Beside, your absence, unlooked for as it had been, and only occasioned by the éclat of your marvellous productions, left a hiatus in my heart, which no extraneous charm or consolation could fill up. I could think of nothing but of our untoward separation. Oh that word separation! What a chill and drear sound it has! It comes between us and our happiness like a ravenous kite, and tears asunder, with one dreadful wrench, all the ties of tenderness and love!

But Nature, whatever may be the quality of your draught upon her, is capable of a certain amount of endurance only; and as I lay one day stretched on an easy couch, in luxurious indolence, like a puritanical Sardanapalus, striving to resist the narcotic influence of an enervating atmosphere, a flash from the reviving embers of my dormant energies suddenly shot athwart my cerebral chamber, and forthwith my passions were roused to the utmost verge of active sympathy. Weary of seeing thousands of idle faces daily buzzing about me, and yet live,

'Like a lonely bird,

Wailing unheeded in a vast sea-cave,'

I resolved to get into good humor with the world again, even at the hazard of beholding the premature subversion of all plea for turning misanthrope. Collision with society is, after all, I fear, the only antidote against bile a species of mental carbonate of soda, which causes a gentle degree of acetous fermentation, by which the superabundance of acid is either carried off, or neutralized.

It was during my subsequent intercourse with the gay circles of the French metropolis, that I became acquainted with those rare transatlantic specimens of female loveliness, whose rainbow-like glances had not unfrequently detracted from the singleness of your own pursuits, and bereft your eyelids of their proportionate share of vacancy. Through their gracious intercession, I soon found myself on a footing of intimacy with almost every American of standing and quality then in Paris.

You may remember how forcibly, for the last eight years, your American predilections had gained upon me, and how rapidly I was veering round to your own point of the compass, when the wholesome severities of Mrs. Trollope's criticisms, and the amusing impertinences of the ci-devant Fanny Kemble, made me wish to be placed in a position where I might sagely try conclusions of my own on the subject.

The accomplishment of this project, however, I found more thickly beset with difficulties than Sancho Panza's attempts at repletion, with Doctor Don Periwig Snatchaway by his side; for, notwithstanding that there were assembled in Paris, at this period, nearly two thousand Americans of wealth and influence, who entered freely into all the harmless frivolities of the season, and thus supplied me with excellent opportunities for contemplating new modifications of intellect and character, yet such is the melancholy diffidence exhibited by most Americans, when from home, particularly on the continent of Europe, and under the benign influence of daily condescension from the proud, the powerful, and the noble, that instead of those spontaneous ebullitions of patriotism, which I expected their

conversation to be tinctured with, and which, when emanating from a pure and untainted heart, are attractive in the highest degree, I generally found, that even when I attempted to celebrate the panegyric of the illustrious names their country had given to deck the scrolls of fame, or to applaud the tendency of those institutions, wherein was contained the safeguard of their political independence, my observations were considered officious and intrusive; my conscientious enthusiasm mawkish and jejune.

It has always been my opinion, that a man must be painfully defi cient in those organs which assist deglutition, whose palate is unsusceptible of being tickled with condiments of domestic produce; and had I not known that the deepest-seated passion is sometimes the last to reveal itself, I should have looked upon this philosophical exemption from national predilections, on the part of travelled Americans abroad, as put on, more from a puerile love of singularity, than from a plausible desire to exemplify the beauty of self-denial. But, heaven forbid that I should be betrayed into disparaging conclusions, by attributing these seeming abdications of pristine character to that increasing prostitution of mind and feeling, whereby some men now-a-days are rendered either too wise or too cunning, to deem themselves sufficiently respectable, for what they actually are. That the Americans are a great people, we all know. That they have achieved great things, England and Louis Philippe can best testify. That a universal tribute of respect is yielded to them, by every civilized potentate, from pole to pole, the studied deference paid to the American flag, throughout the navigable seas, can also give evidence. In what language, then, shall I celebrate the meek-mindedness of those individuals, who, (undeterred by the narrow scruples of petty intellects, and stimulated only by that estimable passion for imitation, so beautifully eulogized by Burke,) not only deny themselves every participation in that pride of country which should be deeply rooted in the heart of every free-born American, but, in the true spirit of a timid philanthropist, ashamed of being detected in the performance of a charitable action, virtually doff the mantle of identity, to make discovery less probable! Lord Brougham's abjuration of every privilege and prerogative pertaining to his noble order, was nothing to this!

