island, he declares, " are cunning, deceitful, and selfish, and live by unfair and illicit trading. The magistrates are partial and corrupt, and wink at abuses." All this he ascribes to their form of government ; for " men in power entirely de- pend on the people, and it has happened more than once that a person has had influence to procure a fresh emission of paper money solely to defraud his creditors." It is obvious that the Churchman leans toward the Proprietary form of rule then existent in Maryland, and the manorial state of society farther south ; but he concludes his severe criticism of the Rhode Islanders with a candid qualification : " I have said so much to the disadvantage of this colony, that I should be guilty of great injustice were I not to declare that there 176 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS. are many worthy gentlemen in it." Although forty years had elapsed since the benevolent and ingenious Bishop of Cloyne had left Newport, the beneficent traces of his pres- ence and the anecdotical traditions of his character still pre- vailed among the people. Burnaby thus alludes to the subject : " About three miles from town is an indifferent wooden house, built by Dean Berkeley when he was in these parts. The situation is low, but commands a fine view of the ocean, and of some wild, rugged rocks that are on the left hand of it. They relate here several strange stories of the dean's wild and chimerical notions, which, as they are characteristic of that extraordinary man, deserve to be taken notice of. One in particular I must beg the reader's indul- gence to allow me to repeat to him. The dean had formed the plan of building a town upon the rocks which I have just taken note of, and of cutting a road through a sandy beach which lies a little below it, in order that ships might come up and be sheltered in bad weather. He was so full of this project, as one day to say to Smibert, a designer whom he had brought over with him from Europe, on the latter's asking him some ludicrous question concerning the future importance of the place, * Truly you have little fore- sight ; for, in fifty years, every foot of land in this place will be as valuable as land in Cheapside.' The dean's house," continues Burnaby, "notwithstanding his prediction, is at present nothing more than a farmhouse, and his library is converted into a dairy. When he left America, he gave it to the college in New Haven, Connecticut, which have let it to a family on a long lease. His books he divided between this college and that of Massachusetts. The dean is said to have written the ' Minute Philosopher ' in this place." Conservative Dr. Burnaby was not so perspicacious as he thought, when he thus reasoned of Berkeley's views of the growth in value of the region he loved. However mistaken as regards the specific locality and period, he was essentially right as to the spirit of his prophecy as the price of de- sirable " lots " and the value of landed property in Newport BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 177 now evidence. Herein, as in that more comprehensive predic- tion which foretold the westward course of empire, the good and gifted dean exhibited the prescience of a benignant genius. Burnaby, like countless other visitors, was delighted with the country around Boston. He notes the two *' batteries of sixteen and twenty guns built by Mr. Shirley," and is struck, in 1770 as was Dickens, eighty years after with the resem- blance between the New England capital and the " best coun- try towns in England." Indeed, natives of the former recog- nize in Worcester, Eng., many of the familiar local traits of Boston, U. S. Our clerical traveller has an eye for the pic- turesque, and expatiates on the " unsurpassed prospect " from Beacon Hill. He thus enumerates the public edifices then there: u The Governor's palace, fourteen meeting houses, the Court House, Faneuil's Hall, the linen manufactory, the workhouse, the Bridewell, the public granary, and a very fine wharf at least a mile long." In architecture he gives the palm to King's Chapel, but significantly records the building of an Episcopal church near the neighboring university, that was long a beautiful exception to the " wooden lan- terns " which constituted, in colonial times, the shrines of New England faith. " A church has been lately erected at Cambridge, within sight of the college, which has greatly alarmed the Congregationalists, who consider it the most fatal stroke that could possibly be levelled at their religion. The building is elegant, and the minister of it the Rev. Mr. Apthorp is a very amiable young gentleman, of shining parts, great learning, and engaging manners." Well consid- ered, the details of this statement singularly illustrate the ecclesiastical prestige and prejudice of the day. Burnaby recognizes quite a different style of manners and mode of action in the Puritan metropolis from those which character- ized the Cavalier, the Quaker, or the Dutch colony before visited. " The character of this province is much improved in comparison with what it was ; but Puritanism and a spirit of persecution are not yet totally extinguished. The gentry of both sexes are hospitable and good-natured : there is an 8* 178 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. air of civility in their behavior, but it is constrained by for- mality and preciseness. Even the women, though easiness of carriage is peculiarly characteristic of their nature, appear here with more stiffness and reserve than in the other colo- nies. They are formed with symmetry, are handsome, and have fair and delicate complexions, but are said universally, and even proverbially, to have very indifferent teeth. The lower orders are impertinently curious and inquisitive." He records some singular, obsolete, and scarcely credible cus- toms, which, with other of his observations, are confirmed by Anbury, and other writers, who visited New England a few years later. The strict if not superstitious observance of the Sabbath in New England has been often made the theme of foreign visitors ; but Burnaby gives us a curious illustration both of the custom and its results. He says that a captain of a merchant vessel, having reached the wharf at Boston on Sunday, was there met and affectionately greeted by his wife ; which human behavior, on Sunday, so outraged the " moral sense of the community," that the captain was arrested, tried, and publicly whipped for the offence. Ap- parently acquiescing in the justice of his punishment, he con- tinued on pleasant terms with his numerous acquaintances after its infliction, and, when quite prepared to sail, invited them to a fete on board ; and, when they were cheerfully taking leave, had the whole party seized, stripped to the waist, and forty lashes bestowed on each by the boatswain's cat-o'-nine-tails, amid the acclamations of his crew ; after which summary act of retaliation he dismissed his smarting guests, and instantly set sail. At the close of his book,* the Rev. Andrew Burnaby, D. D., Vicar of Greenwich, expresses some general opinions in regard to the colonies, which are noteworthy as the honest impressions of a candid scholar and amiable divine, received nearly a century ago, while traversing a region wherein an unparalleled development, social, political, and economical, * " Travels through the Middle Settlements of North America, 1759-'60," 4to., London, 1775. BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 179 has since occurred. " America," he declares, " is formed for happiness, but not for empire." The average prosperity of the people made a deep impression. " In a course of twelve hundred miles," he writes, " I did not see a single object that solicited charity." He was convinced that the latent ele- ments of discord and division already existed. "Our colo- nies," he remarks, " may be distinguished into Southern and Northern, separated by the Susquehanna and that imaginary line which divides Maryland from Pennsylvania. The South- ern colonies have so many inherent causes of weakness, that they never can possess any real strength. The climate oper- ates very powerfully upon them, and renders them indolent, inactive, and unenterprising. I myself have been a spectator of a man, in the vigor of life, lying upon a couch, and a female slave standing over him, wafting off the flies, and .fan- ning him. These Southern colonies will never be thickly settled, except Maryland. Industrial occupation militates with their position, being considered as the inheritance and badge of slavery." The worthy author also seriously doubts if " it will be possible to keep in due order and government so wide and extended an empire." He dwells upon the " difficulties of intercourse, communication, and correspond- ence." He thinks " a voluntary coalition almost difficult to be supposed." " Fire and water," he declares, " are not more heterogeneous than the different colonies of America." It is curious to note wherein these diversities were then thought to lie. Dr. Burnaby tells us that Pennsylvania and New York were mutually jealous of the trade of New Jersey ; that Massachusetts and Rhode Island were equally conten- tious for that of Connecticut ; that the commerce of the West Indies was " a common subject of emulation," and that the " bounds of each colony were a constant source of litiga- tion." He expatiates upon the inherent differences of man- ners, religion, character, and interests, as an adequate cause of civil war, if the colonies were left to themselves ; in which case he predicts that both the Indian and the negro race would " watch their chance to exterminate all." Against ex- 180 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS. ternal foes he is of opinion that maritime power is the exclusive available de/ence. " Suppose," he writes, " them (the colonies) capable of maintaining one hundred thousand men constantly in arms (a supposition in the highest degree extravagant), half a dozen frigates could ravage the whole country ; " for it is " so intersected with rivers of such mag- nitude as to render it impossible to build bridges over them, and all communication is thus cut off." The greater part of America's wealth, when Burnaby wrote, according to his observations, " depended upon the fisheries, and commerce with the West Indies." He considered England's best policy " to enlarge the present, not to make new colonies ; for, to suppose interior colonies to be of use to the mother country by being a check upon those already settled, is to suppose what is contrary to experience that men removed beyond the reach of power, will be subordinate to it." From specu- lations like these, founded, as they are, in good sense, and suggested by the facts of the hour, we may infer how great and vital have been the progressive change and the assimilative process whereby enlarged commercial relations have doomed to oblivion petty local rivalries, mutual and comprehensive interests fused widely-separated communities, and the applica- tion of steam to locomotion brought together regions which once appeared too widely severed ever to own a common object of pursuit or sentiment of nationality. The Revolu- tionary War, the naval triumphs, the system of internal im- provements and communication, the agricultural, commercial, and manufacturing growth of the United States, in eighty years, are best realized when the present is compared with such authentic records of the past as honest Dr. Burnaby has left us. Yet the events of the passing hour not less em- phatically suggest how truly he indicated the essential diffi- culties of the social and civic problem to be solved on this continent, when he described the antagonism of the systems of labor prevalent in the North and South. " A Concise View of North America," * by Major Robert * " A Concise Account of North America, and the British Colonies, Indian T^bes, &c.," by Major Robert Rogers,' 8 vo., 1765. BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 181 Rogers, published in London in 1765, contains some general information ; chiefly, however, but a meagre outline, which subsequent writers have filled up. The unhealthiness and mosquitos of the Carolinas seem to have annoyed him physically, and the intolerance of the " New Haven Colony " morally. He finds much in the natural resources, but little in the actual life of the country to extol ; and gives the follow- ing sombre picture of Rhode Island, which forms an entire contrast to the more genial impression which Bishop Berke- ley recorded of his sojourn there : " There are in this colony men of almost every persuasion in the world. The greater number are Quakers, and many have no reli- gion at all, or, at least, profess none ; on which account no questions are asked, each man being left pretty much to think and act for him- selfof which neither the laws nor his neighbors take much cogni- zance : so greatly is their liberty degenerated into licentiousness. This province is infested with a rascally set of Jews, who fail not to take advantage of the great liberty here granted to men of all pro- fessions and religions, and are a pest not only to this, but to the neighboring provinces. There is not a free school in the whole col- ony, and the education of children is generally shamefully neg- lected." Two works on America appeared in London in 1760-'61, which indicate that special information in regard to this coun- try was, then and there, sufficiently a desideratum to afford a desirable theme for a bookseller's job. The first of these was edited by no less a personage than Edmund Burke ; * and somewhat of the interest he afterward manifested in the rights and prospects of our country, may be traced to the research incident to this publication, which was issued under the title of " European Settlements in America." It was one of those casual tasks undertaken by Burke before he had risen to fame : like all compilations executed with a view to emol- ument rather than inspired by personal taste, these two respectable but somewhat dull volumes seem to have made little impression upon the public. They succinctly describe * "Account of the European Settlements in America," by Edmund Burke, 2 vols., 8vo. maps, London, 1757. 182 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. the West India Islands, the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, the colonies of Louisiana, and the French, Dutch, and English settlements, the rise and progress of Puritanism, and the persecution and emigration of its votaries. With reference to the latter, considerable statistical information is given in regard to New England, and the colonial history of Penn- sylvania, Virginia, Maryland, and the Carol inas sketched. Trade, laws, natural history, political views, productions, &c., are dwelt upon ; and, as a book of reference at the time, the work doubtless proved useful. It appeared anonymously, with the imprint of Dodsley, who issued a fourth edition in 1766. " The affairs of America," says Burke, in his preface, " have lately engaged a great deal of public attention. Be- fore the present hour there were very few who made the his- tory of that quarter of the world any part of their study. The history of a country which, though vast in itself, is the property of only four nations, and which, though peopled probably for a series of ages, is only known to the rest of the world for about two centuries, .does not naturally afford matter for many volumes." He adds, that, to gain the knowledge thus brought together, " a great deal of reading has been found requisite." He remarks, also, that "what- ever is written by the English settlers in our colonies is to be read with great caution," because of the " bias of interest for a particular province." He found most of these records " dry and disgusting reading, and loaded with a lumber of matter ; " yet observes that " the matter is very curious in itself, and extremely interesting to us as a trading people." Although irksome, he seems to have fulfilled his task with conscientious care, " comparing printed accounts with the best private information ; " but calls attention to the fact that " in some places the subject refuses all ornament." He acknowledges his obligation to Harris's " Voyages." It is interesting, after having glanced at this early com- pendium of American resources, history, and local traits the work of a young and obscure but highly gifted Irish litterateur to turn to the same man's plea, in the days of his BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 183 ,# oratorical renown and parliamentary eminence, for that dis- tant but rapidly growing country. " England, sir," said Burke, in the House of Commons, in 1775, in his speech on conciliation with America, " England is a nation which still, I hope, respects, and formerly adored her freedom. The colonists emigrated from you when this part of your charac- ter was most predominant ; and they took this bias and direction the moment they parted from your hands. They are, therefore, not only devoted to liberty, but to liberty according to English ideas, and on English principles ; " and, in allusion to the whale fishery, " neither the perseverance of Holland, nor the activity of France, nor the dexterity and firm sagacity of English enterprise, ever carried this most perilous mode of hardy industry to the extent to which it has been pushed by this recent people a people who are still in the gristle, not yet hardened into the bone of manhood." The other current book of reference, although of some- what earlier date, was the combined result of personal obser- vation and research, and, in the first respect, had the advan- tage of Burke's compilation. It is curious to remember, as we examine its now neglected pages, that when " Rasselas " and the " Vicar of Wakefield " were new novels, and the " Traveller " the fresh poein of the day, the cotemporaries of Johnson, Goldsmith, and Burke, as they dropped in at Dodsley's, in Pall Mall, found there, as the most full and recent account of North America, the " Summary, Historical and Political, of the First Planting, Progressive Improve- ments, and Present State of the British Settlements in North America, by William Douglass, M. D." * There is much infor- mation, especially historical, in these two volumes, although most of it has long since been elaborated in more finished annals. Here is the story of the Dutch East India trade ; of the Scots' Darien Company, which forms so graphic an epi- sode of Macaulay's posthumous volume ; of the Spanish dis- * " Summary, Historical and Political, of the First planting, Progressive Im- provement, and Present State of the British Settlements in America," by Dr. William Douglass 2 vols. 8vo., London, 1755. 184 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. coveries and settlements, and of the Hudson's Bay Company. The voyages of Cabot, Frobisher, Gilbert, Davis, Hudson, Middleton, Dobbs, Button, James, Baffin, and Fox, are briefly sketched. On the subject of the whale and cod fisheries, numerous details, both historical and statistical, are given. The " Mississippi Bubble " is described, and the Canadian ex- pedition under Sir William Phipps, in 1690, as well as the reduction of Port Royal in 1710. Each State of NewJEng- land is delineated, as well as New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Virginia ; and what is said of the Indians, of sects, of boundaries, polity, witchcraft, currency, colleges, scenery, and products, though either without significance or too familiar to interest the reader of to-day, must have proved seasonable knowledge to Englishmen then meditating emigration to America. The author of this " Summary " was a Scotchman by birth, who long practised his profession in Boston. He seems to have attained no small degree of professional eminence. He published a treatise on small pox in 1722, and one on epidemic fever in 1736. The most original remarks in his work relate to local diseases, and his medical digressions are frequent. He remarks, in stating the diverse condition of the people of old and New England, that the children of the latter " are more forward and preco- cious ; their longevity is more rare, and their fecundity iden- tical." He enumerates the causes of chronic distempers in America, independent of constitutional defects, as being bad air and soil, indolence, and intemperance. The worthy doc- tor, though an industrious seeker after knowledge, appears to have indulged in strong prejudices and partialities according to the tendency of an eager temperament ; so that it is often requisite to make allowance for his personal inferences. He was warmly attached to his adopted country, and naively admits, in the preface to his work, that, in one instance, his statements must be reconsidered, having been expressed w r ith a " somewhat passionate warmth and indiscretion " merely in affection to Boston and the country of New England, his altera patria. Dr. Douglass died in 17j>2. BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 185 His work on the " British Settlements in North America " was originally published in numbers, at Boston, between January and May, 1749, forming the first volume; the second in 1753 ; and both first appeared in London in 1755. The work was left incomplete at the author's death.* An improved edition was issued by Dodsley in 1760. Adam Smith calls him " the honest and downright Dr. Douglass ; " but adds that, in " his history of the American colonies he is often incorrect ; and it was his foible to measure the worth of men by his personal friendship for them." Chancellor Kent, in a catalogue raisonne he kindly drew up for the use of a Young Men's Association, commended to their attention the " Travels and Adventures of Alexander Henry," * a fur trader, and a native of New Jersey, who, be- tween the years 1760 and 1776, travelled in the northwest part of America, and, in 1809, published an account of this long and remarkable experience. Confessedly " a premature attempt to share in the fur trade of Canada directly on the conquest of the country, led him into situations of some dan- ger and singularity " quite a modest way of stating a series of hazards, artifices, privations, and successes, enough to fur- nish material for a more complacent writer to excite the wonder and sympathy of a larger audience than he strove to win. In the year 1760 he accompanied General Amherst's expedition, which, after the conquest of Quebec, descended from Oswego to Fort Levi, on Lake Ontario. They lost three boats and their cargoes, and nearly lost their lives, in the rapids. Much curious information in regard to the In- dians, the risks and method of the fur trade, and the adven- turous phases of border life in the northwest, may be found in this ingenious narrative. Henry's " enterprise, intrepidity, and perils," says Kent, " excite the deepest interest." Forty letters,f written between 1769 and 1777, by William * " Travels and Adventures in Canada and the Indian Territory, between the Years 1760 and 1776," New York, 1809. f " Letters from America, Historical and Descriptive, comprising Occur- rences from 1769 to 1777, inclusive," by William Eddis, 8vo., 1792. 186 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. Eddis, and published in London in 1792, contain numerous statistical and historical facts not elsewhere obtainable. The author's position as surveyor of the customs at Annapolis, in Maryland, gave him singular advantages as an observer ; and his tetters are justly considered as the " best account we . have of the rise of Revolutionary principles in Maryland," and have been repeatedly commended to historical students by British and American critics, although their details are so unfavorable to the former, and so full of political promise to the latter. The writer discusses trade, government, manners, and climate, and traces the progress of the civil dissensions which ended in the separation of the colonies from the mother country. If from an urbane French officer and ally we turn to the record of an English militaire^ whose views of men and things we naturally expect to be warped by political animos- ity and the fact that many of his letters were written while he was a prisoner of war, it is an agreeable surprise to find, with occasional asperity, much candid intelligence and inter- esting local information. Thomas Anbury was an officer in Burgoyne's army, and his " Travels in the Interior of Amer- ica " was published in London in 1789. He tells us that the lower classes of the New Englanders are impertinently curi- ous and inquisitive ; that a " live lord " excited the wonder- ment of the country people, and disappointed their expecta- tions then as now. He complains of Congress as " ready to grasp at any pretence, however weak, to evade the terms of the convention ; " but, at the same time, he commends the absence of any unmanly exultation on the part of the Amer- icans at Burgoyne's surrender. " After we had piled our arms," he writes, " and our march was settled, as we passed the American army, I did not observe the least disrespect, or even a taunting look ; all was mute astonishment and pity." He sympathizes with the sorrowful gratification of a be- reaved mother, to whom one of his brother officers restored her son's watch, which the British soldiers had purloined from his body on the battle field. He writes of the bright BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 187 plumage of the hummingbird, and the musical cry of the whippoorwill ; the grandeur of the Hudson, and the grace of the Passaic Falls. He notes some curious and now obsolete New England customs, and describes the process of cider making, and the topography of Boston ; in which vicinity he experienced all the rigor of an old-fashioned winter in that latitude, the dreariness of which, however, seems to have been essentially relieved by the frolicking sleigh rides of the young people. In one of his letters, dated Cambridge, where he was quartered for many weeks, he thus speaks of that academic spot as it appeared during the Revolution : " The town of Cambridge is about six miles from Boston, and was the country residence of the gentry of that city. There are a number of fine houses in it going to decay, belonging to the Loyal- ists. The town must have been extremely pleasant ; but its beauty is much defaced, being now only an arsenal for military stores : and you may suppose it is no agreeable circumstance, every time we walk out, to be reminded of our situation, in beholding the artillery and ammunition wagons that were taken with our army. The character of the inhabitants of this province is improved beyond the descrip- tion that our uncle B gave us of them, when he quitted the country, thirty years ago ; but Puritanism and the spirit of persecu- tion are not yet totally extinguished. The gentry of both sexes are hospitable and good-natured, with an air of civility, but constrained by formality and preciseness. The women are stiff and reserved, symmetrical, and have delicate complexions ; the men are tall, thin, and generally long-visaged. Both sexes have universally bad teeth, which must probably be occasioned by their eating so much mo- lasses." Although a more genial social atmosphere now pervades the comparatively populous city, since endeared by so many gifted and gracious names identified with literature and sci- ence, the " stiffness " of Cambridge parties was long prover- bial ; and an artist who attended one, after years of sojourn in Southern Europe, declared his fair partner in a solemn quadrille touched his hand, in " crossing over," with a reti- cence so instinctively cautions as to remind him of " a boy feeling for cucumbers in the dark." The defective teeth then so characteristic of Americans, which Anbury attributes to 188 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. the use of molasses, was noticed by other foreign visitors, and more justly ascribed to the climate, and its effect upon the whole constitution. It is owing, perhaps, to the greater need of superior dental science on this side of the water, that it subsequently attained such perfection, and that the most skilful American practitioners thereof not only abound at home, but are preferred in Europe. A Virginian, to whom this writer complained of the inquisitiveness and exacting local pride of the people, advised him to avoid it by an antici- patory address to every new set of acquaintance, as follows : " Ladies and gentlemen, I am named Thomas Anbury. It is no little mortification that I cannot visit Boston, for it is the second city of America, and the grand emporium of rebel- lion ; but our parole excludes us from it." Despite an occasional sleigh ride along the Mystic and the Charles, some interesting phases of nature that beguiled his observant mind, and the hospitable treatment he frequently received, we cannot wonder that he found renewing his " pass " every month, and the monotonous limits of his win- ter quarters, irksome ; so that every morning, with his com- rades, he eagerly gazed " from their barracks to the mouth of Boston harbor, hoping to catch sight of the fleet of trans- ports that was to convey them to England." A striking illustration of the influence of Tory prejudice and disappointment, immediately after the successful termina- tion of the War of Independence, may be found in the Trav- els of J. F. D. Smythe.* The work was published by sub- scription, and among the list of patrons are many names of the nobility and officers of the British army. The writer professes to be actuated by a desire to gratify public curios- ity about a country which has just passed through an " ex- traordinary revolution." He declares it a painful task " to mention the hardships and severities " he had undergone in the cause of loyalty and the pursuit of knowledge. He dis- claims ill will, having " no resentments to indulge, no revenge * " A Tour in the United States of America," by J. F. D. Smythe, Esq., Lon- don, 1784. BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 189 to pursue ; " and adds, " The few instances I have met with of kind and generous treatment, have afforded me infinite gratification." The occasion and motive of his publication are thus stated : " Having lately arrived from America, where I had made extensive journeys, and fatiguing, perilous expe- ditions, prompted by unbounded curiosity and an insatiable enthusiasm for knowledge, during a residence in that country for a considerable length of tune, I had become perfectly reconciled and habituated to the manners, customs, disposi- tions, and sentiments of the inhabitants." He conceived himself peculiarly fitted to describe and discus* the new republic. Moreover, he was dissatisfied with all that had been published on the subject. " I eagerly sought out and pursued," he observes, " with a degree of avidity rarely felt, every treatise and publication relating to America, from the first discovery by the immortal Columbus to Carver's late travels therein, and even the * Pennsylvania Farmer's Letters,' by Mr. Hector St. John, if, indeed, such a person ever exist- ed ; but always had the extreme mortification to meet with disappointment in my expectations, every one grasping at and enlarging on the greater objects, and not a single author descending to the minutiae, which compose as well the true perspective as the real intercourse and commerce of life." He bespeaks the kindly judgment of his readers for a work " written without ornament or elegance, and perhaps, in some respects, not perfectly accurate, being composed under pecu- liarly disadvantageous circumstances." The latter excuse is the best. Baffled and chagrined in his personal aspirations, and having suffered capture, imprisonment, and, according to his own account, some wanton cruelty ; remembering the pri- vations and dangers of travel in a new, and exposure in an inimical country, shattered by illness, and, above all, morti- fied at the ignominious failure of the Royal cause, he writes with bitter prejudice and exaggerated antipathy, despite the show of candor exhibited in the preface. Nor can we find in his work, as a literary or scientific performance, any just reason for his depreciation of his predecessors. He may 190 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. note a few circumstances overlooked by them, but, on the score of accurate and fresh information, there is little value in the physical details he gives ; while the political and social are so obviously jaundiced by partisan spite as to be of lim- ited significance. Indeed, there is cause to suspect that Mr. Smythe was not infrequently quizzed by his informants ; and his best reports are of agricultural and topographical facts. His " Travels in America," therefore, are now more curious than valuable : they give us a vivid idea of the perverse and prejudiced commentaries in vogue at the period among the least magnanimous of the Tory faction. He, like others of his class, was struck with the " want of subordination among the people." He descants on the " breed of running horses " in Virginia. The bullfrogs, mosquitos, flying squirrels, fossil remains, and lofty timber; the wheat, corn, sugar, cotton, and other crops ; the characteristics of different Indian tribes ; the clearings, the new settlements, the hospitality, splendid landscapes, and " severe treatment of the negroes ; " the handsome women, the " accommodations not suited to an epicure," the modes of farming, the habits of planters and riflemen, the extent and character of the large rivers, the capacity of soils, and the behavior of different classes, &c., form his favorite topics of description and discussion, varied by inklings of adventure and severe experiences as a fugitive and a prisoner. He tells us of the "harems of beautiful slaves" belonging to the Jesuit establishment in Maryland ; of being " attacked by an itinerant preacher ; " of the " painful sensation of restraint " experienced from the " gloom of the woods ; " of his horse " refusing to eat ba- con ; " and of the " formal circumlocution " of a wayside acquaintance, evidently better endowed with humor than himself. In these and similar themes his record assimilates with many others written at the time ; but what give it peculiar emphasis, are the political comments and prophecies very curious to recall now, in the light of subsequent events and historical verdicts. " I have no wish to widen the breach," he says ; " but the illiberal and vindictive principles BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 191 of the prevailing party " in America, seem to him fatal to any hearty reconciliation between the mother country and her wayward and enfranchised offspring. So absolutely is his moral perception obscured, that he deliberately maligns a character whose immaculate purity even enemies then recog- nized with delight. " It was at Alexandria," he writes, " that George Washington first stepped forth as the public patron and leader of sedition, having subscribed fifty pounds where others subscribed only five, and having accepted the command of the first company of armed associates against the British Government." So far we have only the state- ment of a political antagonist ; but when, in the retrospect of his career as military chieftain and civic leader, he thus estimates the man whose disinterestedness had already be- come proverbial, we recognize the absolute perversity of this professedly candid writer : " Mr. "Washington lias uniformly cherished and steadfastly pur- sued an apparently mild, steady, but aspiring line of conduct, and views of the highest ambition, under the most specious of all cloaks that of moderation, which he invariably appeared to possess. His total want of generous sentiments, and even of common humanity, has appeared notoriously in many instances, and in none more than in his sacrifice of the meritorious but unfortunate Major Andr6. Nor during his life has he ever performed a single action that could entitle him to the least show of merit, much less of glory ; but as a politician he has certainly distinguished himself, having, by his politi- cal manoeuvres, and his cautious, plausible management, raised him- self to a degree of eminence in his own country unrivalled, and of considerable stability. In his private character he has always been respectable." As a specimen of Tory literature, this portrait forms a singular and suggestive contrast with those sketched of the same illustrious subject by Chastellux, Guizot, Erskine, Brougham, Everett, and so many other brilliant writers. It is easy to imagine what discouraging views of the new republic such a man would take, after this evidence of his moral perspicacity and mental discrimination. Yet Mr. Smythe was of a sentimental turn. There are verses in his 192 AMEEICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. American Travels, " written in solitude," not, indeed, equal to Shelley's; and, when incarcerated, he inscribed rhymes with charcoal on his prison wall. We must make due allow- ance for the wounded sensibilities of a man who had been the victim of a " brutal Dutch guard," a " robber of the mountain," and a " barbarous jailer," when he tells us that the " fatal termination of the war," and the " consequences of separation from Great Britain and alliance with France," are "inauspicious for both countries." According to Mr. Smythe, the Americans were "corrupted by French gold," and entered into an " affected amity with that artful, perfidi- ous, and gaudy people." He prophesies that " when the in- toxication of success is over, they will repent their error." Meantime, he pleads earnestly for the Loyalists, declares America rapidly becoming depopulated on account of its " unsettled government " and the check of emigration, and, altogether, an " unfit place of residence." CHAPTER VI. BRITISH TEA VELLERS AND WRITERS CONTINUED. WANSEY; COOPER; WILSON; DAVIS; ASHE; BRISTED; KENDALL; WELD ; COBBETT ; CAMPBELL ; BYRON ; MOORE ; MRS. WAKE- FIELD ; HODGSON ; JANSEN ; CASWELL ; HOLMES, AND OTHERS ; HALL; PEARON; FIDDLER; LYELL; FEATHERSTONAUGH ; COMBE; FEMALE WRITERS ; DICKENS ; FAUX ; HAMILTON ; PARKINSON ; MRS. TROLLOPE ; GRATTAN ; LORD CARLISLE ; ANTHONY TROL- LOPE ; PRENTICE ; STIRLING. IP, in early colonial times, North America was sought as a refuge from persecution and a scene of adventurous explora- tion, and, during the French and Revolutionary wars, became an arena for valorous enterprise ; when peace smiled upon the newly organized Government of the United States, they allured quite another class of visitorsthose who sought to ascertain, by personal observation, the actual facilities which the ISTew World offered, whereby the unfortunate could re- deem and the intrepid and dexterous advance their position and resources. Hence intelligent reporters of industrial and social opportunities were welcomed in Europe, and especially among the manufacturers, agriculturists, and traders of. Britain ; and these later records differ from the earlier in more specific data and better statistical information. To the American reader of the present day they are chiefly attrac- tive as affording facts and figures whereby the development of the country can be distinctly traced from the adoption of 9 I 194: AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. the Federal Constitution to the present time, and a salient contrast afforded between the modes of life and the aspect of places sixty years ago and to-day. The vocation, social rank, and personal objects of these writers so modify their observations, that, in almost every instance, allowance must be made for the partialities and prejudices, the limited knowl- edge or the self-love of the journalist and letter writer ; yet, as their aim usually is to impart such information as will be of practical benefit to those who contemplate emigration, curious and interesting details, economical and social, may often be gleaned from their pages. One of these .books, which was quite popular in its day, and is still occasionally quoted, is that of Wansey, which was published in 1794, and subsequently reprinted here.* His voyage across the Atlan- tic was far from agreeable, and not without serious priva- tions. Indeed, nothing more remarkably indicates the prog- ress of comfort and luxury within the last half century, than the speed and plentiful resources wherewith the visitor to America now makes the transit. Wansey, as was the custom then, furnished his own napkins, bedding, and extras for the voyage ; his account of which closes with the remark, that " there does not exist a more sordid, penurious race than the captains of passage and merchant vessels." Yet a no- bler class of men than the American packet captains of a subsequent era never adorned the merchant service of any nation. Henry Wansey, F. S. A., was an English manufacturer, and his visit to America had special reference to his vocation. He notes our then very limited enterprise in this sphere, and examined the quality and cost of wool in several of the States. On the 8th of June, 1794, he breakfasted with Washington at Philadelphia. " I confess," he writes, " I was struck with awe and veneration. The President seemed very thoughtful, and was slow in delivering himself, which in- * " An Excursion to the United States, in the Summer of 1794," by Henry Wansey ; with a curious profile portrait of Washington, and a view of the State House in Philadelphia, 12mo., pp. 280, Salisbury, 1798. BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 195 duced some to believe him reserved; but it was rather, I apprehend, the result of much reflection ; for he had, to me, the appearance of affability and accommodation. He was, at this time, in his sixty-third year, but had very little the ap- pearance of age, having been all his life exceedingly temper- ate. There was a certain anxiety visible in his countenance, with marks of extreme sensibility." Wansey, like most visitors at that period, was struck with the great average of health, intelligence, and contentment among the people. " In these States," he writes, " you behold a certain plainness and simplicity of manners, equality of con- dition, and a sober use of the faculties of the mind. It is seldom you hear of a madman or a blind man in any of the States ; seldom of a felo de se, or a man afflicted w-ith the gout or palsy. There is, indeed, at Philadelphia, a hospital for lunatics. I went over it, but found there very few, if any, that were natives. They were chiefly Irish, and mostly women." What an illustration of our present eagerness for wealth and office of the encroachments of prosperity upon simple habits and chastened feelings is the fact that now insanity is so prevalent as to be characteristic, and that a " sober use of the faculties of the mind " is the exception, not the rule, of American life ! To those curious in byway economies, it may be pleasant to know, that Wansey, in the year '94, found the " Bunch of Grapes " the best house of entertainment in Boston ; that it was kept by Colonel Colman, and that, though " pestered with bugs," his guest paid " five shillings a day, including a pint of Madeira." He records, as memorable, the circum- stance that he " took a walk to Bunker Hill with an officer who had been on the spot in the battle ; " and that they re- turned " over the new bridge from Cambridge," which Wan- gey not having lived to see the Suspension Bridge at Niag- ara, the Victoria at Montreal, nor the Waterloo in London observes is " a most prodigious work for so infant a country worthy of the Roman empire." Boston then boasted " forty hackney coaches, which carry one to any part of the 196 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. town for a quarter of a dollar." The pillar on Beacon Hill, and Long Wharf, were to him the chief local objects of interest. He visited the " famous geographer," Jedediah Morse, at Charlestown, read the Columbian Centinel, and attended " the only Unitarian chapel yet opened in America, and heard Mr. Freeman." Springfield, in Massachusetts, put him in mind of Winbourn, in Dorsetshire ; the coffee there was " ill made," and the " butter rank," while the best article of food he found was " fried fish." He was charmed with the abundance of robins and swallows, and saw " a salmon caught in a seine in the Connecticut River," and " a school- house by the roadside in almost every parish." He attended a meeting of the Legislature in Hartford, and heard a debate as to how " to provide for the poor and sick negroes who had been freed from slavery the question being whether it was incumbent on the former masters, or the State, to subsist them. Like all strangers then and there, he was hospitably received by Mr. Wadsworth. He mentions, as a noteworthy facility for travellers, that " three or four packets sail every week from New Haven to New York." Of New England commodities which he records for their novelty or preva- lence, are sugar from the maple tree, soft soap, and cider. Like all foreigners, he complains of the bad bread, and enu- merates, as a curious phenomenon, that there is " no tax on candles ; " that thunder storms are frequent, and lightning conductors on all the houses ; that woodpeckers, flycatchers, and kingbirds abound ; that the dwellings are built exclu- sively of timber, and that " women and children, in most of the country places, go without caps, stockings, and shoes." The well poles of New Jersey, and her domestic flax spin- ners, cherry trees, and fireflies impress him as characteristic ; and he is disappointed in the quality of the wool produced there. In New York, Mr. Wansey lodged at the Tontine Coffee House, near the Battery, where he met Citizen Genet and Joseph Priestley, breakfasted with General Gates, and received a call from Chancellor Livingston. He " makes a note " of the then " public buildings " viz., the Governor's BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 197 house, the Exchange, the Society Library, the Literary Coffee House, Columbia College, the hospital, and workhouse. He found some " good paintings by Trumbull " at Federal Hall, was interested in Montgomery's monument, went with a party to see " Dickson Colton's manufactory at Hellgate," and Hodgkinson in " A Bold Stroke for a Husband " at the theatre. He encountered John Adams, then Vice-President, at Burling Slip, " on board the packet just sailing for Bos- ton," and describes him as " a stout, hale, well-looking man, of grave deportment, and quite plain in dress and person." He dined with Comfort Sands ; and Mr. Jay, " brother to the ambassador," took him to " the Belvidere an elegant tea-drinking house, with delightful views of the harbor ; " also to " the Indian Queen, on the Boston road, filled with Frenchmen and tri-color cockades." In Philadelphia, he saw Washington at the play, which was one of Mrs. Inchbald's ; dined with Mr. Bingham, and heard all about the ravages of the yellow fever of the preceding year. How suggestive are even such meagre notices of personal experience, reviving to our minds the primitive housewifery, the political vicissitudes, and the social tastes which mark the history of the land sixty years ago : when the first President of the republic had been recently inaugurated ; when the mischievous " French alliance " was creating such bitter par- tisan feeling ; when a Unitarian philosopher fled from a Bir- mingham mob to the wilds of Pennsylvania ; when the abo- lition of slavery was a familiar fact in our social life ; when good Mrs. Inchbald's dramas were favorites, and Brockden Brown was writing his graphic story of the pestilence that laid waste his native city; when Trumbull was the artist. Hodgkinson the actor, Genet the demagogue, Livingston the lawyer, and Washington the glory of the land ! Among the economical writers on our country, Thomas Cooper was at one time much quoted.* His remarks were, however, the fruits of quite a brief survey, as he left Eng- '* " Some Information respecting America," London, 1794. 198 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. land late in the summer of 1793, and embarked on his return the ensuing winter. He found " land cheap and labor dear ; " praises the fertility of the Genesee Valley, then attracting emigrants from New England, as its subsequent inhabitants were lured by the same causes to the still farther western plains of Ohio and Illinois. Cooper indicates, as serious objections to New York State, the intermittent fevers, and the unsatis- factory land tenure both of which obstacles have gradually disappeared or been auspiciously modified, as the civilization of the interior has advanced, and its vast resources been made available by the genius of communication. This writer also declares that the climate of Pennsylvania is more dry. The existence of slavery he considers a vital objection to the Southern sections of the country for the British emigrant. He remarks of Rhode Island, that it is " in point of climate as well as appearance the most similar to Great Britain of any State in the Union "a remark confirmed often since by foreign visitors and native travellers. It is to be observed, however, that most of those who explored the States, when the facilities for travel were meagre and inadequate, for the purpose of obtaining economical information, usually confined their experience to special regions, where convenience or acci- dent induced them to linger ; and thus they naturally give the preference to different places. Brissot recommends the Shenandoah Valley, and Imlay, Kentucky. Cooper thought " the prospect in the professions unprofitable." He states that literary men, as a class, did not exist, though the names of Franklin, Rittenhouse, Jefferson, Paine, and Barlow were distinguished. The number of articles he mentions as indis- pensable " to bring over," in 1793, gives one a startling idea of the deficiencies of the country. He asserts, however, that the " culinary vegetables of America are superior to those of England ; " but, on the other hand, was disappointed in the trees, as, " although the masses of wood are large and grand," yet the arborescent specimens individually " fell much short of his expectations ; " which does not surprise those of his readers who have seen the noble and impressive BRITISH TRAVELLERS AN-D WRITERS. 