s, while the far more superficial pages of
Dickens and Trollope were eagerly devoured by a people who are daily
given to understand, by their own authors, that they are the greatest,
the wisest, the most virtuous nation under the sun. Let a European
author be never so well disposed towards them, his partial applause
contributes but little to their full-blown complacency. But, when they
hear that the Republic has been traduced by a foreign, and especially a
British pen, their vanity is piqued, their curiosity excited, and their
conscience smitten. Every one denounces the libel in public, and every
one admits its truth to himself--"What!" say they, "does the Old World
in truth judge us thus harshly? Is it really scandalised by such trifles
as the repudiation of our debts, and the enslavement of our fellow
creatures? Must we give up our playful duels, and our convenient
spittoons, before we can hope to pass muster as Christians and gentlemen
beyond our own borders? O free Demus! O wise Demus! O virtuous Demus!
Will you betake yourself to cleanly, and well-ordered ways at the
bidding of this scribbler?" Thus "they eat, and eke they swear;" vowing
all the time that they "will horribly revenge." No doubt, however, the
bitter pill of foreign animadversion, though distasteful to the palate,
relieves the inflation of their stomachs, and leaves them better and
lighter than before. But when will a native Aristophanes arise to purge
the effeminacy of the American press, and show up the sausage-venders
and Cleons of the Republic in their true light? How long will the
richest field of national folly in the world remain unreaped, save by
the crotchety sickles of dull moralists and didactic pamphleteers?

Not that moral courage is entirely wanting in the United States; but it
is a kind of courage altogether too moral, and sadly deficient in animal
spirits. The New Englanders especially, set up, in their solemn way, to
admonish the vices of the Republic, and to inoculate them with the
virulent virtues of the Puritanical school. The good city of Boston
alone teems with transcendental schemes for the total and immediate
regeneration of mankind. There we find Peace Societies, and New Moral
World Societies, and Teetotal Societies, and Anti-Slavery Societies, all
"in full blast," each opposing to its respective bane the most sweeping
and exaggerated remedies. The Americans never do things by halves; their
vices and their virtues are alike in