are certainly not the observations of an Englishman: as they betray occasionally an ignorance of the commonest forms and customs of the country, an ignorance the more natural and probable, because it is on those points which are too trivial to be explained to a foreigner by his guide, and too nice to be observed by himself. Upon all material questions our tourist appears to have gained the best information, and to have applied it with the utmost diligence and quickness. He landed at Falmouth in December 1809, from which place he set out for London as soon as his passport could be procured. The cleanliness and comfort of the English inns appears to have surprised him much. His observations upon the social life of the metropolis are just and good, but not of sufficient importance to be recorded. One of the first public meetings to which he is introduced, is the House of Commons, where he expected to have heard more eloquence, than our Lower House, we fear to say, at this moment possesses. He appears to have been much struck with the quickness of the reporters, and expresses his astonishment how they can form out of such slender materials as a few disjointed notes, such connected speeches as make their appearance in the public papers of the next morning. The repeated cheers given to favourite speakers surprised him much. "The exclamation hear! hear! hear! so often mentioned in the reports of speeches in the newspapers, surprised me much, the effect being quite different from what I expected. A modest, genteel hear! hear! is first heard from one or two voices, others join,--more and more,-crescendo,- till at last a wild, tumultuous, and discordant noise pervades the whole house, resembling very nearly that of a flock of frightened geese; rising and falling, ending and beginning again, as the member happens to say any thing remarkable. Judging from the reputed taciturnity of this nation, it might be supposed that the gravity of a legislative assembly would be more particularly observable in the British Senate; instead of which, it is the merriest place that ever was. These legislators seem perpetually on the watch for a joke; and if it can be introduced in the most serious debate, it succeeds so much the better. Some of the members, Mr. Sheridan for instance, are such complete masters of the senatorial risibility, that, by a significant word, or expression of countenance, they can, when they please, put their honourable colleagues in good humour. English taciturnity is not proof against a sally of wit, and still less, perhaps, against a stroke of buffoonery, called here humour. I have been told that the French have no humour. Without bringing in Moliere to confute this, I thought it sufficient to produce Les Battus payent l'Amende,' which happened to be by me; and I trust no Englishman who reads it will say we have no humour. I am ready to grant, that, in general, we do not descend quite so low. The French are trifling and decorous,-the English grave and farcical." Vol. i. P. 60. Our traveller is now taken to one of the public hospitals, of which he gives no very favourable account. We fear that his statement, as far as relates to one or two of these receptacles for human misery is but too true; we are certain however from experience, that there are others in which no such scenes occur, as those which are here so graphically described. Could we indeed have carried our traveller to the Middlesex hospital in particular (and there are others, we trust, in a similar condition) he would have witnessed that benevolence of manner, and that delicacy of attention exercised by all the medical attendants, even to the poorest of their patients, which impart a charm to the powers of medicine, and disarm sickness itself of half its anguish. The poor have feelings in disease no less than the rich, fortunately indeed for them not so tremblingly fastidious, but sufficiently acute to animate the exertions of humanity, and to repress the insolence of vulgar brutality. "I have been carried to one of the hospitals of this great town, supported by voluntary contributions. I shall relate what I saw. The physician, seated at a table in a large hall on the groundfloor, with a register before him, ordered the door to be opened; a crowd of miserable objects, women, pushed in, and ranged themselves along the wall; he looked in his book, and called them to him successively, Such a one! The poor wretch, leaving her wall, crawled to the table. How is your catarrh ? Please your honour, no offence I hope, it is the asthma. I have no rest night nor day, and'- Ah, so it is an asthma! It is somebody else who has the catarrh. Well, you have been ordered to take, &c.'-' Yes, Sir, but I grow worse and worse, and—'—' That is nothing, you must go on with it.'--' But, Sir, indeed I cannot.' Enough, enough, good woman, I cannot listen to you any more; many patients to get through this morning.-never do to hear them talk,go, and take your draught, &c.'-The catarrh woman made way for a long train of victims of consumption, cases of fever, dropsy, scrofula, and some disorders peculiar to women, detailed, without any ceremony, before young students. This melancholy review of human infirmities, was suddenly interrupted by the unexpected entrance of a surgeon, followed by several young men, carrying a piece of bloody flesh on a dish. A curious case,' they exclaimed, placing the dish on the table: an ossification of the lungs! Such a one, who died yesterday-just opened. This is the state of his lungs. See these white needles, like fishbones, shooting through here and there; -most curious indeed,' Then they handled, and cut open, and held up between the eye and the light, these almost palpitating remains of a creature who breathed breathed yesterday! The symptoms of his disorder, and the circumstances of his death, were freely talked over, and accurately described in the hearing of consumptive patients, who felt, I dare say, the bony needles pricking their own lungs at every breath they drew, and seemed to hear their own sentence of death pronounced. "The women being dispatched, twenty or thirty male spectres came in, and underwent the same sort of summary examination. The only case I recollect was, that of a man attacked with violent palpitations, accompanied with great pain in the shoulder. His heart was felt beating hard through the sternum, or even under the ribs on the right side. His heart has moved from its place ;-The unhappy man, thrown back on an arm chair, his breast uncovered, pale as death,-fixed his fearful eyes on the physicians, who successively came to feel the pulsations of that breast, and reason on the cause. They seemed to me to agree among themselves, that the heart had been pushed on one side by the augmentation of bulk of the viscera; and that the action of the aorta was impeded thereby. The case excited much attention,--but no great appearance of compassion. They reasoned long on the cause, without adverting to the remedy till after the patient had departed,-when he was called back from the door, and cupping prescribed! "The medical men proceeded next to visit the resident patients. I followed. The apartments were clean and spacious, and the sick not crowded which is no doubt of the greatest importance. I was shocked, however, with the same appearance of insensibility and precipitation. 