happiness. If the stranger be wealthy, he may select his plan of life, without danger of molestation; if needy, the implements of labour are speedily placed in his hands. Captain Hall visited, on the banks of the Delaware, one of the brothers of Napoleon, the Ex-King of Spain, and remarks, " I trust I am taking no unwarrantable liberty, by mentioning that he has gained the confidence and esteem, not only of all his neighbours, but of every one in America, who has the honour of his acquaintance-a distinction which he owes partly to the discretion with which he has uniformly avoided all interference with the exciting topics that distract the country of his adoption, and partly to the suavity of his personal address, and the generous hospitality of his princely establishment." Another member of the same family, but not in the same affluent circumstances, is endeavouring to make himself useful in Florida, and was recently a candidate for a seat in the council of that territory. If he possess any portion of the talent of his great relative, he may be destined to aid in the formation of its code of laws, when it shall have a sufficient population to become a member of the Union. We have no apprehension of strangers, The stream is too broad, and deep, and strong, to be discoloured or rendered turbid. The idle and the profligate quickly find that America is not their proper home. The mere schemer is soon rebuked by the good sense and steadiness of the people, and abandons them in despair. Captain Hall's deistical or theistical countryman, Mr. Owen, he may take back and welcome. We do not think it the "greatest blessing" to have amongst us men like him, who, failing in every thing else, at length make a desperate snatch at our souls. These blasphemous visionaries are forthwith exposed, and laughed at.

As a singular proof of Captain Hall's wish to misrepresent, or of absurd misconception, we may refer to his account of our impatience at being obliged to use the English language. "It is curious enough," he says, "by the way, to see the discomfort that some scrupulous Americans shew to the mere name of our common tongue."

That any such silly expression of "discomfort" reached his ears, is rather improbable; but we can readily believe that he may have heard from Americans, a speculative suggestion on the

subject which he has strangely perverted, and which we will attempt to explain.

It has, undoubtedly, been sometimes thought a matter of regret that there is no language which has grown up, as it were, with the country, and which bears, as we might then hope it would, a peculiar, felicitous, reference to its condition, physical and moral. Without going beyond objects of the former character, it must be remembered that we brought with us a language adapted to a state of things essentially different from that which America presents. Take for example the word "Lake." Drawing our ideas from England, and from English poetry, we attach to it the notion of an appendage to pleasure grounds. We think of Goldsmith's line

"Space for his Lake, his park's extended bounds."

and it is not until an American finds himself on one of our vast internal seas, which bear the same name, that he feels the abject poverty of the epithet. He has read and thought of American nature through the medium of a translation. The word is so far from suggesting the object, that he has to disengage himself from its influence, before his conception can adequately expand. He has measured by square inches, what must be measured by square miles. So of the word "Falls," which is equally applied to those of Niagara-to those of the Clyde-and to those of Montmorency, which Captain Hall declares, with some asperity, to be "truly contemptible." He saw one of the crevasses or breaches in the bank of the Mississippi. "There was something peculiarly striking in this casual stream—a mere drop from the Great Mississippi, which in many other countries might almost have claimed the name of a river." Yet we have no word to distinguish this river from the Cam or the Isis.

When Sir William Jones went to India, he did not think of looking for the Poetry of that region amongst the English residents at Calcutta or Bombay. His remarks, perhaps, will illustrate what is meant:

"If we allow the natural objects with which the Arabs are perpetually conversant to be sublime and beautiful, our next step must be to confess, that their comparisons, metaphors and

tion, he is tempted to wish that these people had known where as Falstaff says, a commodity of good names were to

be bought."

To obviate this liability to confusion is, of course, the first object, and though there be not much in a name, yet, in making a selection, it is quite natural that some reference to a feeling of propriety should mingle in the debate. Captain Hall would have been startled at coming to a place called Algiers, just as he would have looked round with surprise, at hearing an American saluted as Benedict Arnold. In domestic life we are fond of conferring on our children names which may place before their eyes, as models, such of our relatives as were most estimable for conduct and character, so as not only to furnish a generous incentive to virtue, but a perpetual rebuke of unworthiness. We venture to assert, that this important matter was duly attended to, in reference to Captain Hall's amiable little fellow traveller, aged fourteen months. In acting on this analogy, it happens, that as we are the oldest living republic, we are necessarily driven back to ancient times. Now, it is singularly unfortunate for us, that all the Captain's prejudices run in an exactly opposite direction from ours. Thus he ridicules the State Legislatures, because he finds in them, Farmers, "not however, like the English Gentleman farmer, for such characters do not exist, and cannot exist in any part of the United States, they are nien who follow the plough." Of course, had he been one of those who waited on Cincinnatus, in old times, to offer him the dictatorship, and found him engaged in the same derogatory employment, Captain Hall would have turned off with huge disdain-have pronounced the Roman to be "no gentleman," and declared that he was not at all the sort of person for their purpose. When, therefore, he found a great town called after such a personage, his smile, we suspect, was at figuring to himself the odd idea of a General holding the plough lines. But let us hear first his reasoning in our favour, and then the grounds of his condemnation. He represents himself to have become ashamed of the mirthful spirit which he at first manifested, "All these uncourteous and irrepressible feelings of ridicule, (i. e. a loud, impudent laugh in the face of his fellow passengers, at words incidentally occurring in their conversation,) "were I hoped quite

