the storm, told us we had better drive on to the next town, if we disliked his accommodations.' They rather chose, however, in such a night, to take up with the bugs and fleas, and filth at hand; though they were obliged to wash themselves out of doors, as not a person in the house would condescend to bring a little water into their room.' Mr. Welby, who records these petty annoyances, is by no means a person who delights in grumbling, except, perhaps, against his own country; and though he calls these people, in his spleen, a set of clothed savages, who have succeeded to the native savages of the soil; yet he talks, not very intelligibly indeed, of a probability that they, in their turn, will give place to a third, of some intellect and refinement; 'themselves driven from their paternal hearths by the insolence of an aristocracy, the intolerance of a state religion, or the craving demands of an extravagant government:'-but whether these abominations, which he has conjured up, are to be of domestic or foreign growth, our wandering Solon has not enabled us to decide. At Pittsburgh, the Birmingham of America,' the young Manchester' of the young Columbia, as the pseudo-Englishwoman calls it, he found trade on the wane.' 'I met every where,' he says, 'grave, eager, hungry-looking faces, and could perceive as well as hear complaints of a general want of employment.' Mr. Tell Harris informs us, on the other hand, that speculation, like magic, raised the various manufactories of glass, iron, lead, and linen, whose chimneys, like so many volcanoes, send forth their darkening volumes, and frequently obscure the town from view.' This emphatic person, we fear, is here indulging in that American figure of speech, which Mr. Morris Birkbeck has named 'anticipation,' but which we thought would more correctly be expressed by the future subjunctive.'* We now suspect, however, that when applied to the young Manchester,' the tense which best suits it is the preterpluperfect indicative: the myriads of hammers which thundered on the ear of friend Morris, are no longer heard; the water-wheels have lost their motion; the smoke from the thousand chimneys has ceased to obscure the town'-and, with the fire itself, has been consumed and burnt out, in anticipation,' probably, of Michael Angelo Taylor's bill for the removal of such nuisances. The simple truth is, and the speculators (most of them Englishmen, we believe) have found it out when too late, that America is not yet in a condition to become a manufacturing nation. The rhapsody about grave senators and representatives of congress weaving their own webs, and wearing clothes of home manufacture, in

* Quarterly Review, Vol. XXI.

which the spurious Englishwoman luxuriates, is sheer dotage, and those worthy statesmen whom she holds forth as splendid instances of true patriotism and political economy are, in fact, the dupes of their own prejudices. When they have found leisure to shake off their blind animosity against England, they will discover, (in spite of a thousand such ignorant bawlers on political economy') that we can clothe them both in woollens and cottons of their own growth, full fifty per cent. cheaper, and infinitely better, than they can hope to make them at Young Manchester' or elsewhere.

On crossing the Ohio into the free state of that name, Mr. Welby made sure (he says) of meeting with something more suited to his taste; but things, on the contrary, appear to get worse as he proceeds; and he now discovers, for the first time, that freedom without honesty is not worth a rush.' It was not necessary, we think, to travel quite so far for this maxim, important as it is: now he has learned it, however, we trust he will not fail to inculcate it among the farmers of his neighbourhood. How little was this simple man acquainted with the true character of democracy! Instead of that improvement which he expected, we know not why, in the rustic hospitality and civility of the people, as he removed from the great towns, he found little but rogues and rudeness;' and upon one occasion, when his waggon was overturned and he applied to some countrymen passing with another waggon, for assistance, the human brutes refused it (he says) without first being paid for their trouble.' Mr. Welby should have taken the lady of the cheap civilities' into the waggon with him.

At Chillicothe the squire grows facetious, and informs his readers that Watson's hotel should be called hot-hell, for the beds swarm with bugs, and the thermometer is at 86° in the shade.' He still however consoled himself with the hope that the Illinois and the English settlement' would set all right; but while thus indulging in day-dreams, a severe blow was given to the sanguine expectations he was forming of this western paradise, by a party on their return from it to New York.' These poor people informed him that they had purchased a large tract of land in the state of Illinois, and settled upon it the preceding summer; since which period they had lost eight of their number by dysentery, fever and ague; and the remainder had determined to quit the purchase, and return with the loss of all their time and nearly all their money.'

