variety of negro suitors. These, indeed, are fair subjects of pride and exultation; and we nail them, without grudging, as bright trophies in the annals of the States to which they relate. But do not their glories cast a deeper shade on those who have refused to follow the example-and may we not now be allowed to speak of the guilt and unlawfulness of slavery, as their own countrymen are praised and boasted of for having spoken, so many years ago?

We learn also from Mr. W., that Virginia abolished the foreign slave trade so early as 1778-Pennsylvania in 1780-Massachusetts in 1787-and Connecticut and Rhode Island in 1788. It was finally interdicted by the General Congress in 1794; and made punishable as a crime, seven years before that measure was adopted in England. We have great pleasure in stating these facts. But they all appear to us not only incongruous with the permanent existence of slavery, but as indicating those very feelings with regard to it which we have been so severly blamed for expressing.

ists exhorting to amendment, or of satirists endeavouring to deter from vice. Provincial misgovernment from Ireland to Hindostancruel amusements-increasing pauperismdisgusting brutality-shameful ignoranceperversion of law-grinding taxation-brutal debauchery, and many other traits equally attractive, are all heaped together, as the char acteristics of English society; and unsparingly illustrated by "loose extracts from English Journals,"quotations from Espriella's Letters-and selections from the Parliamentary Debates. Accustomed, as we have long been, to mark the vices and miseries of our countrymen, we really cannot say that we recognise any likeness in this distorted representation; which exhibits our fair England as one great Lazar-house of moral and intellectual disease one hideous and bloated mass of sin and suffering-one festering heap of corruption, infecting the wholesome air which breathes upon it, and diffusing all around the contagion and the terror of its example.

We have no desire whatever to argue against the truth or the justice of this picture of our country; which we can assure Mr. W. we contemplate with perfect calmness and equanimity: but we are tempted to set against it the judgment of another foreigner, with whom he cannot complain of being confronted, and whose authority at this moment stands higher, perhaps with the whole civilised world, than that of any other individual. We allude to Madame de Staël-and to the splen did testimony she has borne to the character and happiness of the English nation, in her last admirable book on the Revolution of her own country. But we have spoken of this work so lately, that we shall not now recal the attention of our readers to it, further than by this general reference. We rather wish, at present, to lay before them an American authority.

We here close our answer to Mr. W.'s charges. Our readers, we fear, have been for some time tired of it: And, indeed, we have felt all along, that there was something absurd in answering gravely to such an accusation. If any regular reader of our Review could be of opinion that we were hostile to America, and desirous of fomenting hostility between her and this country, we could scarcely hope that he would change that opinion for any thing we have now been saying. But Mr. W.'s book may fall into the hands of many, in his own country at least, to whom our writings are but little known; and the imputations it contains may become known to many who never inquire into their grounds: On such persons, the statements we have now made may produce some impression-and the spirit in which they are made perhaps still In a work of great merit, entitled "A Letter more. Our labour will not have been in vain, on the Genius and Dispositions of the French if there are any that rise up from the perusal Government," published at Philadelphia in of these pages with a better opinion of their 1810, and which attracted much notice, both Transatlantic brethren, and an increased de- there and in this country, the author, in a sire to live with them in friendship and peace. strain of great eloquence and powerful reaThere still remains behind, a fair moiety soning, exhorts his country to make common of Mr. W.'s book; containing his recrimina- cause with England in the great struggle in tions on England-his expositions of "her which she was then engaged with the giant sores and blotches"—and his retort courteous power of Bonaparte, and points out the many for all the abuse which her writers have been circumstances in the character and condition pouring on this country for the last hundred of the two countries that invited them to a years. The task, we should think, must have cordial alliance. He was well aware, too, of been rather an afflicting one to a man of much the distinction we have endeavoured to point moral sensibility:-But it is gone through very out between the Court, or the Tory rulers of resolutely, and with a marvellous industry. the State, and the body of our People: and, The learned author has not only ransacked after observing that the American Governforgotten histories and files of old newspapers ment, by following his councils, might retrieve in search of disreputable transactions and de- the character of their country, he adds, "They grading crimes but has groped for the mate- will, I am quite sure, be seconded by an enrials of our dishonour, among the filth of Dr. tire correspondence of feeling, not only on Colquhoun's Collections, and the Reports of our part, but on that of the PEOPLE of Engour Prison and Police Committees-culled vi-land-whatever may be the narrow policy, or tuperative exaggerations from the records of illiberal prejudices of the British MINISTRY;" angry debates and produced, as incontro- and, in the body of his work, he gives an vertible evidence of the excess of our guilt ample and glowing description of the char and misery, the fervid declamations of moral-acter and condition of that England of which

