great readers as the English, and take off imm mense editions of all our popular works;-and while we have repeatedly stated the causes that have probably withheld them from becoming authors in great numbers themselves, we confidently deny that we have ever represented them as illiterate, or neg ligent of learning.

the unfortunate prejudice or irritation under which Mr. W. has composed this part of his work, than the morose and angry remarks he has made on our very innocent and goodnatured critique of Barlow's Columbiad. It is very true that we have laughed at its strange neologisms, and pointed out some of its other manifold faults. But is it possible for any one seriously to believe, that this gentle castigation was dictated by national animosity ?-or does Mr. W. really believe that, if the same work had been published in England, it would have met with a milder treatment? If the book was so bad, however, he insinuates, why take any notice of it, if not to indulge your malignity? To this we answer, first, That a handsome quarto of verse, from a country which produces so few, necessarily attracted our atten tion more strongly than if it had appeared

any authors of celebrity.* The fact is too remarkable not to have been noticed by all who have occasion to speak of them;-and we have only to add, that, so far from bringing it forward in an insulting or invidious manner, we have never, we believe, alluded to it with out adding such explanations as in candour we thought due, and as were calculated to take from it all shadow of offence. So early 2. As to our particular criticisms on Amerias in our third Number (printed in 1802), we can works, we cannot help feeling that our observed that "Literature was one of those justification will be altogether as easy as in finer Manufactures which a new country will the case of our general remarks on their rarity. always find it better to import than to raise ;"Nothing, indeed, can more strikingly illustrate --and, after showing that the want of leisure and hereditary wealth naturally lead to this arrangement, we added, that "the Americans had shown abundance of talent, wherever inducements had been held out for its exertion; that their party-pamphlets were written with great keenness and spirit; and that their orators frequently displayed a vehemence, correctness, and animation, that would command the admiration of any European audience." Mr. W. has himself quoted the warm testimony we bore, in our twelfth Volume, to the merits of the papers published under the title of The Federalist :-And in our sixteenth, we observe, that when America once turned her attention to letters, "we had no doubt that her authors would improve and multiply, to a degree that would make all our exertions necessary to keep the start we have of them." In a subsequent Number, we add the import-among ourselves; secondly, That its faults ant remark, that "among them, the men who write bear no proportion to those who read;" and that, though they have as yet but few native authors, "the individuals are innumerable who make use of literature to improve their understandings, and add to their happiness." The very same ideas are expressed in a late article, which seems to have given Mr. W. very great offence-though we can discover nothing in the passage in question, except the liveliness of the style, that can afford room for misconstruction. "Native literature," says the Reviewer, "the Americans have none: It is all imported. And why should they write books, when a six weeks' passage brings them, in their own tongue, our sense, science, and genius, in bales and hogsheads?"-Now, what is the true meaning of this, but the following "The Americans do not write books; but it must not be inferred, from this, that they are ignorant or indifferent about literature. The true reason is, that they get books enough from us in their own language; and are, in this respect, just in the condition of any of our great trading or manufacturing districts at home, within the locality of which there is no encouragement for authors to settle, though there is at least as much reading and thinking as in other places." This has all along been our meaning-and we think it has been clearly enough expressed. The Americans, in fact, are at least as

This might require more qualification now, than in 1820, when it was written or rather, than in 1810, before which almost all the reviews containing the assertion had appeared.

