art and industry of the Dutch nation; they are literally great mounds of earth and clay, regularly formed after the best practice of the engineer; sometimes they are faced or defended to seaward, with rice work, wattled with small branches of osiers ; in other and more exposed situations they are armed or fenced with stone, brick, straw, and even in some places the importance of these banks is so essential to the safety and preservation of the country, that we find them covered at certain places with canvass or sail-cloth. The dike which we travelled upon this morning is for defending Rotterdam and the adjoining country from the inundations of the Meuse, which is frequently overcharged with land floods on the one hand, and by the high tides and storms of the ocean on the other. Before, however, enlarging upon this subject, I shall return to Rotterdam, and make a few additional remarks connected with that great commercial city.

Rotterdam takes its name from the stream called the Rotter, on which it is built. It is the rival city of Amsterdam, and, in the opinion of some, surpasses it in every thing excepting in population, and perhaps the extent of its merchandise. Rotterdam is said to contain about 55,000 inhabitants. It commands a great part of the trade of France and Germany by the Meuse; and, forming a much more immediate and ready communication with the sea than Amsterdam, seems in every respect better calculated to become the emporium of commercial intercourse for Holland than its capital.

Upon returning from Schidam, the party paid another visit to the church of St Lawrence, and ascended to the top of the steeple, an excursion which had hitherto been prevented by our being repeatedly disappointed in meeting with the sexton, whose other avocations being more profitable, he was, for our purpose, very difficult of access. The sign-board over his door contained the following intimation: "Heren maket doden mens Kestein," or, in English, "Coffins made here." A long stair, said to be nearly 200 feet in height, was now to be mounted, in a country where a doyt, or the 8th part of a penny, is in current circulation, and where a doubleque, or twopence, is considered a sufficient remuneration

for the ordinary services of a porter. No wonder than the old man should prefer working at doden mens kestein. But he informed the party, that if he had known that we were English, he would have been much more pointed in his attendance. On arriving at the top of the steeple, we found that our labours were amply repaid for all our trouble, and as the guide was very civil, and withal well informed as to the localities, we had great pleasure in the view of an extensive district of South Holland, including the range of islands to the westward of Helvoetsluys, the track of the Meuse, Williamstadt, Dort, Gouda, Utrecht, Leyden, Hague, Schidam, Flaarden, &c. &c. with many curious and remarkable intersections of land and water, beyond all parallel in England. The city of Rotterdam is seen ramifying below the spectator in streets, canals, trees, and shipping, with numerous drawbridges, and a crowded population passing to and fro in every direction. After enjoying this interesting scene for a time, we descended to one of our friends, who, having seen the view before, was left studying his pocket dictionary for a scold in Dutch, for the sexton's irregular attendance as a cicerone; this rebuke, so prepared, was at the same time delivered in such a strain of good humour, that the poor sexton was evidently at a loss what to make of our friend, and joined the party in heartily laughing at the joke. Our attention, however, was very suddenly turned to a different subject; a beadle, clothed in a black gown, having at the moment walked across the church, wholly unattended, carrying the coffin of an infant under his arm, which appeared to be so small, that it had probably been the remains of a still-born child. The coffin was of oak, of the natural colour of the timber. The man laid it upon the ground, and lifting part of the pavement of the church, he turned up a little of the sand below, and deposited his charge with the least possible ceremony.

In returning to the hotel, we passed the house where the eminent Erasmus was born. Over the door is a short inscription in Latin, stating that Erasmus, who adorned the world with science and virtue, was born there in the year 1467. The Dutch are proud of his name, and in honour of his me◄

mory, the burgomasters of Rotterdam have erected a statue, said to be of bronze work, on one of the bridges in the middle of the city, representing this distinguished scholar in a gown and cap, with a book in his hand. The figure seems to be rather larger than life, but its expression exhibits little of animation or intelligence, and while we doubt the correctness of the taste which placed the statue of Erasmus in a market place, it is shocking to observe, that the unhallowed brush of the painter has been suffered to lay this piece of sculpture under successive coats of white paint, like an ornamental head on the prow of a ship. (To be continued.) S.

ENGLISH WRITERS ON AMERICA.

"Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation, rousing herself, like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks: methinks I see her as an

eagle, mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her endazzled eyes at the full mid-day beam.”

MILTON on the Liberty of the Press.

IT is with feelings of deep regret that I have noticed the literary animosity daily growing up between England and America. Great curio sity 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 rather than knowledge; and so successful have they been, that, notwithstanding 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.

Hence, their travels are more honest and accurate, the more remote the country described. I would place implicit confidence in an Englishman's description of the regions beyond the cataracts of the Nile; of unknown islands in the Yellow Sea; of the interior of Africa; or of any other tract which other travellers might be apt to picture out with the illusions of their fancies; but I would cautiously receive his account of his immediate neighbours, and of those nations with which he is in habits of most frequent intercourse. However I might be disposed to trust his probity, I dare not trust his prejudices.

But 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 cultivated minds have been envoys from England to ransack the poles, to penetrate the deserts, and to study the manners and customs of barbarous na

tions, with which she can have no permanent intercourse of profit or pleasure; it is left to the broken down tradesman, the scheming adventurer, chester and Birmingham agent, to be the wandering mechanic, the Manher oracles respecting America-to treat of a country in a singular state of moral and physical development; where one of the greatest political experiments in the history of the world is now performing, and which presents the most profound and momen◄ tous studies for the statesman and the philosopher.

