amusing small talk," &c. From the foregoing elegant description of
conversation, he passes onwards to the subject of gentility, and
describes a young honourable, on board a steamer, who refused to shut a
window when asked by a sick and suffering lady, telling the husband, "he
could not consent to be suffocated though his wife was sick." And having
cooked up the story, he gives the following charming reason for his
conduct: "He dreaded the possibility of compromising his own position
and that of his noble family at home by obliging an ordinary person." He
afterwards touches upon English visitors to America, who, he says,
"generally come among us in the undisguised nakedness of their
vulgarity. Wholly freed from the restraints imposed upon them at home by
the different grades in society, they indolently luxuriate in the
inherent brutality of their nature. They constantly violate not only all
rules of decorum, but the laws of decency itself.... They abuse our
hospitality, insult our peculiar institutions, set at defiance all the
refinements of life, and return home, lamenting the social anarchy of
America, and retailing their own indecent conduct as the ordinary
customs of the country.... The pranks which, in a backwoods American,
would be stigmatized as shocking obscenity, become, when perpetrated by
a rich Englishman, charming evidence of sportive humour," &c.

A considerable portion of the volume is dedicated to Church matters; for
which subject the meek and lowly style which characterizes his writing
pre-eminently qualifies him, and to which, doubtless, he is indebted for
the patronage of _The Christian Advocate_. I shall only indulge the
reader with the following beautiful description of the Established
Church:--"It is a bloated, unsightly mass of formalities, hypocrisy,
bigotry, and selfishness, without a single charitable impulse or pious
aspiration." After this touching display of _genuine American feeling_,
he draws the picture of a clergyman in language so opposite, that one is
reminded of a certain mysterious personage, usually represented with
cloven feet, and who is said to be very apt at quoting Scripture.

Heraldry and ancestry succeed the Church in gaining a notice from his
pen; and his researches have gone so deep, that one is led to
imagine--despite his declarations of contempt--that he looks forward to
becoming some day The Most Noble the Duke of Arkansas and Mississippi,
with a second title of Viscount