were of so peculiar and amusing a kind, as to call for animadversion rather than neglect; and, thirdly, what no reader of Mr. W.'s remarks would indeed anticipate, That, in spite of these faults, the book actually had merits that entitled it to notice; and that a very considerable part of our article is accordingly employed in bringing those merits into view. In common candour, we must say, Mr. W. should have acknowledged this, when complaining of the illiberal severity with which Mr. Barlow's work had been treated. For, the truth is, that we have given it fully as much praise as he, or any other intelligent American, can say it deserves; and have been at some pains in vindicating the author's sentiments from misconstruction, as well as res cuing his beauties from neglect. Yet Mr. W. is pleased to inform his reader, that the work "seems to have been committed to the Momus of the fraternity for especial diversion:" and is very surly and austere at "the exquisite jokes" of which he says it consists. We cer tainly do not mean to dispute with him about the quality of our jokes:-though we take leave to appeal to a gayer critic-or to hmself in better humour-from his present sentence of reprobation. But he should have recollected, that, besides stating, in distinct terms, that "his versification was generally both soft and sonorous, and that there were many passages of rich and vigorous description, and some that might lay claim even to the praise of magnificence," the critics had summed up their observations by saying, "that the author's talents were evidently respectable; and that, severely as they had

been obliged to speak of his taste and his dic- | warmest friends of America, and the warmest tion, in a great part of the volume, they con- admirers of American virtue, would wish us sidered him as a giant in comparison with to speak. We shall add but one short passage many of the paltry and puling rhymsters who as a specimen of the real tone of this insolent disgraced our English literature by their oc- and illiberal production. casional success; and that, if he would pay some attention to purity of style and simpli-issue to a revolution, consummated by a long civil History has no other example of so happy an city of composition, they had no doubt that he war. Indeed it seems to be very near a maxim in might produce something which English poets political philosophy, that a free government cannot would envy, and English critics applaud.” be obtained where a long employment of military Are there any traces here, we would ask, force has been necessary to establish it. In the of national spite and hostility?-or is it not case of America, however, the military power was, true, that our account of the poem is, on the by a rare felicity, disarmed by that very influence which makes a revolutionary army so formidable whole, not only fair but favourable, and the to liberty: For the images of Grandeur and Power tone of our remarks as good-humoured and those meteor lights that are exhaled in the stormy friendly as if the author had been a whiggish atmosphere of a revolution, to allure the ambi Scotchman? As to "Marshall's Life of Wash- tious and dazzle the weak-made no impression ington," we do not think that Mr. W. differs on the firm and virtuous soul of the American commander." very much from the Reviewers. He says, "he does not mean to affirm that the story of As to Adams' Letters on Silesia, the case is their Revolution has been told absolutely well nearly the same. We certainly do not run by this author;" and we, after complaining of into extravagant compliments to the author, its being cold, heavy, and tedious, have dis- because he happens to be the son of the tinctly testified, that "it displayed industry, American President: But he is treated with good sense, and, in so far as we could judge, sufficient courtesy and respect; and Mr. W. laudable impartiality; and that the style, cannot well deny that the book is very fairly though neither elegant nor impressive, was rated, according to its intrinsic merits. There yet, upon the whole, clear and manly." Mr. is no ridicule, nor any attempt at sneering, W., however, thinks that nothing but national throughout the article. The work is described spite and illiberality can account for our say- as "easy and pleasant, and entertaining,”—as ing, "that Mr. M. must not promise himself containing some excellent remarks on Educaa reputation commensurate with the dimen- tion,-and indicating, throughout, "that setsions of his work;" and "that what passes tled attachment to freedom which is worked with him for dignity, will, by his readers, be into the constitution of every man of virtue pronounced dulness and frigidity:" And then who has the fortune to belong to a free and he endeavours to show, that a passage in prosperous community." As to the style, we which we say that "Mr. Marshall's narrative remark, certainly in a very good-natured and is deficient in almost every thing that con- inoffensive manner, that "though it is restitutes historical excellence," is glaringly in-markably free from those affectations and consistent with the favourable sentence we have transcribed in the beginning; not seeing, or not choosing to see, that in the one place we are speaking of the literary merits of the work as an historical composition, and in the other of its value in respect of the views and information it supplies. But the question is not, whether our criticism is just and able, or otherwise; but whether it indicates any little spirit of detraction and national rancour and this it would seem not very difficult to answer. If we had taken the occasion of this publication to gather together all the foolish, and awkward, and disreputable things that occurred in the conduct of the revolutionary councils and campaigns, and to make the history of this memorable struggle, a vehicle for insinuations against the courage or integrity of many who took part in it, we might, with reason, have been subjected to the censure we now confidently repel. But there is not a word in the article that looks that way; and the only ground for the imputation is, that we have called Mr. Marshall's book dull and honest, accurate and heavy, valuable and tedious, while neither Mr. Walsh, nor any body else, ever thought or said any thing else of it. It is his style only that we object to. Of his general sentiments-of the conduct and character of his hero-and of the prospects of his country, we speak as the

