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Rush's publication, both as regards private and public interests, we hasten to state that we have little or no complaint to make as to his details. Those that relate to private life are, he admits, 'meagre,' and those of a public nature somewhat obsolete. He appears to be a good-natured and kind-hearted man, and we have no doubt was a faithful public servant; but his book is, as he himself seems to have suspected, rather trivial. It certainly does not strike us as the production of a superior intellect-his views do not seem to be very wide, nor his observations very deep; -he appears to be somewhat credulous-and rather too easily amused with objects because they were new. But great allowances are to be made for an American who visits for the first time-not merely Europe-but that celebrated and once glorious country whose language he speaks-whose blood he shareswhose spirit he inherits-whose long line of triumphs in arms and arts, previous to the so-recent separation, he considers, and justly, as his own—and which, however their peculiar interests may differ, he can never regard but as the elder branch of the noble family to which he is proud to belong. And it certainly is not for us to complain of those parts of his work which may perhaps be most open to criticism. We may smile at some of the things which excite his admiration, and at some of the terms in which he expresses it, but on the whole the spirit with which he visits the land of his fathers is so good-so fraternal, that we should little deserve the favourable opinion which he is willing to entertain and to spread of us, if we did not make light of trivial errors, inevitable by a stranger, and acknowledge with frankness and cordiality our substantial obligations to him for some entertainment and a good deal of kindness.

Yet it is not easy to make satisfactory extracts from his work. His style is not piquant-nor does he deal in anecdotes: to go in special search of errors or ridicules-which, after all, are not many-would be ungrateful and unfair; and his description of English manners and society would, when most correct, be least amusing to an English reader. We confess that our chief entertainment in the book was, that it gives some insight into American manners. When something which appears to us a very ordinary matter excites the notice of Mr. Rush, we immediately conclude that it is something which either does not exist in America, or is contrary to American usages. We therefore cannot help considering that his portrait of ourselves affords, by reflection as it were, some sketches of America by the same hand ;-and as no one can doubt that the gentleman selected to be envoy to England was in the highest grade,' both of manners and talents, we shall have in his observations a kind of standard of comparison between

his country and ours. Nor will it be useless to our readers to see how some things, which we pass with little notice, may strike an intelligent and impartial stranger.

In November 1817, Mr. Rush and his family embarked for his mission to England, in the Franklin, a ship of 2000 tons, and, although rated as a seventy-four, mounting ninety guns!' -p. 2. Neither the commodore (Stewart), who had been twenty years in the service, nor any of his seven lieutenants, nor the sailing master or mate, had ever been in the English Channel before -it happened that, for a long period, they spoke no vessels-met none-saw no land-had no observations-the weather was dark and bad, and the ship was navigated by the soundings only, to the great anxiety of the commodore. At last, on the morning of the 16th December, they found themselves abreast of the Isle of Wight, but at a great distance, and a gun brought on board a pilot, who turned out to be no pilot, but a drunken fellow who had been dismissed from that employment-who nevertheless, imposing on the ignorance of the foreigners, took charge of the ship and carried her through the Needles passage to Cowes. Mr. Rush blames severely the supineness of the English pilots who were not on the look out, and contrasts their laziness with the activity of 'the American pilot-boats, who would run out to sea twenty or thirty miles to look for vessels.' This censure is not, we believe, just; we ourselves have met the English pilot-boats as many leagues at sea as Mr. Rush mentions miles :-the fact seems to be that the Franklin ran through the chops of the Channel, where the pilot-boats were probably cruizing, in the night or in fogs-and, after all, she appears to have found a pilot as soon as she made signal for one.

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If we had not before known that the eastern shores of America are of a flat and tame character we should have inferred it from the impression of giddy height,' and intrinsic grandeur,' which the Needle rocks conveyed to the strangers. But if the Needles were a grand sight, Cowes was full of beauty. When they had left America, the leaves had fallen and the grass had lost its verdure; but here, a month later, and in a higher latitude, a general verdure was to be seen.' The minister, with his family, and the commodore, proceeded in their own boat to Portsmouth, where they landed-not without some complaint, on the part of the envoy, that the custom-house officers not only would not permit their baggage to pass unexamined, but examined it closely. Mr. Rush was at first a little inclined to take offence at this as an affront to his public character, but subdued his feelings by remembering to have heard Mr. Adams say that the baggage of the allied sovereigns had been inspected at Dover.' In truth, Mr. Rush's proceedings seem to have been rather misma

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naged from the ignorance of all on board the Franklin of the localities. There appears no reason why the ship did not come to Spithead, which is within half an hour's sail of Cowes, where she and her freight would have been received with the accustomed attentions. No notice was given to any of the authorities of the minister's arrival-he seems to have been landed, not at the proper place, but in the crowd, filth, and confusion of the Point or the Common-Hard-both very unfavourable specimens of English accommodation. Next morning the admiral and the commissioner heard, by accident it seems, of his arrival, and hastened to wait upon him: they offered to Mr. Rush congratulations on his arrival, and to the commodore any supplies or facilities that the dock-yard could afford. As soon as the minister's arrival and character were notified to the proper authorities, an exemption from custom-house interruption was immediately forwarded, and Mr. Rush had every reason to be afterwards satisfied with the civilities and attention that he received from all quarters. We notice these trifles because Mr. Rush does not appear even now to be aware that it was his own awkward and unusual mode of presenting himself, which prevented his being received at the first moment with the same courtesy which he acknowledges to have met on all other occasions; and if it appears to us somewhat strange that care was not taken that some one officer of the Franklin should have before visited the seas to which she was destined, it is equally so that no individual of the mission should ever have been in England before. So that on the journey from Portsmouth to London they had no ciceroni but the postboys-' to whom they put frequent questions, but they could tell them little' (p. 23); that little, however, is gratefully acknowledged. The travellers passed, it seems, a machine of very stupendous structure and dimensions,

a waggon of great size. It had no pole, but double shafts, with a horse in each, and a line of four horses before each shaft horse, making ten in all, of enormous size. Their tails were uncut, and their long shaggy hairs hung about their pasterns. The waggon was loaded with bales, pile upon pile, higher than I had ever seen. Our postilions called it the Portsmouth heavy waggon.'—p. 20.

