flowers in the brake, to the small delicately leaved varieties seen on the more open grounds. You observe whole districts covered with the tall and striking flowers of the red or white eupatorium; and every where among the long grass, the liatris or rattle-snakes'-master shoots up and displays its spike of red flowers. Then there are the exquisite varieties of the gentiana with their deep blue, and a thousand other flowers which I cannot undertake to describe. At this season the dwarf shumac, in hollows and on such parts of the prairie as have remained untouched by the autumnal fires, becomes a striking feature of the open grounds from the blood-red hue of its leaves and fructification.' Ib. Vol. I. pp. 125, 6.

It is in the description of animate and inanimate nature, that Mr. Latrobe is most at home. His views of men and manners are more amiable than profound, and evince more quickness of observation than sound judgement. He is far more the cosmopolite than the philanthropist. He remarks very justly, that a description of American manners, which may be a true picture when applied to one corner of the country, must be inapplicable to another, in which a race of quite distinct stock, with prepossessions and habits, and modes of life, altogether different, compose the population. Thus, while the children of the Pilgrim Fathers Occupy New England, and have spread over the fresh virgin soil of Ohio and the other States in the same parallel, the French refugee may be traced in West Chester, the Dutch in New York, the German in the valley of the Mohawk, the Swede in New Jersey and Delaware, the English Quaker and the German in Pennsylvania, together with distinct colonies of Irish, the descendants of the Cavalier in Virginia and Maryland, the Italian and Spaniard in Florida. How then can there be a national character common to so mixed and diverse a population? Yet, there is, in one respect, a nationality of feeling, Mr. Latrobe remarks, pervading Americans of every class, which leads them bitterly to resent any chance remarks upon the people of a given district, thus making the quarrel of one division of the community, the quarrel of all.' This is not quite so unreasonable, however, as may at first sight appear. For, in the first place, the descendants of the pure English stock not only greatly predominate, forming the majority of the entire community, but Yankees, and settlers of Yankee descent, are found scattered over all the States, giving the general tone to public sentiment*. In the next place, the Germans, Irish, and Dutch exist for the most part as isolated colonies, like the

* Of the eleven millions of free citizens, between seven and eight are certainly of English descent. The New Englanders, Virginians, and Carolinians, are almost purely British. About two thirds of the inhabitants of New York, one half of the Pennsylvanians, and the greater part of the inhabitants of Ohio, are of the English or Yankee stock.

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French refugees and the Irish in, London, and, though an integral part of the population, may be properly put out of consideration in estimating the national character. Further, the American gentleman of Boston or Baltimore, whe hears the state of society in the West run down or ridiculed, is quite aware that the institutions of his country are involved in the criticism or satire. The extreme and querulous sensitiveness which is manifested upon this point, almost amounts, our Author remarks, to a national disease; and he endeavours to account for it, as well as for the national disposition to swagger ' and exaggerate,' by the uncandid and unjust treatment which America has, in former times, met with at the hands of English writers. We cannot, however, regard this as a sufficient expla nation of the morbid tone of the national temper, which will 'allow the justice of no criticism,' and resents an honest opinion as an injury; and for the true reason we must look a little closer into the structure of American society. In a former article we endeavoured to throw a little light upon this point; and we find our remarks so completely borne out by the Author of "New England and her Institutions," in a passage which had not at that time fallen under our notice, that we cannot refrain from introducing it in this place.

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'We are restless and proud, and since our civil institutions have established no permanent artificial gradations among us, we have devised them ourselves. Yet still it is a matter which we act upon, rather than talk about. No American lady would dare to refuse her neighbour's invitation professedly on the score of the other being beneath her in society. Yet her refusal would be as prompt and decided as any lady's in England, towards an inferior in rank.