199 trees which stand forth in such magnificent relief in some of the parks and manor grounds of England. The details of a new settlement given by this writer, are more or less identi- cal with those which have since become so familiar to us, from the vivid pictures of life in the West ; but we can easily imagine how interesting they must have been to those contemplating emigration, or with kindred who had lately ftfund a new home on this continent. More, however, of the Puritan element mingled with and marked the life of the set- tlers in what was then " the West " and tinctured the then nascent tide of civilization. Somewhat of the simplicity no- ticed by writers during colonial times, yet lingered ; and the social lesson with which Cooper ends his narrative is benign and philosophical: "By the almost general mediocrity of fortune," he writes, " that prevails in America, obliging its people to follow some business for subsistence, those vices that arise usually from idleness are in a great measure pre- vented. Atheism is unknown ; and the Divine Being seems to have manifested His approbation of the mutual forbear- ance and kindness with which the different sects treat each other, by the remarkable prosperity with which He has been pleased to crown the whole country." Alexander Wilson, the ornithologist, the Paisley weaver and poet, after enduring political persecution and great pri- vations at home, landed at Newcastle, in Delaware, July 14th, 1794, and, having shot a red-headed woodpecker, was inspired with an ornithological enthusiasm which decided his career. He became a schoolmaster, an ardent politician, and, through intimacy with Bartram, a confirmed naturalist. He wrote for Brockden Brown's magazine, made a pedestrian tour to Niagara, was the author of "The Foresters" an elaborate poem in the Portfolio, and fixed his home on the banks of the Susquehanna : meantime, and subsequently, toil- ing, in spite of every obstacle and with beautiful zeal, upon his " American Ornithology ; " and in this and other writings, in .verse and prose, giving the most vivid local descriptions of 200 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS. life and nature in America as revealed to the eye of science and of song.* Travel here, as elsewhere, brings out the idiosyncrasies, and proves a test of character. A certain earnestness of purpose and definite sympathy lend more or less dignity to the narratives of missionary, soldier, and savant ; but these were soon succeeded by a class of men whom accident or necessity brought hither. The welcome accorded some *of them, when " stranger was a holy name " among us, and the greater social consideration experienced in a less conventional state of society than that to which they had been accus- tomed, sometimes induced an amusing self-complacency and oracular tone. With the less need of the heroic, more super- ficial traits of human nature found scope ; and a fastidious taste and critical standard were too often exhibited by writers, whose previous history formed an incongruous parallel with the newborn pretensions warmed into life by the republican atmosphere of this young land. A visitor whose narrow means obliged him often to travel on foot and rely on casual hospitality, and. whose acquirements enabled him to subsist as a tutor in a Southern family, for several months, would challenge our respect for his independence and self-reliance, were it not for an egotistical claim to the rank of a practical and philosophical traveller, which obtrudes itself on every page of his journal. Some descriptive sketches, however, atone for the amiable weakness of John Davis,f whose record includes the period between 1798 and 1802, during which he roamed over many sections of the country, and observed various phases of American life. " I have entered," he says, " with equal interest, the mud hut of the negro and * " American Ornithology ; or, The Natural History of the Birds of the United States," with plates from original drawings taken from nature, 9 vols., folio, Philadelphia, 1808-' 14. " The Foresters, a Poem descriptive of a Pedestrian Journey to the Falls of Niagara," 12mo., Paisley, 1825. f " Travels of Four Years and a Half in the United States, during the years 1798 to 1802," by John Davis, dedicated to President Jefferson, 8vo., London, 1803. BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 201 the log house of the planter ; I have likewise communed with the slave who wields the hoe and the taskmaster who im- poses the labor." Pope, Addison, and Johnson were his oracles, and the style of the latter obviously won his sympa- thy. Burr fascinated him; Dennie praised his verses, and he saw Brockden Brown. His volume abounds with byway anecdotes. He records the details of his experience with the zest of one whose self-esteem exalts whatever befalls and surrounds him. To-night he is kept awake by the -howls of a mastiff, to-morrow he dines on venison ; now he writes an elegy, and now engages in literary discussion with a planter. His odes to a cricket, a mockingbird, to Ashley River, etc., evidence the Shenstone taste and rhyme then so much in vogue. He " contemplated with reverence the portrait of James Logan," and draws from an Irish clergyman new anec- dotes of Goldsmith. He disputes Franklin's originality in the form of an amusing dialogue between a Virginian and a New Englander, tracing the philosopher's famous parable to Bishop Taylor, and his not less famous epitaph to a Latin author. He praises Phillis Wheatley, and notes, with evident pleas- ure, the trees, grains, reptiles, birds, and animals. Great is his dread of the rattlesnake. Anecdotes and verses, philo- sophical reflections and natural history items, with numerous personal confessions and impressions, make up a characteris- tic melange, in which the vanity of a bard and the specula- tions of a traveller sometimes grotesquely blend, but with so much good nature and harmless pedantry, that the result is diverting, and sometimes instructive. " My long residence," he writes, " in a community 4 where honor and shame from no condition rise,' has placed me above the ridiculous pride of disowning the situation of a tutor." In this vocation he certainly enjoyed an excellent opportunity to observe that unprecedented blending of the extremes of high civilization and rude economies which forms one of the most salient aspects of our early history. The English tutor, when do- mesticated in a Southern family, was sheltered by a log house while he shared the pleasures of a sumptuous table ; 9* AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATOES. and, when surrounded by the crude accommodations of a new plantation, witnessed the highest refinement of manners, and listened to the most intellectual conversation. If, during his wanderings, he was annoyed, one night, by a short bed, he was amused, the next, by a travelling menagerie. If, in tutoring, his patience was tried by seeing people " strive to exceed each other in the vanities of life," he was compen- sated, in the woods, by shooting wild turkeys with his pupil. He quotes Shakspeare, and observes nature with great relish ; and the cotton plant, the autumn wind, the wild deer, eagles, hummingbirds, whippoor wills, bog plant, and flycatchers, with occasional flirtations with a mellifluous muse, beguile the time ; and he boasts, in -the retrospect of his four years' sojourn, and the written digest thereof, that he " scorns com- plaints of mosquitos and bugs," that he " eschews magnifi- cent epithets," " makes no drawings," and " has not joined the crew of deists " which negative merits, we infer, were rare in travellers' tales half a century ago. The republican ideas, inquiring turn of mind, or extreme deference of this writer, seems to have won him the favorable .regard of Jef- ferson, upon whom and Burr he lavishes ardent praise : and the former seems to recognize not only a political admirer, but a brother author, in Davis ; for, in reply to his request to dedicate his Travels to the apostle of American democ- racy, Jefferson, after accepting graciously the compliment, writes : " Should you, in your journeyings, have been led to remark on the same objects on which I gave crude notes some years ago, I shall be happy to see them confirmed or corrected by so accurate an observer." His work is entitled, " Travels of Four and a Half Years in the United States, 1799-1802," London, 1817. "With more sincerity," says Rich's Bibliotheca Americana, " than is usual among travel- lerSj he states that he made the tour on foot, because he could not afford the expense of a horse." In 1806, Thomas Ashe visited North America, with the intention of examining the Western rivers, in order to learn, from personal inspection, the products of their vicinage, and BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 203 the actual state of the adjacent country. The Mississippi, Ohio, Monongahela, and Alleghany were the special objects of his exploration. His " Travels in America " * is a curi- ous mixture of critical disparagement, quite too general to be accurate, and of romantic and extravagant episodes, which diminish the reliance that might otherwise be placed on the more practical statements. The work appeared in London in 1808. The natural appetite for the marvellous, and the desire to obtain a knowledge of facts, at that time, in regard to the particular region visited, being prevalent, this now rarely con- sulted volume was much read. From Pittsburg he writes : " The Atlantic States, through which I have passed, are un- worthy of your observation. The climate has two extremes." The Middle States " are less contemptible ; the national fea- tures not strong;" and, from this circumstance, he thinks it difficult to conjecture what national character will arise. At Carlisle, Pa., he u did not meet a man of decent litera- ture." He seeks consolation, therefore, in the picturesque scenes around him, which are often described in rhetorical terms, and in a recognition of the fairer portion of the com- munity. Thomson's " Seasons" is evidently a favorite book ; and he presents a copy to a " young lady among the emi- grants," on the blank leaf of which, he tells us, he wrote a "romantic but just compliment." Education, sects, manu- factures, and provisions are commented on ; but the tone of his remarks, except where he praises the face of nature or the manners of a woman, is discouraging to those who con- template settling in the western part of the country which he continually brings into severe comparison with the more developed communities of the Old World. Indeed, he re- pudiates the flattering accounts of previous travellers ; and it is evident that the reaction from his own extravagant expec- * "Travels in America, performed in 1806," by Captain Thomas Ashe, 3 vols. 12mo., London, 1808. " His account of the Atlantic States forms the most comprehensive piece of national abuse we ever recollect to have read." Rich. 204: AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. tations leads him to picture the dark side with earnestness. Personal disappointment is expressed in all his generaliza- tions, although certain local beauties and exceptional indi- viduals modify the strain of complaint, which, though some- times well founded, is often unreasonable. He describes the hardships and privations incident to emigration, and illus- trates them by melancholy examples. The " vicious taste in building," the formidable catalogue of snakes, the want of literary culture, the discomfort, and the coarse manners quite eclipse the charms of landscape and the natural advantages of the vast region which, since his journey, has become so populous, enterprising, and productive. He " reports " a . boxing match, horse race, ball and supper in Virginia ; hears a debate in Congress, and retires " full of contempt ; " swin- dlers and impostors intrude on his privacy at a tavern. He says, with truth, that " no people live with less regard to regimen ; " and, as we read, beautiful scenes seem to be counterbalanced by bad food, grand rivers by uncultured minds, cheap land by narrow social resources ; in a word, the usual conditions of a new country, where nature is exuberant and civilization incomplete, are described as such anomalies would be by a man with a fluent and ambitious style, tastes and self-love easily offended, and to whom the " law of a pro- duction," which Goethe deemed so essential to wise criticism in letters, is scarcely applied, though still more requisite to a traveller's estimate. Ashe put on record some really useful information, and stated many disenchanting truths about the New World, and life there ; but the rhetorical extravagance and personal vanity herewith ventilated, detract not a little from his authority as a reference and his tact as a romancer. The gentler portion of creation alone escape reproach. " I assure you," he writes, " that when I expressed the supreme disgust excited in me by the people of the United States, the ladies were by no means included in the general censure." When we remember that such books, half a century ago, were the current sources of information in Great Britain in regard to America, and that a writer so limited in scope, in- I BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 205 discriminate in abuse, and superficial in thought, was re- garded as an authority, it is easy to perceive how the inimical feeling toward this country was fostered. One fact alone indicates the shallowness of Ashe : he dates none of his com- placent epistles from the Northern States, and gives, as a rea- son therefor, that they are " unworthy of observation." He thinks the social destiny of Pittsburg redeemed by a few Irish families settled there, who " hindered the vicious pro- pensities of the genuine American character from establish- ing here the horrid dominion which they have assumed over the Atlantic States." He finds the men deteriorated on account of their " political doctrines," which, he considers, tend " to make men turbulent citizens, abandoned Christians, inconstant husbands, and treacherous friends." Here we have the secret of this traveller's sweeping censure. His hatred of republican institutions not only blinded him to all the privileges and merits of American life and character, but even to certain domestic traits and professional talents, recog- nized by every other foreign observer of the country. Yet, palpable as are his injustice and ignorance, contemporary critics at home failed to recognize them. One says, "his researches cannot fail to interest the politician, the statesman, the philosopher, and the antiquary ; " while the Quarterly JKeview mildly rebukes him for having " spoiled a good book by engrafting incredible stories on authentic facts." Rev. John Bristed, who succeeded Bishop Griswold in St. Michael's Church, at Bristol, R. L, published, in 1818, a work on " America and her Resources." He was a native of Dor- setshire, England, and, for two years, a pupil of Chitty. Strong in his prejudices of country, yet impressed with the advantages of the New World, his report of American means, methods, and prospects, though containing much use- ful, and, at the time, some fresh and desirable information, is crude, and tinctured with a personal and national bias, which renders it, superseded as most of its facts have been by the development of the country, of little present significance. It is, however, to the curious, as an illustration of character, a AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. suggestive indication of the state of feeling of an English resident, and of the state of the country forty or fifty years since. The author was a scholar, with strong convictions. He died at Bristol a few years since, at an advanced age. He also published " A Pedestrian Tour in the Highlands," in 1804. His work on America was the result of several years' residence ; and its scope, tone, and character are best hinted by the opinion of one of the leading Reviews of England, thus expressed soon after its publication : " We cannot avoid regarding Mr. Bristed with some degree of respect," says the London Quarterly. " In writing his book, his pride in his native country, which all his repub- licanism has been unable to overcome, has frequently had to contend with the flattering but unsubstantial prospect with which the prophetic folly that ever accompanies democracy has impressed his mind, to a degree almost equalling that of the vain people with whom he is domiciled." As an au- thentic landmark of economical progress, this work is use- ful as a reference, whatever may be thought of its social criticism. An entire contrast to the record of Ashe appeared about the same time, in the " Travels through the Northern Parts of the United States," * by Edward Augustus Kendall. No previous work on this country so fully explains the State polity and organization of New England, and the social facts connected therewith. "The intention of travel," says the intelligent and candid author, " is the discovery of truth." As unsparing in criticism as Ashe, he analyzes the municipal system and the social development with so much knowledge and fairness, that the political and economical student will find more data and detail in his work than, at that period, were elsewhere obtainable. It still serves as an authentic memorial of the region of country described, at that transi- tion era, when time enough had elapsed, after the Revolution- ary War, for life and labor to have assumed their normal * " Travels through the Northern Parts of the TMted States, in the years 1807-'8," by Edward A. Kendall, 3 vols. 8vo., New York, 1809. BRITISH TEAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 207 development, and before their scope had been enlarged and their activity intensified by the vast mechanical improve- ments of our own day. The local laws of Connecticut, for instance, are fully discussed ; townships, elections, churches, prisons, schools, and the press all the elements and principles which then and there manifested national and moulded pri- vate character. The famous "Blue Laws" form a curious chapter ; and, in his account of the newspaper press, he notes the remarkable union of " license of thought with very favor- able specimens of diction," and enlarges upon the prevalent " florid and tumid " language in America, its causes and cure ; while his chapter on Hartford Poetry is an interesting illus- tration of our early local literature. Scarcely any contemporary writer of American travels was more quoted and popular, sixty years ago, than Isaac Weld, whom the troubles of Ireland, in '95, induced to visit this country. That experience, we may readily imagine, caused him thoroughly to appreciate the importance of practical observations in a land destined to afford a prosperous home for such a multitude of his unfortunate countrymen. Ac- cordingly we find, in his well-written work,* abundance of economical and statistical facts ; and the interests and pros- pects of agriculture and commerce are elaborately considered. While this feature rendered Weld's Travels really useful at the time of their publication, and an authentic reference sub- sequently, his ardent love of nature lent an additional interest to his work ; for he expatiates on the beauties of the land- scape with the perception of an artist, and is one of the few early travellers who enriched his journal with authentic sketches of picturesque and famous localities. The French translation of Weld's Travels in America- is thus illustrated ; and the old-fashioned yet graphic view of an " Auberge et voiture publique dans les 3tats Unis," vividly recalls the days anterior to locomotives, so suggestive of stage-coach adven- * " Travels through the States of North America and the Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada, in !795-'96-'97," by Isaac Weld, illustrated with fine engravings, 4to., 1799. 208 AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATORS. tures, deliberate travel, and the unmodified life and character of the rural districts. In describing the sanguinary attacks of New Jersey insects, he deals in the marvellous, giving Wash- ington as authority that the mosquitos there bite through the thickest boots. No writer on America has more singularly combined the political refugee and adventurer with the assiduous econo- mist than William Cobbett. Born and bred a farmer, he fled, while a youth, from the peaceful vocation of his father, to become a soldier in Nova Scotia ; but soon left the service, visited France, and, in 1796, settled in Philadelphia, where the fierce tone of his controversial writings involved him in costly libel suits. His interest in the political questions then rife in America is amply evidenced by the twelve volumes of the works of Peter Porcupine, published in London in 1801. Returning to England, he became the strenuous advocate of Pitt, and started the Weekly Register, which contained his lucubrations for thirty years ; but, having once more ren- dered himself amenable to law by the combined freedom and force of his pen, he returned to the United States, and en- joyed the prestige of a political exile in the vicinity of New York ; and when the repeal of the Six Acts permitted his return home, he conveyed to England the bones of Thomas Paine, whose memory he idolized. Cobbett is recognized under several quite distinct phases, according to the views of his critics as a malignant radical by some, a philosophical liberal by others. His style is regarded as a model of per- spicacity ; and his love of agriculture, and faith in habits of inexpensive comfort and cheerful industry, made him, in the eyes of partial observers, quite the model of republican hardi- hood and independence ; while the more refined and urbane of his day shrank from his vituperative language and bitter partisanship. He slandered the benign Dr. Rush, and Ben- tham declared " hi* malevolence and lying beyond every- thing ; " while Kent remarked that his political writings aiforded a valuable source of knowledge to those who would understand the parties and principles which agitated our BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 209 country during his sojourn ; and the London Times ap- plauded the muscular vigor of his diction. But it is as a writer on the economical and social facts of American life, that Cobbett now claims our notice ; and in this regard he differs from most authors in the same sphere, in the specific character of the information he imparts, and the deliberate conclusions at which he arrived. Some of our venerable countrymen remember his pleasant abode on Long Island, and the memorable discussions which sometimes took place there between the political exile, reformer, grammarian, and horticulturist, and his intelligent visitors from the city. The late Dr. Francis used to quote some of his emphatic sayings, and describe his frugal arrangements and agricultural tro- phies. In the preface to his " Year's Residence in America,"* Cobbett complains of English travellers as too extreme in their statements in regard to the country one set describing it as a paradise, and the other as unfit to live in. He treats the subject in a practical way, and from patient experience. Enamored of a farmer's life, he boasts that he was " bred up at a ploughtail and among the hop gardens of Surrey," and that he was never eighteen months " without a garden." He expatiates on the superior condition of the agricultural class in America, where " a farmer is not a dependent wretch," and where presidents, governors, and legislators pride them? selves on the vocation. He describes his own little domain, the American trees he has planted around his house, his ex- periments in raising corn, potatoes, and especially rutabaga. By " daily notes " he carefully reports the transitions of tem- perature and seasons, and gives definite accounts of modes of cultivation, the price of land, cost of raising kine and poultry ; in a word, all the economical details which a prac- tical man would prize. By the narrative of his own doings in the vicinity of New York, and of his observations during a journey to the West, the foreign reader must have obtained from Cobbett the most satisfactory knowledge of the mate- * " A Year's Residence in the United States," 3 vols., 8vo., London, 1818. 210 AMERICA AND HER COMMENT ATORS. rial resources of a large section of the country as it was forty years since. Through these agricultural items, how- ever, the disappointment of the politician arid the sympathies of the republican vividly gleam ; for the truculent author constantly rejoices that no " spies, false witnesses, or blood- money men " beset the path of frugal toil and independent thought in this land of freedom. He justly laments the prevalence of intemperance, and compares the " Hampshire parsons " and their flocks not at all to the advantage of either with the " good, kind people here going to church to listen to some decent man of good moral character and of sober, quiet life." Despite the narrowness of the partisan and the egotism of the innovator, Cobbett, in some respects, is one of the more clear and candid reporters who sought to enlighten Europe about America. A critical authority in agriculture, while denying him scientific range, admits that he adorned the subject " by his homely knowledge of the art, and most agreeable delineation ; " while some of the most es- sential social traits, remarkable political tendencies, and emi- nent public characters of the United States, have been most truly and impressively described by William Cobbett. " I visited Parliament House," writes an American from London in 1833. "The question was the expediency of ab- rogating the right, under any circumstances, of impressing seamen for her Majesty's navy. Cobbett said but a few words, but they went directly to the question : t One fact on this subject claims and deserves the attention of the House. The national debt consists of eight hundred millions of pounds ; and seven hundred thousand of this debt was incurred in the war with America, in support of this right of impressing seamen.' " However coarse the radicalism of Cobbett, there was a basis of sense and truth in his intrepid assertion of first prin- ciples his recognition and advocacy of elementary political justice that just thinkers respect, however uncongenial may be the manner and method of the man ; no little of the offen- sive character thereof being attributable to a baffled and false BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 211 position. An acute German writer * apostrophized him, not inaptly, thus: "Old Cobbett! dog of England! I do not love you, for every vulgar nature is fatal to me ; but I pity you from my deepest soul, when I see that you cannot break loose from your chain, nor reach those thieves who, laughing, slip away their plunder before your eyes, and mock your fruit- less leaps and unavailing howls." While political reformers of the liberal school, drew argu- ments from American prosperity, popular bards gave expres- sion to the common vexation, by taunting the republic with the taint of slavery, though a poisoned graft from the land of- our origin, as Campbell, in his bitter epigram on the American flag or with sarcasms upon democratic manners, as in Moore's ephemeral satire. And yet, when the prospect for men with more wit than money, and more learning than rank, in Great Britain, was all but hopeless, the Bard of Hope could discover no more auspicious home than the land he thus sneered at for a local and inherited stain. Alluding to a half- formed project of joining his brother in America, and earning his subsistence there by teaching, he observes, in a letter to Washington Irving : " God knows I love my country, and my heart would bleed to leave it ; but if there be a consum- mation such as may be feared, I look to taking up my abode in the only other land of liberty ; and you may behold me, perhaps, flogging your little Spartans in Kentucky into a true sense and feeling of the beauties of Homer." Byron, an impassioned devotee of freedom, and disgusted by the social proscription his undisciplined and wilful career had entailed on him in his native land, turned a gaze of sym- pathy toward the West. It is said no tribute to his fame delighted him so much as the spontaneous admiration of Americans. He was highly gratified when one of our ships of war paid him the compliment of a salute in the harbor of Leghorn ; and expressed unfeigned satisfaction when told of a well-thumbed copy of his poems at an inn near Niagara Heine. 212 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. Falls. Indeed, his restless mind often found comfort in the idea of making his home in the United States. Every school- boy remembers his apostrophe to this country, in his Ode to Venice : " One great clime, "Whose vigorous offspring by dividing ocean Are kept apart, and nursed in the devotion Of freedom, which their fathers fought for and Bequeathed a heritage of heart and hand, And proud distinction from each other land Yet rears her crest, unconquered and sublime, Above the far Atlantic. She has taught Her Esau brethren that the haughty flag, The floating wall of Albion's feebler crag, May strike to those whose red right hands have bought Rights cheaply earned with blood." " One freeman more, America, to thee," Byron would have indeed added ; and, had he followed the casual impulse and found new inspiration from nature on this continent, and outlived here the fever of passion and the recklessness of error, how easy to imagine his later manhood and his per- verted name alike redeemed by faith and humanity into " vic- torious clearness." A remarkable evidence of the prevalent fashion and feel- ing, on the other hand, is to be found in the writings of Tom Moore. His Life, so imprudently sent to the press by Lord John Russell, exhibits, in his own letters- and diaries, as com- plete a fusion of the man of the world and the poet if such a phenomenon is possible as can be found in the whole range of literary biography. But Moore was a man of fancy and music rather than of deep or wide sympathies a social favorite and graceful rhymer, who lived for the drawing room and the dinner, and was beguiled by aristocratic hospi- talities from that great and true world of humanity wherein the true bard finds inspiration. Accordingly, it was to be expected that his hasty visit to America should be, as it was, made capital for satire and song, in the interest of British prejudice. There is so little originality or completeness in BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 213 these desultory notes of his visit, with the exception of two finished and melodious lyrics " The Lake of the Dismal Swamp" and "The Canadian Boat Song" that only the prestige of his name makes them of present interest. Moore arrived at Norfolk, Ya., in the autumn of 1803, in H. B. M. frigate Phaeton, where he stayed ten days, and then went to Bermuda in the " Driver " sloop-of-war. Thence he proceeded in the " Boston " to New York ; visited Washington and Philadelphia, Canada and Niagara Falls. At Bermuda he met Basil Hall, then a midshipman. At Washington he had an interview with Jefferson, " whom," he writes, " I found sitting with General Dearborn and one or two other officers, and in the same homely costume, com- prising slippers and Connemara stockings." He enjoyed Philadelphia society, and addressed some verses to " Dela- ware's green banks " and " Fair Schuylkill." He describes Buffalo as a village of wigwams and huts ; and part of his journey thence to Niagara he was obliged to perform on foot, through a half-cleared forest. On his arrival, he tells us he lay awake all night listening to the Falls ; and adds, " The day following I consider a sort of era in my life ; and the first glimpse I caught of that wonderful cataract gave me a feeling which nothing in this world will ever awaken again." His rhymes intended as " the song of the spirit of that region " are not, however, suggestive of these emotions. He spent part of his time with " the gallant Brock," who then commanded at Fort George, and, accompanied by him and the officers of the garrison, visited the Tuscarora In- dians, and witnessed their dances, games, and rites with satis- faction. The Falls of the Mohawk also awoke his muse ; and he was much delighted at the refusal of the captain of a steamboat on Lake Ontario to accept passage money from the " poet." Nearly all the period of Moore's sojourn was passed with British consuls or army and naval officers. From these and the Federalists of Philadelphia, he tells us, he " got his prejudices " in regard to America. The " vulgarity of rancor " in politics, and the " rude familiarity of the lower 214: AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. orders." were very offensive to him ; and, although his oppor- tunities for " cursory observation " were quite limited, he found America " at maturity in most of the vices and all the pride of civilization." Slavery, of course, is the chief object of his satire : of its origin he is silent. The crude state of border life, the prevalence of French sympathies, and the recklessness of partisan zeal, are among the special defects upon which he ironically descants, as usual ascribing them to the institutions of the country. He sneers at " The embryo capital, where fancy sees Squares in morasses, obelisks in trees ; " and scornfully declares that " Columbia's patriot train Cast off their monarch that their mob might reign ; " and assures his readers "I'd rather hold my beck In climes where liberty has scarce been named, Nor any right but that of ruling claimed, Than thus to live where bastard Freedom waves Her fustian flag in mockery over slaves." He begins one of his tirades with " Aready in this free and virtuous state, "Which Frenchmen tell us was ordained by Fate ; " and his anti-Gallicism is as obvious as his hatred of the " equality and fraternity " principles, which he thinks so de- grading. Yet it was here that he saw the picture of domes- tic peace and prosperity that prompted the lines, " I knew, by the smoke that so gracefully curled ; " and the want of magnanimity in an Irish bard, in overlooking the blessings America has rained upon his countrymen, in flippant com- ments on temporary social incongruities, is the more apparent from his acknowledgment in the preface to his " Poems relating to America," subsequently written : " The good will I have experienced from more than one distinguished Ameri- BRITISH TEAVELLEES AND WRITEES. 215 can, sufficiently assures me that any injustice I may have done to that land of freemen, if not long since wholly for- gotten, is now remembered only to be forgiven." Even a cursory examination of the British Travels in America already noticed, would suggest the facility and de- sirableness of a judicious compilation therefrom. It is easy to imagine a volume replete with information and attraction, gleaned by a discriminating hand from such copious but ill- digested materials. Omitting the mere statistics and the extravagant tales, the egotistical episodes and the coarse abuse, there remain passages of admirable description, racy anecdotes, and genial speculations enough to form a choice picture and treatise on nature, character, and life in the New World. It is surprising that such an experiment has not been tried by one of the many tasteful compilers who have sifted the grain from the chaiF in so many other departments of popular literature. The attempt, on a small scale, was made, in 1810, by one of those clever female writers for the young, who, about that period, initiated the remarkable and successful department of juvenile literature, since so memo- rably illustrated by Maria Edge worth, Mrs. Barbauld, Sir Walter Scott, Hans Andersen, and other endeared writers. " Excursions in North America, described in Letters from a Gentleman and his Young Companions in England," by Pris- cilla Wakefield, was a favorite little work among the children on both sides of the Atlantic, half a century ago. It is amusing to revert to these early sketches, which have given to many minds, now mature, their first and therefore their freshest impressions of this country. Mrs. Wakefield drew her materials from Jefferson, Weld, Rochefoucault, Bartram, Michaux, Carver, and Mackenzie, and, in general, uses them with tact and taste. The cities and scenery of the land, its customs and products, are well described. She notes some of the stereotyped so-called national vulgarities which have, in the more civilized parts of the country, sensibly diminished since the indignant protests of travellers reached their acme in Mrs. Trollope. " We have been," it is said in one of the 216 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. letters, " once or twice to the theatre, but the company in the pit have such a disgusting custom of drinking wine or porter and smoking tobacco, between the acts, that I have no incli- nation to visit it again." But the pleasantest parts of her book, especially consider- ing for what class of readers it is intended, are those which delineate the natural features and productions. Here, for instance, we have a description of an indigenous tree, now exalted by the selfish and narrow passions of a small and sen- sitive community into an emblem of political hate and ungen- erous faction. With this association there seems a latent satire in the details of the arborescent portrait. " The Pal- metto Royal, or Adam's Needle, is a singular tree. They grow so thick together, that a bird can scarcely penetrate between them. The stiff leaves of this sword plant, stand- ing straight out from the trunk, form a barrier that neither man nor beast can pass. It rises with an erect stem about ten or twelve feet high, crowned with a chaplet of dagger- like green leaves, with a stiff, sharp spur at the end. This thorny crown is tipped with a pyramid of white flowers, shaped like a tulip or lily ; to these flowers succeeds a larger fruit, in form like a cucumber, but, when ripe, of a deep purple color." " We scarcely pass ten or twelve miles," says another of these once familiar letters, " without seeing a tavern, as they call inns in this country. They are built of wood, and resemble one another, having a porch in front the length of the house, almost covered with handbills. They have no sign, but take their name from the person that keeps the house, who is often a man of consequence ; for the profession of an innkeeper is far more respected in America than in England. Instead of supplying their guests as soon as they arrive, they make everybody conform to one hour for the different meals ; so you must go without your dinner, or delay your journey till the innkeeper pleases to lay the cloth." This remark on the country taverns as they were before the " hotel " had become characterized by size, show, BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 217 and costliness, strikes us as most natural, coming from one only acquainted with English inns ; and the independent man- ners of the landlords are so obvious now, that a foreign writer declared they and the steamboat captains formed the only aristocracy he had encountered in America; while the cus- tom of arbitrarily regulating the hours for meals, and the gregarious manner of feeding, led a Sicilian to complain that the guests of a public house in this country, were treated like friars in his own. A sensible and pleasant but not very profound or methodi- cal gentleman of Liverpool published "Remarks during a Journey through North America in 1819." This book, writ- ten by Adam Hodgson, Esq., was published in this country in 1823, and met with a kindly reception on account of the well-meaning aim and disposition of the writer, whose na- tional prejudices were expressed in a more calm manner than by his more vulgar countrymen ; while a tour of seven thousand miles had furnished him with a good amount of useful knowl- edge, not, however, well digested or arranged ; and mingled therewith are certain personal tastes and views amusing and harmless, that lend a certain piquancy to the narrative. He examined the country with an eye to its facilities and pros- pects for the emigrant, and thus put on record important sta- tistical facts, which are sometimes ludicrously blended with matters of no consequence. He so admired the chorus of frogs, heard in the stillness of the night at one place of his sojourn, that he opened his window to listen to their croak- ing, mistaking it, at first, for the notes of birds. He ex- pressed the most naive surprise at finding a copy of the " Dairyman's Daughter " at a shop in Mobile ; and was so nervous in regard to the safety of his baggage, when travel- ling by stage coach, that he used a chain and padlock of his own, and held the cue thereof. He enjoyed Southern hos- pitality, which, however, was sadly marred, to his conscious- ness, by slaveholding. He dined on turkey every day for weeks, with apparently undiminished relish; and, with amusing pathos, laments that the " absence of the privileges of 10 218 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. primogeniture, and the repeated subdivision of property, are gradually effecting a change in the structure of society in South Carolina, and will shortly efface its most interesting and charac- teristic features." " His book," wrote Jared Sparks, " is cred- itable to his heart and his principles. We should be glad if as much could be said for his discretion and judgment." C. W. Janson, " late of the State of Rhode Island," re- sided in America from 1793 to 1806, and published in Lon- don, the year after the latter date, " The Stranger in Amer- ica," * which the Edinburgh Review severely criticizes ; while John Foster, in the Eclectic, awarded it much praise- Henry Caswell, in 1849, published "America and the American -Church, with some Account of the Mormons, in 1842 ; " and Robert Barclay issued " An Agricultural Tour in the United States ;" a couple of volumes entitled "Travels through Parts of the United States and Canada in 1818-'! 9," and " A Sabbath among the Tuscaroras," are dedicated to Prof. Silliman, of Yale College. A small work appeared anony- mously in London (1817), entitled "Travels in the Interior of America in 1809, '10, and '11," including a description of Upper Louisiana. Isaac Holmes, of Liverpool, gave to the public, in 1823, " An Account of the United States of America, derived from Observations during a Residence of Four Years in that Republic ; " of which the Quarterly observes that its author " is rather diffuse and inaccurate," yet gives " a modest and true statement of things as they are." A rather verbose work of E. S. Abdy, previously known for a hygienic essay, was read extensively, at the time of its appearance, though its interest was quite temporary. It de- scribed, in detail, a " Residence and Tour in /the United States in 1833-'34." Sir J. Augustus Foster, Envoy to America in 1811-'! 2, wrote " Notes on the United States," which were not pub- lished, but privately circulated ; although the London Quar- * " The Stranger in America," by Charles William Jansou, engravings, 4to., London, 1807. BEITI8H TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 219 terly declared its publication desirable " on both sides of the Atlantic ; " and Godley's " Letters from Canada and the United States," published in London in 1814, contains valu- able agricultural data, and is justly characterized by the critical journals of that day as sensible and impartial.* There was, indeed, from the close of the war of 1812, for a series of years, an inundation of English books of travel, wherein the United States, their people and prospects, were discussed with a monotonous recapitulation of objections, a superficial knowledge, and a predetermined deprecation, which render the task of analyzing their contents and esti- mating their comparative merit in the highest degree weari- some. Redeemed, in some instances, by piquant anecdote, * Among other works of British writers of early date worth consulting are Governor Bernard's Letters ; Burton and Oldmixon on the British Empire in America ; and of later commentators, as either amusing, intelligent, curious, or salient, sometimes flippant and sometimes sensible, may be mentioned Birk- beck's " Notes of a Journey in America in 1817 ;" Kingdom's " Abstract of In- formation relative to the United States" (London, 1820); "Tour in North America," by Henry Tudor, Barrister (1834); also the Travels of Bradbury, Shirreff, Byam, Casey, Cunningham, Chambers, Davison, Feroll, Finch, Head, Latrobe, Mackinnon, McNish, Majorbanks, Park, Sturge, Sutcliffe, Thomson, Thornton, Turnbull, Tasistro, Shraff, Warden, Waterton, Warburton, Weston, Kjgatiug, and Lamber ; Dixon, Jameson, Wright, Dickinson, and Pursh ; Vigne and Gleig's " Subaltern in America, a Military Journal of the War of 1812," which originally appeared in Black-wood's Magazine, vol. xxi. ; J. M. Dun- can's Travels (1818); Tremenhere's work on " The Constitution of the United States compared with that of Great Britain ; " Prof. J. F. W. Johnson's " Notes on North America," chiefly agricultural and economical ; Ousley's " Remarks on the Statistics and Political Institutions of the United States ; " the statisti- cal works of Seyber and Tucker; A. J. Mason's Lectures on the United States (London, 1841); and Flint's "Letters from America," chiefly devoted to the Western States (Edinburgh, 1822), of which it has been said that " James Flint was one of the most amiable, accomplished, and truthful foreign tourists who have visited America and left a record of their impressions : he died in his native country (Scotland), a few years after his book was pub- lished." Two English officers, Colonel Chesney and Lieut.-Colonel Freemantle, published brief accounts of what they saw and gathered from others, in regard to the war for the Union too superficial and prejudiced to have any lasting value ; and Mr. Dicey, the young correspondent of a liberal London journal, collected and published a narrative of his experience, candid, but of limited scope and insight. 