perior to the rest of Europe in our
endurance of censure, nor is this wish to profit by it all
peculiar to the English; we laugh at, and find fault with, our
neighbours quite as freely as they do with us, and they join the
laugh, and adopt our fashions and our customs. These mutual
pleasantries produce no shadow of unkindly feeling; and as long
as the governments are at peace with each other, the individuals
of every nation in Europe make it a matter of pride, as well as
of pleasure, to meet each other frequently, to discuss, compare,
and reason upon their national varieties, and to vote it a mark
of fashion and good taste to imitate each other in all the
external embellishments of life.

The consequence of this is most pleasantly perceptible at the
present time, in every capital of Europe. The long peace has
given time for each to catch from each what was best in customs
and manners, and the rapid advance of refinement and general
information has been the result.

To those who have been accustomed to this state of things, the
contrast upon crossing to the new world is inconceivably
annoying; and it cannot be doubted that this is one great cause
of the general feeling of irksomeness, and fatigue of spirits,
which hangs upon the memory while recalling the hours passed in
American society.

A single word indicative of doubt, that any thing, or every
thing, in that country is not the very best in the world,
produces an effect which must be seen and felt to be understood.
If the citizens of the United States were indeed the devoted
patriots they call themselves, they would surely not thus encrust
themselves in the hard, dry, stubborn persuasion, that they are
the first and best of the human race, that nothing is to be
learnt, but what they are able to teach, and that nothing is
worth having, which they do not possess.

The art of man could hardly discover a more effectual antidote to
improvement, than this persuasion; and yet I never listened to
any public oration, or read any work, professedly addressed to
the country, in which they did not labour to impress it on the
minds of the people.

To hint to the generality of Americans that the silent current of
events may change their beloved government, is not the way to
please them; but in truth they need be tormented with no such
fear. As long as by common consent they can keep down the
pre-eminence which nature has assigned to great powers, as long
as they can pr