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OF THE

ENGLISH MAGAZINES.

NO. 3.]

BOSTON, NOV. 1, 1824.

[VOL. 2. N.S.

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SKETCHES OF SOCIETY.
(London Literary Gazette, August.)
EFFRONTERY.

HAVE often wondered how Jack L-, the attorney, got on in the world; for, to me, his character does not appear to possess one redeeming quality. Every body calls him a liar, a cheat, a rascal; yet every body associates with him he is welcomed even at the houses of the fastidious, and his parties are always filled at home; business pours in upon him from all quarters; and, lastly, he has married a woman of high reputation and respectability. Surely there must be something very fascinating in his manners and address-he must, at least, be a complete gentleman. No: his person is any thing but prepossessing; his manners are disgustingly familiar and boisterous; and his conversation abounds in slang and profaneness, How, then, does he get on? Why is not every door shut against him?

Effrontery-Effrontery is the talisman to which he owes his success; it is the "Open Sesamé," which admits him into good society. If he in any way appeared to condemn or to be ashamed of himself, he would be shunned like a common swindler; but he puts a bold face on all his actions he talks so openly of drinking, gambling, and cheating, that he seems to take as much pains to convince the world that he is an adept in all three, as any other man ever took to conceal his vices.

He catches strangers completely by surprise; they know not what to make of him in fact, he manages his part so well, that while he is in reality play- ing off his true character, he appears only to be acting; and I have heard 12 ATHENEUM VOL. 2. 2d series.

many a one say of him, after a first interview, I believe Jack is a good-natured fellow at bottom. He was once employed in a suit against his own father; and so unblushingly did he talk of the matter, that it did not lose him a single acquaintance or friend.

Those

Though Jack began the world pennyless, he is now a rich man. who were cheated by him last year— though they abuse him, to be sure-still seem willing to be cheated on, and Jack proceeds in his career as boldly as ever.

This character, I am afraid, is not an uncommon one; at least, innumerable varieties of it are to be met in our intercourse with society.

Throughout life, it has been a subject of surprise to me, how those bold spirits succeed in obtaining their purposes, even with each other. roborates the justice of Hudibras's observation

"That the pleasure is as great

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In being cheated, as to cheat." In fact, people in general seem ever ready to be imposed on by those who possess dauntless effrontery. I knew an instance, not long ago, of a man who was absolutely concerned in defrauding another of ten thousand pounds; yet, so boldly did he maintain his own character, and utter self-evident falsehood upon falsehood, that his very victim (a man by no means devoid of common sense,) was, the following year, not only ready to enter into fresh engagements with him, but even, on one occasion, accommodated him with letters of recommendation to the Conti

nent.

L-- is another personification of Effrontery, though in a smaller way. It is the very height of his ambition to be thought to mingle in the society of people of rank; and no stone does he leave unturned to attain his end. Besides the old trick of bowing to every coronet that he meets, &c. he professes to be intimately acquainted with Sir Walter Scott, and half the celebrated authors of the day; and, to bear himself out, he has bought expensive editions of their works, which he shows about as the gifts of the writers, having

their names inscribed on the title-pages. He meets with hundreds who are simple enough to swallow all his boastings, and who, in their turn, boast of his acquaintance.

În fact, the instances of effrontery which crowd upon me are almost innumerable. I am often amused at the various forms which it is capable of assuming; and shall perhaps, on some future occasion, again endeavour to amuse the Fire-side by some more illustrations of the subject.

I

EVERY BODY'S COUSIN. (From the French.)

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HAVE just had an additional portunity of proving the accuracy of observation which distinguishes Picard's comedy. I was present at the celebration of a marriage, which was to be followed by a grand feast at one of the most celebrated taverns in the capital. The number of relations (thanks, probably, to this latter circumstance) was very considerable. Among them I observed one whose conduct might have served as a model. He was dressed in a suit of black, and had a collected air, with a smile playing upon his lips, and appeared to be inspired by a general benevolence. At the moment of going into the sacristy, he offered his hand to a respectable grand-aunt of the bride's, who was quite charmed with a courtesy to which she did not appear to be accustomed. On entering the carriages to repair to the feast, he again gave his hand to the old lady, and afterwards seated himself beside her at the banquet. At table he seemed perpetually engaged. Full of attentions to his neighbour, he found means not to forget himself, although he undertook to carve several of the principal dishes. At the dessert, he sung some couplets on marriage, which seemed to have

been composed for the occasion; he drew the cork of the first bottle of Champagne; he it was who first drank the health of the young married folks; he fastened one of the bride's favours at his button-hole; in short, after having charmed the whole company by his affability and good-humour, he took leave when the gaming tables were brought. "My love," said the bridegroom to his young spouse, "I am delighted in the acquisition of a relation so amiable as the gentleman who has just quitted us." "My dear," replied the lady, "it is an acquisition which I value the more, as I am indebted for it to you." "What! is not this polite gentleman your cousin ?" "On the contrary, I thought he was yours, and it was on that account I was so impressed with the civilities which he exhibited towards me." An explanation between the two families proved that this every body's cousin was nobody's cousin ; but as, after examination, none of the spoons or shawls were missing, the company laughed heartily at the adventure, and resolved that, under similar circumstances, they would call over the names of the party before going into the dining-room.