220 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. interesting adventure, or some grace of style or originality of view, they are, for the most part, shallow, egotistical, and more or less repetitions of each other. So systematic and continuous, however, are the tone of abuse and the purpose of disparagement, that the subject claims separate considera- tion. Among those works that attracted special attention, from the antecedents of their authors or a characteristic manner of treating their subject, was the once familiar book of Captain Basil Hall, R. 1ST., the Journal of Fanny Kemble, and the " Notes " of Dickens. Of the former, Everett justly remarked, in the North American Review, that " this work will furnish food to the appetite for detraction which reigns in Great Britain toward this country;" while even Black- wood's Magazine, congenial as was the spirit of the work to its Tory perversities, though characterizing Captain Hall's observations as "just and profound," declared they were " too much tinctured by his ardent fancy to form a safe guide on the many debated subjects of national institutions." A like protest against the authenticity of Fearon, a London surgeon, who published " A Narrative of a Journey of Five Thousand Miles through the Eastern and Western States of America,* was uttered by Sydney Smith, who wrote, as his critical opinion, that " Mr. Fearon is a much abler writer than either Palmer or Bradbury, but no lover of America, and a little given to exaggerate his views of vices and prejudices ; " which estimate was confirmed by the London Review, which declared that the " tone of ill temper which this author usu- ally manifests, in speaking of the American character, has gained for his work the approbation of persons who regard that country with peculiar jealousy." So obvious and prevalent had now become this " peculiar jealousy," that when, in 1833, the flippant " Observations on the Professions, Manners, and Emigration in the United States and Canada," of the Rev. Isaac Fiddler, appeared, the * " Narrative of a Journey of Five Thousand Miles through the Eastern and Western States, with Remarks on Mr. Birkbeck's Notes," by Henry B. Fearon, 8vo., London, 1818. BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 221 North American Review truly said of it : " This is another of those precious specimens of books with which John Bull is now regularly humbugged three or four times a year." It seemed to be deemed essential to every popular author of Great Britain, in whatever department, to write a book on America. In those instances where this task was achieved by men of science, valuable knowledge gave interest to spe- cial observation ; as in the case of Lyell, Featherstonaugh, and Combe, three writers whose scientific knowledge and objects give dignity, interest, and permanent value to their works on America : but the novelists signally failed, from inaptitude for political disquisition, or a constant eye to the exactions of prejudice at home. Marryatt and Dickens added nothing to their reputations as writers by their super- ficial and sneering disquisitions on America. Yet, however philosophically superficial and exaggerated in fastidiousness, the great charm of Dickens as an author his humanity, the most real and inspiring element of his nature was as true, and therefore prophetic, in these " Notes," as in his delinea- tions of human life. Of the long bane of our civic integrity and social peace and purity of slavery, his words were authentic : " All those owners, breeders, users, buyers, and sellers of slaves, who will, until the Woody chapter has a. bloody end, own, breed, use, buy, and sell them at all hazards ; who doggedly deny the horrors of the system, in the teeth of such a mass of evidence as never was brought to bear on any other subject, and to which the experience of every day contributes its immense amount ; who would, at this or any other moment, gladly involve America in a war, civil or foreign, provided that it had for its sole end and object the assertion of their right to perpetuate slavery, and to whip, find, work, and torture slaves, unquestioned by any human authority, and tmassailed by any human power; who, when they speak of freedom, mean the free- dom to oppress their kind, and to be savage, merciless, and cruel ; and of whom every man, on his own ground, in republican America, is a more exacting, and a sterner, and a less responsible despot, than the Caliph Haroun Alraschid, in his angry robe of scarlet." Of the female writers, there is more reflection and knowl- 222 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. edge in the remarks of Mrs. Jameson and Miss Martineau ; while nothing can exceed the indelicacy and want of insight, not to say absurdities, of the Hon. Amelia Murray other books, however, by female writers, are, despite their unjusti- fiable personalities, grateful records of hospitalities and ex- periences, well enough for private letters. The histrionic commentators, like Power and Fanny Kem- ble, and the naval annotators, like Hall and Mackinnon, are re- markable for a certain abandon and superficiality. Silk Buck- ingham * much enlarged the previous statistical data, and Francis Wyse collected some valuable expositions of America's " Realities and Resources." Abdy and Duncan, Finch and Graham, Lang and Latrobe, Waterton and Thomson, Palmer and Bradbury, Wright and Mellish, with scores of others, found readers and critics ; and a catalogue raisonne of the series of books on America between Ashe and Anthony Trol- lope, would prove quite as ephemeral in character as volu- minous. It is interesting to turn from the glowing impres- sions of American scenery, the ingenuous hatred of the " press gang," and unscrupulous personal revelations of Fanny Kemble's "Journal of Travel in America," written in the buoyant and brilliant youth of the gifted girl, to the details and descriptions of "Life on a Southern Plantation," re- corded by the earnest and pitiful woman, and published at so critical a moment of our national struggle, to enlighten and chide her countrymen. One of the most contemptible of the detractors was a vulgar English farmer, named Faux, whose " Memorable Days in America " was thought worthy of critical recogni- tion by the once famous reviewer, Gifford. Among the * " America, Historical, Statistic, and Descriptive," 3 vols. ; " Eastern and Western States," 3 vols. ; " Slave States," 2 vols. ; " Canada, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and other British Provinces," 1 vol. ; in all, 9 handsome vols. 8vo., by J. S. Buckingham, London, 1841-'3. One of the most interesting series of works descriptive of the New World which has ever emanated from the press. These volumes contain a fund of knowledge on every subject con- nected with America : its rise and progress ; the education, manners, and merits of its inhabitants : its manufactures, trade, population, etc. BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 223 absurd calumnies of this ignorant scribbler, were such grave statements as that poisoned chickens were served to him at Portsmouth ; that the Mississippi boatmen habitually rob the sheepfolds ; that Boston people take their free negroes to Carolina, and sell them as slaves ; and that, in America, " the want of an established religion has made the bulk of the people either infidels or fanatics." Among the exceptions to that general rule of ignorance and crudity which marks the hasty records of American travel by English tourists, when a visit to America, while no longer adventurous, was yet comparatively rare, is the once famous book of Captain Thomas Hamilton. The author of a successful novel of modern life as far as literary cultiva- tion may be considered an element of success this intelli- gent British officer claims the consideration which is due to a scholar and a gentleman, although he was not the highest exemplar of either title. He discussed " Men and Manners in America " neither as a philosopher nor as an artist. There is no great scope or originality in his speculations, no very profound insight ; and the more refined tone of his work is somewhat marred by the same flippancy and affectation of superior taste, which give such a cockney pertness to so many of his countrymen's written observations when this country is the theme. Two merits, however, distinguished the work and yet make it worthy of attention a better style, and superior powers of description. Captain Hamil ton's prejudices warped his observation of our political and social life, and make his report thereof limited and unjust ; but there is a vividness and finish about his accounts of natu- ral beauty such as the description of Niagara and the Mis- sissippi which, although since excelled by many writers, native and foreign, at the time (1833) was a refreshing con- trast to previous attempts of a like nature. BlacJcwood recognized his political bias in commending the work " as valuable at the present crisis, when all the ancient institu- tions of our country are successively melting away under the powerful solvent of democratic institutions." 224: AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. Parkinson was an English farmer, and therefore might be supposed capable of producing at least a valuable agricul- tural report ; but impartial critics declared him both impu- dent and mendacious. Stuart's book * owed somewhat of its casual notoriety to the circumstance that he fled to America because he had killed Lord Auchinleck, BoswelPs son, in a duel at Edinburgh ; and beguiled months of his involuntary exile at Hoboken, N. Y., in writing his experience and im- pressions. The Edinburgh Review says of another of the countless writers on this prolific theme Birkbeck : " Detest- ing his principles, we praise his entertaining volume." f Harriet Martineau, through her Unitarian associations, became at once, on her arrival in the United States, intimate with the leading members of that highly intellectual denomi- nation, and thus enjoyed the best social opportunities for acquiring a knowledge of the country and a favorable impres- sion of its average culture. To this advantage she added liberal sympathies, an earnest spirit of inquiry, and a decided power of descriptive writing. Accordingly we find, in her work, a warm appreciation of what is humane and progres- sive in American institutions, right and wise in society, and beautiful or picturesque in nature. She often adopts a view and makes a general statement upon inadequate grounds. Her generalizations are not always authentic ; but the spirit and execution of her work are a vast improvement upon the flippant detraction of less intelligent and aspiring writers. As in so many instances before and since, her gravest errors, both as to facts and reasoning, may be traced to inferences frqm partisan testimony, or the statements of uninformed acquaintance a process which hasty travellers bent on book making are forced to have recourse to. Where she observed, she recorded effectively ; when her informant was duly equipped for his catechism, she " set in a note book " what was worth preserving ; but often, relying on hearsay evi- * "Three Years in America," by James Stuart, 3 vols., Edinburgh, 1823. f " Notes on a Journey from Virginia to the Territory of Illinois," by Mor- ris Birkbeck, with a map, 8ro., Dublin, 1818. BKITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 225 dence and casual statements, inevitably mistakes occurred; but these do not invalidate her arguments or diminish her authority, when fairly provided with the opportunity to ex- amine herself, or correctly informed by others. BlacJcwood condemned her book with an asperity that is prima facie evidence that it has considerable merit. " Nothing," says that trenchant and Tory oracle, in reference thereto, " noth- ing can rectify a reformer's vision, and no conviction of inadequacy prevent any of the class from lecturing all man- kind." Of this class of books, however, none made so strong a popular impression as the " Domestic Manners of the Ameri- cans," by Mrs. Trollope a circumstance that the reader of our own day finds it difficult to explain, until he recalls and reflects upon the facts of the case ; for the book is superior to the average of a like scope, in narrative interest. It is written in a lively, confident style, and, before the subjects treated had become so familiar and hackneyed, must have proved quite entertaining. The name of the writer, how- ever, was, for a long period, and still is, to a certain extent, more identified with the unsparing social critics of the coun- try than any other in the long catalogue of modern British travellers in America. Until recently, the sight of a human foot protruding over the gallery of a Western theatre was hailed with the instant and vociferous challenge, apparently undisputed as authoritative, of " Trollope ! " whereupon the obnoxious member was withdrawn from sight ; and the in- ference to a stranger's mind became inevitable, that this best- abused writer on America was a beneficent, practical re- former. The truth is, that Mrs. Trollope's powers of observation are remarkable. What she sees, she describes with vivacity, and often with accurate skill. No one can read her Travels in Austria without acknowledging the vigor and brightness of her mind. Personal disappointment in a pecuniary enter- prise vexed her judgment ; and, like so many of her nation, she thoroughly disliked the political institutions of the United 10* * 226 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. States, was on the lookout for social anomalies and personal defects, and persistent, like her " unreasoning sex," in attrib- uting all that was offensive or undesirable in her experience to the prejudice she cherished. Moreover, her experience itself was limited and local. She entered the country more than thirty years ago, at New Orleans, and passed most of the time, during her sojourn, amid the new and thriving but crude and confident Western communities, where neither manners nor culture, economy nor character had attained any well-organized or harmonious development. The self- love of these independent but sometimes rough pioneers of civilization, was wounded by the severe comments of a stran- ger who had shared their hospitality, when she expatiated on their reckless use of tobacco, their too free speech and angu- lar attitudes ; but, especially, when all their shortcomings were declared the natural result of republican institutions. Hence the outcry her book occasioned, and the factitious impor- tance attached thereto. Not a single fault is found recorded by her, which our own writers, and every candid citizen, have not often admitted and complained of. The fast eating, boastful talk, transient female beauty, inadequate domestic service, abuse of calomel as a remedy, copious and careless expectoration, free and easy manners, superficial culture, and many other traits, more or less true now as then, here or there, are or have been normal subjects of animadversion. It was not because Mrs. Trollope did not write much truth about the country and the people, that, among classes of the latter, her name was a reproach ; but because she reasoned so perversely, and did not take the pains to ascertain the whole truth, and to recognize the compensatory facts of American life. But this objection should have been reconciled by her candor. She frankly declares that her chief object is "to encourage her countrymen to hold fast by the Constitution that insures all the blessings which flow from established habits and solid principles ; " and elsewhere remarks that the dogma " that all men are born free and equal has done, is doing, and will do much harm to this fair country." Her BRITISH TKAVELLEKS AND WRITERS. 227 sympathies overflow toward an English actor, author, and teacher she encounters, and she feels a pang at Andre's grave ; but she looks with the eye of criticism only on the rude masses who are turning the wilderness into cities, re- fusing to see any prosperity or progress in the scope and impulse of democratic principles. " Some of the native political economists," she writes, " assert that this rapid con- version of a bearbrake into a prosperous city is the result of free political institutions. Not being very deep in such mat- ters, a more obvious cause suggested itself to me, in the unceasing goad which necessity applies to industry in this country, and in the absence of all resources for the idle." "Without discussing the abstract merits of her theory, it is obvious that a preconceived antipathy to the institutions of a country unfits even a sensible and frank writer for social criti- cism thereon ; and, in this instance, the writer seems to have known comparatively few of the more enlightened men, and to have enjoyed the intimacy of a still smaller number of the higher class of American women ; so that, with the local and social data she chiefly relied on, her conclusions are only unjust inasmuch as they are too general. She describes well what strikes her as new and curious ; but her first impres- sions, always so influential, were forlorn. The flat shores at the mouth of the Mississippi in winter, the muddy current, pelicans, snags, and bulrushes, were to her a desolate change from the bright blue ocean ; but the flowers and fruits of Louisiana, the woods and the rivers, as they opened to her view, brought speedy consolation ; which, indeed, was modi- fied by disagreeable cookery, bad roads, illness, thunder storms, and unpleasant manners and customs the depressing influence of which, however, did not prevent her expatiating with zest and skill upon the camp meetings, snakes, insects, elections, house moving, queer phrases, dress, bugs, lingo, parsons, politicians, figures, faces, and opinions which came within her observation. With more perspicacity and less prejudice, she would have acknowledged the temporary character of many of the 228 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. facts of the hour, emphasized by her pen as permanent. The superficial reading she notes, for instance, was but the eager thirst for knowledge that has since expanded into so wide a habit of culture that the statistics of the book trade in the United States have become one of the intellectual marvels of the age. Her investigation as to the talent, sources of dis- cipline, and development, were extremely incurious and slight*, hence, what she says of our statesmen and men of letters is too meagre for comment. The only American au- thor she appears to have known well was Flint ; and her warm appreciation of his writings and conversation, indicates what a better knowledge of our scholars and eminent profes- sional men would have elicited from so shrewd an observer. The redeeming feature of her book is the love of nature it exhibits. American scenery often reconciles her to the bad food and worse manners ; the waterfalls, rivers, and forests are themes of perpetual admiration. " So powerful," she writes of a passage down one of the majestic streams of the West, " was the effect of this sweet scenery, that we ceased to grumble at our dinners and suppers." Strange to say, she was delighted with the city of Washington, extols the Capi- tol, and recognizes the peculiar merits of Philadelphia. In fact, when she writes of what she sees, apart from prejudice, there are true woman's wit and sense in her descriptions ; but she does not discriminate, or patiently inquire. Her book is one of impressions some very just, and others casual. She was provoked at being often told, in reply to some remark, " That is because you know so little of America ; " and yet the observation is one continually suggested by her too hasty conclusions. With all its defects, however, few of the class of books to which it belongs are better worth reading now than this once famous record of Mrs. Trollope. It has a cer- tain freshness and boldness about it that explain its original popularity. Its tone, also, in no small degree explains its un- popularity ; for the writer, quoting a remark of Basil Hall's, to the effect that the great difference between Americans and English is the want of loyalty, declares it, in her opinion, is BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 229 the want of refinement. And it is upon this that she harps continually in her strictures, while the reader is offended by the identical deficiency in herself; and herein we find the secret of the popular protest the book elicited on this side of the water ; for those who felt they needed to be lectured on manners, repudiated such a female writer as authoritative, and regarded her assumption of the office as more than gra- tuitous. The interest excited by many of the now forgotten books at which we have glanced, can only be compared to that which attends a new novel by a popular author. Curiosity, pique, self-love, and indignation were alternately awakened. Hospitable people found themselves outraged, and communica- tive tuft hunters betrayed ; provincial self-complacency was sadly disturbed, and the countless readers of the land, for weeks, talked only of the coarse comments of Mrs. Trollope, the descriptive powers of Captain Hamilton, the kindly views of the Hon. Augustus Murray, the conceit of Basil Hall, the good sense of Combe, the frankness of Fanny Butler, the impertinence of Fiddler, the elaborate egotism of Silk Buck- ingham, the scientific knowledge of Featherstonaugh and Lyell, the indelicate personalities of Fredrika Bremer, the masculine assurance of Miss Martineau, and the ungrateful caricatures of Dickens, as exhibited hi their respective ac- counts of American life, institutions, resources, and manners. One of the latest of this class of Travels in America, is an elaborate work entitled " Civilized America," by Thomas Colley Grattan. Although this writer commences his book by defining the Americans " a people easy of access, but diffi- cult to understand," and declares that " no one who writes about the United States should be considered an oracle," he is behind none of his predecessors in the complacency and confidence with which he handles a confessedly difficult sub- ject. He thinks that " it is in masses that the people of this country are to be seen to the greatest advantage ; " not apparently recognizing the fact that this is the distinctive aim of republican institutions the special compensation for the 230 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. absence of those monopolies and that exclusiveness whereby the individual in Europe is gratified at the expense of the multitude. He notes the " sacrifice of individual eminence, and consequently of personal enjoyment " a result of the same spirit of humanity which cherishes manhood and woman- hood as such, and, therefore, cheerfully loses the chance of individual aggrandizement, in so far as it implies superiority to and immunity from the universal and equal development or opportunity therefor, whether of character, talent, material welfare, or social position. Our educational system, public men, some of the current political problems and parties, the Irish in America, relations between England and the United States, slavery, and other general subjects, are treated of with little originality, but occasionally illustrated by facts which to a British reader may be new and suggestive. The old sarcasms about the bad architecture in our cities, and the limited triumphs in art and literature yet achieved ; the usual sentimental protest against the slight local attachments, the hurry, and the unrecreative habits and want of taste that prevail ; the hackneyed complaint of unscientific regimen, with especial reference to the indigestible nature of dough- nuts, salt fish and chowder ; and the baneful variety of alcoholic drinks, and their vulgar names, diversify the grave discussion of questions of polity and character. It is surprising that a native of Great Britain should find punctuality at meals and the condition of women in Amer- ica themes of animadversion ; and that conceit and flippancy should strike him as so common on this side of the water ; and narrowness of mind, as well as the want of independ- ence, be regarded as characteristic. In these and several other instances, the reader familiar with life and manners in England, and alive to the indications of character in style and modes of thought, cannot but suspect him of drawing upon his experience at home and his own consciousness, quite as much as from intelligent observation here. At all events, it is obvious that he is piqued into indignation by some spe- cial experience of his own while British Consul in Boston ; BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 231 for that " hub of the universe " is not the nucleus about which either his sympathies or his magnanimity revolve. Great ameliorations have occurred in " Civilized America " since Mr. Grattan left her shores. Nothing shows the prog- ress of the country more emphatically than the obsolete sig- nificance of many of his remarks. They often do not apply to the United States of to-day ; and both that country and the reading public generally have outgrown the need and the taste for this kind of petty fault-finding, which fails to com- prehend the spirit of the people, the true scope of the insti- tutions, the real law of life, labor, and love, whereof the communities gathered on this vast and prolific continent are the representatives. Not as a nursery of local manners, a sphere for casual social experiments, an arena for conven- tional development ; but as the scene of a free expansion and assertion of the rights of humanity, a refuge for the victims of outgrown systems and over-populated countries, a home for man as such, a land where humanity modifies and moulds nationality, by virtue of the unimpeded range and frank recognition thereof, in the laws, the opportunities, the equal rights established and enjoyed, is America to be discussed and understood ; for her civilization, when and where it is truly developed, is cosmopolitan, not sectional human, not formal. In 1850, the Earl of Carlisle delivered before the Me- chanics' Institute of Leeds a lecture embodying his observa- tions and comments during a tour in the United States; which was subsequently published and read with much inter- est by his lordship's numerous friends on this side of the Atlantic. A candid discussion of social defects and political dangers is mingled, in this work, with a just appreciation of the privileges and prosperity of the country. The American edition was widely circulated, and justly estimated as one of the most frank, kindly, and intelligent expositions of a familiar but suggestive theme, which had yet appeared. Though limited in scope, it is unpretending in tone and genial in feeling. AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. In 1862, thirty years after Mrs. Trollope gave to the world her opinion of the " Domestic Manners of the Ameri- cans," her son Anthony published his book on " North America." * His novels illustrative of Irish and ecclesiasti- cal life, had made his name and abilities as a writer familiar on this side of the water. These works of fiction have for their chief merit an adherence to fact. The characters are not modelled on an ideal standard, the incidents are seldom extraordinary, and the style is the reverse of glowing. Care- ful observation, good sense, an apparently conscientious re- gard to the truth, make them a singular exception to the popular novels of the day. The author is no imaginative enthusiast or psychological artist, but he is an intelligent and accurate reporter of life as he sees it, of men and things as they are ; and if the subject interests his reader, he will derive very clear and very just ideas of those forms and phases of British experience and economy with which these books so patiently deal. Mr. Trollope's account of his visit to the West Indies is recognized, by competent judges, as one of the most faithful representations of the actual con- dition of those islands, and especially of the normal traits and tendencies of the negro, which has appeared. Accord- ingly, he seems to have been remarkably fitted to record with candid intelligence what he saw and felt while visiting North America ; and this he has done. The speciality of his book is, that it treats of the Rebellion, and is the first elaborate report thereof by a British eyewitness. Its defects are those of limited opportunities, an unfavorable period, and a super- ficial experience warped by certain national proclivities, which the feeling at work around him inevitably exasperated ; and further modified by the circumstance that he is a Govern- ment employe and an English author. His spirit and intent, however, are so obviously manful and considerate, that his American readers are disarmed as soon as they are vexed, by whatever strikes them as unfair or indiscriminate. Yet, friendly as is the sentiment he challenges by his frankness, * "North America," by Anthony Trollope, New York, 1862. BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 233 good sense, and good nature, one cannot avoid feeling some- what impatient at the gratuitous tone of criticism, and the wearisome repetition and re-discussion of the most familiar subjects. If, as Mr. Trollope says, it has been " the ambition of his literary life to write a book about the United States," why did he not consult what has already been written, and give an adequate period and study to the subject ? Scarcely a topic upon which he dilates as a grievance, has escaped like treatment from scores of his predecessors in this field, and been humorously exposed or cleverly discussed by our own authors ; and yet he gravely returns to the charge, as if a newly discovered social anomaly claimed his perspicacious analysis. This unconsciousness of the hackneyed nature of the objections to American civilization, or want thereof, is the more amusing from a certain tone of didactic responsi- bility, common, indeed, to all English writers on America, as if that vast and populous country included no citizen or native capable of teaching her the proprieties of life and the principles of taste. We are constantly reminded of the re- iterating insect who " says an undisputed thing in such a solemn way." Inasmuch as Mrs. Trollope, who came here thirty years ago to open a bazaar in a newly settled city of the West which speculation failed " with a woman's keen eye," saw, felt, and put " in a note book " the grievous sole- cisms in manners and deformities of social life which struck her in the fresh but crude American communities, her honest and industrious son now feels it incumbent upon him to com- plete the work, as " she did not regard it as part of hers to dilate on the nature and operation of those political arrange- ments which had produced the social absurdities which she saw ; or to explain that, though such absurdities Avere the natural result of those arrangements in their newness, the defects would certainly pass away, while the political arrange- ments, if good, would remain." This, he thinks, is better work for a man than a woman, and therefore undertakes to do it not apparently dreaming that it has been and is con- tinually being done by those whose lifelong acquaintance 234 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. with the problem, to say nothing of their personal interest in its solution, enables them fully to comprehend and clearly to analyze. This instinctive self-esteem is apparently the normal mood with which even the kindliest and the most sensible English travellers comment on America. They do not conde- Bcend to examine the writings of Americans on their own country, and ignore the fact that the lectures, essays, ser- mons, and humorous sketches of our own authors, have, for years, advocated reforms, exposed defects, and suggested ameliorations which these self-constituted foreign censors pro- claim as original. Mr. Trollope seems extremely afraid of giving offence, continually deprecates the idea, and wishes it understood that it is very painful to him to find fault with anybody or anything in the United States, but he must cen- sure as well as blame, and he means no unkindness. All this, however amiable, is really preposterous. It presupposes a degree of importance as belonging to his opinions, or rather a necessity for their expression, which seems to us quite irra- tional in a man of such common sense, and who has seen so much of the world. It is amusing, and, as a friend re- marked, " comes from his blood, not his brain." It is the old leaven of self-love, self-importance, self-assertion of the Englishman as suck If he had passed years instead of months in America, and grown familiar with other circles besides the circle of litterateurs who so won his admiration in Boston, he would have found all he has written of the spoiled children, the hard women, the despotic landlords, dis- gusting railway cars, Western swindlers, bad architecture, official peculations, mud, dust, and desolation of Washington, misery of Cairo, and base, gold-seeking politicians of Amer- ica, overheated rooms, incongruous cuisine, and undisciplined juveniles, thoroughly appreciated, perfectly understood, and habitually the subject of native protest and foreign report. On many of these points his views are quite unemphatic, compared to those of educated Americans ; so that his dis cussion of civility vs. servility, of modern chivalry, of the reckless element of frontier life, of the unscrupulous " smart- BKITISH TRAVELLEES AND WEITEE8. 235 ness" and the want of reverence in the American charac- ter, and the want of privacy and comfort in our gregarious hotels, seem to us quite as superfluous a task as to inveigh in England against fees, taxes, fog, game laws, low wages, pauperism, ecclesiastical abuses, aristocratic monopolies, or any other patent and familiar evil. That " necessity of eulogium " which pressed upon Mr. Trollope, as it has upon so many of his countrymen hi Amer- ica, is regarded as the evidence of extreme national sensitive- ness ; but he himself unwittingly betrays somewhat of the same weakness if it be such by the deep impression made by an individual's remark to his wife, which remark, if made seriously to an Englishwoman, must have come from a per- son not overburdened with sense ; and if from a man of intelligence, doubtless was intended as humorous. In either case, it would seem unworthy of notice ; but Mr. Trollope refers to it again and again, as if characteristic : "I never yet met the down-trodden subject of a despot who did not hug his chains." Those English flags among the trophies at West Point, too, much as he delighted in the picturesque beauty of the place, sorely haunted his mind. The fact is, that this personal sensibility to national claims and associa- tions is the instinct of humanity. Its expression here is more prevalent and its exactions more imperative, from the fact that, of all civilized countries, our own has been and is the chosen theme of criticism, for the reason that it is more experimental. In his somewhat disparaging estimate of Newport, R. L, Mr. Trollope strangely omits the chief attrac- tion, and that is the peculiar climate, wherein it so much differs from the rest of the New England coast. He ignores this essential consideration, also, hi his remarks upon the dis- tinctive physiognomy of Americans. Yet such is its influ- ence, combined with the active and exciting life of the country, that the " rosy cheeks," full habit, and pedestrian habitudes of Englishmen, often, after a few years' residence, give place to thin jaws and frames, and comparative indiffer- ence to exercise : the nervous temperament encroaches upon 236 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. the sanguine ; beef and beer, port and porter, are found too nutritive a diet ; and a certain quickness of mind and move- ment, and sensibility to physical influences, transform John Bull even to his own consciousness. What Mr. Trollope says of the American press, whether just or not, comes with an ill grace from an Englishman, at a period wherein have been so absolutely demonstrated to the world the wilful perversity and predetermined falsehood of the leading press of Great Britain. As in the case of so many of his countrymen, the scenery of America proved to Mr. Trollope a compensation for her discomforts. Niagara, the White Mountains, the Alleghanies, and the Upper Mississippi, are described with more enthusiasm than anything else but Boston hospitality. Of course, for this feast of beauty, so amply illustrated by our writers, he suggests that -only Murray can furnish the Guide Book. It is curious that a man with such an eye for nature, and such an inquiring mind, should find the St. Lawrence so little attractive, fail to see President Lincoln, and feel no emo- tion at the scene of Wolfe's heroic death. Few -visitors to " the States " have more intelligently appreciated the manli- ness of the frontier settlers, the sad patience there born of independent and lone struggling with nature, the immense cereal resources of the West, and the process of trans- portation thereof at Chicago and Buffalo. He follows his predecessors in attributing the chief glory of America to her provision for universal education, her mechanical contri- vances, and the great average comfort and intelligence. " The one thing," he remarks, " in which, as far as my judgment goes, the people of the United States have excelled us Englishmen, so as to justify them in taking to themselves praise which we cannot take to ourselves or refuse to them, is the matter of education; * * * and unrivalled population, wealth, and intelligence have been the results ; and with these, looking at the whole masses of the people, I think I am justified in saying, unrivalled comfort and hap- piness. It is not that you, my reader, to whom, in this matter of education, fortune and your parents have probably been bountiful, would have been more happy in New York than in London. It is BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 237 not that I, who, at any rate, can read and write, have cause to wish that I had been an American. But it is this : if yon and I can count up in a day all those on whom our eyes may rest, and learn the circumstances of their lives, we shall be driven to conclude that nine tenths of that number would have had a better life as Ameri- cans than they can have in their spheres as Englishmen. " If a man can forget his own miseries in his journeyings, and think of the people he comes to see rather than of himself, I think he will find himself driven to admit that education has made life for the million in the Northern States better than life for the million is with us. " I do not know any contrast that would be more surprising to' an Englishman, up to that moment ignorant of the matter, than that which he would find by visiting first of all a free school in London, and then a free school in New York. * * * The female pupil at a free school in London is, as a rule, either a ragged pauper or a charity girl, if not degraded, at least stigmatized by the badges and dress of the charity. We Englishmen know well the type of each, and have a fairly correct idea of the amount of education which is imparted to them. We see the result afterward, when the same girls become our servants, and the wives of our grooms and porters. The female pupil at a free school in New York is neither a pauper nor a charity girl. She is dressed with the utmost decency. She is per- fectly cleanly. In speaking to her, you cannot in any degree guess whether her father has a dollar a day, or three thousand dollars a year. Nor will you be enabled to guess by the manner in which her associates treat her. As regards her own manner to you, it is always the same as though her father were in all respects your equal. " That which most surprises an English visitor, on going through the mills at Lowell, is the personal appearance of the men and women who work at them. As there are twice as many women as there are men, it is to them that the attention is chiefly called. They are not only better dressed, cleaner and better mounted in every respect than the girls employed at manufactories in England, but they are so infinitely superior as to make a stranger immediately perceive that some very strong cause must have created the differ- ence. * * * One would, of course, be disposed to say that the superior condition of the workers must have been occasioned by superior wages ; and this, to a certain extent, has been the cause. But the higher payments is not the chief cause. Women's wages, including all that they receive at the Lowell factories, average about fourteen shillings a week ; which is, I take it, fully a third more than women can earn in Manchester, or did earn before the loss of 238 AMERICA A2STD HEE COMMENTATORS. the American cotton began to tell upon them. But if wages at Man- chester were raised to the Lowell standard, the Manchester woman would not be clothed, fed, cared for, and educated like the Lowell woman." Charles Lamb aptly says, that the finer in kind things are, the more scope there is for individual taste ; and therefore he was " always rather squeamish in his women and children." Mr. Trollope, judging of the latter by the enfants terribles encountered at inns and on steamboats in America, describes .the nuisance of over-indulged and peremptory " Young America " with emphasis ; and also draw's the line, so re- markably obvious in this country, between female refinement and vulgarity. He is doubtless right in ascribing the Ama- zonian manners and expression of the latter class to that uni- versal consideration for the sex so peculiar to our people. It certainly is abused, and offensively so by the selfish and arro- gant. The conduct of Southern women, during the present war, to Northern officers, is the best proof of their con- sciousness of safety by virtue of this public sentiment of deference and protection. But has it ever occurred to Mr. Trollope that this sentiment, however abused by those lack- ing the chivalry to respond to it, is almost a social necessity in a land where people are thrown together so promiscuously, and where no ranks exist to regulate intercourse and define position ? Crinoline and bad manners have, indeed, done much to encroach upon romance, and render modern gallantry thoroughly conventional ; but the extravagant estimation in which the rights and privileges of woman are here held, is one of the most useful of our social safeguards and sanc- tions. Mr. Trollope pays the usual tribute of strangers to the beauty, intelligence, and grace of American women who are ladies by nature and not by courtesy ; but he draws the reverse picture, not unfaithfully, in this mention of a species of the female sex sometimes encountered in a public convey- ance : " The woman, as she enters, drags after her a misshapen, dirty mass of battered wirework, which she calls her crinoline, and which BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 239 adds as much to her grace and comfort as a log of wood does to a donkey, when tied to the animal's leg in a paddock. Of this she takes much heed, not managing it so that it may be conveyed up the carriage with some decency, but striking it about against men's legs, and heaving it with violence over people's knees. The touch of a real woman^ dress is in itself delicate ; but these blows from a harpy's fins are loathsome. If there be two of them, they talk loudly together, having a theory that modesty has been put out of court by women's rights. " But, though not modest, the woman I describe is ferocious in her propriety. She ignores the whole world around her, as she sits with raised chin, and face flattened by affectation. She pretends to declare aloud that she is positively not aware that any man is even near her. * * * But every twist of her body, and every tone of her voice, is an unsuccessful falsehood. She looks square at you in the face, and you rise to give her your seat. You rise from a defer- ence to your own old convictions, and from that courtesy which you have ever paid to a woman's dress, let it be worn with ever such hideous deformities. She takes the place from which you have moved without a word or a bow. She twists herself round, banging your shins with her wires ; while her chin is still raised, and her face is still flattened, and she directs her friend's attention to another seated man, as though that place were also vacant, and necessarily at her disposal. Perhaps the man opposite has his own ideas about chivalry. I have seen such a thing, and have rejoiced to see it." And of the spoiled children lie thus discourses : "And then the children babies I should say, if I -were speaking of English bairns of their age ; but, seeing that they are Americans, I hardly dare to call them children. The actual age of these per- fectly civilized and highly educated beings may be from three to four. One will often see five or six such seated at the long dinner table of the hotel, breakfasting and dining with their elders, and going through the ceremony with all the gravity and more than all the decorum of their grandfathers. "When I was three years old, I had not yet, as I imagine, been promoted beyond a silver spoon of my own, wherewith to eat my bread and milk in the nursery; and I feel assured that I was under the immediate care of a nursemaid, as I gobbled up my minced mutton mixed with potatoes and gravy. " But at hotel life in the States, the adult infant lisps to the waiter for everything at table, handles his fish with epicurean delicacy, is choice in his selection of pickles, very particular that his beefsteak at breakfast shall be hot, and is instant in his demand for fresh ice 24:0 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. in his water. But perhaps his or in this case her retreat from the room when the meal is over, is the chef d^ceuvre of the whole per- formance. The little precocious, full-hlown beauty of four signifies that she has completed her meal or is ' through ' her dinner, as she would express it by carefully extricating herself from the napkin which has been tucked around her. Then the waiter, ever attentive to her movements, draws back the chair on which she is seated, and the young lady glides to the floor. A little girl in old England would scramble down; but little girls in New England never scramble. Her father and mother, who are no more than her chief ministers, walk before her out of the saloon, and then she swims after them." The frequent change of occupation, and the hardihood with which misfortunes especially pecuniary reverses are met, impress him. "Everybody," he writes, "understands everything, and everybody intends, sooner or later, to do everything ; " and, " whatever turns up, the man is still there, still unsophisticated, still unbroken." He thinks American coachmen the most adroit in the world; the houses more convenient than those of England of the same class ; the green knolls and open glades of Kentucky more like what his countrymen love in a manorial estate, than any land or forest elsewhere in the country ; and, of cities, gives the preference to Boston and Baltimore the former on ac- count of its culture, and the latter because of its " hunting- ground " vicinity, pleasant women, and " English look." It is amusing to find him gravely asserting, that " the mind of an Englishman has more imagination than that of an Ameri- can," and that " squash is the pulp of the pumpkin." He thinks we suffer for " a national religion," and have found out that " the plan of governing by little men has certainly not answered ; " and justly regards it as our special blessing to " have been able to begin at the beginning," and so, in many things, improve upon the Old World. Of Congress and Cambridge, Mr. Trollope gives details of parliamentary customs and educational habits, indicating wherein they differ from those of England. He repeats the old arguments for an international copyright. He discusses Canada in her present BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 241 and prospective political relations with singular candor, and frankly admits the inferiority of her material development to that of the United States. " Everybody travels in America," he observes, " and nothing is thought of distance." In this fact he could easily have found the explanation of the dis- comforts of American travel, inasmuch as railroads that are built to lure emigrants to build towns in the wilderness, and cars that are intended to convey crowds of all classes, in the nature of the case do not admit of those refined arrange- ments which make foreign railways so agreeable, and the absence of which renders most American journeys a penance. Among the things which Mr. Trollope, however, finds superior, are canvas-back ducks, rural cemeteries, schools, asylums, city libraries, waterfalls, maize fields, authors, and women. But the special interest of his book is its discussion of the civil war. His own political views seem to us somewhat inconsist- ent. Repudiating the military despotism existing in France as a wrong to manhood and humanity, he yet thinks " those Chinese rascals should be forced into the harness of civiliza- tion." In allusion to our errors of government, he justly remarks, that " the material growth of the States has been so quick, that the political has not been able to keep up with it." In some respects he does justice to the war for the Union, asserting its necessity, and recognizing the disinter- ested patriotism of the North, and the wholly inadequate reasons put forth by the South for treachery and revolt. Yet he fails to grasp the whole subject treating the exigency as political exclusively, and the Rebellion as analogous to that of Naples, Poland, and our own Revolution. This is, to say the least, a most inadequate and perverse view. Not only had the South no wrongs to redress for which the United States Government were responsible, but they violated State not less than National rights, in their seizure of property, per- secution and murder of loyal citizens, and enforced votes and enlistments at the point of the bayonet. Citizens in their midst claimed and deserved Federal protection not less than those on this side of their lines. Moreover, the " landless 11 24:2 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS. resolutes" of the South proved, in warfare, barbarians in sacrilegious hate ; so that, under any circumstances, it would have become a necessity for the North to fortify and defend her frontier. These circumstances make an essential differ- ence between this Rebellion and other civil wars : they aggravate its turpitude, and vindicate the severest measures to repress it, irrespective of any question of political union. In like manner Mr. Trollope gives but a partial view of the feeling of America toward England. It was not sympathy in a mere political quarrel, between two equally justified parties, that she expected, and was grieved and incensed at not re- ceiving. Such a feeling might be unmanly, as Mr. Trollope thinks, and also unreasonable ; but when, for years, English statesmen, travellers, and journalists had taunted us with the slavery entailed upon the Southern States in colonial days, and by British authority ; and when, at last, we had made the first grand step toward limiting, if not undermining the evil, and, by doing so, had incurred the hatred, treachery, and violence of the slaveholders, we had every reason to expect that a Christian nation, akin in blood and language, would throw the weight of her influence, social and political, into the scale of justice, instead of hastening to recognize the insurgents as standing before the world on an equal moral and civic footing with a Government and a people they had cheated, defied, and were seeking to destroy for no reason save the constitutional election of a President opposed to the extension of slavery. It was this that created the disappoint- ment and inspired the bitterness which Mr. Trollope declares so unjust and unreasonable. He compares the struggle to a quarrel between a man and his wife, and with two parties throwing brickbats at each other across the street, to the great discomfort of neutral passengers. Mr. Gladstone re- cently compared it to a difficulty between two partners in business, the one wishing to retire from the firm, and the other attempting to force him to remain. Lord Brougham also spoke of a late treaty between England and the United States of America to suppress the slave trade, as " the treaty BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 243 of the Northern Government." It requires no special candor and right feeling to perceive the animus of such expressions. They ignore the true state of the case ; they betray a want of respect for historical accuracy, and an indifference, not to say contempt, for the Government and people of America, only to be explained by a brutal want of Christian sympathy, or mean desire to see a great and patriotic nation decimated and humbled. How sadly do such observations contrast with the just and kindly statements of De Gasparin, of John Bright, and of John Stuart Mill ! All the solicitude which agitated England and America in regard to the capture of the rebel envoys, about which Mr. Trollope has so much to say, would have been avoided had Great Britain acted, thought, spoken, and felt in this matter with any magnanim- ity. To her the safe transit of those Secession commissioners was of no importance ; to us it was, at the time, a serious misfortune. Their relinquishment, without war threats and war preparations, would have cost a friendly and noble nation no loss of dignity, no harm to private or public interests. The proceeding was assumed to be a premeditated insult, whereas it was purely an accident. An insult implies inten- tion. In this case, the object of Captain Wilkes was mani- festly to perform a duty to his own, not to injure or treat with disrespect another country. His act was illegal, but the exigency was peculiar. A generous man or woman person- ally incommoded by the representative of a just cause, and in the hour of misfortune, where there was no malice, no impertinence, but an important end to be achieved at the ex- pense of a temporary discourtesy not real, but apparent would cheerfully waive conventional rights, and, from nobil- ity of feeling, subdue or postpone resentment. In social life, examples of such forbearance and humane consideration often happen ; and though it may be Utopian to apply the same ethical code to nations and individuals in the view of a Christian or even a chivalric man, such an application of the high and holy instincts of our nature is far from irrational. In that sacred chart whereon rest the hopes and the faith, the 244: AMEKICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. precedents and the principles of Christianity " the spirit we are of" is constantly referred to as the test of character and the evidence of feeling. Throughout our national sorrows, from the inception of this wicked Rebellion, through all its course, the spirit of the press and Parliament, the spirit of England, as far as it has found official expression, with a few memorable exceptions, have been unjust, disingenuous, and inimical; and when the history of this national crisis is written, the evidence of this will be as glaring as it is shameful. Mr. Trollope has lost an opportunity to realize " the am- bition of his literary life." His visit was too brief and un- seasonable for him to do anything like justice to himself or his subject. He visited the West in winter a comfortless period, when nature is denuded of the freshness and beauty which at more genial seasons cheer the natural " melan- choly " he felt there. ' He saw the army of the Union in its transition state, and beheld the country and the people when under the shadow of war, and that war undertaken against a senseless and savage mutiny. He rapidly scanned places, with no time to ripen superficial acquaintance into intimacy ; and he wrote his impressions of the passing scene in the midst of hurry, discomfort, and the turbulence and gloom of a painfully exciting and absorbing era. Moreover, his forte is not political disquisition. Still, the interests involved, the moral spectacle apparent, the historical and social elements at work, were such as to inspire a humanitarian and enlighten a philosopher ; and if unambitious of either character, there remained a great duty and noble mission for an English au- thor to correct specifically, to deny emphatically, the cur- rent misrepresentations of British statesmen and journals,- and to vindicate a kindred and maligned people. He has told many wholesome truths ; he has borne witness to many essential facts about which the British public have hitherto, in spite of all evidence, professed utter incredulity. But he might have gone farther and done more, and so made his work signally useful now, and far more memorable hereafter. BRITISH TEAVELLEES AND WEITEES. 