corruptions of phrase that overrun the compositions of his country, a few national, perhaps we might still venture to call them provincial, peculiarities, might be detected;" and then we add, in a style which we do not think can appear impolite, even to a minister plenipotentiary, "that if men of birth and education in that other England which they are building up in the West, will not diligently study the great authors who fixed and purified the language of our common forefathers, we must soon lose the only badge that is still worn of our consanguinity." Unless the Americans are really to set up a new standard of speech, we conceive that these remarks are perfectly just and unanswerable; and we are sure, at all events, that nothing can be farther from a spirit of insult or malevolence.

Our critique on the volume of American Transactions is perhaps more liable to objection; and, on looking back to it, we at once admit that it contains some petulant and rash expressions which had better have been omitted-and that its general tone is less liberal and courteous than might have been desired. It is remarkable, however, that this, which is by far the most offensive of our discussions on American literature, is one of the earliest, and that the sarcasms with which it is seasoned have never been repeated-a fact

ers and remote Irish. But slight as these charges are, we may admit, that Mr. W. would have had some reason to complain if they had included all that we had ever said of the great bulk of his nation. But the truth is, that we have all along been much more careful to notice their virtues than their faults, and have lost no fair opportunity of speaking well of them. In our twenty-third Number, we have said

which, with many others, may serve to expose the singular inaccuracy with which Mr. W. has been led, throughout his work, to assert that we began our labours with civility and kindness towards his country, and have only lately changed our tone, and joined its inveterate enemies in all the extravagance of abuse. The substance of our criticism, it does not seem to be disputed, was just-the volume containing very little that was at all interest-"The great body of the American people is ing, and a good part of it being composed in a style very ill suited for such a publication. Such are the perversions of our critical office, which Mr. W. can only explain on the supposition of national jealousy and malice. As proofs of an opposite disposition, we beg leave just to refer to our lavish and reiterated praise of the writings of Franklin-to our high and distinguished testimony to the merits of The Federalist-to the terms of commendation in which we have spoken of the Journal of Messrs. Lewis and Clarke; and in an especial manner, to the great kindness with which we have treated a certain American pamphlet published at Philadelphia and London in 1810, and of which we shall have a word to say hereafter, though each and all of those performances touched much more nearly on subjects of national contention, and were far more apt to provoke feelings of rivalry, than any thing in the Philosophical Transactions, or the tuneful pages of the Columbiad.

3. We come now to the ticklish Chapter of Manners; on which, though we have said less than on any other, we suspect we have given more offence and, if possible, with less reason. We may despatch the lower orders first, before we come to the people of fashion. The charge here is, that we have unjustly libelled those persons, by saying, in one place, that they were too much addicted to spirituous liquors; in another, that they were rudely inquisitive; and in a third, that they were absurdly vain of their free constitution, and offensive in boasting of it. Now, we may have been mistaken in making these imputations; but we find them stated in the narrative of every traveller who has visited their country; and most of them noticed by the better writers among themselves, from Franklin to Cooper inclusive. We have noticed them, too, without bitterness or insult, and generally in the words of the authors upon whose authority they are stated. Neither are the imputations themselves very grievous, or such as can be thought to bespeak any great malignity in their authors. Their inquisitiveness, and the boast of their freedom, are but excesses of laudable qualities; and intemperance, though it is apt to lead further, is, in itself, a sin rather against prudence than morality. Mr. W. is infinitely offended, too, because we have said that "the people of the Western States are very hospitable to strangers -because they are seldom troubled with them. and because they have always plenty of maize and hams;" as if this were not the rationale of all hospitality among the lower orders, throughout the world, -and familiarly applied, among ourselves, to the case of our Highland

