represents the best spirits of the place. She tells them were paid. Nevertheless, daughter to Charles Kemble, that they will find at Boston something better still-real niece to Mrs. Siddons, representative three times a-week good society; amenity and accomplishments in the of queens and heroines-over and above all, properly conSouthern States; and widely scattered over the Union, a scious of her own merit ( clever girl than I am'), she is not large portion of country gentry, using that term in the too proud and saucy to be insensible to kindness manifestbest sense in which it was once used in England.' ed towards themselves. There was a scandalous attempt They are humane. They avoid giving unnecessary to injure her before the public, by misrepresenting an unpain; not merely in the case of human beings, but in that lucky private conversation she had had at Washington of our fellow-creatures; using that comprehensive word as with a young gentleman, when out riding, about his horse. our Creator will expect it to be used—the coloured popu- The Philadelphia theatre was her place of trial; and the lation, we fear, alone excepted. It is a circumstance,' she audience carried her through in the handsomest manner. says, which deserves notice, for it bespeaks general How does she feel their conduct? At the end, the people character. I have not seen, during a two years' residence shouted and shrieked for us. My father went on and made in this country, a single instance of brutality towards them a speech, and I went on and made them a curtsy; animals, such as one is compelled to witness hourly in the and certainly they do deserve the civilest of speeches, and street of any English town." lowest of curtsies from us, for they have behaved most The union of liberty and order, which is the principle kindly and courteously to us; and for mine own good part, of their government, is also the principle of their homes. I love the whole city of Philadelphia, from this time forth, The real household virtues-good sense and good feeling for ever more.' are powerful enough to overcome considerable disadvantages in the rambling education and juvenile publicity of their women. Nor, on reconsidering the sum total of her recollections, did she change her mind. The term which I should say applied best to the tone rate than can be imagined. I sent yesterday evening 'The people here are much more civil and consideand carriage of American girls, from ten to eighteen, for some water-ice; the confectioner had none; when is hoydenish; laughing, giggling, romping, flirting, lo! to night he brings me some he had made on purpose screaming at the top of their voices, running in and for me, which he entreats my acceptance of. I admired out of shops, and spending a very considerable of their a pretty fan Mrs ———— had in her hand; and at the end time in lounging about in the streets.' of the play, she had it sent to my dressing room,-and these sort of things are done to me, not once, but ten times every day. Nothing can exceed the kindness These very girls, whose manners have been most and attention which has encountered us every where displeasing to my European ways of feeling, whom since we have been in this country. I am sure I am should have pointed out as romps and flirts pre-eminent, bound to remember America and Americans thankfully; not only make excellent wives, but from the very mo for, whatever I may think of their ways, manners, or ment of their marriage seem to forsake society, and de- peculiarities, to me they have shown unmingled goodvote themselves exclusively to household duties and will, and cordial, real kindness.' But what is it that follows? this subject, said to me, "We enjoy ourselves before I retirement. A young American lady, speaking upon The extracts which we have given look, we think, very marriage but in your country girls marry to obtain a like a friendly estimate of things and persons. At all greater degree of freedom, and indulge in the pleasures events they are sufficiently favourable to entitle the writer and dissipations of society." She was not, I think, of them to the privilege of stating with impunity the case, greatly mistaken.' as it has appeared to her, on the other side. She has passed to the credit of their account the several items of This is not the way in which the subject would have political greatness, honesty, courtesy, and humanity; and been dealt with by a writer who was looking out for the has added her own personal obligation for boundless kindopportunity of passing off real falsehoods under the coun-ness. After this, is she to be all but stoned for setting tenance of apparent truths. The materials for a safe lie down in her tablets, day by day, as they occurred, the opwere just what malice would have desired. posite matters, whether serious or trifling, which have Her nature takes fire as soon from American as from most annoyed or most amused her? And what, in truth, English genius. Witness her tears at the speeches of does the burden of her imputed testimony against America Webster, and at the poetry of Bryant and Willis. There actually amount to? For the most part her troubles and is so little critical reserve in her admiration that she readily horrors are those of a quick and susceptible and somewhat places