THE

NEW-ENGLAND MAGAZINE.

NOVEMBER, 1833.

ORIGINAL PAPERS.

RECENT TRAVELERS IN AMERICA.

THE most recent works on America have been written by a couple of Scotchmen, Mr. Stuart and Colonel Hamilton. Nativity, however, is the only point of resemblance between them. In every thing else they are antipodes. As these gentlemen were in the United States at about the same time, and have published their speculations at a short interval, it is a matter of curiosity to compare the two, and their books, together; for, if unconnected by the association of similarity, they most surely are intimately linked by the association of contrast.

Mr. STUART left his native land, on account of his implication in an affair of honor, which terminated disagreeably, and induced him to seek retirement in the United States. His visit resulted in a three years' residence, passed in industrious observations, which, on his return to Europe, he thought fit to communicate to the world. From the volumes, in which this communication was made, we gather all that we know of Mr. Stuart; and in them his character is mirrored as faithfully, as was that of Hamlet's mother in the glass, which the crazy prince held up to her. We know him from crown to shoe-tie, and can imagine, with a fancy too vivid to be inaccurate, the cut of his coat and the color of his hair. Unquestionably, his quantum of the latter article was decently trimmed and smoothly adjusted, for he could get it cut for nine pence, and have it combed without what appears to have been his greatest aversion-an extra charge. His hat was well brushed, and his whole exterior was that of a gentleman, fond of decency and yet partial to economy. He wore his clothes well, we have no doubt, and they were well made, considering that he employed an inferior artist. But of all this, though as fully convinced as of our own existence and identity, we are not quite prepared to make oath; and we will commence another paragraph with what our traveler admires beyond all things-a fact.

We never knew, till we became acquainted with Mr. Stuart, the meaning of the term a matter-of-fact man. He lives in an element of fact. It is his meat and drink, and apparently board and lodging into the bargain. Sir Richard Phillips published a book, which he some

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what ostentatiously called "A Million of Facts;" without bragging of it, Mr. Stuart has given us double the number. No matter what it is, provided it be a fact; however trifling, vain, or useless, as long as it is entitled to that saving epithet, it is the article for the Scotchman's money. "The fact is," he observes, "that in this country people are generally in bed before ten." This is very like what, in courts of justice, we have sometimes heard very innocently called a "false fact." The extensive induction, by which he arrived at this conclusion, is found in the circumstance, that his landlord, in a country village, apologized for previous non-appearance, by the remark that on the preceding night he had been kept up till twelve o'clock by company. Still that was sufficient basis for a fact; and we have it advanced with all the solemnity it deserves.

Another fact, which troubles Mr. Stuart, is the want of an unmentionable accommodation, which he alleges is no where to be found in the states. To tell the truth, for our traveler seems to be a very amiable man, this is the most serious ground for complaint that he finds through the whole country. Our institutions of government, in his eyes, are good; our inns are good; our prisons are good; but our Cloacinian conveniences are very detestable. The circumstance seems to have made a deep impression on our traveler; and we sincerely hope, that, if he ever visits this country again, he may find the cause of his disquiet and displeasure entirely removed. His theory on the subject, we had almost forgotten to mention, is the Neptunian, and he attributes our deficiencies in this respect to the want of water.

Another partiality of Mr. Stuart is for statistics, though they do not always come up to the level of facts. He is eminently figurative. Nothing escapes him, that will form an item for calculation, from the value of a farm, to the price of a mutton-chop, from the contents of the great lakes, to the amount of liquor taken by a couple of his friends in the shape of ante-meridian nippers. When he attends a camp. meeting, he not only gives us the number of auditors and the number of clergymen, but the chapter and verse from which they take their text; which, on one occasion, as if with particular reference to Mr. Stuart's propensity, was selected from the Book of Numbers. In visiting an orchard, he entertains us with the length of the cider-mill, the cubic contents of a barrel, the price of each barrel according to the quality, with the additional and somewhat irrelevant fact of the rent of an acre of pasture-grass. Here his astonishment is excited, and he ventures a remark on the inconsistency of letting pasture grass at four or five dollars an acre, when a horse is grazed at a dollar and a half. On his return from the orchard excursion, Mr. Stuart so far relaxed from his accustomed temperance, as to treat himself to a glass of Malaga and water. This fact is certainly worthy of record; but with the Scotchman it is something more-a nest-egg for statistics. His landlord told him that the Malaga cost him eight shillings a gallon.

