1 » o , V' r^^ ^ \ 5^ .^■'o,<^- rO^^^"'^<^. fP^ ^^'"^.^j: 0^ . ^^0^ ■"- ^<>..# \ ^-.# <- %. ^-e ^AO^ ^/.d< '- "^^0^ s^ ^0^ r .s..<. ^^< 4 " " " '^ '^ ^ .^ ^^^», %^o^ ^;'^;^f>^.c^ .O^ . ^ * <> ° "%.o^ .* ■^^0^ :^ ^ o^ ^0^ /^^-^ v^P.^ \n^^ ^^ %^P.^- /\^'^, %,^iP.^ , ^V^;.%^^.i :MM\%.o^ 'M^l'^-'^o'' "^ <* ' » * s ^ A*^ ^ ' AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS WITH A CRITICAL SKETCH OP TRAVEL IN THE UNITED STATES, BY ^ "" HENRY t/TUCKERMAN. Here the free spirit of mantind, at length Throws its last fetters off: and who shall place A limit to the giant's unchained strength, Or curb his swiftness in the forward race ? For thou, mv country, thou shalt never fall, Save with thy children; — Who shall then declare The date of thy deep-founJed strength, or tell How happy, in thy lap, the sons of men shall dwell ? Bryant: The Ages, NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER, 124 GRAND STREET. 1864. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1,861, by HENRY T. TUCKEEMAN, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New Tork. JOHN F. TROW, PEI>TER, STEHEOTYPER, AND ELECTROTYPER, m, 48, & 50 Greene St., New York. B^BU 21 PREFACE. The object of tliis 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 varions 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 strikino; contrasts, oflters 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 ail liistorical 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 boohs 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 ofters 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 chaflf. 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, 1§5S) ; and the proposed " American Bibliographer's Manual," a dic- tionary of all works relating to America, by Joseph PREFACE. V Sabin, of PMladelpliia, will, if^execnted 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 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 ancnt America, whetlicr 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 S50 ; 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," $S0 ; now $75. Stith's " History of Virginia," then $5, now $20. Smith's " History of Xew 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. \ " 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 membei's, 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. Vlll CONTENTS. CHAPTER VI. BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND TTRITERS Continued. PAGK Wansey; Cooper; Wilson; Davis; Ashe; Bristed; Kendall; Weld; Cobbett ; Campbell ; Byron ; Moore ; Mrs. Wakefield ; Hodgson ; Janson; Caswell; Holmes and others; Hall; Tearon; Fiddler; Lyell ; Featherstonaugh ; Combe ; Female Writers ; Dickens ; U 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- 00 ; Salvatore Abbate e Migliori ; Pisani 334 CHAPTER X. AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. John and William Bartram ; Madame Knight ; Ledyard ; Carver ; Jef- ferson ; Jmlay ; Dwight ; Coxe ; IngersoU ; Walsh ; Paulding ; \ Flmt; (?iinton; 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, Channing, etc 3*71 CHAPTER XI. Conclusion 438 Index » 451 INTEODUCTION. La Terre, says Fontenelle, est wne vieille 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 comj^arison 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 famiKar 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 INTKODUCTION. aspects, an infinite variety, Arthur Young's account of France, just before the Revohition, cannot be superseded ; Lady Montagu's account of Tiu-key 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 imfortu- ■ nate but regenerated land has long been so congenial a theme for scholars, and so attractive a nucleus for sentiment, that around its moniunents and life the gifted aud 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 imappropriated 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 ua 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 jihases, 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 comjjariiig 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, Geograj^hical, Com- mercial, and Philosophical View of the United States " * — to meet an acknowledged want in Europe, whei'e 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 fi-om all accessible sources," INTEODlJCTIOir. 6 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 ^yill readily per- ceive how limited was the scope of such, considered as illus- trating the entire country. Dr. Belknap wrote of New HamjDshire, Jefferson of Virginia, Bartram of Florida and a few other States ; Ramsay, Gordon, Adams, and Franklin fur- nished excellent political information ; but Morse's Geograjjhy 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 conteniporary authors. The data furnished by Catesby and Bartram have still a charm and use for the savmnt 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 mTKODUCTION. 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 mcidentally reveal : froin 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 Avhich his -vision is habituated ; and hence we have results as diverse as the mediimi and the motive of the respective writers. It accords with Talleyrand's political tastes that the sight of Alexander Hamilton — one of the 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 hiunor of Irving's facetious History : Wilson and Charles Bonaparte found the birds, French olficers 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 scenfe or subject but those connected with slavery : this one is amus- ing m 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 mXKODUCTION. 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, 1Y88. "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 rehgious 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, concemant les anciens peuples de I'Ameriq'ue que je crois descendus de ces antiques Atlantides si fameux dans I'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 mto 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, ofiicial, 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 ofiicers 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 j^ioneers, 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 INTEODUCTION. 7 of Grahame's History of the American War, from De Vries to De Tocqiieville, from Cotton Mather * to Mrs. Trollope, from Harmon's " Fi-ee 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 imknown 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. f We derive from each and all of these commentators on our coimtry, information, not otherwise obtainable, of the aspect of nature and the condition of the people, at diiferent eras and in various regions : we thus realize the process of national * Cotton Mather's " Magnalia Christi 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. Governeiir 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 INTEODUCTION. 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 resoui'ces 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 iinite 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 whicli 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 INTKODTJCTION. i) Amierica to Europe, is qiute 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 hunyme 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 extraordmary 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 oj^inion and artfully misrepresented facts : so that it has been a slow process to enlighten the leaders of oj^inion, and counteract the work of mercenaiy 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 coxmteract 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 INTKODtJCTION. 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 tiie evidence of bribery and corruption robs another large amount of vitujieration and false statement of all rational significance ; while the more prominent and powerful expositors, as far as position, capacity, and integrity are con- cerned, ai"e, 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 im- worthy raisrepi'esentations of Lord Brougham, senilely aris- tocratic and unspnpathetic, while the vigorous tliinker 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 fightino^ 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 salojis of the same metropolis scatters his witrkindled pages in vindica- tion of our social privileges and civic growth ; and, at the French Academy, Montalembert thus opens his discourse : " Gentlemen, eighty vears have elapsgd since M. Montjon con- fided to the Frencli 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, wJiose greatness and icliosclilerty shall never perish, ifit])lease God, in the formidalle trials which it is passing through to-day. Louis XVI. mTEODUCTION. 11 sho\\-ed himself still animated by the wisdom which had called Male- sherbes and Turgot to liis coimsels. The Queen Marie Antoinette had given birth to her firstborn ; Madame Elizabeth of France was in her eighteenth year, ilhmiinating 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 medimn 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 INTKODUCTION. 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 tq the fate of each member of the confederacy, but also to the general fate of manTcincl, 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 literaiy fruit and record — the bibliography of the war — and of this the foreign contributions will aflbrd 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. CHAPTER 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 neai-ly 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 Avarmed 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 cliercheurs d'or ont comraencc', ni voulant qu'or, ricn de plus brisant Thomme, Colomb, le meilleur dc tous, dans son propre journal, montre cela avec une naivete terrible, qui d'avance, fait fremir de ce que feront ses successeurs." — MiCHELET. 14 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. ideas, and the trivunpli 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 aflbrded. 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 wliosc destinies yet lay imdeveloped in the ■udld 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 aflSnity 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 civUiza- EAKLT DISCOVEKEES AND EXPL0REK8. 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 moimtain chains is not from east to west, but from north to south. Its sea coast best endowed with harbors and islands is on the eastern side, and so turned toward the civilization of the Old World. The Gulf Stream, which may be called the great com- mercial highway of nations, brought both of the continents bordering on the North Atlantic into direct connection. North America was, therefore, destined to be discovered by Europeans, and not by Asiatics. Asia could easily have transferred a part of its population to America, in consequence of the proximity of their shores at Behring's Straits. But the sea coast of North America is so richly furnished with har- bors and islands, that it readily attracted European civiliza- tion. The gentle slopes of the American continent offered a most favorable field to Europeans, allowing, as they did, civil- ization to penetrate without obstruction every portion of the land. Nature, too, has shown us, by giving to America river systems which run northward to the numerous groups of islands and peninsulas of the Polar Sea, that America was destined even more than Europe to send civilization to the northern portions of the globe." * The North American continent extends from the twenty- fourth ,to the forty-ninth degree of north latitude, and from the sixty-sixth to the one hundred and twenty- fourth degree of west longitude : its area is more than five sixths that of Europe, and more than ten times that of Great Britain and France united : there are seven thousand miles of eastern shore line, thirty-four hundred southern and twenty-two hundred western ; while the northern lake line is twenty-two hundred miles. Climate, soil, avocation, and productions are, by this afiluent space, adapted to the constitution, the charac- ter, and the necessity of each European nationality — so that * " Geographical Studies," by Professor Carl Ritter, of Berlin, translated by W. L. Gage. 16 AMEBIC A AND HEK COMMENTATOKS. the German vinedresser, the Italian musician, the Spanish planter, the French modiste — Pole, Russian, Swede, Swiss, and Sicilian — the professor, merchant, man of science, agriculturist, tough rustic, delicate artiste, radical writer, proselyting priest, or cosmopolitan philosopher-^with any sagacity, self-respect, or urbanity, can readily find the physical conditions or the social facilities, the climate, business, and community, the scopes, position, and prosperity adapted to his temperament and faculty. The Spanish, French, and colonial history of America — the national epoch with its statistics of navigation, population, taxation, education, public lands, railways, manu- factures, patents, canals, telegraphs, legislation, municipal rule, emigration, jurisprudence, trade, and government — and, finally, the causes and significance of the present rebellion — are each and all elements of a vast historical development, wherein a Christian philosopher can easily trace a consecutive significance and Divine superintendence of humanity. Travellers of ordinary intelligence and observation are not un frequently lured into vague but rational conjectures as to the history of races by the resemblance so often apparent between tlie memorials of widely separated and most ancient people. An American familiar with the trophies of an EgyjD- tian museum, who has examined the contents of a Western mound, visited an Etruscan city, like Volterra, Druidical re- mains in Britain, or compared the porcelain idols of Burmah with those found in South and Central America, will be tempted to follow with credulity the ingenious speculations of antiquarian savans who argue from symbolic coincidences that an identical language and worship, in remote ages, linked in a common bond the world's inhabitants ; or that similar trophies of fiiith found in Odin stones and Hindu temples, in Etrurian sepulchres and Mississippi himuU, at least, suggest a more ancient emigration to America than is claimed by the advo- cates of Norse discoveries. It is but needful to read the his- tory of the serpent symbol and the recent controversies as to unity of races, to find in such ethnological sjieculations a re- markable basis of fact ; whether or not we admit the prob- EARLY DISCOVEEEES AND EXPLOEEES. 17 ability so confidently ui'ged that a Chinese priest and a fifth- century Buddhist missionary visited this continent via the Pacific, and reported thereof, ages before Christopher Colum- bus dreamed of a new world. In fact, the early history and traditions relating to the discovery and casual settlements, is one of the most remarkable chapters in the annals of the world — afibrding, on the one hand, the greatest scope for imagination, and, on the other, the most suggestive mateinal for philosophical inference and elucidation. How early and in what manner the nearest points of contact between America and the rest of the world, in the far northwest, were first crossed at Behring's Straits, gives room for bold conjecture : ethnologists, archajologists, and antiquarians have broached numerous theories and established curious facts to prove that the " new world " of Columbus was loiown and partially colonized long before that intrepid navigator heard the thrilling cry of " land ! " from the mast head of t\\e, Pinta : not only those primitive explorers the Chinese and Jaj^anese, but the ancierrt Phoenicians, Norman colonists from Greenland, Irish saints, and Russian overland expeditions have been con- fidently traced and sometimes authenticated, Naturalists have, with subtile knowledge, pointed out how the secret of another continent was whispered by the voice of Nature, seeds borne on the currents of the air, and plants on those of the sea ; scholars have culled from old Latin and Italian poets intimations of the existence of a hemisphere unexplored ; and ingenious observers have appealed to stone hearths, like those of Denmark, found at Cape Cod, moss-grown clefts in aged trees, brass arrow heads, and copper axes, to evidence a long- lost colony. The Icelandic navigators are supposed to have made voy- ages to Yinland, on the southern coast of New England, five centuries before Columbus. The "Welsh, too, claim a share in this remote exploration of America. In the preface to his poem of " Madoc," Southey says of the hero, he " abandoned his barbarous coimtry, and sailed away to the Avest, in search of some better resting place. The land which he discovered 18 AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATORS. pleased him ; he left there part of his people, and went back to Wales for a fresh supply of adventurers, with whom he again set sail, and was heard of no more. Strong evidence has been adduced that he reached America, and that his pos- terity exist there to this day." And a venerable scholar, of our own country, observes that "Madoc is stated to have been a son of Owen Gwynedd, Prince, or, as he is often styled, King of Wales. His father's death is assigned to the year 1169, and the commencement of his own voyage to the succeedhig year. I quote an authority which lias apparently been overlooked, in citing Warrington's Ilistory of AVales. He writes : ' About this time [1170] Madoc, seeing the contention whicli agitated the fiery spirit of his brothers, with a courage equal to theirs, but far more liberally directed, gave himself up to the danger and uncertainty of seas hitherto unexplored. He is said to have embarked with a few ships ; sailing west, and leaving Ireland to the north, he traversed the ocean till he arrived by accident upon the coast of America. Pleased with its appearance, he left there a great part of his people, and returning for a fresh supply, he was joined by many adventurers, both men and women ; who, encouraged by a flattering description of that country, and sick of the disorders which reigned in their own, were desirous of seeking an asylum in the wilds of America.' " Some, indeed, have regarded the whole subject as unworthy of investigation. But when we perceive it asserted, that individuals have seen in the possession of Indians, as we call them, books or rolls written on parchment, and carefully wrapped up, though they could not be read ; and the people who possessed them, tliough but a frag- ment of our Indian population, showing a fairer skin than the ordi- nary tribes, and hair and beard, occasionally, of reddish color — we must think the subject wortli some further inquiry ; and I cannot but express the hope that the inquiry may be pursued." * Carl Christian Rafn, a Danish archaeologist, in his work on American antiquities, published at Copenhagen in 1837, en- deavors to prove that America was not only discovered by the Scandinavians in the tenth, but that during the fom- suc- ceeding centuries they made frequent voyages thither, and * " Address before the American Antiquarian Society, at their Annual Meeting, October, 1863," by Rev. William Jenks, D.D. EAKLY DISCOVEEEES AND EXPLOEEES. 19 had settlements in what is now Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Availing himself of these researches, our eminent country- man Henry Wheatou enriched his " Histoiy of the North- men " — a work, like the author's Treatise on International Law, of European reputation — the fruit of studies carried on in the midst of important and admirably fulfilled diplomatic duties. Alexander von Humboldt, on his way from Mexico via Cuba, arrived at Philadelphia in 1804, and was cordially re- ceived at Washington by Jefferson ; his sojourn in the United States, however, was quite brief: of his views in regard to the ancient memorials found in the American continents the historian Prescott observes : " Humboldt is a true philoso- pher, divested of local and national prejudices ; like most truly learned men, he is cautious and modest in his deductions, and though he assembles very many remarkable coincidences between the Old World and the New, in their institutions, notions, habits, etc., yet he does not infer that the New • World was peopled from the Old, much less from one par- ticular nation, as most rash speculators have done." * From the vague but romantic conjecture of the Egyptian legend w^hich Plato repeated in regard to the island of At- lantis, to the dim traditions which place the wonderful Vinland of the Scandinavian navigators on the shores of Labrador ; from the mysterious charm that invested the newly discovered isles of the tropics and found immortal expression in Shak- speare's Tempest, to the curious ethnological speculations which recognize in the ancient mounds of tlie Mississippi valley rel- ics of a civilization anterior to the American Indians ; from the fabulous lures, like the fountain of youth, that attracted Southern Europeans to Florida, to the stern crises of opinion which drove English Puritans to the bleak coast of New Eng- land — the earliest descriptions of and associations with the coxmtry, now" known as the United States of America, are deep- ly tinctured with visionary legends and traditional fables ; to * Ticknor's "Life of Prescott," p. 165. 20 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. extricate which from the substratum of truth and fact, is a hopeless attempt. Nor, despite the exploded theories which found in certain rocks and structures evidences of the North- men's sojourn, and the symbolical science which seems par- tially to unite the trophies of ancient sepulchres with the East- ern races — are we averse to leave mianalyzed the vast and mysterious region of inquiry outside of authentic history ; let it remain in vague extent and dreamy suggestiveness — the domain of limitless possibilities to the philosopher, and of ro- mantic suggestiveness to the poet. Even the imaginative chann that belongs to this myth- ical era, yields to one scarcely less attractive, when the Amer- ican traveller remembers, at St. Malo, that the intrepid Car- tier thence sailed to discover the St. Lawrence, or inspects with a deeper feeling than curiosity the letters of Verrazzano, still preserved in the library at Florence, wherein he describes the coast of Carolina and the harbors of New York and Newport in all their virgin solitude ; and recalls at Bristol the primitive expeditions of the Cabots. It is sufficient, indeed, for the inquirer who aims to dis- cern and illustrate the actual resources, development, and pros- pects of the country, to begin with the first authentic descrip- tions of the mainland by the old navigators who, in tliat era of maritime enterprise, visited so many points of the coast toward the close of the fifteenth and the early part of the sixteenth century. When Ave consider what geography was in the hands of Strabo and Pliny, and what the literature of travel was when Columbus discovered the West Indies,* Cabot Labrador, and * San Domingo lias been well named " the vestibule of American discovery and colonization ;" that island having long been the headquarters and rendez- vous of Columbus, and the scene of his first success and subsequent misfor- tunes : it was thither that the animals and plants originally introduced to this country from Eurojie were brought ; there was the first white colony established on this side of the Atlantic ; and there, at present, seems to be the most flour- ishing and promising free negro population. A full and interesting account of this island, whose future is fraught with interest, was recently read before the N. Y. Geographical Society, and is pubUshed by G. P. Putnam, of New York. EAKLY DISCOVERERS AND EXPLORERS. 21 Vespucci gave a name to this continent — instead of wonder- ing at the meagre details and extravagant generalities of those primitive accounts of the New World, we should rather congrat- ulate ourselves on the amount and kind of authentic material which Navai'ette collected and arranged and Irving gracefully- elaborated in his Life of the Discoverer of America. It is quite an abruj^t transition from the glowing fables that im- mediately precede the first chapter of our regular history, to l^erceive and admit the fact that " shoals of cod " really estab- lished the earliest practical mutual interest between Europe and America ; and that the Isfewfoundland fisheries formed the original nucleus whereby originated the extraordinary emi- gration which, from that day to the present, has continued to people this hemisphere with the representatives of every race, country, and lineage of Europe. The old navigators were the pioneers — Spanish and Portuguese; in 1512, Ponce de Leon commenced his romantic quest in the Bahamas ; eight years later, Magellan finished the demonstration Columbus began, by circumnavigating the globe ; in 1524, the Florentine mar- iner Verrazzano anchored in the bay of New York ; in 1528, Narvaez was in Florida; in 1539, De Soto discovered the Mississippi ; in 1540, France commenced the colonization of the country aroimd tlie St. Lawrence, and in 1606 was granted the first charter of Virginia; in 1610, the Dutch began to trade with the aborigines of the Hudson ; and in 1620, the "Mayflower" arrived at Plymouth. For a long period, when the fisheries of Newfoundland were the only attraction and the chief promise to European adventure, the whole country was spoken of and written about by a French appellative signifying codfish ; and during another era, Florida, the name given to their southern settle- ment by the Spaniards, was applied to the whole extent of the coast ; while Virginia, whereby the Jamestown colony was called from the Virgin Queen, whose favorite Raleigh was patentee thereof, designated an indefinite extent of country, and on the old maps and in the current parlance stood for America to Englishmen : a German writer laments that one 22 AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATORS. of those names was not retained as national — instead of being confined to a single State ; arguing their better adaptation to indicate a flourishing and a virgin land than the vague terms America and the United States. One reason why a citizen of the latter is so often startled at the ignorance of rustics and pro^dncials on the Continent, in confounding North and South America, is that the^Droducts of the latter, some of which are in prevalent use in Euro2)e, are known merely as American productions. The decadence of Spain and the growth of England are intimately associated with the settlement of America. The introduction from the latter comitry into Europe of the potato, maize, and tobacco, has exerted an influence and pro- duced results far transcending the more obvious economical consequences. Upon maritime enterprise and interests, in- cluding both legal and scientific progress, the discovery and settlement of the New World produced efiects incalculable. While the priests and the far traders who explored Canada achieved little beyond the local and often temporary establish- ment of depots, forts, and cliapels, and left in the memory of Champlain a foreign tradition rather than a fresh national development, the colonization of the Atlantic slope embodied and conserved a new political development, and identified the country with progressive industry, religious toleration, free citizenship, educational privileges, and an economical rule. Newfoundland became a school for English seamen ; New Belgium preserved and propagated the social enfranchise- ment and mstinct of liberty wrested in the Netherlands from the cruel despotism of Spain ; French Protestants found scope and safety in the Carolinas, and English Puritans a bleak but vital realm in New England. Those formidable-looking folios in old Latin type, and with the imprint of Venice or Amsterdam, dear to anti- quarians, wherein the old navigators, through some medieval scholar's pen, registered for the future bibliopole and histo- rian the journal of their American voyages, constitute the first records of travel there, although mainly devoted to descrip- EAELT DISCOVEEEKS AND EXPLORERS. 23 tions of the coast and adjacent waters. These now rare tomes are curious from their quaint antiquity — the combination of fact and fiction, statements which are confirmed to-day by the measurement of bays and the aspect of nature, and fabulous exaggerations obviously born of honest credulity or super- stitious faith — and according, in their obsolete wonderment, with the primitive style and appearance of the venerable books. Very curious also are the illustrations which repre sent, in stiff and artificial designs, the fields of maize and tobacco and the Indian games and ceremonials which form the marvellous but monotonous features of those first glimpses which the Old World obtained of the New. De Bry's Collection of Voyages and Travels to America, comprised in parts, and printed in folio at Frankfort-on-the-Main in 1590, is the most copious repertory of these ancient records. Flor- ida and Virginia are described as " gardens of the desert," and the heroes of romance cluster around the narrative of their partially explored resources, new products, and myste- rious natives. Most venerable of all, however, is the " Laiago Mundi " of Petrus de Alyaco that inspired Columbus, of which Irving says : " Being at Seville, and malving researches in the Bibliotheca Cohim- bina, the library given by Fernando Columbus to the cathedral of the city, I came accidentally upon the above-mentioned copy of the work of Peter Aliaco. It is an old volume in folio, bound in parch- ment, published soon after the invention of printing, containing a collection in Latin of astronomical and cosmographical tracts of Pedro de Aliaco and of his disciple John Gerson. Aliaco was the author of many works, and one of the most learned and ingenious men of his day. Las Casas is of opinion that his writings had more effect in stimulating Columbus to the enterprise than those of any other author. His work was so familiar to Columbus that he had tilled its whole margin with Latin notes, in his handwriting, citing many things which he had read and gathered elsewhere. ' This book, which was very old,' continues Las Casas, ' I had many times in my hands, and I drew some things from it, written in Latin, by the said Admiral Christopher Columbus, to verify certain points appertaining to his history, of which I before was in doubt.' " 24r AMEKICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. Then, among others, there is a " General Description of America," by P. d'Avity (Paris, 1631) ; " News from Amer- ica " (Rouen, 1678) ; " De Vries's Voyage ; " the famous "Re- lation of Virginia" (1615), and many other local treatises and more or less authentic accoimts written to beguile adventur- ers, celebrate discoveries, or ventilate controversy respecting the boundless land of promise to military and religious, polit- ical and rapacious adventure. Many, and characteristic, too, were these early memorials of New England colonization, tinged ^ith the religious element so largely developed in her primitive annals ; as, for instance, " New England Judged by the Spirit of the Lord" (1661) ; "111 News from New En^ land, by John Clarke, of Rhode Island ; " " The New-England Canaan" (Amsterdam, 1632), The Spanish Voyageurs ; the memorials of Raleigh, De Soto, La Salle — of John Smith, Ponce de Leon, Oglethorpe, Wintlirop, Roger Williams, Hendrik Hudson — and, m short, of the pioneers in conquest, colonization, and civilization, whether religious, agricultural, or administrati'v'e, furnish a mine of description, more or less curious, whereby the original asj^ect, indigenous products, and theoretical estimates of America may be learned in part, and inferred from or compared with later and more complete explorations and reports. A vast number of works devoted to this country appeared dui-ing the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries ; and they attest the historical development incident to the discovery of America and the reaction of colonization there upon European civilization ; but the legitimate literature of travel, as we understand it, in the New World, was initiated by the French missionaries. Li the venerable records of maritune discovery and ex- ploration, the fabulous and the authentic are curiously blended. One of the earliest collectors of these quaint and valuable data was Richard Hakluyt, an English prebendary, born in London in 1553. His love of nautical science and passion for geo- graphical research made the acquisition of an original journal of one of those adventurous mariners who first visited any part of this continent or other half-explored region of the EAKLY DISCOVERERS AND EXPLORERS. 25 earth a precious experience. HaMuyt was educated at West- minster school and Oxford; he corresponded with the, most famous living geographers of his day — such as Ortelius and Mercator. A residence of five years in Paris as chaplain to the British embassy, gave him excellent opportunities for the prosecution of his favorite studies on the Continent ; and these were enlarged on his retm-n to England, when Sir Wal- ter Raleigh appointed him one of the counsellors, assistants, and adventurers to whom he assigned his patent for the pros- ecution of discoveries in America. To him we owe the pres- ervation of numerous original accounts of Enghsh maritime enterjDrise. HaUam remarks that the best map of the six- teenth century is to be found in a few copies of the first edition of Hakluyt's Voyages. John Locke says of the work that it is " valuable for the good there to be picked out." He was encouraged in his labors by Walsingham and Sidney. Few documentary annalists have rendered better service to our primitive history than Hakluyt ; his publications made known the discoveries of his coimtrymen, and, by disseminating the facts in regard to America, encouraged colonization. He translated from the French, in 1587, "Foure Voyages unto Florida by Captain Londonniere," and an improved edition of Peter Martyr's work, " De Novo Orbe ; " but his most cele- brated work is " The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traf- fiques, and Discoveries of the English Nation, made by sea or over land, within the compass of 1,500 years." The first edi- tion is extremely rare ; but an enlarged one appeared in 1598, the third part of which contains a history of expedi- tions to North America and the West Indies. His papers, at his decease, became the property of Rev. Samuel Purchas, who, in 1613, published that curious work, "Purchas, his Pilgrim," two volumes of which form a continuation of Hak- luyt's Voyages. From these sources may be gleaned some of the earliest authentic descriptions of America. In regard to the indigenous products, th^ geography, and some details of aboriginal character and customs, we recognize the honest intention of the brave pioneer navigators; but their credu- 3 26 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. lity and often their lively imagination are equally apparent, and the style and comments of Purchas sometimes add to the incongruous result. An eminent writer has justly defined these collections of Hakluyt and Purchas as " very curious monuments of the nature of hiunan enterprises, human testi- mony, and of human affairs. Much more is, indeed, offered to a refined and philosophic observer, though buried amid the unwieldy and unsightly mass, than was ever supposed by its original readers or by its first comj^Uers." * A very curious relic of these primitive annals of discovery has been renewed to modern readers by Conway Robinson, who so ably prepared for the Vii'ginia Historical Society an "Account of Voyages along the Atlantic Coast of North America, 1520-1573 ;" and a not less curious antiquarian memorial of old times, in that State, was printed for the Hak- luyt Society, " The Historic of Ti'availe in Virginia Brit- tanica." Of late years every authentic document emanating from or relating to Columbus, Vespucius, Cabot, Drake, Hud- son, La Haye, Champlain, and other discoverers and explor- ers, has been, by the judicious liberality of historical and anti- quarian societies, or by private enterprise, reproduced, col- lated, and sometimes printed in fac-siraile, so that the means of tracing the original ideas and exjierience of the old navi- gators have been made accessible to studious comparison and inquiry ; and, in addition to such facilities, the jealousy of European Governments in regard to their archives has, with the growth of intelligence and the love of science, become essentially modified, so that charts, journals, commissions, original data of aU kinds, relating to early explorations, have been and are freely and sagaciously consulted by geographical and historical scholars.f * " Lectures on Modem History," by Prof. Smythe. \ Among other important collections — besides those of De Bry, Hakluyt, Purchas, and De Vries — may be mentioned that by Murray (Lond. 1839), and Ternaux-Compan's "Voyages, Relations et Memoirs Originaux pour servir a histoire de la decouverte de I'Amerique," in ten vols. ; and " Ameri- ca, being the latest and most accurate description of the New World, &c., EAKLY DISCOYEREKS AND EXPLOEEES. 27 There is an absence of details in most of these early chronicles, which indicates but a superficial and limited explo- ration, such as the dangers and difficulties adequately explain. Yet sufficient is recorded to affiard materials for the his- torian and the naturalist, who aim at fixing the time and indicating the original aspect of those portions of the conti- nent that were fii'st visited by Europeans, and have since be- come, through the early appreciation of their natural advan- tages, the centre of prosperous civilization. Thus, in Van der Dock's account of New Netherlands in 1659, he describes the rigors of winter on the coast, the numerous whales that frequented the then lonely waters where is now congregated the shipping of the world, and mentions the fact that two of these leviathans in 164Y grounded forty miles up the river, and infected the air for miles with the effluvia of their de- composition. The abundance and superior quality of the oys- ters, the wild strawberries, the maize, grapes, hazelnuts, sheephead and stm-geons, are noted with the appreciative em- phasis of a Dutch epicure ; and that is a memorable picture to the visitor at Albany to-day, Avhich presents to his mind's eye Hendrik Hudson receiving tobacco, beans, and otter and beaver skins from the natives, environed by a dense forest. Of the primitive reports of colonial explorers and settlers, none has so vivid a personal interest as that of Captain John Smith : the romantic story of Pocahontas alone embalms his name. Sent out by the London Company in 1606, his party landed at Jamestown on the 13th of May of that year; he returned to England in 1609, and five years afterward ex- plored the coast of America from the Penobscot to Cape Cod. In 1615, having commenced another voyage, he was made prisoner by the French, and did not succeed, on regaining his liberty, in securing occupation again in American exploration, although he sought it with earnestness. Captain Smith died in London in 1631. His " True Travels, Adventures, and Obser- vations" was published in 1629. His map, tract on Virgmia, collected from the most authentic authors, and adorned with maps and sculp- ture, by John Ogilby," folio, London, 1675. 28 AMEEICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. and " Description of New England," attest his claims to a better recompense than he received : " In neither of these two coun- tries," he Avrites, " have I one foot of land, nor the very house I builded, nor the ground I digged witli my own hands, nor any content or satisfiiction at all." The original editions of Smith's several works relatuig to America are very rare : some of tliem have been reprinted in historical collections. nis most extensive work is " The General History of Vir- ginia, Now England, and the Summer Isles," prepared at the request of the London Company, and illustrated with portraits and maps. The period described is from 1584 to 162G. These writings are curious rather than satisfoctory ; valuable as records of pioneer experience and memorials of the early settlements : they were written to inform, and in their day were of great practical value ; but, except for aboriginal details and geographical facts, their authority and interest have long been superseded. Yet no American can look upon the old church of St. Sepulchre in London, where Captain John Smith was buried, without recalling that intrepid charac- ter, and associating it with the early fortunes of his native land. It is characteristic of this remarkable man that his favorite authors, when a youth, were Macohiavelli's "Art of War," and the Maxims of Antoninus — two books, says the last •nd best translator of the latter, admirably fitted to form the character of a soldier and a man.* He describes the animals, vegetables, soil, and rivers with quaint and brief eulogium — declaring Virginia " the poor man's best countrie in the world." f Among these primitive travels is a small quarto in anti- quated type, entitled " America Painted to the Life, by Fer- * George Long. f " The Generall Historic of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles, with the names of the Adventurers, Planters, and Govemours, from tlicir first beginning, anno 1584, to this present 1620. With the proceedings of those severall Colonies and the accidents that befell them in all their journeys and discoveries. Also the Maps and descriptions of all those countrycs, their com- modities, people, government, customes, and religion yet knowne. Divided into sixe bookes." Folio, pp. H8, engraved title and one map, London, 1632. EAELY DISCOVERERS AND EXPLORERS. 29 nando Gorges, Esq.," publislietl in London in 1649.* The author says, " all that part of the continent of New England which was allotted by patent to my grandfather, Sir Ferdi- nand Gorges and his heires, he thought lit to call by the nanie of the province of Maine," which, we are told, then extended from the Penobscot to the Hudson ; and was rented for two shillings per aniuim the hundred acres. Sir Fernando ex- pended twenty thousand pounds in his American enterprises. The Avork by his grandson, descriptive thereof, contains the usual details as to products, politics, sects, and Indians : an allusion to a feast of the latter would seem to indicate an early origin for the famous pudding called huckleberry. The occa- sion was a council, to which the Boston magistrates were invited. " The Indian king, hearing of their coming, gath ered together his counsellors and a great number of his sub- jects to give them entertainment ; " — the materials of which are described thus : " boiled chestnuts in their white bread, which is very sweet, as if they were mixed Avith sugar — and, because they would be extraordinary in the feasting, they strove for variety after the English manner, boyling puddings made of beaten come, putting therein great store of black ber- ries somewhat like currants." A quaint and compendious account is given of the first settlement of Springfield, in Mas- sachusetts — the few fiacts related giving a vivid idea of the economical and social condition of that now flourishing tOAATi, in 1645. "About this time, one ]\[r. Pinchin, sometime a magistrate, having, by desire to better his estate, settled him- * " At the same time, Sir Ferdinand Gorges was gathering information of the native Americans, whom he had received at Weymouth, and whose descrip- tions of tlie country, joined to the favorable views which he had ah-eady im- bibed, filled him with the strongest desire of becoming a proprietary of domains beyond the Atlantic." — Banchoft's History of the United States, vol. i. When, in 1643, the commissioners from Pljnnouth, New Ilavcn, Pay brook, &c., assembled at Boston, "being all desirous of union and studious of peace," none of " Sir Ferdinand Gorges, his province beyond Piscataqua, were received nor called into the confederation, because they ran a difl'erent course from us, both in their n,hiistry and civil government." — Wikthrop's Journal. 30 AilEKICA AND IIEK COMMENTATOKS. self very remote from all the churches of Christ in the Massa- chusetts Government, upon the river of Conectico, yet under their government, he liaving some godly persons resorting unto him, they erected a to\\Ti and church of Christ, calling it Springfield ; it lying on this large navigable river, hath the benefit of transporting their goods by water, and also fitly seated for a bever trade with the Indians, till the merchants increased so many, that it became little worth by reason of their out buying one another, wliich caused them to live upon husbandry. This town is mostly built along the river side and upon some little rivulets of the same. There hath of late been more than one or two in tliis town greatly suspected of witchery." Here we have the pious and shrewd motives of the early settlers, the initiation of free trade and their primi- tive politic:U economy, and superstition quaintly hinted. How curious to compare the picture of that little toMU and church so " very remote " from others in the colony, the " bever trade with the Indians," and the destructive rivalry therein — the lonely river in the midst of the Avilderncss, and tlie godly pioneer who came there " to better his estate," and the " sus- picions of witchery " — with the populous, bustling scene of railway travel, manufactures, horse fairs, churches, scliools, trade, and rural prosperity, now daily familiar to hundreds of travellers. It is remarkable how some of these obsolete records link themselves Avith the interests and the questions of the passing liour. What more appropriate commentary, for instance, upon the provincial egotism of Virginia, can be imagined than the statement of Childs, a man of authority in his day, in England, that M'hile some cavaliers found refuge there, many of the colonists were outcasts, and their emigration the alternative for imprisonment or penal exile ? One of the most suggestive and authentic records whence we derive a true idea of the social tendencies and the natural phenomena amid which the American character was bred in the Eastera States is the journal of John Winthrop. Its very monotony reflects the severe routine of life then and there ; EAKLY DISCOVEEKKS AND EXFLORERS. 31 religion enters into and modifies domestic retirement and individual impulse; the rigors of imsubdued natm-e in a northern climate are painfully manifest : we learn how isola- tion, strict oversight, and ecclesiastical rule, the necessity of labor and the alternations of extreme temperature disciplined and dwarfed, purified and hardened, elevated and narrowed the associations and instincts of humanity. What a vivid glimpse of life two hundred years ago in New England do the brief notes of the first Governor of Massachusetts aftbrd us, and how easy thence to deduce the characteristics and the history of those remarkable communities, explain their pecu- liarities, and justify their tenacious traits ! Take a few ran- dom extracts by way of illustration : JVop. 15, 1037.— A day of thanksgiving for tho -Clctory obtained over the Pequods. Mar. 7, 1638.— Mrs. Hutchenson, being removed to the Isle of Aquid- nev, was delivered of a monstrous birth : Mr. Cotton hereupon gathered it might signify hc-r error in denying inherent righteous- ness. A woman was judged to be whipped for reproaching the magistrates. Mar. 1, 1638. — A printing house was begun at Cambridge by one Dave. charged with taking above sixpence in the shilling profit. Mar. 10, 1639.— At the General Court an order was made to abolish that vain custom of drinking one to another. In this winter, in a close calm day, there fell down diverse flakes of snow of this form * , very thin, and exactly pointed as art would have cut them in paper. Sep. 20, 1630. — The wolves killed six calves at Salem. May 13, 1632. — The French came in a pinnace to Penobscott and rifled a trucking house belonging to Plimouth, carrying away three hundred weight of beaver. A^or. 5. — The congregation at Watertown discharged elder for intemperance in speecli. Jan. 17. — A servant of Mr. Skelton lost her way, and was several days in the woods, and half frozen. Jtcne 1, 1633.— A Scotchman by prayer and fasting dispossessed one possessed of the devil. Droughts, freshets, meteors, intense cold and heat, terrific storms, calm beautiful days, conflagrations, epidemics, Indian 32 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. massacres, alternate in the record with constant church trials, reiJriraands and controversies, public Avhii)i)ings and memor- able sermons, occasional and long-desired arrivals from Eng- land, the establishment of a college and printing press, local emigrations and perilous adventure ; "wliercin bigotry and the highest fortitude, superstitions and acute logic, privation and cheerful toil, social despotism and individual rectitude indicate a rare and rigid school of life and national develoj)ment. Among the first colonial tributes of the muse descriptive of the New World was " New England's Prosjx'Ct," a true, living, and experimental description of that part of America commonly called New England, by William Wood. It Avas publislied in London in 1G35. The author lived four years in the region he pictures, and states in the preface to his metrical tract his intention to return there. He gives a rhymed ac- count of the colony's situation, and dilates upon the habits of the aborigines. The scene of the j»oeni is Boston and its vicin- ity, and the versified catalogue of indigenous trees is interest- ing, as probal)ly the first record of the kind. " Cheerful Wil- liam Wood " tells us, in delineating the country along the Mer- rimack, that " Trees both in Lills and i)lain3 in plenty be, The long-lived oak and monrnfnl cypris tree, Skr-toworing pine.s and chestnuts coateil rough, The lasting cedar, with the walnut tough : The rosin-dropping fir for masts in use ; The boatman seeks for oares light, neat-growne sprewse ; The brittle ashe, the ever trembling aspes, The broad-spread elm whose concave harbors wasps. The water-springie alder, good for nought," &c., li A TIO X. HKJTJJKPIN, MEXARD, ALLOCEZ, MARqCETTE, CHARLEVOIX, MAREST. LoxG after the Crusades, a spirit of adventure ami a love of travel animated men whom relii^ous faith or ecclesiastical inlluenee dedicated to the priesthood. That vocation pre- sented the two extremes of contemplative and active life; and where the temperament and the enthusiasm or intelligent curiosity of the monk maicttjres of what they saw ; or, from lack of knowledge and imagination, confined them- selves to a literal and limited recital of personal adventure, whence little i)ractical informati(m was to be derived. There is a singular union of extravagance and simplicity, of the fabulous and the true, of the boastful and the heroic, in these narratives. It must have required unusual discrimination on the ]>art of readers in Europe, seeking facts, to disentangle the ueb of reality and fiction so often confusedly woven in such memoirs of travel. Yet some of them have proved in- valuable to tlio historian of our own day, as tlie only known repertory of authentic statements as to the early productions, aspects, natives, explorations, and phenomena of parts of this continent : the integrity and patience of some of these mission- ary authors are apparent in their very style and method ; and many of their assertions have been fully proved by subsequent observation and contemporary evidence. Still, there is no class of writings whicli nmst be interpreted with more careful refer- ence to the character and motives of the writers, to the state of scientific knowledge at the period, and to the sjtirit of the age. A certain credulity, tlie result of superstition, ignorance, and enthusiasm, was characteristic even of the enlightened class of explorers then and there ; and, when motives of per- sonal vanity, self-aggrandizement, or national rivalry were added to these normal defects, it is easy to imagine how few of the clerical raconteurs are to be considered satisfactory to a philosoplii6 inquirer. On the other hand, the singleness of purpose, the sincere Christian zeal, the pure love of nature and of truth, and a certain heroic conscientiousness of purpose and of practice, make some of these missionary travels in America naive, suggestive, and interesting. As representa- FEENCII MISSIONARY EXPLOKATION. 39 tions of what certain parts of the country were two hundred years ago, of liow nature looked, and what life was here and then, they afford us a contrast so vivid and surprising to the scene and the life of the present, that, on this account alone, no imaginative mind can revert to them without realizing anew the mysterious vicissitudes of time and place and the moral wonder involved in the settlement, growth, and present civilization of America. Among the French missionaries whose travels on this continent attracted much attention in his own day, and, in ours, are regarded at once with curiosity and distrust, was Louis Heniu'])in, a Franciscan. lie was a native of Holland, and Lorn in the year 1G40, Quite early in life the instinct of travel asserted itself; for, as one of that privileged mendicant fraternity whom every traveller has encountered in Sicily or Spain, he wandered asking alms through Italy and Germany. It was while thus following the vocation of a pious beggar at Calais and Dunkirk, that Hennepin's wanderhig passion became infected with that desire to cross the sea, which, sooner or later, seizes upon all instinctive vagabonds. He enlisted as a regimental chaplain, and in that capacity was present at the battle of Sencf, between William of Orange and the Prince of Conde, in 10 74. He had passed one year as preacher in Belgium ; and had been thence sent by his supe- rior to Artois, and subsequently had the charge of a hosjatal for several months in Holland. Such was the early career of Father Hennepin, previous to entering upon his American mission. He was ordered to Canada in 1675, and embarked at Rochelle, with La Salle. Having i)reached a while at Quebec, he went, the following year, to the Indian mission at Frontenac ; he afterward visited the Five Nations and the Dutch settlement at Albany, and returned to Quebec in 1678. When La Salle prei)ared to explore the Lakes, and des- patched the Chevalier de Tonty and La Motte from Fort Frontenac to Xiagara, to construct vessels, Hennepin was attached to the expedition ; and, in 1677, passed through Lakes Erie, Huron, and Michigan, to the mouth of the St. 40 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. Joseph's, ascended in a canoe to the portage ; conveying their slender barks six miles across the country to the Kan- karee, they glided down this stream and the Iroquois to the Illinois river, and erected Fort Crevecoeur, on the spot Avhere now stands the city of Peoria. It is said that La Salle's conjectures about the Mississippi river " worked upon him ; and that, zealous for the honor of his nation, he designed to signalize the French name." His character has been thus described : " He was a man of regular behaviour, of a large soul, well enough learned, and under- standing in the mathematics ; designing, bold, imdaunted, dexterous, insinuating ; not to be discouraged by anything ; wonderfully steady in adversity ; and well enough versed in several savage languages." Here we have all the requisites for a great explorer ; yet few have achieved such fame to endure such misfortunes. " The government of Fort Ed- ward," says his biographer, " which is the place farthest advanced among the savages, was given to him ; and he going over to France, in 1675, the king made him proprietor of it ; he came home with stories of mines, wild bullocks, for- ests, &c. ; and there grew up a jealousy of him among his countrymen : they thwarted his designs ; and after he had picked out forty or fifty of them for a new expedition, and had spent years in going and coming, he was once nearly poisoned ; he conciliated the savage inhabitants, and gave her name to Louisiana." When, after the lapse of a few weeks. La Salle was obliged to return to Frontenao for supplies, he sent Hennepin to explore that mighty river, hitherto only known to Euro- peans above the mouth of the "Wisconsin. The adventurous friar started on this expedition in the month of February, 1680, in his frail canoe, and, tracking the Illinois to its mouth, ascended the Mississippi to the Falls of St. Anthony, which he so named in honor of his patron saint ; and was the first Euro- pean who ever beheld those beautiful rapids in the heart of the wilderness. Having arrived at the mouth of the St. Fran- cis river, in what is now Minnesota, a stream which he thus FRENCH MISSIONAEY EXPLOEATION. 