owever, confine
himself to scientific research, but also analyzed the social deposits,
and ascertained that Slavery was triturable. The manufacturers of
gossip, meanwhile, had revolutionized the old system. Mr. Dickens blew
hot and cold, uniting extremes. Godley, in 1841, disavowed satire, and
was solemnly severe. Others evinced a similar disposition, but the
result was not triumphant. Alexander Mackay, in 1846, returned to
ridicule; and Alfred Bunn, a few years after, surpassed even Marryatt in
his flippant falsehood. Mr. Arthur Cunynghame, a Canadian officer,
entertained his friends, in 1850, with a dainty volume, in which the
first personal pronoun averaged one hundred to a page, and the manner of
which was as stiff as the ramrods of his regiment. Of our more recent
judges, the best remembered are Lady Emmeline Stuart Wortley who gave to
the world the details of her private experiences,--Mr. Chambers, of
whose book there is really nothing in particular to say,--Mr. Baxter,
who considered Peter Parley a shining light of American
literature,--Miss Murray, who sacrificed her interests at St. James's
upon the shrine of Antislavery,--Mr. Phillipps, scientific,--Mr.
Russell, agricultural,--Mr. Jobson, theological,--and Mr. Colley
Grattan, who may be termed the Sir Anthony Absolute of American censors,
insisting that the Lady Columbia shall be as ugly as he chooses, shall
have a hump on each shoulder, shall be as crooked as the crescent, and
so forth.

Last of all comes Mr. Charles Mackay's book. Before proceeding to the
few general words we have to say of it, let us look for a moment at a
question which he, like a number of his predecessors, has considered
with some attention. Why it is that the people of the United States
manifest such acute sensibility to the strictures of English writers,
and receive their criticisms with so much suspicion, Mr. Mackay is
unable fully to determine. He is forced to believe that it is only their
anxiety "to stand well in English opinion which causes them to wince";
particularly as "French and Germans may condemn, and nobody cares what
they say." This is but a part of the truth. Unquestionably, Americans
do, as Mr. Mackay says, "attach undue importance to what English
travellers may say"; but this does not account for the universal feeling
of mortification which follows the appearance of each new tourist's
story. Americans have not failed to observe, that, of the hundreds of
writers who co