e greatest which can be given to any civilized nation. As it is the
truth, I feel happy to say so. From a nation who does possess such
virtues, we must expect great things: and the republic of America has my
best wishes.

Had a foreigner said of America, what Mr. Headley said of Italy, and the
Italians, I do not know with what words many americans would have called
such a foreigner. And, although that which Mr. Dickens said of America in
his Notes, is nothing to compare to what Mr. Headley said of Italy. Mr.
Headley himself introducing an english lady in his fifteenth letter, he
wrote: "She tells me that Dickens is getting out a work reflecting on us
in a manner that will throw his Notes on America, entirely in the shade.
She says she supposed our rapturous reception of him, was occasioned by
the fear we had of his pen. Shade of Hector defend us! this is too much.
However, we deserve it, or rather those of my countrymen deserve it, who
out-did Lilliput, in their admiration of the modern Gulliver; for I plead
not guilty to the charge of fool in that sublimest of all follies ever
perpetrated by an intelligent people. I will cry 'bravo' to every
pasquinade Dickens lets off on that demented class, which cried out every
time they saw that buffalo-skin over-coat appear: 'The Gods have come down
to us.'"

We feel the blows of others, but, we are not conscious of those we give to
our christian neighbors. I, on the contrary, wish not to be blinded by my
patriotic feeling, as italian, in judging Mr. Headley; as he judged Mr.
Dickens with his patriotic feeling. I look to his 'Italy and the
Italians,' as being a production of a gentleman who wrote for the only
impulse of writing, without thinking that, while he wished to exhibit his
wit on the shoulders of those who had kind feeling for him, his
expressions did unjustly cut quick flesh, as quick as his own; without
thinking, I say, that the feeling of the italians is not inferior to the
feeling of the americans. Travelers may come here, or go to Italy, and
spend their wit as much as they please. Man is man in every part of the
world: and to dishonor a nation with the purpose of praising ours, shows
either a poor heart--a bad, or hasty judgment. As I think Mr. Headley a
gentleman with a good heart, had he not already published his letters by
the newspapers, he would have altered the expressions of his pamphlet; I
have no doubt of it.

In his twelfth letter, Mr. Headley, writing of