:

gered ice-god. We beg to remind her that the case for, what fun! Again, I had an opportunity of perceiving and against, church music, is not fairly tried, when they how thorough a chimera the equality is that we talk of ing Psalms to the tune of 'Come live with me and be my as American. "There's no such thing," with a venlove. However she shall remain in quiet possession of geance! Here they were talking of their aristocracy her articles of faith, whether against soft church music or and democracy.' in favour of stern sermons, out of consideration of her The following is one only of many similiar trials of her quaint sinile-so new and yet so like. The day was patience:most lovely, and my eyes were constantly attracted to the church windows, through which the magnificent willows 'Wrote journal, and began to practise: while doing of the burial-ground looked like golden-green fountains so, called; he said that he was accompanied by rising into the sky.' She must have been thinking of the door. I've heard of men's shutting the door in the face some friends who wished to see me, and were at the glorious fountains at Saint Peters. It was not near so of a dun, and going out the back way to escape a bailiff; pretty in her to visit a fidgety little child, in the corner of but how to get rid of such an attack as this I knew not, her pew, with a wish for the days of King Herod. and was therefore fain to beg the gentlemen would walk Her sketches of scenery, on her journey from Baltimore in and accordingly, in they walked, four as fine grown to Washington, at Trenton Falls, and round Boston, are all men as you would wish to see on a summer's day. I was very picturesque. The figurantes thrown in to give life to introduced to this regiment, man by man, and thought, as Claude or Poussin, do not do their work half so well as my Sheffield friend would say, "If them be American the outline of herself, with which she every where animates manner's defend me from them." They are traders, her landscapes. At one time, she passes us galloping duction in my life. They sat a little while, behaved to be sure; but I never heard of such wholesale introalong the golden sands of the sea-shore, as close to the very like Christians, and then departed.' restless edge as her horse will bear to go; or stops to watch the reviving breeze dipping like a bird its fresh She is always ready, with or without provocation, to give wings into the water. At another, we follow her along the tongue in behalf of antiquity. water courses, as they come dancing and singing down the hills like merry children, laughing as they run; or look called an old mansion-mercy on me, him, and it!We passed a pretty house, which Colonel down with her from the heights while she is thinking of Old! I thought of Warwick Castle, and of Hatfieldthe temptation of our Saviour; or share her mortification old! and there it stood with its white pillars and Italianwhen, on stooping to gather violets, she finds them scent-looking portico, for all the world like one of our own lew things-mere pretences of violets-and flings the lit- cit's yesterday-grown boxes. Old, quotha! the woods, the purple cheats away in a rage. and waters, and hills, and skies, alone are old here-the We are as works of men are in the very greenness and unmellowShe would ed imperfection of youth-true, 'tis a youth full of vigprobably re-soms, foretelling abundant and rich produce, and so let orous sap and glorious promise; spring laden with blosthem be proud of it. But the worst of it is the Ameri 'St. Valentine's Day! I wish all these pretty, gol-which considering the time and opportunities they have cans are not satisfied with glorying in what they areden days, which, like the flowers in the sun-dial of Linaeus, were wont so gaily to mark the flight of time, happy without comparing this their sapling to the giant had, is matter of glory quite sufficient-they are never were not becoming so dim in our calendars. I wish St. Valentine's day, and May morning, and Christmas day, and New Year's day, were not putting off their baliday suits to wear the work-day russet of their drudg gfellows. I wish we were not making all things, of sorts, so completely of a neutral tint. I would'nt le in the Reform Parliament of England for ten thouand pounds!"

The following is very prettily expressed. glad as she is that she is not in Parliament. give very bad votes; and, if she spoke, would mind us of the boards of Covent Garden:

Is New York like London? No, by my two troths it is oaks of the Old World, and what can one say to that? not; but the oak was an acorn, and New York will surely, if the world holds together long enough, become lordly city, such as we know of beyond the sea.'

Jan Steen might have drawn a picture from some of her interiors.