her poetical theories at the disposal of either poet. romantic girl, who is pining after home, and is comparing Reading Bryant, bright, trustful, and wholesome (‘in con- every thing with the standards which she had left behind tradiction to the literature of the age,)' she is satisfied that her; the riding school at New York with Fossard's; an melancholy is not essential to the nature of a 'poet.' evening among the rank and fashion of Chesnut Street Reading Willis, she is of opinion that all beautiful things with her last evening at Devonshire House. It may be are sad, and that it is sad to read fine poetry among the truly a blessed country for the vast majority of mankind rest. Her temperament apparently connects most readily notwithstanding the following deductions: with the latter creed. But be that as it may, she was quite in the right to defend against her mother her girlish recital, almost sadly,' of the balcony scene in Juliet. There is no such thing as a good lady's horse to be got throughout the Union for love or money; horses are called well broken when they are no longer wild; a decent rider, Mrs. Butler visited the United States as a sort of public man or woman, is scarcely ever to be seen; their actors are character. Therefore attentions paid to her father and in general an ignorant and inattentive set, and the audi. Perself would have been no general criterion. She took ince cannot find it out; an election at the Quaker city of n accordingly as things of course; more astonished Philadelphia is as noisy as in London, and a clever Jack they happened to be omitted than gratified when they sonite can contrive to vote for old hickory' nine tinic over; the division of labour and capital is not yet visible tem of life and manners any thing but agreeable to gentle. in their shop windows; while the dependence of the rich folks fresh from Europe. upon the poor (instead of the European alternative, the de- A great deal of this may not be very pleasant hearing; pendence of the poor upon the rich), is visible enough in but it is all told, meaning to tell the truth, and not meanthe conduct of careless innkeepers, conversible shopinen, ing to be impertinent. Where this is the case, it is more and washerwoman, who sit down while their mistresses absurd in nations, even than in individuals, to take offence. are standing; for three years together a pretty woman may Mrs. Butler says what she thinks of other nations as unrenot get a single article of dress which shall not be ill made; servedly as of the Americans. She goes out of her way what is almost as bad-poctical mountains are degraded to mention the vanity and blasphemies of the French. She by the appellations of Crow's Nest and Butter Hill; no speaks as ill of the filth of London hackney-coaches as of nightingales are to be heard in New England, nor rivulets the paces of American saddle-horses, and was as sensible singing through the fields; the people are given up to the to the dirtiness of her hotel at Dublin, and to the savagerealities of life, and mainly to that dull reality, the making ness of the Highland serving-man at Glasgow, as to her money; they are in too great a hurry to allow themselves similar miseries in the Northern states. English pride and time to perfect any thing, and will scarcely pause to keep prejudice find no more favour from her than American ir■ Christmas or a birth-day; the want of a class with inde- ritability-nor our boarding-school trick of quizzing, than pendent means, and, therefore, able to command literary their intrusive cross-questioning curiosity. Both nations leisure, and follow up the higher intellectual pursuits, is a are alike unteachable in music; nationally unteachable. national misfortune; the population, in consequence, is If the fine breeding of the 'Provoked Husband' must be marvellously indisposed to humour, which is fancy laugh- heathen Greek to the American exclusives, the imaginative ing, and to poetry, which is fancy sad; the principal effort faculty is gone forth from among our higher classes. Our of national drollery or romance, consists in going to Lem-loss (by far the greatest) is so complete, that she would a priere's Dictionary for the names of their wooden villages thousand times rather act Juliet and Ophelia to a set of and negro slaves; drunkenness, while it is much less com- Manchester Mechanics, than to the most select of our arismon among the poor than in England, is a frequent re-tocracy. This, by the way, is telling tales out of school— creation of the rich; spitting on floor and carpet is so gene- for in their private theatricals she had particular opportural that a clean white gown may be covered with yellow nities of seeing what they were like-being, as it were, spots from the gentlemen's tobacco in a single afternoon; with them behind the scenes. The fine ladies of New anasal inflection is a national characteristic, while sundry York saw 'nothing particular' in her lady Teazle. She peculiarities of pronunciation and accent more or less dis- vindicates herself by a sneer. 