an excrescence that was lopped off, and that it was folly to attempt to retain it,--and from what the world has seen of the spirit and tendencies of American patriotism, it may be concluded that England has suffered little by being dissevered from the mighty mass of occidental pollution. But such were not the sentiments natural to the injured Monarch-for they were not the sentiments of what was great and high-spirited among his people. He vindicated the dignity of his crown by pushing, to the farthest verge, that coercion which aimed at upholding the integrity of its dominions--he deserved success, although he could not command it; and while the difficulties of a savage and remote warfare baffled all rational calculation--when rebellion raised its triumphant crest over the disasters of legitimate powerwhen fortune had decided contrary to every anticipation of reason, and had established a new order of things, which it was scarcely worth while to lament, and vain to resist, the sagacity as well as the magnanimity of the Sovereign were conspicuously displayed in that memorable remark to the first of his American subjects, whom he saw in the novel dignity of the ambassador of an independent state,that he, the King of England, had been the last man in his dominions to recognise the independence of America, and would also be the last to violate it." Blackwood's Mag. No. 35. p. 576. [From the Eclectic Review.-Lond. Jan. 1820.] 2. The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. Nos. I. II. 8vo. pp. 169. New-York. 1819. THIS publication, we guess, may be taken as a rather favourable specimen of American fugitive literature. We shall afford our readers some quotations from it. We pass over "The Voyage," which is a little too fine. The first occasion on which the eye of an American is presented with a demonstration of his previous belief in the antiquity of the world above the date of two hundred years, cannot fail to be recorded. In approaching the English coast, the Author saw with delight, 'the mouldering ruin of an abbey overrun with ivy.' But the Author had even a more eager desire to see the great men and the writers of Europe, than the abbeys and the ivy." In this respect he was presently gratified at Liverpool; and his admiration of Mr. Roscoe barely spends itself in fourteen pages. We cannot abridge, so as to make it intelligible, the characteristic and very well told legend of Rip Vån Winkle, derived from the authentic Diedrich Knickerbocker, of New-York. A short quotation is all we can give. Rip Van Winkle, it seems, was afflicted with incurable idleness, and also, as he well deserved, with a scolding wife. [Here a part of this story is given.] What follows is entertaining enough; but one would have thought that the observant Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. might, with Europe fresh before him, have found other matter wherewith to fill his Sketch Book. In the Second Number, however, we find more of what we expect from a traveller, under the titles of "English Writers on America," and "Rural Life in England." In reference to the first of these subjects, the Author says 'It is 'with feelings of deep regret that I have noticed the literary ani'mosity daily growing up between England and America. Great 'curiosity has been awakened of late with respect to the United 'States, and the London press has teemed with volumes of travels 'through the republic; but they seem intended to diffuse error ra'ther than knowledge; and so successful have they been, that not'withstanding the constant intercourse between the nations, there 'is none concerning which the great mass of the British people 'have less pure information, or more prejudices......It has been the 'peculiar lot of our country, to be visited by the worst kind of English travellers. While men of philosophical spirit and culti'vated minds, have been envoys from England to ransack the 'poles, to penetrate the deserts, and to study the manners and cus'toms of barbarous nations, with which she can have no permanent 'intercourse of profit or pleasure; it is left to the broken down 'tradesman, the scheming adventurer, the wandering mechanic, 'the Manchester and Birmingham agent, to be her oracles respect'ing America-to treat of a country in a singular state of moral ' and physical development; where one of the greatest political ex'periments in the history of the world is now performing, and 'which presents the most profound and momentous studies for the 'statesman and the philosopher.' The Author goes on to state several causes to which may be attributed the unfairness of the reports relative to the States which are current in England, and then adds-One would suppose, how'ever, that information coming from such sources, on a subject 'where the truth is so desirable, would be received with caution by 'the censors of the press; that the motives of these men, their ve'racity, their opportunities of inquiry and observation, and their 'capacities for judging correctly, would be rigorously scrutinized, before their evidence was admitted, in such sweeping extent, ' against a kindred nation. The very reverse, however, is the case, ' and it furnishes a striking instance of human inconsistency. Nothing can surpass the vigilance with which English critics will ⚫ test the credibility of the traveller who publishes an account of 'some distant, and comparatively unimportant country. How I warily will they compare the measurements of a pyramid or the "descriptions of a ruin, and how sternly will they censure any discrepancy in these contributions of merely curious knowledge; VOL. I. 25 'while they will receive, with eagerness and unhesitating faith, the 'gross misrepresentations of coarse and obscure writers concerning 'a country with which their own is placed in the most important ' and delicate relations. Nay, what is worse, they will make these 'apocryphal volumes text books, on which to enlarge, with a zeal and an ability worthy of a more generous cause.' Viewed as an expression of American feeling on a subject doubtless of some importance, we feel disposed to continue our quotations. Some of the Author's remarks are well worthy of attention. He proceeds to expostulate with his countrymen. But why are 'we so exquisitely alive to the aspersions of England?