we have just seen so lamentable a representa- | laws, than which none more just and perfect har tion. The whole passage is too long for in-ever been in operation; their seminaries of educa sertion; but the following extracts will afford a sufficient specimen of its tone and tenor.

“A peculiar masculine character, and the utmost energy of feeling are communicated to all orders of men,-by the abundance which prevails so universally, the consciousness of equal rights,-the fulness of power and frame to which the nation has attained, and the beauty and robustness of the species under a climate highly favourable to the animal economy. The dignity of the rich is without insolence,—the subordination of the poor with-shed its radiance over this country.” out servility. Their freedom is well guarded both from the dangers of popular licentiousness, and from the encroachments of authority. Their national pride leads to national sympathy, and is built upon the most legitimate of all foundations-a sense of pre-eminent merit and a body of illustrious annals.

tion yielding more solid and profitable instruction than any other whatever; their eminence in litera ture and science-the urbanity and learning of their illustrated by so many profound statesmen, and privileged orders-their deliberative assemblies, brilliant orators. It is worse than Ingratitude in us not to sympathise with them in their present struggle, when we recollect that it is from them we the best of our own institutions-the sources of ost derive the principal merit of our own CHARACTERhighest enjoyments-and the light of Freedom itself, which, if they should be destroyed, will not long

What will Mr. Walsh say to this picture of the country he has so laboured to degrade?— and what will our readers say, when they are told that MR. WALSH HIMSELF is the author of this picture!

"Whatever may be the representations of those So, however, the fact unquestionably stands. who, with little knowledge of facts, and still less-The book from which we have made the soundness or impartiality of judgment, affect to de- preceding extracts, was written and published, plore the condition of England, it is nevertheless in 1810, by the very same individual who has true, that there does not exist, and never has existed elsewhere, so beautiful and perfect a model now recriminated upon England in the vol of public and private prosperity, so magnificent, ume which lies before us, and in which he and at the same time, so solid a fabric of social hap- is pleased to speak with extreme severity of piness and national grandeur. 1 pay this just tri- the inconsistencies he has detected in our Rebute of admiration with the more pleasure. as it is view!-That some discordant or irreconcile to me in the light of an Atonement for the errors able opinions should be found in the miscel and prejudices, under which I laboured, on this sub-laneous writing of twenty years, and thirty or ject, before I enjoyed the advantage of a personal experience. A residence of nearly two years in that country, during which period, I visited and studied almost every part of it, with no other view or pursuit than that of obtaining correct information, and, I may add, with previous studies well fitted to promote my object,-convinced me that I had been egregiously deceived. I saw no instances of individual oppression, and scarcely any individual misery but that which belongs, under any circumstances of our being, to the infirmity of all human institutions."-

"The agriculture of England is confessedly su: perior to that of any other part of the world, and the condition of those who are engaged in the cultivation of the soil, incontestibly preferable to that of the same class in any other section of Europe. An inexhaustible source of admiration and delight is found in the unrivalled beauty, as well as richness and fruitfulness of their husbandry; the effects of which are heightened by the magnificent parks and noble mansions of the opulent proprietors: by picturesque gardens upon the largest scale, and disposed with the most exquisite taste: and by Gothic remains no less admirable in their structure than venerable for their antiquity. The neat cottage, the substantial farm-house, the splendid villa. are constantly rising to the sight, surrounded by the most choice and poetical attributes of the landscape. The vision is not more delightfully recreated by the rural scenery, than the moral sense is gratified, and the understanding elevated by the institutions of this great country. The first and continued exclamation of an American who contemplates them with unbiassed judgment, is

Salve! magna Parens frugum, Saturnia tellus!
Magna virum.