'When the gentlemen joined us they were all more or less "how come'd you so indeed?" Mr. and Mr. The captain proposed as a toast, 'The Ladies-God piano, and once or twice I thought I must have screamparticularly. They put me down to the them, which accordingly was being duly drunk, ed. On one side vibrated dear Mr. ben 1 beard, close to my elbow, a devout, half audible threatening And the Lord deliver us! This from a man with a awful angle from the horizontal line, singing with every my new gown with a cup of coffee which he held at an e one of Retsch's most grotesque etchings, and body who opened their lips, and uttering such dreadexpression half humorous, half terrified, sent me fully discordant little squeals and squeaks, that I thought Sa of laughter."

I should have died of suppressed laughter. On the other side, rather concerned, but not quite so much so, stood the Irishman, who, though warbling a little out of from his honour the Re- tune, and flourishing somewhat luxuriantly, still retainby the name of- ed enough of his right senses to discriminate between son. They were Mrs. -'s yelps and singing, properly so called, and t; at every half accordingly pished!-and pshawed-and oh lorded!ng, or appeal- and good heavened! away-staring at the perpetrator d-temper- with indignant horror through his spectacles.' le; and

But there are conversations which a painter's brush canns): not follow. The next is one of them. It passes, we dare

OF

Foreign Literature, Science, and Art.

From the Edinburg Review..

8vo. London: 1835.

JOURNAL BY FRANCES ANNE BUTLER.

inclination to read the stars scattered over its pages. For vols. any thing we can tell one way or the other, they may be very improper mischief-making stars, or the maidenliest stars in the firmament.' Confining ourselves, then, to the MRS. BUTLER'S Journal has all the freshness, confidence, printed text, we should like to know, whom and what the and indiscretion of an intercepted correspondence. Among public can have imagined the present journal was to place its many indiscretions, her declarations against 'the Press- before them?-a pure and shrinking snow-drop, just brought gang' that body before whom statesmen tremble-is out of the nunnery of an English nursery?—the milliner's pre-eminently indiscreet. But the sort of temptation, flower-one of the curtseying conventional nonentities of under which foolish and fearless schoolboys provoke a fashion?-or some more stately personification of matronly nest of hornets, appears to have been irresistible. Pas-reserve, sculptured out from our native granite? If so, sages like the following were pretty certain to bring them the public may well be surprised. But, in fact, the out: 'Except where they have heen made political tools, absurdity of such a representation, in the present instance, newspaper writers and editors have never, I believe, been would probably have been surpassed only by its stupidity. admitted into good society in England.'-'Here I do so- Mrs. Butler has dealt more kindly by us. Instead of Innly swear, never again with my own good-will to getting up for the booksellers a book which a hundred become acquainted with any man in any way connected other travellers could have manufactured as skilfully as with the public press. They are utterly unreliable people, herself, she has given us one of those vivid realities which generally; their vocation requires that they should be so, it is beyond the faculty of authorship to create. Her and the very few exceptions I must forego. However I picture is a picture from the life—the original drawings might like them, I can neither respect nor approve of their taken on the spot. Our surprise, however, is perhaps as trade-for trade it is in the vilest sense of the word.' The great as that of our neighbours, only of a more agreeable presentation of one of the proscribed race is forced upon kind; first, at the extraordinary rapidity and truth with her. She keeps her word: I was most ungracious and which the impression of the moment has been committed Sorbidding, and meant to be so.' Among the catechising to paper-so little lost, so little added; next, at the frankgentlemen who, after the fashion of the country, introduced ness and good faith with which she has retained these her themselves to her, there was one who (she was afterwards first impressions, in spite of the thousand and one terrors, lald) was a newspaper editor. She cannot believe it: 'He temptations, and prudential considerations of preparing books too fat, fresh, and 'good tempered for that.'* Her for the press. The genuine juice of the grape, unmeditane is eqally light and irreverent in speaking of contribu-cated and unmixed, is not a rarer phenomenon in the tors to annuals, of scribblers for narrow coteries, and of cellars of a wine merchant, than a production so perfectly ther small literati. There is no accounting for the natural, in the literary market. It is more like thinking prejudice which can entertain, or the audaciousness which aloud than any thing of personal history we ever expected man publish, such opinions. Of this we are quite aware. to see in print. Now, thinking aloud, which would be Our readers, however, may perhaps by this time be able to rather a hazardous practice with most people, is not likely account, in part, for a good deal that they may happen to to be less hazardous than usual in the person of a young Lave heard about the 'vulgarity' of Mrs. Butler's Journal. and lively actress-the writer, while in her teens, of so bold She has had the misfortune also to raise up another class a play as that of Francis the First. We do not offer the of enemies. While some of our writers are shocked at result of the experiment as the precedent of a pattern-girl, ber vulgarity, the Americans, it is said, are likely to be as whose manners, feelings, and expressions may be safely mach offended at the freedom of her remarks upon their received by governesses as authority for their pupils. That manners. Is there any, and what degree of reason in these is another question. There are too many impulses and sbjections?