—It is not in 'the opinion of England alone that honour lives, and reputation 'has its being. The world at large is the arbiter of a nation's 'fame with its thousand eyes it witnesses a nation's deeds, and 'from their collective testimony is national glory or disgrace es'tablished. For ourselves, therefore, it is comparatively of little 'importance whether England do us justice or not it is, perhaps, ' of far more importance to herself. She is instilling anger and re'sentment into the bosom of a youthful nation, to grow with its 'growth, and strengthen with its strength. If in America, as some 'of her writers are labouring to convince her, she is hereafter to find 'an invidious rival and a gigantic foe, she may thank those very 'writers for having provoked that rivalship, and irritated that hos'tility. Every one knows the all-pervading influence of literature 'at the present day, and how completely the opinions and passions ' of mankind are under its control. The mere contests of the sword are temporary; their wounds are but in the flesh, and it is the 'pride of the generous to forgive and forget them: but the slanders of the pen pierce to the heart; they rankle most sorely and per'manently in the noblest spirits; they dwell ever present in the 'mind, and make it morbidly sensitive to the most trifling collision. 'It is not so much any one overt act that produces hostilities be'tween two nations; there exists, most commonly, a previous jea'lousy and ill will, a predisposition to take offence. Trace these 'to their cause, and how often will they be found to originate in the mischievous effusions of writers who, secure in their closets, and 'for ignominious bread, concoct and circulate the venom that is to 'inflame the generous and the brave.' The Author refers to the idea prevailing in England, that the people of the United States are inimical to the parent country. It is, he says, one of the errors that have been diligently propagated by designing writers. Though the illiberality of the English Press may have excited hostile feelings, the prepossessions of the people 'are strongly in favour of England.' It must be granted, that the people of the United States have been represented to us, of late, by travellers of an inferior class, men either of little education or degraded character, or who were raving under the half-insanity of some political infatuation. It is certain also, that these representations, or misrepresentations, have been invited, exaggerated, and promulgated, with more industry than conscience, and that they have been received, we might say devoured among us, with that sort of indiscriminate readiness which betrays the influence both of sordid fear and malignant agitation in the public mind. We cannot but think, for instance, that in a better and calmer condition of the public judgment, a much less eager and unquestioning hearing would have been given to the reports of a recent traveller in the United States, who, by his own account of himself, evidently went out perverted and inflated with theories, and who returned in ill temper with facts. A man who has been puffed across the Atlantic in a balloon, and having had the silken bubble pricked, and the ill-flavoured and inflammatory gas exhaled, comes trailing back, battered and ragged, in the boat, is not the calm observer to whom we shall listen with deep regard. Wild speculations may have been dissipated, absurd anticipations disappointed, the bilious mislikings may have changed their objects, and so far, the individual may deserve to be congratulated by his friends on occasion of his happy restoration to common sense; but in all this the public have little concern. We want not to listen to tales of extraordinary cures in desperate cases, while seeking authentic information relative to important facts. It is not enough that a traveller comes home with a sane mind; he merits little regard unless it be apparent that he set out with a sane mind. We want neither city declaimers, nor recluse illuminati, to give us their reports of a people's moral and political condition. This very difficult task can be competently performed only by that class of men, who, as the writer before us justly observes, have hitherto not been tempted to cross the Atlantic,-men, not merely of comprehensive minds, and endowed with the talent of observation, but who, by their superior education, their good taste, their habits, and their rank in society at home, are likely to be free from vulgarities of opinion and the temptations of temper. But our business is not now with Mr. Fearon: his book has afforded some valuable information, much entertainment, and much food to party and national prejudice. It will sink, however, upon the well-forgotten heap, towards which every thing gravitates that is not sustained by sound and liberal sentiment, and well-instructed and enlarged thinking. We profess not to have the means of judging competently, how far from sober truth, passion, prejudice, and state policy have betrayed opinions in this country, relative to the character, disposi a [Mr. Fearon.] tion, and condition of the people of the United States; but this we may certainly say, that the sources of this opinion, bear upon them almost all the marks that can entitle them to suspicion. [From the New Monthly Magazine.-Lond. Feb. 1820.] ART. IX.—"T'OTHER SIDE OF THE OHIO." In the present ardour for emigration to the western world, those who have retained any rational ideas on the subject, have deemed it prudent to inquire respecting the eligibility of two points; whether they should emigrate at all; and, if expatriation be determined upon, to what point of the country their course should be directed. Most of our countrymen, on their first landing in the civilized parts of America, have found the usual concomitants of civilized society; selfishness, chicanery, and injustice. The frontiers evidently are not the paradise which their fancy had led them to expect; it is then to be looked for in the back settlements-if it is not to be found among a number of men, it happily may exist where there are comparatively few-if it dwell not with the luxuries of life, it may perhaps be hidden among its privations. The haunts of man are therefore to be exchanged for the wild prairies, and the wilder the better, where human footsteps have scarcely trodden, and where there is certainly one consolation to human pride, that if disappointment and misery wring a lamentation from human weakness, there is no one to listen to it; no one to reproach the unhappy sufferer with the failure of his views, except the few who have been mistaken and disappointed like himself. The passion for emigrating to the back settlements is so prevalent among the Americans themselves, that the rational part of the community have lately been anxious to save the Morris Birkbecks of their countrymen from so ruinous a delusion. The trials and hardships to which the "Backwoodsman" is subjected, have formed the subject of a poem bearing that title by Mr. Paulding, which affords one of the most favourable specimens of native poetical ability that we have yet been presented with by transatlantic genius, The account of the setting out of the hero of the piece, from Hudson to the banks of the Ohio, with his wife and infant family, cannot be read without sympathy in the hopes by which it is prompted, the fears it is calculated to awaken, and the difficulties by which it is certain to be attended. "The house was lifeless, not a breathing wight |