I do not wish to analyse too minutely the aristocratical leaven among us. I do not exactly understand its principle of operation myself. Pedigree it certainly is not, though that perhaps is one of its elements. Wealth and education have something to do with it. Different vocations in life, have much more. Various degrees of softness and whiteness of the hands are perhaps as good criterions as anything. Certain sets of persons do somehow contrive to obtain an ascendancy in every town and village. But in the present state of society, in our country, this whole subject is extremely unsettled. The mass is fermenting, and how the process will result eventually, time only can decide. Probably some future Court Calendar will rank among the first class of American citizens, all families descended in lines, more or less direct, from former presidents of the nation, heads of departments, governors of states, presidents of colleges, Supreme Court judges, commodores, and general officers. The second class may comprehend the posterity of members of congress, circuit and state judges, clergymen, presidents of banks, professors in colleges, captains of na

* See pp. 105-108 of our August Number.

tional vessels, leaders of choirs, and perhaps some others. I have no curiosity to speculate upon inferior classes, nor to determine any further the order, in which far distant dinners shall be approached by eaters yet unborn, or future balls shall be arranged at Washington." New England, &c., pp. 336, 37.

Notwithstanding his remarks upon the absence of national character, Mr. Latrobe has essayed some broad sketches of national characteristics; and in the following paragraphs we have his estimate of the New Englander.

The manners and habits of this great, eastern division of the American people are strikingly distinct from their fellow-citizens to the southward. The character of the inhabitants of New England for diligence, shrewdness, and all those matter-of-fact talents which tell in a country like this, where every man is struggling to get and maintain an independence, is probably familiar to you. They are speculative, at the same time that their caution, clear-sightedness, and indomitable perseverance generally insure success. In politics their practical conduct is strikingly opposed to the theoretical vagaries of their brethren of the south. They have often, and not without reason, been compared to the northern inhabitants of our own island; but, I think the New Englanders have all the steadiness and prudence of the. Scotch, with a yet greater degree of ingenuity. Like the Scotch, they. foster education; like the Scotch, they are inclined to the more severe. forms of religious discipline and worship; like the Scotch, they are fearfully long-winded; like them, they are gadders abroad, loving to turn their faces southward and westward, pushing their fortunes wherever fortunes are to be pushed, and often in places and by shifts where no one ever dreamed that fortunes were to be gained.

They may be found supplanting the less energetic possessor of land and property in every State of the Union. They have a finger upon the rim of every man's dish, and a toe at every man's heel. They are the pedlars and schoolmasters of the whole country; and, though careless of good. living abroad, when at home and at ease, they are fond of the creature comforts.' No where is the stomach of the traveller put into such constant peril as among the cake-inventive housewives and daughters of New England. Such is the universal attention paid to this branch of epicurism in these States, that I greatly suspect that some of the Pilgrim Fathers must have come over with the cookery book under one arm and the bible under the other, although I find in more than one code of ancient laws made in early times, orders issued that no person should make "cakes or buns except for solemn festal occasions, such as burials and marriages." There are but few boys among them; many of their children seem to start at once to puny men. I should not think they were a fun-loving nation, or had great reverence for holidays;-jokes are an abomination to many among them.

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Though in common with all Americans, they are proud and boastful of their claims to unlimited freedom, they are fond of imposing grievous burdens upon the inferior orders of animals within their

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power; and you see horses and cows, pigs and geese, labouring under the most singular yokes it is possible to conceive.

The faults allied to this kind of character are easily recognizable. Where religion has had its proper influence and high-mindedness, and innate sense of honour exist, all this shrewdness, and strength of character will add to the respectability of the possessor and to the good of the social circle. But where it is allied with meanness and littleness of soul, it must bear the stamp of sordid and low cunning in petty transactions, and of uncompromising, ungenerous aggrandisement and selfishness in larger operations. Hence the diverse terms in which you hear the so-called Yankee or Easternman named, and the praise and obloquy with which the character which I have attempted so roughly to sketch is alternately drawn. I was never to my knowledge taken in by any of my particular or casual acquaintance in any of the Eastern states, and I am far from believing, though I may have laughed at, the thousand and one tales related of the extravagant ingenuity and cunning of the Yankee pedlars tramping through every nook of the Union; but I can readily believe that there is many an arrant rogue among them, and many an arrant goose amongst their customers.' Latrobe, Vol. I., pp. 60–63.