245 The Scotch are far more discriminating and sympathetic than the English in their comments and comparisons in re- gard to America. The affinity between the North Britons and the New Englanders has often been noted. In habits of industry, native shrewdness, religious enthusiasm, frugal in- stincts, love of knowledge, and many other traits, a parallel may be easily traced. We have seen how genial was the appreciation of Mrs. Grant in her girlhood, of the independ- ence, harmony, and social charms of colonial life in Albany. Alexander Wilson both loved and honored the home he found on our soil ; and among the Travels in America of recent date, which, in their liberal spirit and their sagacity, form honorable exceptions to British misrepresentation, are two works written by Scotchmen, which our publishers, so ready to reproduce books that have the piquancy of abuse or the flash of extravagance, with singular want of judgment have ignored. The first of these is an unpretending little bro- chure, entitled "A Tour in the United States," by Archibald Prentice.* This writer has been a public-spirited citizen and an editor in Manchester, and was thus practically fitted intel- ligently to examine the economical features of the country. Of Covenanter stock, his sympathies were drawn to the Con- necticut clergy ; and the graves of kindred endeared the land which he visited in order to examine its physical resources with special reference to emigration, manufactures, trade, and labor. He is enthusiastic on entering, on a beautiful day, the harbor of New York, and, with all the zest of a practical economist, dwells upon the activity and scope of that com- mercial metropolis. " Here," he writes, " bright visions arise in the imagination of the utilitarian. He sees the farmer on the Hudson, the Mohawk, the Ohio, the Illinois, the Miami, and the lakes Michigan, Erie, and Ontario, cheerfully labor- ing in his own fields for the sustenance of the Manchester spinner and weaver ; he sees the potter of Horsley, the cut- ler of Sheffield, the cloth manufacturer of Yorkshire, and the sewer and tambourer of Glasgow, in not hopeless or unre- * London: Charles Gilpin, 1848. 246 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. warded toil, preparing additional comforts and enjoyments for the inhabitants of the American woods and prairies. He conjures up a great cooperative community, all working for mutual benefit ; and sees, in the universal competition, the universal good." He finds the usual defects, as he extends his observations the cheap railroads, the fragile women, the over-eagerness for foreign appreciation, the inadequate agri- cultural science, and, above all, the monstrous evil political, economical, social, moral, and religious of slavery. But while all these .and other drawbacks are emphasized, the causes and conditions are frankly stated. This writer ap- preciates the favorable relations of labor to capital, and, although an anti-protectionist, recognizes cordially the advan- tages here realized by honest industry and intelligent enter- prise in manufactures and trade. " Even the Irishman," he writes, " becomes commercial." " The Illinois coalfields," he notes, " are reached by drifts instead of shafts horizon- tally, not perpendicularly." He lauds our comparatively inexpensive Government, the "moral machinery" of our manufacturing towns, the harmonious coexistence of so many religious sects. He considers the stern virtues bred by the hard soil and climate of New England a providential school, wherein the character of Western emigration was auspiciously predetermined. But Mr. Prentice has as keen an eye for the beauties of nature as for the resources of in- dustry. He was constantly impressed, not only with the gen- eral but with the specific resemblance of American scenery to that of Great Britain ; and compares an " opening " in the landscape between Baltimore and Washington to " the Esk below Langholm ; " the view up the Shenandoah to the Clyde at Auld-Brig-End, near Lanark ; the bluffs of the Ohio to the " irregular face which Alderley Edge presents Wilm- stone ; " and Lake Champlain to Windermere and Ulswater ; while he finds the " footway to the Charter Oak, at Hart- ford, worn like the path to the martyr's grave in the Old Friar's Churchyard in Edinburgh. Although thus warmly alive to native associations, he is not less an ardent advocate BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 247 for mutual forbearance and wise fellowship between Great Britain and America. " The citizens of the United States," he remarks, " do not dislike Englishmen individually. On the contrary, they are rather predisposed to like them, and to pay them most kind and respectful attention when they visit America. Their dislike is to John Bull the traditional, big, bullying, borough-mongering and monopolizing John Bull ; the John Bull as he was at the time of the American and the French Revolutions, before Catholic emancipation, before the repeal of the Orders in Council, before the Reform Bill." And, in conclusion, he thus benignly adjures the spirit of a candid mutual appreciation and harmony : " Would that men in both countries would drop all narrow jealousies, and, look- ing to the great mission of the Anglo-Saxon family, earnestly resolve that the sole struggle between those of its branches only geographically separated, should be which most jealously and most energetically should labor to Christianize and civil- ize the whole human race." The other Scotch writer whose recent observations are worthy of that consideration which an honest purpose, ele- vated sympathies, and conscientious intelligence, should ever secure, is James Stirling,* a member of Parliament, whose " Letters from the Slave States," published seven years ago, but, strange to say, not reprinted here, feems to have antici- pated many of the subsequent political events and social manifestations. This writer has evidently made a study of economical questions. He has that mental discipline which experience, legislative and professional, insures. Firm in his opinions, but liberal and humane in spirit, there is a combina- tion of sagacity and generous feeling in his tone of mind which commands respect. These letters are candid and thoughtful ; and, while some of the views advanced chal- lenge argument, the general scope is just and wise. Mr. Stirling was chiefly struck with the rapidity of growth in the American settlements, and records many specific and authen- * " Letters from the Slave States," by James Stirling. London : J. W. Parker, 1857. 24:8 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS. tic facts illustrative of this peculiar feature in Western civili- zation, of which he calls railways " the soul." The con- ditions of success for new communities he regards as, first, an energetic population ; second, fertile soil ; third, favorable climate ; arid, fourth, easy means of communication ; and he explains the prosperity and the failure of such experiments by these conditions. He is opposed to protection and to universal suffrage, and finds ample evidence to sustain these opinions in his observations in the United States. The sub- ject, however, which mainly occupies his attention, is the actual influence and effects of slavery, the difficulties in the way of its abolition, and the probable consequence of its existence upon the destiny and development of the nation. His economical argument is strong. He indicates the com- parative stagnation and degradation of the Slave States with detail, describes the status of the poor whites, notes the his- torical facts, and seems to anticipate the climax which three years later involved the country in civil war. " The South," he writes, " seems to me in that mood of mind which fore- runs destruction ; " and elsewhere observes that " the acci- dent of cotton has been the ruin of the negro." He recog- nizes a "moral disunion" in the opposition of parties and social instincts in regard to slavery. " Like most foreign- ers," he observes, " I find it very difficult to appreciate the construction of American parties. There is a party called the Southern party, which is distinctly in favor of separation. It will carry along with it, notwithstanding its most insane policy, a great proportion of the low white population. Opposed to it is the conservative intelligence of the South." Mr. Stirling justly regards the " want of concentration " as the characteristic defect of American civilization ; and re- gards the " aristocracy of the South " as almost identical with " the parvenu society of the mushroom cities " in Britain ; and observes significantly that it is " on the impor- tance of cotton to England that the philosophers of the South delight to dwell." Indeed, throughout his observa- tions on the Slave States, there is a complete recognition of BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 24:9 the facts and principles which the North has vainly striven for months past to impress upon English statesmen ; and this testimony is the more valuable inasmuch as it is disinter- ested, and was recorded before any overt act of rebellion had complicated our foreign relations. Although this writer's experience in Alabama is more favorable to the social con- dition of that State than what fell under the observation 1 of Mr. Olmsted, yet the latter's economical statistics of the Slave States are amply confirmed by Mr. Stirling. He is equally struck with the contrast between the two parts of the country in regard to providence and comfort. He agrees with other travellers in his estimate of popular defects, and is especially severe upon the evils of hotel life in the United States, and the superficial and showy workmanship which compares so unfavorably with substantial English manufac- tures. Many of these criticisms have only a local applica- tion, yet they are none the less true. Duelling, lynching, "hatred of authority," "passion for territory," inadequate police, and reckless travelling, are traits which are censured with emphasis. But the charm of these letters consists in the broad and benign temper of the writer, when from spe- cific he turns to general inferences, and treats of the country as a whole, and of its relations to the Old World and to humanity. It is refreshing to find united in a foreign critic such a clear perception of the drawbacks to our national prosperity and incongruous elements in our national develop- ment, with an equally true insight and recognition of the individual and domestic rectitude, and the noble and high tendencies of life and character. A few random extracts will indicate these qualities of the man and merits of the writer : "We have experienced, even from utter strangers, an officious kindness and sympathy that can only arise from hearts nurtured in the daily practice of domestic virtues." " I have no fears but that the follies and crudities of the present effervescent state of American society will pass away, and leave be- hind a large residuum of solid worth." 11* 250 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. " I cannot overlook that latent force of virtue and wisdom, which makes itself, as yet, too little felt in public affairs, but which assuredly is there, and will come forth, I am convinced, when the hour of trial comes to save the country." "The American nation will wrestle victoriously with these social and political hydras." Mr. Stirling gives a most true analysis of an American popular speaker in his estimate of Beecher. He discrimi- nates well the local traits of the country, calling Florida the "Alsatia of the Union," because it is such a paradise for sportsmen and squatters ; and explaining the superiority in race of the Kentuckians by their hunting habits and progeni- tors. " The little step," he writes, " from the South to the North, is a stride from barbarism to civilization a step from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century." Of the physiognomy of the people he says : " You read upon the nation's brow the extent of its enterprise and the intensity of its desires. The deepest-rooted cause of Ameri- can disease is the overworking of the brain and the over- excitement of the nervous system." Equally clear and earnest, humane and noble, is his view of the relation of this country to Great Britain : " Never were two nations," he writes, " so eminently fitted to aid and comfort each other in the vast work of civilization, than Eng- land and America." He reproaches Great Britain with her indifference, as manifest in sending second-class ambassadors to the United States ; and invokes " the spiritual ruler, the press," to do its part, " by speaking more generously and wisely." If the prescience of this writer is remarkable in estimating aright the temper and tendencies of Southern trea- son while yet latent, and of Northern integrity and patriot- ism before events had elicited their active development, no less prophetic is his appeal to English magnanimity : " Why, in God's name, should we not give them every assurance of respect and affection ? Are they not our children, blood of our blood and bone of our bone ? Are they not progressive, and fond of power, like ourselves ? Are they not our best customers ? Have BRITISH TEAVELLEES AND WEITEES. 251 they not the same old English, manly virtues ? What is more befit- ting for us Englishmen, than to watch with intense study and deep- est sympathy the momentous strivings of this noble people ? It is the same fight we ourselves are fighting the true and absolute supremacy of Eight. Surely nothing can more beseem two great and kindred nations, than to aid and comfort one another in that career of self-ennoblement, which is the end of all national as well as individual existence."* * " The stupendous greatness of England is factitious, and will only be- come natural when that empire shall have found its real centre : that centre is the United States."" The New Rome ; or, Tfie United States of the World ".(New York, 1843). A remarkably bold and comprehensive theory of American progress, unity, and empire, by Theodore Pcesche and Charles Goepp one an Ameri- canized German, the other a Teutonic philosopher. In this little treatise the geography, politics, races, and social organization of the United States are analyzed, and shown to be " at work upon the fusion of all nations not of this continent alone, but of all continents into one people." CHAPTER VII. ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMERICA. IT has often been remarked, that there is a fashion in bookcraft, as in every other phase and element of human society ; and the caprices thereof are often as inexplicable and fantastic as in manners, costume, and other less intellect- ual phenomena. The history of modern literature indicates extreme fluctuations of popular taste. Waller and Cowley introduced the concetti of the Italians into English verse, which, in Elizabeth's reign, was so preeminent for robust afflu- ence ; in Pope's day we had satire and sense predominant ; Byron initiated the misanthropic and impassioned style ; while Steele and Addison inaugurated social criticism, the lake poets a recurrence to the simplicity of nature, and the Scotch reviewers bold analysis and liberal reform. But the uniform tone of books and criticism in England for so many years, in relation to America, is one of those literary phe- nomena the cause of which must be sought elsewhere than among the whims and oddities of popular taste or the caprice of authors. A French writer, at one period, declared it was the direct result of official bribery, to stop emigration ; but its motives were various, and its origin far from casual or temporary ; and the attitude and animus of England during the war for the Union, give to these systematic attacks and continuous detraction a formidable significance. The Ameri- can abroad may have grown indifferent to the derogatory ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMERICA. 253 facts or fictions gleaned for GalignanVs Messenger, and served np with his daily breakfast ; he may treat the prejudice and presumption of English censors with amusing non- chalance, when discussing them with an esteemed and kindly friend of that race ; but the subject assumes a more grave aspect, when he finds his country's deadly struggle for nation- ality against a selfish and profane oligarchy, understood and vindicated by the press of Turin and St. Petersburg, and maligned or discouraged by that of London. Cockneyism may seem unworthy of analysis, far less of refutation ; but, as Sydney Smith remarked by way of apology for hunting small game to the death in his zeal for reform, " in a country surrounded by dikes, a rat may inundate a province ; " and it is the long-continued gnawing of the tooth of detraction that, at a momentous crisis, let in the cold flood at last upon the nation's heart, and quenched its traditional love. We have seen how popular a subject of discussion were American manners, institutions, and character, by British writers ; and it is amusing, in the retrospect, to consider with what avidity were read, and with what self-confidence were written, these monotonous protests against the imperfect civilization prevalent in the United States. That there was a certain foundation for such discussion, and a relation between the institutions of the country and the behavior of its people, cannot be denied ; but both were exaggerated, and made to pander infinitely more to prejudice than to truth. The same investigation applied to other lands in the same spirit, would have furnished quite as salient material ; and the antecedents as well as the animus of most of these self-appointed cen- sors should have absolved their attacks from any power to irritate. The violations of refinement and propriety thus " set in a note book " were by no means universal. Many of them were temporary, and, taken at their best significance, to a philosophical mind bore no proportion to the more impor tant traits and tendencies which invite the attention and enlist the sympathy of lovers of humanity. It is remark- able, also, that the most severe comments came from persons 254 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. whose experience of the higher usages and refinements of social life was in the inverse ratio of their critical complaints. Lord Carlisle found, in the vast social possibilities of this country, an interest which rendered him indifferent to the dis- comfort and the anomalies to which his own habits and asso- ciations might have naturally made him sensitive ; while the latter exclusively occupied Dickens, whose early experience had made him familiar with the least elegant and luxurious facilities of life. The arrant cockneyism and provincial im- pertinence of many of these superficial and sensation writers, on a subject whose true and grand relations they were incapa- ble of grasping, and the mercenary or sycophantic motive of many of their tirades, were often exposed ; while in cases where incidental popular errors were truly stated, the justice of the criticism was acknowledged, and, in some instances, practically acted upon. The reckless expectoration, angular attitudes, and intrusive curiosity which formed the staple reproach, have always been limited to a class or section, and are now comparatively rare ; and these and similar superficial defects, when gravely treated as national, seem almost devoid of significance, when the grand human worth, promise, and beauty of our institutions and opportunities as a people, are considered and compared with the iron caste, the hopeless routine, the cowed and craven status of the masses in older and less homogeneous and unhampered communities. We must look far back to realize the prevalent ignorance in regard to this country wherein prejudice found root and nurture. In colonial days, many bitter and perverse records found their way to the press ; and Colonel Barre said to the elder Quincy, in England, before the Revolutionary war : " When I returned to this country, I was often speaking of America, and could not help speaking well of its climate, soil, and inhabitants ; but will you believe it ? more than two thirds of the people of this island thought the Ameri- cans were all negroes." Goldsmith's muse, in 1765, warned the impoverished peas- ants, eager to seek a new home in the Western hemisphere, ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMERICA. 255 against perils in America so imaginary, that they would pro- voke only smiles but for the melodious emphasis whereby ignorance and error were thus consecrated. And after our independence was acknowledged, English- men regarded it as a strictly political fact. We were inde- pendent of their Government, but not of themselves the least of them assuming superiority, patronage, and critical functions, as a matter of course ; so that Americans with any intelligence or manliness came inevitably to sympathize with Heine's estimate : " The English blockheads God forgive them ! I often regard them not at all as my fellow beings, but as miserable automata, machines whose motive power is egotism." That insular and inevitable trait found expression, as regards America, through the Quarterly Reviews, Monthly Magazines, and a rapid succession of " Travels." A pregnant cause of temporary alienation, fifty years ago, may be recognized in the last war with Great Britain. Our naval skill and prowess were a sore trial to the pride of Englishmen ; although some of the popular authors of that day, like Southey, frankly acknowledged this claim to respect. " Britain had ruled the waves. So her poets sang ; so nations felt all but this young nation. Her trident had laid them all prostrate ; and how fond she was of considering this emblem as identified with the sceptre of the world ! Behold, then, the flag which had everywhere reigned in triumph supreme, send- ing forth terror from its folds behold it again and again and again lowered to the Stars and Stripes which had risen in the new hemisphere ! The spectacle was magnificent. The Euro- pean expectation that we were to be crushed, was turned into a feeling of admiration unbounded. Our victories had a moral effect far transcending the number or size of their ships van- quished. For such a blow upon the mighty name of Eng- land, after many idle excuses, she had, at last, no balm so effectual as that it was inflicted and could only have been inflicted by a race sprung from herself." * * " Occasional Productions : Political, Diplomatic, and Miscellaneous," by the late Richard Rush, Philadelphia, 1860. 256 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. Coincident with or ere long succeeding this naval pres- tige, our commercial marine advanced in character and pros- perity. The cotton of the South became an essential com- modity to Great Britain. In New England, manufactures were firmly established, with important mechanical improve- ments and facilities ; while the Western States became more and more the granary of Europe. New territorial acqui- sitions, increase of mines, and a system of public instruction, which seemed to guarantee an improved generation of the middle and lower class these, and other elements of growth, power, and plenty, tended to foster the spirit of rivalry and jealous criticism, and to lessen the complacent gaze where- with England beheld her long chain of colonial possessions begird the globe. Thus a variety of circumstances united to aggravate the prejudice and encourage the animadversions of English travellers in America, and to make them acceptable to their countrymen. And it is a curious fact for the philoso- pher, an auspicious one for the humanitarian, that the under- current of personal and social goodwill, as regards individu- als, of sympathy, respect, and, in many instances, warmer sentiments, flowed on uninterrupted; individual friendships of the choicest kind, hospitalities of the most frank and gen- erous character, mutual interests and feelings in literature, religion, philanthropy, and science, consecrated the private intercourse and enriched the correspondence of select intelli- gences and noble hearts on opposite sides of the Atlantic. But the record of the hour, the utterances of the press, were as we have seen. The importance attached to the swarm of English Travels abusive of America, upon calm reflection, appears like a monomania ; and equally preposterous was the sensitiveness of our people to foreign criticism. Their exceptional fast eating, inquisitiveness, tobacco chewing, ugly public build- ings, sprawling attitudes, and local lingo, were engrossed in so huge a bill of indictment, that their political freedom, social equality, educational privileges, unprecedented material prosperity, benign laws, and glorious country, seemed to ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMEEICA. 257 shrink, for the moment, into insignificance before the mo- notonous scurrility and hopeless auguries of their censors. It was not considered that the motive and method of the most of these caustic strictures rendered them innocuous ; that, to use the test of an able writer in reference to another class of narrow minds, they " endeavored to atone by misan- thropic accuracy for imbecility in fundamental principles;" that few English men or women can write an authentic report of social and political facts in America, differences of habit and opinion therein being more fierce by approximation, thereby destroying the true perspective ; add to which inabil- ity, the miserable cockney spirit, the dependent and subser- vient habit of mind, the underbred tone, want of respect for and sympathy with humanity as such, limited powers of observa- tion, controlling prejudice, unaccustomed consideration, and native brutality, which proclaimed the incompetency and dis- ingenuousness of the lowest class of these once formidable scribblers ; and we realize why " folly loves the martyrdom of fame," and recognize an identical perversion of truth and good manners as well as human instincts as, in the ignorant ar- rogance which, in their own vaunted land of high civilization, incarcerated Montgomery, Hunt, and De Foe, exiled Shelley, blackguarded Keats, and envenoms and vulgarizes literary criticisms to-day in the Saturday Review ignoring at home, as well as abroad, the comprehensive, the sympathetic, and the Christian estimate both of genius, communities, and character. The prevalent feeling in relation to this injustice and un- kindness of English writers on America, forty years ago, found graceful expression in a chapter of the Sketch Book, the first literary venture heartily recognized for its merits of style and sentiment, which a native author had given to the " mother country." Irving comments on the singular but incontrovertible fact, that, while the English admirably re- port their remote travels, no people convey such prejudiced views of countries nearer home. He attributes the vulgar abuse lavished on the United States by the swarm of visitors 258 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. from Great Britain, first, to the misfortune that the worst class of English travellers have assumed this task ; secondly, to the prejudice against democratic institutions ; thirdly, to the lack of comforts in travelling here, whereby the humor is rendered splenetic ; fourthly, to disappointed avarice and en- terprise ; and, finally, to jealousy, and a degree of considera- tion and hospitality to which men of the class of Birmingham and Manchester agents, being wholly unaccustomed, they were spoiled instead of being conciliated thereby. He descants, with a good sense equally applicable to the present hour, upon the short-sighted policy of incurring the resentment of a young and growing nation having a common language and innumerable mutual interests ; and advances the claim which America possesses to every magnanimous people of Europe, as constituting the asylum of the oppressed and unfortunate. Since this amiable and just protest was written, the intellect- ual progress of the country has been as remarkable as the increase of its territory, population, resources, trade, and manufactures ; while even the diplomatic conservatives across the sea, recognize in the United States a power vitally asso- ciated with that traditional " balance " whereon the peace and prosperity of the civilized world are thought to depend. But the improved and enlarged tone of foreign criticism has not quelled the original antipathy or prejudice, indifference or animosity of England as the rabid and perverse comments of British journals, at this terrible crisis of our national life, too sadly demonstrate. The same wilful ignorance, the same disingenuous statements, the same cold sneers and defiant sar- casms find expression in the leading organs of English opin- ion to-day, as once made popular the shallow journals of the commercial travellers and arrogant cockneys ; so that we and they may revert to Irving's gentle rebuke, now that he is in his grave, and feel, as of old, its strict justice and sad neces- sity. . Hear him : "Is this golden bond of kindred sympathies, so rare between nations, to be broken forever ? Perhaps it is for the best : it may dispel an illusion which might have kept us in mental vassalage; ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMERICA. 259 which might have interfered occasionally with our true interests, and prevented the growth of proper national pride. But it is hard to give up the kindred tie ; and there are feelings dearer than inter- est, closer to the heart than pride, that will still make us cast back a look of regret, as we wander farther and farther from the paternal roof, and lament the waywardness of the parent that would repel the affections of the child." And Allston echoed Irving's sense and sentiment with genial emphasis : " While the manners, while the arts, That mould a nation's soul, Still cling around our hearts, Between let ocean roll, Our joint communion breaking with the sun : Yet still from either beach, The voice of blood shall reach, More audible than speech, ' "We are one.' " The reader of the present day, who is inclined to doubt the justice of any reference to this contemptible class of writers, as representatives of English feeling toward Amer- ica, has but to consult the best periodical literature, and note the style and imprint of the books themselves, to recognize in the fact of their eligible publication and reception, an abso- lute proof of the consideration they enjoyed ; and this, be it remembered, in spite of the known character and objects of the authors, whose position and associations unfitted them for social critics and economical reporters such as an intelligent gentleman could endure, far less accord the slightest personal or literary credit. Ashe is openly described as a swindler ; Faux as " low ; " Parkinson was a common gardener ; Fearon a stocking-weaver. Cobbett, who is the last person to be sus- pected of aristocratic prejudices, and was the most practical and perverse of democrats, observed, in reading the fasti- dious comments of one of these impudent travellers, upon an American meal, that it was " such a breakfast as the fel- low had never before tasted ; " and the remark explains the presumption and ignorance of many of this class of writers, 260 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTAfORS. who, never before having enjoyed the least social considera- tion or private luxury, became, like a beggar on horseback, intoxicated therewith. Even a cursory glance at the catalogue of books thus pro- duced will indicate how popular was the theme and how audacious the writers. We remember falling in with a clever but impoverished professor, several years ago, in Italy, who had resided in this country, but found himself in Europe with- out means. In obedience to an appeal which reached us, we sought his economical lodging, and found him pacing up and down a scantily furnished chamber, every now and then seizing a pen and rapidly noting the result of his cogitations. He had been offered, by a London publisher, a handsome gratuity to furnish, within a specified period, a lively anti-democratic book on life and manners in America. The contract, he assured us, provided that there should be enough practical details, especially in regard to the physical resources of the country, to give an air of solid information to the work. There were to be a vein of personal anecdote, a few original adventures, some exaggerated character painting, and a little enthusiasm about scenery : but all this was to be well spiced with ridicule ; and the argument of the book was to demon- strate the inevitable depreciation of mind, manners, and en- joyment under the influence of democratic institutions. The poor author tasked his memory and his invention to follow this programme, without a particle of conviction in the em- phatic declaration of his opinions, or any sympathy with the work other than what was derived from its lucrative reward. The incident illustrates upon what a conventional basis the rage for piquant Travels in America rested. Contemporary periodical literature echoed constantly the narrow comments and vapid faultfinding of this class of English travellers, most of whose sneers may be found re- peated with zest in the pages of the Quarterly and Black- wood. Somewhat of the personal prejudice of these articles is doubtless to be ascribed to political influences. Then, as now, the encroachment of democratic opinions excited the ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMERICA. 261 alarm of the conservatives. The reform party had made extraordinary advances, and the extension of the right of suffrage became the bugbear of the aristocracy. To repre- sent the country where that right had such unlimited sway, as demoralized thereby, became the policy of all but the so- called radical writers ; and the Reviews, fifty years ago, exhibited the worst side of American life, manners, and gov- ernment, for the same reason that the London Times and JBlackwood 's Magazine * to-day persist, in the face of truth and history, in ascribing the Southern Rebellion to repub- lican institutions, instead of their greatest bane and most anomalous obstacle on this continent slavery. Thus the organs of literature and opinion encouraged the cockney critics in their flippant strictures upon this country, and did much to prolong and disseminate them where the English language is spoken. But the journals of the United States were not less trenchant on the other side. In the North American Review, especially, several of the most presuming and ignorant of the books in question were shown up with keen and wise irony, and an array of argumentative facts that demolished their pretensions effectually. It should be remembered, in regard to this period, when expediency, fash- ion, and prejudice combined to make our country the favorite target of opprobrious criticism in Great Britain, that Amer- ica began to excite fears for that " balance of power " which was the gauge of political security among the statesmen of that day. Moreover, the literary society then and there had not been propitiated by success on this side of the water, nor its respect excited by the intellectual achievements which have since totally reversed the prophecies and the judgments of English reviewers ; nor had the United States then be- come, as now, the nation of readers whose favor it was the interest as well as the pride of popular authors abroad to win * " It would perhaps be too much to say that the tendencies of our Consti- tution toward democracy have been checked solely by a view of the tattered and insolent guise in which republicanism appears in America." Blaekwootfs Mag., 1862. 262 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. and cherish. In reverting to some of the articles which proved most offensive and to the tone of all that more or less sanctioned the spirit of vituperative travellers in America, it should also be considered that private feeling, in certain instances, lent vigor to the critical blows. Some of the writers had been annoyed by the intrusion or disgusted with the indelicacy of pertinacious and underbred tourists from this side of the Atlantic. Many were the current anecdotes illustrative of Yankee impudence which the friends of Southey, Maria Edgeworth, and Sir Walter Scott used to relate anecdotes that, unfortunately, have found their paral- lels since in the experience of Carlyle, Tennyson, and other admired living writers. And, although these and their pre- decessors have found reason to bless the " nation of bores," as in many instances their most appreciative and remunerative audience, personal pique did and still does sharpen the tone and scope of British authorship when America is referred to, as in the case of Sydney Smith,* whose investments were unfortunate, or Leigh Hunt, whose copyrights were invaded, or Dickens and other British lions, who found adulation and success less a cause for gratitude than for ridicule ; while every popular British novelist has a character, an anecdote, or an illustration drawn from traditional caricatures of American manners and speech. A comprehensive mind and a generous heart turns, however, from such ephemeral mis- representation and casual reproach as the bookwrights and reviewers in question delighted in, not so much vexed as wearied thereby ; but it is a more grave reflection upon Eng- lish probity and good sense, that so many of her standard writers, or those who aspire to be such, are disinclined to ascertain the facts of history and social life in America. * Notwithstanding the deserved rebuke he administered to our State delinquency in his American letters, Sydney Smith vindicates his claim to the title of Philo-Yankeeist. No British writer has better appreciated the insti- tutions and destiny of the United States. He recognized cordially the latent force of Webster, the noble eloquence of Channing, and the refined scholar- ship of Everett. " I will disinherit you," he playfully writes to his daughter, " if you do not admire everything written by Franklin." ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMERICA. 263 Such wilful errors as those of Lord Mahon and Alison, to say nothing of the vast display of ignorance evoked by the recent discussion in British journals of the Rebellion in America, are utterly unworthy of men of professed candor and scholarship in this age. The specific objections to American civilization, political and social, emphasized with such zeal and unanimity, by certain English writers, are often just and true ; but the statement thereof is none the less disingenu- ous because the compensatory facts are withheld, and inci- dental, particular, and social faults treated as normal and national. This kind of sophistry runs through the Travels, Journals, and conversation of that illiberal class of British critics who, then as now, from policy, prejudice, or personal conceit or disappointment, habitually regard every question, character, and production of American origin with dislike and suspicion. This inveterate tendency to look at things exclusively from the point of view suggested by national prejudices, is apparent in the most casual notice of American localities. A writer in Blackwood''s Magazine,* describing his^ visit to the " Cave of the Regicides," at New Haven, is disgusted by the difference of aspect and customs there exhibited from those familiar to him at the old seats of learning in England ; and, instead of ascribing them to the simple habits and lim- ited resources of the place, with a curious and dogmatic per- versity, finds their origin in political and historical opinions, about which the students and professors of Yale care little and know less ; as a few quotations from the article will indicate : "I suspect the person who leaned over the bulwarks of the steamer and gave me the facts, was a dissenting minister going up to be at his college at this important anniversary. There was a tone in his voice which sufficiently indicated his sympathies. The regicides were evidently the calendared saints of his religion." * * : * * * u The streets were alive with bearded and mustached youth ; but they wore hats, and flaunted not a rag of surplice or * Blackwootfs Nag., vol. Ixi., p. 333. 264: AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. gown. They are devoutly eschewed as savoring too much of popery ; nor master, doctor, or scholar appears with the time-honored de- cency which, to my antiquated notion, is quite inseparable from the true regimen of a university." " It was really farcical to see the good old president confer de- grees with an attempt at ceremony, which seemed to have no rubric but extemporary convenience and the despatch of business." * * * " In this college one sees the best that Puritanism could produce ; and I thought what Oxford and Cambridge might have become, under the invading reforms of the usurpation, had the Protectorate been less impotent to reproduce itself." The memorable papers which first established the reputa- tion of Dickens, curiously indicate the prevalence of this deprecatory and venal spirit in English writers on America, at a later period. The elder Weller, in suggesting to Sami- vel his notable plan for the escape of Pickwick from the Fleet prison, by concealing himself in a " pianner forty," sig- nificantly adds : " Have a passage ready taken for 'Merriker. Let the gov'ner stop there till Mrs. Bardell 's dead, and then let him come back and write a book about the 'Merrikens as '11 pay all his expenses, and more, if he blows 'em up enough." The preeminence of the British colonies in America early proved the Anglo-Saxon destiny of this continent. The long wars with the aborigines, and the memorable struggle be- tween the French and English, resulting in the confirmed possession and sway of the latter rule and colonies, and, finally, the American Revolution and its immediate and later consequences, furnish to a philosophic and benevolent mind so remarkable an historical series of events, combining to results of such infinite significance, not to this country and nation alone, but to the world and humanity, that it is sur- prising English speculation and criticism so long continued narrow, egotistic, and unsympathizing. Noble exceptions, indeed, are to be remembered. Chatham, the most heroic, Burke, the most philosophic of British statesmen, early and memorably recognized the claims, the character, and the des- tiny of our country ; and many of the intellectual nobility ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMERICA. 265 of Great Britain, in the flush of youthful aspirations, baffled by political or social exclusiveness, turned their hopes and their tributes toward the Western continent. But among the numerous English visitors who undertook to describe, to illus- trate, and to criticize nature, government, and society in the United States for the benefit of their countrymen, few have proved adequate or just ; and still less is the number who rose to the philosophy of the subject. Many of the French writers seize upon practical truths of universal interest, or evolve the sentiment of the theme with zest : either process gives a vital charm to descriptions and speculations, and places the reader in a genuine human rela- tion with the writer. The same distinction between the Eng- lish and French method of treating our condition, history, and character, is observable in the current literature of both countries, as well as in the works of their respective travel- lers. How rarely in an English writer do we encounter epi- sodical remarks so generous in tone as this page from Miche- let's little treatise, " La Mer " : " L'Amcrique, est le desir. Elle est jeune, et elle brule d'etre en rapport avec le globe. Sur son superbe continent, et au milieu de tant d'tats, elle se croit pourtant solitaire. Si loin de sa mere 1'Europe, elle regarde vers-ce centre de la civilization, comme la terre vers le soleil, et tout ce qui la rapproche du grand luminaire la fait palpiter, qu'on en juge par 1'ivresse, par les fetes si touchantes anxquelles donna lieu la-bas le telegraphe sous-marm qui mariat les deux rivages, promettait le dialogue et la replique par minutes, de sorte que les deux mondes n'auraient plus qu'une pensee ! " The historical character of France and England explains the discrepancy so evident in their recorded estimate of and sentiments in regard to America. The former nation envied the Spaniards the renown of their peerless discovery, and blamed their king for not having entertained the project of Columbus. As a people, they love power more than gain, and are ever more swayed by ideas than interest ; whereas, in the earliest chronicles of English polity, we find a spirit of calculation. On that side of the Channel, we are told, 12 AMEKIOA AND HER COMMENTATORS. they " seldom voted a subsidy without bargaining for a right ; " and in a sketch of the wars between the two coun- tries, one of their own writers observes : " Our character at that time (1547) was more economical than heroic ; and we seldom set our foot in France, unless on the careful calcula- tion of how much the enemy would give us for going away again." This sharp appreciation of material results has had much to do with the civic prosperity of England, for thereby the popular mind has grown alert and efficient in securing those privileges in which consists the superiority of the English Constitution, and the absence of which enabled Philip Au- gustus, Richelieu, and Louis XIV. to establish in France such absolute despotism. On the other hand, so exclusive and pertinacious a tendency to self-interest is and has proved, in the case of England, a serious obstacle to those generous national sentiments which endear and elevate a people and a Government in the estimation of humanity ; and it is only necessary to recall the caricatures of the French, the Dutch, the German, and Italian character, which pervade English literature, to realize the force of insular prejudice and self- concentration thus confirmed by national habits and polity. " Some years ago," says a popular English writer, " it would have been an unexampled stretch of liberality to have confessed that France had any good qualities at all. Our country was an island we despised the rest of the world ; our county was an island we despised the other shires ; our parish was an island, with peculiar habits, modes, and insti- tutions ; our households were islands ; and, to complete the whole, each stubborn, broad-shouldered, strong-backed Eng- lishman was an island by himself, surrounded by a misty and tumultuous sea of prejudices." * A curious illustration is afforded by the entire series of English Travels in America, of this national egotism so characteristic of England, which regards foreign countries and people exclusively through the narrow medium of self- * Rev. James White. ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMEKICA. 