(Blackwood's Edin. Mag.)

SPECULATIONS OF A TRAVELLER CONCERNING THE PEOPLE OF THE United STATES WITH PARALLELS.

PERHAPS the best way after all, of making any two people thoroughly acquainted with each other, is to run a fair parallel between them wherever it can be done-with a firm hand, a clear head, and a steady eye. One simple fact brought home upon us unexpectedly, will often do more than volumes of abstract propositions.

But, in running a parallel of this kind, one should be perpetually upon his guard, or he will wander into poetry and exaggeration. The desire of doing a clever or a brilliant thing-of being lively, smart, and entertaining, is exceedingly prone to interfere with plain matters of fact. But, where national fellowship is concerned, the simple truth is always better than pleasantry, and caricature, however rich and humorous it may be, is entirely out of place. Broad, absolute nature, although it may be, sometimes, offensive, is never so very offensive as affectation.

The language of an American will not often betray him; that of an Englishman will; so will that of a Scot, or an Irishman, unless he be of the highest class, when his English is often remarkable for purity.

But there are no provincials in the United States. The Yankees, who inhabit the New England States, (Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Maine,) differ, it is true from the southern people, and the latter in their turn differ from the western people; but then it is only in a few words, the whole of which might be enumerated in half a minute; and in a strong nasal tone, common to a part of the New England population. But for these few words, and this tone, the people of any one state in the Union might become incorporated with the people of any other,

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five hundred or a thousand miles distant, without being known for strangers. And, as it is, the native of any one state can travel from one end of the Union to the other, thousands and thousands of miles, not only without an interpreter, but with a tolerable certainty, if he desire it, of passing, in every state, for a citizen of that state. An Englishman who has no strong provincial dialect, and no very peculiar pronunciation, may pass in the same way, without suspicion, over the whole of the North American States.

A fact like this cannot but make a strong impression upon us. The best of English, we all know, will not carry a man far, in the British Empire. To a large proportion of the people, it would be wholly unintelligible; and to another large proportion,a sort of dialect.

He who would travel comfortably, for three or four hundred miles, in any direction, from London, should understand many languages and many dialects. But one language, if he speak it tolerably, will carry him all over the North American States; and, in some cases, without permitting him to be known for a stranger.

The country people of New England-the Virginians and the Kentuckians, who are the posterity of the New Englanders--have a disposition to sound the vowel a, like the Scotch and Irish; and, in some cases, like the Italians, without any variation of tone. Thus, they say chamber, and even chamber. The first habit prevails among the Yankees; the latter, among the Virginians. So, too, the Virginian

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will say bar for bear; har for hair;

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* [We continue these extracts to show the opinions entertained by well-informed foreigners respecting America, as well as to laugh at our own portraits;-but as to the truth of some of the sketches, they border upon caricature, and we must dissent to their faithfulness. It seems impossible for travellers wholly to divest themselves of partiality for their own country, and to view all others through any other lens than the haze of prejudice.]

culate, but never I reckon. A Marylander and a Virginian will say, I reckon―-sometimes very oddly, as thus: "Do you visit Mr. Jefferson, before you leave the country ?""I reckon." But a Virginian was never known to say, I guess, or I calculate. A Tennessian or Kentuckian will generally say, I calculate; seldom, I guess; and hardly ever, I reckon. These words, in fact, are the distinguishing marks of three different divisions of the American people.

Hence the absurdity of those representations, however humorous they may be, which put all these phrases, and others that resemble them, into the same fellow's mouth. And hence is it, that an American who goes to see Mr. Matthews, although he may laugh as heartily as another at his drollery, is laughing at a kind of drollery which our countrymen do not perceive. Mr. M.'s Yankees come from no particular part of the confederacy; and are, evidently, "made up," at second hand, with two fine exceptions, of which I shall hereafter take some notice.

But how would a native of Great Britain relish a character that should come upon the stage kilted; with a shamrock in his hat, a shilelah in his hand, a leek in his button-hole, or a piece of toasted cheese and a red-herring in his pocket; swearing alternately by St. Patrick, St. Andrew, St. David, and St. George; and speaking a gibberish made up of Scotch, Irish, and Welsh, interspersed with provincial and Cockney phrases ?

And yet that is precisely what has been done by those who have been em ployed in getting up brother Jonathans for the English market. They have jumbled everything together, true and false-all the peculiarities of all the different people-and called the composition a Yankee.

In almost every book of travels, play, novel, and story, if a New Englander be introduced, he is generally made to do the most absurd things for a New Englander; things that are hardly less absurd than it would be for an Irishman to wear a Scotch dress, talk Yorkshire, and swear by St. David.

