he national manners, commonly attributed to less venial
feelings, our Transatlantic descendants err in just the opposite
direction. The Americans seldom laugh at any body, or any thing--never
at themselves; and this, next to an unfortunate trick of insolvency, and
a preternatural abhorrence of niggers, is perhaps the besetting sin of
an otherwise "smart" people. As individuals, their peculiarities are not
very marked; in truth there is a marvellous uniformity of bad habits
amongst them; but when viewed in their collective capacity, whenever two
or three of them are gathered together, shades of Democritus! commend us
to a seven-fold pocket-handkerchief. The humours of most nations expend
themselves on carnivals and feast-days, at the theatre, the ball-room,
or the public garden; but the fun of the United States is to be looked
for at public meetings, and philanthropical gatherings, in the halls of
lyceums, female academies, and legislative bodies. There they spout,
there they swell, and cover themselves with adulation as with a garment.
From the inauguration of a President, to the anniversary of the fair
graduates of the Slickville female Institute, no event is allowed to
pass without a grand palaver, in which things in general are extensively
discussed, and their own things in particular extensively praised. They
got the trick no doubt from us, whose performances in this line are
quite unrivalled in the Old World, but they have added to our platform
common-places a variety and "damnable iteration" entirely their own.
Besides, when Bull is called upon to make an ass of himself on such
occasions, he seems for the most part to have a due appreciation of the
fact, while Jonathan's imperturbability and apparent good faith are
quite sublime. The things that we have been compelled to hear of that
"star-spangled banner!"--and all as if they were spoken in real earnest,
and meant to be so understood. We look back upon those side-rending
moments with a kind of Lucretian pleasure, and indemnify ourselves for
past constraint by a hearty guffaw. All this magniloquence and bad
taste, however, is intelligible enough. It springs partly from a want of
discipline in their society, and partly from the absence of those
studies which purify the taste, enlighten the judgment, and make, even
dulness respectable. American audiences are not critical--not merely
because they are not learned, but because they all take it in turns to
be orators, as