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Mr: Latrobe was evidently better pleased with the Southerners than with the Yankees. He speaks of the warmth of southern 'hospitality, and the fine manly tone and cultivation of Georgian society'! He states, moreover, that the impressions obtained from what he saw (what could he see?) of slavery, both in the Southern States and the West, was that, in most of the Slave States, the holders were to be pitied, rather than the negroes!! • Their condition is far from a pitiable one. The general feeling ' of the country is against cruelty.' It is strange how the Tory always sides with the slave-holder. Mr. Latrobe, though he eschews politics, betrays in this passage the strong bias of his opinions. The emphatic contradiction which the evidence adduced in Mr. Abdy's recent Work, gives to the above representation, shews how little Mr. Latrobe is to be trusted as a witness upon some subjects. No man knows how to make better use of his eyes when a fair landscape is before him, and no one can more resolutely shut his eyes when he chooses not to see.

The most interesting portion of these volumes is that which details the Author's expedition to the far West' in company with Mr. Irving, their foray in the Pawnee hunting grounds, and sojourn among the Indians. But thither we must not follow him, as we could not do justice to his narrative without more copious extracts, or a fuller abstract than our limits permit. Add to which, the subject of the Indian tribes, wild and semi-civilized, the hard and unjust treatment they have met with, the efforts of the Missionaries to introduce civilization among them, and various questions connected with these topics, would furnish matter for an extended discussion. Mr. Colton's work is chiefly

occupied with a zealous vindication of the character and claims of these aboriginal Americans, to whom the injustice of the intrusive Whites denies any territorial rights, even to the lands they have occupied from time immemorial. He has entitled it, "A Tour of the American Lakes,"-probably with a view to catch the attention of general readers; but a few pages only are occupied with topographical matter. He would have found it the better policy, to describe the Work by its real character as a Memoir, or Memorial, advocating the rights, and disclosing the 'character and prospects of the Indian race.' The price put upon these volumes is exorbitant, since the whole contents might have been got into a single 58. volume; and there is a catchpenny appearance about the publication, that will, we fear, prevent its obtaining the attention which it deserves.

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Mr. Colton is a credulous believer in the Hebrew origin of the American Indians; and he devotes a chapter to this absurd reverie, which might have been omitted without any disadvantage to the Work. The confidence of his assumptions, and the ease with which he disposes of all objections to the theory, are not a little amusing to those who have any competent acquaintance with the subject. In their sacred songs,' he assures his readers, Hal-le-lu-yah is often heard as perfectly as in any 'Christian choir!' To the ears of an intelligent witness, (Dr. Edward Walsh,) it sounded like the lullaby of the nursery '; and he writes it down thus: Tam le yah al lah le lu lah tam 'ye lah yo ha wah ha ha hah!" It is not denied, however, that there is an apparent approximation to the Hebrew rites and Jewish notions in some of the customs of the American Indians, although not closer or more striking than may be detected in the rites and practices of nations in the heart of Africa. But we need not refuse to admit the possible derivation of such obscure traditions from a Jewish source, while rejecting the Rabbinical fable of lost tribes, and the incredible notion which assigns a Hebrew pedigree to the uncircumcised and beardless wanderers of the American wilderness. Having entered at considerable length into this question in a former volume, we need only refer those readers who wish to pursue the inquiry, to the facts and reasonings adduced in that article, which, we venture to think, contains an ample refutation of Mr. Boudinot's dream and Mr. Colton's reasoning*.

* See Eclectic Review, 3d Series, Vol. II., p. 106. (Aug. 1829.) See also, the Modern Traveller, (America,) Vol. XXIV. pp. 251261. That Jewish civilization may have extended itself from Eastern Asia to the tribes of the New World, is rendered the more credible by the fact, that Jews are known to have been settled in China for many centuries, and still earlier in the great plains of Central Asia. The