and that all the hisses, tears, sighs, smiles, smirks, groans, etc., etc.,

"In linked sweetness long drawn out,"

of all who have preceded him, are echoed and repeated in some sort in his eminently felicitous production. What further specimens we are to look for from beyond the Atlantic, heaven only knows! Perhaps the force of nature can no farther go," and that Mr. Dickens is destined to be the last of the illustrious line. Under the apprehension that this may possibly be the case, we trust we may be excused for the laudable desire of giving his book a more decent burial than it deserves, even at the risk of talking about nothing.

Seriously, we are not disappointed in Boz. The volumes he has given us, are just what we had all along expected :

"Pangs without birth, and fruitless industry."

Judging from what we read, heard and saw, during the remarkably short space of time our country was honored with his presence, we presumed that his "prented notes" would sound very much as they do. We looked for nothing more-we would have been content with nothing less. When we sat down to their perusal, it was with the utmost coolness and calmness of temper, and in the perfect assurance that when we rose from our labors, we should feel strongly inclined to imagine ourselves in the unfortunate predicament of the bearded countryman of well-known memory. It is no new lesson in the art and mystery of literary barter which we have learned; the trick is an old one; not the less successful, perhaps, in the present instance, for being old, considering the absolute furor with which our intellectual cormorants have pounced upon this monstrosity; and we cannot find it in our hearts, to congratulate the oracle of St. Giles and the Old Baily, on the aptitude he has shown in following the footsteps of his illustrious predecessors, Trollope, Hall, Hamilton, Marryatt, etc., etc. Bookmaking and book-publishing, now that acrimony and bitterness, are so generally sought after by the reading public, have become quite popular with a numerous

horde of social fungi, who detract much from the nutriment necessary to the full development of talent and genius, and the advancement of the true interests of science and literature, in the world, without adding one jot or tittle to our stock of knowledge, or enhancing in any degree the reputation of the class to whom they bear the same relation, as the lamp-lighters, scene-shifters and element-mongers of our theatres, to the genuine heroes and heroines of the sock and buskin. A passion for crimination and abuse, detraction and calumny-not confined in its operation to any particular class, sect, or party, but as general in its influence as it is deeply regretted by all whose daily food consist not of "good men's names -seems to exist on both sides of the Atlantic; and this is but another of the many attempts we have witnessed, to pamper that passion with the food it gorges with such infinite gusto and appetite. The taste of the present age is sadly corrupt and perverse; and for its continued deviations from the pure and the true, we are indebted, in the main, to the superficial "glimpses of men and things" with which we have latterly been overrun. So long as we countenance and encourage every foreign adventurer who chances to visit us with ink-horn and port-folio, we may expect just such ebullitions of spleen as this on our table. If we receive them with open arms and hearts, they censure our lack of caution; if we admit them to the sanctity of our homes and our firesides, every trifling circumstance or remark which passes before their eyes, or is uttered in their hearing, is bruited to the world without compunction; if we point out to them those defects in our institutions which time has disclosed, and which we honestly desire to remove, we are taunted with our weakness and inconsistency; if we proffer them every civility and kindness. in our power, we are accused of the basest truckling, through fear of the rod which may smite us; if we dare, like bold, honest, independent men, to maintain and uphold our own system of government in opposition to the monarchies of the old world, we are straightway branded as runaways from some asylum for the insane. Out upon these things! We have no patience with them. We would not frown them down; for hatred is too noble a passion to be cherished toward an haberdasher

in scraps and scandal of Mr. Dickens' calibre; but we hold it our bounden duty to show them unworthy of countenance on the part of our people, and deserving only of the scorn and contempt of every true-hearted American.

