in tangents, and the primordial chaos of a state of nature return upon society.

After all, the survey of society, as it is shown in all countries, presents a startling aspect. If we search for calm and dispassionate men-addicti jurare in verba nullius magistri—for men of no party, who are capable of sufficient enlargement of philosophy, to think well of the mass of men in all parties, it seems to us, that the search would be almost as hopeless, as his of Sodom, to find ten righteous to save his city. To look first at the blinding influence of nationality, with what pertinacious complacency every people view themselves, as the wisest and the best, not excepting even the lowest hordes of barbarism. The German talks of honesty, as though one of his nation possessed it by instinct. The Parisian may profess as much cosmopolitism, as he will-but on examination, you will find, that not to live in Paris is, in his view, no better, than a state of exile. The same feeling, if possible in a higher degree, may be predicated of the Englishman, in regard to his country. Here is the spectacle, which ought to be a lesson to human nature every where, of two great nations separated from each other only by a frith of the sea, each considering their nation as the light of the world, and the metropolitan country of the universe, whose population has been trained for centuries, to hate, and despise each other, and to consider the inhabitants of the shore opposite their own, as destitute of religion, modesty, honesty, and almost of common sense. So expedient has it been found, to foster this national hatred, that Chesterfield questions, if it would be wise to enlighten the vulgar and stupid prejudice of John Bull, that one Englishman was a match for three Frenchmen.

We have had the evidence of half a century, in what light England regards us, both in relation to our literature and institutions. By a gross, and we might say contemptible and outrageous inconsistency, Mr. Irving, whom the Edinburgh Quarterly recently praised in the most unqualified terms, is now described, as but a dull and common place writer. We have only produced three or four men, it says, who have reached mediocrity, and our countrymen are wholly destitute of imagination. The London Quarterly speaks of us and our institutions with still more harshness and coatempt, and supposes, that Capt. Hal held back, instead of saying more than the truth in our dispraise. For the sake of those, who stand on the margin of the sea, opening their nostrils to snuff incense from the European shore, we are not sorry to see this. Let them learn to aspire to such fame, as we can obtain at home; and then we shall not be affected by these calumnies from abroad. Let us remember, too, that these expressions of contempt are, probably, the mere individual arrogance of two persons, unshared, we hope, by thousands of more enlightened people in those very countries.

It requires, in fact, but little light, to perceive, that no civilized social community could exist, without having diffused in it a respectable portion of sense, improvement and household knowledge, more indeed, than these learned journals allow to us; and that of all the communities, that have advancement enough to support a regular government, the composition is, as with us, of good and bad, kind and cruel, sensible and foolish, honest and dishonest; and that a sensible man would in all find something to

learn, persons to like, and dislike, objects of affection and avoidance dis tributed in all civilized countries, we imagine, in proportions more nearly equal, than is commonly believed. We well know, that education and institutions make a prodigious semblance of external difference. Bat, we believe, the man of civilization to be substantially the same being over the whole globe.

But if we wish to inspect party influence with more force and distinctness, let us survey it in our own society, and our immediate vicinity. The inhabitants of one street denounce those of another, as mob, or aristocrats. One ward raises one standard, and shouts for one candidate, and another for another; and each is ready to take oath, by book and by candle, that all the honesty is on their side. Our thousand journals all have their flag, and know their driver; and the undeviating maxim is, that all the Nokes, on their side of the hedge, are wise, honest and true patriots, and all the Stiles on the other either fools or knaves. Thus these instruments, however weak in themselves, rendered mighty by circumstances, diffuse the leaven of party feeling into the remotest and most inconsiderable portions of society; and, in innumerable instances, these are almost the solitary means of information.

Of these some fifty, perhaps, carry on their flag neutrality and independence. But, from the very composition of our society, divided into innumerable parties in politics, in religion, in fact on every subject, for nothing is too contemptible to become the nucleus of a party, this is a position extremely difficult to sustain. The public is too heady, and self complacent, to allow the existence of such a character, as an independent editor. As every one belongs to some party, and as all parties would regard this man as an enemy placed between all the fires, his sustained moderation would dissatisfy all. He soon learns, that nothing will pass, except seasoned with the raciness of some kind of partyism; and he sinks into his niche, and may at least hope the support of the party he espouses. Yet we might infer from the tone of each one of the whole tribe of these editors that his journal was mount Atlas, with the moral universe resting on it; and that the wreck of doom must soon follow, if the party there sustained did not prosper. A community, universally infected with the madness of party, can expect none, but party editors. Were it even otherwise, to stand independent and unpledged, in the midst of such a community, requires such a high moral and intellectual ascendency, so much enlarged feeling, and broadness of philosophic view, and such unshaken firmness of character and purpose, as are awarded to but very few of our race.

