nothing is called meat in these parts but salt-pork and beef. He's a pretty hand to write books of travels," said Spooney. "I wish I may be forced to pass the old sycamore root up stream twice a day, if I'd give the Mississippi navigator for a whole raft of such creturs." "But what did you do with him at last, Captain ? " said another. Why, I got tired of making fun of the ring-tail roarer, and happening to meet the steam boat Daniel Boone, Captain Lansdale, coming down stream, just as she had smashed a broad horn, and the owner was sitting on the top of it, singing, "Hail Columbia, happy land, I persuaded the Captain to let the Dandy come on board again, on his promising to keep out of the ladies' cabinSo we shook hands; and "I wish I might be smash'd too if I wouldn't sooner hunt such a racaoon than the fattest buck that ever broke bread in old Kentuck." This is but a mild specimen of the bitter feeling which was exhibited against the gallant Captain; and I sincerely give it as my opinion that neither he nor Mrs. Trollope could with safety make their personal appearance again in the United States. Never was there so extremely sensitive a person as brother Jonathan. He lashes himself into a violent rage, if any one doubts that his own dear land is not the abode of all that is estimable. Mere approval will not do for him; it must be the most unqualified approbation; and he thinks he is in duty bound to consider any national reflection a personal insult, and to resent it accordingly. Thus it has ever been in his wars with England, which were carried on with greater animosity than any of our continental struggles. Thus, also (to descend to minor affairs), can alone be explained their conduct towards Kean, Anderson, and others, where the whole nation resented what was only a private quarrel. Although I should not wish to identify myself with Mrs. Trollope's opinions and sentiments, inasmuch as she evidently is a writer who, in drawing a tolerable likeness, has given a broad caricature of the Americans, and most unjustly impressed those who have not visited the United States with the imagination that no gentlemen are to be met with there, yet I must think her "Domestic Manners" will do good amongst a certain class of people. The effects had even begun to show themselves before I quitted the country; and I record the following anecdote, in order that, if these poor pages ever meet the eye of the witty and much abused authoress, she may congratulate herself on having already worked a partial reform. When Miss Kemble made her first appearance at the Park Theatre in New York, the house was crowded to excess: and a gentleman in the boxes, turning round between the acts of the play to speak to some one who sat in the bench behind him, displayed rather more of his back to the pit than was thought quite orthodox. This was no sooner observed than a low murmer arose amongst the insulted part of the audience, which presently burst forth into loud cries of "Trollope!" Trollope!" "turn him out," "throw him over," &c., and continued for several minutes, accompanied by the most discordant noises, until the offending person assumed a less objectionable position. I will bear witness that I have frequently seen as much want of decorum in our theatres as I ever did in the American; and think that our bar-rooms and ordinaries in country inns, and passengers on a stage-coach, might with as much justice be taken as samples by which a foreigner might form his estimate of English gentlemen as the inmates of steam-vessels, canal-boats, and lodging-houses, should be of American gentlemen. That the Americans generally have many unpleasant customs, no sensible man in the country will deny; and if ringing the changes upon tobacco chewing and smoking, dram-drinking, and spitting, perpetually in their ears, will be of any service towards working a reformation, no English traveller will ever spare them; and no man could have more strongly expressed his abhorrence of such filthy habits than I did during my sojourn in the States. Though the long extract I have given from Mr. Paulding's work should be considered as a good specimen of western provincialisms, yet not an American, let him be Yankee or Southerner, from the banks of the Hudson or the Mississippi, but flatters himself that he speaks more correct English than we illiterate sons of the mother isle. If you ask a Canadian in what part of the globe the purest French is spoken, he will reply, "upon the shores of the St. Lawrence," and assign as the reason for such being the case that a patois was introduced in the old country when the canaille gained the ascendancy during the Revolution of 1792, and that the correct language falling, with the princes and nobles, Canada alone, which has not been subject to any such convulsions, retains the language in its original purity. Incredible as it may appear, I was frequently told by casual acquaintance in the States, "Well, I should have imagined you to be an American, you have not got the English brogue, and aspirate the letter h, when speaking." And once I was actually told, by a fellow-passenger in the stage-coach from Alexandria 66 to Winchester, "Really I should never have thought you to be from the old country, you pronounce your words so well, and have not got the turn-up nose!" This same turn-up nose," somewhat approaching to the pug, is, I find, one of the characteristic marks of an Englishman in American eyes; and they apply the term "Cockney" as indiscriminately to us as we do that of "Yankee" to them. Whatever may be their opinion of the manner in which we natives of Great Britain speak the mothertongue, I can affirm that the nasal twang, which Americans of every class possess in some degree, is very grating and disagreeable to the ears of an Englishman. CHAP. XI. Lady Charlotte. I want none of your explanations-(scornfully.) GARRICK. TAKING advantage of a bright morning sun, so that I might enjoy a view of surrounding objects, I embarked on board the Superior steam-vessel, on East River, for Newhaven in Connecticut. I departed from New York rather sooner than even the unhealthy state of the place would have urged, being fearful that if I remained there many days longer an opportunity would not occur of leaving the city, as many steam-vessels had discontinued making their usual trips, from the long quarantine imposed upon them in some ports, and from the decrease in the number of passengers. The most conspicuous objects on the banks of the East River are the two large stone buildings of the Almshouse at Belle-Vue, which contain from 1200 to 1500 inmates. Amongst them the cholera was making most frightful ravages, principally owing to the impaired constitution of the patients; and at this time upwards of thirty were dying daily. A short distance further a penitentiary is erecting upon an island, for the confinement of prisoners under sentence of two years or a less period. It is a very narrow, long, N |