they have appeared in the
successive numbers of _Fraser's Magazine_, has addressed the following
letter to Mr. Willis, upon an intimation in the _Home Journal_ that
under the name of Carl Benson he described himself:

"MY DEAR SIR:--Several intimations to the above effect have
already reached me, but now for the first time from a source
deserving notice. Allow me to deny, _in toto_, any intention of
describing myself under the name of Henry Benson. Were I
disposed to attempt self-glorification, it would be under a
very different sort of character. Here I should, in strictness,
stop; but, as you have done me the honor to speak favorably of
certain papers in _Fraser_, perhaps you will permit me to
intrude on your time (and your readers', if you think it worth
while), so far as to explain _what_ (not _whom_) Mr. Benson is
meant for.

"The said papers (ten in all, of which four still remain in the
editor's hands), were originally headed, 'The Upper Ten
Thousand,' as representing life and manners in a particular
set, which title the editor saw fit to alter into 'Sketches of
American Society'--not with my approbation, as it was claiming
for them more than they contained, or professed to contain.
Harry Benson, the thread employed to hang them together, is a
sort of fashionable hero--a _quadratus homo_, according to the
'Upper Ten' conception of one; a young man who, starting with a
handsome person and fair natural abilities, adds to these the
advantages of inherited wealth, a liberal education, and
foreign travel. He possesses much general information, and
practical dexterity in applying it, great world-knowledge and
_aplomb_, financial shrewdness, readiness in
composition--speaks half-a-dozen languages, dabbles in
literature, in business, _in every thing but politics_--talks
metaphysics one minute, and dances a polka the next--in short,
knows a little of every thing, with a knack of reproducing it
effectively; moreover, is a man of moral purity, deference to
women and hospitality to strangers, which I take to be the
three characteristic virtues of a New-York gentleman. On the
other hand, he has the faults of his class strongly
marked--intense foppery in dress, general Sybaritism of living,
a great deal of Jack-Brag-ism and show-off, mythological and