Contemplate the same blind and intolerant spirit operating in another direction. Escaping through one valve, it is party in politics; escaping through another, it is the same thing in religion. It is here a still more formidable mischief; for it has now become, in its own estimation, a consecrated thing. We may safely take our own city, as a fair sample of the general aspect of Christendom, in regard to party. We have, probably, quite as much moderation and charity, and certainly as much peace, as falls to the common lot. We have, it is believed, eighteen or twenty religious societies in this city, of which we know but three, that even profess to agree. What a lesson would he learn, who should worship in each one of them in succession, and hear their account of all modes of faith, but

their own, and of the destiny of all, who were not with them! Thus it is, from the street to the school-house, from that to the church, thence to the town-meeting, the state metropolis, and the national legislature. Even at the altar, the judicial bench, the hall of legislation-the narrowing and blinding rage of party, like the contagion of pestilence, walking unseen and in darkness, finds its way every where, polluting all generous moral influences, and every where tending to arouse each man against his brother.

One consolation, however, grows out of even this order of things. All nature's discord makes all nature's peace. These innumerable parties revolve, with a good degree of regularity, wheel within wheel, so long as the movements are balanced. The next best state of a community to that, where calmness, justice and moderation reigns, is that of our country, where so many and so nearly balanced parties exist, that mutual fear, jealousy and caution are indispensable to preserve the balance. Each one of our innumerable divisions is a spy and check upon every other.— We take this to be quite as valid a security against persecution, the block, the guillotine, and bastile, the faggot and the wheel, as the increasing light and moderation of the age. Men are beginning to be inclined to think so much for themselves, that, we trust, they will never again be enough agreed in iniquity, in church or in state, to aid each other, in operating the enormous cruelties and persecutions of gone by times.

We could wish, that we could every where make our voice heard by men of peace and moderation, whose rule of estimation is that golden one of the gospel, to trust little to names and professions, and judge the tree simply by its fruit. It is to the weight of this party, small in number, and unknown to each other, as its members are, that we must ultimately look, to preserve, if we may so say, the attraction of moral cohesion, and ward off, the eternal and mutual war of party, in which every man's hand is against that of his fellow.

Of one thing we may be sure, much as we see of this miserable spirit in the hallowed precincts of the pulpit, that it is as much at war with Christianity and its author, as it is with true and generous philosophy.If there is any one feature of the gospel more prominent than another, it is the firm and unqualified inculcation of the most noble and universal philanthropy, that the world has ever seen. The whole spirit and genius of Christianity is as enlarged and diffusive, as His benevolence, who causeth his sun to rise, and his rain to descend on the evil and the good.

He is neither a truly good, or great man, be he who he may, who will stoop to gratify his ambition through the instrumentality of party means. Unprincipled cunning alone will operate by this engine; and let us all assure ourselves, that fools only are the instruments of it. The moment you discover, that a man, in religion, in politics, in social or domestic life, shows a disposition to enlist your prejudices against any profession, and of consequence, blindly and fiercely in favor of his own, be assured the real amount of his language is, 'I wish to employ you, as a convenient instrument, a strong ass, a good natured fool. I must point to this, and you must hate, and to that, and you must love.' Who would lift at this lever? Who would unwittingly operate, if we may so express it, this ass power? The million in our country are, in some way, or for some purpose, opera

ting in this line, most of them unconsciously, and dreaming no such thing. It seems to us, that no elementary book is so much needed, as one, that should inculcate in a didactic form, and prepared for the use of Lyceums and schools, some of these obvious principles of philosophy, philanthropy and general charity. The breaking down of the throne of bigotry, the empire of the mean and narrow prejudices of opinion and party, is a consummation iminently needed, and devoutly to be wished. So long as this state of things exists, the mind, confined within it, breathes as in an atmosphere of lead. Let children be taught, that they are not born citizens of a street, or a district alone; but citizens of the world. Let them learn, that in God's kingdom there are no favorites of His, but the good; and that the wise and the good are, or should be, all of one party, one church and one religion, the religion of Him, whose dearest friend continually inculcated this laconic maxim, love one another.

