hold it no strong trait of generous warfare, to give us no credit for better motives and a better spirit. Nor is the regret with which we notice this general want of liberality at all diminished, by the particular allegations and statements of the writer of the essay. We hope it is not wholly our American simplicity, that makes us turn with something like disgust from charges of considerable exaggeration, and occasionally, we regret to observe, either direct falsehoods or suppressions that amount to falsehoods,' made in the first instance against individuals, who were entitled to that politeness at least, which is due to all of whom we speak by name. And when we add, what will not have escaped the readers of the essay in question, that these charges of falsehood and suppression want the only sanction which should have induced any one to make them the sanction of a clear specification and distinct proof, we think we have given one good reason for doubting whether the essay be entitled to protection, as coming from the respectable source to which it has been ascribed. 6 We know not but we shall expose ourselves to a repetition of the charge of fretful and irritable retort; but being thus accused before the American and English public of direct falsehoods, or suppressions that amount to falsehoods,' we shall ask our readers' attention to one or two passages, which will show at least with what clearness of conscience the author of this essay has cast the first stone. We can perceive,' says he, from the tone of Mr Walsh's book and of his Boston reviewer, that they have taken up the affair, in a spirit far exceeding that of an ordinary literary quarrel. They have labored hard to impress upon America, that she has become in this country the object of systematic hatred and contumely.' This is distinct and tangible. We therefore ask our readers' permission to repeat a few lines from our article, which is alluded to by this writer, and on which, as far as we are concerned, he rests his assertion. After having stated our opinion, that the praise and blame, alternately bestowed on America in England, have often had no other foundation in that country, than reasons of party annoyance, on the part of the ministry and opposition respectively, we add, meantime we, who like all honest people wish to be thought and spoken well of in the world, and are sorely perplexed with this pitiless pelting from all quarters, are too apt, it may be, to generalize on the subject, and to suppose that there is a systematic and organized hostility to us in England, when perhaps the symptoms, which seem to indicate such an hostility, may be more easily accounted for. We then proceed to find this account partly in the wish of the English government to discourage emigration; but still more in the fault finding spirit apt to infest not only English travellers in America, but all travellers in all countries. We particularly quote other instances of this, in the case of other nations, and we express the opinion, that much of what has found its way into the most respectable journals in England is to be laid to the personal account of the unknown individual writers. Nor is it, till after all these qualifications, that we add the remark, that we do not wish to have it inferred that there is really no settled, regular hostility to America, in any portion of the English community.' And we explain this portion to be the relics of the old antiAmerican party of the revolutionary age. Now after these statements and qualifications, in making which we certainly could not expect the approbation of a large portion of our readers who are disposed to carry much farther than we their conceptions of British hostility, it gives us no very exalted opinion of the candor of this writer, or of the conscientiousness with which he deals out his charges of falsehood, to find him accusing us of labouring hard to impress upon America, that she has become in England the object of systematic hatred and contumely.' But we hope to make this matter a little plainer, and settle one point at least in the controversy, viz: the discretion of this combatant. With the generality of our readers,' saith he, it might indeed be sufficient to assert and to appeal to their own knowledge of the fact, that in this country America is the object of no such hatred or contempt; but as the Boston critic has boldly cited some examples to the contrary, we may as well stop to examine how far his selection has been fortunate.' He accordingly quotes, as one of the examples of systematic hatred and contempt, boldly cited by us, the article on America, in the sixty first number of the Edinburgh Review, an article which we on the contrary cite as an example of the very reverse, and on which we make this remark; many of the attacks made on us, especially in the journals of the opposition, may well be ascribed to the personal feeling of the unknown individual who writes them, and North American Review, vol. x. p. 337. not to a this write our selec to stop l citing tha site. Thoug nish a lit who calls 'Here is an ordina glance at ic seems ture, and est curse years befor object, than made by C censured, in moreover, t the justice nexion: land is as being all sto sent home t good, as in did not prep New Ser Though not to any supposed party, far less of the nation.' this writer, therefore, did well to stop to examine how far our selection had been fortunate,' he would have done better to stop longer, and be sure that he did not represent us as citing that for one purpose, which we cited for the very opposite. Though somewhat weary of pursuing this topic, we shall furnish a little further illustration of the principles of this writer, who calls persons by name, and charges them with falsehood. 