and there a bust. This art will be awakened among us, when we think we are rich enough to erect monuments or cenotaphs, to departed greatness. For music, we have more fondness than skill; our musicians and actors are all foreigners; our young men seldom play on any instrument, and though no one would wish to see them a race of fiddlers, yet the practice of music would fill up many hours innocently, that are now spent in vicious or stupifying indolence. Sacred music, from the universal habit of attending public worship, is a good deal cultivated, but too generally in a bad taste; there are two or three musical societies, who have regular meetings for vocal and instrumental music. As every man now-a-days wears a watch, whatever may be the value of his time, and every lady a parasol, whatever may be the shade of her complexion; so every house has a piano, whether the owner is, or is not, one of those, "who can tell the tuning from the overture." There is generally musical talent enough in every circle, to promote conversation at a tea-party; and there is seldom a summer's night, that is without a serenade.

Perhaps I have said enough to show you that there is much activity, enterprise and intelligence in this community; that it exhibits what is the best result, and surest support of liberty, self-respect; that keeps them equally from offering or suffering violence, and induces a deference to public opinion, and a disposition to maintain law and order. A more

peculiar and unmixed character, arising from its homogeneous population, will be found here than in any other city in the United States. There is none of the show and attractions of ostentatious and expensive luxury; but a great deal of cheerful, frank hospitality, and easy, social intercourse. In short, if a man can limit his wishes to living in a beautiful country, among a hospitable people, where he will find only simple, unobtrusive pleasures, with a high degree of moral and intellectual refinement, he may here be gratified.

LETTER XVI.

GENIUS, CHARACTER, AND MANNERS, OF THE INHABITANTS OF NEW-ENGLAND.

MY DEAR FRIend,

THE features of national character seem almost as marked as those of particular species of the human race; and the long period through which they may be discovered, under various accidents and changes of fortune, as well as government, is, on first observation at least, a subject of surprise. We may remark, in some families, a predominance of good or bad qualities, a series of virtuous or vicious

conduct, for successive generations. That nations exhibit a peculiar bias throughout their whole career, is certainly evident from history. Though this may be thwarted or interrupted occasionally, even so as to disappear for a time; it will be found, on a general view of their whole policy, never to have been destroyed, but its effects may be traced through the entire era of their existence. The Jews, who are altogether an exclusive people, furnish an extreme case. The Romans commenced their career as robbers, and when they rose from their petty villany of a single murder, to the splended heroism of slaughtering millions; they continued the same policy, enlarged from the plunder of a neighbouring village, to the aggrandizement of their empire, by the subjection of kingdoms. The Greeks, who invented or improved all the arts and sciences, directed their chief emulation to these, through all their vicissitudes; and down to the extinction of their nation by the Turks, preserved many remains of this illuminating spirit, when all the rest of the world was involved in darkness. Among modern nations, the French are supposed to have many of the characteristics which they had in the days of Julian; and as to the Spaniards, we have it from Count Oxenstiern, that when Adam was permitted to revisit the world, he found every thing altered and new, till he came to Spain; when he at once exclaimed, "Ah! this I know; every thing is here just as I left it." The English have been remarkable, through many ages, for their sub

mission to the authority of fashion in dress, and their unyielding adherence to the principles of civil liberty. The Germans unite a gravity of temperament with a mystical frivolity; their passions seem seated in their brain, and strike out into strange vagaries of fancy; while those of the Italians flow through all the channels of the blood, beat with its pulse, and are profound and true to nature.

I have made these remarks by way of introduction to some sketches of the genius, character, and manners of the people in this section of the Union; because I think these partake strongly of their origin, and cannot be well understood without keeping that in view. We have not quite completed two centuries, since the first bark of our forefathers anchored under the wintry shores of Plymouth; and two centuries, we may hope, will form only a small part of our national existence. The period is not long enough to predict what will be our character in after ages, when time shall have exposed it to all the successive temptations of adversity and prosperity; when all the accidents of fortune, and the progress of luxury, shall have been tried, to change or corrupt it. Yet, as far as we have proceeded, it has not become unworthy of its origin, or essentially different from its first principles. The impetus originally given, still remains, modified, but not eradicated. There is something less of exterior roughness; but this only makes the inherent traits more distinct; as a surface of marble

exhibits its veins more clearly when polished, than in a rude state.

The men who planted this division of the United States, came from the most virtuous part of the English nation. They carried their severe notions of religious purity to a degree of austerity; and their assertion of civil and political liberty, to the dreadful alternative of a civil war. They were part of that body of men which brought a faithless sovereign to the scaffold, and raised their country to that glorious pitch of power and prosperity, which she enjoyed during the early part of the commonwealth. Some even of the chief actors in these scenes came to this country from choice, and others to escape from proscription. All the founders of these colonies, were the inveterate enemies of the perfidious despotism of the Stuarts, and stern seceders from the arrogant sway of the English prelates and Scotch presbyters. A large proportion of them were of the condition of gentlemen, and their followers were all virtuous, substantial yeomen. A striking and indisputable inference has been drawn, from the comparative purity of our language, respecting the class of people who settled the country. They came from various counties of England, in some of which a jargon scarcely intelligible is spoken to this day by the lower sorts of the people. But, among our forefathers, if there were any of this description, there never were enough to keep up this corrupt dialect; and even the provincialisms that were retained or generated