ir;" and what is worse, he
will be expected to believe it, and to carry himself accordingly. "Ripe
scholars" who make awful false quantities, second-rate demagogues
passing for "distinguished statesmen," literary empirics, under the name
of "men of power," will claim his suffrages at every turn; and in vain
will he draw upon his politeness to the utmost, in vain assent,
ejaculate, and admire--no amount of positive praise will suffice, till
America Felix is admitted to be the chosen home of every grace and every
muse. "Did Mr Bull meet with any of _our_ literary characters at
Boston?" Mr Bull had that happiness. "Well, he was very much pleased of
course?" Bull hastens to lay his hand upon his heart, and to reply with
truth that he _was_ pleased. "Yes, sir, we do expect that our Boston
literature is about first-rate. We are a young people, sir, but we are a
great people, and we are bound to be greater still. There is a moral
power, sir, an elevation about the New England mind, which
Europeans can scarcely realise. Did you hear Snooks lecture, sir?
the Rev. Amos Snooks of Pisgah? Well, sir, you ought to have heard
Snooks. All Europeans calculate to hear Snooks--he's a fine man,
sir, a man of power--one of the greatest men, sir, in this, or perhaps
any other country."

"Semper ego auditor tantum, nunquam ne reponam,
Vexatus toties."----

You leave Boston somewhat snubbed and subdued, and betake yourself to
the more cosmopolitan regions of New York. Here, too, "men of power" are
to be found in great numbers--but "our first circles" divide the
attention and abuse the patience of the traveller. Boston writes the
books, but New York sets the fashions of the Republic, and is the
Elysium of mantua-makers and upholders. We doubt whether any city in the
world of its size can boast so many smart drawing rooms and so many
pretty young women. Indeed, from the age of fifteen to that of
five-and-twenty, female beauty is the rule rather than the exception in
the United States, and neither cost nor pains are spared to set it forth
to the best advantage. The American women dress well, dance well, and in
all that relates to what may be called the mechanical part of social
intercourse, they appear to great advantage. Nothing can exceed the
self-possession of these pretty creatures, whose confidence is never
checked by the discipline of society, or the restraints of an education
which is terminated almost as soon as it is begun. The