We take the book as it is, having neither means nor

contingencies belonging to most kinds of talent to make talents desirable, but as an exception in life. This must be particularly true in the case of women. All the The impression which, on her first coming out, her arrangements of society proceed so completely on the father's horsewhip over certain shoulders, necessarily contrary supposition! What allowances, then, ought sade upon her, has remained much too absolutely on justice and charity to interpose, where, in addition to the er mind. She would at once perceive the injustice to common risks of wayward genius, its youthful destiny has adividuals and the injury to the public, of similar re- been identified with the literature of the drama, the habits Sections on the stage. Yet a daily press is a thing of the green-room, and the excitement of the stage? In which we could less spare than a daily theatre; and the

degradation of its members, by indiscriminate abuse case a juvenile actress should contract from her profession and exclusion, becomes proportionally absurd. What only a certain quantity of bad taste, and a little more of Sur Joshua Reynolds did for artists, and Garrick for mobility and self-confidence than would be found in a performers change their position in society-merit and young thing, who, although naturally as excitable, had been ncouragement may do for the members of the public but just taken out of its country nest, she will have come out of the terrible ordeal marvellously little spoiled by it. VOL XXVIII. JANUARY, 1836.-1. A

The way in which the supposed specimens of bad taste for him. We say the same of the cquivalent étouderies have been selected, in the newspapers and other publica- of Mrs. Butler. A lady of the old school-successor and tions, for exposure-sentences or half sentences detached more than successor to Mrs. Montague's authority-once from their quick and flowing context-makes them appear repeated to us a list of expressions, from the use of which infinitely worse than they really are. For, the head and ladies had been excluded during her lifetime; and added front of her offending amount to little more than occasional her apprehension that, if things went on so, the time must instances of a vehement and random style, which (though come, when English men and English women would be it has nothing improper in itself, yet) as it is not the speaking different languages. The choice Latin of Corlanguage of good company, it is somewhat startling to nelia and the Roman matrons, did not derive its peculiar hear a gentlewoman indulging in. For instance, she has refinement from the principle, on which Swift defined a no timid misgivings about the personality of Satan. An nice man to be a man of nasty ideas. The English nation old magician could not speak of him with greater fami- was once as distinguished in its real life as in its drama for liarity. The difficulty which the ladies of New York the variety of its characters and its humours. There can experience in pronouncing broadly and distinctly the first be no doubt but that society has lost in its picturesqueness syllable of Hell-gate (the name of one of the wonders of from the habit of passing its rolling stone constantly over the neighbourhood) passes her comprehension. There is us, and attempting to keep our minds as flat, smooth, and some minor garnish of 'Lord! Lord! Mercy me's and uniform as our lawns. People cannot be made as like quothas,' almost as much out of the common way. If each other as fashion expects them to be, but by destroying we are asked, where can she have picked this up? Our the vital principle, and treating man not as a growth, but first conjecture would be-probably from a too early and as a manufacture. For our own part, therefore, we feel indiscriminate companionship with the old English drama. obliged to Mrs. Butler for refusing to be put into the The grossness which disgraces many of our Elizabethan mould.