One item leads quite naturally to another; and, in the next breath, we are informed that the whole charge, on the ensuing morning, "for lodging, supper, and breakfast, for my wife and myself," was five shillings and nine pence, sterling. The dishes of the breakfast table are so many peculiar facts, worthy of individual notice: they consisted of the very unusual articles of coffee, eggs, beef-steak, toast, and butter.

There was a wonder worth crossing the Atlantic to learn, and recrossing it to promulgate! On another occasion he dined with a friend, at a country hotel, on the rare and recondite preparations of fish, roast lamb, broiled ham and chicken, peas, sweet Indian corn boiled, (not raw,) potatoes, and apple-pie, with a bottle of very tolerable claret ; and, strange to relate, ali this without any previous warning, and all for a dollar and a half for two persons! The days of Aladdin's lamp we verily believe to have been restored; and Sinbad the Sailor, in the marvel of his adventures, must yield the palm to Stuart the Traveler.

But, notwithstanding all Mr. Stuart's fondness for fact, and reverence for statistics, we are constrained to admit that he is sometimes hasty in forming conclusions from very uncertain premises. One striking instance of this is to be found when he tells us that the female servants of an inn, which he visited, were uniformly obliging," although they would not have accepted a shilling had it been offered." We think Mr. Stuart has made this assertion rashly, and that the observation was not conducted with a due regard to the rules of experimental philosophy. A matter so important, and so easily to be tested, should never have been left to mere vague speculation. Bacon would have recommended differently; but, on points of this kind, Mr. Stuart is a follower of Aristotle. Why did not our traveler "tip 'em the siller?" He might then have substituted his favorite, palpable fact, for a doubtful, unsubstantial theory. The contest would have been between an affectation of pride, and a reality of prudence; and ten to one on Mammon we should have considered fair odds. Mr. Stuart was too much of a Lowlander to run the risk.

With the propensities thus exhibited by Mr. Stuart, one can hardly be astonished that he thinks it important to tell us, that he once ordered a chop, and was furnished with an extra canvass-back, without extra charge; or that he attended a course of lectures on astronomy, on account of the smallness of the expense,-only one shilling sterling a head. Once, too, he dined at a planter's in the Southern States, and had nothing to pay; but, as an offset, in New-Orleans, he was obliged to give a dollar a dozen for his washing-without distinction of shirt or pocket-handkerchief-and he might have added, with his characteristic love of detail, without reference to the length of time that one had been worn, or the other used.

Apropos of this love of detail, and tact of minute observation: it is a subject on which we had nearly omitted to do Mr. Stuart justice. How delicately and patiently must he have pursued his investigations, on both sides of the Atlantic, to become convinced that it is much less usual in the United States than in Scotland for the men to wear nightcaps! From his silence on the subject we are led to the inference, that the women in the one country indulge in this luxury about as much as in the other. In our mind's eye we can see Mr. Stuart, in slippers and shirt, that very shirt for whose cleansing he gave six pence in NewOrleans, pursuing his nocturnal wanderings, in order to ascertain the truth of this assertion by the inductive process. With candle in hand, and handkerchief on head, he sallies forth at midnight, the very picture of Mr. Finn in Paul Schaick, and prosecutes his demi-phrenological studies through the bed-chambers of his hotel. He collects statis

tics; so many night-capped heads, so many un-night-capped, and discrowned. Next comes the documentary and remembered evidence of the night-caps he had noticed in Scotland; then the comparison; then the conclusion; which he persuades himself to be a fact-the object, sole and singular, of all his wanderings and all his speculations.

But Mr. Stuart did not confine his inquiries to the relative wearing of night-caps, or his fondness for statistics to the returns of the census, the prices of his meals, the enormity of washing expenses, or the absence of extra charges. He establishes a domestic census of his own, not under the authority of government, but carried on under his personal observation. He passed a night at a plantation, the mistress of which had been twice married, and, what was well worthy of record, had borne twins to both of her husbands. In Rome, she would have received a bounty from the state, as a woman who had deserved well of it. On this visit, our traveler slept in the only spare chamber, which contained three beds, all of which were occupied. A circumstance so singular naturally leads him to reflection, and reflection as surely terminates in philosophical observation; “I do not know," he says, "what would have happened if a greater number of strangers had arrived." Any one, even without a knowledge of the locus in quo, could suggest the only probable alternative. It is as plain as the nose on Mr. Stuart's face, which, we have no doubt, is prominent if not protuberant, for he always goes ahead as if he were following it.