41 baptized from the founder of his own religious order, Henne- pin again landed, and traversed the countiy to the distance of one himdred and eighty miles ; he sojourned for three months among the Sioux Indians ; returned in safety to Que- bec, and soon after embarked for France ; and in 1683 pub- lished his " Descriptions," &c. This work was the most com- plete account of the first expedition of La Salle, and, as such, was sought for and read with avidity. Had the record of Hennepin's career ended here, his name would have remained honorably associated with those of other European mission- aries who, with courage and probity, sought for and pro- claimed the wonders of the New World, while planting there- in the cross and the faith to whose service he and they were pledged. But, not satisfied with the glory of a pioneer navi- gator of the Father of "Waters, nor with the prestige of a faithful attache to a brave but unfortunate chieftain, or that of a self-devoted minister of religion, in 1697, ten years after the death of La Salle, Hennepin audaciously gave to the world his " Nouvelle decouverte d'un tres grand pays situe dans I'Amerique entre la Nouveau Mexique et la Mer Glaciale ; * claiming therein to have descended the Mississippi and com- pleted, for the first time, its exploration. The mere fact of his extraordinary delay in announcing this remai-kable experi- ence is sufficient to make a candid mind distrustful ; and the motive thei'eto seems evident when we remember how imme- diately this publication followed i^pon the demise of the only witness its author had reason to fear. Accordingly, Hennepin has been and is regarded as untruthful by our own and Euro- pean historians, except in regard to topographical and local details confirmed by other testimony and by observation of natural facts. Still his adventures, and the narrative thereof possess an interest derived from their early date ; Ave asso- ciate them with the first authentic glimpses of the new conti- nent in its vast Western phase which were attained by Euro- * "New Discovery of a Vast Country in America, extending above 4,000 Miles, between New France and New Mexico," &e., map and plates, London, 1698. 42 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS. peans ; we cannot but imagine the Avonder, liope, and curiosity inspired by such travellers' tales, and look upon the diminutive volumes and obsolete type of the earliest editions with a kind of fond reminiscence ; beholding, in fancy, the eagerness and incredulity ^ith which they were origiiiall}i4)ondered. And those of us who have sailed along the umbrageous and lofty bluffs of the Upper Mississippi, and gazed from a steamer's deck, in the eai'ly summer morning, upon the magnificent soli- tude — the noble stream, the far reach of Avoods, tlie high, cas- tellated Ihnestone rocks — and heard a Avild bird's cry, or caught sight of a Sioux, a log hut, a hunter — watched the moving i)auorama of foliage, prairie, village, fever-stricken settlement and growing city alternating with lonely forest — realizing how Nature's wild seclusion and Humanity's primi tive civilization meet, separate, and mingle on the borders of a mighty inland river, flowing deep and far thrqugh the Wes*> — so fraught with destiny, so recent in the annals of nations, and so ancient in the beauty and grandeur of creation — Ave, who have thus gazed and mused, Avhen rapidly borne on the wings of steam, Avhere Heimepin's lonely and fragile canoe slowly moved through this scene of virgin and unexplored loveliness and poAver, cannot refrain from a thrill of sym- pathy Avith those emotions of awe and love, of expectancy and danger the roving Franciscan must have fel^^ and, with all his Avant of veracity, recognize somcAvhat of fraternity by virtue of that " touch of nature " Avhich makes us all akin. "We accept the memorial of Hennepin, Avhich gives his name to locomotive and steam barge, Avhere he first baptized the waters ; Ave recall him as we stand in the midst of the dash- ing flood Avhich still murmurs his saintly nomenclature ; and, when a prairie flower takes us back to the bosom of nature, or the wind, unchecked on the Avide plains, sounds the same eter- nal anthem that greeted his ears Avho first invaded their soli- tude, we feel that, however the face of the land has changed, woods fallen before the settler's axe, and aborigines faded in the path of civilization, and thrift encroached upon sport, agri- culture upon the wilderness, Nature still breathes her ele- FRENCH MISSIONAKY EXPLOKATION. 43 mental chaiTns, and preserves not a few of her most significant features. To an imaginative mind there is as much poetry as philosophy in the contrast between the Illinois which Henne- pin traversed, and that which to-day holds such a world of life and labor in her bosom. The vast fields of grain, the teeming orchards, the cities and railroads of the present, to the political economist, afford a marvellous parallel to the ver- dant deserts described in 1680 ; but not less striking is the coincidence that deserted Monnon temples are there found, and a President of this republic was thence elected to meet the greatest crisis of our national life. One sees the extremes of civilization and the normal physical resources of this Western region, side by side with tlie distinctive natural features which excited th« admiration and fill the chronicles of the mission- ary explorers. Even a rapid transit brings these associations home to the mind. On one occasion, as our train stopped on the edge of a rolling prairie, whose treeless, undulating sui'- face, for miles, was unbroken save by harvest fields, the early descriptions of the face of the country were realized ; and, while specimens of the mineral wealth and fruits of the allu- vial soil were passed around, there appeared, pensively walking on the edge of the " garden of the desert," in entire contrast with the solitude and wild fertility of tlie landscape, an Eng- lish lady, in the costume of the landed gentry, leading a child — their flaxen hair and high-bred manner suggestive of Saxon lineage : they were evidently of the better class of emigrants, who had sought in the far-away West a sphere, limited and dreary in comparison with their English home, hoAvever blessed by nature, but auspicious for the future of children whose native land aflTords no promising scoj^e either for Avork or subsistence. The vivacious and brave heralds of the Cross, who, two centuries ago, delighted the Parisians with their accounts of a land of boundless woods and waters in the West, rarely and imperfectly surmised its destiny in the Prov- idential issues of time : it was recognized, indeed, as a new domain for the rule of a French monarch, a new sphere for the triumph of religion, a new arena for military adventure 4A AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. and colonization ; but few realized that it was to become a grand scene of political development and a refuge for the baffled nationalities of Europe. Indeed, there is no chapter in the primitive history of the country, which, appreciated in all its relations, picturesque, adventurous, heroic, and religious, that offers such attractive themes for art, romance, and philosophy as these early missions, whereby the Old World first won a foothold in the grandest portions of the New. It was through the vague reports of their aboriginal converts that the pious followers of St. Francis de Xavier, were stimidated to seek now a great lake, and now a mighty river : it was when in search of new tribes as subjects of their missionary zeal, that incidents of romantic interest and scenes of unrivalled beauty became known to them, and, through them, to the civilized world. Menard, a Huron missionary, planned an expedition in search of the Mississippi in 1660 : at the mission on tlie Saguenay, the Jesuits heard from their wild converts, of a vast lake, that lured them on a voyage of auspicious discovery ; while their brethren in New York State witnessed the ceremonious departure of the Iroquois to give battle to an inimical tribe on the shores of the " beautiful river," and, being thus made aware of new links in the mag- nificent water chain, urged their explorations in the direction of the Ohio. Father Dablon, when superior of the Ottawa mission, established a station among the Illinois, and reached the Wisconsin river after a toilsome voyage : his " Relation " was published in 1670, and contained a map of Lake Superior. But the narrative of Father Claude Allouez, who left France in 1658, contains one of the earliest accounts of an expedition to the Illinois coimtry, which tlie Indians had described to Father Dablon as intersected by a river " so beautiful that, for more than three hundred leagues from its mouth, it is larger than that which flows by Quebec ; and the vast country is nothing but prau'ies without trees or woods, which oblige the inhabitants of those parts to use turf and dung for fuel, till you come about twenty miles from the sea." Allouez began his journey thither on the ice ; one of his companions FKENCH MISSIONAEY EXPLORATION. 45 ■was killed by a bear ; he had seen Father Kene Menard go forth on his sacred work, to die in the wilderness ; but the ardent love of religious enterprise, which made his appoint- ment to this wild and distant land so welcome amid the com- forts of home, was not chilled or daunted : one of the first missionaries who reached the Mississippi, his name is asso- ciated Avith that of Marquette in the annals of Western dis- covery, whom he succeeded in the Eliuois mission ; in his light canoe he faithfully explored the shores of Michigan, and erected a chapel at Chippewa. The record of strange animals, impressive scenery, savage hospitality and games, alternates curiously, in these narratives, with the observance of saints' days and the rites of Christianity, and the American wilder- ness with the associations of the Roman Church. In the Old World, it is a pastime of singular fascination to the cultivated and imaginative American, to haunt an ancient town like Chester, where Roman walls and camp outlines, faded banners won in Cromwell's time, and baronial escutch- eons or' classic coins identify the site of historic events associated with the distant past. To the native of a land where all is so fresh, active, and changeful, the shadow of the pyramids, the moonlit arches of the Colosseum, and the me- dieval towers of Florence impart to the landscape a hallowed charm, more impressive from its entire novelty. And yet such experiences are possible at home, if the same retrospective dreamer will but connect the facts of the past, of which there are so few artificial memorials, with the aspect of nature un- modified in her more g^-and features by the vicissitudes of centuries. Looking forth, in the calm of a summer morning, upon a lonely and wooded reach of Western river or lake, let him recall the story of pioneer, adventurer, or missionary, contrasting it with the tokens of subsequent civilization, and the appeal to wonder is not less emphatic, though more vague. How wild, remote, exuberant must have seemed the Father of Waters to Marquette and Joliet, when they glided out upon its vast and unexplored bosom! On the 13th of May, 1673, with five other Frenchmen, they embarl^d in two 46 AMERICA Am) HER COMMENTATORS. canoes, provided with a slender stock of Indian corn and smoked beef; and, guided by such information as they could gather from the aborigines, left Green Bay, ascended the Fox river, and, on the 25th of June, entered the Mississippi. The first naive and quaint record of what they saw, heard, and did on this primitive expedition, has, by the liberal enter- prise of one of our citizens,* been reproduced as it then greet- ed the eyes of their sympathetic countrymen, with the obso- lete type so appropriate to such a voyageur's chronicle. Father Marquette tells us there of the wild rice, grapes, and plums whereAvith they regaled — of the Miamis that assisted their portage — of the trace of footsteps on the river's bank, following which they came upon a beautiful prairie — of so- journs in Illinois villages, calumet-smoking with friendly natives, feverish nights with mosquitos — of the dreary bellow of herds of buffaloes, and the lowly flights of the startled quails. Those months of primitive navigation were fraught with a rare excitement to minds reared amid the highest existent civilization ; but, as if awed by the precarious life and jnajestic aspect of primeval nature, the simplicity of the narrative is only equalled by the unprecedented interest of the discoveries ; and the good priest's memory has long been hallowed by his death in the midst of scenes forever identified ■wath his brave and pious character. On the shore of Lake Michigan, the isolated and picturesque witness of those heroic toils and that humane ministry, on the 18th of May, 1675, the canoe of Father Marquette entered a small stream, and he requested the two men in charge thereof to leave him for half an hour : on returning, they found him dead. The site of his grave, f near the bank, is still designated, and the little river bears his name ; but the brief and artless record * James Lenox, Esq., of New York. j- " Marquette's body was disinterred from its lonely resting place on the lake shore by the Kiskakon Indians, among whom he had faithfully labored. Dissecting it, according to custom, they washed the bones and dried them in the sun, then putting them neatly in a box of birch bark, they set out to bear them to the house of St. Ignatius, at Michilimakinac." — Dablon's Narrative of Marquette's Expedition. FEENCH mSSIONART EXPLORATION". 47 of his voyage, a small duodecimo of forty-three pages, is the most characteristic memoi'ial of the man, and one of the most endeared as well as vivid glimpses of that marvellous river and region, as they were first revealed to civilized nations.* Another French missionary to Canada has left, not only a more ample, but more authentic chronicle, and his name is often invoked with trust and respect by our historical writers. Pierre Francois Xavier Charlevoix was born in 1682, at St. Quentin, and died in 1761, at Lafieche. His life was devoted to study and travel in behalf of his faith ; and few of his order have manifested greater courage, patience, and in- tegrity. His American tour, although now but a pleasant excursion, was formidable and adventi^rous enough, in his own day, to render him more famous than an African or Arctic traveller of our own. His account of the productions of the wilderness, the extent and character of rivers, woods, and mountains, and especially of the character and customs of the natives, was not only esteemed when the novelty of its details originally Avon readers, but has continued among the standard books of travel.f Charlevoix carefully and thor- oughly, with the means and opportunities at command, * See J. G. Shea's " Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley, with the Narrative of Marquette, Hennepin, Douay," &c., 8vo., fac-simile and map, New York, 1852 ; Rev. "W. I. Kip's "Early Jesuit Missions in North America, compiled from the letters of the French Jesuits," 1 vol.. New York, 1846, and 2 vols. 8 vo., London, 1847; and "Relations des Jesuits, conte- nant ce qui s'est passe de plus remarquable dans les missions des Peres de la Compagnie de Jesus dans la Nouvelle France : ouvrage publie sous les aus- pices du gouvernement Canadien," 3 vols, royal 8vo., of about 900 pp. each, Quebec, 1858. " This work, of which only a small number were printed, is a complete reprint of all the Jesuit relations concerning the missions in Canada and French North America, from 1611 to 1672, and contains most important matter concerning the Indian tribes, and the early history of Maine, New York, and all the Northwest." f " Histoire et Description generale de la Nouvelle France," atlas and 6 vols., Paris, 1744. " Letters to the Duchess of Lesdiguixes, giving an account of a voyage to Canada, and travels through that vast country and Louisiana to the Gulf of Mexico," 8vo., London, 1*763. 48 AMEKICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS. ascended the St. Lawrence, traversed tlie region called the " country of the Dlinois," and descended the Mississippi. A coimty now bears his name in Michigan. He visited the East and West Indies, and, when at home again, elaborately recorded his extensive travels. They form a valuable work of reference Avhen it is desirable to ascertain the pliysical and local facts m regard to these countries during the first part of the last century. Among the suggestive historical and ])ersonal associations which the rapid march of events, and especially the triumphs of locomotion and intercoiirse, contin- ually excite in this age and country, few are more impres- sive than the fact that the two most remote points of Charle- voix's world-wide journeys were, in a manner, brought to- gether when the Japanese embassy visited the United States a few years since. In his Avildest dreams the ardent Jesuit could scarcely have imagined that the region of mighty rivers and primeval woods, which he so laboriously explored amid privation, toil, and danger, could, in so brief a period, become accessible, populous, and fused, as it were, into tlie compass of a recreative tour ; and that the natives of that far-away isle in the Indian seas, whose semi-civilization he first reported to Europe, should come hither as ambassadors to a vast re- public, and cany their Asian aspect through crowded cities of Anglo-Saxon freemen. Xever, perhaps, were stationary and progressive civilization brought so directly in contrast. The Japanese envoys, as well as their distant home, are identi- cal with those Charlevoix so long ago described ; while the virgin sohtudes of nature, amid which his lonely canoe floated or his solitary camp fire blazed, are superseded by busy toAvns and i^eopled Avith flying caravans of travellers, representing an economy, character, and government full of vitality and of prosperous and original elements. I It is curious to turn to the somewhat monotonous but still instructive pages of Charlevoix, and realize how exclusively, at the time he ^^Tote, the interest of this continent was aborig- inal and prospective ; for it is with the aspects and resources of nature and the peculiarities of the Indian tribes that his FRENCH MI8SI0NAKY EXPLORATION. 49 pen is occupied. Whatever of romance tinges his chronicle is Arcadian ; the myths and manners of the different tribes, the trees and the reptiles, waterfidls and savannas, are the staple themes. His religious views and mission lend a pensive dignity to his narrative : like most of his countrymen, he develops certain symjjathies with, and finds cui'ious interest in, the sauvages ; he pictures the wild beauty and primitive life of the country when furs were the chief article of traffic — when the convents of Canada, the frontier forts, and the Indian villages were the only places of secure sojourn — when " fire water " had only begun its fascinating destruction among the then naive childfen of the soil — w^hen rude fields of tobacco, orchards, and maize fields alone gave sign of culti- vation, and game and fish supplied the wanderer's subsist- ence. In Charlevoix we find the gei-ms of colonial romance in America ; the primitive maps, the old forts, the early crude botanical nomenclature, with etlmological hints regarding the Hurons, Iroquois, Algonquin, and other tribes. He first elaborately pictured the " lacs " — those wonderful inland seas which constituted so remarkable a feature of the New World to its first visitors, and became the great means of economical development by initiating, under wise statesmanship, the pro- lific system of communication between the far interior and the broad seacoast. His letters were commenced in 1720, by order of the King of France. One of the best English translations appeared in 1765. The details are curious now, rather than novel; they are carefully noted, and form the best authority for reference as to tlie primitive aspect, productions, and aboriginal tribes. The topographical statements are often confirmed by experi- ence at the present day ; and the imaginative traveller finds his enjoyment of the scenery enhanced by contemplating it with tne Te'^'^^*^ of this venerable s:uide before him, and con- trasting with that early record the scene us modified by the sights and sounds of Anglo-Saxon civilization. " In New England, and other provinces of America," says Charlevoix, " subject to the British empire, there prevails an 3 60 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS. opulence of which they seem not to have taken the benefit ; and, in New France, a poverty disguised by an air of ease, wliich docs not seeni constrained. Commerce and the culture of plantations Ptiengthen the former : the industry of the inhabitants supports the latter ; and the taste of the nation diffuses an unbounded agrceableness. The English colonist gathers wraith, and never runs into any superfluous expense ; the French enjoys what he has, and often makes a show of what he has not : one labors for his heirs ; the other leaves them in the necessity in whieh he found himself, to shift as well a^ they ran. The English are entirely averse to war, because they have mueh to lose ; they do not regard the sav- asres, because thev think tlu-y have no occasion for them." In these remarks we have a key, not only to the national char- acteristics of the two peoples, but one which explains the suc- cess of one and the failure of the other in permanent coloni- zation. Our associations with the name of Chicago and of Illinois make it difficult to realize the casual mention of them by Charlevoix as the abode of Indians only: " Fifty years ago," he writes, " the Miamis were settled at the south end of the lake Michigan, in a place called Chicago, whieh is also the name of a little river that runs into the lake : the Illinois, a savage nation, on the banks of the river Illinois ; they bum prisoners, and sing doleful songs." He observes that the "navigation of Lake Michigan requires much care, because the wind comes from the open lake, that is, the west ; the waves are the whole length of the lake, and blend with the shock of currents and of rivers running in ; " — a primitive description, which comes home to all who have experienced a gale there. Of the two great rivers of the West, he writes: "Tv- Missouri is far the most rapid, and entpr* '' a conqueror; after""- ■* ■♦ . .^ \ji -. , are trees made hol- me north by the tops of trees, as FRENCH MISSIONARY EXPLORATION. 51 they lean a little that way ; the iMississi])pi is little kno-wii above the Falls of St. Anthony." Charlevoix was an eminent teacher, both of languai^es and philosophy, and, for more than twenty years after his return from America, " had a chief share in the Journal de Trevoitx.''' His character and learuinrr gave authority to his " Ilistoire Generale de la Nouvelle France." As we read his accounts of personal observations and experience in Canada and on the Mississippi, of the beavers and cypress trees, the elks and eels, the lakes and falls, the maize and oysters, the snakes and tur- tles, Indians and missions, we can perceive a directness and honesty of pur])ose, which is internal evidence of the author's good faith. The simplicity and ingenuousness of his style have always been recognized, though its correctness is not admit- ted by verbal critics. With the wild, luxuriant, lonely, remote picture of the Jesuit clear and full to the mind's eye, what a wonderfid pro- cess of development, relation, and change, does the Illinois region offer to one now familiar with its history and its aspect ! The unpeopled desert of the isolated missionary is still in the far West, " a vast prairie dotted with groves and intersected with belts of timber ; " but, less remote, its climate is only modified ; and the herds of buffalo have disappeared, the wild deer drink no more at the streams; the same millions of fertile acres and a portion of the immense swamp diversify the face of the land; the same limestone bluffs frown impos- ingly upon the vast river ; the same ])icrcing blasts from the Rocky jMountains sweep snow-covered plains ; and, away from the settlements, the same blue-bells, wild roses, thistles, sorrels fragrant herbs, and lofty weeds aTid hairy-leaved plants, and grassy levels make the summer gorgeous and balmy; the scar- let trumpet blossoms and the golden dandelion, the low box trees, the purple wild grape, and the crimson sumach make brilliant and variegated the meadows ; the same gray, mottled, and flying squirrels occasionally cross the wanderer's path ; the owl may be heard at night, and the turkey buzzards hover over carrion ; the crow, the falcon, the hawk, the \ ulture, the mock- 52 AMERICA AND IIEK COMMENTATORS. inpj bird, and tlie rattlesnake, liere and there, attest that old hiin- tora aiul early naturalists correctly noted the inditjenous animal lil'c of the rcj^ion ; but tall maize stalks, and woolly Hocks, and fruitful orchards, and herds of cattle have superseded the wil- derness where the elk browsed fearlessly ami the hares bur- rowed unharmed. Since the flag of Spain was j»l:uited at the mouth of the Mississippi, in 1541 — since, a century later, Father Manjuette offered the calumet of peace ami tlie Canada fur trad- ers came thither, what vicissitudes and progress have signal- ized the scenes that Hennepin so long ago described ! Be- stowed by Louis XIV., in 1 712, upon Anthony Crozat, with the entire territ<»ry of Louisiana and Wisconsin, the Illinois country became the capital upon wliich a trading company, managed by John Law, proroductive. Par- allel with these demonstrations of latent wealth and normal fertility, of Indian history and land speculation, social life FRENCH MISSIONARY EXPLORATION. 53 there has yielded original traits, whereof authors and artists have not inadequately availed themselves. The adventures of missionary, trader, hunter, settler, and traveller have been genially recorded ; the descendants of the original three thou- sand French colonists on the banks of the Mississippi, with their national proclivities, so diverse from the Anglo-Saxon, and manifested in their household economy and vivacious temperament — the primitive manners and costmne of the farmers, who long conveyed the j»rolands of the St. Lawrence, or stand entranced amid the foaming rapids of St. Anthony, or watch with rapture the undulating sea of herbage and flowers on a blooming j»rairie of Illinois or Missouri, associate these characteristic aspects of nature witli their first European explorers. Their written memorials, however, aptly consecrate tlieir experience : there- by we learn how cheerfully scholars, soldiers, and courtiers braved the privations and the cruelties incident to such heroic enterprises ; we read the artless story of their ministry — how at times they feel rewarded for months of suffering by the Baintly development of an Indian virgui, by the acquiescence 50 AMERICA AND ITER OOSfMENTATORfl. of a tribe in tin- rites of Christianity, or liy the amelioration in the liahits anedition to Fort George. Some of the letti'rs written by the missionaries to their stiperiors and brethren in France contain the earliest descrijitions of por- tions of States now constitiiting the most fl(»urishing region in the West. In his account of a " Journey through Illinois and Michigan, in 1712," Father Marest writes: "Our Illinois dwell in a delightful country. Tliere are great rivers, which water it, and vast and dense forests, with delightful prairies," He descants on the " charming variety " of the scene, speaks of the abundance of game, such as bufl^aloes, roebucks, hinds, stags, swan, geese, bustards, ducks, and turkeys ; he notes the wild oats and the cedar and copal trees, the apple, peach, and pear orchards, an WRrTKRS. CHASTELLUX ; l/ABIlfc HOIIIN ; DfCOfe ; BKIftSoT DE WARVrLLS ; CREVEUKIU; LA noCIIEKOLCAULU-LIANCorHT ; TOLXET ; RATKAL. After the colonial ailvcnturcrs and the rclljifious pioncerfl liad made tlio natural fVntures of America familiar to Euroj»Q — after Bettleinents ha«l been made (diHputcd, declined, and flourished) by reprcsontjitivcs of every civilized land, and the Eiii,'li>h character was the established social influence in the New World — came that raemorablc struggle for political in- dependence which attracted so many brave and intelligent allies from abroad : some of these have left accoimts of their experience and a record of their impressions ; they differ from the earlier series of travels in a more detailed report of the manners and customs of the people, in a sympathetic em- phasis derived from mutual privations and triumphs, in a speculative interest suggested by the new and vast prospects which tlien opened before a free people, and in the attractive personal associations which connect these literary memorials with the names of our champions in the War of Independence. Perhaps no one of this class of travels in America is more satisfactory, from the interest of the narrative and the agreea- ble style, than those of the Marquis de Chastellux.* He \'ividly • " Vovagc3 dans rAmcrique Septentrionale dans les aim6e8 178'>-'81-'82," 2 vols. 8vo., Paris, 1786. FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 59 caught the life of America at the time of its most character- istic self-assertion. His amiable manners and intelligent zeal had won him the special regard of Washington. He was one of the forty members of the French Academy, and a major- general of the French anny, serving under Count Rocham- beau. Francois Jean, Marquis de Chastellux, was bom in Paris in 1734, and died there in 1788. He was one of those charac- ters almost peculiar to the old regime^ in France, wherein the 7/iilitairc and the man of letters were gracefully combined with the gentleman.* At quite an early ago he entered the army, and won distinction in Gennany during the Seven Years' Mar. I lis agrceaV)le conversation and urbane manners made him a great favorite when, xinder Rochambcau, he serA-cd in America ; in camp and drawing room, at wayside inns and among educated and philosophical men, he was alike pleasant and courteous ; and from the commander-in- chief of our anny to the shrewd fanner of whose hospitality he partook while travelling, from the stately dowager at Philadelphia to the rustic beauty of an isolated plantation in Virginia, lu' gained that consideration which high breeding, quick sympathy, and a cultivated mind so naturally win. He acquired no inconsiderable literary rep\itation by a work that appeared in \112, JJe la FcUrid Pi/f)h'-igorous thoughts, but they are expressed in too rhetorical a manner to impress deeply a reflective mind ; the absence of Christian faith is characteristic of the author's times and country among philosophical writers : yet, notwith- GO AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. Standing the incompleteness and scepticism of the work, its brilliant generalizations so pleaiJed Voltaire that he declared it superior to Montt'scpiieu's fanious treatise. As in so many other instances, the lame of the Marquis de Chastellux, as a writer, rests upon the incidental rather than the formal and elaborate achievements of his pen. His Vvyagt^n (fans F Ame- rique Septentrionale are the spontaneous comments and de- scriptions such as till the letters and jtmmals of an intelligent travtlk-r ; they are written in a very pleasant tliouirh desul- tory style, and abound in details of interest not familiar at the time the work appeared. Many imjwrtant ecoiiomieal, social, and personal facts are gracefully reeorded ; and the charac- ter of the country and of the men who directed the War of Independence and the formatiim of a free government are described ; there are some lively aneedotic:d episodes, and not a few acute speculations : the work is truly French in the con- stant allegation of alight vein of remark with serious ob.serv»- tion, and warm sentiment with worldly wisdom. The frugal and simple ways, the mental indi-pendi-nee, modt-sty, habits of reading, and political tendencies of the people elicit from the Marquis the most intelligent sympathy ; he appreciated the eminent characters to whom the country owed her safety ; he notes with accuracy the climate, productions, and habits, with which he comes into contact ; but, now and then, a tone of pedantry seems inconsistent with the scene and the senti- ment ; yet sometimes the associations of both n.aturally excite classic .and romantic memories j he quotes Rabelais and Metas- tiisio, Molii're anis rares autrrfois, fid doxiblcment glorieitx poxir lui.^^ His " Essay sur TUnion de la Poesie et de la Musique" and his "Vies de quchjues grands Capitaines" were highly com- mended by Buffbn, who was president of the Academy Vvhen the Marquis was elected a member ; the subject of the latter's discours (Fenfrance was Z,e Gout : an appropriate theme for a nobleman whose writings indicate the cultivation of taste in all departments as a mental habit. It has been objected, and justly, to his j)hilosophical writings, that their style is too ambitious ; and, in this respect, the sinq)licity and geniality of his less pretentious Travels give them a more popular tone and scope. They were, notwithstann, in 17^7.* Whoever would compare the present condition of a part of the Southern and most of the New England States with that of eiijhty years ago, will find few nmri' jileasant authorities than the Marquis de (."hastellux. He united, in a singular degree, the gentleman and the scholar, the philosopher and the artist, the n\an of the worKl and the gooes, means " a few houses grouj)ed round a church and tavern." The obsta- cles to travellin«^ he fmds ince8.santT having often to cross fer- ries and to tnujsjtort provisions and baggage on carts ; ho alludes to a landlady's expression that she could not fijtare one bed, as a local idiom. The chief man at Hartford, in those days, was Colonel Wadsworth. The Marquis was his guest, and speaks of his honesty as commissary to supply the French trooj)S, and of the high regard in which he was hcM by W:i.sli- iugton and Lafayette. Of Governor Trumbull he says : " He has all the simplicity in his dress, all the importance and even jH'dantry, becoming the cliief magistrate of a small republic. lie brought to my mind the burgomasters of Holland iu the time of the Banicvelts." He examined manufactures, con- versed with intelligent men, noted the " lay of the land," and estimateil local resources ; he was delighted at the sight of a bluebird, and descants upon the limited nomenclature which designated every water bird as a duck, from the teal to the blavk duck, distinguishing them only by the terra " red," " wood," «tc. ; and calling cj'press, firs, Ac, all pine trees. He is impressed with the sight of " mountains covered with woods as old as the creation ;" thinks always of BufTon as so many objects of natural history come in view ; and expe- riences a sensation of wonder wlien, in the midst of '' ancient deserts," he comes upon trace's of a *' settlement ; " the process whereof he describes — how the rude hut gives place to the wooden house, the woods to the clearing; and then comes a piece of tilled land, and more trees are girdled and other roofs are raised, at which neighbors " assist " " with no other recompense than a barrel of cider or a gallon of rum." " Such are the means," he adds, " by which North America, only a hundred years ago a vast forest, is peopled with three millions of inhabitants." As illustrative of the equality of FRENCH TKANKLLEKS AND WKITEKS. C5 condition and personal indo,.cn,]on<-cs la- s,>caks of tlie indif. ferent reception often met with at the inns, where travellers often .mve "more trouble than money," and of the custom of the comitry, when a i.ublie house is not at han.l, for the traveller to claim and pay for byway hospitalifv. He eom- pares this conduct witl, the obsecjuious manners of innkeepers •n trance, and accounts for it by the fact that, in this j.rimi- t.ve community, - innkeepers are in.lependent of their voca- tion, lie found broken panes common, and glaziers rare • he IS enraptured with the scenery of the Ilousatonic, and the' Hudson H,.i;hlands. Amid the latter he is saluted with thir- teen guns as major-general, by General Heath, then in com- n.and there, the echoes whereof are marvellous ; the scene of Arnolds treason inspires him with grave thout^hts ; he de- scribes the batteries, praises the officer in command, and ad- m.res the magnificent view. - The guns they fired," lie savs, had belonged to Burgoyne's anny." Here he is entertain'ed by the officers, enjoys their reminiscences of the war, and talks over the treason of Arnold, then but two years old ; he visited bmith 8 house, and reflects earnestly on this memorable inci- dent : - ,n this warlike abode," he .ledares, " one seems transported U, the bottom of Thrace, and the dominions of the god Afars ; " thence he goes to Lafayette's camp, and notes details as to the state of the army ; on seeking his first inter- view with A\ ashington, he fin.ls him talking with his oflicers in a farmyard, "a tall man, live feet nine inches high, of a noble and mild countenance ; " by the chief he is immediately presented to Knox, W:une, Hamilton, anerplexities of that immaculate patriot's life dur- \\\(f the war ; he speaks of a visit to Dr. Krankliirs daughter, Mrs. IJache, whom he found " simple in her manners, like her respectable father, and ]>osijessed of kindred benevolence of disposition;" Robert Morris he describes as a " large man, very simple in his in:mners, but his mind is subtile and acute ; his head is perfectly well organized, and he is as well versed in public aflairs as in his own ; a walous republican 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 TKAVKLLER8 AND WUITERS. 67 make him lor^^ct tlit' cainpait^ns ttf Hannibal ;" l)e theroforo (It'tcnninos to leave the luxury of the city, and explore the recent battle fields ot'Germantown and UrancUwine. The i)ul)lic beneficence of Philadel|>hia, 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 tlie authors chietly read by the yoimj; women ; and so universal was the interest in an«l knowledge of civic atVairs, that he declares that " all American conversation must tinisji with j)olitics." 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 j)rincipal episodes of interest were the view of Cohoes P^alls, and a visit to (Tcneral Schuy- ler, just after the marriage of his daughter with Hamilton ; he inspected some interesting docimients revealing the actual condition of Canada, and expatiates on the novel excitement and exposure of what he calls a " sledge ride." With the j)resent byway scenery of the railroad which intersects the central part of Xew 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 wililrrncss. '• The coimtry,'' he tells us, '*■ which lies between Albany and Schenectady, is nothing but an immense forest of pine trees, untouched by the hatchet. They are lofty and robu-^t ; 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 ])alisades ;" diverging from his road, he visited a Mohawk settlement, a few straggling descendants of which tribe the traveller of to-day still encoimters, in that vicinity, among the peddling habitues of the railway cars. He also saw, on the way to Fort Edward, the house formeily the liome of the unfortunate Jane McRea ; startled a bevy of (piails, and, at a wayside inn, saw a girl " whom Greuze would have been happy to have taken as a model ; " wliile, on his G8 AMERICA AND HER COiBIENTATORS. cliamber 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 tlie northern section of the country, observing its peculiarities, seeking the acquaintance of its leading men, and A'isiting the scenes of tlie war, yet fresh in association and destined to become memorably historical, rejoined the French array then stationed at Newi)ort, K. I., whence, after a brief interval, he started on a Southern expedition. i 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 witli Mr. Lynch, then ray aide-de-camp and adjutant, now general ; Mr. Frank Dillon, my second aide, and Mons. la Ciievalier d'Oyro, 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 caimcious state of tlie climate which in our countiy so often blends the aspect of difterent seasons ; writing of the month of April, he says : " I regretted to find summer in the heavens, while the earth aflbrded 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 oflF 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 anuisement 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 aroimd the State of Virginia, he observes the frequent instances, among tlie 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 moimtain, though he finds it a big one, and the house of Jefierson " in the Italian style, and more architectural than any in the coim- 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 liim, we were as intimate as if we had passed our Avhole lives together ; walking, books, but, above all, conversation always varied and interesting, made four days jjass away like so many minutes." The twain grew elo- quent about Ossian over a bowl of punch, and speculated ui)on the genus of American deer, which Jetferson fed Avith Indian com, and the Marquis describes as half roebuck and half English deer. Tliey also engaged in a meteorological discussion, and expatiated on the ad\"antages 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," -sNTites 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 bidk of individuals who formed what TO AMERICA AND HEK 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 j^leasant portrait which Marmontel gives of Lubin." The alternation of pastoral, patriarchal, and aris- tocratic maimers, the aboriginal traditions, the grand econom- ical resources observed, and frequent personal discomfort ex- jDcrienced, offered to his thotightful, susceiDtible, 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 liardihood and privation, an originality of character and vast promise for humanity ; the primitive and the cultivated elements of life were brotight into frequent contact ; and the urbane and intelligent French oflicer seems to have had an eye and a heart for all around him suggestive of the past or j^rophetic 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, suflicient 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 channs were even embellished by the serenity of her mind." The FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS, Tl 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 l3een 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 thuough 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 orighial 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 " yoimg 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 AJSTD HEE COMMENTATORS. special charms iu 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 Jei'seys 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 cMldren^'' 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." FRENCH TEAVELLEKS AND WRITEES. 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." AVhile 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. Ml'. 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 Avealth 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 1Y82, he visited the metropolis of New England, he first " alighted at Mr. Brackett's, the Cromwell's Head inn ; and, after dinner, went to the lodgings proposed for me, at Mr. Colson's, a glover, in the Main sti'eet." 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 AMEBIC A AND HEK 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 wiites : " 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 " pa-rlor 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 difiicult," writes the French officer, " to imagine the pain this separation gave me ; but I have too much pleasure in recollecting the real tenderness with Avhich it afiected 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, Avhose 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 FRENCH TEAVELLEES AND AVEITEES. Y5 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 yon are presented with medals of OsBsar, 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 eliect 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 he 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 Conde was intrepid, Tu- renne prudent, Eug&ne 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 mede and exactly proportioned ; his physiognomy mild and agreeable, but such as to render it impossible to speak particularly of any of liis 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 AMEKICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 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 yom* 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 Coimt Rochambeau's army. He writes in the same genial strain as most of his comitrymen, 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 Avhich served as a con- necting link between Yankeeland and the French colonies. Simday 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 iuto 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 ; tins was tbe 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 FKENCH TRAVELLEES AND WEITEKS. 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 societie?. 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 wiU 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 yoii 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 worsliippers. 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 78 AMEKICA AKD HEE C0MMENTAT0K3. be his hope of the future. Sculpture aud painting trace no sacred events there to remind him of his duties or awaken his gratitude." His Nbuveau Voyage dans VAmerlque Septentriotiale en Vannee 1781, 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 eftect 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- FKENCII TEAVELLEKS 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 tlie 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 diflficult 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, faitldess — 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 AMEKICA AND HER COISQIENTATOKS. " Notwithstanding ray 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 wiiich 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 Eochambeau at Ehode 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-respecu has contributed to this. The superior oflicers established the strict- est discipline ; the other oflicers employed that ])oliteness and ameni- ty which has always characterized the French nubility ; the private soldier, even, has becoine 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 aftable and familiar as if they had lived entirely among similar people. This elevated con- duct has brought about an entire revolution in the niiiuls of people. Even the Tories cannot help loving the French, while blaming the cause whicli they uphold, and their departure afllicts a thousand times more tlian their arrival alarms." An interesting evidence of tlie vast promise, social 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 exj^ressions of a clergyman, born in Philadelphia, but of FKENCH TEAVELLEES Al^D WEITEES. 81 Huguenot origin, whose rhetoric and writing were much admired in his own day, and whose name is not wholly mifa- 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 Tamoc 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 Avith perpetual sameness ; after roaming over the mag- nificence of churches and palaces, we are glad to fix our gaze awhile uj^on 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, m sucli 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 HEK COIVIMENTATOKS. • ing to Almighty God for the success of the Revolution, liis 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 tin dissateur monotone et verheux / 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 wliile under surveillance ; placed in the Bastile for the hardiesse de ses ecrits contre Vinegcdite des rmigs, he was Uber- ated through the influence of the Duke of Orleans, whose sympathy in his belialf 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 * Nouvcau Voyage dans les Etats Unis de I'Amerique Septentiionale, fait en 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 in 1788, with Observations on the Genius of the People and Government, &c., 8vo., 1794. FBENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 83 prominent as a joui-nalist 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 JBrlssoier the synonyme of Voter. Undaunted by scandal, he took an active part in forwarding the petition of the Champs du 3fars, whereby he alienated Lafiiyette, with whom he osten- sibly and arderrtly sympathized ; chosen a deputy, and, on ac- count of his foreign travels, jolaced on the diplomatic commit- tee, Brissot advocated war Avith Europe, attached himself to Delessart, then at the head of foreign aftliirs, 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. H^ 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 OAvn 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 con\Tnced he could regenerate his country. His Voyage aux Mats ZTnis was first published at Paris in 1791. Brissot expatiates on the religious tolerance he found pre- vailing in Boston in 1788. " Music," lie 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 coimtry 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 Encyclopedie, 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 ajipreciated ; and he compli- ments as leaders in Boston society, Wigglesworth, Sullivan, Lloyd, Dexter, and Wendall ; he ex;plores 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 cheaj^ 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 FKENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 85 people, especially in the Eastern States, lie thus speaks : " La proprete sans luxe est une des caracteres physiognomonique de cette purete morale ; et cette proprete se retrouve pai"-tout a Boston, dans I'habillement, dans les maisons, dans les eglises ; rien de plus charmant que le coup d'a?il d'un eglise ou d'un meeting. Je ne me rappellerai jamais sans emotion le plaisir que je rassentis, en entendant xm 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 wai'mest 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 lieart ; 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 Frenchnnan. He speaks of the American war and of his vic- tories as of things in which he had no dii'ection. He spoke to me of Lafayette with the greatest tenderness." Brissot passed three days at Mount Vernon, 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 hmnan character. Among other pleasant sojourns in New England he delighted to re- Ob AMERICA AND HEK C0MMENTAT0K8 . member the " Lam-els," where he was entertained by Dr. Dal- ton, while on his way from Newburyport up the Merrimac. In his apostrophe to this bea^^tiful stream, Whittier gracefully alludes to Brissot's enjoyment thereof: " Its pines above, its Avaves below, The west wind down it blowing, As fair as when the young Brissot Beheld it seaward flowing, — And bore its memoiy o'er the deep To soothe a martyr's sadness. And fresco, in his troubled sleep, His prison walls with gladness." Brissot, seeking to imite 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 Aaews 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 tAvo, and the actor and victim in one revolution, there is a certain pensive chai'm in his earnest appreciation of the political and social advantages of America : " The United States," he declares, " have demonsti'ated that the less active and powerful 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 infliience of personal character to attain civic prosperity : " There can FRENCH TEAVELLEES 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 j^rosperity the blessings of freedom can elevate the industry of man ; hoAV they dignify his nature and dispose him to universal fraternity ; by what means liberty is pre- served I 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 boiindless exti-avagance 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, aud 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 liairdresser asks twenty shillings a month ; washing costs four shillings tlie dozen." Lafayette, in his letter introducing Brissot to Washington, 88 AMERICA AND HEK 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 beei\ 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 afiected 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 covmtry 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 indifierent parallel in the rhymes of Gallic bards or the rural life of the FRENCH TBAVELLEES AJSTD 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, when 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 oiaive 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 Crevecoeur, 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 fann 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 AMEEICA AlfD 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 vras 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 coast, and Crevecoeur 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 comitry 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 Crevecoeur, 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.