'I am not ‘genteel enough, finguish the principal divisions of the country; they play and I am conscious of it.' However, our own variety of such queer tricks in modernizing the English of our lit- this interesting species—Almack patronesses and their argy, that their language must run a great chance of be- tribe-do not get off much better. It is only in a different ing driven from the solid anchorage which our ancestors way. They are, among women, what the Camelia is among had laid down in our old translation of the Bible; privacy flowers, beautiful without sweetness; they are bright and any where is out of the question; an officer in the Ameri- polished as ice, but as slippery, as treacherous, and as cold. can army considers his commission to be a sufficient right What then? Neither nation, nor French nor English, she of introduction to any body-young ladies included; visi- is well aware, will think of directing the columns of a tors, once acquainted, walk in without leaving the visitees single newspaper against her, by reason of these hard sayan option in the matter; the fair sex have a great dislike to ings. The diary of one of her days opens with, Read being called 'women; their feminine refined appearance Byron's Life-defend me from my friends! Suppose a ia in singular contrast with their style of dress (French gone page in Mr. Moore's diary were to begin, 'Read Mrs. mad, and with their practice of talking across each other, Butler's journal-defend one from one's self,' would either fre or six at a time, at the top of the shrillest voices in party meet the less amiably conditioned towards each the world; the thorough-bred look and manners of our no-other? No indeed! Europeans have learned that 'these ble English ladies are seldom seen; married women be- things must not be thought of after this fashion; they tome at once household drudges or nursery-maids; you would make us bad else.' The Americans, on the other will not find a lady at home in the morning six or seven hand, appear in this respect to be little better than so many tunes in three years-she is in the store-room, while her spoiled children, unaccustomed to contradiction. They sband is at the counting-house; for the most part society cannot play at cards unless they are allowed to call the led by chits-of whom the girls are brought up en evi- trump. ince and in a bustle, and the boys are made men of busi- Before the temerity of her present publication, Mrs. at sixteen; these democrats are as title-sick as a Butler found her situation sufficiently uncomfortable. I ker's wife in England; the distinguishing points on live myself in daily expectation of martyrdomn; and as for which American exclusives pride themselves, find, however, any body attempting to earn a livelihood here, who has but kaple scope for variety in different parts of the country; as much as said he prefers the country where he was born the arutocracy of New York rests its pretensions upon its to this, he would stand a much better chance of thriving, wealth, that of Boston upon its intellect, that of Philadelphia if he were to begin business after confinement in the Peniund of the south upon birth; a curious novel might be tentiary.' This account of the national temper is confirmed made in illustration of the struggle btween the levelling by M. de Tocqueville to the fullest extent, in his remarkagant of American institutions and the separating and di- ble work, lately published, on 'The Democracy of America.' sing spirit of American society; the effect of universal The majority, by removing out of the way every check, frage is to check mental cultivation, and give them an even the most temporary, has left to tyranny, and the imrior government,-just, honest, and rational perhaps, pulse of the moment, an open course. I know' (says he,) int not enlarged or liberal; finally, and to conclude the 'no country where less independence of mind, and less free. working of the whole brings in the higher classes a sys-dom of discussion are to be found than in America. The majority has traced a formidable circle round the mind. [of a sincere regard for the Americans, but under a still Wo to the writer who ventures to step out of it! greater reverence for freedom of opinion. If they compel The three following extracts are from the work just men- us to choose between the two, we shall be sorry for it. In tioned. They are taken from an excellent translation by that case, our choice is made. We still hope, however, Mr. H. Reeve, made under the immediate superintendence that they may find the means of reconciling our regard of the author. for both. The attempt to drive mankind into silent adoration of them is purely ludicrous. By perseverance in 'Nothing is more embarrassing in the ordinary inter- it, the blustering Demos of America would do more towards course of life than this irritable patriotism of the Ameri-discrediting Republicanism by their intolerance, than they cans. A stranger may be very well inclined to praise many of the institutions of their country; but he begs can ever do towards recommending it by their economy. permission to blame some of the peculiarities he ob- Theatrical stars 'shoot too madly from the sphere' of serves a permission which is inexorably refused. ordinary womanhood, for ordinary rules of 'maiden mediAmerica is, therefore, a free country, in which, lest any tation' to apply to them. Mrs. Butler's idea of herself is, body should be hurt by your remarks, you are not al- that she has even more than the