better educated, and more comfortably situated, than the bulk of any European community; and possesses all the accomplishments that are anywhere to be found in persons of the same occupation and condition." And more recently, "The Americans are about as polished as ninety-nine out of one hundred of our own countrymen, in the upper ranks; and quite as moral, and well educated, in the lower. Their virtues too are such as we ought to admire; for they are those on which we value ourselves most highly." We have never said any thing inconsistent with this:-and if this be to libel a whole nation, and to villify and degrade them in comparison of ourselves, we have certainly been guilty of that enormity.

As for the manners of the upper classes, we have really said very little about them, and can scarcely recollect having given any positive opinion on the subject. We have lately quoted, with warm approbation, Captain Hall's strong and very respectable testimony to their agreeableness-and certainly have never contradicted it on our own authority. We have made however certain hypothetical and conjectural observations, which, we gather from Mr. W., have given some offence-we must say, we think, very unreasonably. We have said, for example, as already quoted, that "the Americans are about as polished as ninetynine in one hundred of our own countrymen in the upper ranks." Is it the reservation of this inconsiderable fraction in our own favour that is resented? Why, our very seniority, we think, might have entitled us to this prece dence: and we must say that our monarchy -our nobility our greater proportion of he reditary wealth, and our closer connection with the old civilised world, might have justified a higher percentage. But we will not dispute with Mr. W. even upon this point. Let him set down the fraction, if he pleases, to the score merely of our national partiality;-and he must estimate that element very far indeed below its ordinary standard, if he does not find it sufficient for it, without the supposition of intended insult or malignity. Was there ever any great nation that did not prefer its own manners to those of any of its neighbours?— or can Mr. W. produce another instance in which it was ever before allowed, that a rival came so near as to be within one hundreth of its own excellence?

But there is still something worse than this. Understanding that the most considerable per sons in the chief cities of America, were their opulent merchants, we conjectured that their society was probably much of the same des cription with that of Liverpool, Manchester, and Glasgow:-And does Mr. W. really think

Now, is there really any matter of offence in this?-In the first place, is it not substantially true?—in the next place, is it not mildly and respectfully stated? Is it not true, that the greater part of those who compose the higher society of the American cities, have raised themselves to opulence by commercial pursuits?—and is it to be imagined that, in

there is any disparagement in this?-Does he not know that these places have been graced, for generations, by some of the most deserving and enlightened citizens, and some of the most learned and accomplished men that have ever adorned our nation? Does he not know that Adam Smith, and Reid, and Miller, spent their happiest days in Glasgow; that Roscoe and Currie illustrated the society of Liverpool-America alone, this is not to produce its usual and Priestley and Ferriar and Darwin that of Manchester? The wealth and skill and enterprise of all the places is equally indisputable -and we confess we are yet to learn in which of the elements of respectability they can be imagined to be inferior to New York, or Baltimore, or Philadelphia.

But there is yet another passage in the Review which Mr. W. has quoted as insulting and vituperative-for such a construction of which we confess ourselves still less able to divine a reason. It is part of an honest and very earnest attempt to overcome the high monarchical prejudices of a part of our own country against the Americans, and notices this objection to their manners only collaterally and hypothetically. Mr. W. needs not be told that all courtiers and zealots of monarchy impute rudeness and vulgarity to republicans. The French used to describe an inelegant person as having "Les manières d'un Suisse, En Hollande civilisé ;"-and the Court faction among ourselves did not omit this reproach when we went to war with the Americans. To expose the absurdity of such an attack, we expressed ourselves in 1814 as follows.