The impression on our traveller's mind, after traversing the state of Ohio, one of the most flourishing in the United States, was not of the most favourable kind. Instead of a garden,' he

says,

says, 'I found a wilderness; land speculators have got a considerable part into their baleful clutches, to make their market on the wants of the poor settler.' The roads are worse than if left in a state of nature; for what with the stumps of trees, rocks, loose stones, and deep gullies, the strongest carriages are soon jolted to pieces; in consequence of which, at every two or three miles are perched (and they are the only dwellings) a blacksmith's shop and a tavern; ' if but a nail be wanted, the smith will not open his mouth to the utterance of any thing below a dollar,' and the tavern-keeper charges an elevenpenny bit for two cents worth of whiskey.' The better part of the population, he tells us, pass their days at taverns or boarding-houses in the idle games of shuffleboard and ninepins; these slaves to sloth and worshippers of an idle deity of independence, will sit lounging against the wall with arms across, smoking cigars; or you will see the female part, lolling out at their windows, gazing at nothingness.'

In his passage through Kentucky, he met,-for the first time, however, in his travels, with a decent inn, and enjoyed an elegant supper at the Blue-licks, which, it seems, is become a watering place for invalids. But even here, our squire was a little disturbed at the rude and boisterous manners of a young fellow who sat opposite to him without a coat, and in a dirty shirt; but the idea of a rough and tumble,' and the probability of leaving an eye behind him, coming across his mind, he thought it advisable to put up with the vulgarity. We think so too.'Look, said one of these "rough tumblers" to a Pennsylvania gentleman, look at that fellow, he has not his match in the country see what a set of teeth he has! a man's thumb would be nothing to them.' And he was told of another who had been so milled in a rough and tumble, that a compassionate bystander said to him, you have come badly off this time, I guess.' "Have I,' replied the fellow with a triumphant grin,' what do you think of this?' holding up an eye which he had just taken out of his pocket!

Matters do not mend with Mr. Welby as he proceeds westerly. He sees little to admire in the agricultural science of the people; and expresses a doubt whether even the Romans themselves had much occasion to boast of their being obliged to make a general of a ploughman. The spurious Englishwoman, on the contrary, is in raptures with the Cincinnati, who, according to her, spring up in America like mushrooms. There agriculture assumes all her ancient classic dignity, as when Rome summoned her consuls from the plough.' 'I have seen,' she says, 'those who have raised their voice in the senate of their country, and whose hands have fought her battles, walking beside the team, and minutely directing every operation of husbandry, with the soil upon their garments, and

their countenances bronzed by the meridian sun. Beautiful! We have read something not much unlike it of the unfledged agriculturists of Hoffwyl, who, likewise, study philosophy and natural history at the plough-tail! It is true enough, we believe, that generals, colonels, senators, judges, and, for aught we know, divines, may be seen following the plough in America; and it is equally true that these high-minded independents' are sometimes condescending enough to accommodate travellers with a mouthful of whiskey, for an elevenpenny-bit.' But there is nothing new under the sun!

'Welford. What room fill you in this house?

Sir Roger. More than one-I am a bachelor of arts, and I inculcate divine service within these walls.

Wel. But the inhabitants of this house do often employ you on errands, without any scruple of conscience?

Sir Rog. Yes; I do take the air many mornings on foot, three or four miles, for eggs. But why move you that?

Wel. To know whether it might become your function to bid my man neglect his horse a little, to attend on me.

Sir Rog. Most properly, sir.'-Scornful Lady.