* Tliey have a winsome flavor, and picture so delec- tably the independence, the resources, 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 I'Anglois," 2 vols., 8vo., Paris, 1784. FRENCH TEAVELLEK8 AND WRITEKS. 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 Bartrara 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 woi*k in the publication of which he indulged in a curious literary o'^se. It was entitled " Voyage dans la haute Pennsylvania et dans I'Etat de New York, par un Merabre Adoptif de la nation Oneida, traduit par I'Auteur des Lettres d'un Cultivateur Americain." It needed not this association of his first popu- lar venture with this ncAV 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 tradition,s or recent knowledge. The author wa& 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 AMEKICA 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 j)lough my low ground, I place my little boy on a chair which sci'ews 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 TKAVELLEKS AND WRITERS. 93 neither night nor day ; for this is the moment of the most universal vocal choir. Who can listen immoved 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 origm 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, pei-haps, 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 Jetes, majllle 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 lo-cal descriptions. During Crevecoeur's visit to Normandy, five American sailors were shipwi*ecked 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 clievished them till the father's arrival enabled him to restore them in health and safety. The ardent 94 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. style of Crevecoeur'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 TJnis," 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 fticts, 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- caxilt travelled as much to beguile himself of the ennui of FKENCH TEAVELLERS AND WKITEKS, 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 elaboi-ate accounts of certain farms and estates in difierent 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 th'e 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, aU the traits of rural economy and indigenous life, are duly registered and S2:)eculated 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 ; Jefierson, 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 Vesprit (Tartiste. Both this writer, Chastellux, and other of their coimtrymen, 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 their 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. FKENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 97 immediately after the Revolutionary Avar, when, as he ob- serves, the Americans " having for the most part made their fortunes by their o^vI^ 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 Yolney'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 eai'ly manifested that boldness of aim and originality of convic- tion which mai'ked 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 sqjom-ner 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 Volney 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 seei 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 AJSTD HEK COMMENTATOKS. 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 soimd judginent 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 xis of Chateaubriand — the same passion for knowl- edge, love of travel, political enthusiasm, romantic egotism, vague and a aunted sentiment ; but there the parallel ends : for Chateaubriand's conservatism, social relations, and opin- ions, literary, political, and religious, separate him widely from Yolney, 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 1V55, and known, in youth, as Constantino Francois Count de ChassebcEuf — a name he not imwisely discarded when seek- ing the honors of authorshij). 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- FKENCII TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 99 ment to an official station in Corsica, where he knew Bona- parte. Vohiey's ambition, liowever, 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 jjortray. 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 Riiines ; 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 Avon 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 imj^art," intending to settle in the United States. He tells us that the prospect that allured him thither was certain facts in regafd to that coxmtry 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 indei:)endent mind, hrave individu- ality, enter^^rise, and misfortune. These were, first, an immense territory to be peopled ; second, the facility of acquiring landed jsroperty ; 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 imsolved 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 Volney, 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 millenniimi in America were disaj^pointed ; and per- * " The conclusion to whicli Volney makes his mterlocutor 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." — CinticalHistory of Free Thought, by A. S. Farrar, M. A. FKENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 101 sonal resentment, imprudence, and egoti&m aggravated this result. His visit was abruptly closed ; and the record thereof became, for these reasons, incomplete, and Avarped 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, CQnsi:)iring 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 ray 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 Tiavcls 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." Volney 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 HEK COIVOIENTATOKS. them as "witnesses of the past, aod 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 cpnfirmed by the absolute evidence manifest in the character, influence, and truths made patent and pervasive by its Founder. As a traveller, Volney wrote Avith 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 moi'e 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 TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 103 the idioms of Asia a part of the gTamraatical notions we pos- sess concerning the languages of Europe " — and of liis 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 Volney, 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 indi\'iduality 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 yoiith, 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 Volney 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. 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 vmpicturesque * 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 unaclventurous as a narrative. It anticipates somewhat the later labors of savans and economists, and sets forth with acumen many of the physical featm-es, resources, and charac- teristics of the coimtry. 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 mfidelity — but original, philosophic, and liberal. Catharine of Kussia 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 disj^ositions 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 on New Hamp- shire, based on a then current history of that State by Samuel Williams, many facts and speculations in regard to the FRENCH TEAVELLEKS AND WEITEES. 105 aborigines, and interesting notes respecting tlie 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 Varick 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 curioxis 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 remmiscent : " 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 : ' 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 s'ocial 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 HEE COMMENTATOKS. toleration — then a doctrine but casually recognized as a philosojjhical necessity. It was objected to tliis work, in addition to its sceptical generalization, that, in describing sects, he misrepresented their ci'eed and practice. A merit, however, claimed for Volney, 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 Avriter, however, states that his character, which was naturally sei'ious, 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 tlie name of a virgin j^eople to their descendants — a combmation of the inhabitants of old Em-ope — 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 — tlie 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 Jefierson. 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 coiuitryman, De Tocqueville. Instead of this, Volney wrote in a scientific vein. He treats of the Avinds, tempera- ture, qualities of soil, local diseases ; and Avrites 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 TKAVELLEKS AND WEFTERS. 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 Euroj^e. 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 Voltaire, 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 I'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 AMEEICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. and neglected as they now are, his advocacy of the American cause, and description of the coimtry, drawn apj)arently from inadequate yet sometimes authentic sources, on accoimt of a certain philosoj^hical 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 imderstand 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 intei*- 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 FEENCH TKAVELLEKS AND WRITEES. 109 of the population, and partial accounts of the laws, currency, municipal and colonial systems, &c., of the several States ; and then, in outlme, 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 I'Amerique Septentrionale," in 1781 : " Craignez," he says, " I'affluencede I'or qui apporte avec le luxe la corrujjtion des mceurs, le mepris des lois ; craignez une trop inegale rej^artition des richesses ; garantissez-vous de I'esprit de conquete ; cherchez I'aisance et la sante dans le travail, la prosperite dans la cul- ture des terres et les ateliers de Tindustrie, la force dans les bonnes moeurs et dans la vertu ; faites prosperer les sciences et les artes ; veillez a I'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 I'Europe a la naissance de I'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 vii-ulence in America ; praises the Long Wharf of Boston, and compares the dwellings and furniture of that city to those of London. CHAPTER lY. FRENCH TRA TELLERS AND WRITERS CONTINUED. EOCHAMBEAU ; TAXLETKAND ; SEGUR ; CHATEAUBRIAND ; MICHATJX ; MUKAT ; BRILLAT-SAVARIN ; DE TOCQUEVILLE ; DE BEAUMONT ; AMPllRE, 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 j^retty Quakers at Newport, where they were so long quartered ; and left, as in the case of Vosmeneul, 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 Avere long rehearsed by venerable ladies of Philadelphia and Boston. Among these incidental glimpses of America as her scenes and people impressed a FRENCH TEAVELLERS 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 1'725, 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 m ISTew York, and against ConiAvallis at Yorktown. On his return to Fi-ance, 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, i-esolved to abandon public affiiirs. 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 " Me'moires " 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, geograi^hical and economical. He notes the agricultural resources of those parts of the covmtry 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 HKR COMMENTATORS. ficial observers, the domestic discipline, the religious tolera- tion, and the genuine indei^endence 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 commergans des agri- coles, les habitudes des grandes villes maritimes de ceux de? petites villes ou des habitans de l'int6rieur, on ne doit paf- etre etonae que les commergans et ceux qui, dans ces ports, avaient une relation ou des int6rets directs avec le gouverne ment Anglais, aient t6moigne moins de zele j^our 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 fiUes y sont libres jusqu'a leur mariage. Leur premiere question est de savoir si vous etes marie ; et, si vous I'etes, leur conversation tombe tout a plat." Sometimes in youth, though going to church w^ith 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 Fun sur I'autre, soutenus par des 2:»iquets. Au bout de viugt ou trente ans, lorsqu'il est parvenu a desancher et a rendre la terre ameublie, il songe a construire ime 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 coutmuellement occupe a defaire et a remettre le couvert. " Dans les grands villes," he adds, " le luxe a fait plus de progrcs. Le pays circonscrit sous le nom des Etats Unis, avec les arrondissemens qu'ont cedes les Anglais, par la paix FRENCH TRAVELLEKS AND WRITERS. 113 de 1783, pouvra comporter un jour plus de trente miUions 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 "I'hos- pitalite est la vertu la plus generalement observee." An incident related by his companion, illustrates the popular respect for law : " At the moment of our quitting the camp," writes Count S6gur, " 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 : ' In the name of the law I arrest you.' Several yoimg 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 ti'ees, and burnt them to light their fires. The owner o& 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 tlie 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 I'attention du lecteur, jjar le recit d'une historiette qui ni laisse pas de caracteriser parfaiteinent les raoeurs des bons republicans du Connecticut." He then states that, bemg 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 guuieas would not induce him to imdertake 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, " 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 Rochambeaii 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, wbich, 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 throuTi by nature — a fine foliage, a brilliant hue which marks one jiart of the forest, a deeper green which darkens another — all these are nothing in his eye. He has no recollections associated with anythmg around him. His only thought is the number of strokes which are necessary to level this or that tree. He has never planted ; FRENCH TEA\T:LLEES AND WKITEKS. 115 he is a stranger to tlie 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 wateli tlie 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 bom in the Eastern States, especially if they have ^^sited Europe, can fail to realize a certain forlorn re- moteness in the sensation experienced, when suiTounded 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, hoAvever 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 Talle}a-and 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 chevalresque 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 voyagein\ 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 HEK .COMMENTATOKS. tions, joined the French camp and his o^vn regiment on the Hudson Kiver. 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 agroixnd in the Delaware, within sight of the enemy's fleet, until he reached his commander's quarters, after a wearisome and exjiosed journey. Yet few of his gallant coimtrjonen 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, jjrobity, 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 Avorld. 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 aroimd West Point delighted him. He dmed with Wash- ington, and describes the toasts and the company with much zest. He enjoyed a week's furlough at Newport, and, -with FRENCH TEAVELLEKS AND WKITEES. 117 his brothel' 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 no,w (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 mcreases 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 Avord, 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 fii-mly 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 wdth 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 fjxme are far more illustriously identified w^ith the political vicissitudes and influ- ential literature of his times, saw somewhat of America, and * " M^moircs," &c., par M. le Comte de Segur, torn; i, pp. 412, 413, Paris, 1825. 118 AMERICA AND HEK COMIMENTATORS. reported his impressions with characteristic latitude and sen- timent. The scene of his best romance is laid in one of the Southern States ; hut 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 meretricioixs. 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 ofi" 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 emigre. He " felt the archi- tectural deformity " of the latter, and declares, sadly, that " nothing is old in America excejiting 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 Avould imagine that a foreign visitor could only FEENCn TEAVELLEKS AJTD 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 Avhat is called " society " but a tame reflection of that from which they had fled as the result of an effete civilization. But the comjjlaint was as unreasonable as unjust ; for, in all large and prosperous cora- mimities, an identical social, conventional system prevails. In America, however, this sphere was very limited, and, 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, an"d 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 AJVfEEICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. country, for the discovery of the long-sought and much- desired " Northwest Passage." It apj^ears that "Washington rather discouraged the entei-prise ; upon which the compli- mentary instinct was aroused in his guest, who, with the usual misapprehension of foreigners as to the character of our Revolutiou, 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," Avith which Washington dismissed the subject. He showed Chateaubriand the key of the Bastile. In describing their interview, the French author compai-es 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 afibrded by the salient contrast of a nascent civilization with the wUd 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 pilgi-image 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 TEAVELLEKS AND WRITERS. 121 Puritan domesticity in the East. Dr. JNIichaux, 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 unpressive idea of the products and promise of the New World, as an arena for botanical investigation, and a home for the euterjDrising and unfortmiate.* 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 loye of nature, and whose object is the exposition of her laws and productions, with which ISTuttall, Wilson, Audubon, Lyell, and Agassiz have so enriched scientific literature on this contiuent. 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 suice he wrote, it is no less cheering to witness the social progi'ess 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 liabits of the population evinced. " The tavei-ns, 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 AMERICA AXD HER COMMENTATORS. scarciely '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 tliey 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, ixnder 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 accomj)lished wife and daughter, who kejDt 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 i)lantation, 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 TEAVELLEKS 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 prejxidices 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 prosjierous 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 miUtaire 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 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 HEE COMMENTATORS. 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 inteUigence, 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 j)ress, 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 jjui'pose ; while, on the other hand, tlie 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 pohit of view. On the con- trary, I am led to consider it, in certain periods of the his- tory or existence of nations, as a good." His pro-slavery ai'gument, 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 FKENCH TKAVELLEES AND WKITERS. 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 comj)rehensive 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 circumstances 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, whereia the same kindly and cordial estimate of republican mamiers 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 bureaii 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 comitry, 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, e^er 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. Li the chapter devoted to " Coq d'Lade," 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 mj 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 whicli 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 ibe 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 refrosliinents. 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, bnt 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 whicli had mysteriously disappeared. I put my dog on the trace ; but he only led us among thickets and brambles, wliich a man could hardly penetrate ; it was necessary to abandon the pursuit, which my com- panion did iu a fit of ill humor that lasted all the rest of the day. 128 AMERICA AKD HEK 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 Bulovr 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, beautifid 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 ns far into the night. We talked of tho "War of Independence, in which Monsieur Bulow had served as a supe- rior oflicer ; 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 jon see around and witliin is mine. Tliese 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 aU its FKENCH TEAVELLEKS AND WEITEES. 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, whicli 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 Avell believe that these last words of Monsieur Bulow occupied my mind. At last I 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 eftective 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 aujmjiil- lote, and the gray squirrels cour houillonnes au vin de Madere. 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, extrememcnt Ion ! <9, moii cTier 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 yoimg 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 diftcrcnt in scope and aim from those we have before noted. Whatever may be 130 AMKRICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. thought of Alexis de Tocqueville's views of " Democracy in America," that treatise began a new era in the literatm'e 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 traits 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 rim- "ning commentary on such a treatise, would do it no justice ; and a more elaborate discussion is inconsistent with the limits of 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 Amei'ica. 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 ray 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 of accomplishment ; and I have selected the nation from * " De la Democratic en Amerique," par A. de Tocqueville, 4 vols., Svo., Paris, 1835-'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 in Harvard University ; 2 vols., post Svo. FRENCH TEAVELLEES AND WEITEES. 131 among those who have undergone it, in Avhich 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 soiight the image of democracy itself, Avith its inclinations, its character, its prejudices, and its passions, in order to learn Avhat we have to fear or to ho^^e 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 approacb 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 cm-rent discussions of the hour. The prophetic wisdom of his work proves how justly he declared : " I have imdei'taken 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 bome and abroad. " M. de Tocqueville," writes Vericour, " has revealed to Europe the spirit of the American laws, deduced from a comprehensive survey of xisages and institutions. He has decomposed, with a firm and skilful hand, the curious 132 AMEEICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. mechanism of this new government. In a cahn and dispas- sionate spirit he investigates its action, effects, imj)ulses, 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 infei'ences from casual facts, which makes so many of his countrymen philosophize charmingly, hut at ran- dom, De Tocqueville yet seized upon some vital princij^les of our national life, clearly and ti'uly 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 coimtry and culture may haA'e 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 considei'ed ; 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, im chastened style of speech and writing, mate- rialism, subservience to public opinion. The unique privi- FKENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 133 leges and peculiar dangers born of onr 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-Aud'deur^ he found time to engage with ardor ui pohtical 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 disciphne. 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 rejjutation as an original and systematic tlimker on political questions and social science. He married an English lady ; became a member of the Chamber of Deputies, being reelected from Yalognes for nine successive years. Mean- time he Avas 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, " tAVO 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 cVetat, 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 comi:)anion 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 Avhile 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 I'esprit 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 j^as- 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 obseiwation in her sphere, which are rarely combined with such logical tendencies as his political disquisitions manifest. FEENCH TRAYELLEKS AND WKITEKS. 135 It is a remarkable fact, that a visit to one of the oldest seats of civilization, in his youth, inspired him with tliat 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 Governmentj he was led to reflect on the primary conditions on which depends the decay or the prosperity of nations." We learn, from tlie 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 jjermanent 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 gfcat problem of the destiny of man impressed him Avith 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 difierent classes of emigres j noting tlie 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 130 AMEEICA AND HEK 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 Lnt one society, Avhether rich or poor, high or Ionv, 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 wliere 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 efibrts. 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 FEENCH TRAVELLEES AND WEITEES. 137 peasant ; you are wrong. You enter this hut, which looks the abode 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 f;ict is to be found in the history of the Constitution itself, wherein it is made apparent that the surrender of State sovereignty to national laAV was regarded as absolute, and not experimental. The hesitation of some States, the arguments for and agaiust union, so able, deliber- ate, and earnest, and the entire tone and tactics of the peer- less Convention which, at last, gave authority t6 that great instrument of repi;blican 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 tlie old Confederacy, and the indepen- dent coexistence of the several States had brought the 138 AMEEICA AND HER COMMENTATOES. 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. Recent 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 attenduig 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 groat 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 woi'ld learned their existence and their greatness at almost the same time. The Anglo-Ameri- can relies upon personal interest to acoraplish 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. Tlieir 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, hoAvever, 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 Avhich 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 liis color. M. de Beamnont sought to trace the extent and ascertain the force of this " barri^re place entre les deux races par un prejugo * " Marie, ou L'Esclavage aux iltats Unis, Tableau de Mceurs Americaines," par Gustave de Beaumont, Bruxelles, 1825. 140 AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATOES. 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 chamiing 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 j^ulpit 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- guasre 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 sta|:e, 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 tins observer, is " an old boy of twenty-live " — in other words, a young bachelor. FRENCH TKAVELLERS AND WKITEES. 141 From Baltimore the reader is transported to un foret vierge, 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 diflerent 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 hon 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 tune for sentiment and gallantry, the partisan 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 " facilitc de s'eni-icher 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 orne mais pen d'imagination et plus de raison que de sensibilite ; pour toute fille qui a plus de seize ans la mariagc 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 Amerique 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 142 AlVIERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. the most free and happy ; for wliile, in France, marriage brings a liberty to the wife unknown to the maiden, in Amei'ica 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 Tocqiieville'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 chivabio 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 ; whUe, 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 develojied 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 Amptire'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 opmion and mutual affection suggest this relation between the two authors, diverse in plan and 1^0 wer as are their respective books on this country ; but it * " Promenade en Amerique.," par J. J. Ampere, de I'Academie rran9aise, Paris, 1855. FRENCH TKAVELLERS AKD WRITERS. 143 was when reading De Tocqueville's " Democracy," during a trip U23 the Rhine, that Ampore conceived the desire and purpose to visit the United States. Looking up from the thoughtful page to some ruined tower or raemora*ble 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. lie had trav- elled in Greece, Italy, and the East, and brought a scholar's wisdom and a poet's sj^npathy to the illustration of that experience ; and now, under the inspiration of his friend's treatise on the condition and prospects of the Western repi;b- 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 shoAver 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 remplacoes par un appareil electro-magnetiqne. En ce pays, non-seule- ment la science est applique a I'industrie, mais on I'emploie aux offices les plus vulgaires. An lieu de tirer le cordon d'une sonnette on fait jouer une pile de Volta." The arrival of Kossuth gave Ampere an excellent oppor- tunity to note the phases of popular feeling in Anjerica. 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 AJSTD HEK COMMENTATOKS . and speculative opinions, with the greatest facility. While devoting attention to those subjects which have always occu- pied intelligent travellers in Ameiica, 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 accovmt 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 vai'i- ety and vividness of his observations. He describes a simset and a political fete, analyzes a sermon as weU 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 sj^ecimens, 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 manufactm-e in Louisiana, discussed glaciers and geol- ogy with Agassiz, jurisprudence with Kent, Mississippi mounds with Davis, and the AUiambra 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 TEAVELLEKS AND WEITEES. 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 Avhich 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 sagacioug 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 Avander 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 ve'me 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 OAvn archaeological research by a lecturer at New Orleans. The sound of the bell saluting Moimt Vernon, as he glided down the Potomac, touched him as did the " tintement de I'Angelus dans la campagne Eo- niaine." He felt, like most of his countrymen, the " tristesse du dimanche " in America, but, unlike them, found congenial emplo}'Tnent 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. estaat Christians. Amused at the universality of the term " lady " applied to the female sex in America, he yet soop 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 I'Interieure des Etats Unis," by M. Bayard (Paris, 1779) ; Godfrey de Vigny's "Six Months in America" (London, 1833); the " Essais Historiques et Politiques sur les Anglo-Americahies," 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 Tons 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 jioints of observation or suggestive reasoning. " Lk Spectateur Americaine," of Mandrillon, Cartier's " Nouvelle France," Bonnet's " Etats Unis a la fin du 18'"' Centurie," Beaujour's " Aper^u des Etats Unis," Gentry's " Influence of the Discovery of America," and Grasset's " Encyclopedic des Voyages," afibrd many sugges- tive and some original facts and speculations. Lavasseur's " Lafayette in America," * and Count O'Mahony's " Lettres * "Lafayette in America in 18 24-' 2 5 ; or, A Journal of a Voyage to the United States," by A. Lavasseur, Secretary to General Lafayette, 2 vols., 12mo.,Philadelpbia, 1829 FBENCH 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, $outel, 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 repubUcan simphcity coalesced with the refine- ments of education and the prestige of old-school mannei'S, and therefore afforded the most salient traits. Some of ihe 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 strijDped 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's (Baron) " Memoires de I'Anierique Septeutrionale, 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 AJyiEEICA AND HER COMMENTATOES. And when De Vauban there introduced the Prince de Bro- glie to a pretty Quakei'ess, 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. l!Nre"vsT3ort, 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 sitperseded, and when the belles of the town were the toast and the triumph of every circle. La Rochefoucault 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 tlie land for which he had foi^ght 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- FKENCH TRAVELLERS AND AVRITERS. 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 ; in 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 wTiter, published " L'Europe et I'Amerique," 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 Now Worlds." Judicious critics pro- nounce his style verbose and incorrect, and his views partial and shallow. His motto is, " Le genre hiunain 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 fiicts on this subject have been dra"\m 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- tei", 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 Fiscb, Paris, 1862. 150 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. njzes in the Americans " iiii peuple qui n'avait d'autre force publique que celle des idees ;" and deprecates the hasty judg- ment and perverse ignorance so prevalent in Europe in regard to " ime grande lutte ou se debattant les int^rets 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 sjTnpathies 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 w^as 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 legiire 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 trav- 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. I FKENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 151 Then we have a sketch entitled " Statistique religieuse des Etats Unis ;" followed by judicious comments on the " Unite de I'Eglise Amt^ricaine, son esprit et son influence." He considers Henry Ward Beecher an improvisatore — " mais c'est I'improvisation du genie;" and says, " L'on va entendre M. Beecher comme on irait a theatre." He describes succmctly the system of public instruction ; alludes to the progress of art and letters ; expatiates on Venergie and Vaitdace 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'esclaA-age aux Etats Unis;" closing with hopeful auguries for the futui-e of the country under " le r^veil de la conscience," wherein he sees the cause and scope of "la crise actuelle;" declaring that " la vie puissante de I'Amerique reprendra son paisible cours. Elle pourra se reprendre avec une puissance incom2:)arable sur une terre reuouvelee, et le monde apjirendra 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 exjjerience, 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 •Etats Unis," the statement of one voyageur who happened to behold for the first time a dish of currie, that the Amedcans eat their rice Avith 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 Ncav York. Xavier Eyma's "Vie dans le Nouveau Monde" (Paris, 1861) is one of the most recent elaborate works, of which a judicious ci'itical authority observes : " He has given tvro goodly octavos to a solid criticism and descrip- tion of American ' men and institutions ; ' two more octavos to a liis- tory of the States and Territories; one volume to the 'Black-Skins,' 152 AMERICA AND UEK COMMENTATORS. in which he sketches with admirable fidelity the peculiarities and the iniquities of slave life in the South ; and one volume to the ' Eed- 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- icfl, 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, dra^Ti from the latest and best authorities, published in the French language, and affording candid inquirers in Europe jarecisely 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 jDresent 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. FEENCH 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 I'Amerique," Laboulaye has signally promoted that bet- ter understanding and more just aj^preciation 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 commentatoi's of the respective nations on America, and the subsequent feelings manifested toward our prosperous repuD- 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 adajDtive 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 imderstand- ing Ameiica 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 154 AMEKICA AND HER 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 Avhom 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, addi'essed 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 Avords : " 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. " "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 aftairs, 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 from the anguish of civil war — and you av ill 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 Xorth, will enter upon a Avholly 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 V. BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. BERKELEY ; MCgPARUAN ; MRS. GRAKT ; BURNABY ; ROGERS ; BURKE ; DOUGLASS ; HENRY ; 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 purj)ose ; 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 Frauce to Great Britain by the treaty of Utrecht, and about to be dis- posed of for pubHc advantage, he undertook to realize from them larger proceeds than had been anticipated, and sug- * From the author's " Essays, Biographical and Critical." BRITISH TEAVELLERS 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 poxmds 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 suras 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.' ' I haA'e 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 Avhom 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 IIER 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 Brmiswick, 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 th6 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 poimds, I ad\dse him by all me^ns 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 amoimt 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 wi'iter 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 reaUze 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 chei-ished. He knew that a recognized seat of learning open to the poor and im- 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 he 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. ' 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 otfspring 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 HEE COMMENTATORS. mens, 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 Trmnbull gallery at New Haven, are preserved the porti'aits 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. ' Smibert,' says Horace Walpole, ' 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. BKITISn TKAVELLEKS AND -WEITEES. 161 gentleman the only authentic likeness of Jonathan Edwards. He married a lady of fortune in Boston, and left her a widow Avith two children, in 1751. A high eulogium on his abilities and character appeared in the London Coiirant. From two letters addressed to him by Berkeley, when residing at Cloyne, published in the Gentlemmi'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 simi 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 itetas 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 Cliurch, revered by the poor, the idol of society, and the peer of scholars ; yet could shake oif the allurements of such a position, to endure a tedioiis 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 genei'ous 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 biogra])]iers whether Berkeley designed to make a preliminary visit to Rhode Islandj in order to purchase lands there, the income of which wguld 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, 1V28, 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 imfavorable 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 1V04. 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 neitbet- 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 : ' The people are divided among Quakers, Anabaptists, Independents, Gortonians, and infidels, with a Bemnant 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 " Ilistorical Notices of the Missions of the Church of England in the North American Colonies," p. 173. I BRITISH TKAVELLEKS 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 feriy 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 Neio England 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 sjinmet- 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 A]SIEEICA AND HER COMMENT ATOKS. 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 hmnble 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. Tlie 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 diiferences, 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 saAv. 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.' ' Jane 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 w^ere paid in, and the charter could be removed hitlier, I should like it better than Ber- BEITISH 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 ^ot 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 my 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 tlie 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 jDerpetual delight. He alludes, with grateful sensibility, to the ' 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 rovmded into grace- ful curves. The sunsets are remarkable for a display of gor- geous and radiant clouds ; the wdde 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 AMEKICA AND HER COMMENTATOES. Intercourse with Boston was then the chief means on the island of acquiring poHtical and domestic news. A brisk trade was carried on between the town and the West Indies, France, England, and the Low Coimtries, 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 wLich 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 pamt two or three Siberian Tartars, presented to that prince by the Czar of Russia ; and, on first landing in ISTarraganset with Berkeley, he instantly recognized the In- * Updike's " History of the Narraganset Church." BRITISH TKAVELLEKS AND WRITERS. 167 dians there as the same race as the Siberian Tartars — an opin- ion confii-med by "WoliF, 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 pi-esented 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 siun had remained 168 AMEKICA AND HEK COMMENTATOKS. 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- ment, 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 asylum 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. Enterjjrise 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 fiu'mhouse 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. BEITISH* TRAVELLERS AND WEITEES. 169 entrance to the humble dwelling ; and several ancient apple trees in the orchard, with Loughs mossy with time, and gnarled by the ocean gales, showed, in their sparse fruit and matted twigs, the utter absence of the prmiing 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 and sloping pasture ; sheep grazed in the meadows, hoary rocks bounded the pros- pect, and the mellow crimson of sunset lay Avarm on grass slope and paddock, as when the kindly philosopher mused by the shore with Plato in hand, or noted a metaj)hysical 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 infiuence upon the destinies of a land which 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 bm-ial ground. A town in Massachusetts bears his name. Not long since, a presentation copy of his ' Minute Philosopher ' was kept on the table of an old lady of Newport, with reverential care. In one family, his gift 8 170 AMEEICA AND HEK C0MMENTAT0K8. 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, at 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 " Plis- 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 imusual interest, owing to her long experience, and, for that period, varied reading. BKITISH TRAVELLERS AND •\VRITERS. 171 She was ambitious of literary distinction. Her " Letters from the Mountains," for their descriptive ability and inde- pendent tone, won no inconsiderable popularity. JeiFrey 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 Heview, 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 Yoi'k was, and wherein it differed from that of Virginia and New Eno-land. 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 AMEKICA 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, Avould 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 tliat the young men Avould 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 oif 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 the innocent inclinations of nature. The day was always remembered as one of pure enjoyment, without the passage of a single cloud of regret." In l759-'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 wdse and educated spirit in this record, which make ample amends for the obvious influences of the wa-iter's religious and political views upon his impressions of the coim- BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 1(6 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 dui'ing " the present difficulties " may ex- pose him to misrejiresentation ; 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 " jirodigious 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 tliey 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, m his estimation, for the absence of elegance. He attended a theatre in a " tobacco house " at Marlborough, and enjoyed a sixteen hours' sai] 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 Aveek, 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 Avith these snug arrangements for a legitimate Ute-d-Ute, 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, Avhere it is part of the etiquette to salute the lady who has put herself imder 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, drygoods ; from Africa, slaves ; from the West Indies, sugar, cofiee, 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 COMISIENTATOES. 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 hitter'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 betv\'een 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 TKAVELLEKS AND WRITERS. 177 uow e\ddence. 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 IVVO — as was Dickens, eighty years after — Avith the resem- blance between the New England capital and the " best coun- try towns ill 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 : " 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 pahn 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- eredj 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 m 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 HEE COMMENTATOES . air of civility in their behavior, but it is constrained by for- mality and ijreciseness. Even the women, though easiness of carriage is peculiarly characteristic of their nature, appear here with more stiifness 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 Avhipped 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, Avhile traversing a region wherein an imparalleled development, social, political, and economical, * " Travels through the Middle Settlements of North America, l'759-'60," 4to., London, 1775. BRITISH TKAVELLEKS 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 cHmate 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 slaA^ery." The worthy author also seriously doubts if " it will be possible to keep in due order and government so wide and extended an emj^ire," He dwells upon the " difficulties of intercourse, communication, and correspond- ence." He thinks " a volimtary 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 HER COMilENTATORS. ternal foes he is of opinion that maritime power is the exclusive available defence. " Suppose," he writes, " them (tlie 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 sxich 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 coimtry 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 Avhich 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 Tribes, &c.," by Major Robert Rogers, 8vo., 1765. BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 181 Rogers, published in London in 1765, contains some general information ; chiefly, however, hut 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- self — of which neither the laws nor his neighbors take much cogni- zance : so greatly is their liberty degenerated into licentiousness. This i^rovince 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 w^as 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 HEE COMMENTATORS. the West India Islands, the Mississipj^i 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 Carolinas 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 impi-int 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 pxiblic 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 readhig has been found requisite." He remarks, also, that "what- ever is written by the English settlers in our colonies is to be read Avith great caution," because of the " bias of interest for a particular jirovince." 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 pi'inted 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 letterateur — to turn to the same man's plea, in the days of his BRITISH TBAVELLEKS ^lND WKITEES. 183 oi'atorical 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. Tlie 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 remetiiber, as we examine its now neglected pages, that when " Rasselas " and the " Vicar of Wakefield " were new novels, and the " Traveller " the fresh poem of the day, the co^emporaries 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., Loudon, 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 " Mississij^pi Bubble " is described, and the Canadian ex- pedition under Sir William Phipps, in 1690, as well as the reduction of Port Royal in 1*710. Each State of New Eng- 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 l)ox 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 with a " somewhat passionate warmth and indiscretion " merely in aflTection to Boston and the country of New England, his altera patria. Dr. Douglass died in 1752. BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 185 His work on the " British Settlements in North America " was originally published in nmnbers, 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 Avas his foible to measure the Avorth of men by his personal friendship for them." Chancellor Kent, in a catalogue raisonne he kindly drew lip 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 exjierionce. 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,! 