plays can mislead nobody. But the most feminine The anger of our good cousins over the water would be characters appear in them with a degree of freedom, still more ridiculous than the sensitiveness of our purists. which is worn so gracefully and innocently, that its We shall always be forward to denounce (Americans inconsistency with our present manners may be more themselves not more so) spiteful one-sided exaggerationseasily overlooked. In the next place, the far greater part splenetic attempts to depreciate their institutions or their of the promiscuous society into which an actress is thrown people-more especially the childishness of making instiby her profession, is, of course, quite indifferent to our tutions answerable for matters of fact, which properly arbitrary distinctions, between the talk which is to charm belong to other causes. The caricatures of Mrs. Trollope us on the stage and to shock us off it. A young person and of Captain Basil Hall were much more disagreeable to placed within the capricious influence of these causes, will us than the assumption and arrogance of Mr. Cooper. But be getting out of bounds before she is aware. She must this is not enough of favour! No small portion of the constantly want reminding 'there are differences, look you.' American population regard advocates of our complexion If she should fall in with professors of the gaie science of as little better than enemies in disguise. They reject vive la bagatelle, who seek to make of her a sort of Gres- every thing as an insult which stops short of unqualified set's Vert vert for their amusement, the simplicity and panegyric. What may be the value of Mrs. Butler's vivacity of their unconscious pupil are the very elements opinions on America, is itself a matter of opinion. Sen. of their success. It is true that we never heard of Miss sible persons will have regard to the subject of which she Kemble talking as Miss Kemble here and there has may be speaking at the time. She says she knows nothing written. However, once satisfy her that she is wrong, and about politics. We believe her. Nevertheless, she lamher censors need not anticipate a prolonged resistance, poons the English Whigs; lauds the American institutions either from the defects of education or the peremptoriness for things they have no merit in; and opines about the of self-will. A girl, who gave up waltzing with males, at tendency of America to monarchy-about the necessary a moment, in compliance with the scruples of a clergyman modifications of the Roman Catholic religion under a of New York, may be expected to part as readily with bits republic-and about the peculiar congeniality of Unitariof slang, where the chances of misconstruction are much anism with the character of New England, as peremptorily greater, and the temptation considerably less. But really as if her knowledge of politics entitled her to have an we ought to stop. We are entering into suggestions and opinion of her own. Her decisions concerning actors, explanations infinitely more serious than the nature of the scenery (out of doors' scenery we mean), literature, and case requires. The paragraphs to which the supposed society, are much more likely to be correct. But let her objection fairly applics are very few in number; and the judgments be what they may-right or wrong-they alteration of a word or two to some more quiet and pretty occupy a small space. She appears principally as a behaved expression, would set every thing right. In what witness; mentioning the particular facts which fell we have said, we have assumed that it is desirable that within her personal experience, and communicating the women should continue to be women in the most charac- impression which the whole of what she saw and heard teristic of all attractions, in the purity and delicacy of the made upon her mind. Are there any marks of want of female mind. But the more important the object, the more understanding for this purpose? Did she carry out with necessary is it that it should be gone about in the right her the evil eye-observing the world before her in a manner. There are freedoms, of which Desdemona says, mocking spirit? Or is the honesty of her revised de'where virtue is these are most virtuous.' In this respect, scriptions open to suspicion? On these points, it is easy good breeding stands upon equal grounds with virtue. It to show that the Americans must be exacting and quarrelis a bad sign to be over fastidious. Without knowing some indeed, who shall conceive that they have any just more of the matter, we should not conclude that Mrs. reason for complaint. Her book, it should be remembered, Montague was less of a lady for having once in a way told is no history of America. She expressly declares in the ɔari x, that she did not care 'three skips of a louse' preface, that it does not pretend to be so. It is simply the

す

journal of her twelvemonths' professional sojourn in some when men will not. Thrice blessed is this country, for of the principal commercial towns, with the addition of a no such crying evil exists in its bosom; no such moral few later notes. reproach, no such political rottenness. If we have any On this part of the case, a few passages will be decisive faith in the excellence of mercy and benevolence, we with regard to the general spirit in which she has written.must believe that this alone will secure the blessing of Providence on this country.' The following extract consists of two prragraphs. In the first, she is expressing her feelings at the moment of It is impossible to read this kindly and benevolent looking down from its mountains over the Hudson; in the nonsense without wishing to be informed what are the second, she has recorded her graver reflections after a three moral means and political machinery by which America years' residence. brings about the blessed result of plenty of employment

I thought of my distant home; that handful of earth at good wages. The fair enthusiast may be assured that, thrown upon the wide waters, whose genius has led the on this point at least, the continuance of the blessing of Amgdoms of the world-whose children have become Providence upon America, depends, not upon any such the possessors of this new hemisphere. I rejoiced to indefinite notions as were floating in her mind, but, upon thank that when England shall be, as all things must be, the proportion between the supply of labour and the fillen into the devouring past, her language will still remunerating demand for it. The worse, however, her be spoken among these glorious hills, her name revered, political economy on this occasion, the less plausibility is her memory cherished, her fame preserved here, in this there in presuming the existence of undue prejudices far world beyond the seas, this country of her children's against a country, in whose favour her blunders are comadoption. Loving and honouring my country as I do, mitted.