On the morning of the third day of January, eighteen hundred and forty-two, a certain dapper little gentleman, dressed in a fur Mackintosh, a scarlet waistcoat, and drab "continuations," opened the door of a state-room on board the Britannia steam-packet, and, with a smirk, a bow, and a grin, which would have done honor to Sir Harcourt Courtly, exclaimed-" Good gracious!" The aforesaid individual, as our history informs us, was "Charles Dickens, Esquire," late police-reporter, paragraph-writer and author, and then and there duly ticketted and labelled, after the fashion of the Belgian giant, or Tippoo Sultan, for the port of Boston in America. Notwithstanding divers attacks of qualmishness and visitations of rough weatherthe description of the storm at sea must forever silence the pen of our own gifted novelist-having been sustained and fortified on the passage out, by frequent potations of "brandy and water," an admixture most devoutly eschewed now-a-days by all good Washingtonians, the safe arrival of this crystalization of vanity was chronicled in the public prints. The cry was immediately raised, that "Boz had come!" His name was in everybody's mouth. He was the lion of the day; and, in order to silence, at the outset, all doubts on the score of his legitimacy, he thought proper to startle the Literary Emporium with one of his most tremendous growls; thereby indicating his unqualified disapprobation of our opinions in the general, and our views of an "International Copyright" in particular. As the great centre of attraction, at all dinner-parties, balls, soirees and public festivals, Mr. Dickens made the tour of the States. That he labored under many disadvantages while on his journey, we need not assert; inasmuch as he himself acknowledges that he escaped from his magnetic slumber on the steamer, but to be thrown into convulsions at the sight of cranberries, white paint, green blinds, stoves and tobacco; all superlatively abhorrent to "nervous foreigners." Thanks, however, to the lucky stars under which

this prodigy was ushered into the world, and to the extraordinary perceptive faculties he possesses, that the great object for which he crossed the Atlantic, was accomplished in the brief period of four and a half calendar months! At the expiration of that time-would we believe himhe returned to the "old country," fully enlightened as to our manners and customs, our social characteristics, our facilities and advantages as a nation, and the domestic policy (our foreign relations somehow escaped his notice,) of the American government. There is an anecdote, not wholly out of place here, related of a distinguished statesman, now a Senator in Congress, and for many years occupying a prominent position in public affairs. A young baccalaureate, fresh from the bosom of his alma mater, visited Washington, a few years since, with a letter of introduction, among others, to Mr. -. In answer

to an inquiry of that gentleman, touching the manner in which he purposed spending his time in the metropolis, he replied, that he intended thoroughly to acquaint himself, in the fortnight he should remain, with the principles and the operation of our political system and those of other nations. "Ah!" said the Senator, in the bland and quiet way for which he is famous-"I have studied them for the last forty years, and still count myself a learner!" The anecdote might be of service to that large class of literary dandies, who speak and write on matters above and beyond their understanding, with the same affectation and freedom, that they discuss the cut of a coat, the virtues of a cosmetic, or-the habits of a hog!*

That Mr. Dickens, or rather "Charles Dickens, Esquire," for in that addition he especially prideth himself, is at home,' in the slang of the tap-room and the race-course, we cheerfully admit. He has caught refinement, if at all, from a distance, not the most favorable for correct observation; and when he attempts to discourse on the notions he has conceived of its conventionalities, the effort is so grotesque, it never fails to excite risibility. He has been cloyed with small-talk and gibberish, until he delights in nothing

* See the "Notes"-passim.

more than the parroty conversation of waiters and stagecoach passengers. He cares not to judge of a people from the vast majority, who remain at their homes, engaged in their busines, and plodding on to a competence, by dint of patient labor and honest industry; but he estimates them by the fidgetty, uneasy few, who make or feign business, for the purpose of keeping constantly on the move from one section of the country to another. While among us, he spared not one thought to our sturdy mechanics, and intelligent and hard-working agriculturists; nor yet to our prudent merchants, and those of our professional men, who toil, each in his own calling, for the sake of doing good; all his eloquence is expended on the drones, who, here as everywhere, feed on the labor of their fellows. The truth is, he has one great fault, which is fatal to the character he has assumed for the nonce he is no philosopher! He does not look upon men and things in an enlarged and liberal spirit. He may be kind and benevolent, in the usual acceptation of the words, and give alms, without stint, to every beggar who greets him in the crowded thoroughfares of London; but he has none of that broad and comprehensive charity, which looks upon the nations of the earth as bound together in one vast circle of love; each liable to censure; each indulging its secret sins; each adhering to ancient usages, which the experience of the present unequivocally condemns; each performing the duties of its allotted sphere in its own way; and, if failing to perform them aright, doing so from causes which will produce the same results in any people.

As for the sneers of the author of "American Notes," we have no language too strong to express our contempt of them. We are not advised as to the peculiar religious tenets which he entertains, nor do we know that he makes a profession of belief in any particular creed; yet it does not lessen our wonder, that he should deride the preaching of an evangelical clergyman in an eastern city, in terms so gross and unseemly. Had he been properly impressed with that enthusiastic veneration for the principles of Christianity, which filled the heart and the soul of the speaker to overflowing; and had he listened to the words which fell from the latter's lips, in a proper frame of mind, not warped and distorted by early