Philosophy, in this case, is, as you may perceive, a sort of neutral ground, where duty, principle, and convenience, meet in amity; exchange civilities, and then shake hands and part.

This, after all, strikes me as being part of your own wise doctrine of enjoyment, which consists in the purchase of our pleasures at the expense of temporary restraint. Happy, indeed, is the man, who possesses a Proteus-like faculty of self-transmigration into all the contraries that teem within the real, as well as the ideal world! from the forlorn and mossy cell of the contemplative anchorite, to the gay and richly-carpeted halls of pompous royalty! — from the silvery beam that unfolds to our view some lonely valley, by distance mellowed, and with Bulwer's fairies dancing in the midst, to the ray that gleams upon the hellish features of Beldame Hecate, in the Acherontic pit.

But to return: It is somewhere told of an eccentric Hibernian 6

VOL. XI.

42 An Ingenious Dramatist - Society in London.

[January,

dramatist, that having betted somewhat heavily on the success of one of his feeblest productions, he disguised himself in his servant's habiliments, and, muffled up to the very nose, went into the pit of the Dublin theatre, where, after suffering a scene or two of his play to pass without remark or interruption, he gradually raised such a din of mingled yells and hisses, that the rest of the audience, actuated partly by a spirit of contradiction, and partly by a feeling of commiseration with the unknown author of the piece, got up on their side a still more violent hubbub of applause, which only ended, by causing the delighted dramatist to be triumphantly pelted out of the house, and in securing to the play, which would otherwise have been condemned as tame and spiritless, a successful career of thirty nights.

The application of this trifling anecdote may not, at first, appear so obvious, as to render it unnecessary to interpret the writing on the wall; but certain it is, that the conduct of Americans abroad, both as regards their efforts at self-degradation, and their vaunted want of sympathy for those political and social institutions at home, to which they owe their aggregate aggrandizement, as well as their individual prosperity, would seem at least to justify the reversion of the proverb, that all is not gold that glitters,' and to encourage the generous assumption, Qu'ils se reculer pour mieux sauter.'

I am now at no loss to understand why it is, that out of so many hundreds of opulent Americans, who yearly traverse the Atlantic in pursuit of pleasure and excitement, so very few perform that voyage by way of Great Britain.

In London, social distinctions are so exquisitely drawn, and the threshold of titled exclusiveness is so unapproachable by the uninitiated, that before an American can obtain access to that sphere of enchantment, he would have to undergo a series of ordeals, as full of hazardous adventures as the hair-breadth 'scapes of those valiant knights, who, in the renowned era of chivalry, had manifold monsters to exterminate, enchantments to dissolve, and castles to demolish, ere they could attain the object promised by some benevolent fairy. Other circles there are, we have no doubt, where a more liberal state of feeling prevails, and where such Americans as are willing to violate their modesty, by resting their claims to hospitable attentions on their own intrinsic merits, might rely upon being received with approving smiles of familiarity and benevolence. The first of these circles is in itself a concentration of all that is most intellectual and high-minded among our aristocracy. In it, a ready facility in giving. animation to social intercourse rarely fails to elevate even an unpedigreed stranger in the proudest estimation of its members. În it, fashion learns the value of wit, and wit requires the polish of fashion; plebeian talent attains refinement by constant communion with rank, and rank is taught the exercise of intellect from habitual contact with its humbler ally. The next circle, although not graced with highsounding names, does nevertheless possess a dignity and refinement of its own, so as to be frequently enlivened by that unfading festivity of mind, which places its members at an immeasurable distance from the heartless enjoyments and trifling pleasures of a more ordinary society.

And yet, notwithstanding these bright indications of a sympathizing

and appreciating spirit, there is a something in our social atmosphere which your thorough-going American gentleman can scarcely breathe without repugnance and mortification. The same emotions are sometimes felt by modest females, on joining a corps-de-ballet for the first time, although the faultless symmetry of their limbs might well justify the existence of a bolder feeling.