267 love. The tone of these records of a sojourn or an explora- tion in America is graduated, almost invariably, as to the sympathy or the depreciation, by the relation of the two countries to each other at different times. For a long period after the early colonization, so remote and unprofitable was the New World, that indifference marks the allusions to, and superficiality or contempt the accounts of, those thinly settled and unprosperous communities. As they grew in population and resources, and glimpses were obtained of a possible future alike promising to the devotees of gain, of ambition, and of political reform and religious independence, English writers dwell with complacency upon the natural beauties and fertility of the land, upon the prospect here opened for enterprise ; and as a colonial tributary to their power and wealth, America, or that part of it colonized by the British, is described with pride and pleasure ; even its social traits occasionally lauded, and the details of observation and expe- rience given with elaborate relish. Especially do we find political malcontents at home, and social aspirants or benign and intelligent visitors, dwelling upon the novel features and free scope of the country with satisfaction. Immediately subsequent to the Revolution, a different spirit is manifest. When the choicest jewel of her crown had been wrested from the grasp of Great Britain, numerous flaws therein be- came at once evident to the critical eyes of English travel- lers ; and, though occasionally a refreshing contrast is afforded by the candid and cordial estimate of a liberal writer, the disingenuous and deprecatory temper prevails. It is impos- sible not to perceive that the rapid growth and unique pros- perity of a country governed by popular institutions, without an established church, a royal family, an order of nobility, and all the expensive arrangements incident to monarchical sway, however free and constitutional, has been and is a cause of uneasiness and hatred to a nation of kindred lan- guage and character. " Freedom," wrote Heine, " has spfung in England from privileges from historical events. All Eng- land is congealed in mediaeval, never-to-be-rejuvenated institu- 268 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. tions, behind which her aristocracy is intrenched, awaiting the death struggle." Hence the example of America has been to a large political party, to a proud social organiza- tion, inauspicious ; to the popular, the liberal, the democratic masses, encouraging. Hence the base jubilee at our recent internal dissensions, whose root slavery* was planted by the English themselves. Hence their constant assertion that " the republic is a failure." One of the chief grounds of complaint stated, when the Declaration of Independence was first written, against the British Government, was that it had, contrary to the wishes of the colonies, planted African slavery on our soil. Hence the extreme baseness of ignoring this primal and positive cause of our domestic troubles on the part of writers and rulers in England, and striving to make republican institu- tions responsible exclusively therefor a course referable to shameful jealousy, and to the want of cotton and the desire for free trade. In all British history there is no more re- markable illustration of what De Tocqueville, whose English proclivities and philosophic candor no intelligent reader can question, remarked, in one of his letters : " In the eyes of an Englishman, a cause is just if it be the inter- est of England that it should succeed. A man or a Government that is useful to England, has every kind of merit; and one that does England harm, every possible fault. The criterion of what is honor- able, or just, is to l)e found in the degree of favor or of opposition to English interests. There is much of this everywhere ; but there is so much of it in England that a foreigner is astonished." The mineral wealth and adaptation of mechanical pro- cesses to manufacture, which laid the foundation of Eng- land's commercial prosperity, are no longer a monopoly. Identical resources have been elsewhere developed and em- ployed, and her productions and enterprise have become, in the same proportion, less essential to the industry of the * It was the monopoly of the infamous traffic in negroes, which, during the ministry of Sir Robert Walpole, so greatly increased the mercantile prosperity of London, and founded that of Bristol and Liverpool. ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMEEICA. 269 world. Her power, therefore, in more than one direction, is on the wane. But to a liberal and philosophic mind, the grand natural provision for the subsistence of her impover- ished laborers, and the permanent amelioration of their status, on this continent, should be regarded as a vast bless- ing, not a selfish vexation ; as a cause of religious gratitude, and not of jealous detraction. Will it not prove a sugges- tive anomaly to the rational historian of the wonderful age in which we live, when science, letters, adventure, economy, education, and travel are making human beings every day less local and egotistic, and more cosmopolitan and humane, in their relations and sentiments that in such an age, when, for the privilege of holding black people in servitude unchal- lenged, a class of American citizens rose in arms against national authority, the nobles of England, and a portion of her traders and manufacturers, became the allies of the insur- gents ; while the royal family, the starving thousands of Lan- cashire who are the real sufferers from the war and the bravest and wisest representatives of the people in Parlia- ment, gave to the United States, and to the cause of justice and of freedom, their sympathy, advocacy, and respect ? The real fear of America in Great Britain is of our moral influence, which, of course and inevitably, is democratic ; and if her detractors in England are pensioned, the working class there spontaneously, through faith and hope, attach themselves to her cause. The superior candor of the French writers on America is obvious to the most superficial reader. The urbanity and the philosophical tendency of the national mind account for this more genial and intelligent treatment ; but the striking differ- ence of temper and of scope between the French and English Travels in America, is accounted for mainly by the compara- tive freedom from political and social prejudice on the part of the former, and the frequent correspondence of their sen timents with those of the inhabitants of the New World. From the descriptions of primeval nature by the early Jesuit missionaries to the gallant gossip and speculative enthusiasm 270 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. of the French officers who cooperated in our Revolutionary struggle, a peculiar sympathy with the prospects and affinity with the conditions of nature and of life, on this continent, inspire the Gallic writers. Nor did this partiality or sense of justice diminish with the growth of the country. From the swarm of dilettante critics and arrogant or shallow au- thors of books on the United States, during the last fifty years, the only philosophical work wherein the principles of democratic institutions are fairly discussed, and their peculiar operation in America justly defined, is the standard treatise of Alexis de Tocqueville ; while the first able and eloquent plea for our nationality, the first clear and honest recognition of the causes and significance of our present civil war from abroad, came from a French publicist. What a contrast be- tween the considerate argument and noble vindication of De Gasparin, and the perverse dogmatism, disingenuous tone, and malicious exaggeration of a large part of the English periodical press ! " We are not just toward the United States," says the former. " Their civilization, sO different from ours, wounds us in various ways, and we turn from them in the ill humor excited by their real defects, without taking note enough of their eminent qualities. This country, which possesses neither church nor state, nor any government- al protection ; this country, born yesterday born under a Puritan influence ; this country, without past history, with- out monuments, separated from the middle ages by the double interval of centuries and beliefs ; this rude country of farmers and pioneers, has nothing fitted to please us. It has the exuberant life and the eccentricities of youth ; that is, it affords to our mature experience inexhaustible subjects of blame and raillery." This frank statement explains while it does not excuse the long tirades of English writers against the crudities of our national life : not because these were not often truly re- ported, but because the other side of the story was omitted. Our sensitive pride of country took offence, and thus gave new provocation to the " blame and raillery " of which De ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMERICA. 271 Gasparin speaks. ]STo American familiar with Europe can wonder that refined visitors from the Old World to the New should find the gregarious habits, the unventilated and promis- cuously crowded railway cars, the fragile high-pressure steam- boats of the Western rivers, the cuisine, the flashiness, the con- ceit, the hardihood, the radicalism, the costume, the architecture, the social standards, the money worship, and the countless incongruities, especially on the outskirts of the older settle- ments, distasteful, and often revolting ; but it requires no remarkable powers of reflection to understand, and no extra- ordinary candor to admit, that many of these repugnant and discordant facts are incidental to great and benign innova- tions and improvements upon the hopeless social routine and organization of Europe ; that they coexist with vast human privileges ; that they are compensated for by new and grand opportunities for the mass of humanity, however much they may trench upon the comfort and sense of decency of those accustomed to exclusive privileges and luxury. It is pre- cisely because, as a general rule, the French writers recog- nize, while so many of the English ignore such palliations and compensations, in judging of and reporting life in Amer- ica, that the former, as a whole, are so much more worthy of respect and gratitude. Any shallow vagabond can compare disadvantageously the huge and hot caravansaries of West- ern travel with the first-class carriages of an English railway ; the bad whiskey and tough steaks of a tavern in America with the quiet country inn and the matchless sirloin and ale of old England. The social contrasts are easily made ; the defects of manners patent ; but when it is considered that what is applied by way of privilege or superiority to a class in Europe, is open in a less perfect way, indeed, but still open to all ; that the average comfort and culture here are unequalled in history ; and, above all, that the prospect and the principle of civil and social life are established on an equal and prosperous basis the superficial defects, to the eye of wisdom and the heart of benevolence, sink into comparative insignificance. "America," writes De Tocqueville, "is the 272 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. place of all others where the Christian religion has preserved the most power over souls." Other reasons for the difference of English and French interpretation of American questions are well stated by a recent writer in the Revue des Deux Mondes : "Frenchmen and Englishmen cannot be impressed alike by what is passing in the United States. At the bottom of the quarrel there is, it is true, the abolition of slavery, to which the English are de- voted by a glorious beginning ; but, on the other hand, what relates to the United States, awakens in England memories, interests, an- tipathies, which can have no parallel in the politics or feelings of France. In the first place, the Star-spangled Banner (le drapeau seme d'etoUes) is the only flag that France has never met in the coali- tion of her enemies. To the English, the United States are always the rebellious colony of the past ; to us, they are a nation whose independence we contributed to establish by common victories car- ried in the teeth of British obstinacy. For British politics, in spite of the accidental importance of cotton, it would be a satisfaction to see the American Union enfeebled by a division. For French poli- tics, the breaking up of the American republic, which would destroy the balance of maritime power, would be a serious misfortune. The English cherish the disdain of an aristocratic race for the republican Yankee ; democratic France ( ! ) has been enabled to take lessons from American democracy, and has more than once made itself en- vied by the latter. The two young volunteers who have just en- rolled themselves in the army of the North have thus remained faithful, in their choice of the cause which they would serve, to the traditions of their country." How uncandid English writers are, even when quoting respectable authorities, is evinced in the remark of a late quarterly reviewer, in alluding to De Tocqueville's hopeful views of democracy in America in contrast with the South- ern Rebellion : "If he had lived a little longer, what an ex- ample of the fallacy of man's profoundest thoughts and acutest inference would he himself have mournfully acknowl- edged, in the unnatural and incredible convulsion of the United States of America ; " whereas, so far from being un- natural and incredible, the whole argument of De Tocqueville is prophetic thereof. He knew the incubus of slavery the anomaly of local despotism in the heart of a republic must ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMERICA. 273 be thrown off, as a loathsome disease in the body politic : how and when, he did not pretend to say ; but still pro- claimed his faith in the strength of the Constitution the vital power of political justice embodied in a democratic Government, and a vast, industrious, educated, and religious nation to triumph over this accidental poison, which had been allowed to taint the blood but not blast the heart of the republic. Moreover, this same scientifically humane writer beheld, in the triumph of the democratic principle, the progress of the race and the will of God ; but he inferred not therefrom any roseate dreams of human perfection or individual felicity. On the contrary, as the responsibility of governing, and the privileges of citizenship expanded and be- came confirmed, he saw new claims upon the serious elements of life and character ; the need of greater sacrifices on the part of the individual ; a necessity for effort and discipline calculated to solemnize rather than elate. It is one of the most obvious of compensatory facts, that, as we are more free to think and to work, we are less able to enjoy, as that word is commonly understood. Where occupation is essen- tial to respectability, and public spirit a recognized duty, pleasure has but infrequent carnival, and duty perpetual vigil. With all his elasticity of temperament, the self-dependence and the exciting scope of the life of an American tax the powers of body and mind as much as they inspire. Geographical ignorance, and errors in natural history, in- excusable now that so many authentic accounts of the coun- try are accessible to all, continue to be manifest even in the higher departments of English literature. Goldsmith's melan- choly exaggeration of the unhealthy shores of Georgia, in his apostrophe to the peasantry, finds a parallel in the tropical flowers Campbell ascribes to the valley of Wyoming ; while the last Cambridge prize poem places Labrador in the United States, and confuses the locality of American rivers with more than poetic license. Philosophical keep pace with geo- graphical errors. Despite the evidence of common sense and patent facts, the English press insisted that Mississippi repu- 12* 274: AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. diation of State debts was a direct and legitimate result of republican institutions. It now ascribes the slaveholders' rebellion to the same cause ; and a religious review of high standing recently attributed the high-flown and exaggerated style of Parke Custis, in his " Recollections of Washington," to the undisciplined American method of expression. Ignorance of the social life incident to republican institu- tions betrays itself continually in an indirect manner. In a work recently published in London, called the " Book Hunter," the writer observes of a work on American private libraries : " The statement that there is in Dr. Francis's library a com- plete set of the ' Receuil des Causes Celebres,' y et cheerfulness of the household, struck the habitue of courts as a new phase of civilization. He became enam- ored of the Friends, attributing much of what he admired in' Bartram and his surroundings to their influence. He so- journed among them in the vicinity, attended their meetings, and, after two months thus passed, declared " they were the golden days of my riper years." Few and far between are such instances of primitive character and association now exhibited to the stranger's view in our over-busy and ex- travagant land. It is pleasant to look back upon those days, and that venerable, industrious, benign philosopher; to re- member his pleasant letters to and from Franklin, Bard, Logan, Catesby, and Golden at home, and Gronovius, Sir Hans Sloane, Collinson, and Fothergill abroad ; the medal he received from " a society of gentlemen in Edinburgh ; " the seeds he sent Michaux and Jefferson ; the books sent him AMEKICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS. by Linnaeus. It is pleasant to retrace that peaceful and wise career to its painless and cheerful close the career of one whose great ambition was the hope, as he said, " of discover- ing and introducing into my native country some original productions of nature which might be useful to society ; " and who could honestly declare, " My chief happiness con- sisted in tracing and admiring the infinite power, majesty, and perfection of the great Almighty Creator." Philosopher as he was, he never coveted old age ; dreaded to become a burden; hoped "there would be little delay when death comes ; " and deemed the great rule of life " to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly before God." Cheerful and active to the age of seventy-eight, he died content, Septem- ber 22, 1777. His name stands next to Franklin's in the record of the American Philosophical Society. The war of the Revolution shortened his days ; as the approach of the royal army, after the battle of Brandywine, agitated him with fear that his " darling garden," the " nursling of half a century," might be laid waste. Bartram was a genuine Christian philosopher. His health- ful longevity was mainly owing to his temperance and out-of- door life, the tranquil pleasures he cultivated, and the even temper he maintained. Hospitable, industrious, and active, both in body and mind, he never found any time he could not profitably employ. Upright in form, animation and sensibil- ity marked his features. He was " incapable of dissimula- tion," and deeme WRITERS. 383 tutors was Charles Thomson, so prominent in the Continental Congress. He began life as a merchant, but was formed, by nature, for the naturalist and traveller he became. A letter from John Bartram to his brother, dated in 1761, alludes to this son as if his success in business was doubtful : " I and most of my son Billy's relations are concerned that he never writes how his trade affairs succeed. We are afraid he doth not make out as well as he expected." Having accompanied his father in the expedition to East Florida, he settled on the banks of the St. John River, after assisting in the explora- tion of that region. In 1774 he returned to his home in Pennsylvania ; and soon after, at the instance of Dr. Fother- gill, of London, made a second scientific tour through Flor- ida. His observations on the Creek and Cherokee Indians there made were written out in 1789, and have been recently reprinted from the original manuscript, by the American Eth- nological Society. He aided Wilson in his ornithological investigations, and Barton in his " Elements of Botany," of which science he was elected professor by the university of his native State. Dunlap the painter, and Brockden Brown the novelist, refer to him with interest ; and the former has left a personal description of him, as he appeared when vis- ited by the writer, whereby we recognize the identical sim- plicity of life, brightness of mind, industry, kindliness, and love of nature which distinguished his father. " His counte- nance," says Dunlap, " was expressive of benignity and hap- piness. With a rake in his hand, he was breaking the clods of earth in a tulip bed. His hat was old, and flapped over his face. His coarse shirt was seen near his neck, as he wore no cravat. His waistcoat and breeches were both of leather, and his shoes were tied with leather strings. We approached and accosted him. He ceased his work, and entered into con- versation with the ease and politeness of nature's nobleman." A similar impression was made upon another visitor in 1819, who informs us that the white hair of William Bartram, as he stood in his garden and talked of Rittenhouse and Frank- lin, of botany and of nature, gave him a venerable look, 384 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. which was in keeping with his old-fashioned dress, his genial manners, and his candid and wise talk. He was elected pro- fessor of botany in the University of Pennsylvania in 1782, and " made known and illustrated many of the most curious and beautiful plants of North America," as well as published the most complete list of its birds, before Wilson. " The latest book I know," wrote Coleridge, " written in the spirit of the old travellers, is Bartram's account of his tour in the Floridas." It was published in Philadelphia in 1791, and in London the following year.* The style is more finished than his father could command, more fluent and glowing, but equally informed with that genuineness of feeling and direct- ness of purpose which give the most crude writing an inde- finable but actual moral charm. The American edition was " embellished with copperplates," the accuracy and beauty of which, however inferior to more recent illustrations of natural history among us, form a remarkable contrast to the coarse paper and inelegant type. These incongruities, how- ever, add to the quaint charm of the work, by reminding us of the time when it appeared, and of the limited means and encouragement then available to the naturalist, compared to the sumptuous expositions which the splendid volumes of Audubon and Agassi z have since made familiar. In the de- tails as well as in the philosophy of his subject, Bartram is eloquent. He describes the " hollow leaves that hold water," and how " seeds are carried and softened in birds' stomachs." He has a sympathy for the " cub bereaved of its bear mother ; " patiently watches an enormous yellow spider cap- ture a humblebee, and describes the process minutely. The moonlight on the palms ; the notes of the mockingbird in the luxuriant but lonely woods ; the flitting oriole and the * " Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida, the Cherokee Country, the extensive Territories of the Muscogulges, or Creek Confederacy, and the Country of the Choctaws ; containing an Ac- count of the Soil and Natural Productions of those Regions, together with Observations on the Manners of the Indians," embellished with copperplates (turtle, leaf, &c.), by William Bartram, Philadelphia, 1791, London, 1792. AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 385 cooing doves ; the mullet in the crystal brine, and the moan of the surf at night ; the laurel's glossy leaves, the canes of the brake, the sand of the beach, goldfish, sharks, lagoons, parroquets, the cypress, ash, and hickory, Indian mounds, buffalo licks, trading houses, alligators, mosquitos, squirrels, bullfrogs, trout, mineral waters, turtles, birds of passage, pelicans, and aquatic plants, are the themes of his narrative ; and become, in his fresh and sympathetic description, vivid and interesting even to readers who have no special knowl- edge of, and only a vague curiosity about nature. The afflu- ence and variety in the region described, are at once apparent. Now and then, something like an adventure, or a pleasant talk with one of his hospitable or philosophical hosts, varies the botanical nomenclature ; or a fervid outbreak of feeling, devotional or enjoyable, gives a human zest to the pictures of wild fertility. Curiously do touches of pedantry alternate with those of simplicity ; the matter-of-fact tone of Robin- son Crusoe, and the grave didactics of Rasselas ; a scientific statement after the manner of Humboldt, and an anecdote or interview in the style of Boswell. It is this very absence of sustained and prevalence of desultory narrative, that make the whole so real and pleasant. The Florida of that day had its trading posts, surveyors, hunters, Indian emigrants, and isolated plantations, such as still mark our border settlements ; but nowhere on the continent did nature offer a more " infi- nite variety ; " and the mere catalogue of her products, espe- cially when written with zest and knowledge, formed an interesting work, such as intelligent readers at home and abroad relished with the same avidity with which we greet the record of travel given to the world by a Layard or a Kane, only that the restricted intercourse and limited educa- tion of that day circumscribed the readers as they did the authors. In 1825 was published, from the original manuscript, " The Private Journal kept by Madame Knight ; or, A Jour- ney from Boston to New York in the year 1704." This lady was regarded as a superior person in character and culture. 17 386 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. She indulged in rhyme, and had a vein of romance, as is evi- dent from her descriptions of nature, especially of the effect of moonlight, and the aspect of the forest at night. This curious specimen of a private diary gives us a vivid and au- thentic description of the state of the country, and the risks and obstacles of travel in a region now as populous, secure, and easy of access and transit as any part of the world. A fortnight was then occupied in a journey which is now per- formed several times a day in seven or eight hours. It seems that the fair Bostonian, even at that remote period, tinctured with the literary proclivities that signalize the ladies of her native city to this day, had certain business requiring atten- tion at New Haven and New York, and, after much hesita- tion, formed the heroic resolution of visiting those places in person. The journey was made on horseback. She took a guide from one baiting place to another, and was indebted to th$ " minister of the town," to the " post," and relatives along the route, for hospitality and escort. She often passed the night in miserable inns if such they can be called and was the constant victim of hard beds, indigestible or unsa- vory food, danger from fording streams, isolated and rough tracks, and all the alarms and embarrassments of an " unpro- tected female " crossing a partially settled country. Narra- ganset was a pathless wild. At New Haven she notes the number and mischievousness of the Indians, and that the young men wore ribbons, as a badge of dexterity in shooting. She satirizes the phraseology of the people there, such as " Dreadful pretty ! " " Law, you ! " and " I vow ! " and criti- cizes the social manners as faulty in two respects too great familiarity with the slaves, and a dangerous facility of di- vorce ; yet, she remarks, though often ridiculous, the people " have a large portion of mother wit, and sometimes larger than those brought up in cities." Pumpkin and Indian bread, pork and cabbage, are the staple articles of food, varied, at " Northwalk," by fried venison. Of Fail-field she says : " They have abundance of sheep, whose very dung brings them great gain, with part of which they pay their parson's AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 387 sallery ; and they grudge that, preferring their dung before their minister." She is charmed with the " vendues" at New York, where they " give drinks ; " and mentions that the " fireplaces have no jambs ; " and " the bricks in some of the houses are of divers colors, and laid in checkers, and, being glazed, look very agreeable." " Their diversions," she says of the inhabitants, " is riding in sleys about three or four miles out of town, where they have houses of entertainment at a place called the Bowery." Nor, among the early explorers of New England, can we fail to remember the intrepid John Ledyard, Captain Cook's companion and historiographer, and one of the bravest pio- neers of African travel. Born in 1751, he ran away from the frontier college of Hanover, and fraternized with the abo- riginal Six Nations in Canada. Returning to his native region, he cut down a tree, and made a canoe three feet wide and fifty long, wherein, with bear skins and provisions, he floated down the Connecticut River, stopping at night, and reading, at intervals, Ovid and the Greek Testament. Inter- rupted in his lonely voyage by Bellows' Falls, he effected a portage through the aid of farmers and oxen, and, continuing his course, reached Hartford. This exploration of a river then winding through the wilderness, was inspired by the identical love of adventure and thirst for discovery which afterward lured him to the North of Europe, around the world with Cook, and into the deserts of Africa. Captain John Carver traversed an extent of country of at least seven thousand miles, in two years and a half, at a period when such a pilgrimage required no little courage and pa- tience. He was induced to undertake this' long tour partly from a love of adventure, and, in no small degree, from pub- lic spirit and the desire to gain and impart useful informa- tion. Carver was to be seen at the reunions of Sir Joseph Banks, where his acquaintance with the natural productions of this continent made him a welcome guest ; and his strait- ened circumstances won the sympathy of that benign savant, who promoted the sale of his " Travels," which were pul> 388 AMEKICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. lished in London,* and passed through three editions. This work contains many facts of interest to economists and sci- entific men not then generally known. The narrative refers to the years 1766, '67, and '68. Carver also published a " Treatise on the Culture of Tobacco." The region of coun- try described by this writer was then attracting great inquiry on account of the prevalent theories regarding a Northwest Passage. Carver went from Boston to Green Bay via Albany, and explored the Indian country as far as the Falls of St. Anthony ; following, in a great degree, the course of Father Hennepin in 1680. He has much to say of the aborigines, their ceremonies, character and vocabulary, of the phe- nomena of the great lakes, and of the birds, fishes, trees, and reptiles ; although, as a reporter of natural history, some of his snake stories excited distrust. Carver's enterprise, intel- ligence, and misfortunes, however, commend him to favor- able remembrance. He was born at Stillwater, Connecticut, and was a captain in the French war. Dr. Lettsom wrote an interesting memoir of him, which was appended to the posthumous edition of his writings ; and it is a memorable fact, that the penury in which this brave seeker after knowl- edge died, as described by his biographer, in connection with his unrecognized claims as an employe of the English Gov- ernment, induced the establishment of that noble charity, the Literary Fund. One of the French legation in the United States, in 1781, requested Jefferson to afford him specific information in re- gard to the physical resources and character of the country. This course is habitual with the representatives of European Governments, and has proved of great advantage in a com- mercial point of view ; while political economists and histori- cal writers have found in the archives of diplomacy invalu- able materials thus secured. M. Marbois could not have applied to a better man for certain local facts interesting and * " Travels through the Interior Parts of North America, in 1766-'68," by John Carver, Captain of a Company of Provincial Troops in the late French War, 8vo., third editionj portrait, maps, and plates, London, 1781. AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 389 useful in themselves, and as yet but partially recorded, than Thomas Jefferson, who was a good observer of nature, as far as details are concerned, and accurate in matters where taste and opinion were not essential. His love of such inqui- ries had led him to record whatever statistical knowledge or curious phenomena came under his observation. As a planter, he had ample opportunity to observe the laws of nature, the methods of culture, and the means 6f progress open to a cir- cumspect agriculturist. He had read much in natural history, and was fond of scientific conversation ; so that, with the books then at command, and the truths then recognized in these spheres, he was in advance of most of his countrymen. The inquiries of Marbois induced him to elaborate and arrange the data he had collected, and two hundred copies of the work were privately printed, under the title of " Notes on Virginia," * a bad translation of which was soon after published in Paris. The reader of Jefferson's collected writings, whose taste has been formed by the later models of his vernacular authors, will not be much impressed with his literary talents or culture. In eloquence and argumenta- tive power he was far inferior to Hamilton. His memoir of himself has little of the frank simplicity and naive attraction that have made Franklin's Life a household book ; while the fame of the Declaration of Independence wholly eclipses any renown derived from the wisdom and occasional vivacity of his correspondence, or the curious knowledge displayed in his " Notes " on his native State. The eminence of the writer in political history and official distinction, the extraordinary cir- cumstances amid which he lived and acted, the part he took in a great social and civic experiment, his representative character in the world of opinion, the coincidence of his death with the anniversary of the most illustrious deed of his life, and with the demise of his predecessor in the Presidential office and political opponent, all throw a peculiar interest and impart a personal significance to what his pen recorded ; so * " Notes on the State of Virginia," 8vo., map, London, 1787. 390 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. that, although there is comparatively little of original scien- tific value in his " Notes on Virginia," they are a pleasing memorial of his assiduous observation, and are characteristic of his turn of mind and habits of thought. It has been justly said of the work, that " politics, commerce, and manu- factures are here treated of in a satisfactory and instructive manner, but with rather too much the air of philosophy." The description of the Natural Bridge, and of the scenery of Harper's Ferry and the Shenandoah Valley, as well as of other remarkable natural facts, drew many strangers to Vir- ginia ; and the " Notes " are often quoted by travellers, agri- culturists, and philosophers. Captain Imlay, of the American army, is considered the best of the early authorities in regard to the topography of the Western country. The original London edition of his " Topographical Description of the Western Territory of North America,"* is the result of observations made be- tween 1792 and 1797. The third edition is much enhanced in value as a reference, by including the works of Filson, Hut-chins, and other kindred material. In 1793, this author embodied another and most interesting phase of his experi- ence in that then but partially known region, in a novel called " The Emigrants," which contains genuine pictures of life. The "Travels in New England and New York"f of Timothy Dwight are probably as little read by the present generation as his poetry ; and yet both, fifty or sixty years ago, exerted a salutary influence, and are still indicative of the benign intellectual activity of a studious, religious, and patriotic man, whose name is honorably associated with early American literature, as well as with the educational progress * " Topographical Description of the Western Territory of North Amer- ica," by Gilbert Imlay, second edition, with large additions, 8vo., with correct maps of the Western Territories, 1793. Comprises a valuable mass of mate- rials for the early history of the Western country, embodying the entire works of Filson, Hutchins, and various other tracts and original narratives. f " Travels in New England and New York," by Timothy Dwight, illus- trated with maps and plates, 4 thick vols., 8vo., 1823. AMERICAN TEAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 391 and theological history of New England. A descendant of Jonathan Edwards, a chaplain in the army of the Revolution, a member of the Connecticut Legislature, farmer, clergy- man, scholar, patriot, and bard, whether giving religious sanction to his brave countrymen in their struggle for free- dom, toiling for the support of his family, teaching, rhyming, talking, or filling, with assiduous fidelity, the office of Presi- dent of Yale College, Dwight was one of the most useful, consistent, and respected men of letters of his day in Amer- ica. Idolized by his pupils, admired by his fellow citizens, and the favorite companion of Trumbull, Barlow, and the elder Buckminster, his simple style of life harmonized nobly with his urbane self-respect, intellectual tastes, and public spirit. His revision of the Psalms of Watts was a service practically recognized by all sects. The conscientiousness which formed the basis of his character, not less than the exigencies of his life, promoted habits of versatile and in- domitable industry. In youth, his ardent nature found vent in verse, much of which, especially some heroic couplets, have the ring and emphasis of a muse enamored of nature and fired with patriotism. His vacations, while President of Yale, were devoted to travel, not in the casual manner so usual at the period, but with a view to explore carefully and record faithfully. It is true that, compared to the scientific tourists of our day, Dwight was but imperfectly equipped for a complete and minute investigation of nature ; but, keenly observant, intelligent, and honest, loving knowledge for its own sake, and eager to diffuse as well as to acquire practical information, we find in this voluntary choice of recreation, at that period, a signal evidence of his superior mind. Many comparatively unknown regions of New England and New York Dwight traversed on horseback, communica- ting the results of his journeys in letters, which were not given to the public until several years after his death. "We know of no better reference for accounts of the prominent men and the economical and social traits of the Eastern V 392 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. States, at the period, than may be gleaned from Dwight's Travels. They preserve some original features and facts which a locomotive age has since swept away. They furnish an interesting picture of life in "New England and New York, when the towns therein were scattered and lonely, the agricultural resources but partially developed, and the primi- tive tastes and customs yet dominant. Although seldom read, this early record of travel over scenes so familiar and unsuggestive to us, will be precious to the future delineator of manners, and even to the speculative economist and phi- losopher. A future Macaulay would find in them many ele- ments for a picturesque or statistical description ; for in such details, when authentic and wisely chosen, exist the materials of history. Among the earliest modern accounts, at all elab- orate, of the White Mountains, Lake George, Niagara, and the Catskills, are those gleaned by Timothy Dwight, in his lonely wanderings at a time when, to travel at all, was to isolate oneself, and be inspired with an individual aim, and the " solitary horseman " was a significant fact, instead of a resource of fiction. It was Dwight's habit to take copious notes and accumulate local facts, which he afterward wrote out and illustrated at his leisure. His " Travels " were first published in 1821. Their range would now be thought quite limited ; but, in view of the meagre facilities for moving about then enjoyed, and the comparative absence of enter- prise in the way of journeys of observation, these intelli- gent comments and descriptions must have been very useful and entertaining, as they are now valuable and agreeable. Robert Southey, whose literary taste was singularly catholic, and who had labored enough in the field of authorship to duly estimate everything that contributes to the use or beauty of the vocation, wrote of Dwight's " Travels," in the Quar- terly Review : " The work before us, though the humblest in its pretences, is the most important of his writings, and will derive additional value from time, whatever may become of his poems and sermons. A wish to gratify those who, a hundred years hence, might feel curios- AMERICAN TEAVELLEE8 AND WRITERS. 393 ity concerning his native country, made Mm resolve to preserve a faithful description of its existing state. He made notes, therefore, in the summer vacation tours, and collected facts on the spot. The remarks upon natural history are those of an observant and sagacious man, who makes no pretensions to science ; they are more interest- ing, therefore, than those of a merely scientific traveller." Here we have another striking illustration of the conser- vative worth of facts in literature over the fruits of specula- tion or of fancy, unless the latter are redeemed by rare originality. Only the most gifted poets and philosophers continue to be read and admired ; while the humblest gleaner among the facts of life and nature, if honest and assiduous, is remembered and referred to with gratitude and respect. As Commissioner of the Revenue, Tench Coxe, of Philadel- phia, investigated and wrote upon several economical interests of the country, and, in 1794, published his " View of the United States of America," in a series of papers written in 1787-'94.* There is much statistical information in regard to trade and manufactures during the period indicated. The progress of the country at that time is authentically described, and the resources of Pennsylvania exhibited. Two chapters of the work are curious one on the " distilleries of the United States," and the other giving " information relative to maple sugar, and its possible value in some parts of the United States." The facts communicated must have been useful to emigrants at that period ; and, in summing up the condition and prospects of the country, a remarkable increase of for- eign commerce, shipbuilding, and manufactures, in the ten years succeeding the War of Independence, is shown. The author congratulates his fellow citizens that " the importation of slaves has ceased ; " that " no evils have resulted from an entire separation of church and state, and of ecclesiastical from the civil power ;" that Europeans "have rather accom- modated themselves to the American modes of life, than pur- sued or introduced those of Europe ;" that no monarchy over * " View of the United States of America," in a series of papers written between 1787 and 1794, by Tench Coxe, 8 vo., Philadelphia and London, 1795. 17* 394 AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATORS. " an equally numerous people has been so well able to main- tain internal tranquillity ; " and that the " terrifying reports of danger from Indians" are unfounded. The work is a valuable statistical landmark of national development. In the year 1810, a book on America* by a native author excited much attention, partly from the special facts it re- counted, and partly because of a humorous vein, wherein European criticisms and travellers' complaints were met and refuted. The volume was timely, in some respects quite able, and often piquant. The literary artifice adopted served also to win the curious. It was pretended that Inciquin, a Jesuit, during a residence in the United States, had written numer- ous letters descriptive of the country, and in reply to current aspersions by prejudiced visitors a portion of this corre- spondence having been discovered on a bookseller's stall, at Antwerp, and the "packet of letters" being published on this side of the water as the work of some unknown for- eigner. A distinct account of political parties, about which great misapprehensions then prevailed in Great Britain, is given ; numerous falsehoods then prevalent regarding the social condition and habits of the people are exposed ; and the hypercritical and fastidious objections propagated by shallow writers are cleverly ridiculed ; while a more kindly and just estimate of American manners and culture is affirmed. The idea of the book was excellent ; but its exe- cution is not commensurate therewith, being comparatively destitute of that literary tact and graceful vivacity essential to the complete success of such an experiment. It, however, served a good though temporary purpose, more adequately fulfilled by Walsh's " Appeal." In his account of American literature, the author, at that date, had but a meagre cata- logue to illustrate his position, Marshall's " Life of Washing- ton " and Barlow's " Columbiad " being most prominent. Perhaps the political information was the most important element of the work ; and the intimate acquaintance with our * " Inciquin the Jesuit's Letters, during a late Residence in the United States of America," New York, 1810, 8vo. AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 395 system of government, and the appreciation of the social condition of the republic manifest throughout, suggest that, with the attraction of a more pleasing style, " Inciquin's Let- ters " might have claimed and won a more permanent inter- est. It soon became known that they were written by Charles J. Ingersoll, of Philadelphia, a political litterateur and well-known citizen, who has since figured in public life, and died within a few years. The London Quarterly, with characteristic unfairness, assailed the work, which malicious criticism was promptly answered by Paulding. The calumnies of the English bookwrights and reviewers were ably confuted also by Irving, D wight, and Everett ; but the most efficient and elaborate reply, at this time, emanated from Robert Walsh, whose industry in the collection of facts, practice as a writer, and familiarity with history and literature, made him an able champion. He had long enter- tained the idea of a carefully prepared work historical, eco- nomical, and critical on the United States, and had arranged part of the materials therefor. A peculiarly bitter and un- just article, ostensibly a review of "Inciquin's Letters," induced Mr. Walsh to abandon, for the time, his intended work, in favor of a less elaborate but most seasonable one. He did not attach undue importance to these attacks, but, like all educated and experienced men, perceived that the wilful misrepresentations and vulgar prejudice with which they abounded, insured their ephemeral reputation, and proved them the work of venal hands ; yet, in common with the best of his countrymen, he recognized, in the popularity of such shallow and often absurd tirades, in the demand as a literary ware of such aspersions upon the name, fame, and character of the republic, a degree of ignorance and preju- dice in England, which it became a duty to leave without excuse, by a clear and authentic statement of facts. Accord- ingly, his " Appeal from the Judgments of Great Britain " * * " An Appeal from the Judgments of Great Britain respecting the Unit- ed States, &c., with Strictures on the Calumnies of British Writers," by Robert Walsh, 8vo., Philadelphia, 1819. 396 AMEEICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS. appeared in 1819. Its political bias made it somewhat unac- ceptable to a portion of his countrymen ; and, with the more full exposition of our intellectual resources which the growth of American literature has subsequently induced, it is obvi- ous that he might have made the argument in this regard more copious. But, as a whole, it was admirably done. Much of the testimony adduced is English ; and the chapters on the British maladministration of the colonies, on the hos- tility of the British Reviews, and on slavery, are of present significance and permanent interest. It was a timely vindica- tion of our country, and so absolutely fixed the lie of malice upon many of the flippant writers in question, and the bigotry of prejudice upon their acquiescent readers, that an obvious improvement was soon apparent, especially in the Reviews more care as to correctness in data, and less arrogance in tone. The work is a landmark to which we can now refer with advantage, to estimate the degree and kind of progress attained by the United States at the period ; and it serves no less effectually as a memorial of the literary, political, and social injustice of England. In addition to Irving, Ingersoll, Walsh, Everett, and Cooper, many of oar citizens have " come to the rescue " abroad, in less memorable but not less seasonable and efficient ways. Through the journals of Europe, many a mistake has been corrected, many a prejudice dispelled, and many a right vindicated by public-spirited and intelligent citizens of the republic. In Blackwood 's Magazine, 1823-'6, for instance, are several articles on American writers and subjects, wherein, with much critical nonchalance and broad assertion, there are many facts and statements fitted to enlighten and interest in regard to this country. They were written by John Neal, of Portland, whose dramatic but extravagant and rapidly con- cocted novels and poems, by their spirit and native flavor, had won their author fame, and gained him literary employment abroad ; where he became a disciple of Bentham, and aspired, despite strong personal likes and dislikes, to be an impartial AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 397 raconteur and reporter of his country, in a British, periodical of wide circulation and influence. No Southern State has been so fully described by early and later writers, as Vii'ginia. As the home of Washing- ton and Jefferson, it attracted visitors when the journey thither from the East was far from easy or convenient. The partially aristocratic origin of the first settlers gave a distinctive and superior social tone to the region. Hunt- ing, political speculation, convivial courtesies, and the Epis- copal Church, were local features whereby the life of the Virginia planter assimilated with that of English manorial habits and prestige. Moreover, a certain hue of romance invests the early history of the State, associated as it is with the gallantry and culture of Sir Walter Raleigh and the self- devotion of Pocahontas. The very name of " Old Domin- ion " endeared Virginia to many more than her own children ; and that other title of " Mother of Presidents " indicates her prominence in our republican annals. Novelists have de- lighted to lay their scenes within her borders to describe the shores of the Rappahannock, the ancient precincts of Jamestown, the beautiful valley of the Shenandoah, and the picturesque attractions of the Blue Ridge ; as well as to elaborate the traits of character and the phases of social life fondly and proudly ascribed to the country. Lovers of humor find an unique comic side to the nature of the Vir- ginia negro one of whose popular melodies plaintively evinces the peculiar attachment which bound the domestic slave to the soil and family ; while the countless anecdotes of John Randolph, and other eccentric country gentlemen, indicate that the independent and provincial life of the planter there was remarkably productive of original and quaint characteristics. Naturalists expatiated on the wonders of the Natural Bridge ; valetudinarians flocked to the Sulphur Springs ; and lovers of humanity made pilgrimages to Mount Vernon. 