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 hunts pretty plainly, that he had formerly Deen ungrateful enough to disown all obligation to our race, and impious enough even to wish for our ruin. Now, from the tenor of the work before us, compared with these passages, it is pretty plain, we think, that Mr. W. has just relapsed into those damnable heresies, which we fear are epidemic in his part of the country-and from which nothing is so likely to deliver him, as a repetition of the same remedy by which they were formerly removed. Let him come again then to England, and try the effect of a second course of "personal experience and observation"-let him make another pilgrimage to Mecca, and observe whether his faith is not restored and confirmed -let him, like the Indians of his own world, visit the Tombs of his Fathers in the old land, and see whether he can there abjure the friendship of their other children? If he will venture himself among us for another two years' residence, we can promise him that he will find in substance the same England that he left:-Our laws and our landscapes-our industry and urbanity;-our charities, our learning, 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, 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 exposition of our infirmities will rather do good than harm, so far as it produces any effect at all, in this country. Among our national vices, we have long reckoned an insolent and overweening opinion of our own universal superiority; and though it really does not belong to America to reproach us with this fault, and though the ludicrous exaggeration of Mr. W.'s charge is sure very greatly to weaken his authority, still such an alarming catalogue of our faults and follies may have some effect, as a wholesome mortification of our vanity. It is with a view to its probable effect in his own country, and to his avowal of the effect he wishes it to produce there, that we consider it as deserving of all reprobation;-and therefore beg leave to make one or two very short remarks on its manifest injustice, and indeed absurdity, in so far as relates to ourselves, and that great majority of the country whom we believe to concur in our sentiments. The object of this violent invective on England is, according to the author's own admission, to excite a spirit of animosity in America, to 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 those 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. 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 are willing occasionally to lend a similar aswe have criticised just as should have done sistance to others, and speak freely and fairly those of any other country; and in speaking of what appear to us to be the faults and er more generally of their literature and man-rors, as well as the virtues and merits, of all ners, 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. who may be in any way affected by our ob- 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 prevaings, 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, rhetorical 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 re spect 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 individual— the 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 sus tained 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, either that he has infinitely surpassed himself, or, in the far greater number of cases, that 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 earned. We would not have Mr. Crayon, however, plume himself too much upon this sage observation for though we, and other great lights of public judgment, have decided that his former level has been maintained in this work with the most marvellous precision, we must whisper in his ear that the million are not exactly of that opinion; and that the common buzz among the idle and impatient critics of the drawing-room is, that, in comparison with the Sketch Book, it is rather monotonous and languid; and there is too little variety of characters for two thick volumes; and that the said few characters come on so often, and stay so long, that the gentlest reader detects himself in rejoicing at being done with them. The premises of this enthymem we do not much dispute; but the conclusion, for all that, is wrong: For, in spite of these defects, Bracebridge Hall is quite as good as the Sketch Book; and Mr. C. may take comfort,-if he is humble enough to be comforted with such an assurance-and trust to us that it will be quite as popular, and that he still holds his own with the efficient body of his English readers. 1 parasites who are in raptures with every boly they meet, and ingratiate themselves in general society by an unmanly suppression of all honest indiguation, and a timid avoidance of all subjects of disagreement. Upon due con. sideration, however, we are now satisfied that this was an unjust and unworthy interpretation. An author who comes deliberately be fore the public with certain select monologues of doctrine and discussion, is not at all in the condition of a man in common society; on whom various overtures of baseness and folly are daily obtruded, and to whose sense and honour appeals are perpetually made, which must be manfully answered, as honour and conscience suggest. The author, on the other hand, has no questions to answer, and no society to select: his professed object is to instruct and improve the world-and his real one, if he is tolerably honest, is nothing worse than to promote his own fame and fortune by succeeding in that which he professes. Now, there are but two ways that we have ever heard of by which men may be improvedeither by cultivating and encouraging their amiable propensities, or by shaming and The great charm and peculiarity of this frightening them out of those that are vicious; work consists now, as on former occasions, in and there can be but little doubt, we should the singular sweetness of the composition, and imagine, which of the two offices is the highthe mildness of the sentiments,-sicklied over est and most eligible-since the one is left in perhaps a little, now and then, with that cloy- a great measure to Hell and the hangman,— ing heaviness into which unvaried sweetness and for the other, we are taught chiefly to is too apt to subside. The rythm and melody look to Heaven, and all that is angelic upon of the sentences is certainly excessive: As it earth. The most perfect moral discipline not only gives an air of mannerism, from its would be that, no doubt, in which both were uniformity, but raises too strong an impres- combined; but one is generally as much as sion of the labour that must have been be- human