upon him, to taste the beverage, which he found had much of the flavour of excellent Hollands. He was naturally a thirsty soul, and was soon tempted to repeat the draught. One taste provoked another, and he reiterated his visits to the flagon so often, that at length his senses were overpowered, his eyes swam in his head, his head gradually declined, and he fell into a deep sleep.

44

surprised him, for he had thought himself acquainted with every one in the country round. Their dress, too, was of a different fashion from that to which he was accustomed, They all stared at him with equal marks of surprise, and whenever they cast eyes upon him, invariably stroked their chins. The constant recurrence of this gesture, induced Rip, involuntarily, to do the same, when, to his astonishment, he found his beard had grown a foot long!

On waking, he found himself on the green knoll from whence he had first seen the old man of the He had now entered the skirts of the village. A glen. He rubbed his eyes-it was a bright sunny troop of strange children ran at his heels, hooting morning. The birds were hopping and twittering after him, and pointing at his gray beard. The imong the bushes, and the eagle was wheeling aloft, | dogs, too, not one of which he recognised for an old and breasting the pure mountain breeze. Surely," acquaintance, barked at him as he passed. The thought Rip, "I have not slept here all night." He very village was altered: it was larger and more recalled the occurrences before he fell asleep. The populous. There were rows of houses which he had strange man with the keg of liquor-the mountain never seen before, and those which had been his ravine-the wild retreat among the rocks-the wo- | familiar haunts had disappeared. Strange names begone party at nine-pins-the flagon - "Oh! that were over the doors-strange faces at the windows wicked flagon!" thought Rip--"what excuse shall everything was strange. His mind now misgave I make to Dame Van Winkle?" him; he began to doubt whether both he and the world around im were not bewitched. Surely this was his native village, which he had left but a day before. There stood the Kaatskill mountains-there ran the silver Hudson at a distance—there was ev ery hill and dale precisely as it had always beenRip was sorely perplexed-"That flagon last night," thought he, "has addled my poor head sadly!

He looked round for his gun, but in place of the clean well-oiled fowling-piece, he found an old firelock lying by him, the barrel encrusted with rust, the lock falling off, and the stock worm-eaten. He now suspected that the grave roysters of the mountain had put a trick upon him, and having dosed him with liquor, had robbed him of his gun. Wolf, too, had disappeared, but he might have strayed away after a squirrel or partridge. He whistled after him, and shouted his name, but all in vain; the echoes repeated his whistle and shout, but no dog was to be seen.

He determined to revisit the scene of the last evening's gambol, and if he met with any of the party, to demand his dog and gun. As he rose to walk, he found himself stiff in the joints, and wanting in his usual activity. "These mountain beds do not agree with me," thought Rip, "and if this frolic should lay me up with a fit of the rheumatism, I shall have a blessed time with Dame Van Winkle." With some difficulty he got down into the glen; he found the gully up which he and his companion had ascended the preceding evening; but to his astonishment a mountain stream was now foaming down it, leaping from rock to rock, and filling the glen with babbling murmurs. He, however, made shift to scramble up its sides, working his toilsome way through thickets of hirch, sassafras, and witchhazel; and sometimes tripped up or entangled by the wild grape vines that twisted their coils and tendrils from tree to tree, and spread a kind of network in his path.

It was with some difficulty that he found the way to his own house, which he approached with silent awe, expecting every moment to hear the shrill voice of Dame Van Winkle. He found the house gone to decay-the roof fallen in, the windows shattered, and the doors off the hinges. A half-starved dog, that looked like Wolf, was skulking about it. Rip called him by name, but the cur snarled, showed his teeth, and passed on. This was an unkind cut indeed." My very dog," sighed poor Rip, "has forgotten me!"

He entered the house, which, to tell the truth Dame Van Winkle had always kept in neat order It was empty, forlorn, and apparently abandoned. This desolateness overcame all his connubial fearshe called loudly for his wife and children-the lonely chambers rang for a moment with his voice, and then all again was silence.

He now hurried forth, and hastened to his old resort, the village inn-but it toc was gone. A large rickety wooden building stood in its place, with great gaping windows, some of them broken, and mended with old hats and petticoats, and over the door was painted, "The Union Hotel, by Jonathan Doolittle." Instead of the great tree that used to shelter the quiet little Dutch inn of yore, there now was reared a tall naked pole, with something on the top that looked like a red night-cap, and from it was fluttering a flag, on which was a singular assemblage of stars and stripes-all this was strange and incomprehensible. He recognised on the sign, however, the ruby face of King George, under which he had smoked so many a peaceful pipe, but even this was singularly metamorphosed. The red coat was changed for one of blue and buff, a sword was held in the hand instead of a sceptre, the head was decorated with a cocked hat, and underneath was painted in large characters, GENERAL WASHINGTON.

At length he reached to where the ravine had opened through the cliffs to the amphitheatre; but no traces of such opening remained. The rocks presented a high impenetrable wall, over which the torrent came tumbling in a sheet of feathery foam, and fell into a broad deep basin, black from the shadows of the surrounding forest. Here, then, poor Rip was brought to a stand. He again called and whistled after his dog; he was only answered by the cawing of a flock of idle crows, sporting high in air about a dry tree that overhung a sunny precipice; and who, secure in their elevation, seemed to look down and scoff at the poor man's perplexities. What was to be done? The morning was passing away, and Rip felt famished for want of his break-door, but none that Rip recollected. The very charfast. He grieved to give up his dog and gun; he dreaded to meet his wife; but it would not do to starve among the mountains. He shook his head, shouldered the rusty firelock, and, with a heart full of trouble and anxiety, turned his steps homeward.