eradicated." He began to think that the Americans," although they had broken the cords of national union, were still disposed to bind themselves to us, by the ties of classical sentiment at least." He thus proceeds, "By the same train of friendly reasoning, I was led to imagine it possible, that the adoption of such names as Auburn-' loveliest village of the plain'-Port Byron, and the innumerable Londons, Dublins, Edinburghs, and so on, were indicative of a latent or lingering kindliness towards the old country. The notion, that it was degrading to the venerable Roman names, to fix them upon these mushroom towns in the wilderness, I combated, I flattered myself somewhat adroitly, on the principle, that, so far from the memory of Ithaca or Syracuse, or any such place, being degraded by the appropriation, the honour rather lay with the ancients, who, it is the fashion to take for granted, enjoyed a less amount of freedom and intelligence than their modern namesakes. Let us,' I said one day, to a friend, who was impugning these doctrines, take Syracuse for example, which in the year 1820, consisted of one house, one mill, and one tavern; now, in 1827, it holds fifteen hundred inhabitants, bas two large churches, innumerable wealthy shops, filled with goods brought there by water-carriage from every corner of the Globe; two large and splendid hotels; many dozens of grocery stores or whiskey-shops; several busy printing presses, from one of which issues a weekly newspaper; a daily post from the east, the south, and the west; has a broad canal running through its bosom; in short, it is a great and free city. Where is this to be matched,' I exclaimed, 'in Ancient Italy or Greece?"

"It grieves me much, however, to have the ungracious task forced upon me, of entirely demolishing my own plausible handiwork. But truth renders it necessary to declare, that on a longer acquaintance with all these matters, I discovered that I was all in the wrong, and that there was not a word of sense in what I had uttered with so much studied candour. What is the most provoking proof, that this fine doctrine of profitable associations was practically absurd, is the fact, that even I myself, though comparatively so little acquainted with the classical sounding places in question, have, alas! seen and heard enough of them, to have

allegories are so likewise, for an allegory is a string of metaphors, a metaphor is a short simile, and the finest similes are drawn from natural objects." (Essay on the Poetry of the Eastern Nations.) "These comparisons, many of which, would seem forced in our idioms, have undoubtedly a great delicacy in theirs, (ib.) “It is not sufficient that a nation have a genius for poetry, unless they have the advantage of a rich and beautiful language, that their expressions may be worthy of their sentiments; the Arabians have this advantage also, in a high degree; their language is expressive strong, sonorous, and the most copious, perhaps, in the world; for, as almost every tribe, had many words appropriate to itself, the poets for the convenience of their measures, or sometimes for their singular beauty, made use of them all, and as the poems became popular, these words were by degrees incorporated with the whole language." (ib.) " We are apt to censure the oriental style, for being so full of metaphors, taken from the sun and moon; this is ascribed by some to the bad taste of the Asiatics; but they do not reflect, that every nation has a set of images, and expressions peculiar to itself, which arise from the difference of its climate, manners, and history." (ib.)

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It is idle for foreigners to ask, good naturedly, why we do not naturalize such Indian words, as seem most capable of civilization. Even supposing a vocabulary to have existed, and to be preserved, sufficiently copious, yet it is evident that, in order to be at all effective in composition, the language employed must promptly awaken ideas previously existing in the mind. A French poet would be laughed at, were he to introduce the words "comfort," home," &c., and inform his readers, in a note, that Englishmen attach a peculiar and untranslatable meaning to them. People read to be pleasurably excited, and not to be told that the language used-whether Greek, or Latin, or Iroquois-ought to make a vivid impression. Such is the invincible difficulty on the subject, that even the words, "Ohio," "Mississippi," &c., do not recall to us the happily descriptive meaning, which they are said to convey in the original. No language but their native one, can with the mass of readers command that rapid and unbroken interest, on which the success of every work of the imagination so essentially depends.