national English abhorlowed to speak freely of private individuals or of the rence of coming in contact with strangers. At the same state, of the citizens or of the authorities, of public or of time, she has apparently no idea that any thing need be private undertakings, or, in short, of any thing at all. kept secret from the public; and would go through with except it be the climate and the soil; and even then her gambols round the room just the same, whoever might Americans will be found ready to defend either the one come in. Her father and herself accordingly are shown or the other, as if they had been contrived by the inhabitants of the country.' Again, 6 up with as little ceremony as the rest of the world. If Mr. Charles Kemble chance to get a little clevated (in her language, how comed you so indeed ?") or if, walking home at night, he is betrayed into the frolic of longing Works have been published in the proudest nations for a gimlet to bore a hole in some wine casks, left impruof the Old World, expressly intended to censure the dently in the street-out it comes. The merits and devices, and deride the follies of the times; Labruyere in- merits of his acting, or his reading, could not be canvassed habited the palace of Louis XIV. when he composed his more impartially, were he a perfect stranger to her. She chapter upon the great; and Molière criticised the cour-is to the full as nonchalant and explicit about herself. She tiers in the very pieces which were acted before the knows she can behave as ill and be as odious as any body court. But the ruling power in the United States is not to be made game of; the smallest reproach irritates its when she has a mind. She must have seemed a strange sensibility, and the slightest joke which has any founda- animal to the fashionables of New York, whilst they were tion in truth, renders it indignant. From the style of seeming just as strange to her. She dislikes to wear a its language, to the more solid virtues of its character, diamond ring on account of the abominable ugliness of every thing must be made the subject of encomium. No her hand.' Lawrence's portrait of her is admirable, inaswriter, whatever be his eminence, can escape from this much as it overcome the material impediments, and put tribute of adulation to his fellow-citizens. The ma- her spirit into her face. The harder portions of her social jority lives in the perpetual practice of self-applause; creed, and personal character, are trotted out with the and there are certain truths which the Americans can same indifference to effect, good or bad. We're a blesonly learn from strangers, or from experience.' sed pack of drudges, and deserve to be so.' Her satisfacHence no great men either in literature or in politics. tion in occasionally escaping from our wearisome generaFor thought, like affection, sinks to mediocrity when it tion, and forgetting herself in Dante, is what many persons may manage to understand. But her declaration that the human race cannot stand in competition with a landA stranger does indeed sometimes meet with Ameri-swallow for her favour, is not so easy to forgive. Poor cans who dissent from these rigorous formularies; with little creature! how very much more I do love all things men who deplore the defects of the laws, the mutability than men and women.' If that is the case, no wonder and the ignorane of democracy; who even go so far as ceases to be free. to observe the evil tendencies which impair the national her fellow-creatures are less agreeable to her than herself. character, and to point out such remedies as it might be There is no moment of my life when I would not rather possible to apply; but no one is there to hear these be alone than in company.' Yet she tires often of herself. things beside yourself, and you, to whom these secret I would give the world for a good shaking. I am dyreflections are confided, are a stranger and a bird of pas-ing of the blue devils.' This, however, is a consummasage. They are very ready to communicate truths mation not always to be prevented even by hock and waltzwhich are useless to you, but they continue to hold a ing. 'Sweet German waltz, next to hock, the most intoxdifferent language in public. icating growth of the Rheinland!' These are more confiIf ever these lines are read in America, I am well dential revelations, it must be admitted, than the public assured of two things: in the first place, that all who is in the habit of receiving. A negro servant, who brought peruse them will raise their voices to condemn me; and in the second place, that very many of them will acquit down her horse every morning, was asked by another if he had yet seen Miss Kemble at the theatre. He answered, No. I have had the pleasure of seeing Miss Kemble in me at the bottom of their conscience.' This is a melancholy and disheartening point of view. private society. Let him buy her book as she herself A whole nation employed from year's end to year's end in could tell him little more. The Kentuckian who was playing the part of courtier to itself! The consequence doubtful about that 'ere gal,' but who guessed she was is, it must gradually lose all relish for truth, and fall into 'o' some account,' will do well to gratify his curiosity in worst state of degradation (for