effects upon the style and tone of society? As families become old, and hereditary wealth comes to be the portion of many, it cannot but happen that a change of manners will take place;-and is it an insult to suppose that this change will be an improvement? Surely they cannot be perfect, both as they are, and as they are to be; and, while it seems impossible to doubt that a considerable change is inevitable, the offence seems to be, that it is expected to be for the better! It is impossible, we think, that Mr. W. can seriously imagine that the manners of any country upon earth can be so dignified and refined-or their tone of conversation and society so good, when the most figuring persons come into company from the desk and the counting-house, as when they pass only from one assembly to another, and have had no other study or employment from their youth up, than to render society agreeable, and to cultivate those talents and manners which give its charm to polite conversation. If there are any persons in America who seriously dispute the accuracy of these opinions, we are pretty confident that they will turn out to be those whom the rest of the country would refer to in illustration of their truth. The truly polite, we are persuaded, will admit the case to be pretty much as we have stated it. The upstarts alone will contend for their present perfection. If we have really been so unfortunate as to give any offence by our observations, we suspect that offence will be greater at Cincinnati than at New York, and not quite so slight at New York as at Philadelphia or Boston.

"The complaint respecting America is, that there are no people of fashion,-that their column still wants its Corinthian capital, or, in other words, that those who are rich and idle, have not yet existed so long, or in such numbers, as to have brought to full perfection that system of ingenious trifling and elegant dissipation, by means of which it has been discovered that wealth and leisure may be most agree ably disposed of. Admitting the fact to be so, and in a country where there is no court, no nobility, and no monument or tradition of chivalrous usages, and where, moreover, the greatest number of But we have no desire to pursue this topic those who are rich and powerful have raised them- any further-nor any interest indeed to conselves to that eminence by mercantile industry, we vince those who may not be already satisfied. really do not see how it could well be otherwise; If Mr. W. really thinks us wrong in the opinwe would still submit, that this is no lawful cause ions we have now expressed, we are willing either for national contempt, or for national hostility for the present to be thought so: But surely It is a peculiarity in the structure of society among that people, which, we take it, can only give offence we have said enough to show that we had to their visiting acquaintance; and, while it does us plausible grounds for those opinions; and no sort of harm while it subsists, promises, we think. surely, if we did entertain them, it was imvery soon to disappear altogether, and no longer to possible to express them in a manner less ofafflict even our imagination. The number of indi-fensive. We did not even recur to the topic viduals born to the enjoyment of hereditary wealth is, or at least was daily increasing in that country; and it is impossible that their multiplication (with all the models of European refinement before them, and all the advantages resulting from a free govern. ment and a general system of good education) should fail, within a very short period, to give birth to a better tone of conversation and society, and to manners mere dignified and refined. Unless we are very much misinformed, indeed, the symptoms of such a change may already be traced in their cities. Their valry of bon ton between one country and youths of fortune already travel over all the coun- another, is, after all, but a poor affair to octries of Europe for their improvement; and specimens are occasionally met with, even in these cupy the attention of philosophers, or affect islands, which, with all our prejudices, we must ad- the peace of nations. Of what real consemit, would do no discredit to the best blood of the quence is it to the happiness or glory of a land from which they originally sprung." country, how a few thousand idle people

spontaneously-but occasionally took it up in
a controversy on behalf of America, with a
party of our own countrymen. What we said
was not addressed to America-but said of
her; and, most indisputably, with friendly
intentions to the people of both countries.

The manners of fashionable life, and the ri
But we have dwelt too long on this subject.