"It appears something not less than Impious to desire the ruin of this people, when you view the height to which they have carried the comforts, the knowledge, and the virtue of our species: the extent and number of their foundations of charity; their skill in the mechanic arts, by the improvement of which alone they have conferred inestimable benefits on mankind; the masculine morality, the lofty sense of independence, the sober and rational piety which are found in all classes; their imparual, decorous, and able administration of a code of

forty individuals under no effective control, may easily be imagined, and pardoned, we should think, without any great stretch of liberality. But such a transmutation of sentiments on the same identical subject—such a reversal of the poles of the same identical head, we confess has never before come under our observation; and is parallel to nothing that we can recollect, but the memorable transDream. Nine years, to be sure, had intervened formation of Bottom, in the Midsummer Night's between the first and the second publication. But all the guilt and all the misery which is so diligently developed in the last, had been contracted before the first was thought of; and all the injuries, and provocations too, by which the exposition of them has lately become a duty. Mr. W. knew perfectly, in 1810, how England had behaved to her American colonies before the war of independence, and in what spirit she had begun and carried on that war:

our Poor-rates and taxes, our bull-baitings and swindlings, were then nearly as visible as now. Mr. Colquhoun, had, before that time, put forth his Political Estimate of our prostitutes and pickpockets; and the worthy Laureate his authentic Letters on the bad state of our parliaments and manufactures. Nay, the EDIN BURGH REVIEW had committed the worst of those offences which now make hatred to England the duty of all true Americans, and had expressed little of that zeal for her friendship which appears in its subsequent Numbers. The Reviews of the American Transactions, and Mr. Barlow's Epic, of Adams' Letters, and Marshall's History, had all appeared before this time-and but very few of the articles in which the future greatness of that country is predicted, and her singular prosperity extolled.

How then is it to be accounted for, that Mr. W. should have taken such a favourable view

with any degree of fairness or temper, and had not announced that they were brought forward as incentives to hostility and national alienation, we should have been so far from complaining of him, that we should have been heartily thankful for the services of such an auxiliary in our holy war against vice and corruption; and rejoiced to obtain the testimony of an impartial observer, in corroboration of our own earnest admonitions. Even as it is, we are inclined to think that this ex

of our state and merits in 1810, and so very different a one in 1819? There is but one explanation that occurs to us. Mr. W., as appears from the passages just quoted, had been originally very much of the opinion to which he has now returned-For he tells us, that he considers the tribute of admiration which he there offers to our excellence, as an Atonement for the errors and prejudices under which he laboured till he came among us,and hints pretty plainly, that he had formerly Deen ungrateful enough to disown all obliga-position of our infirmities will rather do good tion to our race, and impious enough even to than harm, so far as it produces any effect at wish for our ruin. Now, from the tenor of the all, in this country. Among our national vices, work before us, compared with these passages, we have long reckoned an insolent and overit is pretty plain, we think, that Mr. W. has weening opinion of our own universal superijust relapsed into those damnable heresies, ority; and though it really does not belong to which we fear are epidemic in his part of the America to reproach us with this fault, and country-and from which nothing is so likely though the ludicrous exaggeration of Mr. W.'s to deliver him, as a repetition of the same charge is sure very greatly to weaken his auremedy by which they were formerly removed. thority, still such an alarming catalogue of Let him come again then to England, and try our faults and follies may have some effect, the effect of a second course of "personal as a wholesome mortification of our vanity. experience and observation"-let him make It is with a view to its probable effect in his another pilgrimage to Mecca, and observe own country, and to his avowal of the effect whether his faith is not restored and confirmed he wishes it to produce there, that we consider -let him, like the Indians of his own world, it as deserving of all reprobation;-and therevisit the Tombs of his Fathers in the old land, fore beg leave to make one or two very short and see whether he can there abjure the friend- remarks on its manifest injustice, and indeed ship of their other children? If he will ven- absurdity, in so far as relates to ourselves, and ture himself among us for another two years' that great majority of the country whom we residence, we can promise him that he will believe to concur in our sentiments. The obfind in substance the same England that he ject of this violent invective on England is, left:-Our laws and our landscapes-our in- according to the author's own admission, to dustry and urbanity;—our charities, our learn-excite a spirit of animosity in America, to ing, and our personal beauty, he will find unaltered and unimpaired;-and we think we can even engage, that he shall find also a still greater "correspondence of feeling in the body of our People," and not a less disposition to welcome an accomplished stranger who comes to get rid of errors and prejudices, and to learn -or, if he pleases, to teach, the great lessons of a generous and indulgent philanthropy.