a more humiliating and the same manner. more penal one cannot be imagined),-a preference of Though Mrs. Butler has said nothing about the Ameri flatterers over friends, We say what we are saying out cans, which, whether we look at the matter or the manner she had not a perfect right to say; on the other hand, she suddenly from out of her heaven, and wishes herself dead. has given the Americans, without any breach of gallantry, We fall in with her at the next, 'pottering,' as she calls it, certain rights as against herself. An ornamental tube is over the frivolous frippery of her theatrical toilette; paying not a barometer, unless it is properly constructed, the compliments to her new furbished bonnet,—' it is a worquicksilver what it ought to be, and the scale correctly thy old thing that;' or coaxing herself, 'dear little good noted. Now, this is not the nature of Mrs. Butler's book. me,' for her economy in abstaining from the purchase of It is, at the best, a mirror; and not so much a mirror re-a pelerine which she did not want. She has recorded withflecting an image of America as of herself. General Jack-in the twelvemonth, we are sorry to perceive, cryings son appears to have suspected her of belonging to the enough to last any reasonable person a life and more. family of scribbling ladies, when he told her that the South However, if she can weep for nothing, like Diana in the Carolina disturbances had no larger source than the nib fountain,' she wants as little also to make her merry. of a lady's pen.' It is curious to see the influence of the There is always an ecstatic hour to be got arranging sex as powerful over American politics, as in the court of flowers. A nosegay reconciles her in a minute to our Queen Anne or Louis the Fifteenth. But the representa- prison-house of torments. The public are bound, we tion which Mrs. Butler has given of herself, is a conclusive think, to look with interest on the history of all who are proof that the possibility of making a national or political born and trained and in a great degree sacrificed to our use of her pages never entered into her head. Otherwise enjoyment. And sacrifice is, alas! far too much the hisshe would have been upon her guard; and written less in tory of all genius and of every species of public life. It is the headlong capricious style of a moonish youth, changea-pleasant, therefore, to see that prima donnas do not necessable, longing, and liking, for every passion something, and rily lose their animal spirits and natural pleasures from the for no passion truly any thing, as boys and women are wear and tear and artificial habits of the stage. The frofor the most part cattle of this colour.' Now, this is too licsome humour of our young heroine at times took eccenmuch her way of going on, upon her own showing; her centric flights, and must have put her in some danger of book being a window to her mind, in which all is seen the tread-mill or a lunatic asylum, with a generation who that for the time is uppermost in it. are not very indulgent to a joke. As they went through While yet a girl; Miss Kemble rose up on a sudden the the streets of Philadelphia, during the riot of an election, self-taught ornament of the London theatre. Naturally of she kept brandishing her father's theatrical sword out of a vivid temperament, and of mercurial and uncertain spirits the carriage window. Another of her freaks was bolder -very clever, running one feeling into another, without still. They were travelling from New York to Boston, the slightest warning made, from her talents and celebrity, en voiturier; or, in American phraseology, as exclusive exthe principal attraction of almost every circle where she ap-tras. The following adventure occurred to them on the peared-pursued from place to place by anonymous love journey:- At one place where we stopped, I saw a meekletters and bouquets-wandering over the world in a pro-eyed, yellowish-white cart-horse, standing with a man's fession which places a woman to a certain degree in a saddle on his back. The opportunity was irresistible, and false position, and which, loathe it as she may, and per- the desire too. I had not backed a horse for so long. So haps in proportion as she loathes it, must act upon her sen- I got upon the amazed quadruped, woman's fashion, and ment and character-being all this, it necessarily follows, took a gallop through the fields, with infinite risk of falthat a picturesque exhibition of her authentic self cannot ling off, and proportionate satisfaction.' be a very grave, uniform, business-like affair. The out- This was the mixed and somewhat tangled skein of pourings of her volatile spirits, o'er-wrought feelings, and thought and feeling that she took out with her to Americh embroidered fancy, make at times glorious confusion. rica, and out of which, sailor-fashion, she has spun a very It is the emptyings of Falstaff's pockets, with many finer pleasant yarn. It is not, to be sure, as full of detail and things beside. With regard to her notices of America, she philosophy as De Tocqueville. There are readers enow, does not affect to disguise her foolish weaknesses, and to however, whom it will not suit the worse for that. In wherself off for more than she is worth. A passion for former days, Carneades and