of cases of Cholera was greater on Mondays and the days following holidays, than on any other days. It is not true that we have no fairs in America. In the sense intended by Mrs. Trollope, there are many festivals, which might bear that name. Our great military reviews; cattle shows; commencement days, and political festivals, come up precisely to that character; and it is notorious that, as far as the effect on the conduct and morals of young and inconsiderate persons goes, they are pernicious. They are invariably, out-doors, the occasion of gambling and drunkenness. Nor do we believe there was ever a fair, in any country, that was not.

Indeed we greatly doubt the practicability of applying the social principle, on a large scale, to amusement. Men in crowds, (we mean, of course, where all are to take a part, not a mute and admiring audience), can, in the way of amusement, do scarce any thing but lash each other on to excess. Lively conversation in a small circle is exhilarating. A great room full of people, all talking at once, is a senseless dreary Babel. Half a dozen friends around the festive board enjoy the social glass; but if two hundred and fifty meet together to feast, it is apt to degenerate into carousal and debauch. Domestic sports, checked by the decorum of the family circle, exhilarate those who join in them, old and young; but public out-door festivals are too often the devil's levée: man there lets out his half tiger, half monkey character; drinks, and as the necessary consequence, swears and fights; and homicide or murder generally ends the day.

But that Americans have not a taste for every thing that can be fairly called amusement, and do not indulge in it more than any other people on earth, is we believe a huge mistake. For the very reason, that where there are, in any given number of our inhabitants, more men who feel themselves somewhat at their ease, there is also a larger number who indulge themselves in the amusements adapted to their means and pursuits. Throughout the United States, there is, in town and country, summer and winter, a succession of social meetings of one kind or another. No people on earth are so locomotive; and unquestionably there are more vehicles kept wholly or used frequently for amusement and pleasure in this country, than in any other part of the world. We have no manner of doubt that on any given pleasant day, in the proper VOL. XXXVI.-No. 78. 5

season of the year, there shall be twice as many persons in any part of the United States driving out for pleasure, or making excursions of pleasure in the steamboats, as in any population of equal size in the world. Is not this amusement? Is it absolutely necessary, in Mrs. Trollope's notion of amusement, that there should be a great mass of rioting, bullying, fighting ruffians, collected together, one third drunk, and the other two hastening to the same consummation? This was not Dr. Johnson's notion of amusement. The stern old moralist declared, that, leaving considerations of the other world out of view, the greatest pleasure man could enjoy, was to drive in a post chaise on a good road, with a pretty woman by his side; and we greatly mistake if there is any country on earth, where the Doctor would have found more abundant materials for his happiness. Then how shall we enumerate the fishing parties all along a coast of two thousand miles, or upon the innumerable lakes and ponds in the interior; visits to beautiful points of rocky scenery on the shore; inland excursions to favorite rural resorts; our innumerable academic and literary festivals, with their appropriate exhibitions; our meetings saltatory, cantatory, and colloquial ; balls, assemblies, concerts, and oratorios; sleighing parties, skating parties, husking parties, horse-races, and barbacues; the sporting of all kinds, from his who follows the sheldrake through the morasses of Martha's Vineyard, or spears the salmon, by the light of a pine knot in the Penobscot, to his who pursues the wild wolf at full career, on horseback on the frozen Mississippi ; and lastly, those assemblies, which, mingling amusement with instruction, have multiplied so rapidly throughout our country, and are providing for both sexes, as we humbly conceive, a relaxation vastly more rational, than the most innocent of the amusements, exclusively such, which have hitherto been the great resource?

Before we quite leave this subject, we cannot but quote a passage or two from the Prince, to show what a mockery of amusement it is, which passes as such, in the most elegant circles in London. They furnish the best commentary on Mrs. Trollope's description of the society, which she saw in America; the rather as, arbiter elegantiarum as she is for us, they refer to a circle of society to which her golden dreams in this country, had they been realized to her heart's content, would not have procured her admission in her own.

"The first Almack's ball took place this evening, and, from all I had heard of this celebrated assembly, I was really curious to see it; but never were my expectations so disappointed. It was not much better than at Brighton. A large bare room, with a bare floor, and ropes around it, like the space in an Arab camp, parted off for horses; two or three small naked rooms at the sides, in which were served the most wretched refreshments, and a company into which, spite of the immense difficulty of getting tickets, a great many "nobodies" had wriggled; in which the dress was generally as tasteless as the tournure was badthis was all. In a word, a sort of inn-entertainment;—the music and the lighting the only good thing; and yet Almack's is the culminating point of the English world of fashion.