The character of the American seems generally to have been manufactured at leisure, from the materials collected by other people, in any way, at any time. Thus, the dialogues of Mr. Fearon-although there is a great deal of truth in his book, notwithstanding what the people of America may say to the contrary-are evidently made up from story-books and vocabularies. And the representations of Mr. Matthews are so full of blundering, with two exceptions, that, had I not met him in America, I should, on seeing his performance, really doubt if he had ever been there'; so little is there in his

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trip to America," of that extraordinary truth and richness which charac terize his trips to other parts of the world. He himself would seem to be aware of this, because he introduces, under one picture and another, three Frenchmen, one Irishman, one Dutchman, one Yorkshireman, and sundry other second-hand characters, for which he had already been celebrated.

But there are two fine exceptions in the entertainment of Mr. Matthews. The story of "Uncle Ben" is inimitable-and the sketch of the Kentucki an is masterly. They are two of the most legitimate pieces of sober humor in the world, for one that knows the American character. But then the first-the story about "that are trifle,” is an American Joe Miller. Mr. Jarvis, a portrait painter of New York

a man of remarkable power and drollery-is the person of whom Mr. Matthews had it as well as that story of General Jackson. The Review is an old story in this country; and the Dutch Judge is from Judge Breckenridge, originally one of the most "“genuine" story-tellers that ever lived. His only son, Henry M. Breckenridge, a judge of Louisiana, and author of the

Views of Louisiana," inherits a large portion of his father's extraordinary talent; and has made this very story, which he tells better than Mr. Matthews, as common in America, as any anecdote of Foote or Sheridan is in this country.

Nevertheless, the finest parts of the Kentuckian's character, and those which are the most severe, because

But, a word, or two of Brother Jonathan's "lingo." We laugh at him for pronouncing genuine, as if it were written genu-wine, forgetful of the fact, that the common people of England very generally say appo-síte, giving the same sound to the vowel i; and that our public speakers, perhaps without one exception, say hostile, instead of hostil. We wonder, also, at the absurdity of the Yankee "had ought, and hadn't ought," which, after all, are not only pure English, like 'I had rather,' but in common use here, particularly about Coventry; and, in strict analogy with every other language, wherein the verb to owe can be found. We chuckle at his "I 99.66 guess," considerable," and "pretty particularly,' overlooking the fact, that guess is true old-fashioned English, for which "I presume," ," "I fancy," "I imagine,"

they are the truest, may be safely put at the same time, in the flesh of his down to the credit of Mr. Matthews fellow-men, with a heartless and abohimself. They must have been drawn minable indifference, at which I, for from life. They were never made out one, cannot laugh, notwithstanding the at second hand; or got up, in a solita- drollery of the picture; because I ry chamber, out of novels, newspapers, know it to be true. and books of travels, as nine-tenths of the rest of his "trip to America" are. Thus, nothing can be truer or bolder, than the canting of the Kentuckian about the "land of liberty-where every man has a right to speak his genuine sentiments"-and where, there fore, he is free to offer "fifty-five dollars for that are nigger"-being determined, beforehand, if he should be cheated, to "take the balance out of his hide." Nothing can be more resolute and cutting than this. The Americans deserve it; and I am exceed ingly mistaken, if they would not immediately acknowledge the truth of it. The worst fault of Mr. Matthews, apart from his absurd credulity-is the tameness of his caricatures.-They want spirit; but perhaps that is not wholly unaccountable, since it is believed that be intends to "settle" in the United States. And yet there is bad policy in such daintiness. The Americans would respect him a thousand times more, if his whole enter tainment were as true-however severe it might be as are the two sketches alluded to.

It is a common thing, in the United States, to hear a high-spirited Virginian, or Carolinian, declaiming about Liberty, as if he were inspired, in the presence of his own slaves, a part of whom bear an alarming resemblance to the white children of the same family, upon whom they are waiting, perhaps, at the time, in a state of the most abject and pitiable submissiveness within hearing, it is ten to one, of the overseer's lash-or the cries of some poor fellow undergoing punishment and the DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, superbly framed, hanging up in front of him-while he is holding forth-wherein it is proclaim

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you know," &c. &c. are awkward and feeble substitutes; that "darnation" is common through Kent; that "guess" in America, is never used so absurdly as people say, hardly ever at the end of a phrase; and that "pretty particularly damned," and all such phrases, are only a sort of Yankee, or Kentucky, flash language; so little known throughout the country, that multitudes in every direction have probably never heard, and would not understand it. It is, in fact, the slang of story-tellers.

We wonder, also, that the Yankees never give a direct answer; that they always reply to one question, by answering another; that they never say yes or no; and that they always begin their answer with some superfluous word.

But all these things, it should be remarked, are common to every people, polite or barbarous. Put what question you will, to a well-educated ed to all the nations of the earth-that man or woman; and, whatever people "all men are born free and equal !” may say to the contrary, you will rareThere is no exaggeration, therefore, ly get a direct answer; and never, unin the character of the Kentuckianless they are angry, or in haste, as boastful of Liberty; and speculating, direct an answer as might have been

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