'Here is praise enough, one should think, for national vanity of an ordinary appetite, but Mr Smith has had the arrogance to glance at two little facts,-upon the first of which the Boston critic seems particularly sore,-the scantiness of their native literature, and the institution of slavery, the greatest curse and stain upon a civilized community; and this foul proceeding on the part of the reverend reviewer has cancelled all the merit of his previous panegyric.' Here are implied two facts, one that we shewed ourselves 'to be sore on the subject of the scantiness of the American literature;' the second, that we took offence at the reviewer's allusion to the existence of slavery in this country. To these charges we have to reply, that in all our article there is no allusion whatever, to the subject of the scantiness of our national literature; there is no attempt made to explain, to deny, to palliate it; the topic is not glanced at. As to slavery, after proving that this greatest curse and stain upon a civilized community' was introduced into America, while it was a colony of England, supported here by the English government against the express petitions of the colonists, and checked by legal and constitutional provisions against the slave trade twenty and thirty years before the English abolition, our remarks had no further object, than to deplore the decision of the Missouri question made by Congress in 1820; remarks, for which we were duly censured, in the journals of the Southern States. We trust, moreover, that there are not many Englishmen who will deny the justice of the following observation made in the same connexion: As far as the reproach of holding slaves goes, England is as deeply involved in it as America; her colonies being all stocked with them, the fruits of their labours regularly sent home to old England, and their treatment no better, if as good, as in America. Whatever may be thought of this, we did not prepare ourselves to be accused as the champions of New Series, No. 7. 4 slavery, nor do we think such a charge reflects great credit on the discrimination of him who makes it. There are one or two other illustrations of the principles, on which this writer thinks it proper to conduct controversy, but we are satiated with these. We proceed to what is of far greater moment than himself or ourselves, that is, the real merits of the dispute between England and America, as far as they are touched in this essay. And here we shall pursue no close method, but take up the different points, as they are successively suggested by this writer. 6 And here to Mr Fear often quoted showing caus which the w exceeding so a gentleman. had been an and received siery, from in obscurity loom and re to enjoy tha His merit co and at the tir risen to be a clerk who go debts, a trave of these 'gen capacity or o ble trading h tleman in A boarding hou the same ans he had better would not be all full, pray menial servant he was an app servants, he w ture he found account, and judge by his guineas a weel the gentility of Focation not to false witness a Went on safe selves to have ron's pretensio essential quality even lay claim The first then, which demands attention, is one of importance. The author of this essay would persuade us, that the abuse, of which America complains on the part of England, is only a little harmless pleasantry. Did they never pass by one of our caricature shops, where kings and queens, ministers and oppositionists, judges and bishops, and every man, woman, and child, who has had the good fortune to be of sufficient celebrity for the purpose, are regularly gibbeted for the entertainment of a people, who consider one of their most glorious privileges to be that of laughing at their superiors?' Here we are almost afraid to expose ourselves to the ridicule of making a reply. We are afraid that our brethren of the English nation-known in either hemisphere for their modesty— are making game of us vain Americans. It cannot be with any other design than that of extorting amusement from our credulous self-conceit, that we are bid to put the Edinburgh Review and the Quarterly Review, and Lord Grey and Mr Canning, on the level with the makers and venders of caricatures, and our simple country on the height of kings and queens, judges and bishops; and that amidst all the charges rung upon us from 'grave to gay, from lively to severe,' we must remember it is only a rude, boisterous populace, laughing at their superiors. If we may venture to be serious, we would say, that while this injustice to our country was really confined to the low sources here pretended, a silence and disdain which they owed to themselves were maintained by the respectable writers of this country. It was only when tourists, to whom grammar was a mystery and a decent coat a despairedof treasure, who fled from the English bailiffs to America and back again from the American constables to England, it was only when this worthy class of travellers was espoused, quoted, and believed, in the most respectable and honorable quarters, that we thought the quarrel worth taking up. 6 And here having reluctantly surprised ourselves in alluding to Mr Fearon, who must be amazed to hear his name so often quoted in good company, we shall take the liberty of showing cause why we shall continue, not to be angry,' against which the writer in the New Monthly Magazine warns us, but exceeding sorrowful, to have Lord Grey still appeal to him as a gentleman. This gentleman,' we have been well informed, had been an apprentice to a Jewish stocking weaver in England, and received the highest character for his knowledge of hosiery, from his worthy principal. The historical muse has hid in obscurity how long and patiently he toiled at the stocking loom and retailed its productions, by day, and lay down by night to enjoy that sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care.' His merit could not long confine itself to this humble sphere, and at the time of his sailing for America, he had actually risen to be a member, whether as a partner, or, as they call a clerk who goes round the country to solicit orders and collect debts, a traveller, (an appellation doubly appropriate to most of these 'gentlemen' that visit us,) we know not, but in some capacity or other, he was actually a member of a very reputable trading house on Ludgate hill. On the arrival of this gentleman in America, he applied for admission at a genteel boarding house in New York, and received, we presume, much the same answer that Anacharsis did at the door of Solon, that he had better go back to Scythia. Our gentleman, however, would not be put off; and when told that the apartments were all full, prayed to be taken into an attic, occupied by the menial servants of the house. It being thought, possibly, that he was an applicant for the office as well as the lodging, of the servants, he was admitted into this same garret. What furniture he found there we know not, as we have only his own account, and how far that can be trusted our readers will judge by his adding, that he paid something more than four guineas a week! This we think will satisfy our readers as to the gentility of Mr Fearon, if it be any part of a gentleman's vocation not to take up with lodging in garrets, nor to bear false witness against his neighbour. But we really thought we went on safe ground, in the present case; and confess ourselves to have been a little confirmed in our idea of Mr Fearon's pretensions to gentility-which after all is a much less essential quality than veracity, to which we trust he does not even lay claim-by an authority which, if we mistake not, |