ABOUT thirty years ago, articles appeared Quarterly in a London Review, which filled the surrounding atmosphere with their evil odors, and whose venom was unhappily not spent when it had crossed three thousand miles of blue water, so that they excited swellings and high disdain as they spread in the United States. Yet it is probable all the articles dropped from one pen, filled with gall. The pen, one may suppose, of some ancient Tory, whose ancestors had suffered in the War P of Independence, or whose political creed admitted not of safety except in feudality and hereditary government, and who therefore was embittered by hearing of prosperity beyond it. These splenetic articles originated or prolonged animosities in their day, though they probably emanated from the pen of a person sufficiently insignificant. That day is past. But, if injurious impressions were made by one insignificant character, it is possible that contrary impressions may be produced by another. It was a little mouse, according to Esop, that gnawed the net which entangled the lion, and set the forest monarch free. The mouse wculd have missed a fine opportunity, had it at the moment refused to gnaw. It possessed industry and influence, and used them. Every one is possessed of some degree of influence if it be met by energy, and leisure to put it forth, it must not lie inactive, though it be but small. The unpretending traces of what fell under every day experience, here offered to the public, come from one who visited America with cordial feeling and ardent ex- pectation, and was not disappointed. Of course many subjects, such as literature and politics, run in parallel lines with such as are treated here. But they have been plentifully delineated by others, and this dfords a plea for their entire omission, which the incompetence of the writer willingly embraces, while religious and social hab- its fall naturally within the range of her remark.. The diversities between America and Great Britain are only sufficient to add the raciness of novelty to, the observers enjoyment. America is the country in which to form rapid and cordial acquaintances, and from which to carry friendships against whose continuance even the last enemy has no power. Character comes forth naturally there, and is therefore piquante and charming. Heart flows out fearlessly, and is therefore ardent. A nation so prosperous does not need, or condescend to wish for adulation. It is far above flattery-but it demands justice, and in several cases has failed to obtain it from EngIish tourists. The light pages which folIow, design to be just, candid, and kind-not hinting a fault, and hesitating a dis- like, but admiriug and blaming with equal simplicity. Every one admits that tho present condition of things on the earth is not what it ought to be, either as it re- spects nations or individuals. None of my readers would say they are perfect, or that their country is perfect. We are, or ought to be, trying to improve. If I have, in some one or two painful instances, been obliged to allude to that which is evil, and ought to be changed, I say no more than what millions of the citizens of the freest.oountry in the world think. If my small meed of approbation were of any value, it would be reduced to worthlessness by the absence of sincerity, in reference to circumstances which I must mourn over or disap- prove. Let me be true-or nothing The time is on the wing, which will reduce all nations, with all their various governments, into one vast mon- archy…