SKETCHES, BY A TRAVELLER.

Sketches, by a Traveller. Boston: Carter & Hendee. 1830. 12mo. 315 pp. We have taken a former occasion to speak of the many original and witty articles, that have appeared in the Boston Galaxy. We adverted in particular to the contents of this volume, which are extracted from that paper. They cause us to remember Don Quixote, and Gil Blas, Fielding and Smollet, Butler and Sterne. The people in their days, who were invalids with oppression at the breast, could sometimes indulge in a medicinal laugh, in the midst of the gloom and care of life-a laugh which gently opened the chest, dislodged pituitous accretions, banished the blue spirits, and made the person, for the time, not only a healthier and happier man, but a better christian. Alas! in the brazen days of heavy politics and heavier disquisitions-these medicinal operations come few and far between. The Galaxy is sometimes a little too broad in its merriment. It has once or twice let slip a dog of war at us; (for which no thanks to it;) but we are often medicated with an honest, youthful oldfashioned laugh of other days, as we look over its columns.

But to our point. We owe the author of this work, whoever he be, the acknowledgement of a certificate, that his 'patents,' did us good, in the first instance. We have taken the same medicine a second time; and find it, like glass of antimony, unabated in efficacy of operation. This book, in plain English, contains some of the neatest hits-most felicitous turns, and odd and whimsical expressions, of any with which we have met. The humor is the author's own, and perfectly original. He is unrivalled in starting off a thousand fancies, and conjuring up a whole army of associations with a single expression. Cervantes and Rabelais, Le Sage, Smollet and Butler would recognize in him, in his own queer walk, a genuine descendant.

But we will not detain the reader long from the book by our prosing. He will best judge of it by the numerous and copious extracts, which we

intend to make. We shall only observe, that, if these voyages and journies were really performed in the author's study, they are the most successful efforts in that way, which it has been our fortune to encounter. We have certainly travelled in books a hundred times through Italy, and as many times, as we could find volumes of voyages and travels, in China and Japan. We have an abundance of periodicals and new works lying before us, which might sate any reasonable appetite for novelty. We have read this volume through before, in its disjointed form in the Galaxy. We have read it through again-mot par mot with unabated gaiety of heart. Let travellers write after this fashion, give every thing a hit, and pass on, and travels would be the most interesting books, instead of being the most prosing in the world. That person, who wrote General Bauer's epitaph, thought with us and our author. He was, (we relate from memory,) a German general, employed by the 'Great man' Catherine of Russia, or rather Potemkin, to bring water-melons out of season from the southern provinces over Mount Tauris, won from the Turk, to St. Petersburg. In this important function, he was compelled to ride post day and night, at the iminent hazard of his neck. He said, he should somewhere have it broken; and he wished a French poet, his friend, to prepare an epitaph to be ready for him, whenever he should fall. His friend wrote as follows:

Ci git Bauer

Sou ce rocher;
Fouette, cocher.

Here Bauer lies beneath this stone.

Coachman, hallo! drive on.

Such, as we think, should be the motto of a book of travels. Perhaps it is a fault in this, that it is almost one continual broad grin. The author sometimes, especially in the more advanced part of it, becomes sober, utters a deep and mellow thought, and says things so beautifully, that we are left with the impression, that if it had been his purpose to make a book of travels, full of wise saws, and modern instances, and grave and philosophic reflections, he could have acquitted himself with equal credit, as in the walk, which he has selected. Pathos seems to be his strange work. Yet he shows himself, more than once, capable of feeling and eliciting that. If the reader does not purchase the book, we shall set him down with the lean and moody Cassius.

The voyage to Otaheite and the Marquesas occupies 5 pages, and is charming for its witty brevity.-The author thinks the pigs there are sham.

'I was little on shore, though once I dined with a chief, on what he called a roasted pig; yet if the animal had recovered its voice, it would have been not to squeak, but to bark.'

The following is a sample of the quaint way of painting in this book. 'The Spaniards now, for the first time, discovered our hunters darting about in the bay, and the discovery gave them no pleasure, for which we cared little, as we did not go there to please the Spaniards. The commandant recommended a departure, and as no water was to be had, we gratified him and went to Catalina for supplies. Here we found a few huts occupied by people so shy and genteel