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. \ " 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 Loudon in 1792, contain numerous statistical and historical facts not elsewhere obtainahle. The author's position as surveyor of the customs at Aimapolis, in Maryland, gave him singular advantages as an obsen'er ; and his letters 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 Fi'ench 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 publislied 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 immanly exultation on the part of the Amer- icans at Burgoyne's surrender. " After we had piled our ariils," he Avrites, " 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 i^ity." He sympathizes with the sorrowful gratification of a be- reaved mother, to whom one of his brother officers restored her son's Avatch, which the British soldiers had purloined from his body on the battle field. He writes of the bright BRITISH TKAVELLERS 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 sis 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," Avith a reti- cence so instinctively cautious 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 eflfect 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 preferi-ed 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. BKITISn TEAVELLERS 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 pubHcation 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 time, I had become perfectly reconciled and habituated to the manners, customs, disposi- tions, and sentiments of the inhabitants." He conceived himself peculiai'ly fitted to describe and discuss 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 iromortal Coliunbus 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 minutite, 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 " wi'itten without ornament or elegance, and perhaps, in some respects, not perfectly accurate, being composed under pecu- liarly disadvantageous circiimstances." The latter excuse is the best. Baflled and chagrined in his personal aspirations, and having suffered capture, imprisonment, and, according to his own account, some wanton cruelty ; remembering tlie pri- vations and dangers of travel in a new, and exposure in an inimical co\intry, 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 ^ve find in his work, as a literary or scientific performance, any just reason for his depreciation of his predecessors. He may 190 AMERICA AND HEK COIIMENTATOES. note a few cii'cumstances overlooked by them, but, on tlie 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 peoj)le." 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 difierent 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 diflferent 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 Avish to widen the breach," he says; "but the illiberal and vindictive principles BRITISH TRAVELLEKS A^D "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 pm-ity 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 has uniformly cherished and steadfostly 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 Andre. 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 w ith 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 rejiublic 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 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATOES. 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." Accorijing 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 eiTor." Meantime, he pleads earnestly for the Loyalists, declares America rapidly becoming depopulated on accoimt of its " unsettled government " and the check of emigration, and, altogethei', an " unfit place of residence." CHAPTER YI. british travellers and writers continued. "wanset ; cooper ; "wilson ; davis ; ashe ; bristed ; kendall ; weld ; cobbett ; campbell ; byron ; moore ; mrs. wake- fleld ; hodgson ; jansen ; caswell ; holmes, and others ; hall; fearon; fiddler; lyell; featherstonatjgh ; combe; female writers ; dickens ; faux ; hamilton ; parkinson ; mrs. trollope ; grattan ; lord carlisle ; anthony trol- lope ; prentice ; stirling. If, 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 visitors — those who sought to ascertain, by personal observation, the actual facilities which the New 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 9 194: AMERICA AND HER COIUMENTATORS. 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 coinfort 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 sjjecial 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, 1'794, he breakfasted with Washington at Philadelphia. " I confess," he writes, " I was struck with awe and A^eneration. 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 TEAVELLEKS AND WKITERS. 195 duced some to believe Lim 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 marVs 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 afllicted with the gout or palsy. There is, indeed, at Philadelphia, a hospital for lunatics. I went over it, but foimd there very few, if any, that were natives. They were chiefly Irish, and mostly Avomen." "What an illustration of our present eagerness for wealth and oflSce — of the enci'oachments 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 Hfe ! To those curious in byway economies, it may be pleasant to know, that Wansey, in the year '94, foimd the " Bimch of Grapes " the best house of entertainment in Boston ; that it was kept by Colonel Colman, and that, though " pestered with biigs," his guest paid " five shillings a day, including a pint of Madeira." He records, as memorable, the circiun- 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- sey — 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 AMEEICA AND HER COMIMENTATOKS. town for a quarter of a dollar," The j^iUar on Beacon Hill, and Long Wharf, were to him the chief local objects of interest. He visited the " famous geographer," Jedddiah Morse, at Charlestown, read the Columbian Centinet^ 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 cofiee there was " ill made," and the " butter rank," while the best article of food he foimd 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 Legislatm-e 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 theu' 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 thimder 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 tho 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 Cliancellor Livingston. He " makes a note " of the then " public buildings " — viz., the Governor's BRITISH TKAVELLEES AND WRITERS. 197 house, the Exchange, the Society Library, the Literary Coffee House, Columbia College, the hospital, and workhouse. He foimd 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 Lidian 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. Lichbald'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, 1Y94. 198 AMEEICA AJSTD HEK COiEMENTATOKS. 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 mdis- pensable " to bring over," in 1793, gives one a startling idea of the deficiencies of the coimtry. 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 BKITISH TKAVELLEES AND WKITEES. 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 found 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 countiy." 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 HEE COMMENTATOES. life and nature iu 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 conventiohal 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 himian nature found scope ; and a fastidious taste and critical standard wei-e 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 froni nature, 9 vols., folio, Philadelphia, 1808-'14. " The Foresters, a Poem descriptive of a Pedestrian Journey to the Falls of Niagara," 12mo., Paisley, 1825. \ " Travels of Four Years and a Half in the United States, during the years 1798 to 1802," by John Davis, dedicated to President Jefferson, Svo., London, 1803. BRITISH TEAYELLERS AND WRITERS. 201 tlie log house of tlie planter ; I have likewise communed with the slave who Avields 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 syiupar thy. Burr fascinated him ; Dennie praised his verses, and he saw Brockden BroAvn. 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-raorroAV he dines on venison ; now he writes an elegy, and now engages in Ifterary 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 AA-ith 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, bii'ds, 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 ' where honor and shame from no condition rise,' has placed me above the ridiculous pride of disowTiing 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 sumptuorfs table ; 9*- 202 AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATOES. and, when surrounded by the crude accommodations of a new plantation, witnessed the highest refinement of manners, and hstened 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 Avas 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 autunm wind, the A\ild deer, eagles, hummingbirds, whippoorwills, " bog jjlant, 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, Jefierson, after accepting graciously the compliment, writes : " Should you, in your journeyings, have been led to remark on the same objects on Avhich 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 JBihliotheca Americana^ " than is usual among travel- lers, 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 BKinSH TKAVELLEES AND WEITEES. 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 volimie 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 sti'ong ; " and, from this circumstance, he thinks it difficult to conjecture what national character will arise. At Carlisle, Pa., he '" 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 i:>revious 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 iacident 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 chai-ms 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 oiFended, 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 triiths 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 sviprerae 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- BRITISH TEAVELLEKS 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 Mevieio 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. I,, published, in 1818, a work on " America and her Resources." He was a native of Doi*- 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, wdiich 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 cmious, as an illustration of character, a 206 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 Avith 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 Avork on this coimtry 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 mimicipal 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 Ucited States, in the years 1807-'8," by Edward A. Kendall, 3 vols. 8vo., New York, 1809. BKITISH TEAVELLEE8 AND WKITERS, 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 chajiter ; 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 enlai'ges 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 weU-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 " Aubcrge et voiture publique dans les £tats 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 1195-96-91," by Isaac "Weld, illustrated with fine engravings, 4to., 1V99. 208 AMEEICA AND HER COMMENTATOES. 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, piiblished 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, m 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 " his malevolence and lying beyond every- thing ; " while Kent remarked that his political writings afforded a valuable source of knowledge to those who would imderstand the parties and principles which agitated our BRITISH TEAVELLEKS 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 iu regard to the country — one set describing it as a paradise, and the other as imfit to live in. He treats the subject in a practical vs'ay, 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 exj^atiates on the superior condition of the agriciUtural 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 j^lanted around his house, his ex- periments in raising corn, potatoes, and especially rutabaga. By " daily notes " he careftilly 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 Eesidence in the United States," 3 vols., 8vo., London, 1818. 210 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 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 and 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 agricultui-e, while denying him scientific range, admits that he adorned the subject " by his homely knowledge of the art, and most agi-eeable 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 : ' 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 hundi'ed 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 intrej^id 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 beinsj attributable to a baffled and false BRITISH TEAVELLEES AND WKITERS. 211 position. An acute German writer * aj)OStropliizecl 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 imdisciplined 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 AMEBIC A AND HER COMMENTATOKS. Falls. Indeed, his restless mind often fonnd comfort in the idea of making his home in the United States. Every school- boy remembers his apostrophe to this comitry, 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 fatliers fought for and Beqneatlied — a heritage of heart and hand. And proud distinction from each other land — Yet rears her crest, imconqucred 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 BKITISH TEAVELLEKS AND WKITEKS. 213 these desultory notes of liis A'isit, 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, Va., 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 ho 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 Buffiilo 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 Philadelj^hia, 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: AMEBIC A AND HEK 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 Avhich 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 ofi" 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 wliere 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 flijipant 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 TKAVELLEKS AND WEITEKS. 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 m 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- diffested 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 chaff 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 Edgeworth, 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 Jefierson, 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 Avell described. She notes some of the stereotj^iDcd 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 HEK COMMENTATOKS. 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 considei*- 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 nai-row 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 stiif leaves of this sword jjlant, 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 sf)ur 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 liouse, 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, BKITISH TKAYELLEES AND WKITEKS. 317 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 countrjouen ; 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 conseqiience. He so admired the chorus of frogs, heard in the stilhiess 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 7iaive 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 HEK COMMENTATOKS. 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 Khode 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 Mevieic 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 1818-19," and " A Sabbath among the Tuscaroras," are dedicated to Prof. Silliman, of Yale College. A small work appeared anony- mously in London (181V), 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 pi;blic, in 1 823, " 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 A^erbose work of E. S. Abdy, previously known for a hygienic essay, was read extensively, at the time of its appearance, though its interest Avas 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 1811-12, 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 Janson, engravings, 4to., London, 1807. BKITISH TKAVELLEKS AUB WRITEKS. 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, FeroU, Finch, Head, Latrobe, Mackinnon, McNish, Majorbanks, Park, Sturge, SutcUfFe, Thomson, Thornton, Turnbull, Tasistro, ShrafF, Warden, Waterton, Warburton, Weston, Keatuig, and Lambe^ ; 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 Blackwood'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 Pohtical 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 Fhnt was one of the most amiable, accomphshed, 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 Enghsh ofiicers. 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 anH prejudiced to have any lasting value ; and Mr. Dicey, the young correspondent of a liberal London journal, collected and pubUshed a narrative of his experience, candid, but of limited scope and insight. 220 AMEEICA AND HER COMISIENTATOKS. 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 f:imiliar book of Captain Basil Hall, R. N., the Journal of Fanny Kemble, and the " Notes " of Dickens. Of the former, Everett justly remarked, in the North American Itevieio^ that " this work will furnish food to the appetite for detraction which reigns in Great Britain toward this country ; " while even Black- wood^s Jfagazitie, 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 pi'otest 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 estmiate was confirmed by the London Mevieto, 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 TKAVELLERS AND WEITERS. 221 JVbrth Americafi Heview truly said of it : " This is another of those iirecious 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 poi^ular 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 obsei-vation ; 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, vntil the Moody cJiaptei' Ms a Moody 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 oi- any other moment, gladly inrolre 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, and work, and torture slaves, unquestioned by any human authority, and unassailed 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 wliom every man, on his own ground, in republican America, is a more exacting, and a sterner, and a less responsible despot, than the Caliph Ilaroun Alraschid, in his angry robe of scarlet." Of the female writers, there is more reflection and knowl- 222, AMERICA AND HEE 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 HaU 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 MelZish, 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, Gilford. 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. BEinSH 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 compa-ratively rare, is the once famous book of Captam 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 aflTectation 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. JUacJcwood 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 AilEKICA AND HEK COMMENTATOES. Parkinson was an English farmer, and therefore might be supi^osed 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, Boswell's 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 JEdinhurgh Review says of another of the countless writers on this prolific theme — Birkbeck : " Detest- ing his principles, we j^raise his entertaining volume." f Harriet Martiueau, 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 coimtry 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 intelhgent 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 from partisan testimony, or the statements of itninformed 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 equijiped 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., Edinburgli, 1823. \ " Notes on a Journey from Virginia to the Territory of Illinois," by Mor- ris Birkbeck, with a map, 8vo., Dublin, 1818. BRITISH TEAVELLEK8 AND WEITEKS. 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. Blackwood 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- Hnd." 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 sviperior 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 Avas 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 oiFensive 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 aud 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 fiist 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 TKAVELLEES AND WKITEES. 227 sympathies overflow toward an English actor, author, and teacher she encoxinters, 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. N"ot 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 knoAATi 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 haA^e acknowledged the temporary character of many of the ?28 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. facts of tbe 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 wi'itings 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 sxippers." 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. TroUope. It has a cer- tain fieshness 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 BEITISH TKAVELLEKS 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 wi'iter 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 ; pro\'incial 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 Fid(iller, the elaborate egotism of Silk Buck- ingham, the scientific knowledge of Featherstonaugh and Lyell, the indelicate personalities of Fredrika Bremer, the mascuhne assurance of Miss Martineau, and the ungrateful caricatures of Dickens, as exhibited in 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 HEK COMMENTATORS. absence of those monoj)olies and that exchisiveness 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 oppoi'tunity 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 imrecreative habits and want of taste that prevail ; the hackneyed complaint of im scientific 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 TKAVELLERS 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. Xot 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 victuns 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 laAVS, 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 prosjDerity 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. I 232 AMERICA ANn HEE COMMENTATORS. In 1862, thirty years after Mrs. Trollope gave to the world her opinion of tlie " Doinestic 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 orf 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 faitliful 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 lie saw and felt while visiting North America ; and this he has done. The speciality of his book is, that it treats of the RebelHon, and is the first elaborate report thereof by a Britisli eyewitness. Its defects are those of limited opportunities, an mifavorable period, and a super- ficial experience warped by certain national proclivities, which the feeling at work aroimd 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. BKITISH TKAVELLEKS AJSTD WKITEES. 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 ncAvly discovered social anomaly claimed his persj^icacious 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 princii^les of taste. We are constantly reminded of the re- iterating insect who " says an imdisputed thing in such a solemn way." Inasmuch as Mrs. TroUoj)e, who came here thirty years ago to open a bazaar in a bewly 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 commvmities, 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 were the natural resiilt 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- scend 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 Avishes 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 blasne, and he means no unkiiidness. 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- mai'ked, " comes from his blood, not his brain." It is the old leaven of self-love, self-importance, self-assertion of the Englishman as such. 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 aj^preciated, perfectly understood, and habitually the subject of native protest and foreign report. On many of these j)oints 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- BRITISH TRAVELLEES AOT) WEITEKS. 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, paupei'ism, ecclesiastical ahuses, aristocratic monopolies, or any other patent and familiar evil. That " necessity of eulogium " which pressed upon Mr. TroUope, as it has upon so many of his countrymen in 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 overbui'dened 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 Newpcft, R. I., Mr. Trollope strangely omits the chief attrac- tion, and that is the peculiar climate, wherein it so much difiers from the rest of the New England coast. He ignores this essential consideration, also, in 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 j^edestrian habitudes of Englishmen, often, after a few years' residence, give place to thin jaws and frames, and comparative indifier- 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 Avherein 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 Avriters, 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 strugglmg with nature, the immense cereal resources of the West, and the process of trans- portation thereof at Chicago and Bufialo. 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 you 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 hhnself 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. * * * jj^g 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 jmpil 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 ii 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 inmiediately 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 AND HER 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 draws 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 mii- versal consideration for the sex so peculiar to our people. It certainly is abused, and oflfensively 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 Avhere 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 tlie 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 tlie 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 TEAVELLEKS 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 he 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's 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 foce, 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 her4*hin 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 he 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 240 AMEEICA AND HEK COMMENTATOKS. in. his water. But perhaps his — or in this case her — retreat from the room when the meal is over, is the chef (Voiuvre 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 mothei', 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 evei'ybody intends, sooner or later, to do everything ; " and, " whatever turns up, the ma7i is still there, still unsophisticated, still unbroken." He thinks American coachmen the ^ost 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 fomid 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. TroUope 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 BEITISn TKAVELLEES 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 exjjlanation 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. Rej)udiating 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 11 242 AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATOES. 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 \dndicate 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 jDolitical, into the scale of justice, instead of hastening to recognize the insurgents as standing before the world on an equal moral and civic footiug 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 difliculty 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 TRAVELLEES 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 Avhich Mr. Trollope has so much to say, would have been avoided had Great Britain acted, thought, spoken, and felt in this matter witli 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 Avas assumed to be a premeditated insult, whereas it was purely an accident. An insult implies inten- tion. Li 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- jiense 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 AaiEEICA AND HER COMMENTATOES. precedents and the principles of Christianity — " the sjiirit 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 foinid official expression, with a few memorable excei^tions, 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 Avhich 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 rijjen 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. BKITISH TKAVELLEKS AND WEITERS. 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 lias 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 fovmd 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 misrej^resentation, are two works written by Scotchmen, which om- 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 laud 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 man^ificturer 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 j^rairies. 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 resoui-ces 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 Cham2:)lain to Windermere and Ulswater ; while he finds the " footAvay 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 AVRITERS. 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 coimtriea 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 ^va-iter Avhose recent observations are worthy of that consideration which an honest purj)ose, 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, 1851. 248 AlVIEKICA AND HEE 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 ; and, 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 suifrage, 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 efiects of slavery, the difiiculties 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 diflicult 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 obser\^a- tions on the Slave States, there is a complete recognition of BRITISH TRAVELLEKS AND WRITERS. 249 the facts and principles which the North has vainly striven for months past to imjjress 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 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, au 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 AJJfD HEE COMMENTATOKS. " I cannot overlook that latent force of virtue and wisdom, whicli makes itself, as yet, too little felt in public affairs, but whicli assuredly is there, and will come forth, I am convinced, Avhen the hour of trial comes to save the country." "The American nation wiU 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 Britahi : " 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 wi'iter 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 hone of our bone ? Are they not progressive, and fond of power, like ourselves ? Are they not our best customers ? Have BRITISH TKAVELLEKS AND WRITERS. 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." — " llie New Rome ; or, Tlie United States of the World" (iVcw York, 1843). A remarkably bold and comprehensive theory of American progress, unity, and empire, by Theodore Po\?che 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." CHAPTEE YII. ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMERICA. It has often been remarked, that there is a fashion in bookcraffc, as in every other phase aiid element of human society ; and the caprices thereof are often as inexphcable and fantastic as in manners, costmne, and other less intellect- ual phenomena. The history of modern literature indicates extreme fluctuations of j^opular taste. Waller and Cowley introduced the concetti of the Itahans 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 imiform 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 Avhich 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 sto]3 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 A3IERICA. 253 facts or fictions gleaned for Galigyiani's Messenger, and served up with his daily breakfast ; he may treat the prejudice and presumption of English censors Avith amusing non- chalance, when discussing them Avith 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 imj)erfect 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 tf> 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 s^mipathy of lovers of humanity. It is remark- able, also, that the most severe comments came from persons 254 A3IEEICA AND HEK COMMENTATOKS. Avhose 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 Avhich 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 ; w^hile in cases where incidental popular errors were truly stated, the justice of the criticism Avas 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 sujierficial defects, when gravely treated as national, seem almost devoid of significance, when the grand human worth, promise, and beauty of our institutions and opportimities 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 coimtry wherein prejudice found root and nurture. In colonial days, many bitter and perverse records found their way to tlie press ; and Colonel Bai're said to the elder Quincy, in England, before the Revolutionary war : " When I returned to tliis country, I was often speaking of America, and could not help speaking Avell 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 I'/BS, warned the impoverished peas- ants, eager to seek a new home in the Western hemisphere, ENGLISH ABUSE OF AilERICA. 255 against perils in America so imaginary, that they ^rould 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 jiolitical 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 v.'ith 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, hke Southey, frankly acknowledged this claim to res23ect. " 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. Tlie Euro- pean expectation that we were to be crushed, was turned into a feeling of admiration unbounded. Our victories had a moral efi:ect 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 COMMEISTTATOKS. Coincident with or ere long succeeding this naval pres- tige, our commercial marme advanced in character and pros- i:»erity. 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 insti'uction, 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, w^ere as we have seen. The imi)ortance attached to the swarm of English Travels abusive of America, upon calm reflection, appears like a monomania ; and equally preposterous was the sensitiveness of oiir people to foreign criticism. Their exceptional fast eating, inquisitiveness, tobacco cliewing, ugly i)ublic build- ings, sprawling attitudes, and local lingo, Avere engrossed in so huge a bill of indictment, that their political freedom, social equality, educational privileges, imprecedcnted material prosperity, benign laws, and glorious country, seemed to ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMEKICA. 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 fimdamental 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, imaccustomed 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 Heview — 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." Iiwing 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 AIHEEICA AND HEE 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 tlie class of Birmingham and Manchester agents, being wholly unaccustomed, they wei'e 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, joopulation, resources, trade, and manufactures ; while even the diplomatic conservatives across the sea, recognize in the United States a power ^dtally asso- ciated with that traditional " balance " Avhereon 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-delled, first by the injus- tice of the official, and then by the uncandid and inimical tone of the literary organs of the British people. There lies before us, as we write, a private letter from an American scholar and gentleman, who, on the score of lineage as well as cultm-e and character, claims respect for his deliberate views. What he says in the frank confidence of private correspondence, indicates, without exaggeration, the change which has come over the noblest in the land : ' Let John Bull beware. War or no war, he has made an enduring enemy of us. I am startled to hear myself say this, but England is henceforth to me only historical — the home of our Shak- * Cobden thus characterizes the Times with reference to its treatment of a home question and native statesmen: "Here we have, in a compendious form, an exhibition of those qualities of mind which characterize the editorial management of the Times — of that arrogant self-complacency, that logical in- coherence, and that moral bewilderment which a too long career of impunity and irresponsibility could alone engender." 292 AMERICA AND HEE C0MMENTAT0K8. speare, and Milton, and Wordsworth ; for all her best writers are ours by necessity and privilege of language : but farewell the especial sympathy I have felt in her political, social, and total well-being. With her present exhibition and promulga- tion of jealousy and selfishness and heartlessness and ungen- tlemanly meanness, she has cut me loose from the sweet and cordial and reverent ties that have kept her so long to me a second fatherland.' ' CHAPTER YIII. NORTHERN EUROPEAN WRITERS. KALM ; MISS BREMER ; GUROWSKI, AND OTHERS ; GERMAN WRITERS : HUMBOLDT; SASE WEIMAR; VON RAUMER ; PRINCE MAXIMILIAN VON WEID ; LIEBER ; SCHXJLTZ ; OTHER GERMAN WRITERS : GRUND ; RtJPPIUS ; SEATSFIELD ; KOHL ; TALVI ; SCHAFF. Isr the North of Europe, since the beginning of the pres- ent century, French literature has been the chief medium of current information ia regard to the rest of the world. Within the last twenty years the English language has be- come a fashionable accomplishment ; and, with the wonderful development of German literature, books of science and travel, in that language, have furnished the other northern races with no small part of their ideas about America. In Russia, Sweden, and Denmark, many of our best authors have been translated ; and the Journal de St. Petershourg, Z/''Abeille du JVbrd, Vedemosti (JSedemocttt), during the civil war, have, by the accuracy of their facts and the justness of their reasoning, evidenced a remarkably clear understanding of the struggle, its origin, aim, and consequences. A pleas- ant book of " Impressions " during a tour 'in the United States, by Lakieren, a Russian, was published in that lan- guage in 1859; and a Swedish writer — Siljestroem* — gave * " The Educational Institutions of the United States, their Character and Organization," translated from the Swedish by Frederica Rowan, London, 294: AlVIEEICA AITD HEK COMMENTATORS. to Ms countrymen an able descri^Jtion and exposition of the American system of popular education, which is justly esteemed for its fulness and accuracy ; while the great work of Rafn on " Northern Antiquities " identifies the profound researches of a Danish scholar with the dawn of American history. It is refreshing alike to the senses and the soul, to turn from the painfully exciting story of those early adventurers on this continent, whose object was conquest and personal aggrandizement, whose careers, though signalized often by heroism and sagacity, were fraught with bloodshed, not only in conflicts with the savages, but in quarrels among their own followers and rivals, to the- peaceful journeys and voyages — attended, indeed, with exposure and privation — of those who sought the woods and waters of the New World chiefly to discover their marvels and enjoy and record them. We find in all the desirable reports of explorers, whether men of war, diplomacy, or religion, more or less of that observa- tion, and sometimes of that love of nature, so instinctively active when a new scene of grandeur or beauty is revealed to human perception. But these casual indications of either a scientific or sympathetic interest in the physical resources of the country are but the episodes in expeditions, whose lead- ers were too hardy or unenlightened to follow these attrac- tions, for their own sake, with zeal and exclusiveness. Other and less innocent objects absorbed their minds ; and it is chiefly among the missionaries that we find any glowing recognition of the charms of the untracked wilderness, the mysterious streams, and the brilliant skies, Avhich they strove • to consecrate to humanity by erecting, amid and beneath them, the Cross, which should hallow the flag that proclaimed their acquisition to ^ distant but ambitious monarch. To the natu- ralist, America has ever abounded in peculiar interest ; and 1853. Other Swedish works on America are C. D. Arf^vedson's "Travels," (1838); Gustaf Unonceis' " Recollections of a Residence of Seventeen Years m the United States" (1862-'3). Munck Rieder, a Norwegian, wrote a work ^/^ on his return from the United States in 1849 — chiefly statistical. NOETHEEN EUEOPEAN WEITERS. 295 all with an inkling of that taste have found their loneliest wanderings cheered thereby. Nor has it been the scientific love of nature alone to which she has here ever appealed. To the adventurous and poetical, to the brave lover of inde- pendence and freedom, like Boone, and the enthusiast, like Chateaubriand, the forest and the waterfall have possessed a memorable charm. From Bartram to Wilson, and from Au- dubon to Agassiz, the world of animal and vegetable life in America has yielded a long array of naturalists the richest materials for exploration. One of the_ earliest scientific visitors to our shores was Peter Kalm, who was sent from Sweden, with the approba- tion of Linnaeus, in 1745. His salary was inadequate, and he so trenched upon his private resources, in order to carry out the objects of his journey, as to be compelled, after his re- turn home, to practise rigid economy. Kalm was born in Osterbotten, in 1715, and educated at Upsalj^, On his return from Amei'ica, he was appointed jn-ofessor of natural history at Abo, where he died in 1779. A charming memorial of his visit to our country is the botanical name given to the wild laurel of our woods, first made known by him to Europe, and, in honor thereof, called the Kalmia. His work, " En resa til Norra Amerika," appeared in Stockholm in 1753-'61, in three volumes, and was translated into Dutch, German, and English — the latter by John R. Foster, under the title of "Travels in North America" (2 vols., London, 1772).* He passed the winter of 1749 among the Swedes settled at Racoon, New Jersey. He explored tlie coast of New York, visited the Blue Mountains, the Mohawk, Iroquois, Oneida, Tuscarora, and Onondaga Indian tribes. Lake Ontario, and the Falls of Niagara. His description of the latter was long popular. In his diary, while at Philadelphia, he notes the variety of religious sects and their peculiarities, the exports, and the hygiene. Some of the facts recorded by him of the * " Travels in North America, containing its Natural History, and Civil, Ecclesiastical, and Commercial State," &c., by Peter Kalm, 3 vols. 8vo., best edition, map, plates Warrington, 17Y0. 296 AMERICA AND HEB COMMENTATOES. City of Brotherly Love a century ago, enable ns to realize how rapid has been the advance from suburban wildness to the highest metropolitan luxury. When Kalm sojourned there, elks, beavers, and stags were hunted where now is "the sweet security of streets." So abundant were the peaches, that they served as the food of swine. The noisy midsummer chorus of frogs, locusts, and grasshoppers vibra- ted through what is now the heart of a great city. Maize was to the Swedish botanist the most wonderful staple of the soil. He discovered a species of Rhus indigenous to the region. The murmur of the spinning wheel was a familiar sound ; and sassafras was deemed a specific cure for dropsy. Kalm's picture of Albany in 1749 is an interesting paral- lel and contrast to Mrs. Grant's more elaborate description, and to the pleasant social glimpses of its modern life given by the late William Kent in a lecture before the young men there of this generation. The Swedish traveller tells us that all the people spoke Dutch, that the servants were all negroes, and that all the houses had gable ends to the street, with such projecting gutters that wayfarers were seriously incommoded in wet weather. He describes the cattle as roaming the dirty streets at will ; the interior of the dwell- ings as of an exemplary neatness, and the fireplaces and porches thereof of an amplitude commensurate with the wide and genial hospitality and liberal social instincts of the people, whose prevalent virtues he regarded as frugality in diet and integrity of purpose and character. In their houses the women were extremely neat. " They rise early," says Kalm, " go to sleep late, and are almost over nice and cleanly in regard to the floor, which is frequently scoured several times a week." Tea had been but recently introduced among them, but was extensively used ; coflTee seldom. They never put sugar and milk in their tea, but took a small piece of the former in their mouths while sipping the beverage. They usually breakfasted at seven, dined at twelve or one, and supped at six ; and most of them used sweet milk or butter- rnilk at every meal. They also used cheese at breakfast and NOETHEKN EUROPEAN WRITERS. 297 dinner, grated instead of sliced ; and the usual drink of the majority of the people was small beer and pure Avater. The wealthier families, although not mdulging in the variety then seen upon tables in New York, used much fish, flesh, and fowl, preserves and pastry, nuts and fruits, and various wines, at their meals, especially when entertaining their friends or strangers. Their hospitahty toward deserving strangers was free and generous, without formality and rules of etiquette, and they never allowed their visitors to interfere with the necessary duties of the household, the counting room, or the farm. In describing his visit to Niagara Falls, in a letter dated Albany, September 2, 1750, Kalm furnishes us with an inter- esting contrast between the experience of a traveller to this long-frequented shrine of nature, a century ago, when such expeditions were few and far between, and the magnificent scene with its frontier fort Avas isolated in the wilderness, and the same visit now, Avhen caravans rush thither many times a day, with celerity, to find all the comforts, society, and amenities of high civilization : " I came, on the 12th of August, to Niagara Fort. The French there seemed much perplexed at my first coming, imagining I was an English officer, who, under pretext of seeing the Falls, came with some otlier view ; but as soon as I showed them my passport, they changed their behavior, and treated me with the greatest civility. In the months of September tind October, such immense quantities of dead waterfowl are found, every morning, below the fall, on the shore (swept there), that the garrison of the fort for a long time live chiefly upon them, and obtain such plenty of feathers in autumn as make several beds." The Swedish colony on the banks of the Delaware early associated that brave nationality with the settlement of America.* Longfellow's translation of Tegner's " Children * 1. " Description of Xcw Sweden in America, and the Settlements in Pennsylvania by Companies," Stockholm, 1792, a small quarto, with primitive engravings. 2. " Description of the Province of Kew Sweden, now called by the English Pennsylvania," translated and edited by Peter S. Duponceau. Phila., 1824. 3. " The Swedes on the Delaware," by Rev. Jehu Curtis Clay, Pliila. 13* 298 AMEBIC A AND HEE COMMENTATORS. of the Lord's Supper," with the prefatory sketch of life iu Sweden, gave us a j)leasant glimpse of its primitive and rural traits ; and the vocalism and beneficence of Jenny Lind en- deared the very name of that far-ofl" land to American hearts. But the novels of Fredrika Bremer first made known in this country the domestic life of Sweden, which, delineated Avith such naivete and detail in " The Neighbors," charmed our households, and prepared them to give a cordial welcome to the author. The first impression she made, however, was not highly attractive. A journal of the day Avell describes it, and the natural reaction therefrom : " The slowness with which she spoke, and the pertinacity with which she insisted on understanding the most trifling remark made to her, a little dashed the enthusiasm of those who newly made her acquaintance. Further intercourse, however, brought out a quaint and quiet self-possession, a shrewd vein of playfulness, a quick obser- vation, and a truly charming simplicity, which rewon all the admi- ration she had lost, and added, we fancy, even to the ideal of expec- tation." There are few situations in modern life more suggestive of the ludicrous, than that of a woman " of a certain age," professedly visiting a country for the purpose of critically examining and reporting it and its jjeople. Every American of lively imagination Avho has been thrown into society with one of these female philosophers on such a voyage of discov- ery, must have caught ideas for a comedy of real life from the phenomena thus created. " Asking everybody every- thing," the self-ai")poiuted inspector is propitiated by one, quizzed by another, feared by this class and contemned by that, all the time with an imconscious air, looking, listening, noting down, and, from the most evanescent and unreliable data, " giving an opinion " or drawing a portrait, not of a Avell- known place or familiar person, but of an unknown country and a strange nation ! To see Miss Martineau vigilantly thridding crowds and paying out the flexible tube of her ear- trumpet, like a telegraph wire, into the social sea ; or Dick- ens astride a chair in a hotel, receiving gratuitous and exag- NORTHEKN EUKGPEAX WKITEKS. 299 gerated reports of the state of the nation, fi'oni a group of lion-struck republicans, are tableaux that will recur to many, as illustrations of this comedy of travel in America. It was our lot to see Miss Bremer at a manorial domicile on the Hudson, in all the glory of her " mission." It was in the autumn, and no one could pass along the river without being struck with admiration at the splendid colors that kindled the woods : it was the common theme of remark. She, however, resented this assumed superiority of the American autumn, saying, " The Lord also has done some- thing for Sweden. Our foliage is brilliant in the fall." In the same spirit she refused to believe a lady fresh from Ken- tucky, who, in describing to her the Mammoth Cave, men- tioned the familiar fact that the fish therein have only the rudiment of an optic nerve. At dinner, her inquiries about the material and preparation of the viands would have led to the supposition that she meditated a man^^al of cookery ; and, on returning to the drawing room, she whipped out a sketch book, and coolly drew a likeness of Irving, the most illustri- ous of the guests. The fabrics of the ladies' dresses, the modes of dancing, the style of meals, the trees, furniture, books, schools, and private history of all persons of note, and even of those unknown to fame, were investigated witli per- fect good humor and nonchalance / but the process and idea of the thing, when considered, are a singular commentary upon modern life and social dignity ; and when the long- expected book appeared, the kind people who had enter- tained Miss Bremer, were dismayed to find their sayings and doings recorded, and their very looks and characters analyzed for the public edification. This breach of good faith and good taste, however, did not prevent her Swedish readers from learning, through her very frank and naive but often superficial report, many details of domestic economy, and some novelties of American life ; while here the effect was once more to "give us pause" in our hospitable instincts, and to feel the necessity of a new sumptuary law, whereby to eat one's salt should be a pledge against the freedom of pen-craft. 300 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. Adam Gurowski's book on America is noteworthy as the observations of a Pole. It appeared in 1857, and has few elements of popularity, being alike devoid of statistics and gossip — the staple elements of favorite records of travel on this side of the water ; but it is honorably distinguished from these by a vein of grave speculation and historical rea- soning, of which the author's subsequent hasty, irate, and irrational comments on the war for the Union, give no indica- tion. Being a publicist and a well-read political philosopher, as well as a political refugee, the Count's experience as a Polish revolutionist, an employe of Russia, and a long resi- dent in America, fits him eminently to discuss the tendencies and traits of this country by the light of the past. He com- pares our civilization with that of Europe. The tone of his work is liberal and rational. He is a sincere and earnest admirer of om- institutions, a trenchant social critic. The pi;lpit, press, and " manifest destiny " of the nation are keenly analyzed, and slavery is discussed from an historical stand-point, and thoroughly condemned by practical argu- ment. As a treatise on government and society, the book contains an unusual amount of thought, and grasps salient questions with a comprehensive scope. It is, indeed, defec- tive in style, and contains palj^able errors of statement and inference ; but these are more than atoned for by its philo- sophical spirit. A highly educated Swiss, K. Meier, in a" pleasant work entitled " To the Sacramento," has described his journey from the Northern States to California via Panama, in the German language, with the interest which ever attaches to the tour of an intelligent votary of the natural sciences ; and an officer of the same nation. Colonel Lecomte, has published, in the French language, a report of our military operations during the first months of the war for the Union, which has been translated into Enghsh.* * " The War in the United States : a Keport to the Swiss Military De- partment ; preceded by a Discourse to the Federal Military Society, assembled ' NORTHERN EUROPEAN WRITERS. 301 An accomplished member of the Belgian Representative Chamber wi'ote an able little treatise on " La Question Ame- ricaine," * in which he arrays facts and arguments in a lucid and forcible manner, and discusses, with rare fulness and per- spicacity, the causes and consequences of the civil war. His views of the mutual interests of his own and our country are worth citing : " It will not seem out of place to show here, briefly, that, as re- gards Belgium, tlie cotton question is not the only one which inter- ests her in the aftairs of America. "We have close constitutional analogies with the United States, If their institutions should fall, ours would suffer by reaction. We have copied the American Con- stitution, not only as to municipal and provincial decentralization, as to that of industrial, financial, charitable associations, &c., as to the great liberties of worship, of instruction, and of the press (of which the English charter ottered us equally the model) ; but we liave followed America particularly as regards the absence of a state religion, of which Catholic Maryland gave the first example. Wg have imitated her in the institution of an elective Senate, in that of a House of Representatives identified with the democratic interest. The national Congress voted the Belgian Constitution with their eyes fixed on the American Union. Were we to consult only the interest of Belgium, we ought to desire that the United States should con- tinue to remain what they have been, and to give us the example of union, of the spirit of liberty, and of decentralization — qualities which characterize the Anglo-Saxon race, with which the Belgians have bonds of relationship and close affinities." (P. 63.) No Europeans, in our own day, have had more reason to regard North America with hopeful interest than the Ger- mans. To their indigent agricultural population this country has proved a prosperous home ; and the zeal with which our Teutonic fellow citizens, of all classes, volunteered for the war on whose issues hang the liberties of this continent, is the best evidence of their appreciation of the privileges of at Berae, August 18th, 1862," by Ferdinand Lecomte, translated from the French by a StafiF Officer, New York, 1863. * " La Question Americaine dans ses Rapports avec les Moeurs, 1' Escla- vage, r Industrie et la Politique." Par Le Chanoine de Haeme, Membre de la Chambre des Representants, Bruxelles, 1862, 8vo., pp. 72. 