a Greek mima, visiting Rome, England, the yearning of the roots for the soil in which were not expected to look for the same things, or, seeing they grew' (call it patriotism or what you will,) is indulged the same things, to see them in the same spirit. What and gloried in, so as to take from her comparisons between are trifles to philosophers or day labourers, are serious country and country, every thing of a judicial character. matters in the eye of a Rosalind or a Beatrice. The dif For instance, her avowed panting after a wreath of English ference between a good or a bad horse in the rides which fog in preference to the surpassing sunsets of New York, did her 'ten thousand goods;' between a pleasant neigha one of those sentimental bravadoes in which a pretty bour at dinner and a bel esprit who, by way of critical an is allowed to exhaust the sorrows of exile, or any conversation, tells her that the Hunchback is by no means other sorrow. as good as Shakspeare;' between milliners that can make Mr Butler gets rapidly over the ground. Like one of a gown to meet behind and that cannot ; between an audide Baltimore schooners which she describes of light ence readily electrified and an audience of cabbages; bebuild and raking masts, she is away and back again, between acting with such sticks as Mr. Keppel and acting fare the reader is aware. The skill with which she grace. with her father-were points of more immediate concern ally touches serious subjects, and the depth and beauty to Miss Kemble on her theatrical trip to New York and many passages, are in comical juxtaposition with the Boston, Philadelphia and Baltimore (for that is all), than her half of her nature and occupations. At one moment the issue of the South Carolina insurrection against the is absorbed in the principles of her art, or half mysti- Tariff, or of Jackson's struggle with the Bank. Such is Sedan dim spiritual metaphysics, or walks out to breathe accordingly the character of her Journal. An Americar. freely a bright poetical atmosphere of her own, or kinsman made out for her that the Kembles were originally found almost transfigured on a mountain top, ready for Italian people-pirates-by name Cambo bello; the same ay extravagance that enthusiam can devise, or drops down family as the Scotch Campbells and Norman Beauchamps On this, the little aristocrat exclaime, 'How I wish it were] Night, thou shalt nurse me, but be sure, good nurse, true! And (what is worse still) would rather be descend- While sitting by my bed, that thou art silent; ed from a half-heathen Saxon giant than from William I will not let the sing me to my slumbers Penn himself, or than have the wealth of the earth for her With the sweet lullabies of former times, dower! This is the fortune which she would like to conNor tell me tales, as other gossips wont, jure for herself. Fortunately, she is not quite so foolish Of the strange fairy days, that are all gone.' in dealing with the interests of others as with her own. On finding herself a little more sea-worthy, she says, The sight of one of Stanfield's Annuals from the Rhine did not make her wish to turn America into a dreamland of off when the ship lurched, and enjoyed it all amazingly. I got cradled among the ropes, so as not to be pitched romance. She was content with the aching of her own It was sad and solemn, and, but for the excitement of heart to be back again in Europe, in the old land of fairy the savage looking waves, that every now and then tales, the feudal world of legendary ruins. But, for lifted their overwhelming sides against us, it would have America, in case ruined castles, and picture galleries, and made me melancholy; but it stirred my spirits to ride cultivated refined society, are incompatible with a popula- over these huge sea-horses, that came bounding and tion of no poor, she is willing to leave it as it is. On that bellowing round us.' supposition, she says, 'I would not alter the present state of things if I could! She would only get away. We must give a few examples of Mrs. Butler's descriptive powers. The reader must suppose her fairly out at sea in the packet boat from Liverpool to New York. I fairly danced myself tired. Came to bed. But oh! not to sleep-mercy, what a night! The wind blowing like mad, the sea rolling, the ship pitching, bouncing, shuddering, and reeling, like a thing possessed. I lay awake, listening to her creaking and groaning, till two o'clock, when, sick of my sleepless berth, I got up and was going up stairs, to see, at least, how near drowning we were, when D, who was lying awake too, implored me to lie down again. I did so for the hunThe garlands green that were the spring's delight. dred and eleventh time, complaining bitterly that I At morn and eve thin silver vapours riso should be stuffed down in a loathsome berth, cabined, Around his path; but sometimes at mid-day cribbed, confined, while the sea was boiling below, and He looks along the hills with gentle eyes, wind blowing above us. Lay till daylight, the gale in- That make the salle creasing furiously; boxes, chairs, beds, and their con-Yet something tents, wooden valuables, and human inva about and clinging to one another fusion.' Her pretty appeal to Night, in St of Old Play,' we should fear, Night! silent nurse, that |