'There Washington, a young surveyor, became familiar with toil, exposure, and responsibility, and passed the crowning years of his spotless career ; there he was born, 398 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. died, and is buried ; there Patrick Henry roamed and mused, until the hour struck for him to rouse, with invincible elo- quence, the instinct of free citizenship ; there Marshall drilled his yeomen for battle, and disciplined his judicial mind by study ; there Jefferson wrote his " Political Philosophy" and "Notes of a Naturalist;" there Burr was tried, Clay was born, Wirt pleaded, Nat Turner instigated the Southampton massacre, Lord Fairfax hunted, and John Brown was hung, Randolph bitterly jested, and Pocahontas won a holy fame ; and there treason reared its hydra head, and profaned the consecrated soil with vulgar insults and savage cruelty ; there was the last battle scene of the Revolution, and the first of the Civil War ; there is Mount Vernon, Monticello, and Yorktown ; and there, also, are Manassas, Bull Run, and Fredericksburg ; there is the old graveyard of Jamestown, and the modern Golgotha of Fair Oaks ; there is the noblest tribute art has reared to Washington, and the most loath- some prisons wherein despotism wreaked vengeance on patriotism ; and on that soil countless martyrs have offered up their lives to conserve the national existence. What Wirt, Kennedy, Irving, the author of " Cousin Veronica," and others, have written of rural and social life in Virginia, from the genial sports of " Swallow Barn " to the hunting frolics at Greenway Court what Virginia was in the days of Henry and Marshall, she essentially appeared to Chastellux and to Paulding. It is nearly fifty years since the latter' s " Letters from the South " * were written ; and, glancing over them to-day, what confirmation do recent events yield to many of his observations ! This is one of the unconscious advantages derived from faithful personal insight and records. However familiar the scene and obso- lete the book, as such, therein may be found the material for political inference or authentic speculation. " It seems the destiny of this country," writes Paulding from Virginia, in 1816, "that power should travel to the West;" and again, " the blacks diminish in number as you travel toward the * " Letters from the South," by a Northern Man. AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 399 mountains ; " and elsewhere, " I know not whether you have observed it, but all the considerable States south of New York have their little distrusts and separate local interests, or rather local feelings, operating most vehemently. The east and west section of the State are continually at sixes and sevens. The mountains called the Blue Ridge not only form the natural, but the political division of Virginia." Recent events have confirmed emphatically the truth of this observa- tion ; and what Paulding says of the people, agrees with previous and subsequent testimony "gallant, high-spirited, lofty, lazy sort of beings, much more likely to spend money than to earn it." We have noted the evidence of earlier travellers as to the decadence of slavery in Virginia, before the invention of the cotton-gin made the institution profit- able ; and our own countryman, writing nearly fifty years ago, quotes the remark of a farmer's daughter : " I want father to buy a black woman ; but he says they are more trouble than they are worth." Even at that period, the primitive methods of travel continued through the Southern country much as they are described by the French officers who made visits to the South immediately after or during the Revolutionary war. " Travellers' Rests," says Paulding, " are common in this part of the world, where they receive pay for a sort of family fare provided for strangers. The house, in frequent instances, is built of square pine logs lap- ping at the four corners, and the interstices filled up with little blocks of wood plastered over and cemented." The ridges of mountain ribbed with pine trees, the veins of cop- per and iron revealed by the oxydated soil, the nutritious " hoecake," the marvellous caves and Natural Bridge, the comical negroes, the salubrious mineral springs, the occa- sional hunts such as cheered the hospitable manor of Fairfax, the conclaves of village politicians, the horse racing, cock fighting, the hard drinking, the famous " reel " of the dan- cers and turkey shooting of the riflemen, were then as charac- teristic of the Old Dominion as when the judicial mind of her Marshall, the eloquence of her Henry, the eccentricities 400 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. of her Randolph, or the matchless patriotism of her Wash- ington made her actual social life illustrious. The field of Yorktown, the memorable " Raleigh tavern," and the ubiqui- tous " first family," had not ceased to be favorite landmarks and jokes, any more than tobacco the staple or slavery the problem of this fertile but half-developed region and incon- gruous community. Paulding gave vent to his indignant patriotism, when the second war with England broke out, in " The Diverting His- tory of John Bull and Brother Jonathan," * in the manner of Arbuthnot. In this work, the two countries are made to figure as individuals, and the difficulties between the two nations are exhibited as a family quarrel. England's course is the subject of a severe but not acrimonious satire. It was republished abroad and illustrated at home, and the idea still further developed in a subsequent story entitled " Uncle Sam and his Boys." A visit to Ohio from New England was formidable as late as 1796, when Morris Cleveland, whose name is now borne by the city where then spread a wilderness, accompa- nied the survey as agent of those citizens of Connecticut to whom she gave an enormous land grant in Ohio, to indemnify them for the loss of their property destroyed by the British during the Revolution. The party ascended the Mohawk in bateaux, which they carried over the " portage " of Little Falls to Fort Stanwix, now Rome, where there was another portage to Wood Creek, which empties into Oneida Lake ; thence they passed through its outlet and the Oswego River into Lake Ontario, following the south shore thereof to the mouth of the Niagara River ; crossing seven miles of port- age to Buffalo, and thence to the region of which Cleveland now forms the prosperous centre. The descendants of these landowners some of whom yet may be found in the towns that suffered from the enemy's incursions eighty years ago, such as New London, Groton, and Fairfield if they possess * "John Bull in America; or, New Munchausen," second edition, 18mo., pp. 228. The original and genuine edition, New York, 1825. AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 401 any record of the hardships thus endured and the time con- sumed, might find a wonderful evidence of progress and growth, in the facility with which they can now reach the same spot by a few hours of railway travel along the pic- turesque track of the Erie road. We must revert to such memorials to appreciate what " going West " implied forty or fifty years ago, and to under- stand the interest which the narratives of travellers there then excited. Before this experience became familiar, there were two writers who enjoyed much popularity in the North and East, and were extensively read abroad, as pioneer de- lineators of life and nature in the Western States, when that region fairly began its marvellous growth : these were Timo- thy Flint and James Hall. There are writers whose works lack the high finish and the exhaustive scope which insures them permanent cur- rency ; and yet who were actuated by so genial a spirit and endowed with so many excellent qualities, that the impres- sion they leave is sweet and enduring, like the brief but pleasing companionship of a kindly and intelligent acquaint- ance met in travelling, and parted with as soon as known. Those who, in youth, read of the West as pictured by Timo- thy Flint, though for years they may not have referred to his books, will readily accord him such a gracious remembrance. He wrote before American literature had enrolled the classic names it now boasts, and when it was so little cultivated as scarcely to be recognized as a profession. And yet a candid and sympathetic reader cannot but feel that, however defec- tive the products of Flint's pen may be justly deemed when critically estimated, they not only fulfilled a most useful and humane purpose at the time they were given to the public, but abound in the best evidences of a capacity for author- ship ; which, under circumstances more favorable to disci- pline, deliberate construction, and gradual development, would have secured him a high and permanent niche in the temple of fame. Flint had all the requisite elements for lit- erary success uncommon powers of observation, a generous 402 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. tone of mind, habits of industry, a command of language, imagination, scientific tastes, and a vein of originality com- bined with a kindliness of heart that would honor and ele- vate any vocation. On the other hand, it was not until the mature age of forty-five that he fairly embarked in author- ship. That business was far from profitable, and, to make it remunerative, he was obliged to write fast, and publish with- out revision. His health was always precarious. He had few of those associations whereby an author is encouraged in the refinements and individuality of his work by the exam- ple and critical sympathy of his peers. It is not, therefore, surprising that his success varied in the different spheres of literary experiment ; that the marks of haste, sometimes a desultory and at others a crude style, mar the nicety and grace of his productions ; and that many of these are more remarkable for the material than the art they exhibit. Yet such was the manly force, such the kindly spirit and fresh tone of this estimable man and attractive writer, that he not only gave to the public a large amount of new and useful information, and charmed lovers of nature with a picturesque and faithful picture of her aspects in the West, then rarely traversed by the people of the older States, but it is conceded that his writings were singularly effective in producing a bet- ter mutual understanding between the two extremes of the country. For several years Timothy Flint was almost the only representative of the American authorship west of the Alleghanies. Travellers speak of an .interview with him as an exceptional and charming social incident. When that long range of mountains was tediously crossed in stages ; when a visit to the West was more formidable than a passage across the Atlantic now ; and when material well-being was the inevitable and absorbing occupation of the newly fettled towns along the great rivers, it may easily be imagined how benign an influence an urbane and liberal writer and scholar would exert at home, and how welcome his report of per- sonal experience would prove to older communities. Accord- ingly, Timothy Flint was extensively read and widely be- AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 403 loved. A native of Massachusetts, and by profession a clergyman, he entered on a missionary life in the Valley of the Mississippi in 1815 ; sojourning in Ohio, Indiana, Ken- tucky, Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana, now as a teacher and now as a preacher ; at home in the wilderness, a favorite in society, winning children and hunters by his wisdom and eloquence, and endearing himself to the educated residents of St. Louis, New Orleans, or Cincinnati, by his liberal and cultivated influence. It is, perhaps, impossible to imagine how different these cities and settlements were before facility of communication had enlarged and multiplied their social resources ; but we have many striking evidences of the characteristics of each in Flint's writings. He wrote several novels, which are now little considered, and, compared with the present standard in that popular department of letters, would be found indifferent; yet, wherever the author has drawn from observation, he leaves a vital trace. In " Fran- cis Berrian," which is a kind of memoir of a New Englander who became a Mexican patriot, and in " Shoshonoe Valley," there are fine local pictures and touches of character obvi- ously caught from his ten years' experience of missionary life. Flint* wrote also lectures, tales, and sketches. He edited magazines both in the North and West, and contrib- uted to a London journal. But the writings which are chiefly stamped with the flavor of his life and the results of his observations those which, at the time, were regarded as original and authentic, and now may be said to contain among the best, because the most true, delineations of the "West are his " Condensed Geography and History of the Missis- sippi Valley," * and his " Recollections of Ten Years " (1826) residence therein. These works were cordially wel- comed at home and abroad. They proved valuable and inter- esting to savant, naturalist, emigrant, and general readers ; and, while more complete works on the subject have since * " History and Geography of the Mississippi Valley, with the Physical Geography of the whole American Continent," by Timothy Flint, 2 vols. in 1, 8vo., Cincinnati, 1832. 404: AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS. appeared, the period which gave birth to them, and the character and capacity of their author, still endear and ren- der them useful. The London Quarterly was singularly frank and free in its commendation of Flint, whom it pro- nounced " sincere, humane, and liberal " on the internal evi- dence of these writings; declaring, also, that the author indulged " hardly a prejudice that is not amiable." In 1840, on his way to his native town Reading, in Mas- sachusetts Flint and his son were at Natchez, when the memorable tornado occurred which nearly destroyed the place, and were several hours buried under the ruins. The father's health continued to decline, and, although he reached his early home and survived a few weeks, the summons that called his wife reached her too late. The peculiar value of Timothy Flint's account of the remarkable region of whose history and aspect he wrote, consists in the fact that it is not the result of a cursory sur- vey or rapid tour, but of years of residence, intimate contact with nature and man, and patient observation. The record thus prepared is one which will often be consulted by subse- quent writers. . The circumstances, political and social, have greatly changed since our author's advent, nearly half a cen- tury ago ; but the features of nature are identical, and it is pleasant to compare them with his delineation before modi- fied by the adorning and enriching tide of civilization. There is one portion of these writings that has a perma- nent charm, and that is the purely descriptive. Flint knew how to depict landscapes in words ; and no one has more graphically revealed to distant readers the shores of the Ohio, or made so real in our language the physical aspects of the Great Valley. Of native travellers, the unpretending and brief record called " The Letters of Hibernicus " * possesses a singular charm, from being associated with the recreative work of an eminent statesman, and with one of the most auspicious eco- * " Letters on the Natural History arid Internal Resources of the State of New York," by Hibernicus, New York, 1822, 18mo. AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 405 nomical achievements which ever founded and fostered the prosperity of a State and city. When De Witt Clinton ex- plored the route of the Erie Canal, he communicated hist wayside observations hi a series of familiar epistles, wherein the zest of a naturalist, the ardor of a patriot, and the humor of a genial observer are instinctively blended. " This account of his exploration of Western New York,* which originally appeared in one of the journals of the day, offers a wonderful contrast to our familiar experi- ence. Then, to use his own language, ' the stage driver was a leading beau, and the keeper of a turnpike gate a man of consequence.' Our three hours' trip from New York to Albany was a voyage occupying ten times that period. At Albany stores were laid in, and each member of the commis- sion provided himself with a blanket, as caravans, in our time, are equipped at St. Louis for an expedition to the Rocky Mountains. Here they breakfast at a tollkeeper's, * there they dine on cold ham at an isolated farmhouse ; now they mount a baggage wagon, and now take to a boat too small to admit of sleeping accommodations, which leads them constantly to regret their 'unfortunate neglect to provide marquees and camp stools ; ' and more than six weeks are occupied in a journey which now does not consume as many days. Yet the charm of patient observation, the enjoyment of nature, and the gleanings of knowledge, caused what, in our locomotive era, would seem a tedious pilgrimage, to be fraught with a pleasure and advantage of which our flying tourists over modern railways never dream. We perceive, by the comparison, that what has been gained in speed is often lost in rational entertainment. The traveller who leaves New York in the morning, to sleep at night under the roar of Niagara, has gathered nothing in the magical transit but dust, fatigue, and the risk of destruction ; while, in that deliberate progress of the canal enthusiast, not a phase of the landscape, not an historical association, not a fruit, min- eral, or flower was lost to his view. He recognizes the be- * From the author's " Biographical and Critical Essays." 406 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. nign provision of nature for sugar, so far from the tropics, by the sap of the maple ; and for salt, at such a distance -from the ocean, by the lakes that hold it in solution near / Syracuse. At Geddesburg he recalls the valor of the Iro- quois, and the pious zeal of the Jesuits ; at Seneca Lake he watches a bald eagle chasing an osprey, who lets his captive drop to be grasped in the talons of the king of birds ; the fields near Aurora cheer him with the harvests of the ' finest wheat country in the world.' At one place he is regaled with salmon, at another with fruit, peculiar in flavor to each locality ; at one moment he pauses to shoot a bittern, and at another to examine an old fortification. The capers and pop- pies in a garden, the mandrakes and thistles in a brake, the bluejays and woodpeckers of the grove, the bullet marks in the rafters of Fort Niagara, tokens of the siege under Sir William Johnson, the boneset of the swamp, a certain remedy for the local fever, a Yankee exploring the country for lands, the croaking of the bullfrog and the gleam of the firefly, Indian men spearing for fish, and girls making wampum these and innumerable other scenes and objects lure him into the romantic vistas of tradition, or the beautiful domain of natural science ; and everywhere he is inspired by the patri- otic survey to announce the as yet unrecorded promise of the soil, and to exult in the limitless destiny of its people. If there is a striking diversity between the population and facili- ties of travel in this region as known to us and as described by him, there is in other points a not less remarkable identity. Rochester is now famed as the source of one of the most prolific superstitions of the age ; and forty years ago there resided at Crooked Lane, Jemima Wilkinson, whose follow- ers believed her the Saviour incarnate. Clinton describes her equipage ' a plain coach with leather curtains, the back in- scribed with her initials and a star.' The orchards, poultry, cornfields, gristmills noted by him, still characterize the region, and are indefinitely multiplied. The ornithologist, however, would miss whole species of birds, and the richly- veined woods must be sought in less civilized districts. The AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 407 prosperous future which the varied products of this district foretold, has been more than realized ; with each successive improvement in the means of communication, villages have swelled to cities ; barges and freight cars with lumber and flour have crowded the streams and rails leading to the me- tropolis ; and, in the midst of its rural beauty, and gemmed with peerless lakes, the whole region has, according to his prescient conviction, annually increased in commerce, popula- tion, and refinement. A more noble domain, indeed, wherein to exercise such administrative genius, can scarcely be imagined than the State of New York. In its diversities of surface, water, scenery, and climate, it may be regarded, more than any other member of the confederacy, as typical of the Union. The artist, the topographer, the man of science, and the agri- culturist, can find within its limits all that is most character- istic of the entire country. In historical incident, variety of immigrant races, and rapid development, it is equally a rep- resentative State. There spreads the luxuriant Mohawk Val- ley, whose verdant slopes, even when covered with frost, the experienced eye of Washington selected for purchase as the best of agricultural tracts. There were the famed hunting grounds of the Six Nations, the colonial outposts of the fur trade, the vicinity of Frontenac's sway, and the Canada wars, the scenes of Andre's capture, and Burgoyne's surrender. There the very names of forts embalm the fame of heroes. There lived the largest manorial proprietors, and not a few of the most eminent Revolutionary statesmen. There Ful- ton's great invention was realized ; there flows the most beautiful of our rivers, towers the grandest mountain range, and expand the most picturesque lakes ; there thunders the sublimest cataract on earth, and gush the most salubrious spas ; while on the seaboard is the emporium of the Western world. A poet has apostrophized North America, with no less truth than beauty, as ' the land of many waters ; ' and a glance at the map of New York will indicate their felicitous 408 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. distribution within her limits. Tbis element is the natural and primitive means of intercommunication. For centuries it had borne the aborigines in their frail canoes, and after- ward the trader, the soldier, the missionary, and the emi- grant, in their bateaux ; and, when arrived at a terminus, they carried these light transports over leagues of portage, again to launch them on lake and river. Fourteen years of Clinton's life were assiduously devoted to his favorite project of uniting these bodies of water. He was the advocate, the memorialist, the topographer, and financier of the vast enter- prise, and accomplished it, by his wisdom and intrepidity, without the slightest pecuniary advantage, and in the face of innumerable obstacles. Its consummation was one of the greatest festivals sacred to a triumph of the arts of peace ever celebrated on this continent. The impulse it gave to commercial and agricultural prosperity continues to this hour. It was the foundation of all that makes the city and State of New York preeminent ; and when, a few years since, a thou- sand American citizens sailed up the Mississippi to commem- orate its alliance with the Atlantic, the ease and rapidity of the transit, and the spectacle of virgin civilization thus created, were but a new act in the grand drama of national develop- ment, whose opening scene occurred twenty-seven years be- fore, when the waters of Lake Erie blended with those of the Hudson. The immense bodies of inland water, and the remarkable fact that the Hudson River, unlike other Atlantic streams south of it, fiows unimpeded, early impressed Clinton with the natural means of intercourse destined to connect the sea- board of New York with the vast agricultural districts of the interior. .He saw her peerless river enter the Highlands only to meet, a hundred and sixty miles beyond, another stream, which flowed within a comparatively short distance from the great chain of lakes. The very existence of these inland seas, and the obvious possibility of uniting them with the ocean, suggested to his comprehensive mind a new idea of the destiny of the whole country. Within a few years an AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 409 ingenious geographer has pointed out, with singular acumen, the relation of 'his science to history, and has demonstrated, by a theory not less philosophical than poetic, that the dispo- sition of land and water in various parts of the globe prede- termines the human development of each region. The copi- ous civilization of Europe is thus traceable to the numerous facilities of approach that distinguish it from Africa, which still remains but partially explored. The lakes in America prophesied to the far-reaching vision of Clinton her future progress. He perceived, more clearly than any of his con- temporaries, that her development depended upon facilities of intercourse and communication. He beheld, with intui- tive wisdom, the extraordinary provision for this end, in the succession of lake and river, extending, like a broad silver tissue, from the ocean far through the land, thus bringing the products of foreign climes within reach of the lone emigrant in the heart of the continent, and the staples of those mid- land valleys to freight the ships of her seaports. He felt that the State of all others to practically demonstrate this great fact, was that with whose interests he was intrusted. It was not as a theorist, but as a utilitarian, in the best sense, that he advocated the union by canal of the waters of Lake Erie with those of the Hudson. The patriotic scheme was fraught with issues of which even he never dreamed. It was apply- ing, on a limited scale, in the sight of a people whose enter- prise is boundless in every direction clearly proved to be available, a principle which may be truly declared the vital element of our civic growth. It was giving tangible evidence of the creative power incident to locomotion. It was yield- ing the absolute evidence then required to convince the less far-sighted multitude that access was the grand secret of in- creased value ; that exchange of products was the touchstone of wealth ; and that the iron, wood, grain, fruit, and other abundant resources of the interior could acquire their real value only through facilities of transportation. Simple as these truths appear now, they were widely ignored then ; and not a few opponents of Clinton predicted that, even if he did 18 410 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATOES. succeed in having flour conveyed from what was then called the ' Far West ' to the metropolis, at a small expense of time and money, the grass would grow in the streets of New York. The political economists of his day were thus con- verted into enemies of a system which, from that hour, has continued to guide to prosperous issues every latent source of wealth throughout the country. The battle with igno- rance and prejudice, which Clinton and his friends waged, resulted in more than a local triumph and individual renown. It established a great precedent, offered a prolific example, and gave permanent impulse and direction to the public spirit of the community. The canal is now, in a great measure, superseded by the railway; the traveller sometimes finds them side by; side, and, as he glances from the sluggish stream and creeping barge to the whirling cars, and thence to the telegraph wire, he witnesses only the more perfect de- velopment of that great scheme by which Clinton, according to the limited means and against the inveterate prejudices of his day, sought to bring the distant near, and to render homogeneous and mutually helpful the activity of a single State, and, by that successful experiment, indicated the pro- cess whereby the whole confederacy should be rendered one in interest, in enterprise, and in sentiment. Before the canal policy was realized, we are told by its great advocate that ' the expense of conveying a barrel of flour by land to Albany, from the country above Cayuga Lake, was more than twice as much as the cost of transporta- tion from New York to Liverpool ; ' and the correctness of his financial anticipations was verified by the first year's ex- periment, even before the completion of the enterprise, when, in his message to the legislature, he announced that 'the income of the canal fund, when added to the tolls, exceeded the interest on the cost of the canal by nearly four hundred thousand dollars.' Few, however, of the restless excursion- ists that now crowd our cars and steamboats, would respond to his praise of this means of transportation when used for travel. His notion of a journey, we have seen, differed essen- AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 411 tially from that now in vogue, which seems to aim chiefly at the annihilation of space. To a philosophic mind, notwith- , standing, his views will not appear irrational, when he de- clares that fifty miles a day, c without a jolt,' is his ideal of a tour the time to be divided between observing, and, when there is no interest in the scenery, reading and conversation. 4 1 believe,' he adds, c that cheaper or more commodious travelling cannot be found.' " James Hall wrote a series of graphic letters in the Port- folio one of the earliest literary magazines, published in Philadelphia which were subsequently collected in a volume, and were among the first descriptive sketches of merit that made the West familiar and attractive to the mass of read- ers. Born in Philadelphia in 1793, the author entered the army, and was engaged in the battle of Lundy's Lane, at the siege of Fort Erie, and on other occasions during the war of 1812. Six years later he resigned his commission, and, in 1820, removed to Illinois, where he studied and practised law, became a member of the legislature and judge of the circuit court. In 1833 he again changed his residence to Cincinnati, where he was long occupied as cashier of a bank, and in the pursuits of literature. From his intimate ac- quaintance with the Western country, his experience as a soldier and a legislator, habits of intelligent observation, and an animated and agreeable style, he was* enabled to write attractively of a region comparatively new to the literary public, and for many years his books were a popular source of information and entertainment for those eager to know the characteristics and enjoy the adventurous or historical ro- mances of the Western States first settled. He successively published letters from and legends of the West, tales of the border, and statistics of and notes on that new and growing region.* * " Legends of the West," 12mo., Philadelphia, 1833. " Sketches of History, Life, and Manners in the West," 2 vols. 12mo., Philadelphia, 1835. " Notes on the Western States," 12mo., Philadelphia, 1838. ' The Wilderness and the War Path," 12mo., New York, 1846. " The West, its Soil, Surface, and Productions," Cincinnati, 1848. 412 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. With the progress of the country, and the leisure and its consequent literary taste which peace and prosperity induce, more deliberate works began to appear from native authors, which, without being literally Travels, contain their best fruits, and possess a more mature attraction. The same causes led to critical observation and pleas for reform. Two books especially won not only attention, but fame : they were the productions of men of classical education, genial tastes, and public spirit, but diverse in subject as their au- thors were hi vocation one an eloquent lawyer, and the, other an enterprising merchant. " Letters from the Eastern States," by William Tudor, appeared in 1819. Their origi- nality and acuteness were at once acknowledged ; and, although the discussion of some questions now seems too elaborate, they are an excellent memorial of the times and the region they describe. Tudor was an efficient friend of the first purely literary periodical established in New Eng- land, one of the founders of the first public library, and the originator of the Bunker Hill Monument. William Wirt, in Virginia, at an early date exhibited the same love of elegant letters, initiated a work similar in scope and aim to Addi- son's Spectator, and was not only an eloquent speaker and favorite companion, but a scholar of classic taste and literary aspirations. In the winter of 1803 he published, in the Argus a daily journal of Richmond, Va., "Letters of a British Spy," which were collected and issued in a book form.* Like Irving in the case of " Knickerbocker," he re- sorted to the ruse of a pretended discovery of papers left in an inn chamber. The success of these " Letters " surprised * " The British Spy ; or, Letter? to a Member of the British Parliament," written during a tour through the United States, by a Young Englishman of Rank, 18mo., pp. 103, Newburyport, 1804. " The above is the original edi- tion of the now celebrated letters of the British Spy, written by the American Plato, William Wirt. For the amount of what he has written, no American author has won so permanent and widespread a reputation. His story of the blind preacher is one of the most beautiful and affecting in the language. This book has gone through fifteen editions, and is destined to go through as many more." (rowan's Catalogue. AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 413 the author, as it would the reader of the present day unac- quainted with the circumstances. Superior in style to any belles-lettres work of the kind, of native origin, that had yet appeared, and analyzing the merits of several popular orators of the time, the book had a charm and interest for its first readers greatly owing to the rarity of an intellectual feast of domestic production. Besides his remarks on the eloquence^ of the forum and bar, Wirt discussed certain physical traits and phenomena with zest and some scientific insight, and gave incidental but graphic sketches of local society and manners. His reflections on the character of Pocahontas, and his portrait of the " Blind Preacher," are familiar as favorite specimens of descriptive writing. Although now little read, the "Letters of a British Spy" are a pleasing land- mark in the brief record of American literature, and give us a not inadequate idea of the life and region delineated. In 1812, an edition was published in London, with an apologetic preface indicative of the feeling then prevalent across the water in regard to all mental products imported from the United States, aggravated, perhaps, by the nom de plume Wirt had adopted. The publisher declares his " conviction of its merit " induces him to offer the work to the public, though "it is feared the present demand on the English reader may be considered more as a call on British courtesy and benevolence than one of right and equity." When our national novelist returned to America, after a residence of many years in Europe, he undertook to give his countrymen' the benefit of his experience and reflections in the shape of direct censure and counsel. " The Monnikins " a political satire " The American Democrat," " Homeward Bound," " Home as Found," " A Letter to his Countrymen," and other productions in the shape of essays, fiction, and satire, gave expression to convictions and arguments born of sincere and patriotic motives and earnest thought. In his general views, Cooper had right and reason on his side. What he wrote of political abuses and social anomalies, every candid and cultivated American has known and felt to be 414: AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATORS. true, especially after a visit to Europe. But the manner of conveying his sentiments was injudicious. Description, not satire, was his forte / action, and not didactics, had given eclat to his pen ; hence his admirers believed he had mistaken his vocation in becoming a social and political critic ; while many were revolted by what they conceived to be a sweep- ing and unauthorized condemnation. Moreover, in offending the editorial fraternity, by a caricature of their worst quali- ties, he drew around himself a swarm of virulent protests, and thus was misjudged : the consequence was a series of libel suits and a wearisome controversy. Now that the ex- aggerated mood and the gross misapprehensions therein in- volved, have passed away, we can appreciate the abstract jus- tice of Cooper's position, the manly spirit and the intelligent patriotism of his unfortunate experiments as a reformer, and revert to this class of his writings with profit, especially since the crisis he anticipated has been reached, and the logic of events is enforcing with solemn emphasis the lessons he un- graciously perhaps, but honestly and bravely, strove to im- press upon his wayward countrymen. If ever an American had a right to assume the office of censor, it was Cooper. He had, soon after his arrival in Europe, taken up his pen in behalf of his country, and thenceforth advocated her rights, defended her fame, and brought to reckoning her ignorant maligners. His " Notions of the Americans " did much to correct false impressions abroad ; and its author was involved in a long controversy, and became an American champion and oracle, whose services have never yet been fully appreciated, enhanced as they were by his European popularity as an original American novelist. Well wrote Halleck : " Cooper, whose name is with his country's woven, First in her files, her pioneer of mind, A wanderer now in other climes, has proven His love for the young land he left behind." It requires a love of nature, an adventurous spirit, and ah intelligent patriotism, such as, in these days- of complex asso- AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 415 ciations and fragmentary interests, are rarely found in the same individual, to observe and to write with, effect upon the scenes and the character of this republic especially those parts thereof that are removed from the great centres of trade and society. Political economists there are who will patiently nomenclate the physical resources ; sportsmen who can discourse with relish of the bivouac and the hunt, and their environment and incidents ; poetical minds alert and earnest in celebrating particular local charms : but the Amer- ican of education who delights in exploring the country and invoking its brief past in a historical point of view, while dwelling con amore upon its natural features, so as to pro- duce an animated narrative who delights in the life and takes pride in the aspect, even when least cultivated, of his native land, is the exception, not the rule, among our authors. The reasons are obvious : for the scholar there is too little of that mysterious background to the picture which enriches it with vast human interest ; to the imaginative there is too much monotony in the landscape and the experience ; to the sympathetic, too little variety and grace of character in the people ; and the man who can be eloquent in describing Italy, and vivacious in his traveller's journal in France, and speculative in discussing English manners, will prove com- paratively tame and vague when a traveller at home always excepting certain shrines of pilgrimage long consecrated to enthusiasm. He may have profound emotions at Niagara, confess the inspiration of a favorite seacoast, and expatiate upon the White Mountains with rapture ; but find a tour in any one section of the land more or less tedious and barren of interest, or, at best, yielding but vague materials for pen or talk. Exceptions to this average class, many and mem- orable, our survey of Travels in America amply indicates ; but the fact remains, that the feeling that invests Scott's novels, Wilson's sketches, the .French memoirs, the -German poets, the intense partiality, insight, and sentiment born of local attachment and national pride, has seldom impregnated our literature, especially that of travel ; for the novels of 416 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATOES. Cooper, the poems of Bryant, and other standard produc- tions in more elaborate and permanent spheres, do not invali- date the general truth. Among the native writers who, from the qualities already mentioned, have known how to make the narrative of an American tour pleasant and profitable, is Charles Fenno Hoffman, whose " Winter in the West " is quite a model of its kind. It consists of a series of letters addressed to a New York journal, describing a journey on horseback in 1835.* There was the right admixture of poet- ical and patriotic instinct, of knowledge of books and of the world, and of the love both of nature and adventure, to make him an agreeable and instructive delineator of an experience which, to many equally intelligent travellers, would have been devoid of consecutive interest. In his novels, tales, and verses, there is a positive American flavor, which shows how readily he saw the characteristic and felt the beautiful in his own country. To him the Hudson was an object of love, and the history of his native State a strong personal interest. Unspoiled by European travel, and fond of sport, of the freshness and freedom of the woods, and the independence incident to our institutions, he, although infirm, bore discom- forts with cheerfulness, easily won companionship, and de- lighted in exercise and observation. Accordingly, he notes the weather, describes the face of the country, recalls the Indian legends, speculates on the characters and modes of life, and discusses the historical antecedents, as he slowly roams over Eastern Pennsylvania, Michigan, Kentucky, Vir- ginia, and Illinois, with a lively tone and .yet not without grave sympathy. Scenery is described with a robust and graphic rather than with a dainty and rhetorical pen, obvi- ously guided by an excellent eye for local distinctions and charms ; men and manners are treated with an acute, gen- eralized, and manly criticism; the animals, the river craft, the flowers, the game, the origin and growth of towns, the aspect and resources of the country, are each and all conge- nial themes. He so enjoys the observation thereof, as to put * " A Winter in the West," by a New Yorker, 2 vols., New York, 1835. AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WKITEKS. 417 his reader in relation with himself, as he did the diverse characters he encountered in tavern, log house, military out- post, and drawing room. He is neither revolted by coarse- ness nor discouraged by inconveniences. He takes us socia- bly along a route now familiar to thousands who trav- erse it on railways with scarce a thought of the latent inter- est more tranquil observation and patient inquiry would elicit. At Detroit we are entertained by an historical epi- sode, and at Prairie du Chien with a veritable picture of military life, character, and routine in America. A conver- sation here, an anecdote there, a page of speculation now, and again one of description, something like an adventure to-day, and of curious observation to-morrow, beguile us with so cheerful and intelligent a guide, that, at the end of the journey, we are surprised it yielded so many topics of reflection and scenes of picturesque or human interest. The statistics whereby the practical inquirer, and the agencies and examples whereby the social philosopher, may decide whether Cotton is king, may be found in the books of Southern Travel in America written by Frederick Law Olmsted. The actual economical results of slave labor upon the value of property, the comfort and the dignity of life and manners, mind, domestic economy, education, religion, social welfare, tone and tendency, may there be found, co- pious, specific, and authentic. What nature is in the Cot- ton States, and life also, are therein emphasized discreetly. How the solemn pine woods balmily shade the traveller; how gracefully dangle the tylandria festoons in hoary grace ; how cheerily gleam the holly berries, and glow the negroes' fires ; how sturdily are gnarled the cypress knees ; how mag- nificent are the liveoaks, and luxuriant the magnolias, and desolate the swamps, and comfortless the dwellings, and reck less the travel, and shiftless the ways, and rare the vaunted hospitality, and obsolete the " fine old country gentleman ; " and how proud and poor, precarious and unprogessive is the civilization inwoven with slave and adjacent to free labor, is narrated without dogmatism and in matter-of-fact terms, 18* 418 AMEEICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. whence the economist, the humanitarian, the philosopher, the Christian, the reasonable man may infer and elaborate the truth, and the duty that truth involves and demands.* More desultory in scope, but not less interesting as the genuine report of calm observation, are Bryant's " Letters of a Traveller," which are fresh, agreeable, and authentic local descriptions and comments, superior in literary execu- tion, and therefore valuable as permanent records in the literature of home travel.f An important department of American Travels, and for scientific and historical objects invaluable, is the record of Government expeditions for military or exploring purposes, from the famous enterprises of Lewis and Clark to those of Simcoe, Stansbury, Kendall, Emory, Long, Marcy, Pike, Fre- mont, Bartlett, and others. Every new State and Territory has found its intelligent explorer. The vast deserts and the Rocky Mountains, the Great Salt Lake, Oregon, the Ca- manche hunting grounds, Texas, the far Western aboriginal tribes, the climate, soil, topography, &c., of the most remote and uncivilized regions of the continent, have been thus ex- amined and reported, and the narratives are often animated by graphic and picturesque scenes, or made impressive by adventure, hardship, and intrepidity. Another remarkable class of books is the long list of those devoted to California, written and published within the last ten years, whereby the life, aspect, condition, scenery, resources, and prospects of that region are as familiar to readers in the old States as if they had explored the new El Dorado. * " The Cotton Kingdom, a Traveller's Observations on Cotton and Sla- very in the American Slave States," based upon three former volumes of Jour- neys and Investigations by the same author, by Frederic Law Olmsted, 2 vols. 12mo., with a colored statistical map of the Cotton Kingdom and its Depend- encies. f " Letters of a Traveller in Europe and America," New York, 12mo. A discriminating critic observes of this work : " Mr. Bryant's style in these Letters is an admirable model of descriptive prose. Without any appearance of labor, it is finished with an exquisite grace. The genial love of nature and the lurking tendency to humor which it everywhere betrays, prevent its severe simplicity from running into hardness, and give it freshness and occa- sional glow in spite of its prevailing propriety and reserve." AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 419 The incidental records of American travel, such as may be found in the letters, diaries, and memoirs of our own civic leaders and military or political heroes, are not the least characteristic or suggestive As a specimen, let us refer to the notes of our peerless Chief in New England, when on his Presidential tour. Here is a glimpse of Connecticut as it appeared to the practical eye of Washington in 1789. In his Diary, he says, under date of October 16th of that year: "About seven o'clock we left the widow Haviland's, and, after passing Horse Neck, six miles distant from Rye, the road through which is hilly and immensely stony, and trying to wheels and carriages, we breakfasted at Stamford, which is six miles farther, at one Webb's a tolerable good house. In this town are an Episcopal church and a meeting house. At Nor- walk, which is ten miles farther, we made a halt to feed our horses. To the lower end of this town sea vessels come, and at the other end are mills, stores, and an Episcopal and Pres- byterian church. From hence to Fairfield, where we dined and lodged, is twelve miles, and part of it very rough road, but not equal to Horse Neck. The superb landscape, how- ever, which is to be seen from the meeting house of the lat- ter, is a rich regalia. We found all the farmers busily em- ployed in gathering, grinding, and expressing the juice of their apples. The average crop of wheat, they say, is about fifteen bushels to the acre, often twenty, and from that to twenty-five. The destructive evidences of British cruelty are yet visible both at Norwalk and Fairfield, as there are the chimneys of many burnt houses standing yet. The principal export from Norwalk and Fairfield is horses and cattle, salted beef and pork, lumber and Indian corn for the West Indies, and, in a small degree, wheat and flour." "Commenced my journey," he writes* on the 15th of October, 1789, " about nine o'clock, for Boston and the East- ern States." He did not reach that city until noon of the * " Diary from the 1st of October, 1789, until the 10th of March, 1790," printed by the Bradford Club from the original manuscripts, New York, 1858. 