302 AISIEEICA AND HEE COMMENTATORS. American citizenship. No foreigners seem to organize their national life among us with such facility. The guilds and pastimes of the fatherland are as familiar in our cities as on the Rhine. German scholars and thinkers are attached to our colleges, contribute to our literature, and enrich our soci- ety ; Avliile large sections of the Western States are culti- vated by German peasants. Moreover, the literature of Ger- many has essentially modified the culture of the present gen- eration of American scholars ; and thus, in the sphere of intellectual and of utilitarian life, a mutual understanding and sympathy, and a commimity of political interests, have tended to bring the two nationalities into nearer relations. Many statistical works on the United States have been published in Germany as guides to emigrants ; and many sensible treatises explaining and desci'ibing our institutions, manners, resources, and characteristics, like those of Von Raumer, Lieber, and other residents and visitors. A certain philosophical impartiality of tone makes the German record a kind of middle ground between the urbane and enthusiastic French and the prejudiced and sneering English writers. Some of the most just views and candid delineations have emanated from German writers. Their political sympathies, extensive information, and patient tone of mind, alike fit them for the task of investigating and reporting physical and social facts. The record may lack sprightliness, and be tinged with a curious vein of speculation, but is nevertheless likely to convey solid and valuable knowledge, and suggest comprehensive inferences. Gerstaecker, who travelled on foot over a large part of the Southwest, and Trochling, have given to many of their coimtrymen the first vivid impres- sions of America. Writing in the novelistic form, they reached the sym2:)athies of many who would neglect a merely statistical work. Private letters, and the current journals and translations of Cooper and Irving, are, however, the popular sources of specific information and romantic impressions in Germany in regard to the United States. Although Baron Humboldt's American researches were chiefly confined to the NOKTHERN EUROPEAN WEITERS. 303 Southern continent, he was keenly alive to the human interest and civic problems of the United States. " We would sim- ply draw attention," he Avrites in " Cosmos," " to the fact that, since this period " (that of the discovery and coloniza- tion of America), " a new and more vigorous activity of the mind and feelings, animated by bold aspirations and hopes which can scarcely be frustrated, has gradually penetrated through all grades of civil society ; that the scanty popula- tion of one half of the globe, especially in the portions oppo- site to Europe, has favored the settlement of colonies, which have been convei'ted, by their extent and position, into inde- pendent States, enjoying imlimited power in the choice of their mode of free government ; and, finally, that religious reform — the precursor of great political revolutions — could not iliil to i^ass through the different phases of its develop- ment, in a jjortion of the earth which had become the asyliun of all forms of faith, and of the most different views regard- ing Divine things. The daring enterprise of the Genoese seaman is the first link in the immeasurable chain of these momentous events. Accident, and not fraud and dissension, deprived the contuaent of America of the name of Columbus. The New World, continuously brought nearer to Europe during the last half century by means of commercial inter- course and the improvement of navigation, has exercised an important influence on the jiolitical institutions, the ideas and feelings of those nations who occupy the eastern shores of the Atlantic, the boundaries of which appear to be constantly brought nearer and nearer to one another." There is a curious illustration of the first impressions of the highly educated Germans m America, in a phrase of Baron Furstenwarther, and its explanation by Mr. Schmidt : " With all the facility," writes the former, " particularly of the material life, there is no idea, not a distant suspicion, of a high and fine existence." " By material," observes the lat- ter, " we mean men who take more pleasure in a cattle show or a breed of swine, than a Venus de Medici or a Laocoon." Very patient and informing, but quite tame and didactic, are 304 AMERICA AND HEE C0M3IENTAT0ES. the " Travels in North America " by His Highness, Bernhard, Duke of Saxe- Weimar-Eisenach, republished in Philadelphia in 1828. The kindliuess and intelligence of the Duke are apparent on every page of these two volumes ; but there is little new in the subjects or mode of treatment. It is a work which excites respect for the man more than admiration for the writer. His benevolent interest and his detailed account of what he sees and hears, are the most remarkable traits. He gives a favorable report of the hospitality of Americans ; describes his visit to the elder Adams, and a Virginia rail fence, a granite machine in New England, and a Hudson River steamboat or horse ferry, the Creek Indians, and Owen's commimity, with the same fulness and apparent inter- est. He criticizes West's painting of " Christ Healing the Sick" judiciously, bestows the epithet " dear" upon Philadel- phia, was astonished " to hear Virginians praise hereditary nobility and primogeniture," and greatly enjoyed a visit to the Moravian settlement at Bethlehem, the Natural Bridge, and a dinner at Monticello. It is remarkable that the travel- lers of rank show so much more human and so much less con- ventional interest in American life, manners, and resources than those who belong to a class we should imagine especially alive to the opportunities and privileges of a new and free country. Yet the Cavalier Castiglione, the Marquis of Chas- tellux, the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, and Lord Morpeth are more just and generous in their observation and sympa- thies, as travellers in America, than a Hall, a Trollope, or a Dickens. Friedrich Von Raumer, more of an historian than an observer, a professor in the University of Berlin, and author of several political and historical treatises, after travelling in England and publishing his observations on that country, which were translated by Mrs. Austin (5 vols., London, 1836), visited this country, and, in 1843, wrote a book there- on, entitled " America and the American people," subse- quently translated and published in New York.* It contains * " America and the American People," by Frederick Von Raumer, NOKTHEKN EUKOPEAN WKITEES. 305 much valuable information, and is written with the love of knowledge and patient exposition thereof characteristic of a German professor, but evidently drawn much more from books than from life. The German edition of the " Travels " * in America of the Prince Maximilian von Wied, is superbly illustrated, and much used as an authentic reference by his countrymen, for whom the work was expressly written : it is wholly descrip- tive, and therefore contains little that is new to a well-in- formed native. The work was translated into English, and with its superb illustrations republished in London. One of the best known here of the German writers on this country is Dr. Francis Lieber. He was born at Berlin in 1800, and re- ceived a doctor's degree at the University of Jena. Like so many ardent and cultivated young Europeans, he esj^oused the cause of Greece during her Revolution ; became a politi- cal exile, received a letter of encouragement from Richter, wrote poems in prison, and, in 1827, came to America. He edited the Cyclo2:>cedia Americana, and was professor in Co- lumbia College, South Carolina, several years, and now holds a like situation in Columbia College, New York. Dr. Lieber is an eminent publicist. His views on political economy are original and profoimd. His expositions of international law, and his occasional political essays, are alike remarkable for extensive knowledge and acute reasoning. His " Letters to a Gentleman in Germany," or " The Stranger in America," f exhibit his ability in his special line of studies, applied to our institutions and resources. They give remarkably full state- ments of judicial and penitentiary systems, and of social traits. Dr. Lieber's ample opportunities of observation, his translated from the German by W. W. Turner, 8vo., pp. 512, New York, 1846. * " Journey through North America," by Prince Max v. New-wied-Wied, a most valuable work, rich in characteristic sketches of nature and life, as well as in scientific results. •j- " The Stranger in America ; comprising Sketches of the Manners of Society, &c.," by Francis Lieber, 2 vols. Svo., London, 1835. 7 306 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. familiarity with society and life both North and Soiith, and the philosophical tendency of his mind, make him a remarkably apt expositor of the most important questions relating to our comitry. His work was translated into English by a son of the celebrated jurist Hugo. Christian Schultz made an inland tour through the United States, in 1807-8, of six thousand miles, his description whereof was published in New York in 1810.* Though not intended for the public, his letters are intelligent, and, for the most part, accurate. Those referring to the Western Ter- ritories must have afforded seasonable and desirable informa- tion at that period ; and his account of the Middle States is in some respects highly satisfactory. A good illustration of the absence of locomotive facilities at that time on one of the most frequented lines of travel in our day, occurs in the notes of his journey from Albany to Oswego. The latter i:)lace, he tells us, was then " wholly dependent upon the salt trade." He went there by canal and through Wood Creek and the Onondaga River ; in fact, by the route described in Cooper's " Pathfinder," substituting a barge for a canoe. As to the town itself, thus slowly approached by water, and long the goal of fur trader, missionary, and military expeditions, this author thought its " appearance very contemptible from the irregular and confused manner in which the inhabitants build their houses ; " but his impression of the place changed when he surveyed the lake from the shore, and recognized so many local advantages and so vast and beautiful a prospect. A volume, written also from personal experience, of the same date, by Ludwig G^ale, entitled " My Emigration to the United States," is another of the early specimens of German Travels therein, since forgotten in the more complete and careful reports of later writers. Nor should the essay of a political philosopher and naturalist, E. A. W. Zimmex'man, be neglected. It is entitled " France and the Free States of * " Travels on an Inland Voyage through the States of New York, Penn- sylvania, Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee, &c.," by Christian Schultz, with numerous maps and plates, 2 vols. 8vo., New York, 1810. NORTHERN EUROPEAN WRITERS. 307 North America," and appeared in 1795. Its author, a native of Hanover, and educated at Leyden and Gottingen, died in 1815, and, "during the whole period of the French ascen- dency in Europe, was distinguished for his bold denunciation of the usurpations and oppressions of that Government." In 1839, a view of " Social and Public Life in the United States," by Nicholas H." Julius, appeared at Leipsic. It is written in a very intelligent and humane spirit, and with practical judgment. Paul William Duke of Wurtemberg's " Journey in North America in the Years 1825-'26," is finely descriptive, with vivid sketches of social life. It contains a detailed account of some of the German settlements. William"^ Gr is son characterizes ably the juridical, religious, and military relations of America, and comments on life there from careful observation. F. W. von "Wrede drew some authentic " Pictures of Life in the United States and Texas." In Count Gore's " Journey Round the World," the first volume is devoted to America ; and, the author having remained there longest, it is the best of the series. M. Busch's " Wanderings in the United States " is written with candor, and presents the extremes of light and shade, with no small humor ; while Francis Loher has some excellent national portraits in his " Lands and People in the Old and New World," and describes at length the " Germans in America," with whom he long resided. Frederick "Kapp published, at Gottingen, in 1854, a treatise on the slavery question, in its historical development, full of facts and just reasoning, although recent events have negatived its pro- phetic inductions. Louis von Baumbach's " New Letters from the United States" (Cassel, 1856), is a useful guide to the candid study of American life and institutions ; and Julius Frobel's "From America" (Leipsic, 1857) treats with esprit and geniaUty social and political questions. Li a Avork entitled " The Americans in their Moral, Social, and Political Relations," a Gei-man writer, Francis J.^ Grund (subsequently a naturalized citizen and active politician), ex- posed some of the superficial and false reasoning of English 308 AMERICA AISTD HEK COMMENTATOKS. travellers in America. Published in Boston * and London in 1837, and claiming to be the result of fourteen years' resi- dence in the country, it discussed, with much acuteness and candor, several unhackneyed topics of this prolific theme : among them, the aversion to amusements, the reception of foreigners, the relation of American literature to the English periodical press, and the influence of the Western settlements on the political prospects of America ; while the more famil- iar topics of education, universal suffi-age, slavery, and indus- trial enterprises, are treated with nmch discrimination. The political sympathies of the author give an emphasis to his arguments ; but he is by no means blind to the national defi- ciencies ; and in a subsequent work, evidently more especially devoted thereto — which, although ostensibly edited only, was written by him, and entitled " Aristocracy in America " — he exhibits them with sarcastic \'igor. His first book, however, was timely, true, and remarkably well written. He professes to have arrived at strict impartiality, and was chiefly insjjired by an " honest desire to correct prejudices, American and English, and not to furnish them with fresh aliment." He declares that the "Americans have been greatly misrepre- sented ; " and this not so much by ascribing to them spm-ious qualities, as by omitting to mention those which entitle them to honor and respect, and representing the foibles of certain classes as weaknesses belonging to the nation. In the opin- ion of this writer, " a remarkable trait of English travellers in the United States consists in their proneness to find the same faults with Americans which the people of the conti- nent of Europe are apt to find with themselves." He recog- nizes an " air of busy inquietude " as characteristic of the people, and " business " as the " soul " of American life ; yet he considers the tendency of their democracy " not to debase the wealthy in mind or fortune, but to raise the inferior classes to a moral elevation where they no longer need be * "The Americans in their Moral, Social, and Political Relations," by Francia J. Grund, 2 vols, in 1, 12mo., Boston, 183Y. NORTHERN EUROPEAN WRITERS. 309 degraded and despised." As to the " unhallowed custom of talking about trade and business, I must confess," he says, " not to have remarked it half as often as Hamilton. I rather think an honorable exception Avas made in his favor, in order to acquaint him the better with American affairs, on which they knew he was about to write a book." To this natural explanation of a circumstance which the English traveller magnifies into a national defect, the more kindly continental observer adds another which accounts for many false infer- ences : " From the writings of Basil Hall and Hamilton, it is evident that neither of the gentlemen became acquainted with any but the fashionable coteries of the large cities, and that the manners of the people, and esj)ecially of the respectable middle class, escaped altogether their immediate attention." He observes that " the most remarkable characteristic of Americans is the uncommon degree of intelligence that per- vades all classes ;" and thinks that " their proneness to argue lends a zest to conversation." To popular education he attributes the mental activity and enlightenment so striking to a European as general traits. " The German system," he remarks, " favors the development of the mind to the exclu- sion of all practical purposes. The American aims always at some application, and creates dexterity and readiness for action." In the Western communities, he finds an attractive " naivete of manners and grotesqueness of humor." N"o one, he says, can travel in the United States without making a business of it. " He must not exj)ect to stop except at the place fixed upon by the proprietors of the road or the steam- boat." The i^osition of a man of leisure in this country, unless he is interested in literary or scientific pursuits, he deems forlorn, because it is companionless. " There is no people on earth," he observes, " with whom business consti- tutes pleasure and industry amusement, to an equal degree as with the inhabitants of the United States." Hamilton attrib- utes the " total absence of the higher elegancies of life " iu this countiy to the " abolition of primogeniture ; " while this German commentator cheerfully accepts the condition that he 310 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. " must resign his individual tastes to the wishes of the major- ity " in view of the compensatory benefits. " Every new State," he writes, " is a fresh guarantee for the continuance of the American Constitution, and directs the attention of the people to new sources of happiness and wealth. It in- creases the interest of all in the General Government, and makes individual success dependent on national prosperity." With such broad sympathies and liberal views, he protests" against the narrowness and the injustice of British writers, who have so pertinaciously misrepresented the country, its institutions and prospects, declaring that " the progress of America reflects but the glory of England. All the power she acquires extends the moral empire of England. Every page of American history is a valuable supplement to that of England. It is the duty of true patriots of both countries to support and uphold each other to the utmost extent compati- ble with national justice ; and it is a humiliating task either for private individuals or public men to make the foibles of either the subject of ridicule to the other." In his novels, Otto Euppius, who resided for a consider- able period in the United States, imdertook, in this form, to make his countrymen familiar with the various aspects of life in America. They are interesting and suggestive, and in many respects authentic, though not always free from those partial or overdrawn pictures which are inseparable from this form of writing. Another German author, for some years a resident in the United States, has made life and nature there the subject of several interesting and effective novels — after having, on his return home in 1826, published the general result of his ob- servation and experience on this side of the water. He came back the following year, and his first American romance ap- peared in Philadelphia soon after, under. the title of " To- keah ; or, The White Rose." Charles Seajsfield thus became known as an author. In 1829 and '30 he was one of the editors of the Courier des Etats UniSy and, soon after, went to Paris as correspondent of the New York Courier and NORTHERN EUROPEAN WRITERS. 311 Enquirer. In 1832 he A'isited Switzerland, and there pub- lished a translation of " Tokeah." So popular was this work abroad, that he resolved to compose a series of romances illustrative of American life. His keen observation, strong sympathies, and imaginative zest enabled him to mould into vivid pictures the scenes and characters with which he had become familiar in America, where the six novels devoted to that subject soon became known tlirough partial translations which appeared in BlacTxiooocV s Magazine. The intensity and freshness of these delineations excited much interest. They seemed to open a new and genuine vein of romance in American life, or, rather, to make the infinite possibilities thereof charmingly apparent. This was an experiment sin- gularly adapted to a German, who, with eveiy advantage of European education, in the freshness of life had emigrated to this country, and there worked and travelled, observed and reflected, and then, looking back from the ancient quietude of his ancestral land, could delineate, under the inspiration of contrast, all the wild and wonderful, the characteristic and original phases and facts of his existence in Texas, Pennsyl- vania, or New York. "Life in the New "World" was soon translated and published in the latter city. It was followed by " The Cabin Book ; or, Sketches of Life in Texas," and others of the series which abroad have given to thousands the most vivid impressions of the adventure, the scenery, and the characters of our frontier, and of many of the peculiar traits of our more confirmed civilization. Seatsfield resides alternately in Switzerland and the United States. Few modern travellers have won a more desirable reputa- tion for intelligent assiduity and an honest spirit than John G. Kohl, who, born at Breme in 1808, was educated at Got- tingen, Heidelberg, and Munich, and, after filling the oflice of private tutor in two noble families, established himself at Dresden, and thence made numerous excm-sions through A-ari- ous parts of Europe and America ; describing, with care and often with a singular thoroughness, the countries thus visited. Few records of travel convey so much interesting information. 312 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS. The attainments and the temper of Kohl alike fit him for his chosen department of literature ; for, to much historical and scientific information, an enlightened and ardent curiosit)', and a habit of patient investigation, he unites a liberal, urbane disposition, and a rare facility of adaptation. He deals chiefly with facts that come under his own observation, and views them in the light of history. Imagination is quite secondary to rational inquiry in the scoj^e of his studies from life ; but he is not destitute of sensibility to nature, nor wanting in that philosof)hic interest in man, whereby the records of travel become so suggestive and valuable. Still, to most of his readers the charm of his books is mainly their candid and complete report of local features, social circum- stances, and economical traits ; so that one is often surprised to find a hackneyed subject arrayed in fresh interest, through the new facts noted or the special vein of inquiry pursued by this genial and" intelligent cicerone. Kohl has written thus of Russia, Poland, Hungary, Styria, Bavaria, England, Scot- land, Ireland, Denmark, Switzerland, Holland, Istria, Dahna- tia, and other coimtries, explored by him with obvious zeal and vigilant observation. The tone of his mind may be in- ferred, not only from the extent of his books of travels and their fulness and authenticity, but also from the casual sub- jects which have occupied his indefatigable pen ; such as the " Influence of Climate on the Character and Destiny of the People ; " and " Esquisses de la Vie, de la Nature et des Peuples." The inquiries and impressions of so exj^erienced a traveller and comprehensive a student cannot be destitute of interest and value. During his sojourn among us, Kohl culti- vated the acquaintance of men of letters. He was eager in searching for the earliest maps and charts of the country and the coast. He domesticated himself where there was most to be learned, and won the esteem of all who knew him, by his naive., candid, and intelligent companionshiji. Thus far his published writings on America consist of an account of his visit to Canada, an expedition to Lake Superior, an elabo- rate sketch of the History of Discovery on this Continent, NOETHEKN ECTKOPEAN AVTtlTEES. 313 and various local delineations, which have appeared in the London periodicals. He differs from other wi'iters by his geographical knowledge and the comparisons founded on ex-' tensive observations in other parts of the world. Although not blind to the incongruities and inequalities of our ciAoliza- tion, he is keenly alive to the progressive tendencies and actual privileges here realized. His eye for nature is scien- tific, his interpretation of national character acute, his judg- ments often historical in their basis ; and it is in the spirit of a kindly man of the world, and a scholar and thinker, that he looks on the spectacle of American life. With a true Ger- man patience and zest, he seeks the men and the things, the facts of the past and the traits of the present that interest him, and have, in his estimation, true significance as illustra- tive of national character or local traits. How he thus re- garded some of our literary and poKtical celebrities and social aspects and traits, appears from his accomit of Boston. It is curioits to compare his impressions of the metropolis of New England, viewed in such a spirit and for such an end, at this j)eriod, with the primitive picture of the Abbe Robin and the imbittered reminiscences of Consul Grattan : " Of all the cities of the American Union, Boston is the one that has most fully retained the character of an English locality. This is visible upon the first glance at its physiognomy and the style of building. The city is spread out over several islands and peninsulas, in the innermost nook of Massachusetts Bay. The heart of Boston is concentrated on a single small peninsula, at which all the advan- tages of position, such as depth of water, accessibility from the sea and other port conveniences, are so combined, that this spot neces- sarily became the centre of life, the Exchange, landing place, and market. '' The ground in this central spot rises toward the middle, and formerly terminated in a triple-peaked elevation (the Three Moun- tains), which induced the earliest immigrants to settle here. At the present time these three points have disappeared, to a great extent, through the spread of building ; but for all that, the elevation is per- ceptible for some distance, and the centre of Boston seems to tower over the rest of the city like an acropolis. From this centre numer- ous streets run to the circumference of the island, while others have 14 314 AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATOKS. been drawn parallel with it, just as Moscow is built round tbe Kremlin. All this is in itself somewhat European, and hence there are in Boston streets running up and down hill ; at some spots even a drag is used for the wheels of carts. The streets, too, are crooked and angular — a perfect blessing in America, where they generally run with a despairing straightness, like our German everlasting pop- lar alleys. At some corners of Boston — which is not like other American cities, divided chess-hoard-wise into blocks — you actually find surprises : there are real groups of houses. The city has a character of its own, and in some parts ofters a study for the archi- tect — things usually unknown in America. " The limitation of the city to a confined spot, and the irregular- ity of the building style, may partly be the cause that the city reminds us of Europe. But that the city assumed so thorough an English type, may be explained by the circumstance that Boston re- ceived an entirely English population. In 1640, or ten years after its formation, it had five thousand English denizens, at a period when New York was still a small Dutch country town, under the name of New Amsterdam. Possibly, too, the circumstance that it was the nearest seaport to England, may have contributed to keep up old English traditions here. The country round Boston bears a remark- able likeness to an English landscape, and hence, no doubt, the State obtained the name of New England ; but as in various parts of New England you may fancy yourself in Kent, so, when strolling about the streets of Boston, you may imagine yourself in the middle of London. In both cities the houses are built with equal simplicity, and do not assume that pomp of marble pilasters and decoration noticeable at New York and elsewhere. The doors and windows, the color and shape, are precisely such as you find in London. In Boston, too, there is a number of small green squares; and, amid the turmoil of business, many a quiet cul de sac, cut off" from the rest of the street system. " Externals of this nature generally find their counterpart in the manners and spirit of the inhabitants, and hence I believe that Bos- ton is still more English and European than any other city of the Union. This is visible in many things ; for instance, in the fact that the police system and public surveillance are more after the European style than anywhere else in America. Even though it may not be ' quite so bad ' as in London, it strikes visitors from the West and South, and hence they are apt to abuse Massachusetts as a police- ridden State. Even in the fict that the flag of the Eevolution was first raised in Boston — and hence the city is generally called ' The Cradle of American Freedom ' — we may find a further proof that NOETHEEN EUEOPEAN WEITEES. 315 the population was penetrated with the true Anglo-Saxon tempera- ment. " This is specially perceptible in the scientific and social life of Boston, which suits Europeans better than the behavior in other American towns. Boston, in proportion to the number of its popu- lation, has more public and private libraries and scientific societies than any other metropolis of the Union ; and, at the same time, a great number of well-organized establishments for the sick, the poor, the blind, and the insane, which are regarded as models in the Uni- ted States. Boston has, consequently, a fair claim to tbe title of the 'American Athens.' There are upward of one hundred printing oifices, from which a vast number of periodicals issue. The best and oldest of these is the Korth American Heview, supplied with articles by such men as Prescott, Everett, Channing, Bancroft, &c. Among the Boston periodicals there has existed for some time past one de- voted to heraldry, the only one of the sort in the Union, which, per- haps, as a sign of the aristocratic temper of the Bostonians, evidences a deeply rooted Anglicanism. " The Historical Society of Boston is the oldest of that nature in the country. Since the commencement of the present century, it has published a number of interesting memoirs ; and the history of no portion of the Union has been so zealously and thoroughly investi- gated as that of New England. The ' Lowell Institute,' established and endowed by a rich townsman, is an institution which works more efiicaciously for the extension of knowledge and education than any other of the same character in America. It offers such hand- some rewards for industry and talent, that even the greatest scien- tific authorities of England — for instance, Lyell — have at times found it worth while to visit Boston, and lecture in the hall of the Lowell Institution. In one of its suburbs — Cambridge — Boston possesses Harvard College, the best and oldest university in America ; and it has also in the heart of the city a medical school. The city library, in its present reformed condition, sur])asses in size and utility most of such establishments to be found in Germany. " At Boston, too, private persons possess collections most inter- esting for science and art, which prove the existence of a higher feeling among the inhabitants of the city. During my short stay there I discovered and visited a considerable number. For instance, I met with a linen draper, who first showed me his stores near the waterside, then took me in his carriage to his suburbanum, where I found, in a wing expressly built for its reception, a library contain- ing all the first editions of the rarest works about the discovery and settlement of America, which are now worth their weight in gold. 316 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATOES. This worthy Boston tradesman was a very zealous member of the Historical Society, and has already published several memoirs upon his speciality (the earliest history of the American settlements). I was also taken to the villa of another tradesman, who made it the business of his life to make the most perfect collection of editions of the Bible. His collection is the only one of the sort in America, and, at the time I saw it, consisted of no less than twelve hundred Bibles, in every sort of edition and shape, published in all the lan- guages and countries of the world, among them being the greatest typographical rarities. I was also enabled to inspect a splendid col- lection of copperplate engravings, equally belonging to a tradesman : it consisted of many thousand plates, belonging to all schools, coun- tries, and epochs. The owner has recently presented it to Cambridge University, wliere it is now being arranged by a German connoisseur. " One evening I was invited to the house of a Boston tradesman, where I found, to my surprise, another variety of artistic collections. It was a partly historical, partly ethnographical museum, which the owner has arranged in a suite of most elegant rooms, and which he allowed us to inspect after tea. His speciality lay in weapons and coats of mail, and the walls were covered with magnificent speci- mens bought up in all parts of Europe, regardless of cost. He pos- sesses all the weapons employed before the invention of gunpowder ; while in an adjoining room were all the blood-letting tools of Japan. In another was a similar collection from China, and several other countries. Never in my life have I seen so many different forms of knives, hatchets, battle axes, and lances collected together as at this house. " At the same time, the company assembled on that evening was of great interest. Among others, we were honored by the presence of Fanny Kemble, who, as is well known, belongs to the United States since her marriage with an American. The fact that this most intellectual of artistes has selected Boston as her abode, will also bear good testimony to the character of the city. During my stay in Boston she was giving readings from Shakspeare, and I heard her in the 'Merchant of Venice.' The readings took place in a magnifi- cent hall capable of containing two thousand persons, and it was quite full. I have frequently heard Tieck, Devrient, and many oth- ers of our best dramatic readers ; but I am bound to say that Fanny Kemble is the best of all I ever heard. She is graceful in her move- ments, and possesses a well-formed chest, and an energetic, almost masculine organ. On the evening I heard her she was hoarse, in consequence of a cold, and, by her own statement, weak and lan- guid; but, for all that, managed so admirably that nothing of the NOETHEEN EUKOPEAN WEITEES. 317 sort was perceptible. She developed all the male and female parta in the play — especially the Jew's — so characteristically and clearly, that I could not help foncying I had the whole thing before me, bril- liantly designed on Gobelin tapestry. She accompanied her reading with lively gesticulations, but did not lay more stress on them than is usual in an ordinary reading. The Boston public were silent and delighted ; and it is on account of this public that I insert my re- marks about Fanny Kemble. I was charmed with the praise Avhich this excellent English lady bestowed on our German actors during a conversation I had with her. She told me that she preferred to see Shakspeare acted on a German stage, especially by Devrient. And this, she added, was the opinion of her father, Charles Kemble. The circumstance that his wife was a native of Vienna may have contrib- uted, however, to make Charles Kemble better acquainted with the character of the German stage. " Of course it was not in my power to inspect all the collections of Boston, and I need scarcely add that I found magnificent libraries in the houses of a Prescott, a Ticknor, an Everett, &c. In Boston, a good deal of the good old English maxim has been kept up, that every one buys a book he requires. A gr%at quantity of rare and handsome books wander from all parts of Europe annually to these libraries. In the same way as the Emperor Nicholas had his mili- tary agents in every state, the Americans have their literary agents, who eagerly buy up our books. In London I was acquainted with a gentleman permanently residing there, who was a formidable rival to the British Museum, and found his chief customers among the Bos- ton amateurs, though he had others in New York and elsewhere. " When they desire to satisfy any special craving, the Americans are not a whit behind the English in not shunning expense or outlay. Thus I was introduced, at Philadelphia, to a book collector, whose speciality was Shakspeare. He had specimens of every valuable edi- tion of the poet's works. Only one of the oldest and rarest editions, of which but three copies exist, was missing from his shelves ; and when he heard that one of these would shortly be put up for sale in London, he sent a special agent over with secret instructions and carte MancJie. He succeeded, though I am afraid to say at what an outlay of dollars, and the expensive book was shipped across the water. When it arrived at Philadelphia, the overjoyed owner in- vited all the friends of Shakspeare in the city, and gave them a bril- liant party, at which the jewel — an old, rusty folio — was displayed under a In-illiant liglit upon a gold -embroidered velvet cushion. In- terminable toasts and speeches Avere given, and finally the volume was incorporated in the library, where it occupied but a very small space. 318 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. " In other American cities I saw various remarkable collections of rarities — as, for instance, Mr. Lenox's, at New York, who has a mania for bringing together all the books, documents, and pamphlets referring to the history of America. Mr. Peter Force, of Washing- ton, has a similar one ; but I will not stop to describe it, but return to Boston, which is to some extent the metropolis of such collec- tions. "Alexander von Humboldt's library has been made known to the world in a copperplate, but I must confess that I could draw a much more attractive picture of some of the studies of the Boston savans. In their arrangement, in the picturesque setting out of the books and curiosities, in the writing tables, and chairs, as ingenious as they are comfortable, in the wealth of pictures and busts found in these rooms, generally lighted from above, you find a combination of the English desire for comfort and the American yearning after external splendor. The Americans are the only people in the world who pos- sess not merely merchant princes, but also author princes. " I visited several of these distinguished men in their spacious and elegant studies. One morning I was taken to the house of the celebrated Edward Ev%rett, one of the great men of Boston, who, first as preacher, then as professor of Greek, and lastly as author and speaker, has attained so prominent a position in the Union, and is still an active and busied man in spite of sixty odd years having passed over his bead. Any remarkable book a man may have writ- ten, or any sort of notoriety that brings him before the public, can be employed in America as political capital, and lead to position and influence in the state, Tbe preacher and professor, Everett, who for a season edited the ITorth American EcTiew, and very cleverly praised and defended in its pages the manners and Constitution of his coun- try, soon after became, in consequence of his writings, member of Congress, a leader of the old Whig party, Governor of Massachu- setts, and lastly a diplomatist and American ambassador to England. Like many American politicians who have held the latter oflice, he was frequently proposed as candidate for the Presidency, but did not reach the chair, because the old Whigs had lost mi;ch of their former influence. On the final dissolution of his party, Everett devoted himself to the sciences and belles lettres. At the time when I formed his acquaintance, he was engaged in delivering a public lecture in all the cities of the Union on the character of Washington. The great man's qualities naturally had a brilliant light thrown on them, and, in comparison with our renowned monarchs, such as Frederick the Great, Joseph II., and Napoleon I., the latter came ofl^ second best. Everett had learned his lecture by heart, and delivered it with great NORTHERN EUROPEAN WRITERS. 319 emphasis and considerable success, though I confess that when I heard it I could not conscientiously bestow such praise on it as did the patriotic Americans. In order that the lecture might not lose the chai'm of novelty, all the American papers were requested to give no short-hand report of it : hence it remained unknown in each city until the lecturer had publicly delivered it. Everett saved up his earnings for a patriotic object — namely, the purchase of Wash- ington's estate of Mount Vernon, for which purpose a ladies' com- mittee, had been formed. In 1857, Everett had collected more than foi'ty thousand dollars toward this object. There is hardly another country besides America in which such a sum could be collected by reading a lecture of a few pages, however eftective it might be. Moreover, the whole affair is characteristic of the land and that is why I have related it. " Boston has ever been not only the birthplace, but the gathering ground of celebrated men. In politics it frequently rivalled Vir- ginia, while in the production of poets and literary men it stands far above all other cities of the Union. Starting from Benjamin Frank- lin, who was born on one of the small islands in Boston harbor, down to Everett and his contemporaries, there has never been a de- ficiency of great and remarkable men in the city. Hancock, who drew up with Jefferson the Constitution of the United States, lived in Boston ; and the most distinguished of the few Presidents the North has produced — the two Adamses — belonged to Boston, where they began and closed their career. Daniel Webster, the greatest American orator of recent times, received his education in Boston, and spent all that portion of his life there when he was not engaged at Washington. There are, in fact, entire families in Boston — as, for instance, the Winthrops, Bigelows, &c. — which have been rich in talented persons ever since the foundation of the city. " When I visited Boston in 1857, the circle of celebrated, influen- tial, and respected men was not small, and I had opportunity to form the acquaintance of several of them. Unfortunately, I knocked to no purpose at the door of the liberal and gifted Theodore Parker, whose house is ever open to Germans. The noble, equally liberal, and high-hearted Channing, whose pious, philanthropic, and philo- sophic writings I had admired from my earliest youth, and who had labored here as the apostle of the Unitarians, I only found repre- sented by a son, who does honor to his great father's memory. The Websters and Adamses had also been dead for some years, though I formed the acquaintance of several of their personal friends, who told me numerous anecdotes about them. "I am sorry to say, too, I missed seeing George Ticknor, the 320 AMERICA AND HEK COl^IMENTATOES. great historian of Spanish literature, a true child of Boston, where he was born and educated, and where he spends his time in study when he is not travelling in Europe, which was unfortunately the case at the period of my visit. I saw nothing of him but his splen- did Spanish library, which he exclusively collected for the purpose of his classical work, which has been translated into almost every language. "As a compensation, Prescott, who was summoned away some time ago, to the regret of all his friends, was at home to receive me, and he was one of the most amiable men I ever met. 'I saw him both at his own house and in society, and greedily took advantage of every opportunity that oifered for approaching him. As he was de- scended from an old New England family, and was educated, and lived, and worked almost entirely in Boston — he had only visited Europe once, and had travelled but little in the United States — I could consider him as a true child of Boston, and as an example of the best style of education that city is enabled to offer. He was a man of extremely dignified and agreeable manners, and a thorough gentleman in his behavior. I met but few Americans so distin- guished by elegance and politeness ; and when I first met him, and before knowing his name, I took him for a diplomatist. He had not the slightest trace of the dust of books and learning, and, although he had been hard at work all day, when he emerged into daylight he was a perfect man of the world. I found in him a great resem- blance, both in manner and features, with that amiable Frenchman Mignet. He was at that time long past his sixtieth birthday, and yet his delicate, nobly-chiselled face possessed such a youthful charm that he could fascinate young ladies. In society his much-regretted weak- ness of sight was hardly perceptible ; and at dinner he made such good use of his limited vision, that he could help himself without attracting the slightest attention. He frequently remarked that this weakness of sight, which others lamented so greatly, was the chief cause of his devoting himself to historical studies. Still it impeded his studies greatly ; for he was obliged to send persons, at a terrible expense, to copy the documents he roquired in the archives of Spain. He could only employ these documents and other references — par- tially, at any rate — through readers. He was obliged to prepare much in his mind and then dictate it, without the help of his hand and fingers, which, as every author knows, offer such aid to the head, and, as it were, assist in thinking. At times he could only write by the help of a machine that guided his hand. I say purposely 'at times,' for every now and then the sight of his own eyes became so excellent and strong, that he could undertake personally the me- NORTHERN EUROPEAN WRITEKS. 321 chanical part of his labor. Still, literature is indebted to Prescott's semi-blindness for his elaborate historical works on Peru, Mexico, Isabella, and Philip II. ; for, had he kept the sight of both eyes, he would have continued the career he had already begun as barrister, and in all probability have ended as a politician and a statesman. "Another somewhat younger literary talent Boston was proud of at that period, was Motley, the historian, who in many respects may be placed side by side with Prescott. Like him, he also belongs to a wealthy and respected Boston ftimily ; and like him, too, he has de- voted himself to history, through pure love. His union with tlie Muse is no marriage de convenance^ but he entered into it througli a hearty aifection. The subject that Motley selected, ' The History of the Netherlands in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,' had a special interest for his countrymen. At that period Holland was remarkably influential all over the New "World, and, ijiter alia, laid the foundations of New York State. This State and its still some- what Dutch inhabitants consequently regard the Netherlands to some extent as the mother country, and their history as a portion of their own. They feel as much interested in it as the French do in the his- tory of the Franks in Germany. Moreover, they like to compare an event like the insurrection of the Netherlands against Spain with their own revolt against England. Motley, therefore, selected a very popular theme. After learning something of the world as attache to the American embassy at Petersburg, he travelled in Germany, and stayed for several years at Dresden, the Hague, and other Euro- pean cities, in order to employ the libraries for his purpose. Nine years ago, he read to a small circle of friends in Dresden, myself among the number, extracts from his historical work — for instance, his description of the execution of Counts Egmont and Horn — and then returned to America, Avhere he published it. This work was a great success ; and when I met Motley again at Boston, he had just been crowned with laurel. He was a handsome man, in the prime of life, with dark curly hair. Unluckily, he did not like his country sufficiently well to remain in it, and returned quickly to Europe, dur- ing my visit to Boston. Perhaps he had lived too long upon our con- tinent, and had not the patience to go through the process of re- Americanizing, to which an American who has long been absent is bound to subject himself. He proceeded to London, where he re- sided several years, continuing his studies, and always a welcome guest in fiishionable society, until the recent troubles forced him to return home. " We might fairly speak of a thorough historical school of Bos- ton, for nearly all the recent remarkable historians of America have 14* 322 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. issued from this school. Among these I may specially mention George Bancroft, who has selected the history of his native land aa his special study. His career has a great likeness to that of Everett: like him, he went to Gottingen when a young man, and acquired his tendency for historic research from Heeren, Eichhorn, and Schlosser. Like Everett, he began his career as a professor at Cambridge Uni- versity, and like him, also, his talent and the growing popularity of his books led him up to important offices and posts under Govern- ment. He was for a time secretary to the navy at Washington, then American ambassador in England, and at last, as he was not success- ful in politics, like Everett, he retired from public life into the calmer atmosphere of his study, where he has remained for several years, dividing his time between literary work and pleasant society. Dur- ing the winter he now resides at New York, and during the summer at a charming villa near that pretty little watering place, Newport, on Narraganset Bay, whence he pays a visit now and then, though, to his old Boston. I had the good fortune to visit this active and energetic historian at both his winter and summer abode. At New York, he passes the whole winter shut up in his splendid library, like a bee in his honey cell. In the midst of the turmoil of business, his lamp may be seen glimmering at an early hour ; and he lights it himself, as he does his fire, in order not to spoil the temper of his lazy American helps for the day. " I am forced to remark that the result of my observations is, that this zeal and this ' help yourself are no rarity among American men of letters. Thus I always remember with pleasure old Senator Benton, whose ' History of the American Congress,' although an ex- cellently written work, and a thorough mine in which to study the politics, parties, and prominent men of America, is, unfortunately, but little known on this side the water. This brave old Eoman Ben- ton, of Missouri, a man otherwise greatly attacked for his vanity and eccentricities, I remember seeing, one morning at six, lighting his fire, boiling his coffee, and then devoting the morning hours to his History. " This Benton was, at that period, above seventy years of age, and long a grandfather. He wrote his ' History ' with so firm and current a hand, that the copy went almost uncorrected from his table to the printing office, and within a few months entire volumes could be worked ofi". And yet he could only devote his morning and late evening hours to the task ; for, so long as the sun was up, he thought it his duty to take part in the debates of Congress and quarrel in the committee rooms. At times, he broke his labors entirely off, because he considered it necessary to take a trip to Missouri, and agitate for NORTHERN EUROPEAN WRITERS. 