lative politicians of these times seem to think) there is a sort of mystic or magical power in the mere forms of a polity, and that a government may be altered as often as the most capricious levity shall dictate, without any danger of disturbing the settled order of society, and with a perfect foresight of all the effects of such changes. He knew, that the mores, the manners, opinions and character of a people, are by far the most important part in every political problem, and that no constitution can be either stable or efficient which is not in harmony with these. He had adopted, in short, that rule, which a great man-whose speculations have exhausted this subject, and occur to us whenever we have occasion to contemplate it-considers as fundamental with every good patriot and every true politician. Spartam nactus es; hanc exorna. Cicero would have felt the whole force and beauty of the following period. "By adhering in this manner and on these principles to our forefathers, we are guided not by the superstition of antiquarians, but by the spirit of philosophic analogy-in this choice of inheritance, we give to our frame of polity the image of a relation in blood; binding up the constitution of our country with our dearest domestic ties, adopting our fundamental laws into the bosom of our family affections; keeping inseparable, and cherishing, with the warmth of all their combined and mutually reflected charities, our state, our hearths, our sepulchres and our altars." The compliment he pays the government of Rome is, therefore, as full of wisdom as of patriotism, and may be taken as his protest against that pest of our times, SPECULATIVE POLITICS.

VOL. 11.-29

HALL'S TRAVELS IN NORTH-AMERICA.

Travels in North-America, in the years 1827 and 1828. By Captain BASIL HALL, Royal Navy. 2 vols. 12mo. Philadelphia. Carey, Lea & Carcy. 1829.

OUR only motive for reviewing this book is the general expectation that we shall do so. It is to us, on many accounts, a most unpleasant task. We are by no means sure that the majority of our readers will concur with us in some of our views, and we have too much reason to fear that there are many individuals in every part of the country to whom all of them cannot possibly prove acceptable. But we have learned by experience the truth of Seneca's lines,

Sæpe vel linguâ magis

-muta libertas obest

and since we must needs speak, we shall even speak out.

We will begin by confessing that we have been greatly scandalized at the fuss that has been made about Captain Hall and his book. If there were nothing more in it, this fidgety and prurient anxiety about what he has been saying of us behind our backs, is rather a provoking confirmation of what he reports of our efforts to extort his approbation of us before our faces. But our mortification arises from a more serious view of the matter. For our humble selves, we declare, with great sincerity, that none of the impertinences which have been published about our country and its institutions, in England or elsewhere, have ever given us the smallest uneasiness, nor do we conceive how they should disturb the tranquillity of any rational mind. If the remarks of a stranger convey salutary truths, we feel it a duty to acknowledge, as it is our interest to profit by them. But what possible harm can his errors or his falsehoods do-except indeed, to those who are sensitive enough to be angry with them? Even in the case of an individual, it would infer a great want of self-respect to be so excessively alive to the opinions of others--much more to think of retaliating upon a vulgar calumniator in his own way. But what is undignified in the case of an individual becomes quite absurd in a whole people-especially in a people full of a prophetic confidence in its destinies, and every day, as we are taught to believe, marching with such gigantic strides to the fulfilment of them. Surely it is un

worthy of such a people to think of making any other answer to the misrepresentations of a prejudiced, or theoretical, or lying traveller, (as the case may be) than the pregnant one conveyed in the line of Dante

Taci, e lascia volger gli anni. *

We cannot say that we found any single passage in these volumes more offensive to us than the following:

"The fact of the greater part of all the works, which are read in one country, being written for a totally different state of society in another, forms a very singular anomaly in the history of nations-and I am disposed to think that the Americans would be a happier people if this incongruous communication were at an end. If they got no more books or newspapers from us, than we do from France or Spain, they would, I really believe, be much happier as far as their intercourse with this country has any influence over them." Vol. i. P. 243.

Yet there is, unfortunately, but too much truth in it. For all our hyperbolical vauntings about our own superiority to the rest of mankind, we do defer too much to English criticism, and suffer ourselves at once to be governed and to be made unhappy by it. We have too much national vanity, and too little of the far nobler feeling of national pride. There can be no true greatness either in individuals or in multitudes without self-reliance. Enthusiasm must be too intense to quail at ridicule, genius must soar above criticism, or there is no hope of excellence. We must learn to think only of truth and nature in what we do and say, and to be contented with the applauses of our own people. Instead of clipping and paring away our energies to suit ourselves to the taste of foreigners, let us give them free scope, and trust to the sympathies of our neighbours, our friends, our brethren. What Frenchman expects to be admired at London, or cares a straw about the opinions of English and Scotch censors? For him the whole world lies between the Alps, the Pyrenees and the ocean. We are, in this respect, too fortunate, did we but know and appreciate our own advantages. Ridiculous as some of our anticipations, bottomed upon the "geometrical ratio" may be, there is one which cannot fail. Beyond a doubt, in the course of half a century more, the audience to which American genius shall address itself (great as it already is) will be far more numerous-the theatre more vast and imposing, if not altogether so brilliant as that of the parent country. At the end of yet another half century it will be said of England, with truth, pars minima est ipsa sui. Her language will become a dialect. It will be to the great Anglo-Saxon tongue, spoken on the banks of the Missouri and the Hudson, at best, what the Attic was to the Hellenic or common Greek. The majority, with anything like equality of force and advantages, * Paradiso, ix.