Mr. Rush, with just surprise, remarked the scanty population, and the vast tract of uncultivated land along the road from Portsmouth to London—and found afterwards that other portions of the country were still less peopled-that London and its immediate neighbourhood, with the counties of York and Lancaster, though forming so small a portion of the territory of England, contain one-third of her population

'It is difficult,' he adds, to believe, under such facts, whatever theories we meet with, that England is over-peopled,'-p. 21.

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At last he arrives in London

The roll of chariots, and carriages of all kinds, from two until past four, was incessant. In all directions they were in motion. It was like a show-the horses, the coachmen with triangular hats and tassels, the footmen with cockades and canes-it seemed as if nothing could exceed it all. Yet I was told that the sight in Hyde Park, any day in May or June, was more striking; and that if it happened to be on the same day with Epsom or Ascot races, which keep the roads alive for ten miles with London carriages, a stranger misses none from the Park. Sometimes, with this glitter of private equipages, you saw a stationary line of hacks, the worn-down horses eating out of nose-bags; and sometimes, at a slow, tugging walk, immense waggons, filled with coals, in black sacks, drawn by black horses, large and shaggy, and fat as those in the Portsmouth waggon. Being the day before Christmas, there was more display in the shops than usual. I did not get back until candle-light. The whole scene began to be illuminated. Altogether, what a scene it was!—the shops in the Strand and elsewhere, where every conceivable article lay before you; and all made in England, which struck me the more, coming from a country where few things are made, however foreign commerce may send them to us. Then, the open squares, and gardens; the parks with spacious walks; the palisades of iron, or enclosures of solid wall, wherever enclosures were requisite; the people; the countless number of equipages, and fine horses; the gigantic draft horses; -what an aspect the whole exhibited! what industry, what luxury, what infinite particulars, what an aggregate! The men were taller and straighter than the peasantry I had seen. The lineaments of a race descend like their language. The people I met constantly reminded me of those of my own country, I caught the same expression, often it glided by in complete identity; my ear took in accents to which it was a native, but I knew no one. It was like coming to another planet,-familiar with voices and faces, yet encircled by strangers.'-pp. 27, 28, 29.

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The fogs in London surprised him, and he was tempted to ask how the English became so great with so little day-light? It seems not fully to come out till nine in the morning, and immediately after four it is gone.'-p. 29. But Mr. Rush should not, as he seems to do, lay all the blame of the shortness of our day on our climate. Something, he might have recollected, depends on our latitude. In 52° north, in which London is situated, and on the 31st of December, the sun, unhappily for us, does not rise till past eight and sets about four, which will sufficiently explain the phenomenon that surprised him. We think, however, he must have remarked, during his residence in England, that the day-light lengthens considerably at certain seasons; for instance, in June it lasts from half-past three in the morning till a quarter

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past eight in the evening. We suggest this fact to his notice the rather, because Mr. Rush does not seem fully aware of it; for referring to the observation attributed to Charles II., that the English climate interrupts out-door labour fewer days in the year than any other,' he asks, and the question is under the date of the 31st of December,- Did his majesty remember how very short the day is for labour during a portion of the year?' Mr. Rush, indeed, does not quote accurately King Charles's remark, which applied to climate,-weather, and not the length of the day-to exercise in the open air, and not to labour; but, taking it as Mr. Rush has done, he ought, in fairness to his majesty, to have brought into account the long days as well as the short; for the observation applied, not to any portion of the year, but the average of the whole. Nor should Mr. Rush have forgotten that he had just told us, that, although a month later, and in a higher latitude (by about 12°), he had found more rural verdure on our shores than he had left behind him.

We suspect, indeed, that Mr. Rush's notions about latitude and longitudes are not very precise, for elsewhere he observes, to the praise of our government, that it encourages by premiums the making chronometers, by which the navy gets a supply of the best instruments for measuring time in all latitudes.'—p. 145.

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On the 20th January, 1818, Mr. and Mrs. Rush dined at Lord Castlereagh's, with some of the English cabinet and many of the corps diplomatique, to whom, as to himself, it was, he says, ' a first dinner.' The minuteness with which he notices some of the little etiquettes of the reception and the table surprised us. We should have thought they would not have been novelties.

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We find, indeed, in several passages of this book, as we remember to have observed when we have had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Rush himself and other Americans in this country, instances of ignorance of our habits and customs for which we were not prepared; but the fault is partly our own. look in a Frenchman errors which we notice in an American. We too hastily infer from the community of language a community of customs and ideas. It is true that, by books and conversation, Americans may learn what other foreigners can attain only by actual experience, and an experience rendered more laborious by the difficulty of verbal intercourse: but still there are numberless things which it is too much to expect that the best read or best bred American can be familiar with. What solecisms do not the inexperienced English commit in France, Germany, and Italy! How used we to laugh (before roads like floors, and stagecoaches like gentlemen's carriages-only that they travel twice as fast-had brought all England to town)-how used we to laugh at

the

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