323 some political purpose or other. One evening, it happened that his entire library, with all the manuscripts it contained, fell a prey to the flames. He had temporarily taken up his quarters in a small wooden house in the vicinity of the Capitol, which caught fire, " These fires are an almost regular and constantly menacing ca- lamity to American authors, their libraries, and manuscripts. During my short stay in the United States, I heard of a whole series of cases in which valuable literary undertakings were completely interrupted by fire. Senator Benton, on the occasion to which I refer, lost his entire library, a large portion of manuscript ready for the press, and a heap of materials, extracts, and references, which he had collected for a new volume of his ' History.' As I was on rather intimate terms with him and his family, and, as an author myself, felt a spe- cial compassion for him, I visited him a few days after to ofter him my sympathy. As it happened. President Pierce came up at the same moment, and for the same object. We found the aged man, to our surprise and admiration, not in the slightest degree atfected or excited. He had removed from the ruins to the house of his son-in- law, the celebrated traveller Fremont, had had a new table put to- gether, and was busy rewriting his manuscript. With Anglo-Saxon coolness and a pleasant face, which reminded me of the stoic referred to by Montaigne, who did not allow himself to be disturbed in his speech when a dog tore a piece out of the calf of his leg, he told us the story of the burning of his books. Mr. Benton allowed that a quarto volume of his work, with all the materials belonging to it, was entirely destroyed ; but he said, with a smile, while tossing a little grandchild on his knee, ' It is no use crying over spilled milk,' He had begun his work afresh on the next day, and retained in his head most of what he had written down. He hoped that he should be able to collect once more the necessary materials— partly, at any rate — and he expected that the printing would not be delayed for many days. " This man, in his present position — and there could not be a more lamentable one for an author — appeared to me like an old Ro- man. And, in truth, old Senator Benton had something thoroughly Koman in his features, just as you might expect to find on an ancient coin. And all this was the more remarkable to me, because I dis- covered such an internal value in a man who in the external world afibrded such scope for jibes. In Congress I saw him twice play the part of a quarrelsome and impotent old man. At times — especially when he marched into the field to support the claims of his son-in- law Fremont, or any other distinguished members of his family of whom he was proud, and whom he thought he must take under hig 324 AMERICA AND HER COMl^IENTATOKS. wing, like a patriarch of old — he grew so excited, that the President several times tried in vain to stop him. Once I saw him leave Con- gress cursing and gesticulating, and loudly declaring that he would never again appear in that assembly. When, too, he rode up and down the main street of Washington, with his grandson on a little pony by his side, and keeping as close as possible to the pavement, that he might be bowed to by the ladies and gentlemen, they cer- tainly saluted, but afterward ridiculed the 'great man.' Hence it caused me special pleasure, I repeat, to recognize in so peculiar a man an inner worth, and find the opportunity to say something in his praise. After all, there were heroes among the wearers of full-bot- tomed wigs and pigtails. "Since then, the inexorable subduer of all heroes has removed old Senator Benton forever from his terrestrial activity. He was enabled stoically to withstand the fire ; but death, which caught him up four years ago, did not allow him to complete his work. Still, the frag- ments of it that lie before us contain extraordinarily useful matter for the history of the Union from the beginning of this century, and I therefore recommend them strongly to public writers at the pres- ent moment, when everybody wishes to know everything about America. But I will now return to Boston. "In the hot summer, when Longfellow, Agassiz, and other dis- tinguished men of Boston fly to the rock of Nahant, Bancroft, as I said, seeks shelter on the airy beach of Newport ; and I remember, with great pleasure, the interesting trip I took thither for the pur- pose of spending a couple of days with the historian. The pleasant little town of Newport, which a hundred years back was a promis- ing rival of New York, is now only known as the most fashionable watering place in the Union. Most of the upper ten, as well as the politicians and diplomatists of Washington, congregate here in July and August. Splendid steamers, some coming from New York through Long Island Sound, others from Boston through the archi- pelago of Narraganset Bay, bring up hundreds of people daily. On one of these green islands in the bay, Newport is built, surrounded by a number of villas and gardens, which stretch out along the beach. And one of these hospitable villas belongs to the celebrated historian, who in that character, and as ex-minister and statesman, is reverently regarded as one of the ' lions ' of Newport. " When I entered his house, at a late hour, I found him sur- rounded by the ladies of his family, to whom he was reading a newly finished chapter of his ' History ' from the manuscript. He invited me to listen, and told me that it was his constant practice to read his works in this fashion in the domestic circle, and take the KOKTHEEN EUROPEAN WRITERS. 325 opinion of his hearers, but, above all, of liis amiable and highly edu- cated wife. This, he said to me, was the best way of discovering any lack of clearness or roughness of style, and after this trial he made his final corrections. " Newport is also known, to those versed in American antiqui- ties, as the spot where an old octagonal building still stands, which the Danish savans believe to have been erected long prior to Colum- bus, and which they consider was built by the old Norman seafarers and heroes who visited America about the year 1000. This monu- ment was very interesting to me to visit in the company of the his- torian of the United States, even though the townspeople regard it as the foundation of an old windmill, that belonged to a former in- habitant of Newport. Bancroft was of opinion that the good people of Newport were more likely to hit the truth than the scientific men of Copenhagen. I, too, after an inspection, in situ, consider the opinion of the latter so little founded, that it is hardly worth contra- dicting. As is well known, to the south of New England, in the middle of a swamp on Taunton River, there is a huge rock covered with all sorts of grooves and marks, which the Danish savans regard as a Runic inscription, also emanating from the Normans. The Danes have even gone so far as to decipher the word 'Thorfiun,' as the name of one of the Norman heroes, while others believe that they are marks and memoranda made by an Indian hand ; while others, again, are of opinion that the grooves and scratches are produced by natural causes. " Bancroft described to me the difficulties he experienced in reaching this rock — at one moment wading through the water, at another forcing his way through scrub. He was, liowever, unable to convince himself of the truth of any one of the above three hypotheses ; and hence, in his ' History of the United States,' he could only say that the much-discussed Taunton River inscription did not afford a certainty of the presence of the Normans in these parts. But I must hasten back to Boston, where I have many au excellent friend awaiting me. "First of all rises before my mental eye the image of that noble senator, Charles Sunmer, one of the most honored men of Boston, whom I visited not only here in his birtliplace, where he spends his leisure hours with his mother and relatives, but also rtt Washington, where he was delivering liis bold and fiery speeches against slavery. "While at the capital, I heard him deliver that magnificent speech which, although it lasted for several hours, Avas listened to in speech- less silence by the whole Senate, even by the Southern members who were boiling over with fury, and entailed on this noble man the bru- 326 AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATOES. tal attack from one of the chivalry of the South, which laid him on a bed of sickness for weeks, where he hovered between life and death, " How painful and sad it was to see this tall and stately man felled like a pine tree, and writhing in agony on his couch ! His noble face, in which his lofty intellect and towering mind spoke out, was swollen and lacerated, as if he had been under the claws of a bear. English, Germans, French, Spaniards, and Italians were the first to hurry to him on the day of the outrage, to display their sym- pathy and respect, and lay a crown of honor on his bleeding temples. With this great man, after his return from Europe, and several kin- dred spirits, I used to spend pleasant evenings en petit comite in Bos- ton, and felt delighted at the opportunity of discussing with them the great questions of the day. Not so pleasant, though equally remark- able, were my feelings when I returned home at night from such an intellectual and sympathizing circle, and was compelled to listen to the expectorations of a Colonel B , of Carolina, who lodged in the same hotel. He made it a point to lie in ambush for me every night, to smoke a cigar, drink a glass of grog, and take the oppoi'tu- nity of explaining to me his views about the North. Although he had travelled in Fi'ance and Germany, associated with the nobility, and belonged to the Southern aristocracy, the Colonel was so full of prejudices against the North, that he walked about among the New Englanders of Boston like a snarling sheep dog among a flock of lambs. He ' pished' and ' pshawed,' even abused loudly and bitterlj all he saw, both the men — the accursed Yankees, their narrow- hearted views, their stiff regulations, their unpolished manners — as well as things, such as the Northern sky, the scenery, the towns, vil- lages, and country houses. All that Boston or a Bostonian had or possessed seemed to him infected with abolitionism. He would even look on, with a sarcastic smile, when, during our conversation, I stroked a pretty little spaniel belonging to a Boston lady. He could not endure this Boston animal, and if ever it came within his reach he was sure to give it a harmless kick. Nothing was right with him, of course — least of all the Boston newspapers, in which he pointed out to me articles every evening, which, according to his opinion, were horrible, perfidious, atheistical, full of gall and poison, although I could not discover anything of the sort in them when he read them aloud to me with many gesticulations. To the people who sur- rounded us he generally behaved politely, because, as I said, he was a Southern gentleman, and did not let it be seen how his heart heaved and boiled. But if any one took up the cudgels with him, merely expressed an opinion that had the remotest connection with the sla- NOETHEKN EUROPEAN WKITERS. 327 very question, or smelled of abolitionism, he would break out into the most enthusiastic diatribes in defence of the peculiar Institution. His glances would become passionate, and his tone insulting. He appeared evidently bent on war, and I was often surprised that the Yankees put up with so much from him, and let him escape with a whole skin. In the South, had a Northerner gone to one tenth of the same excess, it would have been enough to hand him over to the tender mercies of Judge Lynch. " If I asked him why he had come to this North, which he so heartily despised, he would reply that, unhappily, his physicians had found it necessary to send him into this exile for the sake of his health ; and he had long had an intention of visiting, on the North- ern lakes, the poor Indians who were so shamefully maltreated by the Yankees. The sufferings of these unhappy tribes, who perished beneath the heel of the oppressor, and pined away in their shameful fetters, had long touched his heart. lie could never think of them without emotion, and he now intended to go as far as t])e cataracts of St. Anthony to give the Sioux a feast, and offer them some relief from their shameful martyrdom. I remembered that I had once before noticed the same compassion for the Indians in a Southern slaveowner, and consequently that it is, in all probability, traditional among these people, to answer the reproaches cast on them for slave- holding, by accusing their hostile brethren of ill-treating the Indians. Although I in no way shared my Southern friend's views of sla- very and abolition, but was generally in the opposition, as a foreigner I did not seem to him so utterly repulsive as these God-forgotten Yankees. At first, at any rate, he believed that he should not be washing a blackamoor white with me. If I only would visit the South, he expressed his opinion I should be speedily converted, and grow enthusiastic for his side. Hence he condescended to argue with and instruct me, while he gnashed his teeth at his Northern country- men when they dared to address him on the vexed question. Toward the end, however, I began to perceive that he was giving me up as incorrigible, and extended his enmity to me as well. We at length parted, not exactly as sympathetic souls ; and when I now think of my Southerner stalking about Boston like a tornado in a human shape, I do not understand how it was that I did not then see civil war ante fores in that country. " It may be imagined what a relief, joy, and comfort it was for me, after the stormy evenings I spent with the Southerner, to be in- vited tlie following day to a dinner table, where I found all the men with whom I sympathized, and whom I respected, assembled. The old Flemish painters, in their fruit and flower pieces, and in what is 328 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATOES. called ' still life,' have striven to represent the roast meats, wine flasks, cr3'stal glasses, grapes, and oranges which decorated the tables of their rich contemporaries. But how can I depict snch a dinner at Boston, where a Longfellow took the chair, an Agassiz acted as croupier, a Prescott was my left, a Motley my right hand neighbor, and where my vis-d-ri^ was a tall, thin, dry-looking man, who, I was told, was Ralph Waldo Emerson ? Between the epergnes and flower vases I could see also the characteristic features of noble and distin- guished men ; the gray head of a Winthrop, or the animated face of such a benefactor to humanity as Dr. Howe, whom the blind and the deaf and dumb combine to bless. "When I reflect how rare such highly gifted men are in the world, and how much more rare it is to be enabled to see a dozen of them sitting together cheerfully and socially over their wine, I find that we caimot suflicieutly value such moments which accidents produce, and which, perhaps, never again occur in the traveller's life. When we read such books as those of Mrs. TroUope, Captain Basil Hall, or Dickens, we might suppose that there is nothing in America that can be called ' good society.' But when a man finds himself in such company as fell to my lot in Bos- ton, he begins to think diiFerently, and is at length disposed to allow that in America a good tone peculiar to the country, and possessing highly characteristic qualities, exists. I concede that it is rare, and I believe that the American, in order to appropriate this tone, must have passed the ocean several times between America and Europe ; in this, imitating his twice-across-the-line Madeira (which, by the by, is magnificent in some Boston houses). The American, as a rule, becomes really full flavored in and through Europe. What I would assert, though, is, that the American has a peculiar material to take the polish which Europe can impart, and that, when he has rubbed off" his American horns — for it is quite certain that the American is as much of a greenhorn in Europe as the European seems to be in the United States — a species of polish is visible, which possesses its peculiar merit, and nothing like it is to bo found in Europe. There is no trace of mannerism or affectation ; none of that insipid polite- ness, prudery, and superfinedom into Avhich Europeans are so apt to fall. In the well-educated American we meet with a great simplicity of manner, and a most refreshing masculine dignity. Both in Bos- ton and New York I visited private clubs, and. met gentlemen belong- ing to the bar, the church, the mercantile classes, &c., who possessed all these qualities in an eminent degree. In these small retired clubs — they may have been select, and I am unable to decide Low many of the sort may exist — humor and merriment were so well controlled, wit and jesting were so pleasantly commingled with what was seri- ous and instructive, that I never knew pleasanter places for men." NOKTHEEN EUROPEAN WRITERS. 329 In our inadequate because inevitably brief summary of German writers on America, should not be forgotten the learned widow of the lamented Professor Edward Robinson, who, among other notable writings published under the name of " Talvi," gave to her countrymen (Leij^sic, 1847) "The Colonization of New England " — an able historical digest of the early history of that region and people, subsequently translated by a son of William Hazlitt, and published in Lon- don (1851) in two handsome duodecimo volumes. In this work the details of each original State organization are given, and much incidental light thrown on the character of the people and the tendencies and traits of local society at this primitive era. Relying upon the Diary of Bradford, first Governor of Plymouth, the New England Memorial, Governor Dudley's Report, Johnson's, and " America Painted to the Life, a True History" (London, 1658), the Relations of Hig- ginson, Wood, Lechford, Joscelyn, the Reports of Munson, Underbill, Gardiner, &c., with the writings of " founders " such as Clark, Gorges, Roger Williams, &c., and for later facts referring to Hubbard, Mather, Church, Miles, Neale, and others, Mrs. Robinson eliminated from these and other authentic sources the essential facts, and moulded them into a most significant and lucid narrative — the more so from being the work of a mind trained in the older civilization of Europe. " I look upon the early days of New England," she naively remarks, " with love certainly — but as a German." Comparatively impartial as she is, even in this primitive record we find indications of the prejudice which subsequent events fostered into a habit, and almost a mania, in " the mother country." " In the Revolutionary period," she writes, " S. A. Peters, a degenerate son of Coimecticut, published a ' General History' of that State (London, 1781) — a mesh of lies, and deformed with enormous slander. Nothing could be more characteristic of the feeling at that time prevalent in England toward America, than the fact that this contempti- ble and slanderous work survived, the following year, in a second edition." 330 AMEEICA AND HEE COMMENTATOES. We cannot, perhaps, more appropriately close this cursory notice of German writei's on America, than by referring to two lectm-es by Dr. Philip Schaff, whose fame as a Church historian, and labors as a theological professor at Mercers- burg, Pennsylvania, give special interest and authority to his views. When Dr. Schaff revisited his native country, in 1854, he gave, at Berlin, two discourses, part of a series by eminent scholars. Carl Ritter, and other illustrious friends, advised their publication ; and this is the origin of his unpre- tending but comprehensive " Sketch of the Political, Social, and Keligious Character of the United States of North America." It was translated from the German, and pub- lished in New York in 1855. The latter branch of the sub- ject naturally occupies the largest space ; and it is in relation to Gei'man emigration and the Evangelical Church that he chiefly discusses the condition and prospects of his adoj^ted country. In view of the foct that, the very year of his visit to his fatherland, the emigration of his countrymen to the port of New York alone, amounted to more than one hundred and seventy-nine thousand, he descants upon the privileges, needs, dangers, and destinies involved in this vast experiment, with the knowledge of a good observer and the conscience of a Christian scholar. He laments the evil attending so large a proportion of ignorant and irreligious emigres, and the low condition of the German press in America ; but, on the other hand, anticipates the happiest results from the coali- tion of the American and Teutonic mind. " With the one," he observes, " everything runs into theory, and, indeed, so radically, that they are oftentimes in danger of losing all they aim at ; with the other, everything runs into practice, and it is quite possible that many of the best and worst German ideas will yet attain, in practical America, a much greater importance than in the land of their birth, and first become flesh and blood on the other side of the ocean, like certain plants, which need transplanting to a foreign soil in order to bear fruit and flowers." He describes with candor the promi- nent traits of om- covmtry and people. The latter, he says, NORTHEKN EUKOPEAN- WKITEES. 331 " are restlessness and agitation personified : even when seat- ed, they push themselves to and fro in their rocking chairs, and live in a state of perpetual excitement in their business, their politics, and their religion. They are excellently char- acterized by the expressions ' help yourself ' and ' go ahead,' which are never out of their mouths." " The grandest des- tiny is evidently reserved for such a people. We can and must, it is true, find fault with many things in them and their institutions — slavery, the lust of conquest, the worship of mammon, the rage for speculation, political and religious fanaticism and party spirit, boundless temerity, boasting, and quackery ; but we must not overlook the healthy vital ener- gies that continually react against these diseases — the moral, yea, Puritanical earnestness of the American character, its patriotism and noble love of liberty in connection with deep- rooted reverence for the law of God and authority, its clear, practical imderstanding, its inclination for improvement in every sphere, its fresh enthusiasm for great plans and schemes of moral refoi'm, and its willingness to make sacrifices for the promotion of God's kingdom and every good work. They wrestle with the most colossal projects. The deepest mean- ing and aim of their political institutions are to actualize the idea of universal sovereignty, the education of every individ- ual. They wish to make culture, which in Europe is every- where aristocratic and confined to a comparatively small por- tion of society, the common property of the people, and train up, if possible, every youth as a gentleman, and every girl as a lady ; and in the six States of New England, at least, they have attained this object in a higher degree than any country in the Old World, England and Scotland not excepted. There are respectable men, professedly of the highest cul- ture, especially in despotic Austria, who have a real antipa- thy to America, speak of it with the greatest contempt or indignation, and see in it nothing but a grand bedlam, a ren- dezvous of European scamps and vagabonds. Such notions it is unnecessary to refute. Materialism, the race for earthly gain, and pleasure, find unquestionably rare encouragement in 332 AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATOES. the inexhaustible physical resources of the country ; but it has a strong and wholesome counterpoise in the zeal for lib- eral education, the enthusiastic spirit of philanthropy, the munificent liberality of the people, and, above all, in Chris- tianity. Radicalism finds in republican America free play for its wild, wanton revellings, and its reckless efforts to uproot all that is established. But there is unquestionably in the Anglo-Saxon race a strong conseiTatism and deeply-rooted reverence for the Divine law and order ; and, even in the midst of the storms of political agitation, it listens ever and anon to the voice of reason and sober reflection. Despotism and abuse of the power of government make revolution ; while moderate constitutional liberalism forms the safest bar- rier against it : radicalism, therefore, can never have such a meaning and do so much harm in England and America, as in coimtries where it is wantonly provoked to revolutionary re- action." Dr. Schaff sketches the size, growth, polity, social life, and religious tendencies and traits of America, in a few au- thentic statements, and expresses the highest hope and faith in the true progress and prosperity of the nation. " To those," he remarks, " who see in America only the land of unbridled radicalism and of the wildest fanaticism for free- dom, I take the liberty to put the modest question : In what European state would the Government have the courage to enact such a prohibition of the traflic in all intoxicating drinks, and the people to submit to it, as the Maine liquor law ? I am sure that in Bavaria the prohibition of beer would produce a 'bloody revolution." Education in America, and the state of literature and sci- ence, are ably discussed and delineated. The pi-ess there is fairly estimated ; and the Church, as an organization and a social element, analyzed with remarkable correctness as to facts and liberality as to feeling. The influence of German literature in America is duly estimated, and the character and tendencies of foreign immigration and native traits justly considered. Without being in the least bUnd to our national NOETHEEN EUROPEAN WRITERS. 333 faults, Dr. Schaff has a comprehensive insight as to our na- tional destiny, and a Christian scholar's appreciation of our national duties. " The general tendency in America," he observes, " is to the widest possible diffusion of education ; but depth and thoroughness by no means go hand in hand with extension. A peculiar phenomenon is the great number of female teachers. Among these are particularly distin- guished the ' Yankee girls,' who know how to make their way successfully everywhere as teachers — as in Europe the governesses from French Switzerland. Domestic life in the United States may be desctibed as, on an average, well regu- lated and happy. The number of illegitimate births is per- haps proportionally less than in any other country. The American family is not characterized by so much deep good nature, and warm, overflowing heartiness, as the German ; but the element of mutual respect predominates." No foreign writer has more clearly perceived or em- phatically stated the moral and economical relation of Amer- ica to Europe than Professor Schaff. His long residence in this country, and his educational and religious labors therein, gave him ample opportunity to know the facts as regards emigration, popular literature, social life, and enterprise; while his European birth and associations made him equally familiar with the wants of the laboring, the theories of the thinking, and the exigencies of the political classes. " Amer- ica," he writes, " begins with the results of Europe's two thousand years' course of civilization, and has vigor, enter- prise, and ambition enough to put out this enoi'mous capital at the most profitable interest for the general good of man- kind. Amei'ica is the grave of all European nationalities ; but it is a Phoenix grave, from which they shall rise to new life. Either humanity has no earthly future, and everything is tending to destruction, or this future lies, I say not exclu- sively, but mainly in America, according to the victorious march of history, with the sun, from east to west." * * " America, Political, Social, and Religious," by Dr. Philip Scbaff, New York, C. Scribner, 1855. CHAPTEE IX. ITALIAN TRAVELLERS. NATIONAIi RELATIONS : VERRAZZANO ; CASTIGLIONE ; ADRIANI ; GRASSI ; BELTRAMI ; D'ALLESSANDRO ; CAPOBIANCO ; SALVATORE ABBATE E MIGLIORI ; PISANI. From the antiquated French of the missionary Travels, and the inelegant English of the uneducated and flij)pant writers in our vernacular, it is a vivid and pleasant change to read the same prolific theme discussed in the " soft bastard Latin" that Byron loved. Although no Italian author has discoursed of our country in a manner to add a standard work on the subject to his native literature, America is asso- ciated with the historical memorials of that nation, inasmuch as Columbus discovered the continent to which Vespucci gave a name, and Carlo Botta wrote the earliest European history * of our Revolution ; while the great tragic poet of Italy dedicated his " Bruto Primo," in terms of eloquent appreciation, to Washington ; and the leading journal of Turin to-day has a regular and assiduous correspondent in New York, who thus made clear to his countrymen the cause, animus., and history of the war for the Union, and whose able articles on the educational system and political condition * Botta's " History of the War of the Independence of the United States of America," translated by Otis, 2 vols. 8vo. in 1. ITALIAN TKAVELLERS. 335 of the United States, which have appeared in the Rivista Contemporetiea — the ablest literary periodical in Italy — are a promising foretaste of the complete and well-considered work on our country that he is preparing for his own : a task for which long residence and faithful study, as well as liberal sympathies and culture, eminently fit him.* At the banquet given in New York to the ofScers of the Italian frigate Re Galantuorao, on the occasion of her visit to bring the equip- ment for the Re d'ltalia, a magnificent ship of war built in this country for the navy of Italy, the same writer, in re- sponse to a sentiment in honor of the king, aptly observed : " Con qual animo non pronuzieremo il nome de Vittoiuo Em- man uele, in questo solenne occasione, quando per la prima volta nella storia d'ltalia i rappresentati della marina nazion- ale, toccano a questi lidi e mettono piede su questo continente che da quasi quattro secoli un marinaio italiano scopriva e dava alia civilta del mondo ! " f Within a recent period, the despotism of Austria, and the reactionary and cruel vigilance of the local rulers in the penin- sula, which succeeded the fall of Napoleon and the conspira- cies and oneutes thence resulting among the Italian people, brought many interesting exiles of that nation to our shores. The establishment of the Italian opera created a new interest in the language of Italy — which, with her literature, were auspiciously initiated in New York by Lorenzo Daponte forty years ago ; and the popular fictions of Manzoni, Rufini, Mari- otti, d'Azeglio, and Guerazzi, have made the story of their country's wrongs and aspirations familiar to our people; while such political victims as Maroncelli, Garibaldi, and Foresti challenged the respect and won the love of those among whom they found a secure and congenial asylum ; and thus, * Professor Vincenzo Botta. f " With what emotions shall we not pronounce the name of Victor Emman- uel, on this occasion, when, for the first time in the history of Italy, the rep- resentatives of her national navy touch the shores and tread the continent which, nearly four centuries ago, an Italian mariner discovered and gave to the civilized world ! " 836 AilEKICA AXD HER COMMENTATORS. although the least numerous class of emigres^* the Italian visitors became among the most prominent from their merits and misfortunes. To the vagabond image venders and organ grinders, musicians and confectioners, were thus added emi- nent scholars and patriots, and endeared members of society. Nowhere in the civilized world was the national development of Italy more fondly watched than here. The lecture room, the popular assembly, and the press in the United States, re- sponded to and celebrated the reforms in Sardinia, the union of that state with Lombardy, Tuscany, and Naples, the lib- eral polity of Victor Emmanuel, and the heroic statesman- ship of Cavour. Garibaldi has received substantial tokens of American sympathy ; and current literature, love of art, and facilities of travel, have made the land of Columbus and the Republic of the West intimately and mutually knoAvn and loved. The caf6, the studio, the lyric drama, letters, art, and society in our cities attest this ; f and should steam com- munication be established, as proposed, between Genoa and * Between 1820 and 1860, about 13,000 Italian emigrants reached this country. At present, in New York, the Italian population is estimated at 2,000 — most of them peasants and peddlers, who earn a precarious subsist- ence as organ players, venders of plaster casts, &c. Colonies of them live in limited quarters in the most squalid part of the city — monkeys, organs, images, and families grotesquely huddled in the same apartment. An evening school for these emigres has been in successful operation for some years, and with good results. f Scanty as is the record of Italian travel in the United States, the emi- gration of that people being chiefly directed to South American cities, where, as at Montevideo, they have large communities, the Spanish is still more meagre, and contrasts in this respect with the prominence of that race in the chronicle of maritime enterprise and exploration centuries since. Among the few books of Spanish travel of recent origin, are the following : 1. " Viage a los Estados-Unidos del Norte de America," por Don Lorenzo dc Zavala, Paris, 1834, 1 vol. 8vo., pp. 374. The author was, at one time, Minister from Mexico to Franco. Ilis book is a slight affair. — 2. " Cinco Moses en los Es- tados-Unidos de la America del Norte desde el 20 de Abril cl 23 Setiembre, 1835, Diario dc Viage de D. Ramon dc la Sagra, Director del Jardin Botanico de la Habana, cc," Paris, 1836, 1 vol. 8vo., pp. 43Y. Le Sagra has pubHshed an important book about Cuba, been concerned in Spanish politics, and is well considered as a man of science ; but his book, says an able critic, is not much better than Zavala's. ITALIAN TRAVELLERS. 337 New York, the emigration will improve. When the war for the Union commenced, many Italian citizens volimteered, and some have acquired honor in the field ; while not a few can find in the following anecdote, which recently appeared in a popular daily journal, a parallel to their own recent experi- ence : " Ten or twelve years ago an Italian emigrated from Northern Italy, and, after various wanderings, pitched his tent at Jackson, Mississippi. He prospered in business, increased and multiplied. He also managed to build two comfortable little houses, and altogether was getting on quite well in the world. At the time the war broke out he was North on business; and finding, from his well-known Union sentiments, that it would be dangerous to return, he took what money he had with him, and, accompanied by his wife, sailed for Europe, while his sons entered the Union army. " In the beautiful Val d'Ossola, not far from the town of Domo d'Ossola, on the great thoroughftire where the Simplon road, issu- ing from the Alps, and but just escaped from the rocky frowns of the gorge of Gondo, passes amid fringes of olive groves to the great white ' Arch of Peace ' and the brilliant city of Milan, is located one of those unpretending inns or locandas which abound in Italy — a low, rambling house, half hid in trellised vines, and prefaced as to doorway by several rude stone tables, at which transient guests may sit and sip the country wine. " A few months ago, two American pedestrians stopped at this place and ordered wine, and, while sipping it, were accosted in tolerable English by the landlord, who wanted to know their views about the war, and particularly when the State of Mississippi would be re- gained for the Union. The question, coming from such a source, led to a conversation, during which it was revealed that the worthy inn- keeper was none other than the Italian emigrant and the house- owner in the town of Jackson, " At that time there was no early prospect of the taking of the capital of Mississippi ; but, now that General Sherman is in that very vicinity, if not in the city itself, there will probably be good news for the innkeeper of the Simplon road. And this is but one instance out of many, in which each of even the minor phases of the war strikes directly at some personal interest or some chord of affection in indi- viduals in the most remote corners of the continent of Europe." A curious waif that gives us tokens of early exploration, is what remains of the journal of the old Italian navigator 15 338 AMEKICA AND HER COMMENTATOKS. Verrazzano — a relic still preserved among the treasures of the public library at Florence. In a summer sail down the bay of New York, or an excursion in and around the harbor of Newport, R. I., we easily recognize the local features thus noted by Verrazzano ; but to which scene they apply, seems to have been doubtful to nearly all the commentators upon this ancient mariner ; although to us the former place seems obviously intended. " The mouth of the haven," he writes, " lieth open to the south, half a league broad, and being entered within it, it stretcheth twelve leagues, and waxeth broader and broader, and maketh a gulf about twenty leagues in compass, wherein are five small islands very fruit- ful and pleasant, and full of hie and broad trees, among the which islands any great navie may ride itself." So New York Bay struck the eyes of Verrazzano in 1524, and so he described it in a letter to the king of France, wherein he also speaks of the " great store of slate for houses," the abundant wild grapevines, the mullets in the waters, and the " okes, cipresses, and chestnuts " of the islands. There is something that excites the imagination into a more objective view of familiar things, when they are de- scribed and commented on in a foreign tongue ; and certain peculiarities of American life and scenery thus derive a fresh aspect from the vivacious pictures and observation of French writers. We seem to catch glimpses of our country from their point of view, and to realize the salient diversities of race and customs, as we never do when discussed in our ver- nacular. A similar though equally characteristic effect is pro- duced by reading even hackneyed accoimts of men and things in America when couched in Italian. Accordingly, though we find little original information in the " Viaggio negli Stati Uniti dell' America Settentrionale, fatto negli anni 1785, '6, e '7, da Luigi Castiglione," to one who has visited Italy there is a charm in the record of a " Patrizio Milanese." His book was printed in Milan, 1790. He paid especial attention to those vegetable products of the New "World which are valuable as commodities and useful in domestic economy. ITALIAN TKAVELLEES. 339 He observed with the eye of a naturalist. Climate, sects, food, edifices, and local history occupied his mind ; and when we remember the almost incredible ignorance prevalent even among educated Italians, within a few years, in regard to the United States, we cannot but think that Castiglione's copious and generally accurate narrative must have been valuable and , interesting to such of his countrymen as desired information, seventy years ago, about America. To a reader here and now, however, the work has but a limited significance, the writer's experience being so identical with that of many bet- ter-known authors. It is curious, however, in this, as in other instances, to note the national tendency in the line of obsei'vation adopted. Castiglione says more about architec- ture than manners, meagre as that branch of the fine arts was in our land at the time of his visit. He is much struck with Long Wharf on arriving at Boston : " II Gran Molo per cui si discenda a terra, e uno da piu magnifici degli Stati Uniti ; e si dice avere un mezzo miglia di limghezza." He specifies " 1' isola di Noddle " in describing the harbor. The shingles which then covered most of the roofs proved a nov- elty to him ; and a salt-fish dinner, with shellbarks and cider, he found so indigestible, that it made quite an impression both upon his stomach and brain. Alive to the charm of great memories, as lending dignity to cities, he recalls with delight the fact that Franklin, Hancock, Adams, and other patriots, were born in Boston ; the republican equality of which community is to him a memorable fact, as is the sight / of the statue of Pitt in New York, and the simultaneous ^ advertisement of a negro and a horse to be sold at auction there. As the Signore frequently travelled on horseback, he was exposed to the caprices of our temperature, and vividly realized the extremes of the climate. He alludes to his visit at Mount Vernon in the same terms with which all intelligent foreigners dwell upon the pri\dlege of a personal acquaint- ance with the spotless patriot, whose recent career was then the moral marvel of the age. There is so much in this con- temporary testimony that agrees with and anticipates the ver- 340 AMEKICA AND HKR COMMENTATORS. diet of history, that we never can read the spontaneous expression thereof, from so many and such various sources, without a fresh emotion of love and honor, inspired not less by the blessing such a character and career have proved to humanity, than by our own national preeminence. Never was there such identity of sentiment in so many different lan- guges, in regard to the same human being. " Ivi," wi'ites Castiglione of his visit to Moimt Vernon, " passai quattro giorni favorito del Generale "Washington colla maggiore ospi- talita. II Generale ha cerca cinquante setti amii, e grande di statura, di robusta complessione, di aspetto maestoso e piacevole, e benche incallito nel servizio militare, sembra ancora di eta non avanzata. Voglia il Cielo, che, vivendo molti anni, seiwa, per lungo tempo, d'esempio nella virtu e nella industria a suoi concittadini, come servi d'esempio all' Eu- ropa, nelle vittoric che consacrarono il sou nome ad un' eterna fame." In 1790, Count Adriani, of Milan, brought an ode from Alfieri to Washington, and afterward wrote an abusive book about America, of which the General wrote to Humphrey, it is " an insult to the inhabitants of a country where he re- ceived more attention and civility than he seemed to merit." Whoever visited the Roman Catholic convent at George- town, twenty years ago, chatted with the jiriests, and per- haps tasted the old Malaga with Avhich they used to beguile their guests, must, especially if fresh from Washington soci- ety, have experienced a curious kind of old-world sensation, inspired by the contrast between this gjimpse of the monas- tic life of Europe and the vivacious, hopeful, experimental tone of American society. It is easy, with these impressions, to imagine what kind of a report of our country, its proS' pects, manners, and tendencies, an isolated jDriest of such an establishment would be likely to prepare. Its main character would, of course, be deprecatory of the religious freedom of the land ; its social comments would naturally be foimded on convent gossip and hear-say evidence ; and it would be natural to expect traces of that waggery with which our ITALIAN TRAVELLERS. 341 quick-witted people, when provoked by the perversity or amused by the credulity of their foreign visitors, are apt to quiz these seekers " of knowledge under difficulties ; " as when a complacently curious lady scribe was made to believe the water carts used to lay the summer diist in our jSTorthern cities, sprinkled the streets thrice daily with vinegar, to obvi- ate infection ; or when the cockney accepted the statement that a rose bug was a flea, everything, from hotels to momi- tains and insects, being on a large scale in America. Accordingly, the reader of a now rare pamphlet, written by a former inmate of the Georgetown convent, will not be disappointed in any of these anticipations. Originally pub- lished in Rome, it was reprinted at Milan in 1819, and is en- titled " Notizie Varie sullo stato presente della Repiiblica degli Stati Uniti dell' America Settentrionale da Padre Gio- vanni Grassi deUa compagnia de Gesu." This Jesuit writer is of the urbane class. Take away the priestly cmimus^ and there is nothing consciously \mcandid in his account, narrow and superficial as it is. The marvellous growth of the coun- try in population and resources is fairly indicated, and some agricultural information given. He declares " the mass of the people are better provided with food " than elsewhere in the world, but are not as well off" as regards drink, wine being very dear and beer quite rare. The seventh part of the population, he says, are negroes, and are kindly treated. He is severe on " the passion for elegant preacliing," on the extravagance in dress, on the prevalence of duels and dan- cing, on the superficial education, and the practice of gam- bling. The two last defects come with an ill grace from an Italian, the bane of whose nation they have been for ages. Padre Grassi must have been hoaxed by some report of the Connecticut Blue Laws, for he speaks of the superstitious observance of the Sabbath as constituting religion in the view of American Protestants, who " saddle a horse the day be- fore Sunday to go to church on, and have no beer made on Saturday, lest it should work the next day." He gravely declares that cider is substituted for wine at the communion 342 AMERICA AJSTD HEK COSIMENTATOES service, from motives of economy. He is not at all compli- mentary to the people of the Eastern States, of whom he probably heard a Southern report. " Among the inhabitants of the United States," he writes, " those of New England are regarded as thorough knaves, and are called Yankis." He mentions, as ordinary infractions of good breeding, that people in America " pare the nails and comb the head in com- pany" (in Italy the latter is a street occupation), and "sit with their feet braced on a wall or a chair." He inveighs agauist the " display of piety," and indulges in some rather coarse jokes and some very free caricatures, that suggest rather the licentious than the disciplined side of monastic life ; yet, withal, there is something kindly in the spirit as there is absurd in the prejudices of Father Grassi, Avhose summing up, however, is rather discouraging : " The unre- strained freedom which obtains, the drunkenness which abounds, the rabble of adventurers, the great number of negro slaves, the almost infinite variety of sects, and the little real religion that is met with, the incredible number of novels that are read, and the insatiable eagerness for gain, are, hideed, circumstances that would hardly give reason to expect much in point of manners. At first view, however, one is not aware of the depravity of this country, because it is hidden, for a time, under the veil of an engaging ex- terior." J. C. Beltrami, previously a judge of a royal court in the kingdom of Italy, in his " Pilgrimage in Europe and Amer- ica," published in London in 1828, gives his impressions of the West with much vividness. He had much to say of the aborigines, and expatiates upon the natural history and scenery of the region he visited with intelligence and enthu- siasm. Of the latter he writes, " one wants the pencil of Claude and the pen of Delille to describe it." Twenty years ago, there resided in Boston a Sicilian refu- gee, still affectionately remembered. He celebrated in grace- ful verse the solemn beauty of Mount Auburn,* and was * " Monte Auburno : Poemetto da Pietro d'Alessandro." ITALIAJiT TKAVELLEKS. 343 esteemed by many of our scholars and citizens for hia genial disposition and refined mind. His first impressions of New England manners were essentially modified when time and opportunity had secured him friends ; biit his early letters are interesting because so natural ; and they express, not inadequately, the feelings of a sensitive and honest Italian, while yet a stranger in the " land of liberty." They indi- rectly, also, bring the sentiment of the two countries, before the days of Italian imity, into suggestive contrast. Not intended for publication, they are all the more candid on that account. I obtained permission to translate them, and they are now quoted as a faithful local sketch of personal experi- ence of an educated Sicilian patriot in the American Athens : " Boston, 183-. " ' I was reading Yorick and Didimo * on the 26th of December, the very day preceding your departure ; and I wept for you, for Didimo, and myself, earnestly wishing, at the moment, that our coun- trymen would yield at least the tribute of a tear to the memory of Foscolo, recalling his sublime mind and the history of those lofty but hopeless feelings which drove him a wanderer, out of Italy, to find repose only in the grave.' " I often ponder ui)on these few words written by you on the blank leaf of my Didimo. I can never read them unmoved, for they awaken a sad emotion in my heart, as if they were the last accents I am destined to hear from your lips. Never have I so vividly felt the absence of your voice, your presence, and your counsel, as now that, di'iven by my hapless fortune to a distant land, I have no one either to compassionate or cheer me, nor any with whom to share my joy or sorrows. Believe me, Eugenio, the love of country and friends was never so ardent in my bosom as now that I am deprived of them ; and time, instead of healing, seems rather to irritate the wound which preys so deeply upon my heart. I often wrote you while on the Atlantic, describing the various incidents of our voyage, the dangers we encountered, and the fearful and sweet sensations I alternately experienced, as the sea lashed itself into a tempest, or reposed beneath the mild effulgence of a tranquil night. But, upon reviewing those letters, I find they breathe too melancholy a strain, and are quite too redolent of my wayward humor, even for a dear * The name assumed by Foscolo as translator of Sterne's " Sentimental Journey." 344 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. friend's ]^rusal ; and, besides reaching you too late, tliey could only f?erve to grieve both yourself and my poor mother. But at length I have arrived at a place whence I can give you some definite account of my welfare. " On the night of the 15th of March, notwithstanding the con- trary wind which had beat us about here and there for several suc- cessive days, we cast anchor in Boston harbor. That night was long and wearisome to me. Obliged to remain on board until dawn, I passed it like many others during the passage, unable to sleep. The weariness and anxiety consequent upon a long sea voyage, were at length over. Indeed, the moment I caught the first glimpse of land, they were forgotten. Yet I could scarcely persuade myself that I had reached America. The remembrance of the last few months of excitement and grief, passed in that dear and distant country which, perhaps, I am never destined again to behold, came over me anew, and, contrasting with my present situation, awoke in my mind the most painful sense of uncertainty. I felt doubtful of everything, even of my own existence. I experienced, at that moment, an utter want of courage. The flattering hopes which had brightened the gloomiest hours of my voyage, all at once abandoned me. My ima- gination no longer pictured scenes of promise. I looked within and around, and beheld only the naked reality of things. I realized only the sad certainty, that a new life was before me. I revolved the various necessities of my situation : the importance of immediately forming new acquaintances — the uncertainty how I should be re- ceived by the few to whom I had brought introductions — my own natural aversion to strangers — and a thousand other anxious thoughts, which made me long for day as tlie signal of relief from their vexa- tion. At length the morning dawned ; but it was obscured by a damp fog and heavy fall of snow. All around wore a gloomy and cheerless aspect. In a few moments, the captain came to greet me as usual, but with more than wonted urbanity. He informed me I was now at liberty, and, whenever I pleased, the boat should con- vey me to the nearest wharf. I did not wait for him to repeat the summons, but, throwing off my sea dress, assumed another ; and, descending the ship's side, soon touched the shore so long and ardently desired. It is true, I then felt intensely what it is to be alone. Yet not less sincere was my gratitude to that invisible and benignant Being, who had guided and preserved me through so many dangers. I landed with tearful eyes ; and, although no friend, with beating heart, was there to welcome me, I stooped reverently to kiss the land sacred to liberty, and felt then for the first time that I, too, was a man. ITALIAN TRAVELLEES. 34:5 "17?/! April. " I have now passed several days in strolling through the streets of this city, amusing myself with the sight of so many objects of novelty and interest. I find the place rather pretty than otherwise ; much more so, indeed, than I had imagined. The buildings, how- ever, aue in a style so peculiar, as to suggest the idea that the principles of architecture are here entirely unknown, or purposely disregarded. And then, the people all seem in such a hurry ! — ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, wliite and black, horses, hacks, wagons, and omnibuses hastening so furiously along the streets, that, unless you are on your guard, there is no little danger of awkward rencontres. How de- lightful to my sea- worn sight, this spectacle of animated life ! How gladly would I, too, have assumed a part in the busy scenes in which the multitude about me werp engaged ! "With what delight should I have rejoiced with them, in anticipating the comforts and the greet- ings of a home ! But, situated as I was during these first days suc- ceeding my arrival, the scenes around me served but to make me realize anew my loneliness ; and, but for the gratification aftbrded my curiosity, I would have willingly remained immured in tlie little chamber of my hotel. I am, however, anxiously seeking employ- ment ; but, as yet, my efforts have been unsuccessful. My letters of introduction I do not think will be of much service to me, except the one proposing a credit in my favor, from our mutual friend, which has been duly honored by his correspondents. These gentlemen, like many others here, have expressed great pleasure in seeing me. They have introduced me to such individuals as I have chanced to meet in their company, either at the counting house, or in the streets. They have also made innumerable prolfers of assistance. In' short, they have received me kindly, and yet with a curious species of kindness, certainly not Italian ; and, as yet, I know not if I can properly characterize it as American. Polite or not, however, they certainly seem to aim first to satisfy their curiosity ; for, after having beset one with a thousand questions — many more, indeed, than it is agree- able to answer — they make no scruple of waiving all ceremony, and leaving you very abruptly, without even a hasty addio. This has occurred to me very often, though I cannot say invariably. The figure which I have presented more than once, on such occasions, I am sure must have been ridiculous. Taken by surprise at the abrupt termination of the interview, I have stood immovable and half mor- tified, following with my eyes the receding form of my friend, walk- ing so coolly off, intent upon his own affiiirs. " Another kind of courtesy, which some, perhaps, might ascribe to frankness, but which certainly wears the appearance of perfect 15* 346 AMEEICA AlfD HER COMMENTATORS. indifference, is their habit of inviting one to their houses and tables, in terms so very vague and general, that I assure you, during the month I have been here, it has been frequently impossible for me to make up my mind to accept many of the civilities offered me. I question, however, whether there will be frequent occasion for scru- ples of this kind, as I apprehend there is little danger of such courte- sies being repeated : yet the good people seem in earnest, and to tender their hospitalities with all their hearts. I am inclined to think they do. But, to tell the truth, I feel no small degree of delicacy in accepting such courtesies, because the experience I daily acquire of their customs and manner of thinking, forces upon my mind the con- viction, that the reputation they have for egotism, especially as re- gards foreigners, is not without foundation. " Boston people may be ranked among that large class who con- tent themselves with respecting all who respect them, and refrain scrupulously from doing the slightest injury to all who are equally harmless. They are, however, exceedingly wary of foreigners, and not, perhaps, without much reason ; since many who have sojourned among them have shown themselves both ignorant and unprincipled, and, besides leaving a bad impression of their individual characters, have also induced the most unfavorable opinions of the countries whence- they came. In Italy, the very name of stranger is a pass- port to civility and kindness. Here, while you require no sealed and signed document from any of their European majesties to insure free communication and travel, you can scarcely ask the slightest civility, or approach one of your kind, without exciting a certain degree of suspicion ; and your disadvantage is still enhanced, if, in addition to the name of foreigner — which, like original sin, is deemed a common taint — you also bring the still less pardonable sin of poverty. The necessity of earning a livelihood, however honestly, is certainly the worst recommendation with which to enter a foreign country ; nor is it less so in the New "World, since here, as well as elsewhere, a well-filled purse, and the disposition liberally to dispense its con- tents, will insure the heartiest welcome. The Americans, too, being universally intent upon gain, are naturally indisposed to encourage new competitors, and their time is too completely absorbed in busi- ness to allow of their devoting many moments to the interests of for- eigners. Their lives are entirely spent in striving after new accumu- lations ; and the whole glory of their existence is reduced to the miserable vanity of having it said, after their death, that they have left a considerable estate ; and this short-lived renown is awarded according to the greater or less heritage bequeathed. This is not only the course of the father, but of the children ; for they, being ITALIAN TKAVELLEKS. 