This overstrained simplicity had, however, originally a motive. People of real fashion wished to oppose something extremely cheap to the monstrous faste of the rich parvenus ; while the institution of lady patronesses, without whose approbation no one could be admitted, would render it inaccessible to them. Money and bad company, (in the aristocratical sense of the word) have, however, forced their way; and the only characteristic which has been retained is, the unseemly place, which is not unlike the locale of a shooting ball, in our large towns, and forms a most ludicrous contrast with the general splendor and luxury of England.'

It may not be amiss to couple with this glance at the interior, the following sketch of the agreeable circumstances of approach to this envied elysium of fashion.

'All sorts of equipages fare worse here than any where. At last night's Almack's, there was such a bagarre among them, that several ladies were obliged to wait for hours, before the chaos was reduced to any kind of order. The coachmen, on these occasions, behave like madmen, trying to force their way; and the English police does not trouble itself much about such matters. As soon as these heroic chariot-drivers espy the least opening, they whip their horses in, as if horses and carriage were an iron wedge; and the preservation of either seems totally disregarded. In this manner, one of Jady Sligo's horses had its two hind legs entangled in such a manner, in the forewheel of a carriage, that it was quite impossible to release them, and one turn of the wheel would infallibly have broken both. Notwithstanding this, the other coachman could hardly be prevailed upon to stand still. When the crowd dispersed a little, they were forced to take out both horses; and even then it was with some difficulty they extri

cated the entangled one. All this time the poor animal roared like the lions in Exeter Change. At the same time, a cabriolet was crushed to pieces, and en revanche drove both its shafts through the window of the coach, from which the screams of several female voices proved, that it was already full. Many other carriages were damaged.'

The following description of a party at the present king's, shall finish this topic.

'I drove to a party at the duke of Clarence's, where there was this time such a genuine English squeeze, that I and several others could by no means get in; and went away after waiting half an hour re infectâ, to console ourselves at another ball. The mass, in the first room, was so jammed together, that several men put on their hats, that they might have their arms more at liberty, for active service. Ladies covered with jewels were regularly "milled," and fell or rather stood fainting: cries, groans, curses, and sighs were the only sounds to be heard. Some only laughed, and inhuman as it was, I must accuse myself of having been among these latter; for really it was too droll to hear this called society. To say truth, I never saw anything equal to it

before.'

These passages will enable us to understand Mrs. Trollope, when she lectures us in the following terms.

'I have read much of "the few and simple wants of rational man," and I used to give a sort of dreamy acquiescence to the reasoning, which went to prove each added want a wo. Those who reason in a comfortable London drawing-room, [Qu. Where ladies covered with jewels are regularly "milled?"] know little about the matter. Were the aliments which sustain life all that we wanted, the faculties of the hog [polite,] might suffice us. But if we analyze an hour of enjoyment, we shall find that it is made up of agreeable sensations, occasioned by a thousand delicate impressions on almost as many nerves. When these nerves are sluggish from never having been awakened, external objects are less important, from never having been perceived. But when the whole machine of the human frame is in full activity, [as it was at the duke of Clarence's, where the nobility and gentry put on their hats, that they might have their arms more at liberty for active service, in "milling" the ladies,] where every sense brings home to consciousness its touch of pleasure or pain, there every object that meets the senses is important, as a vehicle of happi

ness or misery. But let no frames so tempered visit the United States; or if they do, let it be with no longer pausing than will store the memory with images, which, by the force of contrast, shall sweeten the future,

"Guarda e passa (e poi) ragiam di lor."

And further on, in the same strain of philosophical and lucid disquisition:

'Captain Hall, when asked what appeared to him to constitute the greatest difference between England and America, replied, like a gallant sailor, "loyalty." Were the same question put to me, I should answer "the want of refinement!"

This is capital. We make no comment on it ourselves, but refer the reader to the extract made at the beginning of our article from the German Prince's account of English refinement. At present, we have game still smaller in view.

In her chapter on American literature Mrs. Trollope, among other complimentary remarks, observes that,

'What the Americans class as modern literature, seems to include little beyond the English publications of the day. To speak of Chaucer or even Spenser as a modern, appears to them inexpres sibly ridiculous; and all the rich and varied eloquence of Italy from Dante to Monti is about as much known to them, as the Welsh effusions of Urien and Modred are to us.'

Pro-di-gi-ous! But Mrs. Trollope knows all about this rich and varied eloquence, and our brother of the London Quarterly knows all about it too. Mrs. Trollope even favors us with a taste of her knowledge in the citation of a line of Dante.

Guarda e passa (e poi) ragiam di lor,

and our colleague, the London Quarterly Reviewer, quoting the paragraph, repeats verbatim this exquisite

Guarda e passa (e poi) ragiam di lor,

retaining even the blunder of the absurd parenthesis, which, if inserted at all, and there were any glimmer of meaning in the minds of these amiable censors, should have been confined to the word poi. But we should like to have Mrs. Trollope, who rates us poor Yankees for not knowing Dante, parse ragiam.