probably neither the most virtuous nor the ter. We have a hundred times used the same most useful of their fellow-citizens-pass language to our own countrymen-and retheir time, or divert the ennui of their inac-peatedly on the subject of the Slave Trade;— tivity?—And men must really have a great and Mr. W. cannot be ignorant, that many propensity to hate each other, when it is pious and excellent citizens of his own counthought a reasonable ground of quarrel, that try have expressed themselves in similar the rich désœuvrés of one country are accused terms with regard to this very institution. of not knowing how to get through their day As to his recriminations on England, we shall so cleverly as those of another. Manners explain to Mr. W. immediately, that they alter from age to age, and from country to have no bearing whatever on the question country, and much is at all times arbitrary now at issue between us; and, though nobody and conventional in that which is esteemed can regret more than we do the domestic the best. What pleases and amuses each slavery of our West Indian islands, it is quite people the most, is the best for that people: absurd to represent the difficulties of the aboAnd, where states are tolerably equal in power lition as at all parallel in the case of America. and wealth, a great and irreconcileable diver- It is still confidently asserted that, without sity is often maintained with suitable arro- slaves, those islands could not be maintained; gance and inflexibility, and no common stan- and, independent of private interests, the dard recognised or dreamed of. The bon ton trade of England cannot afford to part with of Pekin has no sort of affinity, we suppose, them. But will any body pretend to say, with the bon ton of Paris-and that of Con- that the great and comparative temperate restantinople but little resemblance to either. gions over which the American Slavery exThe difference, to be sure, is not so complete tends, would be deserted, if all their inhabitwithin the limits of Europe; but it is suffi- ants were free-or even that they would be ciently great, to show the folly of being dog- permanently less populous or less productive? matical or intolerant upon a subject so inca- We are perfectly aware, that a sudden or impable of being reduced to principle. The mediate emancipation of all those who are French accuse us of coldness and formality, now in slavery, might be attended with frightand we accuse them of monkey tricks and ful disorders, as well as intolerable losses; impertinence. The good company of Rome and, accordingly, we have nowhere recomwould be much at a loss for amusement at mended any such measure: But we must reAmsterdam; and that of Brussels at Madrid. peat, that it is a crime and a shame, that the The manners of America, then, are probably freest nation on the earth should keep a milthe best for America: But, for that very rea- lion and a half of fellow-creatures in actual son, they are not the best for us: And when chains, within the very territory and sancwe hinted that they probably might be im- tuary of their freedom; and should see them proved, we spoke with reference to the Euro- multiplying, from day to day, without thinkpean standard, and to the feelings and judging of any provision for their ultimate liberament of strangers, to whom that standard tion. When we say this, we are far from alone was familiar. When their circumstances, and the structure of their society, come to be more like those of Europe, their manners will be more like-and they will suit better with those altered circumstances. When the fabric has reached its utmost elevation, the Corinthian capital may be added: For the present, the Doric is perhaps more suitable; and, if the style be kept pure, we are certain it will be equally graceful.

4. It only remains to notice what is said with regard to Negro Slavery-and on this we shall be very short. We have no doubt spoken very warmly on the subject in one of our late Numbers;-but Mr. W. must have read what we there said, with a jaundiced eye indeed, if he did not see that our warmth proceeded, not from any animosity against the people among whom this miserable institution existed, but against the institution itself-and was mainly excited by the contrast that it presented to the freedom and prosperity upon which it was so strangely engrafted;-thus appearing

doubting that there are many amiable and excellent individuals among the slave propri etors. There were many such among the importers of slaves in our West Indies: Yet, it is not the less true, that that accursed traffic was a crime-and it was so called, in the most emphatic language, and with general assent, year after year, in Parliament, without any one ever imagining that this imported a personal attack on those individuals, far less a malignant calumny upon the nation which tolerated and legalized their proceedings.

Before leaving this topic, we have to thank Mr. W. for a great deal of curious, and, to us, original information, as to the history of the American Slave trade, and the measures pursued by the different States with regard to the institution of slavery: From which we learn, among other things, that, so early as 1767, the legislature of Massachussets brought in a bill for prohibiting the importation of negroes into that province, which was rejected by the British governor, in consequence of express instructions; and another in 1774 shared the same fate. We learn also, that, in 1770, two years before the decision of Somerset's case in England, the courts of the same distinguished province decided, upon solemn argument, that no person could be held in slavery within their jurisdiction; and awarded not only their freedom, but wages for their past services, to a