·

6

'I asked,' Mr. Welby says, a little shabby barefooted boy, who had served me as a guide, if he belonged to a woollen manufactory? No,' he replied, I go to school; my father's a squire. And pray what is a squire? what does he do?' Oh, he attends sessions, trials, and hears 'And what may your father do at other times?' 'He assists at the tavern there in the bar.'

causes.'

Mr.

But our traveller had a practical proof of the classical dignity' of these fighting and philosophical Cincinnati, at a beggarly hamlet in the Indiana territory, called Hindostan!-for your true republican, like your parvenu, magno cognomine gaudet.

'Here, at a miserable log tavern, kept open (and to all the winds) by a colonel, the entertainment both for man and horse was the worst we had lately met with-the hay it was pretended was too far off to fetch; and a few heads of Indian corn was all we could procure for the horses, For ourselves, after a miserable meal, we found a bed laid in an out-house, which also served for lumber-room and larder. All this travellers must learn cheerfully to bear, but another evil, which too frequently follows, the high charges, it is not so easy to pay with good humour: in this case I ventured, as I had hitherto done with good effect, to reason against one or two of the items in a quiet delicate way fit for the ears of an independent; but here it did not succeed, for my colonel turned upon his heel, saying, if I objected to his charges he would take nothing at all, and away he went. I had a great mind to take him at his word on account of his treatment; but after waiting for his return some time, with my horses at the door, I at length left with the colonel's lady more than sufficient to defray the proper legal charge according to the rate made out by their magistrates,

to

to which however few of them pay much attention: well, we then drove on, but had not got to the river side before a lad was sent after me with the money, for the Colonel had in fact been hiding to see what I would do, and coming out from his hole to hear what had been left for him, preferred venting his spite even before his money. I now determined to see how this would end, and therefore put the money into `my pocket, drove down to the river side, and leaving my name and address at a store there for him, crossed the ford and proceeded. An -hour or two after, my gentleman passed me on horseback, pale, "spiteful and wrathful," and we kept a good look out, a little apprehensive of being rifled at from behind the trees; so we got the arms out ready; and drove on with circumspection to the town of Washington about eighteen miles from Hindostan. Here he had collected more people than I should have supposed possible in the short time, and had prepared his dramatis personæ, one of whom came immediately to arrest me; with this fellow I went to attend another whom they called a squire, a whisky seller. At this respectable tribunal of the wilderness I stated my case with some difficulty from the noise and opposition, and expecting as much justice as I found, the 'Squire said the bill must be paid without referring to the rates; and as curiosity not resistance was my object, I at length paid it, with about a quarter dollar, no great fee, for his worship. Upon this, the Colonel was so elated with his victory, that, to shew his generosity, he said, he would treat his friends with half a dozen of wine and give the amount of his bill away; being satisfied with "shewing the Englishman that he was not to be imposed upon;" and it was in fact this rancour against an Englishman, (not the first time I heard, it had been shewn by him in the present way,) and which indeed is very general, that had actuated him from our arrival at his log palace.'-p. 84-86.

This being rifled at' is no joke; and the very idea had so powerful an effect on our Lincolnshire Squire, that, in one place, he paid thirteenpence-halfpenny for wiping his boots, and in another, ten dollars (two guineas and a half) for eight horse shoes; and he felicitates himself on his prudence in doing so, having afterwards learned from Mr. Flower, that at the very spot where this last event took place, a few of the inhabitants gaily proposed to make a party, and go and rifle neighbour ; they went

6

to the field, found the poor old man at plough, and, with unerring aim, laid him dead on the spot.'-p, 95. No inquiries are made into trifles of this kind here; every man takes the law into his own hands. Such,' says our traveller, is the state of things in this western paradise!' Let no one,' he adds, 'who may already possess the comforts of life, seek fortune, freedom, or bliss, here; for if he does, the chances are great that he will lose them all.' Should he even be lucky enough to make an eligible purchase of land, he is by no means sure of securing it for his own use. There are a set of independents' in the United States, known by the

name