We have done, however, with this topic.We have a considerable contempt for the argumentum ad hominem in any case-and have no desire to urge it further at present. The truth is, that neither of Mr. W.'s portraitures of us appears to be very accurate. We are painted en beau in the one, and en laid in the other. The particular traits in each may be given with tolerable truth—but the whole truth most certainly is to be found in neither; and it will not even do to take them together -any more than it would do to make a correct likeness, by patching or compounding together a flattering portrait and a monstrous caricature. We have but a word or two, indeed, to add on the general subject, before we take a final farewell of this discussion.

We admit, that many of the charges which Mr. W. has here made against our country, are justly made-and that for many of the things with which he has reproached us, there is just cause of reproach. It would be strange, indeed, if we were to do otherwise considering that it is from our pages that he has on many occasions borrowed the charge and the reproach. If he had stated them therefore,

meet and revenge that which other invectives on our part are said to indicate here; and also to show the flagrant injustice and malignity of the said invectives:-And this is the shape of the argument-What right have you to abuse us for keeping and whipping slaves, when you yourselves whip your soldiers, and were so slow to give up your slave trade, and use your subjects so ill in India and Ireland? -or what right have you to call our Marshall a dull historian, when you have a Belsham and a Gifford who are still duller? Now, though this argument would never show that whipping slaves was a right thing, or that Mr. Marshall was not a dull writer, it might be a very smart and embarrassing retort to these among us who had defended our slave trade or our military floggings, or our treatment of Ireland and India-or who had held out Messrs. Belsham and Gifford as pattern historians, and ornaments of our national literature. But what meaning or effect can it have when addressed to those who have always testified against the wickedness and the folly of the practices complained of? and who have treated the Ultra-Whig and the Ultra-Tory historian with equal scorn and reproach? We have a right to censure cruelty and dulness abroad, because we have censured them with more and more frequent severity at home;--and their home existence, though it may prove indeed that our censures have not yet been effectual in producing amendment, can afford no sort of reason for not extending them where they might be more attended to.

are willing occasionally to lend a similar as sistance to others, and speak freely and fairly of what appear to us to be the faults and e rors, as well as the virtues and merits, of al who may be in any way affected by our ob servations;- —or Mr. Walsh, who will admit se faults in his own country, and no good qual ties in ours-sets down the mere extension of our domestic censures to their corresponding objects abroad, to the score of national rancour and partiality; and can find no better use for those mutual admonitions, which should lead to mutual amendment or generous emulation, than to improve them into occasions of mutual animosity and deliberate hatred ?

We have generally blamed what we thought | against them, and feeling grateful to any fo worthy of blame in America, without any ex-reign auxiliary who will help us to reason, to press reference to parallel cases in England, rail, or to shame our countrymen out of them, or any invidious comparisons. Their books we have criticised just as should have done those of any other country; and in speaking more generally of their literature and manners, we have rather brought them into competition with those of Europe in general, than those of our own country in particular. When we have made any comparative estimate of our own advantages and theirs, we can say with confidence, that it has been far oftener in their favour than against them; and, after repeatedly noticing their preferable condition as to taxes, elections, sufficiency of employment, public economy, freedom of publication, and many other points of paramount importance, it surely was but fair that we should notice, in their turn, those merits or advantages which might reasonably be claimed for ourselves, and bring into view our superiority in eminent authors, and the extinction and annihilation of slavery in every part of our realm.