347 by law entitled to an equal portion of their father's property, are obliged to follow in his footsteps, in order to obtain their shares of this same glory : that the question, ' How much has he left ? ' may be answered as much to their credit as it was to that of their sire. Thus the young and the old, those barely possessing a competence and those rolling ia wealth, with equal zeal bend all their energies to the common end. Intent upon gain and traffic, they are too absorbed to think of any but themselves. They calculate, with watch in hand, the minutes and seconds as they pass, and seem naturally averse to any conversation of which trade and speculation are not the subject. Hence results, as a natural consequence, the prevailing mediocrity of ideas and feelings, derived from the uniform system of education and manner of thinking, as well as the great similarity of interests. Hence, too, the equal tenor of life, and the absence of great vices, as well as of great virtues; hence the social calmness and universal prosperity, and hence the apparent insensibility to the appeal of mis- fortune, resulting from the want of exercise of feelings of ready sym- pathy and compassion incident to such a social condition. " You may infer, from what I have said, the condition of the stranger in the midst of such a community — of him of whom it may be said with truth, that he interests no one. For my part, I cannot be too grateful for the generosity of my relatives : without it, God knows what, by this time, would have become of your wretched friend. Still, I am anxious about the future — the more so since I have discovered that political misfortunes, which have driven into exile so many of our countrymen, furnish no claim to the sympathies of these republicans. Many of those with whom I am already ac- quainted are so foolishly proud of their political privileges, that, instead of pitying, you would fancy they intended to ridicule the less favored condition of other lands. I beg you, however, to consider what I have said on this subject as hastily inferred, and not dog- matically affirmed. I may be quite mistaken ; and, indeed, to pretend to give a correct idea of a country entirely new to me, after only a month's residence, especially where the aspect of things differs so essentially from what I have been accustomed to, would, I am well aware, appear very absurd. Yet there is a very just proverb which says, that from the dawn we may augur the day ; and if it be true, I regret to say that the dawn before me seems most unpromising. Would that a bright and cheerful sun would arise to dispel the mists of doubt, and throw gladness upon the heart of your devoted friend ! 348 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. " 28th April. " Often, during my voyage, I promised myself great delight, upon my arrival, in visiting tlie plains of Cambridge, and the heights of Dorchester and Bunker HUl, renowned as the early scenes of the American war. As I read Botta's ' History,' my imagination often transported me to those spots which he so vividly pictured. I longed to find myself upon the hallowed ground, to render my tribute of grateful admiration to the memory of those noble men who there perished fighting for the liberty of their country. The iuclement season, however, has not yet allowed me to realize my anticipations. "We are at the end of April, and yet the spring seems scarcely to have commenced. " The aspect of the environs of Boston is most desolate. The earth is stdl buried under the snow ; the streets are covered with ice, here and there broken by the constant travelling, which renders them almost impassable. In addition, there prevails here, at this season, a most disagreeable wind. It blows from the east, and is so exceedingly chilly and penetrating, that it not only destroys one's com- fort, but undermines the health. It seems to freeze my very soul, and effectually drives away all disposition for romance. I have been, therefore, constrained to remain in town, and rest satisfied with a distant view of the environs, until the coming of a more genial season. " Although the city is scarcely less gloomy than the country, it is still some amusement for the stranger to note the pedestrians. On both sides of the principal street you may behold men of all sorts and sizes, muffled up to their eyes in cloaks, high-collared surtouts, or quUted wu'appers, fur caps and gloves, woollen capes, heavy boots and heavier overshoes ; and, although thus burdened with garments — weightier far than the leaden cloaks of Dante's hypocrites — they con- trive to shuffle along at the usual rapid rate, for they are business men. Now and then the light figure of a dandy flits by, arrayed in raiment quite too light for the weather, and looking as blue as win- ter and misery can make him. And then the women — ladies, I mean, God bless them ! women, there are none here — all in their gala dresses, all satin and muslin, light feathered bonnets, silk stock- ings and daiicing shoes, with a bit of fur round their necks, or the skirt of their pelisses, to whi'^jycr of comfort. Thus attired, they glide over the ice with a calm iudifTerence worthy of heroines, stopping occasionally to purchase blonde lace or cough candy, and then mov- ing on in the very face of the April breeze I have described to you. " To speak seriously, I had thought to find in this country, if not the original, at least the remains of ancient simplicity. I flattered ITALIAN TRAVELLERS. 349 myself that I should see, among the descendants of those Puritan colonists, who were 'wise and modest In all their wishes,' a com- plete absence of pretension. But it is not so. The habits which prevail, and especially those relating to dress, are most extravagant. In the houses, in the streets, at every hour of the day, you see dis- played — I say not with how much taste— the same dresses which our female nobility, who are as extravagant as any countesses in the United Kingdom, are accustomed to wear only at soirees^ weddings, or the opera. It is much the same with our sex. I will not now pretend to account for these extravagant habits, although I fancy I have divined the reason. Yet I must believe that, in this republic, female dress is the great item of domestic expense. The materiel, being imported from abroad, is very dear. Indeed, the price of everything is exorbitant. As the saying is with us, those who have not a house pay for every sigh ; and here they cost not less than half a dollar, or seventy-five cents each. And this adds another to the disadvantages of the stranger, especially if, like myself, he has indulged the idea that, in this young country, dress was not thought to make the man in the same degree as elsewhere, and finds that, with all their vaunted progress, the Americans have not gone an iota beyond their predecessors. in establishing a just standard of esti- mating mankind ; and are quite as prone to base their judgments upon appearance rather than character. Kor can you practi- cally oppose such customs either with your philosophy or indiffer- ence, since the individual who avails himself of the privileges of social life is bound, as far as he can without self-debasement, to con- form to popular prejudices ; and, indeed, it seems to me that here appearances are peculiarly imposing. Wherever you tm-n, you be- hold the names of every description of dealer, from the poor huck- ster to the rich merchant, blazoned upon signs in gilt letters, as if to impress the stranger with the idea that he had entered the most prosperous country of the earth. " But I will speak to you of the more noteworthy objects around me, which, however, are not numerous. ISTotwithstanding the un- pleasant season, I haye visited Cambridge, with the situation of which I have been much pleased. The village is about three miles and a half from Boston ; and, in its centre, you find the most ancient and best-eudowed seat of learning existing in the United States. It is called Harvard University, and the establishment consists of sev- eral buildings, containing lodging and recitation rooms, built of brick, with one exception, all in a simple style, which struck me as happily accordant with the character (if the institution. The law and theo- logical schools constitute a part of the University. But what par- 350 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATOES. ticularly pleased me was the library, which, from what I hear, is the best in the country, and, in truth, is excellent. Among other works, there is quite a collection of Italian books ; and many of the edi- tions are beautiful, and very neatly bound. You cannot imagine how much I enjoyed the sight of so many of our beloved authors. Amid the legacies of these illustrious dead, I, for the moment, forgot all my private griefs and anxiety. I seemed no longer to be among stran- gers, for in every one of those books I recognized an honored and dear friend of my youth : so long unseen, and so unexpectedly en- countered, they seemed to transport me to a new world. In truth, this was the first moment that I felt really encouraged. Who knows, I asked myself, but these ancient allies of mine will introduce me to their friends of the New* "World ? — and then Yorick's unfortunate adventure with the police of Paris occurred to me. " Of the University, the method of instruction pursued, and the progress it has made, I will tell you when I am better informed. It grieves me, at present, that I cannot go every day to Cambridge. The season being so bad, it is necessary to ride thither. Then, there is my dinner. So that, by a broad calculation (you see how I have already begun to calculate), the pleasure of six hours' reading would daily make me minus a dollar. ' But,' you ask, ' cannot you dine Tipon your return in the evening ? ' Yes, if they would let me ! But here, even at the hotels, it is not the custom to order your dinner when you please. They treat us quite like friars ; and it is neces- sary, if you would not lose your dinner, to be at the table punctually at the stroke of two ; otherwise — but, Holy Virgin ! it is the dinner bell. "Wait only a moment, for I must make haste to be in time for the roast beef. In three minutes (all that is required here) I will return, and continue my letter. " I went, the other day, with one of our countrymen, to visit the Athenaeum, which is the only literary establishment in the city. It is supported by the savans and aristocracy of Boston. It has a library composed chiefly of donations of books, among which are many of the principal works published in Europe and America, sev- eral literary and scientific journals, and numerous gazettes. Thei"^ are also rooms containing casts and a few marble statues, a small col- lection of medallions, and two apartments for the study of architec- ture and drawing, but destitute both of masters and pupils, and one large haU, on the lower floor, used as a reading room. The share- holders and their friends are only admitted to the Athena3um. These are, for the most part, gentlemen of leisure or idle people^ according to the complimentary title bestowed on them by their fellow citizens ; and they go, as their taste may be, to occupy their time in the read- ITALIAN TKAVELLEKS. 351 ing room, which is open from early morning till nine at night. In this room, there is a rule inscribed exj^ressly prohibiting conversa- tion ; and you see, to far more advantage than in our libraries, so many living statues in every variety of attitude, often not the most graceful, all with a book in hand, or intent upon a newspaper. The librarian, a very good sort of man, has shown himself, like many others, very glad to see me. He told me that, as a stranger, the Athenaeum would be open to me for the period of one month ; but that after that time, if I remained, and wished to continue my visits, it would be necessary for me to become a subscriber, like tlio other frequenters of the institution. I thanked him for his politeness, and have shown how sincerely I valued it, by going almost every day to the Athenaeum ; and as to the end of the month, I do not trouble my head about it, because, by that time, I hope the weather will allow me to walk frequently to Cambridge. What and how great are the advantages which result from this institution, I leave you to esti- mate. The Athenasum, however, now in its infancy, seems destined to advance greatly ; and if, one day, it should become a public estab- lishment, it cannot but be of lasting benefit to Boston. And truly, in a city like this, which I hear called the Athens of America, there should be, if nothing else, a rich library freely open to the people. Thus you see that, both in and out of town, I have not failed to find the means of becoming learned and illustrious. All these literary advantages, however, are reduced to nothing to a poor devil who is in the situation of being obliged to derive profit from the little he knows, rather than from what still remains to him to be acquired. And this necessity has urged me to seek an occupation at every sac- rifice ; and, having gone the rounds with the diploma of a young leUerato, the oflice which, for the moment, I can most certainly obtain, is that of a teacher of our language. And I have, indeed, one scholar, a lean doctor of medicine, to whom, as he has the merit of being connected with a relative who is intimate with one of the family of , who pays me my remittances, I give my lessons gratis. This has been, thus far, my greatest resource. But this gen- tle minister of death gives me promise of an introduction among his patients — of whom, as yet, I have not caught even a glimpse. How- ever, I am obliged to trot every day, at the expense of my poor legs, to the doctor's door, which is no little distance from mine. I go very punctually, but often only to find him asleep in his chair, and dozing while I read the lesson — which, moreover, I am obliged to explain through the medium of a French grammar. This avaricious San- grado piques himself not a little upon his egregious lisping of the French ; and to this day I have been unable to induce him to buy 352 AMEEICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. another grammar. But, somehow or other, I hope soon to send him on a journey to Elysium, to carry my compliments to his master Hippocrates. " May 1th. " I am angry with you. Five packets have arrived since I landed ; and every day I hurry anxiously to the post office, only to hear the same chilling negative to my ardent inquiry for letters. I have even conceived quite an antipathy to the stiflf, laconic postman, who some- times deigns no other reply than a cold shake of the head. Yet you promised to write me at the end of the first month after my em- barkation. How can I forgive such neglect ? And what reasonable excuse can you offer ? Perhaps you allege the uncertainty of my fate. Yet, had I gone to my last sleep in the bosom of old Neptune, think you a friendly letter would not have been a pleasant oflering to my manes ? Nay, Eugenio, you know not the comfort a few lines from you would bring to the heart of a poor friend. I am homesick. My feelings seem dead to all that surrounds me. I seem condemned to the constant disappointment of every cherished hope ; and, were I able to express all I feel, I could unfold a most pitiable story of mental suffering. Do you realize, Eugenio, how far I am from home, and all that is dear to me ? — that I am living in a weary solitude which I sometimes fear will drive me mad ? "With affections most tenderly alive, and a nature that would fain attach itself to all around, I find not here a single congenial being or idea upon which my heart can repose. A stranger to everything, I am by all regarded as a stranger, and read that forbidding name in the expression of all whom I approach. Did I carry the remorse of a criminal in my bosom, I could not meet the gaze of my fellow beings with less con- fidence. The few whom I have known thus far, are, for the most part, merchants or commonplace people, too much occupied in their own afii-iirs to relish interruption during their leisure hours. But when I fall in with them, they instantly tender the old salutation, ' Glad to see you,' coupled with an invitation to their counting houses, where they are too busy to talk, nnd content themselves with proffering a chair and the newspaper. These manners result from a mode of life very different from that which prevails in Europe : still they are painfully striking to the novice, especially if he be one of those who know not how to support the toil and vexation of exist- ence, unsoothed by those cheering palliatives with which we are wont to sweeten the bitter cup of life. You well know that I was never over fond of general society, nor took much delight in the heartless glitter of fashionable life. But what I voluntarily avoided at home, ITALIAN TRAVELLERS. 353 is not a little desirable here, as a relief from the loneliness of my position. Yet the only house at which I can spend an evening with any pleasure, is that of our countryman B , who, with the true feeling of Italian hospitality, at once made me at home under his roof. I meet him, too, occasionally in my walks, and we converse of our country, our literature, and, most frequently, of our misfor- tunes. God knows how grateful I am for his sympathy, without which it seems as if I should have died of weariness and^ grief. Yet our conversations sometimes serve to renew most keenly the mem- ory of my sorrows — which I fain would bury in the bottom of my heart — and send me back to my little chamber to find more sadness than before, in the companionsliip of my own thoughts. That which renders me most anxious, is the harassing doubt which seems to attend my steps. I feel already that I am a burden to my relatives. Every day, which passes without advancing me in an occupation from which I can derive support, seems lost. Although I have not neg- lected, nor shall neglect, seeking for every honest mode of relieving them from this care, yet I feel a species of remorse, as if I were abusing their generosity ; and the bread I eat tastes bitter, when I reflect that the expense of my bare subsistence, even with all the economy I can practise, in these times, and under existing circum- stances, would half support the family of my afflicted mother. Thus my days pass, sustained only by hope and the promises of my new friends. Now and then, as at this moment, I write to those dear to me by way of solacing my bleeding heart ; but even this occupation is painful to me, since I can only write of my afflictions. ''Ah, Eugenio, how aggravating is now the remembrance of all your kind advice ! It is true, in an important sense, that man is the creator of his own destinies. "With how much care and ingenuity do we raise the funeral pile, which is to consume our hopes and burn our very hearts ! It is true, indeed, that if I had reconciled myself to existing circumstances, and allowed to subside the first force of those feelings which even you, with all your natural wisdom, could not but confess were generous and noble ; and especially had I opened my eyes, and calmly looked those illusions in the face, in which so many of our young men, and I among the rest, so inconsiderately confided, it is true I should not have experienced the bitterness of the present. But how could I contemplate the miseries of our coun- try, and not glow with indignation at beholding all the rare gifts which Heaven and nature had so benignantly bestowed, rendered unavailing — made but the occasion of tears to us all — every fountain of good dried up, or poisoned by the envy and iniquity of man ? How could I admit the idea that I ought to sacrifice my thoughts and 354 AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATORS. dearest sentiments, merely for the sake of pursuing, at home, one of our genteel professions, which, after all, could not preserve me from the general degradation, nor, perhaps, from infamy ? And should I have done so ? And why ? From the cowardly fear, perhaps, of being exiled from the land of my fathers, when, in the buoyancy of youth, I could turn to another country — far distant, it is true, but free ; to a country in which I could obtain a subsistence without sac- rificing 07ie of my opinions ; where, even now, notwithstanding I may be made deeply to realize the axiom that mankind are the same everywhere, I do not see all around me the aspect of misery and un- happiness, nor daily instances of the petty vengeance and cold-hearted injustice of our tyrants ; where the cheerful prospect of peace and universal prosperity almost reconciles one to the inevitable evils inci- dent to human society ; where, at least, thought and speech are not crimes, and you can cherish the hope of a better future without see- ing beside you the prison or the gallows ; where the mind can ex- pand unfettered by any servile chain — yes, the mind, which I now feel as free within me as when it was first bestowed by God. "And yet I complain! It is true; and I well know what you will reply to these letters, which I write only for tlie pleasure of being with you, even while we are separated. But if you have the heart to charge all the blame to me, I would beg you, Eugenio, to remember that every tear teaches a truth to mortals, and that I, too, am one of those numerous creatures, made up of weaknesses and illusions, who drag themselves blindly, and without knowing where or why, in the path of inexorable fate. Now that I feel that there never existed so great a necessity for bringing about an alliance be- tween my reason and my heart, I cannot discover the method by which to accomplish it, and the task never seemed more impractica- ble. Reason, which levels everything with her balance to a just equilibrium, and reduces, by calculation, all things to a frigid system, you have adopted as your goddess ; and truly she is a most potent divinity, and often have I invoked her aid, and supplicatingly adored her power. Yet this heart of mine is such a petty and obstinate tyrant, that it will never yield the palm even when fairly conquered ; and, in its waywardness, takes a wicked pleasure in pointing out the naked coldness of your divinity, and setting her before me in a most uninviting light. Hence it is that I am devoured with the desire of home ; nor will all the charms of glory, or the smUes of fortune, lure me from the dearer hope of reunion with the land and the loved of my heart. Yet who knows where I shall leave my bones ? "Who knows if these eyes shall close eternally to the light amid the tears of my kindred, or whether friendship and love will linger sorrowfully near to receive my last ?igh ? ITALIAN TKAVELLEKS. 355 '■'■ Addio. I commend to you my mother. This phrase would be meaningless to any but you. I have used it to express all I feel for that tenderest of beings — for her whom I continually behold in ima- gination, weeping and desolate. If the voice of pity and friendship are powerful in your heart, I pray you, Eugenio, leave her not un- consoled. Thou must be as another child to her, and ever remember that she is the mother of thy friend. " May Ibth. " This morning I rose full of anxiety. Tlie moment I awoke, my first thought was of you, of my family, and of the delay of your letters ; and the sound of the breakfast bell first aroused me from my painful reverie. I descended, swallowed a single cup of cofl:ee, and, quick as thought, hastened to the office. I did not expect to find let- ters, but having given my name, and perceiving that the postman did not return the customary nod of refusal, my heart began to palpitate strongly. I did not deceive myself. I have my mother's letter to which you have made so large an addition, and I have been till this moment shut up in my room, reading it over and over again, and bathing every line with my tears. God reward you for all your care and your love for me ! I trust that, ere this, you have received my first letters, and thus been relieved of all anxiety on my account. I thank you for all the news you givo me, and especially for what you tell me respecting our young companions, who, I rejoice to know, are now quite free from the ill-founded suspicions of Government. The condition of Italy, however, seems to grow more sad every day ; and you write me tliat many are rejoicing at the rumor of imminent war, and in the hope that our old liberators will again reappear among us. For my part, however, I cannot but tremble with you, since now there is less certainty than ever that aught will remain to us but injuries and derision. The present and past misfortunes of our country should have taught us tliat, if there is anything to hope, it is from ourselves alone ; and it is certain, that if the new subjects of the new citizen-king descend again from the mountains, there is reason to believe that the disgraces of bygone times will be renewed in Italy, and it will be our lot to transmit another record of shame and cowardly execrations. " From your literary news, I learn that the Anthology of Flor- ence has been abolished, and, as usual, by command of Austria. I had made no little search for the last number. Be it so. The sup- pression of that work is only one other insult to our condition, but not a serious loss to the nation, since the writers, who perhaps set out with the idea of undeceiving the Italians, are themselves the 356 AilERICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS. very ones who propagate their unfortunate illusions; and in that journal, which was doubtless the best we had, they also said too much, and without profit. In these times, there exist no Alfieris or Foscolos ; and the new school, which promised so much by its his- torical romances, has thus far accomplished little enough, if we ex- cept one or two sermons on passive obedience. Botta remains, but he is alone ; and the soul of Tacitus, which should be devoted to so exalted a work, is wanting to him. Moreover, his thoughts, although grand and sacred, are rather understood readily by those who think, than felt deeply by the mass, with that profound sens6 of despera- tion, from which alone a real change and constancy of opinion are to be hoped for among the Italians. " To tell you the truth, I believe we are so susceptible of illu- sions, that the intellectual energy of no writer whatever can avail anything in eradicating from the hearts of our countrymen the weak- nesses which are as old as our servitude, and which are strongly maintained by the consciousness of general debasement and actual incapacity, as well as by the small degree of virtue and the total absence of ambition on the part of our princes. I desired to allude to these circumstances, in reply to that part of your letter wherein you recommend me not to forget Italy and our studies. But, as yet, you seem unaware, that in this land I have conceived a love of coun- try not only more powerful than ever, but instinct with a desperate earnestness which consumes my heart. Wherever I turn, the aspect of all the civil and social benefits enjoyed by this fortunate people, fills me, at the same time, with wonder, admiration, and immense grief. Not that I envy the Americans their good fortune, which, on the contrary, I ardently rejoice in, and desire, as much as any one of themselves, may be forever continued to tlie laud. But I think of Italy, and know not how to persuade myself why her condition should be so diflferent and so sad. I do not allude to the general policy of the coHutry, but I speak of what I see every day while walking the streets — a quiet population, incessantly intent upon in- dustry and commerce, without being retarded by civil restrictions or tyrannical extortions, by the subterfuges of official harpies, or by the machinery of so many hungry and shameless financiers, nor yet continually irritated by the insufferable and cowardly insolence of the ministers of the law, who, either in the military garb, or as civil oflUcers, or in the form of police, are the vilest instruments of Euro- pean tyranny — the ])ests of the state, consuming its substance and resources, and corrupting the manners and morals of the people. Here, I have not yet seen in the streets a single soldier, nor one patrol of police, nor, in fact, any guard of the public safety ; and, ITALIAN TRAVELLERS. 357 having occasion to go to the Custom House, I was quite astonished to see the simplicity of tlie forms, the expedition with which affairs were conducted, and the small number of officers employed. In- deed, this people seem like a large and united family, if not bound together by affection and reciprocal love, at least allied by a common and certain interest, and the experience that the good of all is the good of the individual. Every one who has the wiU to labor will easily find occasion for its free practice and most adequate recom- pense. Not being incited by opportunity and the keen necessities of life, crimes are rare, violences almost unheard of, and poverty and extreme want unknown. In the streets and markets, and in every place of public resort, you behold an activity, a movement, an energy of life, and a continual progress of affairs ; and in the move- ments and countenances of the people, you can discern a certain air of security, confidence, and dignity, which asks only for free scope. I know not how it is, but often I pause thoughtfully in the midst of the thoroughfare, to contemplate the scene around me. I sometimes find myself standing by some habitation, and my fancy begins to pic- ture it as the sanctuary of every domestic and social virtue — as the cradle of justice and piety — as the favorite sojourn of love, peace, and every human excellence. And my heart is cheered, and bleeds at the same time, as I then revert to Italy, and imagine what might be her prosperity, and how she might gloriously revive, and become again mistress of every virtue and every noble custom, among the nations of the world. ." Judge, then, if I have forgotten, or if it will be possible for me to forget Italy, as long as I remain in this country. For the rest, as I have before said, I am only made the more constantly to remember my native land. I am told, and begin to realize, that here, as well as there, Utopian views of politics, morals, religion, and philosophy, have long prevailed, and promise to grow more luxuriously than ever, and become, perhaps, fatal to the prosperity and liberty of this land. It is, however, no small consolation for the moment, to reflect, that the doctrines of this nation do not depend upon the letterati, or rather, that the country does not look to that class for its salvation ; which, as such, has no voice in the capital. There are here no mere questions of language ; no romanticists or classicists who cannot understand each other ; no imperial nor royal academicians of gram- mar ; no furious pedants who are continually disputing how we should write, nor any that pretend to dictate how we should think. Eloquence is here the true patrimony, and, in fact, the most formi- dable weapon for good or for evil, in the hands of the people, who estimate it more or less by the standard of their wants or individual 358 AMEEICA AND HEE COMMETSTTATOES. partialities. I will tell yon, however, from time to time, in future letters, as I become better informed on these subjects. Yet expect not, I pray you, from me, either statistics, disquisitions, or a travel- ler's journal, since you know I came hither in quite another capacity. There goes, with this, another letter to our yoimg friend B , who writes me that he desires to come and seek his fortune in the United States. You will see my reply ; and, to dissuade him still more from the project, let him see what I have written you. Addio. Live ever in the love of your friends, of letters, of your country, and of yours, An errant countryman of ours, with the ready wit of an educated New Englander, when sojourning in London, after a long visit to the Continent, bemg disapjDointed in his remit- tances, conceived the idea of replenishing his jDurse by a spir- ited article for one of the popular magazines, wherein he imagined the sayings and doings of a Yankee ruler suddenly placed at the head of affiiirs in the kingdom of Naples. The picture was salient and unique, and amused the public. We were irresistibly reminded thereof by a little brochure wherein the process here described is exactly reversed, and, instead of a Yankee letterato in Naples, we have a Neapolitan priest in America. So grotesquely ignorant and absurdly superstitious and conservative is the spirit of this brief and hasty record,* that we cannot but regret the naive writer had not extended his tour and his chronicle ; for, in that case, we should have had the most amusing specimen extant of mod- ern Travels in America. The author was a chaplain in the navy of his Majesty of Naples. He describes the voyage of the frigate Urania during a nearly two years' cruise from Castellamare to Gibraltar, thence via TenerifTe to Pernam- buco, Rio Janeiro, and St. Helena, to New York and Boston, and back to Naples by way of England and France. In his dedication of the " Breve Racconto " to the very reverend chaplain of Ferdinand II, he declares he finds " non pochi * " Breve Racconto delle cose Chiesasticbe piu Iiiiportanti occorse nel viaggio fatto sulla Real Frcgata Urania, dal 15 Agosto, 1844, al 4 Marzo, 1846, per Raffaele Capobianco, Cavalierc del Real Ordine del Merito di Fran- ceses I. e Capellano della Real Marina," Napoli, 1846. ITALIAN TKAVELLEKS. 359 consolazioni " in having gathered " some fruits in the vine- yard of the Lord " during his perilous voyage ; but he adds, " the rivers are but little grateful for the retxirn of the water they yielded in vapor ; " and so this dedication and descrip- tion are but a poor return to " our fountain of wisdom and virtue." The style, spirit, ideas in this little journal are quite mediaeval. The simplicity and ignorance and bigotry of the roving ecclesiastic are the more striking from their contrast with the times and places of which he writes. Imagine a priest or friar suddenly transported from the Toledo to Broadway, and it is easy to solve what would otherwise be enigmatical in this childish narrative. He mentions, with pious reflections, the death of a mariner at sea from " nos- talgia;" lauds, at the South American ports, the Roman Catholic religion, remarking its aptitude to " generalmente insinuarsi nel cuore del popolo docile." At Rio Janeiro he celebrates the feast of the Virgin ; aud to the devout manner in which the ship's company commended themselves to her, he attributes their subsequent miraculous escape from ship- wreck. Thus, he writes, " God showed himself content with our homage to the Virgin." They keep Palm Sunday on board, with palms brought from St. Helena. He describes summarily the aspect of the cities they visit, gives the alti- tude of the peak of Tenerifte, notes the zones and tropics, the rites, and rate of their progress. " La navigazione felice," he observes, " arrise alle pie devozioni." On entering ISTcav York harbor, the chaplain says we passed " il grande forte Hamilton, e finalmente la Fregata," after six thousand miles of navigation, " dropt her anclior opposite the Battery gar- den, built in the sea, and joined to the continent by a wooden bridge about two hundred feet long." He remarks upon the public buildings, observing that the Exchange was " rebuilt in 1838, and is destined for a hospital;" that the Croton Avater " serves for conflagrations, which are very frequent," and that " il commercio 6 attivissimo." He descants upon " la immensita de vapori," declaring that the ferry boats carry " not only loaded carts, ten or fifteen at a time, but also 360 AMERICA AND HER COMilENTATOKS. bath-houses, with every convenience." His most elaborate descriptions, however, are reserved for the Catholic churches — St. Patrick's, St. Peter's, St. Giusepi^e, and the Church of the Transfiguration, where he celebrated mass. He admires the " Campanile" of " il Tempio colossale degli Episcopali" (Trinity Church), and is charmed with the " Seminario Cat- tolico," through which he was conducted by " quel gentile e Adrtuoso vescovo Monsignore Hus " — doubtless the late Bishop Hughes. The Italian priests, the juvenile choristers, and the church music excite his enthusiasm. Crowds of Catholics, he tells us, came on board the frigate to hear the sailors sing " Salva Regina." Romanism, he declares, has " profoimd root " in the United States, and " daily grows," though the Episcopalians still strive " to infuse into the human heart the poison that, in 1603, came from Elizabeth's successor." He calls the Protestant sects " tristi piante," and gives a list thereof, adding, " and to finish the noisome catalogue, to con- fusion add confusion, with the Quakers and Hebrew syna- gogues." " II nemico infernale," he says, tried to insinuate his " veleno dell' errore " into the ship. Protestant emissa- ries from the Bible Society came on board to distribute the Scriptures " senza spirito santo ! " His indignation at this proceeding is boundless. " Era mai possibile," he exclaims, " che i cieclii ilhuninassero gli illuminati e che intiepidessoro nel el cuore de Napolitani quella Religione che il Principe stesso degli Apostoli venne a predicai*e nella loro citta ! " * Leaving New York, the pious chaplain Avas " swept from the shores of the Hudson to Cape Cod," and, on the 3d of Juno, entered "the wonderful and picturesque bay" of Bos- ton, to the sound of greeting cannon, and surrounded " by gondolas, whence arose cordial hurrahs" ("ben venga"). Boston, says the erudite chaplain, " was founded by English colonists from Boston in England. Bunker Hill monument was commenced in 1827 by the celebrated engineer, O'Don- * " As if it were possible for the blind to enlighten the enlightened, and weaken in the hearts of Neapolitans that religion which the Prince of the Apostles himself came to preach in their own city." ITALIAUr TEAVELLEKS, 361 nell Webster, under the presidency of the celebrated La- fayette ! " He describes the public edifices, and, among them, the " Casa di Citta," " which rises from a height near the public garden, and presents a majestic appearance, with colr rcmtis of white raarbleP Among the memorable names of streets, he observes, is " that of Franklin, who drew the lightning from heaven." Of the churches, he only remem- bers the Cathedral, the care and prosperity of which he ascribes " to that excellent prelate, Fitzpatrick." Again he congratulates himself upon the progress of his Church — thanks to the labors " della propagazione delle fede " — and declares that " the net of St. Peter does not fail to fish up many new souls from the turbid sea of error." Although made up of all nations, " the Americans," says the Neapoli- tan padre, " follow the habits and customs of the English." From Boston the frigate went to HoUand and to England, from Plymouth to Brest, thence to Carthagena and Toulon, the island of Zante and Navarino, all of which places are briefly noted ; and from the latter they proceed to Naples, which harbor and city the delighted chaplain hails as the cradle of Tasso and the tomb of Virgil ; saluting, in the facile rhetoric of his native tongue, Mergellina, " where rest the ashes of Sannazaro," Herculaneum, Pompeii, and the light " del nostro sole, un perpetuo e vivissimo verde, I'ombrifero pin^, il pomposo cipresso, I'odorato arancio, ima sopredente moltitudine di eleganti casine sparse per tutta quanto la costa, stanze di un popolo vivacissimo ed amorevole ! " At length, two steamers sent by " la benignita de Re " approach the Urania, and the loyal and loving Padre Capobianco in- vokes Heaven's blessing on his head and reign, and, " in the midst of the joy and afiection of kindred and friends," kisses his native earth. Every American who has travelled in Europe has some extraordinary anecdote to relate of the ignorance there exist- ing in regard to the geography, history, and condition of his country ; but, perhaps, the questions asked him are nowhere so absurd as in Sicily. Her isolated position before the ad- 16 362 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. vent of Garibaldi, and the prevalent want of education, explain the phenomenon. Two things chiefly the Sicilians know about America — that she imports fruit, sulphur, and rags from the island, and aflTords a safe asylum for political refugees. At the seaports, especially in Syracuse, our naval oflSicers are remembered as the most liberal of gentlemen. A deputation, not many years since, when the American squad- ron in the Mediterranean wintered there, waited on the com- modore, and ofiered to cooperate with him in annexing Sicily to the United States. A spacious hotel was built at Syracuse, under the expectation that the fine harbor of that ancient city would become the permanent rendezvous of our fleet ; but the jealousy of Bomba interposed, and Mahon continued to be the depot of our national ships, until Spezzia was substi- tuted. Within a short period it was impossible to find in Sicily a book that could enlighten a native, in the Italian lan- guage, as to the actual resources and institutions of America. In 1853, however, one of the Palenno editors published a volume giving an accovmt of his experience in the United States, with statistics and political facts, interspersed with no small amoimt of complacent gossip. The novelty of the subject then and there seemed to atone for the superficial and egotistic tone. Very amusing it was to an American so- journer in the beautiful Sicilian capital, to glance at the " Viaggio nella America Settentrionale di Salvatore Abbate e Migliori." We have seen what kind of gossip the French and English indulge in while recording their experience in America ; let us compare with it a Sicilian's. He avows his object in visiting the New World — to ascertain for himself how far the unfavorable representations of a well-known class of British ti'avellers are correct. He gravely assures his countrymen that, although foreigners are kindly received there, the Government does not pay for the transit of emi- gres. The great characteristic which naturally impressed a subject of Ferdinand of Naples, was the non-interference of Government with private persons and affairs, except when the former have rendered themselves directly amenable to the ITALIAN TRAVELLERS. 363 law, by some invasion of the rights of others — an inestimable privilege ia the view of one who has lived imder espionage, sMrri, and the inquisition. All things are ganged by the law of contrast in this world ; and it is curious, with the bitter and often just complaints of Englishmen of the discomforts of travel in America fresh in mind, to note the delight with which a Sicilian, accustomed to the rude lettiga^ hard mule, precarious fare, and risk of encountering bandits, expatiates upon the safety, the society, and abundant rations accorded the traveller in the Western world. " Ecco," exclaims Salva- tore, after describing a delightful tete-a-tete with a fair com- panion in the cars, and a hearty supper on board the steamer en route from Boston to New York, " Ecco il felice modo di viaggiare negli Stati Uniti sia per terra che per acqua ; divertimenti sociali e senza prejudizii, e celerita di viaggio libero dai furtori e dagli assassini." The/esto bells of some saint are forever ringing in Sicily; and, although our traveller found holidays few and far be- tween in this busy land, he describes, with much zest, the first of May, New Year's, and St. Valentine's Day in New York. His journal, while there, is quite an epitome of what is so familiar to us as to be scarcely realized, imtil thus " set in a note book," as the strange experience of a Southern Euro- pean. To him, intelligence offices for domestics, mock auc- tions, the Empire Club, anniversaries of national societies, the frequency of conflagrations, matrimonial advertisements, the extent of insurance, the variety and modes of worship of Protestant sects, the number and freedom of public jour- nals, the unimpeded association of the sexes, and the size and splendor of the fashionable stores and hotels, are features and facts of metropolitan life so novel as to claim elaborate description. Amusement is an essential element of life to an Italian, fostered by his sensibility to pleasant excitement, and his long political vassalage. Accordingly, Salvatore devotes no inconsiderable portion of his book to the public entertain- ments available in our cities. Few Americans imagine how much an enthusiastic foreigner can find to gratify his taste 364 AMEEICA AND HER COMMENTATOES. and divert his mind in New York. The careers of the cele- brated English actors, Italian opera singers, and German pianists, the concerts of Ole Bull and De Meyer, the military balls, travelling circuses, pubUc dinners, private soirees, and theatres, afford Salvatore a theme upon which he dilates as only one of his sensitive and mercurial race can ; and the American reader is astonished to discover what abundant provision for the pleasure seeker may be found in our utUitar rian land. More grave interests, however, are not forgotten. A suc- cinct but authentic account is given of some of the aborigi- nal tribes ; our constitutional system is clearly stated ; the details of government in the Eastern and Middle States are defined ; the means and methods of education ; the cereals, trees, rivers, charitable institutions, agricultural and mechani- cal industry of .the country, are intelligently explained and illustrated ; and thus a considerable amoimt of important information afforded, altogether new to the mass of his countrymen. This is evidently collected from books of refer- ence ; and its tone and material form an absolute contrast to the light-hearted and childish egotism of the writer's own diary, wherein the vanity of a versifier and sentimentalism of a beau continually remind us of the amiable gallants and dilettante litterateurs we have met among Salvatore's country- men. His generalizations are usually correct, but tinctm-ed with his national temperament. He describes the Americans as " a little cold, thoughtful, sustained, grave, positive in speech and argument, brave, active, intelligent, and true in friendship." The Northerners, he says, " are born with the instinct of work, and in physiognomy are like Europeans." Though there are " not many rich, most are comfortable ; and, though few are learned, the great majority are intelli- gent. Labor is a social requisition ; moderate fortunes and large families abound ; and the test question in regard to a stranger is, ' "What can he do ? ' " He sums u]) the peciiliar advantages of the coimtry as consisting of " a good climate, a fertUe soil, salubrious air and water, abundance of provis- rrALIAN TRAVELLERS. 365 ions, adequate pay for labor, good laws, aflfable women, en- couragements to matrimony, freedom, and public education " — each and all of which he seems to appreciate from the con- trast they afford to the civil wrongs and social limitations of his own beautiful land, not then emancipated from the most degrading of modern despotisms. He notes the temperature with care, and has occasion to realize its extreme alternations. To a Sicilian, a snowstorm and sleighing must prove a winter carnival ; and Salvatore gives a chapter to what he calls " La citta nel giubello della neve." He finds the American women charming, and marvels at the extent and variety of their edu- cational discipline, giving the programme of» studies in a fashionable female seminary as one of the wonders of the land ; and also a catalogue of popular and gifted female ivTiters, as an unprecedented social fact in his experience. Salvatore was a great reader of newspapers while in this country, and was in the habit of transcribing, from those " charts of busy life," characteristic incidents and articles wherewith to illustrate his record of life in America. He was puffed by editorial friends, and mentions such compli- ments, as well as the publication of some of his own verses, with no little complacency ; as, for instance, " Quest' oggi, contra ogui mia aspettazione, si e pubblicato nel giomale — • Evening Post, un elogio dando a conoscere agli Americani lo scopo del mio viaggio," &c. ; and elsewhere, " il mio addio all' America e stato messo in niusica." One of the latest publications of Italian origin, although written in the French language and by a French citizen, is that of a Corsican officer, one of Prince Napoleon's suite, on his brief visit to the United States, in the summer of 1861.* Eighteen hundred leagues traversed in two months, " more with eyes than ears or mind," would seem to afford a most inadequate basis for discussion where grave facts of national polity and character are its subjects ; but when the author of such a record begins by confessing himself mistaken as a * " Lettres sur les £tats-Unis d'Amerique," par le Lieutenant-Colonel Ferri Pisani, Aide-de-camp de S. A. I. le Prince Napoleon, Paris, 1862. 366 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. prophet, and disclaims all pretensions to other accuracy and interest than can be found in a " point de vue general," and " portraits saisis au vol," and " resumes de conversations fugi- tives," we accept his report and speculations with zest, if not with entire satisfaction, and accompany his rapid expedition, animated descriptions, and thoughtful though hasty com- mentary, with the more pleasure inasmuch as the temper and tone of both indicate an experienced traveller, a shrewd observer, and a cultivated thinker. The time of this visit and date of its record give thereto an interest apart from any intrinsic claim. America had just been converted from a world of peaceful industry to a scene of civil war. The Gallic visitors compared the crisis to that which had once hurled France into anarchy and military despotism ; and be- held here a mighty army improvised in the Free States, with no apparent check to their industrial prosperity ; and govern- mental powers assumed to meet the exigency without pro- voking any popular distrust in the rectitude of the authori- ties or the safety of their rights ; arrests, proscription, and enlistments were sanctioned by public confidence ; in a word, the patriotism of an instructed people was the safeguard of the republic. It is remarkable that a writer whose mind was so pre- occupied with the exciting mUitary scenes and imminent political problems of the day, should have become so thor- oughly and justly impressed with the religious phenomena of the Eastern States, tracing their development from the Pilgrims to Edwards, and thence to "Whitfield and Channing ; and the conflicts of faith thus foreshadowed. " Les Etats- Unis," he writes, " presentent en ce moment des spectacles bien emouvants. Les armees s'entrechoquent sur tons les points de leur immense temtoire. Une race qui semblait devoir realiser ] 'ideal pacifique de I'humanite moderne se transforme tout a coup en un peuple belliqueux et se dechire de ses propres mains. D'autre part I'esclavage se dresse, au milieu des horreurs de la guerre, come une question de vie ou de mort, devant laquelle reculent et le philosophe, et I'homme 18* ITALIAN TEAVELLEKS. 