I cannot look upon America with any feeling of hostility. I not only hear the voice of England in the The next thing in which national unfairness generally language of this people, but I recognise in all their best betrays itself, is in the colour given to estimates of the qualities, their industry, their honesty, their sturdy general character of a people. But Mrs. Butler is appaindependence of spirit, the very witnesses of their rently quite as ready to do full justice to all that she has origin-they are English; no other people in the world admired or liked in them, as to speak her mind on what would have licked us as they did; nor any other people was disagreeable to her. in the world built up, upon the ground they won, so Bound, and strong, and fair an edifice.'

The following passage contains some of her proofs of their honesty:

Is this the language of a hostile temper? The first 'A farmer who is in the habit of calling at our house thing that a national caricaturist seeks to misrepresent is with eggs, poultry, &c., being questioned as to whether the condition of the body of the people. Not only is Mrs. the eggs were new-laid, replied, without an instant's Butler sensible that a greater degree of comfort is enjoyed hesitation, " no, not the very fresh ones, we eat all those by the population at large in the non-slaving states than by ourselves." On returning home from the play one night, the same class in the Old World; but she attributes their I could not find my slippers any where, and, after some well-being to their democracy, with as much ignorance of useless searching, performed my toilet for bed without the real nature of the case as their novelist, Cooper, could them. The next morning, on enquiring of my maid, if dere. Take her sketch of the pleasure grounds in the she knew any thing of them, she replied with perfect

neighbourhood of New York.

equanimity, that having walked home through the snow, and got her feet extremely wet, she had put them on, The walks along the river and through the woods, return. Nobody, I think, will doubt, that an English and forgotten to restore them to their place before my the steamers crossing from the city, were absolutely farmer and an English servant might sell stale eggs and thronged with a cheerful, well-dressed population, abroad merely for the purpose of pleasure and exercise.ful, that either fact would have been acknowledged with use their mistress's slippers; but I think it highly doubtJourneymen, labourers, handicraftsmen, trades-people, such perfect honesty any where but here.' with their families, bearing all in their dress and looks

endent signs of well-being and contentment, were all

earth.

From her account of them, they are, substantially and flocking from their confined avocations, into the pure in grain, one of the best bred people on the face of the ur, the bright sunshine, and beautiful shade of this loveplace. I do not know any spectacle which could give The particular forms and habits of European foreigner, especially an Englishman, a better illustra- refinement may be often missed; but a sentiment of on of that peculiar excellence of the American universal good-will is widely spread among them, which is overnment-the freedom and happiness of the lower a far better thing. The standard of fashionable manners asses. Neither is it to be said that this was a holiday, is for ever changing. The gencration which has gone an occasion of peculiar festivity-it was a common before is usually the laughing-stock of the generation week-day-such as our miserable manufacturing popu- which comes after. But a desire to accommodate and to istion spends from sunrise to sundown, in confined, please is the sterling element and sole ultimate condition of t, unhealthy toil-to earn at its conclusion, the all good-breeding. The demeanour of men towards adequate reward of health and happiness so wasted. women in the streets is infinitely more courteous here than The contrast struck me forcibly-it rejoiced my heart; with us; women can walk, too, with perfect safety, by urely was an object of contemplation, that any one themselves, either in New York, Philadelphia, or Boston; who had a heart must have rejoiced in.' on board the steam-boats no person sits down to table until the ladies are accommodated with seats; and I have

In one of her notes she says,

This country is in one respect blessed above all other, myself in church benefitted by the civility of men who and above all others deserving of blessing. There are have left their pew, and stood during the whole service, in 10 poor-1 say there are none, there need be none; order to afford me room.'

aone here needlift up the despairing voice of hopeless She expressly warns foreigners against concluding that and helpless want towards that Heaven which hears the leading fashionables of New York and Philadelphia