We have not yet observed on Mr. Stuart's style. Its chief defects are frequent improprieties of expression, gross inaccuracies in grammar, harsh collocation of words, and an utter contempt of arrangement in his ideas. Juxta-position is with him no sign of similarity of subject, or even the most distant relationship. His facts are heaped together like the articles in a Yankee baggage-wagon; nothing for show, but all for stowage. He has no regard for antecedent and consequent, and we have before hinted at his inattention to premiss and conclusion. When he states two facts in a distinct paragraph, he couples them thus: "We have not been accosted by a beggar in New-York. The streets seem to be well watered." How these fellow-passengers happened to be slung in the same hammock is more than we can easily divine.

Mr. Stuart is very favorably disposed towards this country, and willing to represent all her institutions in the most favorable point of view. Notwithstanding the great rudeness to which he sometimes confesses, we believe him to have a tolerable share of civilization. But, through the whole of his two volumes, we did not meet with a single sentiment, which warmed us with a generous feeling or an affectionate impulse towards the writer, who was so full of soft words, and found so much among us to admire. On one occasion only did we approximate to any emotion of the kind. He was describing a hospitable and joyous reception of his party, at a Virginian hotel, which was called "The Merry Oaks;" he appeared to feel kindly and warmly, when he expressed the pleasure they enjoyed, and the regret with which they left their merry and open-hearted host. But mark the conclusion of the paragraph, and the cold-water dash it administered to our easy sensibilities "The charge against each person was half a dollar-little more than two shillings!"

We are suspicious of Mr. Stuart's praise, and cannot but think he had his eye on an equivalent while he was in the act of bestowing it. His volumes contain, among masses of trash, patches of valuable in formation. In England they may be read to advantage; and few Americans will skim over them without learning something of their own country, of which they had till then been ignorant. We dislike, however, the spirit of the man, and, following him in his travels without sympathy, part from him without regret. His soul may be immaterial, but the limit of its range is within the circumference of a six pence.

Colonel HAMILTON is a very different man. Already favorably known as the author of one of the best novels of the age, his literary pretensions place him far above any other English traveler who has made the tour of the United States. A tory by habit and education, a soldier by profession, and a gentleman by nature, his speculations are always tinctured by prejudices, though given with a freedom of expression and elegance of style, that disarm even prejudices of much that is offensive. He is not blessed with that fondness of detail which characterizes Mr. Stuart; his views are large and comprehensive. We are not favored with the mysteries of his memorandum-book; nor a daily compend of his landlord's bill of fare; nor with items of the liquor drank by his friends; nor with the minutiae of mine host's bill. Colonel Hamilton's mode of doing things is quite the opposite. His disbursements are made by a servant, who carries his spending money and his lending money. In general terms, we are given to understand that he frequented the best houses, saw the best society, drank the best wine, and ate the best dinners, that were to be had in the United States -but his vouchers have been kept for his private perusal, and the entertainment of particular friends. The absence or presence of extra charges does not appear to trouble him in the least; and, what is very singular, considering the importance of the subject, he has not once aspired to the circumstance of night-caps.

Colonel Hamilton speculates, generalizes, philosophizes. His style is singularly felicitous, combining, in a very rare degree, strength with beauty of expression, and richness of humor with spirited wit and vigorous eloquence. His description of the Falls of Niagara is a fine composition, and the reflections, with which it is interspersed, spring naturally from the grandeur he is contemplating. The account of the Shaker village, at Niskayuma, is happily drawn; but the air of lightness about it savors a little too much of the man of the world. We never could smile at the saltatory exhibitions of a Shaker congregation. The meagre frames of the women, with the narrow shoulders and spare chests, the sallow and corpse-like complexions, please us, if possible, still less than the hypocritical visages of the men, overshadowed by the long sleek hair, and wearing an aspect of low cunning and assumed humility. Never have we been able to contemplate their performances with any higher emotions than those of disgust, or to listen to the absurd harangues of their elders without a sigh for the weakness of humanity, and pity for the deluded ignorance, which was thus receiving the rant of folly for the inspiration of religion. Still their absurdities are, perhaps, harmless, as they can never become general: the eccentric and unnatural will always find a few crazy proselytes, but never a numerous body of sane disciples.