energy is equal to; and, in fact, they stowed, and the importance which must have have commonly been divided in practice, with been attached to that which is, after all, but out surmise of blame. And truly, if men have a secondary attribute to good writing. It is been hailed as great public benefactors, merevery ill-natured in us, however, to object to ly for having beat tyrants into moderation, or what has given us so much pleasure; for we coxcombs into good manners, we must be perhappen to be very intense and sensitive ad-mitted to think, that one whose vocation is mirers of those soft harmonies of studied speech in which this author is so apt to indulge; and have caught ourselves, oftener than we shall confess, neglecting his excellent matter, to lap ourselves in the liquid music of his periods and letting ourselves float passively down the mellow falls and windings of his soft-flowing sentences, with a delight not inferior to that which we derive from fine versification. We should reproach ourselves still more, however, and with better reason, if we were to persist in the objection which we were also at first inclined to take, to the extraordinary kindliness and disarming gentleness of all this author's views and suggestions; and we only refer to it now, for the purpose of answering, and discrediting it, with any of our readers to whom also it may happen to have occurred. It first struck us as an objection to the anthor's courage and sincerity. It was que unnatural, we said to ourselves, for any boly to be always on such very amiable terms with his fellow-creatures; and this air of eternal philanthropy could be nothing but a pretence put on to bring himself into favour; and then we proceeded to assimilate him to those silken different may be allowed to have deserved well of his kind, although he should have confined his efforts to teaching them mutual charity and forbearance, and only sought to repress their evil passions, by strengthening the springs and enlarging the sphere of those that are generous and kindly. The objection in this general form, there fore, we soon found could not be maintained: -But, as we still felt a little secret spite lingering within us at our author's universal affability, we set about questioning ourselves more strictly as to its true nature and tendency; and think we at last succeeded in tracing it to an eager desire to see so powerful a pen and such great popularity employed in de molishing those errors and abuses to which we had been accustomed to refer most of the unhappiness of our country. Though we love his gentleness and urbanity on the whole, we should have been very well pleased to see him a little rude and surly, now and then, to our particular opponents; and could not but think it showed a want of spirit and discrimination that he did not mark his sense of their demerits, by making them an exception to his general system of toleration and indulgence. doubt chiefly on account of this nfluence and favour that we and others are rashly desirous to see him take part against our adversariesforgetting that those very qualities which render his assistance valuable, would infallibly desert him the moment that he complied with our desire, and vanish in the very act of his compliance. Being Whigs ourselves, for example, we could not but take it a little amiss, that one born and bred a republican, and writing largely on the present condition of England, should make so little distinction between that party and its opponents and should even choose to attach himself to a Tory family, as the proper type and emblem of the old English character. Nor could we well acquit him of being "pigeon- The question then comes to be, not properly livered-and lacking gall," when we found whether there should be any neutrals in great that nothing could provoke him to give a pal-national contentions-but whether any man pable hit to the Ministry, or even to employ should be allowed to aspire to distinction by his pure and powerful eloquence in reproving acts not subservient to party purposes?—a the shameful scurrilities of the ministerial press. We were also a little sore, too, we believe, on discovering that he took no notice of Scotland! and said absolutely nothing about our Highlanders, our schools, and our poetry. Now, though we have magnanimously chosen to illustrate this grudge at his neutrality in our own persons, it is obvious that a dissatisfaction of the same kind must have been felt by all the other great and contending parties into which this and all free countries are necessarily divided. Mr. Crayon has rejected the alliance of any one of these; and resolutely refused to take part with them in the struggles to which they attach so much importance; and consequently has, to a certain extent, offended and disappointed them all. But we must carry our magnanimity a step farther, and confess, for ourselves, and for others, that, upon reflection, the offence and disappointment seem to us altogether unreasonable and unjust. The ground of complaint is, that we see talents and influence-innocently, we must admit, and even beneficially employed-but not engaged on our side, or in the particular contest which we may feel it our duty to wage against the errors or delusions of our contemporaries. Now, in the first place, is not this something like the noble indiguation of a recruiting serjeant, who thinks it a scandal that any stout fellow should degrade himself by a pacific employment, and takes offence accordingly at every pair of broad shoulders and good legs which he finds in the possession of a priest or a tradesman? But the manifest absurdity of the grudge consists in this. First, That it is equally reasonable in all the different parties who sincerely believe their own cause to be that which ought to prevail; while it is manifest, that, as the desired champion could only side with one, all the rest would be only worse off by the termination of his neutrality; and secondly, That the weight and authority, for the sake of which his assistance is so coveted, and which each party is now so anxious to have thrown into its scale, having been entirely created by virtues and qualities which belong only to a state of neutrality, are, in reality, incapable of being transferred to contending parties, and would utterly perish and be annihilated in the attempt. A good part of Mr. C.'s reputation, and certainly a very large share of his influence and popularity with all parties, has been acquired by the indulgence with which he has treated all, and his abstinence from all sorts of virulence and hostility; and it is no question which, even in this age of party and |