This extreme impatience, even of merited blame from the mouth of a stranger-this still more extraordinary abstinence from any hint or acknowledgment of error on the part of her intelligent defender, is a trait too remarkable not to call for some observation;-and We would also remark, that while we have we think we can see in it one of the worst and thus praised America far more than we have most unfortunate consequences of a republican blamed her-and reproached ourselves far government. It is the misfortune of Sovemore bitterly than we have ever reproached reigns in general, that they are fed with flather, Mr. W., while he affects to be merely tery till they loathe the wholesome truth, and following our example, has heaped abuse on come to resent, as the bitterest of all offences, us without one grain of commendation-and any insinuation of their errors, or intimation praised his own country extravagantly, with- of their dangers. But of all sovereigns, the out admitting one fault or imperfection. Now, Sovereign People is most obnoxious to this corthis is not a fair way of retorting the proceed-ruption, and most fatally injured by its preva ings, even of the Quarterly; for they have lence. In America, every thing depends on occasionally given some praise to America, their suffrages, and their favour and support; and have constantly spoken ill enough of the and accordingly it would appear, that they are paupers and radicals, and reformers of Eng- pampered with constant adulation, from the land. But as to us, and the great body of the rival suitors to their favour-so that no one nation which thinks with us, it is a proceeding will venture to tell them of their faults; and without the colour of justice or the shadow moralists, even of the austere character of of apology-and is not a less flagrant indica- Mr. W., dare not venture to whisper a syllable tion of impatience or bad humour, than the to their prejudice. It is thus, and thus only, marvellous assumption which runs through that we can account for the strange sensitivethe whole argument, that it is an unpardon-ness which seems to prevail among them on able insult and an injury to find any fault with any thing in America,-must necessarily proceed from national spite and animosity, and affords, whether true or false, sufficient reason for endeavouring to excite a corresponding animosity against our nation. Such, however, is the scope and plan of Mr. W.'s whole work. Whenever he thinks that his country has been erroneously accused, he points out the error with sufficient keenness and asperity;-but when he is aware that the imputation is just and unanswerable, instead of joining his re-think and say of them. buke or regret to those of her foreign censors, he turns fiercely and vindictively on the parallel infirmities of this country-as if those also had not been marked with reprobation, and without admitting that the censure was merited, or hoping that it might work amendment, complains in the bitterest terms of malignity, and arouses his country to revenge!

Which, then, we would ask, is the most fair and reasonable, or which the most truly patriotic?-We, who, admitting our own manifold faults and corruptions, testifying loudly

the lightest sound of disapprobation, and for the acrimony with which, what would pass anywhere else for very mild admonitions, are repelled and resented. It is obvious, however, that nothing can be so injurious to the character either of an individual or a nation, as this constant and paltry cockering of praise; and that the want of any native censor, makes it more a duty for the moralists of other countries to take them under their charge, and let them know now and then what other people

We are anxious to part with Mr. W. in good humour;-but we must say that we rather wish he would not go on with the work he has begun at least if it is to be pursued in the spirit which breathes in the part now before us. Nor is it so much to his polemic and vindictive tone that we object, as this tendency to adulation, this passionate, vapouring, the torical style of amplifying and exaggerating the felicities of his country. In point of talent and knowledge and industry, we have no doubt that he is eminently qualified for the task-(though we must tell him that he does