1 . Là le long de ces lits où gémit le malheur, Victimes des secours plus que de la douleur, "There is, however, more indifference than ignorance here; for in no part of the world is the art of medicine carried farther than in London; and, without being at all qualified to judge, the mere circumstance of this art and those who practice it being so much more respected here than in France, is sufficient to convince me of their superiority. In France, surgery is honoured, while medicine is slighted. Moliere has much to answer for this; and if Shakespeare had taken it into his head to laugh at physicians, there is no knowing how they would fare in England at this day." Vol. i. P. 74. In which of our public hospitals this transaction took place, we know not, nor if we did, would we so far disgrace a benevolent institution as to reveal our knowledge. We shall now follow our author to another scene, in which the characteristic manners of the English appears in the strongest colour. 2 "Pugilism "Pugilism is a regular science in England, as fencing is in France. Fighting for improvement is called sparring, and in good earnest, boxing. In sparring, the hand is covered with much the same sort of glove as in fencing. I have been taken to a fivescourt, where I have seen some of the best professors, and some amateurs of this noble art, spar. Two combatants, naked to the waist, ascended a theatre or stage, fifteen or twenty feet square, and three or four high, erected in the centre of the fives-court; each had his second; they shook hands, like the salute in fencing, then on their guard; one foot forward,-knees a little bent, the principal weight of the body on the foremost leg, fist held to the height of the chin, at the distance of about a foot. In this attitude the combatants observe each other, eye to eye, watching their opportunity to place a blow, which is darted, rather than struck, with the back of the hand or knuckles; a moderate blow, well planted, gives a fall. The blows are parried with the outside of the arm, or with one hand, while the other returns the blow. The pugilists are very sparing of their strength and their wind; no unnecessary motion,-no precipitation, and, above all, no anger. One of the first requisites is impassibility under the severest bodily pain. Notwithstanding the gloves, blood is spilt sometimes. Among the performers at the fives-court, Crib the younger, Gulley, and Belcher, were pointed out to me,—all names of renown in the art. They were not stout men, but remarkable for activity and coolness. The place was very full-a mixed company of people of all ranks,—a considerable proportion of men of fashion; and all went off in a very orderly and quiet manner. The sword or pistol equalize strength, and secure politeness and circumspection between individuals in the higher ranks of society; the fist answers the same purpose between the high and the low. A gentleman well taught can by that means repress and punish vulgar insult, when supported by mere bodily strength. There is a sort of courtesy and law of combat here, as well as in more deadly encounters. You are not to strike an enemy on the ground, and never below the waist; you are to desist the instant he gives out; there are never to be two against one; and other rules, which soften the brutality of the art, and give to the very lowest, in their violence, some sort of generosity and honourable feelings." Vol. i. P. 125. Our readers will be amused at the surprise expressed by a Frenchman, after twenty years residence in America, at the fair play of the English combats-desisting the moment your adversary gives out-never striking him while on the ground-and one only against one-are points of pugilistic morality very little attended to, we believe, by our neighbours across the water, or by their Transatlantic admirers and allies. The journey of our author to Liverpool gives him an oppor- · tunity of entering at large into the then growing disputes between England and America, and of their comparative strength and national national greatness. Upon these points he speaks with that insight into the subject which might be expected from a man of good sense, who had been so long resident in the United States. "The two great parties, which took, at the union of the states in 1789, the names of federalists and anti-federalists, sincere and pure as their objects might be, assumed the colours of the two great rival powers; and there has been, undoubtedly, ever since, a French and an English party. The Americans may say that England and France are for them mere abstract watch-words, like St. Denis and St. George. But there is virtue in names; and it cannot be denied that one-half of the inhabitants of the United States are in the habit of approving whatever France does, while the other does as much for England;-not exactly half, however, for the French party is much the most numerous. The other has on its side a decided majority of the talents, the wealth, and the gentility of the country; from all appearances, I might say of the morality also, if I was not aware that much may be placed to the account of principles which are the effect of situation. A very remarkable circumstance is, that most of the veterans who bore arms against England during the revolution, are now of the party I call English. Washington himself, that model of patriots, whom all parties unite, since his death, in considering as eminently pure and wise, was openly denounced by the French party during his life." Vol. i. P. 250. * It is afterwards remarked with sufficient ingenuity and reason, that the greater share of rising talent is often found in England upon the side of opposition, because it affords the more ready display to early brilliancy; but that the greater share of wealth is to be found on the side of the ministry, because it is fostered under their protection, and is often created under their auspices. Now in America, the government being more purely democratical, the rich are an object of jealousy: numbers not wealth there form the phalanx of government; wealth therefore in America retires into opposition, and throws itself under the protection of whatever talent is to be found in that quarter. Our author conceives that the danger likely to result to this country from the growing superiority of America is far, very far distant. The American states appear rather to be bound than united by their federal government; two different interests pull different ways; "Talents are generally to be found in opposition to the government, in England, as well as in America, because it is the brilliant side; but wealth in England is arranged on the side of government, who protects it. In America, it feels the ill-will of a government dependent on the multitude, naturally jealous of the rich. Wealth, therefore, in America, seeks the protection of talents in the opposition." that |