No person of royal lineage, travelling under the auspices of an humble cognomen, could evince more querulous sensitiveness on the subject of apprehended recognition, than I have seen several of these genteel' Americans exhibit, while writhing under the infliction of those categorical inquiries, and incessant harpings on my daughter,' in which it is the peculiar propensity of our national genius to indulge and as among us this tone of impertinent inquisitiveness pervades all classes of society, to the utter discomfiture of those arts, behind which the timid and the bashful meritoriously seek to screen the solidity of their advantages, it is no wonder that American travellers, who are daily becoming proverbial for their magnanimous relinquishment of all importance borrowed from national greatness, should avoid sojourning among a race of people where these elevated sentiments, however enigmatical in themselves, are as little felt as they are understood.

:

Paris, therefore, being almost the only place where the incongruities of character and of conduct never lack toleration, becomes the most eligible point of attraction, where those sauntering Americans, who are too refined in their notions to follow the respectable vocations of their industrious parents, do yearly congregate and no one can have resided long in that focus of noise and falsehood, of hollow joy and real sorrow, without having had opportunities of remarking, at some time or other, with what amiable disinterestedness of feeling these listless sons of luxury strive to parry off, and render altogether abortive, every compliment which is directed either to their country, or to those men who have grown to eminence in her service. Even Niagara, I have heard described by native commentators in terms of actual detraction; and on several occasions, when I professed myself unable to understand how so many delicate shades of respectability, (the boast of all Americans on the continent,) could exist in the social organization of a community which owed its very existence, as a nation, to the promulgation and support of doctrines diametrically hostile to the assumption of social as well as political superiority, I was positively assured that there were circles so superfine in structure and complexion, that not even the President of the United States could obtain admission to them!

My views being thus enlarged by this invaluable supply of information, and my sensitive pride less apprehensive of offence, in contemplating exhibitions of republican equality, austereness, and gloom, I resolved that my favorite scheme, of visiting these free and blessed realms, which had so long suffered from inanity and indecision, should be carried into operation immediately.

Well! in spite of that prostrating feeling of melancholy, which is attached to quitting any place wherein we have long experienced familiar and habitual associations, there is nevertheless a no less strange,

fascinating, miserable delight, in calling at a stated hour to take final leave of our friends. The many expressions of regret at our departure; the reiterated hopes that our absence may not be long protracted; the oft-repeated promises that our name will ever remain registered in the faithful repository of some beloved creature's memory; are so soothing, and so gratifying to our vanity, that it is almost worth while to pass our lives in periodical desertions of home, country, and well-tried friends, in order frequently to task the cherished overflowings of the human heart. It is but too true, that the most solemn asseverations of friendship prove often as evanescent as the breath which gives them utterance; and that while you are fancying that the inward sigh of memory is arising in your favor, you are, de facto, serenely sliding away down the stream of oblivion. But then, as men and women are the mere types of human mutability, you should receive all that they profess on such occasions, as bearing the stamp and impress of truth; and then endeavor not only to forget all and every thing, but to dream away the very consciousness of your former self. This is the truest way of applying the laws of philosophy to passing events, with judgment and

success.

Whether it was this felicitous process of thought which so completely revolutionized the tide of my feelings, on hearing our captain issue orders for weighing anchor, or that the extreme mobility of our nature, always yielding to present impressions, forces the mind into transitions at once sudden and complete, and renders us the mere dependants on geographical situations, I cannot tell; but this I know, that no sooner had I given myself up to reflection upon the greatness and majesty of that nature, which at sea more than any where else astonishes with her grandeur, and overwhelms us with her might, all the tumult and contention of this actual life faded into a rapidlydying murmur behind me. It was certainly one of those nights which create a paradise of thought, transporting our every feeling to a true elysium of enjoyment; and if I could but have followed my imagination in that path of wonders, and clothed in simple, transparent language that succession of bright images which fluttered about me on that occasion; if I had possessed that mastery over expression, which alone can enable the poet to mould the inspirations of fancy into forms of loveliness and beauty, how many glorious creations would my teeming brain have produced! But as I belong to that maudlin race of sentimentalists, who can only feel without being able to explain, the influences acting on their minds, or to disclose those secrets which spring up from amid the great mysteries of their own souls, I shall spare myself the trouble of dabbling in the Castalian fount, and you the uncovetable distinction of being splashed with the result of my labors.

Suffice it for you to know, that after the usual quota of adverse winds, and terrific hurricanes, during which the bravest appetites were destroyed, and the stoutest stomachs unhinged, we at last reached the land of Columbus, which a gratuitous solecism in nomenclature has caused to be miscalled America.

On disembarking at New-York, I met with a little incident which