367 d'etat et I'economiste. Eh bien ! faut-il vous I'avouer, mon colonel, tous ces faits extraordinaires, dont nous sommes temoins, et qui rempliront un jour I'histoire de ce siecle, ont a mes yeux una portee moins redoutable que celui que nous venons de trouver a Boston, un de ces faits qui bouleversent la condition de I'homme, sans s'inscrire, comme les grands evenements politiques, en traits de feu et du sang, dans sa memoire. Je veux parler de I'etablissement du Deisme dans le nouveau monde sous la forme d'une religion, d'une Eglise, du Deisme, non plus enseigne par ime philosophic sj)eculative, mais pratique comme im culte, comme un principe moral et social, par I'elite de la societe Americaine, et faisant, au de- pens du Protestantisme, les progres les plus effi-ayants." Thereupon we have a treatise on "Protestantism," from Edwards and Whitfield to Channing ; the Puritans, the voluntary church system, rationalism, &c., " face a face aveo le Catholicisme ; " and he concludes with the prophecy that " ce sera entre ces deux champions que se livrera le combat supreme qui d^cidera des destiiiees futures de I'humanite." Colonel Pisani's letters are a striking illustration of the facilities of modern travel. He describes the complete and elegant appointments of the swift and safe steam yacht in which Prince Napoleon, his wife, and suite, after visiting various points of the Old World, crossed the ocean, and, in a very few weeks, saw half a continent. They entered the harbor of New York, after days of cautious navigation owing to the dense fog, which, fortunately, and almost dra- matically, lifted just as they sailed up the beautiful bay, re- vealing, under the limpid effulgence of a summer day, a spec- tacle which enchanted the Colonel, familiar as he was with the harbors of Naples and Constantinople. The reader can scarcely help findirfg a parallel in this sud- den and delightful change in the natural landscape, with that which exists between the preface and the text of this work, in regard to the national cause. Arriving at the moment when the defeat of the Federal army at Bull Run had spread dismay among the conservative traders, and warmed to im- 368 AMERICA ANTD HEE COMMENTATOES. prudent exultation the traitors of the North, all the travel- lers heard from the official representatives of their country ■who greeted their arrival, was discouraging — almost hopeless for the republic. His Highness thought otherwise, and viewed the national cause with imshaken confidence ; but Colonel Pisani, in giving his letters to the public, a year afterward, found himself obliged to retract premature fore- bodings, and admit a reaction and reversal, not only of the fortimes of war, but of the vital prospects of the nation. Midsummer is the worst period of the year for a foreigner to arrive in New York — a fact this writer scarcely appreciated, as he regards the deserted aspect of the palatial residences as their normal condition, and speaks of the then appearance of the population as if it were characteristic. Surprised by the courteous urbanity of those with whom he came in contact in shops, streets, and public conveyances, he contrasts this superiority of manners with his anticipations of ruffianism, and with the utter neglect of municipal method and decency. The American steamboats and railways are fully discussed and described. Broadway seems to Pisani a bazaar a league and a half in length. He misses the taste in dress familiar to a Parisian's eye, thinks the horses and harnesses fine, but the horsemen and equipages inferior. Despite "les indus- tries de luxe," men of leisure, varied culture, and special tastes seemed quite rare, and the average physiognomy un- attractive. The architecture and aspect of the hotels strike him as sombre compared with those of Paris ; and he de- clares every gamin of that metropolis would ridicule our popular and patriotic fetes as childish attempts thereat, Avhich he attributes to the basis of Anglo-Saxon reserve in the na- tional character, wherein " I'expression de la pensee est rare- ment dans un rapport exact avec la pensee elle-meme." De- centralization, and all its phenomena, naturally impress his mind, accustomed to routine and method ; and the manner of recruiting and organizing — in fact, the whole military regime of the country — offers salient points of comment and criticism to one who has long witnessed the results of professional life ITALIAN TKAVELLEKS. 369 in this spbere. Visiting Philadelphia, Washington, and the great lakes, adapting themselves to the customs and the peo- ple, examining all things with good-natnred intelligence, this record contains many acvtte remarks and suggestive generali- zations. We have numerous portraits of individuals, sketches of scenery, reflections on the past, and speculations as regards the future. The absence of a concierge at the White House, the naivete of the new President, the character and principles of statesmen and of parties, are subjects of candid discus- sion. The mines of Lake Superior, the community of Rapp- ists, McCormick's manufactory of " engins agricoles," the local trophies and the economical resources of the covmtry, find judicious mention. While the Colonel is indignant at the " curiosite brutale " encountered in the West, he pays a grateful tribute to the hospitality of the people. At Pitts- burg, the site of Fort Duquesne, he reverts with j^ride and pathos, to the French domination on this continent, recalls its military successes, and laments its final overthrow. At Moimt Vernon he thinks of Lafayette's last visit, and sadly contrasts that period of republican enthusiasm and prosperity with the sanguinary conflict of the passing hour. Lideed, the value and interest of these letters consist in the vivid glimpses they afibrd of the darkest hour in our history as a free peo- ple, and the indirect but authentic testimony thus afforded to the recuperative and conservative power of our institutions and national character. Colonel Pisani accompanied Prince Napoleon in his visits to the camps of both armies, and heard their respective officers express their sentiments freely. Rare in the history of war is such an instance of dual observation apparently candid ; seldom has the same pen recorded, within a few hours, impressions of two hostile forces, their aspect, condition, aims, anhnus, and leaders. Rapid as was the jour- ney and hasty the inspection, we have many true and vivid pictures and portraits ; and it is interesting to note how gradually but surely the latent resources of the coimtry, the absolute instincts of the popular will, and the improved be- cause sustained force of the Government, are revealed to the 16* 370 AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATOES. mind of this pleasant raconteur, who brings home to the American reader the moral crisis, so memorable in the retro- spect, which succeeded our premature battle for national Ijonor and life — whose vital current, thus baffled, shrank back to the heart of the republic, only to return with fresh and permanent strength to every vein in the body politic, and vitalize the popular brain and heart with concentrated patri- otic soope, insight, and action. Absorbing, however, as was the question of the hour even to a casual sojourner, the physical, social, and economical traits of the country were only more sympathetically examined by the intelligent party of the Prince because of the war cloud that overhmig them ; and we are transported from inland sea and lonely prairie to the capital of New England, where, says the Colonel, " for the first time I believed myself in Europe," and to quite other society than the governmental circles at Washington or the financial cliques of New York. At Cambridge and Bos- ton, with Agassiz, Felton, Everett, and others, he found con- genial minds. The speech of the latter at a parting banquet given the Prince, is noted as a model of tact and rhetoi'ic ; while " Vive la France," the refrain of Holmes' song, with happy augury cheered their departure. CHAPTER X. AMEBIGAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. JOHN AND "WTLLTAM BARTKAM ; MADAME KNIGHT ; LEDYAED ; CAR- VER ; JEFFERSON ; IMLAY ; DWIGHT ; COXE ; INGERSOLL ; WALSH ; PAULDING ; FLINT ; CLINTON ; HALL ; TUDOR ; WIRT ; COOPER ; HOFFMAN ; OLMSTED ; BRYANT ; GOVERNMENT EXPLORATIONS ; "WASHINGTON ; MRS. KIRKLAND ; IRVING ; AMERICAN ILLUSTRA- TIVE LITERATURE ; BIOGRAPHY ; HISTORY ; MANUALS ; ORATORY ; ROMANCE ; POETRY ; LOCAL PICTURES ; EVERETT, HAWTHORNE, CHANTSONG, ETC. There is one class of travellers in America that have peculiar claims upon native sympathy and consideration ; for neither foreign adventure nor royal patronage, nor even pri- vate emolument, prompted their journeyings. Natives of the soil, and inspired either by scientific or patriotic enthusi- asm — not seldom by both — they strove to make one part of our vast country known to the other ; to reveal the natural beauties and resources thereof to their neighbors, and to Europeans ; and to promote national development by careful exploration and faithful reports. All the intelligent pioneers of our border civilization more or less enacted the part of beneficent travellers. Public spirit, in colonial and later times, found scope in expeditions which opened paths through the wilderness, tested soil, climate, and natural productions, and estimated the facilities hitherto locked up in primeval soli- 372 AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATOES. tudes. Washington's early surveys, Boone's first sojourn in the woods of Kentucky, Clinton's visit to Western New York to trace the course of the Eric Canal, are examples of this incidental kind of home travel, so useful to the early statesmen and the political economists. At subsequent periods, the natural features of the Great West were revealed to us by Flint and Hall ; New England local and social traits were agreeably reported by Tudor and Dwight ; Lewis and Clarke gave the first authentic glimpses of the Rocky Moun- tains and the adjacent plains, afterward so bravely traversed by Fremont and others ; and Schoolcraft gathered up the traditions and the characteristics of those regions still occu- pied by the aborigines ; and while Audubon tracked the feathered creation along the whole Atlantic coast, Percival examined every rood of the soil of Connecticut. Among the most interesting of the early native travellers in America, are the two Bartrams. Their in'Stinctive fond- ness for nature, a simplicity and veneration born of the best original Quaker influence, and habits of rural work and medi- tation, throw a peculiar charm aroimd the memoirs of these kindly and assiduous naturalists, and make the account they have left of their wanderings fresh and genial, notwithstand- ing the vast progress since made in the natural sciences. John Bartram's name is held in grateful honor by botanists, as " the first Anglo-American who conceived the idea of establishing a botanic garden, native and exotic." He was lured to this enterprise, and its kindred studies, by the habit of collecting American plants and seeds for his friend, Peter CollLnson, of London. Encouraged by him, Bartram began to investigate and experiment in this pleasant field of inquiry. He was enabled to confirm Logan's theory in regard to maize, and to illustrate the sexes of plants. From such a humble and isolated beginning, botany expanded in this country into its present elaborate expositions. The first systematic enii- meration of American plants was commenced in Holland, by Gronovius, from descriptions furnished by John Clayton, of Virginia. As early as 1Y32, Mark Catesby, of Virginia, had AMERICAN TEAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 373 published a volume on the " Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahamas." Golden, of New York, corre- sponded with European botanists, from his sylvan retreat near Newburg. We have already noticed the visit to America of a pupil of Linnoeus — Peter Kalm. The labors of Logan, Dr. Mitchell, Dr. Adam Kuhn of Philadelphia, the first professor of botany there, the establishment of Ho- sack's garden in New York, Dr. Schoeffs, Humphrey Mar- shall, Dr. CuUen of Berlin, the two Michauxs, Clinton, and the Abbe Correa, promoted the investigation and elucidation of this science in America, until it became associated with the more recent accomplishqd expositors. But with the earliest impulse and record thereof, the name of John Bartram is delightfully associated ; and it is as a naturalist that he made those excursions, the narrative of which retains the charm of ingenuous zeal, integrity, and kindliness. John Bartram was born in Delaware, then Chester Coimty, Penn., in 1699. His great-grandfather had lived and died in Derbyshire, England; his grandfather followed William Penn to the New World, and settled in the State which bears the famous Quaker's name ; his father married, " at Darby meeting, Elizabeth Hunt," and had three sons, of whom John, the eldest, in- herited from an uncle the farm. His early education was meagre, as far as formal teaching is concerned. He studied the grammar of the ancient languages, and had a taste for the medical art, in which he acquired skill enough to make him a most welcome and efficient physician to the poor. It is probable that, as a simpler, seeking herbs of alleviating virtues, he was won to that love of nature, especially fruits, flowers, and plants, which became almost a ruling passion. But, according to the exigencies of the time and country, Bartram was an agriculturist by vocation, and assiduous therein ; yet this did not prevent his indulging his scientific love of nature and his philosophic instinct : he observed and he reflected while occupied about his farm. The laws of vegetation, the loveliness of flowers, the mysteries of growth, were to him a perpetual miracle. To the thrift and sim- 374: AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATOES. plicity of life common among the original farmers of Amer- ica, he united an ardent love of knowledge and an admira- tion of the processes and the products of nature — partly a sentiment and partly a scientific impulse. Purchasing a tract on the banks of the Schuylkill, three miles from Philadelphia, he built, with his own hands, a commodious dwelling, culti- vated five acres as a garden, and made continual journeys in search of plants. The place became so attractive, that visit- ors flocked thither. By degrees he gained acquaintances abroad, established correspondence and a system of ex- changes with botanists, and so laid the foundation of botani- cal enterprise and taste in America. This hale, benign, and wise man, rarely combining in his natm'e the zeal and ob- servant habitude of the naturalist with the serene self-posses- sion of the Friend, travelled over a large part of the country, explored Ontario, the domain of the Iroquois, the shores and sources of the Hudson, Delaware, Schuylkill, Susquehanna, Alleghany, and San Juan. At the age of seventy he visited Carolina and Florida. Peter Collinson wrote of him to Golden as a " wonderful natural genius, considering his education, and that he was never out of America, but is a husbandman." " His obser- vations," he adds, " and accounts of all natural productions, are much esteemed here for their accuracy. It is really astonishing what a knowledge the man has attained merely by the force of industry and his own genius." The journal* of his tour was sent to England, and was published " at the instance of several gentlemen." The pre- face shows how comparatively rare were authentic books of Travel from natives of America, and how individual were Bartram's zeal and enterprise in this respect. " The inhab- itants of all the colonies," says the writer, " have eminently * " Observations on the Climate, Soil, Rivers, Productions, &c., made by Jolin Bartram in liis Travels from Pensilvania to Onondaga, Oswego, and the Lake Ontario in Canada ; to which is annexed a Curious Account of the Cataracts of Niagara, by Mr. Peter Kalm, a Swedish Gentleman who travelled there," London, 1751. AMEKICAN TRAVELLERS AJ^D WKITEKS. 375 deserved the character of industrious in agriculture and commerce. I could wish they had as well deserved that of adventurous inland discoverers / in this they have been much outdone by another nation, whose poverty of country and unsettled temper have prompted them to such views of ex- tending their possessions, as our agriculture and commerce make necessary for us to imitate." The region traversed by Bartram a little more than a cen- tury ago, and described in this little volume, printed in the old-fashioned type, and bearing the old imprimatur of Fleet street, is one across and around which many of us have flown in the rail car, conscious of little but alternate meadows, woodland, streams, and to-^Tis, all denoting a thrifty and populous district, -^-ith here and there a less cultivated tract. Over this domain Bertram moved slowly, with his senses quickened to take in whatsoever of wonder or beauty nature exhibited. He experienced much of the exposure, privation, and precarious resources which befall the traveller to-day on our Western frontier ; and it is difficult to imagine that the calm and patient naturalist, as he notes the aspects of natm'e and the incidents of a long pilgrimage, is only passing over the identical ground which the busy and self-absorbed vota- ries of traffic and pleasure now daily pass, with scarcely a consciousness of what is around and beside them of natural beauty or productiveness. It is worth while to retrace the steps of Bartram, were it only to realize anew the eternal truth of our poet's declaration, that " To him who in the love of nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A varied language." It was on the 3d of July, 1743, that John Bartram set out, with a companion, from liis home on the Schuylkill. His narrative of that summer journey from the vicinity of Phila- delphia to Lake Ontario, reads like the journal of some intel- ligent wayfarer in the far West ; for the plants and the ani- 376 AMERICA AND HEE COIIMENTATOKS. mals, the face of the country, the traveller's expedients, the Indian camps, and the isolated plantations, bring before us a thinly scattered people and wild region, whereof the present features are associated with all the objects and influences of civilization. Flocks of wild turkeys and leagues of wild grass are early noted ; the variety and character of the trees afford a constant and congenial theme ; swamps, ridges, hol- lows alternate ; chestnuts, oaks, pines, and poplars are silent but not unwelcome comrades ; snakes, as usual, furnish curi- ous episodes : Bartram observed of one, that he " contracted the muscles of his scales when provoked, and that, after the mortal stroke, his splendor diminished." He remarks, at one place, " the impression of shells upon loose stones ; " he is annoyed by gnats ; and, in an Indian lodge, " hung up his blanket like a hammock, that he may lie out of fleas." (He lingers in an old aboriginal orchard w^ell stocked with fruit trees ; swims creeks, coasts rivers, lives on duck, deer, and " boiled squashes cold ; " smokes a pipe — " a customary civil- ity," he says, " when parties meet." Here he finds " excellent flat whetstones," there "an old beaver dam;" now "roots of ginseng," and again "sulphurous mud;" one hour he is drenched with rain, and another enraptured by the sight of a magnolia ; here refreshed by the perfume of a honeysuckle, and there troubled by a yellow wasp. No feature or phase of nature seems to escape him. He notes the earth beneath, the vegetation around, and the sky above ; fossils, insects, Indian ceremonies, flowers ; the expanse of the " dismal wil- derness," the eels roasted for supper, and the moss and fim- gus as well as locusts and caterpillars. He travelled on foot to the Onondaga, and paddled down in a bark canoe to the Oneida, " down which the Albany traders come to Oswego." He stops at a little town thereabout " of four or five cabins," where the people live " by catching fish and assisting the Albany people to haul their bateaux." In this region of railways and steamboats, such were then the locomotive facilities. Nor less significant of its frontiei- Avilderness is Bartram's description of the spot which has long flourished AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WKITERS. 377 as the grain depot and forwarding mart of "Western New York, where immense warehouses line the river, and fleets of barges, steamers, and schooners chister along the lake shoi'e. Oswego is identified Avith his j^icture mainly by the topogra- phy. " On the point formed by the entrance of the river stands the fort, or Trading Castle. It is a strong stone house, encompassed by a stone wall twenty feet high and one hun- dred and twenty paces round, built of large square stones very curious for their softness. I cut my name in it with my knife. The town consists of about se"venty log houses, of which half are in a row near the river ; the other half oppo- site to them, on the other side of a fair, where two streets are divided by a row of posts in the midst, where each Indian has his house to lay his goods, and where any of the traders may traffic with him. This is surely an excellent regulation for preventing the traders from imposing on the Indians. The chief officer in command at the castle keeps a good look- out to see when the Indians come down the lake with their poultry and furs, and sends a canoe to meet them, which con- ducts them to the castle, to prevent any person enticing them to put ashore privately, treating them with spirituous liquors, and then taking that opportimity of cheating them. Oswego is an infant settlement made by the province of New York, with the^noble view of gaining to the crown of Great Britain the command of the five lakes ; and the dependence of the Indians in their neighborhood to its subjects, for the benefit of the trade upon them, and of the rivers that empty them- selves into them. At present the whole navigation is carried on by Indian bark canoes ; but a good Englishman cannot be withoiit hopes of seeing these great lakes one day accustomed to English navigation. It is true, the famous Fall of Niagara is an insurmountable barrier to all passage by water from the Lake Ontario into the Lake Erie. The honor of first discov- ering these extensive fresh-water seas is certainly due to the French. The traders from New York come hither up the MohaAvk River, but generally go by land from Albany to Schenectady ; about twenty miles from the Mohawk the car- 378 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS. riage is but three miles to the river, that falls into the Oneida Lake, which discharges itself into the Onondaga River. It is evident, from the face of the earth, that the water of Lake Ontario has considerably diminished." It is interesting to conti*ast the vague and timid conjec- tures of Bartram with the subsequent facts in the develop- ment of that intercourse between the lakes, the far interior, and the seacoast, whence dates so much of the commercial and agricultural prosperity not only of the State of New York, but of the metropolis, and the vast regions of the West. Bartram observed, at Oswego, " a kitchen garden and a graveyard to the southwest of the castle," which reminds him that " the neighborhood of this lake is esteemed un- healthful." This opinion, however, refers only to a large swampy district, and not to the elevated site of the present town. Draining and population have long since redeemed even the low lands from this insalubrity ; and now, in conse- quence of the constant winds from that immense body of pure water, Oswego enjoys a better degree of health than any place in Western New York. Its summer climate is preferable to that of any inland city of the State. Bartram notes many traits of Indian life there — the girls playing with beans, and the squaws addicted to rum, and " drying huckle- berries." As usual, he expatiates on the trees, and especially admires specimens of the arbor vita? and white lychiims. The last entry in this quaintly pleasing journal is characteris- tic of the writer's domestic and religious faith, and of the adventurous nature of a tour which then occupied seven or eight weeks, and is now practicable in a few hours. Under date of August 19th, he writes: "Before sunset I had the pleasure of seeing my own home and family, and found them in good health ; and with a sincere mind I returned thanks to the A^iiiighty Power that had preserved ns all." At an advanced age Bartram embarked at Philadelphia for Charleston, S. C, and went thence, by land, through a portion of Carolina and Georgia, to St. Augustine, in Florida. While there, he received the appointment of botanist and AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 3T9 naturalist to the king of England, with directions to trace the San Juan River to its source. Leaving St. Augustine, he embarked in a boat at Picolata, ascended and descended that beautiful river nearly four hundred miles, making careful observations not only as to distances, width, depth, currents, shores, cfcc, but recording all the physical facts, vegetable and animal. The full and accurate report thereof he sent to the Board of Trade and Plantations, in England. The labor of love this exploration proved to him, may be imagined from the enthusiastic terms in which Florida, its coast, its flowers, and its climate, are described by subsequent naturalists, especially Audubon and Agassiz. The latter thinks the com- bination of tropical and western products and aspects there unrivalled in the world. It is, indeed, a paradise for the naturalist, from its wonderful coral reefs to its obese turtles, and from its orange groves, reminding the traveller of Sicily, to its palms, breathing of the East. When old John Bar- tram, in his lonely boat, glided amid its fertile solitudes, it was a virgin soil, not only to the step of civihzation, but the eye of science ; and later and far more erudite students of nature have recognized the honest zeal and intelligent obser- vation wherewith the venerable and assiduous botanist of the Schuylkill recorded the wonders and the beauty of the scene. But it was amid his farm and flowers that Bartram appeared to memorable advantage. His manners, habits, and appear- ance, his character and conversation, seem to have em- bodied, in a remarkable manner, the idea of a rural citizen of America as cherished by the republican enthusiasts of Eu- rope. The comfort, simplicity, self-respect, native resom'ces, and benign faith and feeling incident to a free country life^ religious education, and a new land, were signally manifest in the home of the Quaker botanist. A Russian gentleman, who visited him in 1769, describes these impressions in a let- ter. He was attracted to Bartram's house from knowing him as a correspondent of French and Swiss botanists, and even of Queen Ulrica, of Sweden. Approaching his home, the neatness of the buildings, the disposition of fields, fences, 380 AMEEICA AND HER COMMENTATOES. and trees, the perfect order and the prosperous industry ap- parent, won the stranger's heart at a glance. Nor was he less charmed with the s;reetini? he received from " a woman at the door, in a simple but neat dress," in answer to his in- quiry for the master. " If thee will step in and take a chair, I will send for him." He preferred walking over the farm. Following the Schuylkill, as it wound among the meadows, he reached a place where ten men were at work, and asked for Mr. Bartram ; whereupon one of the group, " an elderly man, with wide trousers and a large leather apron on, said, " My name is Bartram ; dost thee want me ? " " Sir," reiDlied the visitor, " I came on purpose to converse, if you can be spared from your labor." " Very easily," he replied ; and, returning to the house, the host changed his clothes, re- appeared, conducted his guest to the garden, and they j)assed many hours in a conversation so delectable, that the foreign visitor grows enthusiastic in his delight at this unique co'mbi- nation of labor and knowledge, simplicity of life and study of nature. One remark of Bartram's recalls a similar one of Sir Walter Scott's, as to the best residts of literary fame ; and it is a striking coincidence in the experience of two of nature's noblemen, so widely separated in their pursuits and endowments : " The greatest advantage," observed the rural philosopher to his Russian visitor, " which I receive from what thee callest my botanical fame, is the pleasure which it often procures me in receiving the visits of friends and for- eigners." Summoned to dinner by a bell, they entered a large hall where was spread a long table, occupied, at the lower end, by negroes and hired men, and, at the other, by the family and their guest. The venerable father and his wife " declined their heads in prayer " — which " grace before meat," says the visitor, was " divested of the tedious cant of some, and ostentatious style of others." Nor was he less charmed with the plain but substantial fare, the cordial man- ners, the amenities of the household, and the dignity of its head. Madeira was produced ; an ^^olian harp vibrated me- lodiously to the summer breeze ; and they talked botany and AMERICAJST TEATELLKRS AND WEITEE8. 381 agriculture to their heart's content. The knowledge of Bar- tram surprised his auditor. He found a coat of arms amid all this primitive life, and learned that it was possible to unite the simplicity of American wdth the associations of European domiciles. To him, the scene and the character whence ema- nated its best charm, were a refreshing novelty ; and he endeavors to solve the mystery by frankly questioning his urbane host, whose story was clear enough. " ' What a shame,' said my mind, or something that inspired my mind," observed the latter, in explaining the first impulse to his career, " ' that thou shouldst have employed so many years in tilling the earth, and destroying so many flowers and plants, without being acquainted with their structure and their uses.' By steady application," he added, " for several years, I have acquired a pretty general kno^\'ledge of every plant and tree to be found on this continent." But it was the social phenomena of Bartram's house that impressed " the stranger within his gates," not less than the " pursuit of knowledge under difficulties ; " the skilful method of the farming opera- tion ; the deference, without servility, of the w^orkitien ; the gentle bearing of the negroes, and the serene order and dig- nity, yet 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, CoUinson, and Fothergill abroad ; the medal he I'eceived from "a society of gentlemen in Edinburgh;" the seeds he sent IMichaux and Jefierson ; the books sent him 382 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATOES. 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 coimtry 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 ; di'eaded 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, 1V77. His name stands next to Franklin's in the record of the American Philosoijhical Society. The war of the Revolution shortened his days ; as the approach of the royal army, after the battle of BrandyT\dne, 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 tempei^ance 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 featiires. He Avas " incapable of dissimula- tion," and deemed " improving conversation and bodily exer- cise" the best pastimes. Meditative, a reader of Scripture, he was born a Quaker, but his creed was engraved by his own hand over the window of his study — a simple but fer- vent recognition of God. It is as delightful as it is rare to behold the best tastes and influence of a man reproduced and prolonged in his de- scendants ; and this exceptional trait of American life we find in the career and character of John Bartram's son William, who was born at the Botanic Garden, Kingsessing, Pennsylvania, in 1Y39, and died in 1823. One of his early AMEKICAN TRAVELLERS AND 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 "v^rrites 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 wa's old, and flapped over his face. His coarse shirt Avas 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 Avith 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 HEE 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 cmious 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 A^Titing 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 Aixdubon and Agassiz 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 bumblebee, 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 riorida, 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, loaf, &c.), by William Bartram, Philadelphia, 1791, London, 1792. AsrEEICAN TKAVELLEKS 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 cyjjress, 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 Avho 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 Avhen 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 I'egarded as a superior person in character and culture. 17 386 AMERICA AJiTD HEK COMMENTATOES. 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 the " minister of the town," to the " post," and relatives along the route, for hospitality and escort. She often j)assed 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 yoimg 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 Fairfield she says : " They have abundance of sheep, whose very dung brings them great gain, with part of which they pay their parson's AMERICAN TEAVELLERS 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 r 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 skuis and provisions, he floated down the Connecticut River, stopping at night, and reading, at inter%^als, Ovid and the Greek Testament. Inter- rupted in his lonely voyage by Bellows' Falls, he efiected 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 hali^at a period when such a pilgrimage required no little courage and par 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 \iseful 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 savan% who promoted the sale of his " Travels," which were pub- X' 388 AMEKICA AND HER COMMENTATOKS. lished in London,* and passed through three editions. This work contains many facts of interest to economists and sci- entific men not then generally kno\^Ti. 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 inquiiy on account of the jirevalont theories regarding a Northwest Passage. Carver Avent 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 tact, 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 etnployc of the English Gov- ernment, induced the estabUshment 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 habitiial 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 edition, portrait, maps, and plates, London, 1781. AMERICAN TEAVELLEES AND WRITEES. 389 useful in themselves, and as yet but partially recorded, than^.^ Thomas Jefferson, Avho 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 amjsle opportunity to observe the laM'S of nature, the methods of culture, and the means of 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, wiU not be much impressed Avith his literary talents or culture. In eloquence and argumenta- tive poAver he was far inferior to Hamilton. His memoir of himself has little of the frank simplicity and 9ia'ive attraction /" that have made Franklin's Life a household book ; while the fame of the Declaration of Independence Av^olly eclipses any reuoAvn derived from the Avisdom and occasional vivacity of his correspondence, or the curious linowledge displayed in his " Notes " on his native State. The eminence of the Avriter 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 ciA'ic experiment, his representatiA^e character in the Avorld of opinion, the coincidence of his death with the anniversary of the most illustrious deed of his life, and Avith 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, Loudon, IVS*?. 390 AMEKICA AND HEK 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.vrork, 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 qxioted 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 covmtry. 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, Hutchins, 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 avcU 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 AYestern Territories, 1793. Comprises a valuable mass of mate- rials for the early history of the Western country, embodying the enti^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. AlVIEBICAN TRAVELLERS AND "WRITEKS. 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 th^ir 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-res])ect, 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, gloving knowledge for its own sake, and eager to diflTuse 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 392 AMEEICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. States, at the period, than may he gleaned from Dwight'a Travels. They preserve some original features and foots ' 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 jjartially 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 elabt. orate, of the White Mountains, Lake George, Niagara, and the Catskills, are those gleaned by Timothy Dwight, in his lonely Avanderings at a time when, to travel at all, was to / isolate oneself, and be inspired Avith 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 Aicould 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 xiseful and entertaining, as they are now valuable and agreeable. Robert Southey, whose literary taste was singularly catholic, and Avho had labored enough in the field of authorship to duly estimate everything that^pontributes to the use or beauty of the vocation, wrote of Dwight's " Travels," in the Quar- terly jRevlew : " The work before us, though the humhlest 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 / vTish to gratify those who, a hundred years hence, might feel curios- AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 393 ity concerning his native country, made him 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 histor}^ 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, TenchjCoxe, 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 17853:;^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 prosj^ects of the coimtry, a remarkable increase of for- eign commerce, shijjbuilding, 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 lifcj 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, 8vo., Philadelphia and London, 1795. 17* 394: AilERICA AND HER COlVrMENTATOES. " an equally numerous jDeople 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 Liciquin, 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 \A'Titers are cleverly ridiculed ; while a more kindly iind 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 purposCj^ 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. AMERICAif TEAVELLEES 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 Chai'les J. Ingersoll, of Philadelphia, a political litttrateur'' and well-known citizen, who has since figured in public life, and died within a few years. The London Quarterly, with characteristic vmfairness, assailed the M^ork, 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 Vork — historical, eco/' nomical, and critical — on the United States, and had arranged part of the materials therefor. A peculiarly bitter and im- 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 Kobert Walsh, 8vo., Philadelphia, 1819. 396 AMEEICA AND HEE COMMENTATOES. appeared in 1819. Its political bias made it somewhat imac- ceptable to a portion of his countrymen ; and, with the more full exposition of our intellectual resources which the growth of American litei-ature 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 efiectually as a memorial of the literary, political, and social injustice of England. _' In addition to Irving, IngersoU, Walsh, Everett, and Cooper, many of our 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 JBlacJcwoocVs Haf/azine, 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 rripidly 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 AMEKICAN TEAVELLERS AND WEITEK3. 397 raconteur and reporter of his country, in a British periodical of wide circulation and influence. No Soixthern State has been so fully described by early and later writers, as Virginia. 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 gavt 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 witli 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 Momit 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 HEE COMMENTATOES. 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 13atriotism ; and on that soil countless martyrs have offered i;p 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 TEAVELLEKS AND WKITEKS. 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 sej^arate 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 ofiicers 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 foi* 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 chai'ac- teristic of the Old Dominion as when the judicial mind of her Marshall, the eloquence of her Henry, the eccentricities 400 AMEKICA AND HEE COMMENTATOES. 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 tlie second war with England broke out, in " The Diverging His- torv 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 difliculties 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, wliich 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 Buftalo, 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 sufiered 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 witli 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 tha^ 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, Avill 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 obser\^ation, a generous 402 Al^IERICA 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 noi until the mature age of forty-fi^'e 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, surj^rising that his siiccess varied in the different sjiheres of literary experiment ; that the marks oi 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 efiective 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 tlian a passage across the Atlantic now ; and when material well-being was the inevitable and absorbing occupation of the newly settled 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 hmiself 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 di'awn 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 jom-nal. 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 valliable and inter- i esting to savant, naturalist, emigrant, and general readers y 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 FUnt, 2 vols, in 1, 8vo., Cincinnati, 1832. 404 AMEKICA AND HEK COMlVrENTATOES. 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, m Mas- sachusetts — Flint and his son were at Natchez, when the memorable tornado occurred which nearly destroyed the place, and were several hours buried xuider 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 accoimt of the remarkable region of whose history and aspect he wrote, consists in the fact that it is not the resvdt 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- ynent charm, and that is the purely descriptive. 'FHnt 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 Hibemicus " * 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 and Internal Resources of .tiie State of New York," by Hibemicus, New York, 1822, 18mo. / AMERICAN TEAVELLEES AND WEITERS. 405 nomical acliieveinents 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 his wayside observations in 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 exj^loration of Western ■ New York,* which originally appeared in one of the journals of the day, oifers a wonderful conti'ast 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, ui 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 farmliouse ; now they mount a baggage wagon, and now take to a boat too small to admit of sleeping afccommodations, which leads them constantly to regret their ' unfortimate 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 })atient observation, the enjoyment of nature, and the gleanings of knowledge, caused what, in our locomotive era, would seem a tedious pilgrimage, to bs/^ fraught with a pleasure and advantage of which our flying . toui'ists over modern railways never di'eam. 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." y^ 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 Avorld.' 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 ^rove, the bullet marks in the rafters of Fort Niagara, tokens of the siege under Sir Wilham Johnson, the boneset of the swamp, a certain remedy for the local fever, a Yankee exploring the coimtry for lands, the croaking of the bullfrog and the gleam of the firefly, Indian men spearing for fish, and girls making wampum — these and mnumerable other scerres and objects lure liim 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 j^oints a not less remarkable identity. Rochester is now famed as the source of one of the most prolific superstitions of the age ; and forty yehrs 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 curt^-ins, 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 sousrht in less civilized districts. The AMEEICAN 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 regaMed, 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 eqi;ally 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 moimtain 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 apostroj)hized 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 AUB HEE COMMENTATOES. distribution within her limits. This element is the natural and primitive means of intercommunication. For centuries it had borne the aborigines in their fraU canoes, and aftei'- 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 foimdation 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 Mississii^pi to commem- orate its alliance with the Atlantic, the ease and rapidity of the transit, and the spectacle of \'irgin 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, iinlike other Atlantic streams south of it, flows 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 imiting 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 histoiy, 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 ci\'ilization 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 extraordmary 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 intrustedy It was not as a theorist, but as a utilitarian, in the best sense, that he advocated the imion 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 midtitude that access was the grand secret of in- creased value ; that exchange of products was the touclistone 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 X 410 AMEEICA AND HER COMMENTATOKS. 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, whiqh 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 agamst 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 tliat ' 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 himdred thousand dollars.' Few, however, of the restless excursion- ists that now crowd om' 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- i AMERICAN TEAVELLEKS AND WKITEKS. 411 tially from that now in vogue, whicli 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, ' 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. ' I believe,' he adds, ' 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 volmne, and were among the first descriptive sketches of merit that made the Weskt familiar and attractive to the mass of read- ers. Born in Philadelj^hia in 1793, the author entered the army, and was engaged in the battle of Limdy'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 literatiwe. 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 thft/ 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 AMEEICA AND HEE COMMENTATOKS. | 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 hterally 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 id subject as their au- thors were in 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 HiU Momunent. William Wirt, ia 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 L'ving in the case of " Knickerbocker," he re- sorted to the ruse of a pretended discovery of papers left in an iun chamber. The success of these " Letters " surprised * " The British Spy ; or, Letters 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." — Gowan's Catalogue. AMEBIC AN TKAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 413 the author, as it would the reader of the present day unac- quainted with the circumstances. Superior in style to any > beUes-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 eloquencoi 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 l^erature, and give us y 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 ofier 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 Coimtrymen," and other productions in the shape of essays, fiction, and ^ satire, gave expression to convictions andTlarguments born of - sincere and patriotic motives and earnest thought. Li 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 AMEKICA AND HEK 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 eelat 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 liis 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, Avhose 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 an intelligent patriotism, such as, in these days of complex asso- AMERICAN TKAVELLEKS AND WKITEES. 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, atfd 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 amove 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 conjr- paratively tame and vague when a traveller at home — always excepting certain shrines of pilgrimage long consecrated to enthusiasm. He may have profoimd emotions at Niagara, confess the inspiration of a favorite seacoast, and expatiate upon the White Mountains with rapture ; but find a tour m 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 inve_sts 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 j for the novels of 416 AMEKICA AI^D HEE 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 Hoflman, 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 tlian 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. AilEKICAN TKAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 417 his reader in relation with himself, as he did the diverse characters lie 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 Ave 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 examjjles 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, speciiic, 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 coimtry 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 AMERICA 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 iuvolves 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. \ " 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- Bional glow in spite of its prevailing propriety and reserve." AMEKICAN 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 Avhich 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 churchi 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, Avhich 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 aj^ples. 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 HEK 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 luien manufacture at New Haven, white mul- berry " to feed silkworms " at Wallingford, and remarks that the silk culture, " except the weaving, is the Avork 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, '' 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 oflicials, 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 ofi 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 inci'eases. 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 TKAVELLEES AND WEITEES. 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 thatj^,,.^ on account of the fogs and damps, they deemed them whole- somer." 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 FaueuU 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 focal transi- tions, and realize by what means and methocis 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 *?, 1854," by William Kent, New York, 1854. 422 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. Of the countless books of Western travel and adventure, one of the most spirited and authentic is Mrs. Kirkland's " New Home : Who 'U 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 punting excursions upon the vast Western j)lains. 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 e^ensive 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 inimitably to the lancy, as the eye scans his descriptions. The athletic figures of the riflemen, the gayly arrayed Indians, the heavy bufi'alo 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 j)erfect exposure to the influences of nature in all her free magnificence, of a woodland and ad* AMERICAJI 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 — hoAV 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 ? Plow 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, spriglitly, 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 efficacious 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 sufler- 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 raar 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 comitry 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 -vdtal power. The best modern statesmen have sought and foimd 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 aftef^any ages, an exten- sive and rich continent M'ill 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 Camillus.' This AMERICA^Sr TEAVELLEES AND WEITEKS. 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 grasj^s and analyzes these, is alone equipjjed 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 ; foithful 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., Mali 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 f an American Farmer," 89. Heine' apostrophizes "Wm. Cobbett, 211; his estimate of English blockheads, 255 ; on the exultation of the English at dis- eensions 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. Hoft'man, Charles Fenno, his " "Winter in the West," 416 ; his geniality and versa- tility, 416. Holland, Si r 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. ILLINOIS, early history of, 52 ; natural features of, 53 ; commercial facilities of, 54 ; rapid increase of population In, 54 ; Jesuit missionaries in, 55 ; Father Marest's account of, 56. Imlay, 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 Pelrue de Alyaco, 23 ; extract from a letter from Moore to, 211 ; accounts for the al)URe 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. JANSON, C. W., " The Stranger in fj America," 218. Jeflerson, 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, 1G7. JosseljTi, John, " New England's Rarities Discovered," 32. Judd, Sylvester, his " Margaret," 431. Juridical literature, 428. KALM, Peter, 295 ; his 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 ihe 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 writint's, 311 ; his impressions of Boston, 313 ; sketch of Mrs. Kemble, 316 ; Edward Everett, 318; Prcscotl, 320- John Lothrop Mot- ley, 321 ; Thomas H. Benton, 322; visit to'Newport, 324 ; Bancroft, 324; Sumner, 325 ; Southern hate of New England, 326. LABOULAYE, Edouard, " Paris dans I'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 St.ates," 300. Ledercr, John, the first explorer of the Alleghaiiies, 32. Ledyard, John, 387. Lenox, Janus, a collector of books and documents relating to America, 318. Li'iraric'S, American private, ignorance of British writers concerning, 274. Lieber, Dr. Francis, 305 ; his " The Stran- ger in America," 305. Lincoln, Alirahnm. Proclamation of, 448. Literature, American, considered beneath contempt by British writers fifty years ago, 287 : cfa'med to be made up of imi- tations of British authors, 287. Literature, juridical, 428. London Qi(avierly Beriew, 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 Jolict, explorations of, 45 ; death of Father M;irquette, 45. Martineau, Harriet, 224 ; her fairness as a writer, 224 ; Blackicood' s opinion of her book, 225. Mather, Cotton, " Magnalia Christi Amer- icana," 7, 33. McSparren, Rev. Janiee, letters of, 170. Meier, K., " To the Sacramento," 300. 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