not write so well now as when he left England)-but no man will ever write a book of authority on the institutions and resources of his country, who does not add some of the virtues of a Censor to those of a Patriot-or rather, who does not feel, that the noblest, as well as the most difficult part of patriotism is that which prefers his country's Good to its Favour, and is more directed to reform its vices, than to cherish the pride of its virtues. With foreign nations, too, this tone of fondness and self-admiration is always suspected; and most commonly ridiculous-while calm and steady claims of merit, interspersed with acknowledgments of faults, are sure to obtain credit, and to raise the estimation both of the writer and of his country. The ridicule, too, which naturally attaches to this vehement selflaudation, must insensibly contract a darker shade of contempt, when it comes to be suspected that it does not proceed from mere honest vanity, but from a poor fear of giving offence to power-sheer want of courage, in short (in the wiser part at least of the population), to let their foolish AHMOΣ know what in their hearts they think of him.

And now we must at length close this very long article-the very length and earnestness of which, we hope, will go some way to satisfy our American brethren of the importance we

attach to their good opinion, and the anxiety we feel to prevent any national repulsion from being aggravated by a misapprehension of our sentiments, or rather of those of that great body of the English nation of which we are here the organ. In what we have now written, there may be much that requires explanation and much, we fear, that is liable to misconstruction.-The spirit in which it is written, however, cannot, we think, be misunderstood. We cannot descend to little cavils and altercations; and have no leisure to maintain a controversy about words and phrases. We have an unfeigned respect and affection for the free people of America; and we mean honestly to pledge ourselves for that of the better part of our own country. We are very proud of the extensive circulation of our Journal in that great country, and the importance that is there attached to it. But we should be undeserving of this favour, if we could submit to seek it by any mean practices, either of flattery or of dissimulation; and feel persuaded that we shall not only best deserve, but most surely obtain, the confidence and respect of Mr. W. and his countrymen, by speaking freely what we sincerely think of them, and treating them exactly as we treat that nation to which we are here accused of being too favourable.

(November, 1822.)

Bracebridge Hall; or, the Humorists. By GEOFFREY CRAYON, Gent. Author of "The Sketch Book," &c. 2 vols. 8vo. pp. 800. Murray. London: 1822.*

We have received so much pleasure from | with the same happy selection and limited this book, that we think ourselves bound in gratitude, as well as justice, to make a public acknowledgment of it,-and seek to repay, by a little kind notice, the great obligations we shall ever feel to the author. These amiable sentiments, however, we fear, will scarcely furnish us with materials for an interesting article-and we suspect we have not much else to say, that has not already occurred to most of our readers-or, indeed, been said by ourselves with reference to his former publication. For nothing in the world can be so complete as the identity of the author in these two productions-identity not of style merely and character, but of merit also, both in kind and degree, and in the sort and extent of popularity which that merit has created-not merely the same good sense and the same good humour directed to the same good ends, and

My heart is still so much in the subject of the preceding paper, that I am tempted to add this to it; chiefly for the sake of the powerful backing which my English exhortation to amity among brethren, is there shown to have received from the most amiable and elegant of American writers. I had said nearly the same things in a previous review of "The Sketch Book," and should have reprinted that article also, had it not been made up chiefly of extracts, with which I do not think it quite fair to fill up this publication.

variety, but the same proportion of things that seem scarcely to depend on the individualthe same luck, as well as the same labour, and an equal share of felicities to enhance the fair returns of judicious industry. There are few things, we imagine, so rare as this sustained level of excellence in the works of a popular writer-or, at least, if it does exist now and then in rerum natura, there is scarcely any thing that is so seldom allowed. When an author has once gained a large share of public attention,-when his name is once up among a herd of idle readers, they can never be brought to believe that one who has risen so far can ever remain stationary. In their estimation, he must either rise farther, or begin immediately to descend; so that, when he ventures before these prepossessed judges with a new work, it is always discovered, self, or, in the far greater number of cases, either that he has infinitely surpassed himthat there is a sad falling off, and that he is hastening to the end of his career. In this way it may in general be presumed, that an author who is admitted by the public not to have fallen off in a second work, has in reality improved upon his first; and has truly proved his title to a higher place, by merely maintaining that which he had formerly