That such men should give prejudiced accounts of America is not a matter of surprise. The themes it offers for contemplation are too vast and elevated for their capacities. The national character is yet in a state of fermentation; it may have its frothiness and sediment, but its ingredients are sound and wholesome: it has al

ful and graphical descrip ions of external objects; but when the interests or reputation of their own nation come in collision with those of another, they go to the opposite extreme, and fo get their usual probity and candour, in the indulgence of spleen, and an illiberal spirit of ridicule.

* From the Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. New York, 1819.

mises to settle down into something generous qualities, and the whole prosubstantially excellent. But the causes that are operating to strengthen and ennoble it, and its daily indications of admirable properties, are all lost upon these purblind observers, who are only affected by the little asperities incident to its present situation. They are capable of judging only of the surface of things; of those matters which come in contact with their pri

vate interests and gratifications. They miss some of the snug conveniences and petty comforts which belong to an old, highly finished, and over-populous state of society, where the ranks of useful labour are crowded, and many make a painful and servile subsistence, by studying the very caprices of appetite and self indulgence. These minor comforts, however, are all important in the estimation of narrow minds; and they either do not perceive, or will not acknowledge, that they are more than counterbalanced among us, by great and generally diffused blessings.

Or, perhaps, they have been disappointed in some unreasonable expectation of sudden gain. They may have pictured America to themselves an El Dorado, where gold and silver abounded, and the natives were lacking in sagacity. Where they were to become strangely and suddenly rich, in some unforeseen, but easy manner. The same weakness of mind that indulges absurd expectations, produces petulance in disappointment. They become embittered against the country on finding that there, as every where else, a man must sow before he can reap; that he must win wealth by industry and talent; and must compete with the common difficulties of nature, and the shrewdness of an intelligent and enterprising people.

Or, perhaps, through mistake, or ill-directed hospitality, or the prompt disposition to cheer and countenance the stranger, prevalent among my countrymen, they may have been treated with unwonted respect in America; and, accustomed all their lives to consider themselves many strata below the surface of society, and brought up in a servile feeling of inferiority, they become arrogant on the common boon of civility; they attribute to the lowliness of others their own elevation; and underrate a society where there are no artificial distinctions, and where, by any chance, such individuals as themselves can rise to consequence.

One would suppose, however, 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 veracity, 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 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; 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.

I shall not, however, dwell on this irksome and hackneyed topic; nor should I have adverted to it, but for the undue interest apparently taken in it by my countrymen, and certain injurious effects which I apprehend it might produce upon the national feeling. We attach too much consequence to these attacks. They cannot do us any essential injury. The tissue of misrepresentations attempted to be woven round us, are like cobwebs wove round the limbs of an infant giant. Our country continually outgrows them. One falsehood after another falls off of itself. We have but to live on, and every day we live a whole volume of refutation. All the writers of England, united, cannot conceal our rapidly-growing importance and matchless prosperity. They cannot conceal that these are owing, not merely to physical and local, but to moral causes. To the political liberty, the general diffusion of knowledge, the prevalence of sound, moral, and religious principles, that give force and sustained energy to the character of a people; and which, in fact, have been the acknowledged and wonderful supporters of their own national power and glory.

But why are we so exquisitely alive. to the aspersions of England? Why

do we suffer ourselves to be so affected by the contumely she has endeavoured to cast upon us? 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 established.

For ourselves, therefore, it is comparatively of but little importance whether England do us justice or not; it is, perhaps, of far more importance to herself. She is instilling anger and resentment 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 hostility. 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 permanently 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 between two nations; there exists, most commonly, a previous jealousy 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.

I am not laying too much stress upon this point; for it applies most emphatically to our particular case. Over no nation does the press hold a more absolute control than over the people of America; for the universal education of the poorest classes makes every individual a reader. There is nothing published in England on the subject of our country, that does not circulate through every part of it.

There is not a calumny dropt from an English pen, nor an unworthy sarcasm uttered by an English statesman, that does not go to blight good will, and add to the mass of latent resentment. Possessing, then, as England does, the fountain head from whence the literature of the language flows, how completely is it in her power, and how truly is it her duty, to make it the medium of amiable and magnanimous feeling-a stream where the two nations might meet together, and drink in peace and kindness. Should she, however, persist in turning it to waters of bitterness, the time may come when she may repent her folly. The present friendship of America may be of but little moment to her; but the future destinies of that country do not admit of a doubt: over those of England there lower some shadows of uncertainty. Should, then, a day of gloom arrive; should those reverses overtake her, from which the proudest empires have not been exempt, she may look back with regret at her infatuation, in repulsing from her side a nation she might have grappled to her bosom, and thus destroying her only chance for real friendship beyond the boundaries of her own dominions.

There is a general impression in England, that the people of the United States are inimical to the parent country. It is one of the errors that has been diligently propagated by designing writers. There is, doubtless, considerable political hostility, and a general soreness at the illiberality of the English press; but collectively speaking, the prepossessions of the people are strongly in favour of England. Indeed, at one time they amounted, in many parts of the union, to a degree of bigotry that was absurd. The bare name of Englishman was a passport to the confidence and hospitality of every family, and too often gave a transient currency to the worthless and the ungrateful. Throughout the country there was something of enthusiasm connected with the idea of England. We looked to it with a hallowed feeling of tenderness and veneration, as the land of our forefathers-the august repository of the monuments and antiquities of our race-the birth-place and mausoleum of the sages and heroes of our paternal history. After our own country,