420 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 23d ; and it is curious to read of the frequent halts for meals, to feed the horses, or to pass the night, on a route we are accustomed to pass over in as many hours as days were then employed. Washington makes agricultural and topographi- cal notes, and in many respects we recognize the same traits of industry, and identify the face of the country ; while in others the contrast is remarkable. He notes a linen manufacture at New Haven, white mul- berry " to feed silkworms " at Wallingford, and remarks that the silk culture, " except the weaving, is the work of private families, without interference with other business, and is likely to turn out a beneficial amusement." At Hartford, Colonel Wadsworth showed him the wool- len factory, and specimens of broadcloth. "I ordered a suit," he writes, u and of the serges a whole piece, to make breeches for my servants." Continuing his journey, he ob- serves " the whole road from Hartford to Springfield is level and good, except being too sandy in places, and the fields enclosed with posts and rails, there not being much stone." He is met often by mounted escorts of gentlemen, is enter- tained by the local officials, and receives addresses from the towns. Of his impressions of the State, we may form an idea by the casual entries in his brief diary : " There is great equality in the people of this State few or no opulent men, and no poor ; great similitude in their buildings, the general fashion of which is a chimney always of stone or brick, and door in the middle, with a staircase fronting the latter, and running up the side of the former two flush stones with a very good show of sash and glass windows ; the size gen- erally is from thirty to forty feet in length, and from twenty to thirty in width, exclusive of a back shed, which seems to be added as the family increases. The farms, by the contigu- ity of the houses, are small, not averaging more than a hun- dred acres. They are worked chiefly by oxen, which have no other food than hay." At Portsmouth he " went in a boat to view the harbor. Having lines, we proceeded to the fishing banks and fished AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 421 for cod, and only caught two. Dined at Mr. Langdon's, and drank tea there with a large party of ladies. There are some good houses here, but, in general, they are indifferent, and almost entirely of wood. On wondering at this, as the coun- try is full of stone and good clay for bricks, I was told that, on account of the fogs and damps, they deemed them whole- sorner." At Exeter, he writes, " a jealousy subsists between this town, where the legislature alternately sits, and Portsmouth ; which, had I known it in time, would have made it necessary to have accepted an invitation to a public dinner." " In Haverhill is a duck manufactory upon a small but ingenious scale." At Boston he went to an oratorio, and was entertained at Faneuil Hall, " dined in a large company at Mr. Bowdoin's, and went to an assembly in the evening, where " there were upward of a hundred ladies. Their appearance was elegant, and many of them very handsome." Another attractive branch of this subject may be found in commemorative addresses a peculiar and prolific occasion of local reminiscences and comparisons in America. Com- pare, for instance, the descriptions of New York by Mrs. Knight, Brissot, or Wansey, with those of Dr. Francis * or General Dix f in their historical discourses ; or the pictures of Albany by Mrs. Grant and Kalm, with the recollections thereof in his boyhood so genially imparted by the late Judge Kent ; J or Irving' s epistolary account of his first voyage up the Hudson with his last trip to the Lakes, and we have the most complete historical contrasts and local transi- tions, and realize by what means and methods the vast social and economical changes have taken place. * " Old New York," a Discourse delivered before the New York Historical Society, by John W. Francis, M. D., LL. D., in commemoration of the Fifty- third Anniversary, New York, 1857. f " The City of New York, its Growth, Destiny, and Duties," a Lecture by John A. Dix, before the New York Historical Society New York, 1853. \ " An Address Delivered before the Young Men's Association of Albany, February 7, 1854," by William Kent, New York, 1854. 422 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. Of the countless books of Western travel and adventyre, one of the most spirited and authentic is Mrs. Kirkland's " New Home : Who '11 Follow ? " to which were subse- quently added her " Forest Life " and " Western Clearings." The " delightful humor and keen observation " of the former work made it an established favorite as a true reflection of life in the West at its initiatory stage. As a picture of travel in the same region, Washington Irving's "Tour on the Prairies " is the most finished and suggestive. ' It is an unpretending account, comprehending a period of about four weeks, of travelling and hunting excursions upon the vast Western plains. The local features of this interest- ing region have been displayed to us in several works of fiction, of which it has formed the scene ; and more for- mal illustrations of the extensive domain denominated The West, and its denizens, have been repeatedly presented to the public. But in this volume one of the most extraordinary and attractive portions of the great subject is discussed, not as the subsidiary part of a romantic story, nor yet in the des- ultory style of epistolary composition, but in the deliberate, connected form of a retrospective narration. When we say that the " Tour on the Prairies " is rife with the characteristics of its author, no ordinary eulogium is bestowed. His graphic power is manifest throughout. The boundless prairies stretch out illimitably to the fancy, as the eye scans his descriptions. The athletic figures of the riflemen, the gayly arrayed Indians, the heavy buffalo and the graceful deer, pass in strong relief and startling contrast before us. We are stirred by the bus- tle of the camp at dawn, and soothed by its quiet, or delighted with its picturesque aspect under the shadow of night. The imagination revels amid the green oak clumps and verdant pea vines, the expanded plains and the glancing river, the forest aisles and the silent stars. Nor is this all. Our hearts thrill at the vivid representations of a primitive and excur- sive existence ; we involuntarily yearn, as we read, for the genial activity and the perfect exposure to the influences of nature in all her free magnificence, of a woodland and ad- AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 423 venturous life ; the morning strain of the bugle, the excite- ment of the chase, the delicious repast, the forest gossiping, the sweet repose beneath the canopy of heaven how in- viting, as depicted by such a pencil ! Nor has the author failed to invigorate and render doubly attractive these descriptive drawings, with the peculiar light and shade of his own rich humor, and the mellow softness of his ready sympathy. A less skilful draughtsman would, perhaps, in the account of the preparations for departure (Chapter III.), have spoken of the hunters, the fires, and the steeds ; but who, except Geoffrey Crayon, would have been so quaintly mindful of the little dog, and the manner in which he regarded the operations of the farrier ? How inimitably the Bee Hunt is portrayed ! and what have we of the kind so racy as the account of the Republic of Prairie Dogs, unless it be that of the Rookery in Bracebridge Hall? What expressive portraits are the delineations of our rover's companions ! How consistently drawn throughout, and in what fine contrast, are the reserved and saturnine Beatte, and the vain-glorious, sprightly, and versatile Tonish ! A golden vein of vivacious yet chaste comparison that beautiful yet rarely well-managed species of wit and a wholesome and pleasing sprinkling of moral comment that delicate and often most eificacious medium of useful impressions inter- twine and vivify the main narrative. Something, too, of that fine pathos which enriches his earlier productions, en- hances the value of this. He tells us, indeed, with com- mendable honesty, of his new appetite for destruction, which the game of the prairie excited ; but we cannot fear for the tenderness of a heart that sympathizes so readily with suffer- ing, and yields so gracefully to kindly impulses. He gazes upon the noble courser of the wilds, and wishes that his free- dom may be perpetuated ; he recognizes the touching instinct which leads the wounded elk to turn aside and die in retiracy ; he reciprocates the attachment of the beast which sustains him, and, more than all, can minister even to the foibles of a fellow being, rather than mar the transient reign of human pleasure.' 424 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. A candid and earnest inquirer, one who seeks to under- stand the facts and phases of nature, society, and life, past and present, in North America, will find that native talent, observation, and industry have done more to unfold and illus- trate them than is generally known even by educated men. Our literature includes not only ample historical materials and contributions to natural history, but aesthetic and artistic writings, elucidating local scenery and character ; not only economical and topographical books, but standard poems on national themes, and many other generic illustrations of the country and the people. No philosophical traveller, who aims at a true knowledge of the country he explores, is satisfied with a casual observation of its external features, but seeks to realize its life and character, in history, biography, ro- mance, art, and poetry. The lives and writings of the remarkable men who origi- nated and established the principles, while they illustrated the spirit of America and her political aspirations, form the most authentic and interesting sources of knowledge. Through these the historical and social development of the country may be not only understood, but felt as a conscious experi- ence and vital power. The best modern statesmen have sought and found therein auspicious inspiration from Brougham in the days of his liberal proclivities, to Cavour at the summit of national success. The lives and writings of Washington, Franklin, Otis, Marshall, Jay, Hamilton, Adams, Jefferson, Morris, Quincy, Sullivan, and others of the Revolutionary era ; and, of a later, Livingston, Clinton, Clay, Webster, Calhoun, Jackson,* and other civic leaders, * " The Writings of George Washington," being his correspondence, addresses, messages, and other papers, official and private, selected and pub- lished from the original manuscripts, with a Life of the Author, notes and illustrations, by Jared Sparks, 12 vols. 8vo., Boston, 1855. ".'Far across the ocean, if we may credit the Sibylline books, and after many ages, an exten- sive and rich continent will be discovered, and in it will arise a hero, wise and brave, who, by his counsel and arms, will deliver his country from the slavery by which she was oppressed. This shall he do under favorable auspices. And oh ! how much more adorable will he be than our Brutus and Camillas.' This AMEEICAN TKAVELLEKS AND WEITEES. 425 reveal the principles of our institutions in their normal, an- tagonistic, and practical relations. These men incarnate them, and their words illustrate and enforce what their ex- ample embodied. Representative men, their country's best aims and elemental force and instincts find adequate and memorable expression in their speeches, correspondence, con- troversies, policy, and character ; and whosoever grasps and analyzes these, is alone equipped and authorized to comment intelligently on America as a political entity and a social ex- periment. "Let the people of the United States," writes Guizot, " ever hold in grateful remembrance the leading men of that generation which achieved their independence and founded their Government ; influential by their property, talent, or character ; faithful to ancient virtues, yet friendly to modern improvement ; sensible to the splendid advantages prediction was known to Accius the poet, who, in his ' Nyctegresia,' embel- lished it with the ornaments of poetry." Cicero, Frag. XV., Mail ed., p. 52. " The Life of George Washington," by Washington Irving, New York, 1860. " The Works of Benjamin Franklin," with notes, and a Life of the Au- thor, by Jared Sparks, in 10 vols. 8vo., Boston, 1856. " Life and Works of John Adams," by his grandson, Charles Francis Adams, 9 vols. 8vo., Boston, 1851-'60. " Works of Alexander Hamilton," comprising his correspondence and his official and political writings, 7 vols. 8vo., New York, 1851. " The Life of Gouverneur Morris," with selections from his correspond- ence, &c., edited by Jared Sparks, 3 vols. 8vo., Boston, 1852. "" The Public Men of the Revolution," including events from the Peace of 1783 to the Peace of 1815, by William Sullivan, Philadelphia, 1847. "Memoir of the Life of Josiah Quincy, Jr.," Boston, 1825. " Life of John Jay, with Selections from his Correspondence," by William Jay, New York, 1833. Tudor's "Life of Otis;" Amory's "Life of Sullivan;" Hunt's "Life of Livingston ; " Wirt's " Life of Patrick Henry ; " Austin's " Life of Gerry ; " Wheaton's " Life of Pinckney ; " Parton's " Life of Jackson ; " Kennedy's "Life of Wirt;" The Naval Biographies of Cooper and Mackenzie; " Lives of American Merchants," edited by Freeman Hunt ; " Life of Chief Justice Story," by his son ; Sparks's series of American Biographies ; the Lives of Schuyler. Rittenhouse, Fulton, Madison, Reed, Clay, Calhoun, &c. ; and the historical and biographical contributions of William L. Stone, Branta Mayer, George W. Greene, Frothingham, Headley, Moore, and others. 426 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. of civilization, and yet attached to simplicity of manners ; high toned in their feelings, but of modest minds, at the same time ambitious and prudent in their impulses ; men of rare endowments, who expected much from humanity, without presuming too much upon themselves." ! The later generation of statesmen elaborated the system and illustrated the prin- ciples of these peerless men ; and the combined writings and memoirs of both constitute an essential and complete expres- sion and indication of all the vital ideas and political sympa- thies of which America has been the free arena. To these personal data, so emphatic and illustrious, the philosophic in- quirer will add the history of the country, whether unfolded with bold generalizations and effective rhetoric, and through extensive and minute research, as by Bancroft,- tersely chroni- cled by Hildreth, drawn from personal observation by Ham- say, or treated in special phases by Curtis, Cooper, Dunlap, Lossing, Sparks, and others.* The local histories, also, are in many instances full of im- portant details and illustrative principles : such are Theodore Irving's " Conquest of Florida," Palfrey's " New England," Belknap's " New Hampshire," Williains's " Vermont," Ar- nold's "Rhode Island," Dwight's "Connecticut," Dr. Hawks's " North Carolina," Butler's " Kentucky," Drake's " Boston," Bolton's " Westchester County," and the contributions of the religious annals of the country in the history of Methodism * Cooper's " Naval History of the United States ; " Curtis's " History .of the Constitution ;" Parkman's "Conspiracy of Pontiac." " Dunlap's "His- tory of the American Theatre, and of the Arts of Design in the United States." Lossing's " Field Book of the Revolution." " Thirty Years' View ; or, A History of the Workings of the American Government for Thirty Years, from 1820 to 1850," by Thomas H. Benton. " The Writings of Thomas Jeffei-son," published from original manu- scripts, by order of Congress, Washington, 1853, 9 vols. 8vo. " The Works of Daniel Webster," Boston, 185Y, 6 vols. 8vo. " Correspondence of the American Revolution," edited by Sparks. " Diplomacy of the Revolution," by W. H. Trescott. " Correspondence and Speeches of Henry Clay," edited by C. Colton, New York, 3 vols. 8vo., 1851. Upham's " Salem Witchcraft." Thatcher's " Military Journal during the Revolution." AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WEITEES. 427 by Abel Stevens, of the Presbyterian Church by Hodge, of Universalism by Whittemore, of Episcopacy by Meade, Hawks, and Jarvis ; and the history of manufactures, inven- tions, and educational institutions and public charities. It is instructive to consult the county and town histories of the Eastern and Middle States, because they unfold in detail the process and method of municipal organization, the means of popular education, the initiation of manufacturing and commercial enterprise, and the religious and social arrangements, which have built up small and isolated com- munities into flourishing cities ; and, if we compare the French and Spanish accounts of Florida and Louisiana with the American, a still more striking illustration is afforded of the practical superiority of free institutions. One of the latest historians of the latter State (where secession was so lately rampant) closes his narrative, in allusion to the foreign colonial rule, thus : " There were none of those associations not a link of that mys- tic chain connecting the present with the past which produce an attachment to locality. It was not when a poor colony, and when given away like a farm, that she prospered. This miracle was to be the consequence of the apparition of a banner which was not in existence at the time, which was to be the labarum of the advent of liberty, the harbinger of the regeneration of nations, and which was to form so important an era in the history of mankind." * Specific information is now attainable through a series of standard works of reference. Authentic statistical and offi- cial information in regard to North America may be gleaned from the American Almanac, Hunt's Merchants Magazine, and Cotton's " Atlas." The natural resources, geographical and political history, and remarkable public characters of each State and section are thoroughly chronicled in the " New American Cyclopedia," a work specially valuable for its scientific and biographical data. Putnam's "American Facts " is a copious and authentic work. The literary and * Gayarr^s " History of Louisiana." 428 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. educational history of the country is elaborately unfolded in Duyckinck's " Cyclopaedia of American Literature." * General literature offers a various and creditable cata- logue of American works, wherein independence of investiga- tion or originality of thought attests the impulse which free institutions give to private culture. In the department of pure literary labor, where faithful mastery of subjects for illustration must be sought afar, and with constant labor and care, the histories of Prescott, Ticknor, and Motley may be cited as of standard European interest and value. In juridi- cal literature, Marshall, Kent, Story, Wheaton, Livingston, Webster, and other names are of established authority ; and while, in the philosophy of our vernacular, Marsh, and, in its lexicography, Webster and Worcester, have achieved signal triumphs, the number and excellence of American educa- tional manuals are proverbial. Of the political treatises, the * Niles's " Weekly Register " commenced being published September 7, 1811, and ended June 27, 1849; making, in all, 76 volumes. The first 50 volumes were edited by Hezekiah Niles ; vols. 61 to 57 were edited by William Ogden Niles. Jeremiah Hough bought out, and was editor to the end of vol. 73. The publication was then suspended for one year, and re- commenced, and ended with the editorship of George Beattie, in 1849. This information I have from the celebrated bibliopolist of periodical litera- ture, S. G. Deeth, late of Georgetown, D. C., who was the highest authority on subjects of this kind. (rowans' Catalogue. "American Facts, Notes, and Statistics relative to the Government, Re- sources, &c., of the United States," by George P. Putnam, 8vo., portrait of Washington, and map, London, 1845. "American Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowledge," from 1830 to 1860, both inclusive, forming a complete set, paper covers, Boston, 1830-'60. " The abovenamed series of volumes forms the only consecutive annals of the United States for the last thirty-one years. They possess intrinsic value to all who would desire accurate information concerning the country during that period." "National Almanac,'! Philadelphia, 1863-'4. " The Census of the United States ; " Reports of the Patent Office and Agricultural Bureau. " New American Cyclopedia : A Popular Dictionary of General Knowl- edge," edited by George Ripley and Charles A. Dana, in 16 vols., New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1862. " Cyclopaedia of American Literature," by E. A. and G. L. Duyckinck, 2 vols., New York, Charles Scribner, 1855. AMERICAN TEAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 429 Federalist * has become a classic memorial of the foundation of the American Government. The prescience and per- spicacity as well as comprehensiveness of the writers thereof have been signally demonstrated by the whole history of the Slaveholders' Rebellion ; and the political discussion inci- dent to its suppression. The archives of American oratory contain, for the saga- cious explorer, clear reflections of and genuine emanations from the life, the discipline, and the physical and moral con- ditions peculiar to the country. Indeed, to understand how democratic institutions act on individual minds, and in what light the duties of the citizen are viewed by select intelli- gences, the foreign inquirer should become familiar with the eloquence of Otis, Henry, Rutledge, Marshall, Adams, Clay, Ames, Hamilton, Webster, and Everett. It requires no great effort of the imagination to behold in the distant future a literary apotheosis for the orations of Daniel Webster, at Bunker Hill, Plymouth, and in the Sen- ate, akin to that which has rendered those of Cicero patriotic classics for all time. Even we of the present generation seem to hear the oracle of history as well as of eloquence, when we revert, in the midst of the base mutiny that rends the Republic, to the pregnant and prescient defence of the Union which identifies Webster's name and fame with the glory and love of his country. Everett's Addresses, which form three substantial octavo volumes,! and will doubtless extend to four, constitute the most complete and eloquent record of the social and political development of our country. Their scope and value, in this regard, would have been more emphatically acknowledged but for the desultory association which identifies all spoken history and criticism with temporary occasions. Yet, when we consider that these discourses were studiously prepared to * "The Federalist : A Collection of Essays written in favor of the New Constitution, as agreed upon by the Federal Convention, September 17, 1787." f " Orations and Speeches on Various Occasions," 3 vols. 8vo., Boston, 1850. 430 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. celebrate anniversaries of settlements and battles, to do honor to national benefactors, to inaugurate great movements in education and charity, being thus equally commemorative of the past and indicative of the future, it is obvious that their subjects include the most salient facts and inferences of our origin, growth, and tendencies as a people,- and bring attrac- tively into view many local and personal incidents that other- wise would have been overlooked. Accordingly, apart from any rhetorical merit, we know of no single work which will convey to an intelligent foreigner, a better general idea of the memorable phases of our national development, and the prin- ciples whereby it has been inspired, sustained, modified, and characterized, than the orations and speeches of Edward Everett.* Indeed, to specify the kind and degree of information and illustration which native writers have contributed, would re- quire an elaborate critical essay. They form a mine of sug- gestive knowledge or subtile revelation to those who have the insight and sympathy to seek from original sources, the truth of history, nature, and character as regards this country. They are, to the mass of American Travels, what the finished picture is to the desultory series of offhand sketches from nature ; or what the musical composition is to the casual airs or keynote of the maestro. However the authenticity of Cooper's aboriginal ideals may be questioned, or with what- ever justice his nautical descriptions may be criticized, no true observer of nature, familiar with the scenes of his sto- ries, can fail to recognize a minute and conscientious limner of local and natural features and facts in his pictures of the woods and waters of his native land. No American reader of sensibility and perception can ponder the poems of Bryant, in a foreign land, without a new, vivid, and grateful consciousness of the pure and truthful mirror his verse affords, not only to the forms, hues, and phenomena, but to the very spirit of * A glance at the titles of these Addresses will indicate how completely they cover the entire range of American subjects historical, educational, economical, and social. AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 431 American seasons and scenery. There is an undercurrent of pathos and psychology in the New England romances of Hawthorne, which seizes on the inmost soul of her primitive life, and philosophically explains the normal traits of her actual character. It has been objected to his writings, that, with all their artistic truth and delicacy, they are morbid in tone. This is the natural consequence of the element to which we refer. Analysis like his, implies going beneath the vital superficies to the inward function ; and what such an experiment loses in art, it gains in metaphysical power. The " Blithedale Romance " illustrates the enthusiasm for reform and of transcendentalism in New England. " The House of the Seven Gables " and " Twice-Told Tales " contain the psychological essence of primitive New England life. In the " Scarlet Letter " there is a profound though indirect protest against the inhumanity of Puritanism, as it was developed in the old Bay State a demonstration of the unchristian system and sentiment that fail to temper justice with mercy, and to recognize the blessed efficiency of forgiveness. No native writer has gone so near the latent significance of New Eng- land life, in its moral interest and historical relations. Numerous, also, are the less finished and more casual but often striking and true glimpses of the primitive character or normal traits of life, manners, and natural influences in dif- ferent sections and at various periods, which the published cor- respondence, the memoirs and reminiscences, and the literary efforts of our public men, scholars, and patriotic citizens, yield. The unartistic but deeply wrought romance of " Mar- garet," by Judd, is a kind of Balzac anatomy and analysis of a once singular human experience in the Eastern States. The exquisite and original illustrations with which this remark- able story inspired the pencil of Darley, are its best praise. Many of the historical episodes, the transition eras, and much of the local character and scenery and life of the coun- try, have been pictured with memorable truth and vividness by our romance writers. Irving and Paulding have thus illustrated New York colonial times, the legends and the pic- 432 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. turesque scenes as well as social traits of the State ; Simms those of the South ; Kennedy has thus illustrated Virginia ; Dr. Bird, Kentucky ; Hoffman, the Valley of the Mohawk ; Miss Sedgwick, primitive New England; Mrs. Stowe, Sar- gent, Trowbridge, and others, slavery ; Flint, the Valley of the Mississippi ; McConnell, Texas ; Mayne Reid, frontier life ; Major Winthrop, the Rocky Mountains ; Miss Warner, Miss Chesebro', and others of their sex, the rural and charac- teristic life of the Eastern States ; and we might indefinitely extend the catalogue. Nor should the peculiar veins of humor indigenous to the country be forgotten as character- istic of the people its Western, Yankee, negro, and Dutch phases ; nor the fact be ignored that, coincident with this and similar rude and extravagant development, we have the fin- ished romances of Ware and Poe, and the refined critical and aesthetic writings of Dana, Hillhouse, Allston, Greenough, and Madame d'Ossoli, and the bold humanitarian speculations of Emerson, Dewey, James, Calvert, and others. Personal memoirs and reminiscences are a rich mine of facts and influ- ences, whereby the true life and significance of America may be realized. Of the former, such biographies as those of the heroes of our history conserved in the series of Sparks;* such lives as those of Buckminster and Chief- Justice Parsons, of Irving and Prescott, indirectly exhibit the spirit of our institutions and society ; while curious details thereof abound in such memoirs as Graydon's, and such recollections as Watson of Philadelphia, Manlius Sargent and Buckingham of Boston, and Dr. Francis of New York, and Thomas, Alden, Goodrich, Valentine, and the " Croakers," have re- corded.f * Sparks's " American Biography," containing the Lives of Alexander Wilson, Captain John Smith, John Stark, Brockden Brown, General Mont- gomery, and Ethan Allen, 2 vols. 12mo., Boston, 1834. Sparks's "American Biography," first series, 10 vols., second series, 15 vols., in all, 25 vols. 12mo., Boston, 1834-'50. f Watson's " Annals ; " " Dealings with the Dead," l>y an Old Sexton ; Buckingham's " Recollections of Editorial Life ; " " Old New York," by J. W. AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 433 Such works preserve social incidents and vigorous chap- ters of individual experience, wherein the philosopher will discover salient evidences of what is peculiar to this land and life ; and the poet may sometimes learn what were the con- servative elements that moulded the mental and kept alive the emotional character, the traits of natural scenery, climate, and domestic love and duty, as well as the struggles, guides, and glamours through and by which here grew or were grafted whatsoever of originality redeem the social and civic history of the New World. Pamphlets, newspapers, and sermons, ballads, playbills, diaries and letters, schoolbooks, holidays, old houses, gardens, portraits, and costumes, to the eye of science and the heart of wisdom, each and all convey their lesson of character, history, and life. We have spoken of Cooper in prose, and Bryant in verse, as standard authorities in the description and illustration of American scenery ; but, throughout our native literature, the most graphic pictures of individual landscapes, of the sea- sons in the Western world, and the most glowing exhibition of the traits and triumphs of life, character, and history, may be found by the discerning and sympathetic reader. The spirit of reform, of labor, of freedom, and of faith, as well as the characteristics of nature as here developed, have been truly and melodiously recorded by Whittier and Holmes, by Dana and Pierpont, by Sprague and Street, by Longfel- low and Lowell, by Drake, Percival, Halleck, and a score of other bards. Theology, as intensified or chastened by the social life and political institutions of the country, is elabo- rated in the writings of Jonathan Edwards, Cotton, Mayhew, Stiles, Dwight, Witherspoon, Emmons, White, Mason, Hop- kins, Miller, Woods, Alexander, Breckenridge, Wayland, Francis, M. D. ; Thatcher's " Military Journal ; " Thomas's " History offrint- ing in America ; " Alden's " Collection of American Epitaphs ; " " Recollec- tions of a Lifetime," by S. G. Goodrich ; " Manuals of the Common Council of New York," by D. T. Valentine ; " The Croakers," by J. R. Drake and Fitz Greene Halleck (annotated), first complete edition, printed by the Brad- ford Club, New York, 1860. 19 434: AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. Murray, Parks, Walker, Bethune, Chapin, Hodge, Bushnell, Bush, Charming, Dewey, Parker, and many other representa- tive men ; and its every dogma and modification through free- dom, conservatism, and speculation, exhibited in the published discourses of these and other of the leading clergy of all de- nominations, whose biographies,* also, written by Dr. Sprague and others, incidentally reveal the most interesting and charac- teristic details of clerical and parish life as well as domestic traits. To appreciate intimately the picturesque, social, or tra- ditional local features of the country, we have a group of authen- tic and graceful or vigorous and sympathetic writers, who have sketched the scenery and life of the land with memorable emphasis : Brown, Dennie, Tudor, Wirt, Irving, and Wilson have been succeeded by Audubon, Kennedy, Fay, Longfel- low, Hoffman, Sands, Willis, Curtis, Mitchell, Street, Prime, Ellet, Poe, Neal, Elliot, Hammond, Lowell, Shelton, Mil- burn, Thorpe, Baldwin, Cozzens, Kettell, Bard, Mackie, Headley, Parkman, Mrs. Gilman, Starr King, Str others, Tay- lor, Webber, the Countess d'Ossoli, Whitehead, Kimball, Holland, Lanman, Mrs. Childs, Thoreau, Higginson, Miss Cooper, Dr. Holmes, and many others. f Perhaps there is no class of books more characteristic of the American mind than the numerous records of modern exploration and travel. Herein even British critics acknowl- edge a peculiar freshness and vigor ; and this is chiefly owing to the independent point of view, the natural spirit of ad- venture, and facility of adaptation incident to the freedom, self-reliance, and elasticity of temper fostered by our institu- * " Annals of the American Pulpit," by William B. Sprague, D. D., 9 vols. 8vo., New York, 1857. f Among the graphic landscapes, portraits, and incidents thus eliminated from life and observation by these writers, we may mention, as significant and illustrative, the American papers in " The Sketch Book " and " Idle Man," "Kavanagh," "Letters from Under a Bridge," "Up the River," "Woods and Waters," "The Adirondack," "Rural Letters," "The Bee Hunter," "The Axe, Rifle, and Saddle Bags," "My Farm of Edgewood," "Wild Scenes of the Forest and Prairie," " Lotus Eating," " A Summer Tour to the Lakes," " The White Mountains," " At Home and Abroad," " Fireside Trav- AMERICAN TEAVELLEE8 AND WRITERS. 435 tions and social discipline. Europe kindles the enthusiasm, Central America excites. the 'speculative hardihood, and the Arctic regions inspire the adventurous heroism of our coun- trymen. What they see they know how to describe, and what they feel they can express with courage and animation ; so that, in the memorials of other lands, the native mind often reflects itself with singular force and fervor.* He would miss a great source of knowledge, who, intent upon seizing the true significance of American life and character, or even the influences of nature and government, of trade and travel, should ignore the journalism of the country, wherein the immediate currents of opinion, tendencies of society, and tone of feeling, both radical and conservative, reckless and disciplined, find crude and casual yet authentic utterance. Freneau's ballads should not be thought beneath the no- tice of the candid investigator, nor even Barlow's " Hasty Pudding ; " nor can the historical student safely neglect the aboriginal eloquence of Red Jacket and Tecumseh, nor the early periodical literature initiated by Dennie. He may con- sult with benefit the first scientific essays of Catesby, Ram- say, Williamson, Golden, and Mitchell ; Espy and Redfield on els," " Walden, or Life in the Woods," " A Week on the Concord and Mer- rimac Rivers," "The Moravian Settlement at Bethlehem, Pa.," "Carolina Sports," "Hunting Adventures in the Northern Wilds," " Excursions in Field and Forest," "Life in the Open Air," "At Home and Abroad," " Blackwater Chronicle," " Out-of-Door Papers," " Letters from New York," " Wild Sports of the South," " Rural Hours," " Letters from the Alleghany Mountains," "The Oregon Trail," "Poetry of Travel in New England," " Autocrat of the Breakfast Table," " From Cape Cod to the Tropics, " &c. * Indirectly, the literature of America illustrates the original enterprise that, with free and bold aspiration, seeks new and laborious fields of research or creation : as instances of which, in the most diverse spheres, may be noted the translation of the great work of Laplace, by Bowditch, Dr. Robinson's " Biblical Researches in Palestine," Kane's " Arctic Expedition," Allibone's " Dictionary of Authors," that picturesque memorial of the Fur Trade, Irving's " Astoria," and Dr. Rush on the " Human Voice ; " while the litera- ture of Travel in our vernacular has been enriched by the contributions of Stephens, Brace, Fletcher, Wise, Melville, Mackenzie, Dana, Mayo, and Taylor. 436 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. Climatology ; Hitchcock and Rogers on Geology ; Barton, Nuttall, arid Grey and Torrey on Bptany ; Davis, Squier, and others on the Mounds ; Schoolcraft on the aborigines; Carey on economical subjects ; the newspaper and diary literature, familiar letters, and controversial pamphlets, which more than highly finished productions bear the fresh stamp of civil and social life, and have been wisely collected by local and State associations, to facilitate inquiries into the past of America.* Nor have our institutions and social tendencies lacked the highest native criticism. One of the most consistent, lucid, and able ethical authors in the language William Ellery Channing has left, in his writings,f the most eloquent pro- tests and appeals, based on the application of religion and philosophy to American life, character, and politics. No writer has more perfectly demonstrated the absolute wrong and the inevitable consequences of slavery ; and, at the same time, no social reformer has more justly appreciated the claims, difficulties, and duties of the slaveholder. We seek in vain among the most renowned foreign critics of our national character for a more unsparing, earnest, yet humane analyst. Channing rebuked emphatically " the bigotry of republicanism ; " continually pointed out the inadequacy of government, in itself, to elevate and mould society; he warned his countrymen, in memorable terms, against the tyranny of public opinion, and advocated the rights, respon- sibilities, and mission of the individual. When slavery ex- tension was sought through the annexation of Texas ; when the repudiation of State debts drew obloquy upon the na- tional honor ; when popular vengeance burned a Roman * Among the early pamphleteers were James Otis (l725-'83), Josiah Quincy, Jr. (1744-'75), John Dickinson (1732-1808); Joseph Galloway (1730-1803), a Tory writer; Richard Henry Lee (l732-'94), Arthur Lee (1740-'92), William Livingston (1723-'90), William Henry Drayton (1742- '99), John Adams (1735-1826), Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), and Timothy Pickering (1748-1829). f "Complete Works," with an Introduction, 6 vols. 12mo., Boston, 1849. "Memoirs of, by W. H. Channing," 3 vols. 12mo., Boston, 1843, London, 1848. AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 437 Catholic convent, and sought to suppress journals that pro- mulgated obnoxious views in religion and politics this elo- quent friend of humanity seized the opportunity to show how essential is the dependence of government, order, social progress, and peace upon Christianity ; and how, in the last analysis, the individual citizen alone could sustain and con- serve the freedom and the faith upon which human society rests. He referred great public questions to first principles ; solved political problems by spiritual truths ; recognized human rights as the foundation of civic rule ; justice as the one vital element of government ; and made his hearers and readers feel that the " forms of liberty do not constitute its essence." Were we to select a single illustration of the divine possibilities incident to free institutions, liberty of conscience and of the press, the presence of nature in her most grand aspects of ocean, forest, and heavens, and an equal scope for social and personal development, considering these national privileges in their influence upon intellectual development and religious aspirations, we should point to the example, the influence, and the written thought of Chan- ning ; for therein we find the most unfettered expression of private conviction united to the deepest sense of God and humanity ; the freshest expansion of freedom combined with the most profound consciousness of individual responsibility. CHAPTEE XI. CONCLUSION. FOB many years after the earlier records of travel in America, the local and social traits therein described lin- gered ; so that those who look back half a century, find many familiar and endeared associations revived by these casual memorials of an antecedent period. Two principal agencies have caused the rapid transition in outward aspect and social conditions which make the present and the past offer so great a contrast even within the space of an average American life immigration, and locomotive facilities. The first has, in a brief space, -quadrupled the population of cities, and modified its character by a foreign element ; and the second, by bringing the suburban and interior residents con- stantly to the seaboard, has gradually won them to traffic and city life. What was individual and characteristic, exclusive and local therein, becomes thus either changed or superseded. There is no longer the reign of coteries ; individualities are lost in the crowd ; natives of old descent are jostled aside in the thoroughfare; the few no longer form public opinion; distinctions are generalized ; the days of the one great states- man, preacher, actor, doctor, merchant, social oracle, and paramount belle, when opinion, intercourse, and character were concentrated, localized, and absolute, have passed away ; and the repose, the moderation, the economy, the geniality and dignity of the past are often lost in gregarious progress CONCLUSION. 439 and prosperity. A venerable reminiscent may lead the curious stranger to some obscure gable-roofed house, a solitary and decayed tree, or border relic strangely conserved in the heart of a thriving metropolis, and descant on the time when these represented isolated centres of civilization. Standing in a busy mart, he may recall there the wilderness of his youth, and, before an old, dignified portrait by Copley, lament the fusion of social life and the bustle of modern pretension ; or, dwelling on the details of an ancestral letter, argue that, if our fathers moved slower, they felt and thought more and realized life better than their descendants, however superior in general knowledge. Except for the purpose of literary art and historical study, however, the past is rarely appreciated and little known; hence the curious interest and value, as local illustrations, of some of these forgotten memorials of how places looked and people lived before the days of steam, telegraphs, and penny papers. Sir Henry Holland, writes Lockhart to Prescott, " on his return from his rapid expedition, declares, except friends, he found everything so changed, that your country seemed to call for a visit once in five years." The truth is, that, owing to the transition process which has been going on here from the day that the first conflict occurred between European colonists and the savage inhabitants, to the departure of the last emigrant train from the civilized border to the passes of the Rocky Mountains ; and owing, also, to the incessant influx of a foreign element in the older communities, to the results of popular education and of political excitements and vicissitudes, there is jio country in the world in regard to which it is so difficult to generalize. Exceptions to every rule, modifications of every special feature and fact, oblige the candid philosopher to reconsider and qualify at every step. One vast change alone in the conditions and prospects political, social, and economical of this continent, since the records of the early travellers, would require a volume to describe and discuss the increase of territory and of immi- 440 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. gration, with the liberal character of our naturalization laws. Whole communities now are nationally representative ; each people finds its church, its fetes, its newspaper, costume, and habits organized in America. Every convulsion or disaster abroad brings its community of exiles to our shores. After the French Revolution, nobles and people flocked hither; after the massacre at St. Domingo, the Creoles who escaped found refuge here ; famine sends thousands of Irish annually, and in the West is a vast and thrifty German population ; Hungarians make wine in Ohio ; Jenny Lind found her coun- trymen on the banks of the Delaware ; an Italian regiment was organized in a few days, when New York summoned her citizens to the defence of the Union ; and in that city, the tokens of every nationality are apparent the French table d'hote, the Italian caffe, the German beer garden, image venders from Genoa and organ grinders from Lucca, theatres, journals, churches, music, and manners peculiar to every peo- ple, from the Jewish synagogue to the Roman convent, from the prohibited cavatina to the local dish, from the foreign post-office clerk to the peculiar festival of saint or municipal- ity, betoken the versatile and protected emigration. It is when, with the horrors of Spielberg vivid to his fancy, such an observer beholds the industrious and cheerful Italian exile in America ; when he notes the Teutonic crowd grouped round the German post-office window at Chicago, and thinks of the privations of the German peasant at home ; when he watches the long ranks of well-fed and hilarious Celts, in procession on St. Patrick's Day in New York, and compares them with the squalid tenants of mud cabins in Ire- land ; when he listens to the unchecked eloquence of the Hungarian refugee, and thinks of the Austrian censors and sbirri; when he beholds Sisters of Charity thridding the crowd on some errand of love ; placidly clad Friends flock- ing to yearly meeting ; Fourier communities on the Western plains ; here a cathedral, there a synagogue ; in one spot a camp meeting, in another a Unitarian chapel ; to-night a political caucus, to-morrow a lyceum lecture ; here rows of CONCLUSION. 441 carmen devouring the daily journal, there a German picnic ; now a celebration of the birthday of Bums, wherein the songs and sympathies of Scotland are renewed, and now a Gallic ball, the anniversary fete of St. George, the complacent retrospections of Pilgrims' Day, or the rhetoric and roar of the Fourth of July ; it is when the free scope and the mu- tual respect, the perfect self-reliance and the undisturbed individuality of all these opposite demonstrations, indicative of an eclectic, tolerant, self-subsistent social order, combina- tion, and utterance, pass before the senses and impress the thought, that we realize what has been done and is doing on this continent for man as such ; and the unhallowed devotion to the immediate, the constant superficial excitements, the inharmonious code of manners, the lawlessness of border and the extravagance of metropolitan life, the feverish ambition, the license of the press all the blots on the escutcheon of the Republic, grow insignificant before the sublime possibili- ties whereof probity and beneficence, tact and talent, high impulse and adventurous zeal may here take advantage. An English statesman, on a visit to New York, expressed his surprise at the spirit of accommodation and the absence of violent language during a deadlock of vehicles in Broad- way, whence his conveyance was only extricated after long delay. The fact made a strong impression, from its con- trast to the brutal language and manners he had often wit- nessed, under like circumstances, in London. After reflect- ing on the subject, he attributed the self-control of the baffled carmen to self-respect. " They hope to rise in life," he said, " and, therefore, have a motive to restrain their temper and improve their character." There was much truth and sagacity in this reasoning. An artist fresh from Europe and the East observed that the expression of self-reliance was astonishing in the American physiognomy. These spontaneous remarks of two strangers, equally intelligent but of diverse experi- ence the one a social and the other an artistic philosopher include the rationale of American civilization. The prospect of ameliorating his condition elevates man in his own esteem, 19* 442 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. while self-dependence gives him confidence ; but the latter feeling is apt to make him indifferent to public duty : hence the gross municipal corruption and legislative abuses which are directly owing to neglect of the duties of the citizen. Not until there is a " rising of the people " in the cause of national reform, as earnest and unanimous as that which ral- lied to the national defence, may we hope to see those ame- liorations, the need of which all acknowledge, to purify the elective franchise and the judicial corps, make the centripe- tal force in political affairs dominate the centrifugal, and bring the best men in capacity and honor to the highest positions. To the eye and mind of an American, when disciplined by study and foreign observation, while the incongruities of our social and physical condition, as a nation, are often start- ling, the elastic temper, the unsubdued confidence of the national character, reconcile discrepancies and console for deficiencies, by the firm conviction that these are destined to yield to a civilization whose tendency is so diffusive. There are, indeed, enough signs of amelioration to encourage the least sanguine. Within a few years, the claims of genius and character, of taste and culture, have been more and more practically recognized. The refinements in domestic econo- my, the popularity of art, the prevalent love and cultivation of music, the free institutions for self-culture, the new appre- ciation of rural life, the tempered tone of religious contro- versy, the higher standard of taste and literature, and the more frequent study of the natural sciences, are obvious indi- cations of progress in the right direction, since the severe comments upon American life and manners were partially justified by facts. Even the specific defects noted by travel- lers half a century ago, are essentially lessened or have quite disappeared. A living and candid French writer alludes to the United States as " une terre plus separee de nous par les nuages de nos prejuges que par les brouillards de 1'Atlantique." Not a few of these prejudices had their origin in facts that no CONCLUSION. 