will govern in this as in other things. The adoption into good use in England of very many words, but the other day rejected and ridiculed as Americanisms, shews already what is the inevitable tendency of things. And, after all, what does it signify to us whether that language shall be intelligible and agreeable or not to a foreign ear.* Happy the men who shall lead the way in the formation of a national literature-who shall strike the chord to which so many millions of American hearts shall vibrate forever, and leave a name to be re-echoed

"With a shout

Loud as from numbers without number, sweet
As from blest voices, uttering joy."

We begin by avowing frankly that we have been, upon the whole, agreeably disappointed in Captain Hall's report of us. From all that we had heard of his conversations and deportment while among us, we had been led to expect a great deal of misrepresentation and acrimony in his book. We must do him the justice to say that there is very little of the former—in the way of any positive suggestio falsi at least-and nothing at all of the latter. Most of what he states as matter of fact we believe to be substantially true. Our readers will understand us. We would carefully distinguish between his statements and his inferences between the journal of the Traveller and the commonplace book of the Tory philosopher. That he should be dissatisfied with our political institutions was quite a matter of course. What Englishman or Scotchman, or any other loyal subject (we say nothing of a salaried functionary) of his Britannic Majesty, could ever tolerate popular government in any shape? Or why should we, who utterly abominate their polity, and give ourselves so little trouble to conceal our aversion to it, deny the same privilege to them? We were fully prepared, therefore, for his diatribes upon this subject, and all that we felt ourselves at liberty to exact from him was what every gentleman owes to his own reputation, viz. that he should state our case fairly. It would be going too far to say that he has done this exactly. It would be, perhaps, expecting too much of him to require it. He came hither with preconceived opinions-he is an homme à système, and visited us for the purpose of collecting facts to support his theory. He has accordingly seen everything with a partial and prejudiced eye. There is no doubt about this, so far, we mean, as our political constitution and its effects on society are concerned. On another vital subject, as we shall presently have to remark more particularly, he does not seem to have adhered so pertinaciously to his opinions. But, on this great subject of popular institutions, he looks at all the phenomena through a false medium, and draws conclusions the very reverse See remarks of Captain Hall on this subject, at vol. i. p.

241

of those which would seem fairly deducible from his own premises. When we say, therefore, that he has not, to our knowledge, been guilty of any important misrepresentation, our proposition is, of course, subject to the qualification, that he has suffered his inveterate opinions to throw a false colouring over the objects of his inquiry, and to betray him into the exaggeration and unfairness of a professed advocate. Thus, it is undoubtedly true, that with some few exceptions the speeches of our members of Congress are intolerably long-winded, rhetorical and common-place, although it may be true that the subject, by the time it has passed through a discussion of fifty orators and at least as many days, is as fully elucidated as it could be by as many Pitts and Cannings. So, it is certainly true that the great democratic principle, as it is called, of rotation in office, operates rather too actively to admit of a very mature experience in most of our politicans and yet it does not necessarily follow but that our raw recruits in legislation are quite a match for the disciplined veterans of other countries. Again, our worthy Captain is lamentably behind the spirit of the age-of the nineteenth century-in his notions about an establishment and the union of the Church and State; yet he admits that he saw every where the most profound respect for religion, and he is only apprehensive, a priori, lest (to verify his theory) things will not long go on in the same train.

Let it be remembered, too, that he visited us at a juncture as inauspicious for the country, as it was well suited to the sup posed purpose of the tourist. He was here in the very "torrent, tempest and, as I may say, whirlwind of our passions." He was an eye and ear-witness of many of those disgusting and disgraceful abominations which have made the late presidential election forever memorable-may it be forever unparalleledin our history. He heard of nothing else wherever he went. The rancorous hostility, the atrocious calumnies, the systematic misrepresentation, the violation of every decency of life, that distinguished the party warfare of the day, pressed upon his observation on all sides. He saw the daily press teeming with ribaldry and falsehood, until the very sight of a newspaper became loathsome to every body that had any sense of shame left. He heard of eaves-droppers reporting conversations-of friends publishing the letters of their correspondents of guests violating the rights of hospitality, and the sanctity of the fireside and the festive board. He saw this ruthless and unprincipled warfare carried into the very bosom of domestic life, and even female sensibility and honour assailed by remorseless ruffians, apparently with the countenance of men who ought to have blushed at the bare idea of such an alliance. This baleful spirit pervaded everything, disturbed everything, corrupted everything.