443 longer exist. It is almost impossible for a European to make due allowances for the changes that occur on this side of the water. But while some of the minor faults and dangers re- corded by tourists are obsolete, the chief obstacles recognized by all thoughtful observers to our national welfare, are only so far diminished that they are more clearly apprehended and more candidly acknowledged. The crisis foretold as regards slavery, has arrived, and taken the form of an unprovoked rebellion against the Federal Government, whereby the na- tional power and virtue have been confirmed and elicited. The double term of the Presidential office, the almost indis- criminate right of electoral suffrage, in connection with the vast emigration of ignorant and degraded natives of Europe, the facility in making and consequent recklessness in spend- ing money, the extension of territory, the decadence in public spirit, the increase of unprincipled political adventurers, and the license of the press, have, each and all, as prophesied and anticipated, worked out an immeasurable amount of political and social evil. Irreverence and materialism have kept pace with success ; abuses in official rule, neglect in civic duty, convulsions in finance, crises of political opinion and parties a kind of mechanical, unaspiring, self-absorbed prosperity, have resulted from so many avenues to wealth thrown open to private enterprise, and such a passion for gain and office as the unparalleled opportunity inevitably breeds. Yet, withal, there have been and are redeeming elements, auspicious signs, hopeful auguries ; and those who are least cognizant of .these, should never forget that our social life and political system bring everything to the surface ; and it is the average character of a vast nation, and not the acts of a few exclu- sive rulers, that the daily journals of the United States re- veal. The Government is always behind and below what it represents ; the facts of the hour that are patent, and taken as significant of the national life, are but partial exponents of private use, beauty, faith, freedom, progress, and peace, which eternal blessings the individual is more free to seek 444 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. here and now, than under any institutions the record whereof is concealed in royal cabinets. It has long been an accepted proposition, that the peculiar interest, importance, and moral significance of the United States in the family of nations, rests exclusively on a practical realization of the " greatest good of the greatest number ; " in other words, Europe has represented the idea of culture and of society America of material prosperity, the paradise of the masses, the one place on earth where nourishment and shelter can be had most certainly in exchange for labor : hence the manners of the country have been invariably criti- cized, and physical resources magnified ; and hence, too, the cant whereby a few general facts are made to overshadow countless special details of life, of character, and of civiliza- tion. Never was there a populous land whose inhabitants were so uniformly judged en masse, or one about which the truth has been more generalized and less discriminated. - Wo find it quite easy to imagine the far different conclusions to which an observant and perspicacious student of life in Amer- ica might arrive, with ample opportunities and sympathetic insight. To such a mind, the individual of adequate endow- ments, born and bred or long resident here, would offer traits and triumphs of character or experience, directly resulting from the political, social, and natural circumstances of the country, which, to say the least, would impress him with the originality and possible superiority thereof in a psychological or ethnological view. To group, define, or analyze these peculiarities, would require not only an artist's insight and skill, but a much broader range than a traveller's hasty jour- nal or a reviewer's flippant commentary. There is one branch of the subject, however, to which every thinking observer is irresistibly led the remarkable diversities of tone and tact, of vigor and adaptation, of personal conviction and individual careers, which the life of the prairies and the mart, and the plantation, the seaboard, and the interior, the scholar of the East, the hunter of the West, the agriculturist of the South, and the manufacturer of the ^orth, mould, foster, and train ; CONCLUSION. 445 the rare and rich social combination thence eliminated ; the occasional force and beauty, bravery and influence thus de- veloped in a way and on a scale unknown to Europe : such possibilities and local tendencies being furthermore infinitely modified and tempered, intensified or diffused, by the extra- ordinary degree of personal freedom and range of specula- tion and belief, experiment and inquiry religious, scientific, political, and economical ; perhaps not the least striking evi- dence whereof is to be found in the modification of national traits observed in foreigners who become Americanized the sensitive and capricious native of Southern Europe, often attaining self-reliance and progressive energy ; the English solidity of character becoming " touched to finer issues " by attrition with a more liberal social life and a less humid cli- mate ; and even Gallic vivacity reaching an unwonted practi- cal and judicious equilibrium : for it is a curious fact, that the student of character can nowhere detect in solution so many of the influences of all climes and the idiosyncrasies of all nations, as in this grand rendezvous and arena obnoxious, indeed, to the evils that attend extravagance, superfluity, in- congruity, the wilfulness and the wantonness of gregarious prosperity ; but none the less radiant and real with the hope and the health of abundant human elements, and the abey- ance of caste, despotism, and conformity ; so that, more and more, the great lesson of moral independence comes home to personal conviction. From early learning to work and think for themselves, and to feel for others, our people grow in the intimate conviction that here and now, if nowhere else in God's universe, men and women can, by the just exercise of their will and the wise use of their opportunities, live accord- ing to their individual wants, capacities, and belief; rise above circumstances ; assert their individuality ; cultivate their powers in faith and freedom ; enjoy their gifts ; and become, however situated, true and benign exemplars of manhood and womanhood. And in all these natural and civic agencies that excite and eliminate and intensify, ay, and often prematurely wear out and unwisely concentrate the 446 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. energies and the life of humanity here, we behold, an arena, a series of influences, a means and medium of experience and experiment, designed by Infinite Wisdom for a special pur- pose in the vast economy of the world ; and before this con- viction the pigmies of political prejudice and the venal critics of the hour sink into contempt. In a broad view and with reference to humanity, as such, it is Opportunity that distinguishes and consecrates American institutions, nationality, nature, and life. No microscopic or egotistical interpretation can do justice to the country. A narrow heart, a conventional standard, are alike inapplicable to test communities, customs, resources, as here distributed and organized. Berkeley as a Christian, Washington as a patriotic and De Tocqueville as a political philosopher, recog- nized Opportunity as the great and benign distinction of America. The very word implies the possible and probable abuses, the periods of social transition, the incongruities, hazards, and defects inevitable to such a condition. Com- merce, science, and freedom are the elements of our prosper- ity and character ; and it is no Utopian creed, that, by the laws of modern civilization, they work together for good ; but the dilettante and the epicurean, the rigid conservative, the exacting man of society, and the selfish man of the world, find their cherished instincts often offended, where the generous and wise, the noble and earnest soul is lost in " an idea dearer than self," when, with disinterested acumen and sympathy, regarding the spectacle of national development and personal success. To the eye of a historical and ethical philosopher, no pos- sible argument in favor of liberal institutions can be more impressive than the insane presumption which has led men of education and knowledge of the world to stir up and lead an insurrection to secure, in this age and on this continent, the perpetuity and political sanctity of human slavery. So des- perate a moral experiment argues the irrationality as well as the inhumanity of " property in man " with trumpet-tongued emphasis. And this solemn lesson is enforced by the new CONCLUSION. 447 revelation, brought about by civil war, of the actual influence of slavery upon character. The ignorance and recklessness of the " poor whites " became fanatical under the excitement to passion and greed, which the leaders fostered to betray and brutalize the " landless resolutes." Under no other cir- cumstances, by no conceivable means, except through the unnatural and inhuman conditions of such a social disorgani- zation, could a white population, in the nineteenth century, on a flourishing continent and under an actually free Gov- ernment, be cajoled and maddened into hate, unprovoked by the slightest personal wrong, and exhibiting itself in blas- phemy, theft, drunkenness, poisoning, base and cruel tricks, barbarities wholly unknown to modern civilized warfare ; such as bayoneting the wounded, wantonly shooting prison- ers, desecrating the dead to convert their bones into ghastly trophies, and leaving behind them, in every abandoned camp, letters malign in sentiment, vulgar in tone, and monstrous hi orthography patent evidences of the possible coexistence of the lowest barbarism and ostensible civilization, and the moral necessity of anticipating by war the suicidal crisis of a fatally diseased local society. When the English replied to John Adams's defence of the American Constitution, their chief argument against it was, that, in war, the Executive had not adequate power. This supreme test has now been applied in a desperate civil conflict. An educated people have sustained the Government in extending its constitutional authority to meet the national exigency, without the least disturbance of that sense of pub- lic security and private rights essential to the integrity of our institutions. Nor is this all. The war for the Union has, in a few months, done more to solve the problem of free and slave labor, to do away with the superstitious dread of servile in- surrection in case of partial freedom, to expose the fallacies of pro-slavery economists, to demonstrate the identity of prosperous industry with freedom, to mutually enlighten dif- ferent populations, to make clear the line of demarcation between the patriot and the politician, to nationalize local 448 AMEKICA AND HEE COMMENTATORS. sentiment, to make apparent the absolute resources of the country and the normal character of the people, and thus to vindicate free institutions, than all the partisan dissensions and peaceful speculation since the Declaration of Indepen- dence. Moreover, the war has developed original inventive talent in ordnance and camp equipage, afforded precisely the discipline our people so " disinclined to subordination " need- ed, won our self-indulgent young men from luxury to self- denial, evoked the generous instincts of the mercantile classes, called out the benign efficiency of woman, confirmed the popular faith, fused classes, made heroes, unmasked the selfish and treacherous, purified the social atmosphere, and, through disaster and hope deferred, conducted the nation to the high- est and most Christian self-assertion and victory. The his- tory of the Sanitary Commission, the improvements in mili- tary science, the letters of the rank and file of the Union army preserved in the local journals, the topographical reve- lations, personal prowess, vast extent of operations, new means and appliances, and momentous results, will afford the future historian not only unique materials, but fresh and sur- prising evidence of the elements of American civilization as exhibited through the fiery ordeal of civil war. The Procla- mation * of the President of the United States at the close * " Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. " We, of this Congress, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. " No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. " The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation. "We say that we are for the Union. The world will not forget that while we say this, we do know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We, even we here, hold the power and bear the responsibility. " In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free, honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve. " We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope of the earth. " Other means may succeed. This could not fail. " The way is plain peaceful, generous, just ; a way which, if followed, the world will ever applaud, and God must forever bless. " ABRAHAM LINCOLN." CONCLUSION. 449 of the year 1862, betokens a new and advanced charter of American progress. " Will anybody deny," asks John Bright, in a recent speech to his constituents, " that the Government at Wash- ington, as regards its own people, is the strongest Govern- ment in the world at this hour ? And for this simple reason, because it is based on the will of an instructed people. Look at its power. I am not now discussing why it is, or the cause which is developing this power ; but power is the thing which men regard in these old countries, and which they ascribe mainly to European institutions. But look at the power which the United States have developed ! They have brought more men into the field, they have built more ships for their navy, they have shown greater resources than any other na- tion in Europe at this moment is capable of. Look at the order which has prevailed at their elections, at which, as you see by the papers, 50,000, or 100,000, or 250,000 persons voted in a given State, with less disorder than you have seen lately in three of the smallest boroughs in England Barn- stable, Windsor, and And over. Look at their industry. Not- withstanding this terrific struggle, their agriculture, their manufactures and commerce proceed with an uninterrupted success. They are ruled by a President chosen, it is true, not from some worn-out royal or noble blood, but from the people, and one whose truthfulness and spotless honor have gained him universal praise. And now the country that has been vilified through half the organs of the press in England during the last three years, and was pointed out, too, as an example to be shunned by many of your statesmen, that country, now in mortal strife, affords a haven and a home for multitudes flying from the burdens and the neglect of the old Governments of Europe. And, when this mortal strife is over, when peace is restored, when slavery is destroyed, when the Union is cemented afresh for I would say, in the lan- guage of one of our poets addressing his country, ' The grave 's not dug where traitor hands shall lay, In fearful haste, thy murdered corse away ' 450 AMERICA AND .HER COMMENTATORS. then Europe and England may learn that an instructed de- mocracy is the surest foundation of government, and that education and freedom are the only sources of true greatness and true happiness among any people." When the new scientific methods of historical writing are applied to the annals of our own country, some remarkable coincidences and a dramatic unity in the sequence of memo- rable events will illustrate the chronicle. To subdue the wil- derness ; to colonize with various nationalities a vast conti- nent ; to vindicate, by the ordeal of battle, the supremacy among them of the Anglo-Saxon element ; to raise and purify this into political self-assertion, by establishing free institu- tions; under their auspicious influence to attain the great- est industrial development and territorial expansion; and, finally, in these latter days, to solve, by the terrible alterna- tive of civil war, the vast and dark problem of slavery this is the momentous series of circumstances whereby it has pleased God to educate this nation, and induce moral results fraught with the highest duties and hopes of humanity ; and, deeply conscious thereof, we cannot but exclaim, with our national poet : " country, marvel of the earth ! O realm to sudden greatness grown ! The age that gloried in thy birth, Shall it behold thee overthrown ? Shall traitors lay thy greatness low ? No ! land of hope and blessing, no ! " INDEX. INDEX. A BU8E of America, English, 252. jtL Addison, writings of, compared with those of Washington Irving, 288. Address of eminent Frenchmen to loyal Americans, 154. Addresses, commemorative, 421. Adriani, Count, 340; Washington's opin- ion of his hook, 340. Adventure, spirit of Americans for, 434. Agassiz, on the priority of tLo formation of the American continent, 14. Albany, sketch of society at, by Mrs. Grant, 172 ; Peter Kalm's picture of, in 1749, 296. Alessandro, Pietro d', 342: his letters from Boston, 343 ; visita Cambridge, 349 ; the Boston Athenaeum, 351. Allouez, Father Claude, narrative of, 44. Allston, Washington, on the affinity which Hhould exist between the United States and England, 259. Alyaco, Pet-us de, " Imago Mundi," Washington Irying's remarks on, 23. America, similarity of, to Italy in furnish- ing subjects of interest to authors, 2 ; general sameness of writings of travels in, 4 ; European writers of travels in, each interested in a different theme, 4 ; toleration in, the source of its attraction to foreign exiles, 7; natural features also interest, 7 ; early discoverers and explorers of, 13 ; its natural features conduce to the spread of civilization, 15 ; its antiquities compared with those of the Old World, 16 ; conjectures in regard to the primitive inhabitants of America, 17 ; claimed by the Welsh to have been discovered by Madoc in 1170, 18 ; early pictorial representations of manners and customs of its inhabitants, 23 ; the fifteenth and sixteenth centu- ries prolific in works on, 24 ; curious re- lics of annals of discovery in, 26 ; mis- cellaneous publications relating to, 33 ; English abuse of, 252 ; book collectors in, 317 j deceptions practised upon trav- ellers in, 341 ; self-respect of its people, 441. American travellers and writers, 371. Ampere, J. J.," Promenade enAmerique," 142; notes carelessness of Americans, 143 ; versatility of his descriptions, 144 . Anbury, Thomas, "Travels in the Inte- rior of America," 186 ; description of Cambridge, Mass., 187 ; notices the de- fective teeth of Americans, 188 ; regrets that he cannot visit Boston, 188 ; anx- iety to return to England, 188. Antiquities, American, compared with those of the Old World, 16. Ashe, Thomas, 202; his travels in Amer- ica, 203 ; his peculiar opinions of Amer- icans, 204. Athenaeum, the Boston, described by Pie- tro d'Aleesaudro, 350. BACKWOODSMEN, American, Tal- Jj leyrand's opinion of, 114. Bancroft, George, visit of John G. Kohl to, at Newport, 324. Barre, Col., on English of America before the Revol utionary war, 254. Bartlett, John R., " Dictionary of Amer- icanisms," 286 ; similarity between the provincialisms of New England and those of Great Britain, 286. Bartram, John, 372 ; his botanical labors, 372 ; his travels, 374 ; Peter Collinson's opinion of him, 374; his close observ- ance of nature, 376 ; description of Os- wego, 377 ; appointed botanist and nat- uralist to the king of England, 378 ; ex- plores Florida, 379 ; his home life, 380. Bartram, William, 382 : his study of na- ture, 384. Beaumont, Gustave de, his " Marie," 139 ; women of America and France com- pared, 141. Belknap, Dr., the foremost primitive lo- cal historian of America, 3 ; founder of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 3 ; his description of the White Moun- tains, 3. Beltrami, J. C., " Pilgrimage in Europe and America," 342. Benton, Thomas H., sketch of, 322. Berkeley, Bishop G., 156 ; obtains a char- ter for erecting a college in Bermuda, 454: INDEX. 157 ; his letters, 157 ; Walpole and, 158 ; lines of, 159 ; marries and embarks for America, 159 ; his friendship for Smi- bert the painter, 161 ;his sacrifices, 161 ; arrives at Newport, R. I., 162 ; religious condition of Rhode Island in 1714, 162 ; his reception at Newport, 163 ; letter describing the town, 164 ; is delighted with American scenery, 165 ; his muni- ficence to Yale College, 167 ; memorials of his residence in America, 169. Biography, American, 424, 432. ElackwoocPs Magazine, remarks of, on Harriet Martineau's book, 225 :ils ridi- cule of Yale College and New England- ers, 263. Bonaparte, Joseph, resides in seclusion in New Jersey, 122. Book collectors, American, 317. Books of travel, diversity of treatment of, 4. Boston, notes of Marquis de Chastellux on, 74 ; described by L'Abb6 Robin in 1781, 76 its people, 77 ; commerce, 78 ; visit of Brissot de Warville to, 83 ; com- mercial intercourse of, in 1729, 166 ; John G. Kohl's impressions of, 313 : book col- lectors of, 317 ; Luigi Castiglione's im- pressions of, 339 ; Pietro d'Alessandro's description of its people, 345. Botany, promoters of the science of, in America, 372. Botta, Carlo, 334. Bradford, Governor, poetical description of New England, 33. Breckinridge, Dr., on the necessity of the maintenance of the American Union, 277. Bremer, Fredrika, her novels, 298 ; her reception in America, 298 ; her compari- sons of Swedish and American scene- ry, 299 : her curiosity, 299. Bright, John, on the strength of the United States Government, 449. Brillat-Savarin, " Physiologie du Gout," 125 ; wild-turkey shooting, 126 ; visit to the family of M. Bulow, 127. Brissot de Warville, 82 ; visits Boston, 83 ; journeys to New York, 84 ; Phila- delphia, 84 ; visits Washington at Mount Vernon, 85 ; Whittier's lines on, 86 ; his anti-slavery sympathies, 86 ; admiration of Americans, 87 ; sketch of New York city in 1788, 87 ; smoking in New York, Bristed, Rev. John, 205; his "America and her Resources," 205 ; opinion of Lon- don Quarterly Review on his work, 206. British authors, writings of, compared with those of America, 288. British colonists in America described by Charlevoix, 49. British travellers and writers on America, 156; desirableness and feasibility of a compilation of their works, 215 ; miscel- laneous works of, on America, 218, 219, 220, 222, 224, 229. Brown, Charles Brockden, translates Vol- ney's work on America, 97. Browning, Elizabeth, on British illiber- ality, 290. Bryant, William Cullen, his " Letters of a Traveller," 418 ; his poems, 430. Bulow, M., visit of Brillat-Savarin to the family of, 127. Burke, Edmund, " Account of the Euro- pean Settlements in America," 181. Burnaby, Rev. Andrew, 173 ; his descrip- tion of Virginians, 173 : visits Philadel- phia, 174 ; New York, 174 ; opinion of Long Island, 175 ; visits Rhode Island, 175 ; opinion of its people, 175 ; his de- scription of Bishop Berkeley's residence at Newport, 176 ; visits Boston and Cambridge, 177 ; strict observance of the Sabbath in New England, 178 ; his opinions in regard to the American colonies, 179. Byrd, William, expeditions of, described in the Westover Manuscripts, 32. Byron, 211 ; his apostrophe to America, 212. CAMBRIDGE, Mass., described by Tho- \J mas Anbury, 187 ; Pietro d'Alessan- dro's visit to, 349. Canonicut Island, Bishop Berkeley lands at, 162. Capobianco, Raffaelle, 358 ; ridiculous statements of his book, 359. Carli, Le Comte, " Lettres Americaines," Carlisle, Earl of, his lecture at Leeds on the United States, 231. Carver, Capt. John, 387 ; his " Travels," 388. CaBtiglione, Luigi, 338 ; his impressions of Boston, 339 ; visit to Mount Vernon, 339. Catholic missionaries the pioneer writers of American travels, 37. Channing, William Ellery, 436 ; his influ- ence on free institutions in America, 437. Charlevoix, P. F. X., travels in Canada and the Northwest, 47 ; his letters, 49; account of New England and other British provinces, 49 ; description of the Missouri and Mississippi, 50 ; review of the scene of his labors, 51 ; his " His- toire de la Nouvelle France," 57. Chaetellux, Marquis de, 58 ; a friend of Washington, 59; his "Voyages dans 1'Amerique Septentrionale,60 ;" romance of his style and comparisons, 60 ; opin- ions of his writings, 61 ;'his " Travels " translated into English, 61 ; justness of his criticisms, 62 ; visits Providence, R. I., 63 ; Hartford, 64; sketch of Gov. Trumbull, 64 ; visits the Hudson High- lands, 65 ; interview with Washington and his officers, 65 ; visits Philadelphia, 66 ; Mrs. Bache, 66: Robert Morris, 66 ; social customs of Frenchmen and Qua- kers compared, 66 ; his description of Northern New York, 67; journey into Virginia, 68 describes Jefferson, 69 ; minuteness of his observation, 71 ; traits of different sections, 72 ; visits Ports- mouth, N. H., 73; attends a ball at Boston, and describes the " prettiest of the women dancers," 74 ; other Boston celebrities, 74 ; takes leave of Washing- ton at Newburgh, 74 ; his description of Washington, 75; translates Col. Hum- INDEX. 455 phrey's " Address to the American Ar- mies," 76. Chateaubriand visits the United States, 118 ; visits Washington, 119 ; impressed with American scenery, 120. Children, American, Anthony Trollope on the precocity of, 239. Civilization, natural features of America conduce to the spread of, 15. Cleveland, Morris, his visit to Ohio from New England in 1796, 400. Clinton, De Witt, his " Letters of Hiber- nicus," 404 ; his exploration of Western New York, 405 ; impressed with the ne- cessity and feasibility of a great canal, 408 ; realization of his project, 410. Cobbett, William, 208 : praises farm life in America, 209 ; his bluntness, egotism, and radicalism, 210 ; Heine's apostrophe to, 211. Cobden, Richard, his opinion of the Lon- don Times, 291. Collinson, Peter, his opinion of John Bar- tram, 374. Columbus, Christopher, familiar with the writings of Petrus de Alyaco, 23. Commemorative Addresses, 421. Congress, Continental, Jacob Duch6, chaplain of, 81. Connecticut, a glimpse of, in Washing- ton's Diary, in 1789, 419. Cooper, J. Fenimore. his romances com- pared with those of Scott, 288 ; endea- vors to censure and counsel, 413 ; Hal- leek's lines on, 414 ; accuracy of his descriptions, 430. Cooper, Thomas, 197; his opinions of America, 198. Coxe, Tench, hie " View of the United States of America," 393. Creveceeur H. St. John, settles in New York in 1754, 89 ; Hazlitt's opinion of his work, 89 ; his misfortunes, 90 ; his " Let- ters of an American Farmer," 90 ; taste for rural life, 92 ; birds, 92 ; his human- ity rewarded, 93. DABLON, Father, superior of the Otta- wa Mission, 44. Davis, John, 200 ; his " Travels in the United States," 201. De Bry, " Voyages and Travels to Amer- ica," 23. Deceptions practised upon travellers in America, 341. DePradt, "L' Europe et 1' Amerique," 149. Dickens, Charles, 221; his remarks on American slavery, 221 ; ridicules Eng- lish writers on America in " Pickwick," 264. Domenech, Abbe Em., his " Seven Years' Residence in the Great American Des- erts " ridiculed by a London journal, 6. Douglass, Dr. William, his work on the " British Settlements in North America, 183 ; Adam Smith's opinion of him, 185. Duche, Jacob, remarks of, on America before the Revolution, 81 ; treachery of, 81. Duval, Jules, his opinion of the advan- tages of emigration, 283. Dwight, Timothy, " Travels in New Eng- land and New York," 390; Robert Southey's opinion of his " Travels" in the Quarterly Review > 392. EARLY discoverers and explorers of America, 13. Sarly travellers, accounts of, most to be preferred, 1. Eddis, William," Letters from America," 186. Education, Anthony Troliope's opinion of the American system of, 236. Elliot, Rev. Jared, becomes acquainted with Bishop Berkeley, 167. Emigrants, European, freedom of action enjoyed by, in America, 440. English abuse of America, 252 ; their ig- norance of America before the Revolu- tion, 254. English and French writers on the War for the Union contrasted, 153. English, brutality of the, 281 ; their want of consideration for woman, 282; the .debasement of their poor, 282 ; furnish frequent subjects for caricature, 284 ; their ridicule of Yankeeisms, 2S6 ; Mrs. Browning on the illiberality of the', 290 ; Voltaire's comparison of the, 290; change of feeling of Americans toward the, 291. English periodicals, misrepresentations of, 260. English publisher, venality of an, 260. European Governments, facilities offered by, for the diffusion of knowledge re- lating to early explorations, 26 ; writers, northern, 293 ; French literature in, 293. Everett, Edward, his opinion of Cap- tain Basil Hall's book, 200; visit of John G. Kohl to, 318 ; his Addresses, 429. Expeditions, U. S. Government, 418. Eyma, Xavier, "Vie dans le Noveau Monde," 151. FAUX, an English farmer, 222 ; his ab- surd calumnies, 223. Fearon, Henry B., Sydney Smith's opinion of, 200. Female writers, British, on America, 222. Fiddler, Rev. Isaac, remarks of North American Review on his " Observa- tions," 201. Fisch, Georges, "Les Etats Unis en 1861," 149; first impressions of New York, 150 ; opinion of H. W. Beecher, 151; religion, art, etc., 151. Flint, Timothy, 401 : hie pictures of the West, 402 ; his " History and Geography of the Mississippi Valley," 403 ; opinion of the London Quarterly iipon, 404. Florida, a paradise for the naturalist, 379 ; explored by John Bartram, 379. Force, Peter, writings and compilations of, 36 ; a collector of works relating to America, 318. Foster, John R., translates Peter Kalm'o " Travels in North America," 295. French and Americans, cause of their af- finity, 153. 456 INDEX. French and English writers on the War for the Union contrasted, 153. French economical works on America, 146. French missionaries the initiators of travel literature in the New "World, 24; ex- plorations of, 37. French Protestant clergy, hooks of, on United States, 149. French travellers and writers, 58. French writers on America, their supe- rior candor, 269. Frenchmen, American opinions of, de- scribed by L' Abbe Robin, 79 ; eminent, address of, to loyal Americans, 154. Furstenwather, Baron, first impressions on America, 303. n ALE, Ludwig, " My Emigration to the UT United States," 306. Gasparin, Count de, his " Uprising of a Great People," 153. Germans, interest of the, in the United States, 301 ; their literature on the United States," 302. Goldsmith, Oliver, his ignorance of Amer- ica, 254. Gorges, Fernando, " America Painted to the Life," 28 ; his American enterprises, 29. Gorges, Sir Ferdinand, remarks of Win- throp and Bancroft on, 29. Government expeditions, U. S., 418. Grant, Mrs., 170 ; her " Memoirs of an American Lady," 171 ; sketch of society at Albany, 172. Grassi, Padre Giovanni, 341 ; his " Notes," 341 ; extravagant statements of, 341. Grattan, Thos. Colley, " Civilized Amer- ica," 229 ; his animadversions, 230. Grund, Francis J., his books on America, 308 ; his opinion of the writings of Basil Hall and Hamilton, 309 ; business habits of Americans, 309; interests of the peo- ple connected with the Government, 310 : necessity of concord between Eng- land and America, 310. Gurowski, Adam, 300 ; his book on Amer- ica, 300. HAERNE, Le Chanoine de, " La Ques- tione Americaine," 301. Hakluyt, Richard, 24 ; his works, 25. Hall, Capt. Basil, remarks of Edward Everett on his book, 200 ; criticized by BlackwoocCs Magazine, 200. Hall, James, 411. Halleck, Fitz-Greene, lines of, on Cooper, 414. Hamilton, Capt. Thomas, " Men and Man- ners in America," 223 ; his prejudices, 223 : appreciates natural beauty, 223. Hawthorne, Nathaniel, his book reviewed by the London Daily Neios, 275 ; his hits at British tendency to stagnation, 275 ; his romances, 431. Hazlitt, Wm., his opinion of Crevecceur's " Letters of an American Farmer," 89. Heine apostrophizes Wm. Cobbett, 211 ; hif^ estimate of English blockheads, 255 ; on the exultation of the English at dis- sensions in America, 267. Hennepin, Louis, 39 ; explores the Mis- sissippi, 40 ; returns to France, and in 1683 publishes his "Descriptions," 41. Henry, Alexander, his " Travels and Ad- ventures," commended by Chancellor Kent, 185. Historical romances, American writers of, 431. Histories, local, 426 ; general, 428. Hodgson. Adam, 217 ; Jared Sparks's opin- ion of his book, 218. Hoffman, Charles Fenno, his " Winter in the West," 416 ; his geniality and versa- tility, 416. Holland, Sir Henry, on the mutability of everything in America, 439. Honyman, Rev. James, receives a letter from Berkeley, 162. Humboldt, Alexander Von, remarks of Prescott on, 19 ; remarks of, on Amer- ica, 303. TLLINOIS, early history of, 52 ; natural JL features of, 53 ; commercial facilities of, 54 ; rapid increase of population in, 54 ; Jesuit missionaries in, 55 ; Father Marest's account of, 56. Tmiay, Gilbert, 390. Immigration, 440. " Inciquin the Jesuit's Letters," 394. Ingersoll, Charles J., 395. Inns, number of, in America, 216 ; Priscil- la Wakefield's description of, 216. Irving, Washington, remarks on the " Imago Mundi" of Petrug de Alyaco, 23 ; extract from a letter from Moore to, 211 ; accounts for the abuse of English writers of travel in the United States, 258 ; his writings compared with those of Addison, 288. Italian travellers in America, 334. Italy and America alike interesting to authors, 2. TANSON, C. W., " The Stranger in fj America," 218. Jefferson, Thomas, visit of Marquis de Chastellux to, 69. Jenks, Rev. Wm., D. D., account of Ma- doc's Voyage to America in 1170, 18. Jesuits, the, in Illinois, 55. Jews, a number of, in Rhode Island, 168. Johnson, Rev. Samuel, becomes acquaint- ed with Bishop Berkeley, 167. Josselyn, John, " New England's Rarities Discovered," 32. Judd, Sylvester, his " Margaret," 431. Juridical literature, 428. KALM, Peter, 295 ; bis works on Amer- ica, 295 ; notes of his diary on Phila- delphia, 295 ; his picture of Albany in 1749, 296 ; visit to Niagara Falls, 297. Kay, Joseph, " Social Condition and Edu- cation of the People in England," 283. Kemble, Mrs., on the affinity between the Americans and the French, 153 ; John G. Kohl's opinion of, 316. Kendall, E. A., " Travels through the Northern Parts of the United States," 206. INDEX. 457 Kent, Chancellor, commends " Travels and Adventures of Alexander Henry," 185. Kirkland, Mrs. C. M., her books on the West, 422. Knight, Madame, her " Private Journal," 385 ; her journey from Boston to New York, 386. Kohl, J. G., " History of Discovery in America from Columbus to Franklin," 36 ; sketch of his writings, 311 ; his impressions of Boston, 313 ; sketch of Mrs. Kemble, 316 ; Edward Everett, 318 ; Prescott, 320 -.John Lothrop Mot- ley, 321 ; Thomas H. Benton, S22 ; visit to Newport, 324 ; Bancroft, 324; Sumner, 325 ; Southern hate of New England, 326. T ABOULAYE, Edouard, " Paris dans Jj 1'Amerique, 153. Lafayette, on the necessity of the perpetu- ation of the American Union, 11 ; his love of the people and institutions of America, 148. La Salle embarks for Canada in 1675, with Father Hennepin, 39 ; explores the great lakes, 39 ; gives the name to Louisiana, 40. Lauzun, Duke de, charmed with the so- ciety at Newport, 147. Law, writers on American, 428. Lecomte, Col. Ferdinand, " The War in the United States," 300. Lederer, John, the first explorer of the Alleghanies, 32. Ledyard, John, 387. Lenox, James, a collector of books and documents relating to America, 318. Libraries, American private, ignorance of British writers concerning, 274. Lieber, Dr. Francis, 305 ; his " The Stran- ger in America," 305. Lincoln, Abraham, Proclamation of, 448. Literature, American, considered beneath contempt by British writers fifty years ago, 287 ; claimed to be made up of imi- tations of British authors, 287. Literature, juridical, 428. London Quarterly Review, its opinion of Rev. John Bristed's "America and her Resources," 206. Lowell, factories of, compared with those of Manchester, Eng., by Anthony Trol- lope, 237. MADOC, Rev. Wm. Jenks's account of his voyage to America in 1170, 18. Marbois, 388 ; his "Notes on Virginia," 389. Marest, Father, travels in Illinois, 56. Marquette and Joliet, explorations of, 45 ; death of Father Marquette, 45. Martinean, Harri.et, 224 ; her fairness as a writer, 224 ; BlackwoocPs opinion of her book, 225. Mather, Cotton, " Magnalia Christi Amer- icana," 7, 33. McSparren, Rev. James, letters of, 170. Meier, K., " To the Sacramento," 300. Menard, Father R6ne, plans an expedition iu search of, the Mississippi in 1660, 44. 20 Michaux, Dr. F. A., visits the country west of the Alleghanies in 1802, 121 : his descriptions of natural productions, 121 ; passion of Western people for spir- ituous liquors, 122. Michelet, his opinion of America, 265. Montalembert, discourse in the French Academy on America, 10. Moore, Thomas, projects emigrating to America, 211 ; extract of letter from, to Washington Irving, 211 ; arrives at Nor- folk, Va., 213 ; meets Jefferson at Wash- ington, 213 : his remarks on New York ecenery, 213 ; his prejudices regarding America, 214. Morris, Robert, description of, "by Marquis de Chastellux, 66. Motley, John Lothrop, John G. Kohl's sketch of, 321. Mount, Vernon, visit of Luigi Castiglione to, 339. Murat, Achille, settles in Tallahassee,Fla., 122 ; his work on the United States, 123 ; his pro-slavery ideas, 124. VTATURAL features of America con- ll duce to the spread of civilization, 15. Naturalists, interest of America to, 295. Neal, John, writes articles on America for Blackwootfs Magazine, 396. New England, religious character of her primitive annals, 24 ; strict observance of the Sabbath in, 178 ; Southern hate of, 326. Newfoundland, fisheries of, long the only attraction to European adventure, 21. New Netherlands, Van der Dock's ac- count of, in 1659, 27. Newport, R. I., its society attractive to French officers, 148; Bishop Berkeley arrives at, 163 ; Berkeley's discription of, 164 ; Dr Burnaby's remarks on the com- merce of, 175 ; sketch of, by John G. Kohl, 24. New World, the effects of its discovery and settlement upon maritime progress and interests, 22. New York Bay, Verrazzano's description of, 338. New York, Northern, described by Mar- quis de Chastellux, 67 ; sketch of, by Brissot in 1788, 87 ; varied nationalities represented in, 440. Niagara Falls, visit of Peter Kalm to, 297. North America, continent of, its extent and area, 15 ; its climate, soil, and pro- ductions adapted to the tastes and wants of European emigrants, 15 ; its produc- tions confounded with those of South America by ignorant Europeans, 22 ; a refuge from persecution in early colonial times, 193. North American Review, remarks of the, on Rev. Isaac Fiddler's " Observations," 201 ; exposes the ignorance of British writers on America, 262. OLMSTED, Frederick Law, his travels in the South, 417. ; Opportunity the characteristic distinction of. America, 446. 458 INDEX. Orators, American, 429. Oswego, John Bartram's description of, 377. PALMETTO tree, description of, by Priscilla Wakefield, 216. Paulding, James K., " Letters from the South," 398 ; description of Virginia and its people, 399 : his "John Bull in Amer- ica," 400. Peabody, George, his gift to the London working class, 280. Pinchin, Mr., one of the first settlers of Springfield, Mass., 29. Pisani, Lieut.-Col. Ferri, 365 his impres- sions on the patriotism of the American people, 366 ; visits the Union and Rebel armies, 369 ; pleased with Boston and its society, 370. Poets, American, 433. Political treatises, American, 428. Portsmouth, N. H., visit of Marquis de Chastellux to, 73. Prentice, Archibald, " A Tour in the Uni- ted States," 245 ; his appreciation of American character, 246 ; compares American to (Scotch scenery, 246 : Amer- ican dislike to " John Bull," 247. Prescott,William H.,sketch of, by John G. Kohl, 320. Press, the Paris, on the War for the Union, 152; the British, its general un- fairness on the American question. 244 ; the British, blinded by self-love in dis- cussing American institutions, 280. Primitive inhabitants of America, conjec- tures in regard to the, 17. Providence, R. I., sketch of, by Marquis de Chastellux, 62. Purchas, Rev. Samuel, 25. QUAKERS, prevalence of in Rhode Island, 168. RAFN, Carl Christain, claims the dis- covery of America by the Scandi- navians in the tenth century, 18 ; his " Northern Antiquities," 294. Raumer, Freidrich von, " America and the American People," 304. Raynal, the Abbe, writings of, on Ameri- ca, 107. Rebellion, the Slaveholders', literature arising from. 8 : Anthony Trollope's view of, 242. Reference, American works of, 427. Religious Annals of America, 426. Religious sects in America, writers on, 426. Revue des Deux Mondes, the, on French disinterestedness, 272. Rhode Island, Bishop Berkeley settles in, 168 ; religious toleration in, 168 : preva- lence of Quakers in, 168 : Jews in, 168 ; Dr. Burnaby's opinion of the people of, 176; Major Robert Rogers's optnon of,181. Ritter, Prof. Carl, "Geographical Stud- ies," 15. Robin, L'Abbe, describes Boston in 1781, 76 ; customs of its people, 77 ; its com- merce, 78 ; American ideas of French- men, 79. . Robinson, Mrs. (Talvl), 329. Rochambeau, Count, arrives at Newport. R. I., in 1780, 111 ; his " Mernoires," 111; opinion of American women, 112 ; de- scription of a settlement, 112 ; church nd state in America, 113 ; popular re- spect for law, 113 ; is impressed with the patriotism of the people, 114. Rochefoucault, Duke de La, visits America, 94 ; his minuteness of detail, 95 ; traits of American character, 96. Rogers, Major Robert, 181 ; his opinion of people of Rhode Island, 181. Romances, American historical, 431. RuppiuSjOtto, the novels of, on the United States, 310. Rush, Richard, on the fall of the naval su- premacy of Great Britain, 255. Cf ABBATH, strict observance of the, in O New England, 178. Salvatore Abbate e Migliori, 362. San Domingo, connection of Columbus with, 20. Saxe- Weimar-Eisenach, Bernhard, Duke of, his "Travels in North America," 304. Scenery and local features of America, writers on the, 434. Schaff, Dr. Philip, 330 ; his " Sketch of the Political,8ocial, and Religious Character of the United States," 330 ; respect for law in America, 332 ; relation of Ameri- ca to Europe, 333. Schultz, Christian, "Travels," 806; his de- scription of locomotive facilities in the United States in 1807-'8, 300. Science, American writers on the various branches of, 435. Scotch writers on America, 245. Seatsfield, Charles, novels of, on the Unit- ed States, 310. Sects, religious, writers on, in America, 426. Segur, Count, arrives in America in 1783, 115 ; becomes attached to the Quakers of Philadelphia, 116 ; is favorably im- pressed with the American people, 116 ; dines with Washington, 116 : prophetic significance of his observations on the future of America, 117 ; his remarks on embarking for the West Indies, 117. Sicily, ignorance of its people concerning America, 801 Slavery, American, Dickens's remarks on, 201 ; its debasing and brutalizing influ- ence, 447. Smibert, the painter, embarks for Amer- ica with Bishop Berkeley, 160 ; paints portraits of Berkeley and his family, 160 ; Horace Walpole's opinion of, 160 ; his contributions to art in New England, 160 ; Berkeley's lasting regard for, 161 ; notices identity of race between Narra- ganset Indians and Siberian Tartars. 167. Smith, Captain John, his explorations in America, 27 ; his writings on America, 28. Smith, Sydney, his opinion of Henry B. Fearon, 200. Smythe, J. F. D., his "Tour in the United INDEX. 459 States of America, 188 ; his opinion of Washington, 191 ; views of Americans, 192. Smythe, Prof., remarks on the collections of Hakluyt and Purchas, 26. Society. Northern European writers on, in the United States, 307. Southern hate of New England, 326. Southey, Rebert, his opinion of Timothy Dwight's " Travels," 392. Spanish and Portuguese the pioneers in voyaging westward, 21. Springfield, Mass., account of the first set- tlement of, 29 ; its appearance in 1646, 30. Statistical works, American, 427. Stirling, James, " Letters from the Slave States," 247 ; respect and aftection due from England to America, 250. Sumner, Charles, visited by John G. Kohl, 325. Sweden, writers of, on America, 293 ; colo- ny of, on the Delaware, 297. rPALLEYRAND, his opinion of Amer- _L lean backwoodsmen, 114. Theology, writers on, in America, 433. Times, the London, its inimical spirit to- ward America, 291; Cobden's opinion of, 291. Tocqueville, Alexis De, Bent to Amer- ica in 1830, 129 ; his " Democracy in America," 130 ; his philosophical view of American institutions, 132 ; his death, 134 ; notices a similarity of American tastes and habits, whether in the city or the wilderness, 136 ; hie idea of State sovereignty, 138 ; considers the probable future supremacy of America and Rus- sia over each half of the globe, 139 ; on English selfishness, 268 remarks on re- 1 Hgion in America, 270 ; English opinion of his writings on America, 272. Toleration in America the source of its attraction to foreign exiles. 7. Travel, bookb of, enduring in interest, 1 ; general sameness of writings of,in Amer- ica, 4 ; miscellaneous French works of, on America, 146, 147. Trollope, Anthony, 232: his "North America," 232 ; his candor as a writer, 232 ; his ignorance of previous writings on America, 234 ; hia egotism, 234 ; im- pressed with the beauty of American scenery, 236 ; education and labor in the United States and England contrasted, 236 ; dislikes " Young America," 238 ; American women met in public convey- ances, 239 : spoiled children, 239 ; versa- tility of the Americans, 240 ; mania of Americans for travel, 241 ; opinion of the rebellion, 241. Trollope, Mrs., 225 ; her c: Domestic Man- ners of the America.ns," 225 ; her pow- ers of observation, 225 ; superficiality of her judgment, 226 ; is pleased with American scenery, 228 ; her want of discrimination, 228. Tudor, William, " Letters from the East- ern States," 412. Turrel, Jane, "An Invitation to the Coun- try," 33. UNION, the war for the, changes 01 opinion wrought by, 447 ; its influ- ence on society, 448. United States, the earliest descriptions and associations connected with its territory tinctured with tradition, 19 extent of the, 276 ; John Bright on the strength of the Government of the, 449. VAN DER DOCK'S account of New Netherlands in 1659, 27. Verrazzano, 338 ; his description of New York Bay in 1524, 338. Virginia, the name given to the Jamestown colony, 21; provincial egotism of, 30; journey of Marquis de Chaetellux into, 68 ; the people of, described by Rev. An- drew Burnaby, 173 ; number of early descriptions of, 397 ; its associations, 397. Volney, C. F., work of, on America, 97 ; his early passion for travel, 98 ; a victim of the French Revolution, 99 ; his phi- losophy, 100; difficulties as an emi- grant, 101; his death, 101; review of his life and writings, 102 ; recollections of by Dr. Francis of New York, 105 ; his visit to Warrentown, 105 ; scientific vein of his writings, 106. Voltaire,bis comparison of the English,290. WAKEFIELD, Priscilla, her com- pilation from the works of early writers on America, 215 ; de- scription of the Palmetto Royal, 216 ; number of inns met with in America, and independence of inn- keepers, 216. Walpole, Horace, his opinion of Bishop Berkeley's scheme, 158 ; his sketch of Smibert, the painter, 160. Walsh, Robert, 395 ; his " Appeal," 395. Wansey, Henry, 194 ; his " Excursion to the United States," 194 ; breakfasts with Washington at Philadelphia, 194; his impressions of Washington, 194 ; re- marks the general contentment of the people, 195 ; journeys through New En- gland, 195 ; meets distinguished persona at New York, 196. Washington, George, first interview of Marquis de Chastellux with, 65 ; takes leave of De Chastellux at Newburgh, 74; described by De Chaetellux, 75 ; visited by Brissot de Warville at Mount Ver- non, 85 ; J. F. D. Smythe's opinion of, 191; breakfasts with Henry Wansey, 194: his opinion of Count Adrian!' s book, 340 ; a glimpse of Connecticut, 419 ; visits Boston, 421. Webster, Daniel, imperishability of the record of his eloquence, 429. Weld, Isaac, " Travels in America," 207. Welsh, the, claim to be early explorers ot America, 17. Western travel and adventure, books of, 422. Wheaton, Henry, " History of the North- men," 19. White, Rev. James, on British, prejudices, INDEX. Wied, Prince Maximilian von, " Journey through America," 305. Williams, Roger, liberal spirit of, 168. "Wilson, Alexander, 199; his "American Ornithology," 199. Winterbotham, his authorities in compi- ling his " View of the United States," 3. "Winthrop, John, journal of, 31 ; on the de- basement of the poor in England, 282. Wirt,"Wm., "Letters of a British Spy," 412. Women, American, Anthony Trollope's remarks on, 239. Wood, William, pect 32. "New England Pros- YALE College, gifts of Bishop Berke- ley to, 167. yENGER, John P., printer of the New L York Weekly Journal, narrative of his trial for libel, 7. Zimmerman, E. A. W., "France and the Free States of North America," 306. DATE DUE 3 2106 00055 9390