As he approached the village, he met a number of people, but none whom he knew, which somewhat

There was, as usual, a crowd of folk about the

acter of the people seemed changed. There was a busy, bustling, disputatious tone about it, instead of the accustomed phlegm and drowsy tranquillity. He looked in vain for the sage Nicholas Vedder, with his broad face, double chin, and fair long pipe, uttering clouds of tobacco smoke, instead of idle speeches; or Van Bummel, the schoolmaster, doling forth

the contents of an ancient newspaper. In place of himself as he went up the mountain; apparently as these, a lean bilious-looking fellow, with his pockets lazy, and certainly as ragged. The poor fellow was full of handbills, was haranguing vehemently about now completely confounded. He doubted his own rights of citizens-election-members of Congress-identity, and whether he was himself or another liberty-Bunker's hill-heroes of seventy-six-and man. In the midst of his bewilderment, the man in other words, that were a perfect Babylonish jargon the cocked hat demanded who he was, and what to the bewildered Van Winkle. was his name?

The appearance of Rip, with his long, grizzled "God knows," exclaimed he at his wit's end; beard, his rusty fowling-piece, his uncouth dress, and "I'm not myself I'm somebody else—that's me the army of women and children that had gathered yonder-no-that's somebody else, got into my a: his heels, soon attracted the attention of the tav-shoes-I was myself last night, but I fell asleep on ern politicians. They crowded round him, eyeing the mountain, and they've changed my gun, and him from head to foot, with great curiosity. The every thing's changed, and I'm changed, and I can't orator bustled up to him, and drawing him partly tell what's my name, or who I am!" aside, inquired, "on which side he voted?" Rip stared in vacant stupidity. Another short but busy little fellow pulled him by the arm, and rising on tiptoe, inquired in his ear. whether he was Federal or Democrat." Rip was equally at a loss to comprehend the question; when a knowing, self-im- | portant old gentleman, in a sharp cocked hat, made his way through the crowd, putting them to the right and left with his elbows as he passed, and planting himself before Van Winkle, with one arm a-kimbo, the other resting on his cane, his keen eyes and sharp hat penetrating, as it were, into his very soul, demanded in an austere tone, "what brought him to the election with a gun on his shoulder, and a mob at his heels, and whether he meant to breed a riot in the village?"

"Alas! gentlemen," cried Rip, somewhat dismayed, "I am a poor, quiet man, a native of the place, and a loyal subject of the King, God bless him!"

Here a general shout burst from the bystanders"a tory! a tory! a spy! a refugee! hustle him! way with him!"

The by-standers began now to look at each other, nod, wink significantly, and tap their fingers against their foreheads. There whisper, also, about securing the gun, and eping the old fellow from doing mischief; at the very suggestion of which, the self-important man with the cocked hat retired with some precipitation. At this critical moment a fresh comely woman passed through the throng to get a peep at the gray-bearded man. She had a chubby child in her arms, which, frightened at his looks, began to cry. "Hush, Rip," cried she, "hush, you little fool; the old man won't hurt you.' The name of the child, the air of the mother, the tone of her voice, all awakened a train of recollections in his mind.

he.

"

"What is your name, my good woman?" asked

‘Judith Gardenier."

"And your father's name?'

Ah, poor man, his name was Rip Van Winkle; it's twenty years since he went away from home with his gun, and never has been heard of since-his dog came home without him; but whether he shot himself, or was carried away by the Indians, nobody can tell. I was then but a little girl."

Rip had but one question more to ask; but he put it with a faltering voice:

It was with great difficulty that the self-important man in the cocked hat restored order; and having assumed a tenfold austerity of brow, demanded again of the unknown culprit, what he came there for, and whom he was seeking. The poor man humbly assured him that he meart no harm, but Oh, she too had died but a short time since: she merely came there in search of some of his neigh-broke a blood-vessel in a fit of passion at a Newbours, who used to keep about the tavern.

Well-who are they?-name them." Rip bethought himself a moment, and inquired, "Where's Nicholas Vedder?"

There was a silence for a little while, when an old man replied, in a thin, piping voice, "Nicholas Vedder? why, he is dead and gone these eighteen years! There was a wooden tomb-stone in the church-yard that used to tell all about him, but that's rotten and gone too."

"Where's Brom Dutcher?"

64

'Where's Van Bummel, the schoolmaster?" "He went off to the wars, too; was a great militia general, and is now in Congress."

Rip's heart died away, at hearing of these sad changes in his home and friends, and finding himself thus alone in the world. Every answer puzzled him, too, by treating of such enormous lapses of time, and of matters which he could not understand : war-Congress-Stony-Point!-he had no courage to ask after any more friends, but cried out in despair, Does nobody here know Rip Van Winkle?"

"Where's your mother?"

England pedlar.

There was a drop of comfort, at least, in this întelligence. The honest man could contain himself no longer. He caugh. his daughter and her child in his arms. "I am your father! cried he-" Young Rip Van Winkle once-old Rip Van Winkle now! Does nobody know poor Rip Van Winkle! ''

All stood amazed, until an old woman, tottering out from among the crowd, put her hand to her brow, and peering under it in his face for a moment, exclaimed, "Sure enough! it is Rip Van Winkle— it is himself. Welconie home again, old neighbour -Why, where have you been these twenty long years?"

Rip's story was soon told, for the whole twenty years had been to him but as one night. The neighbours stared when they heard it; some were seen to wink at each other, and put their tongues in their cheeks; and the self-important man in the cocked hat, who, when the alarm was over, had returned to the field, screwed down the corners of his mouth, and shook his head-upon which there was a general shaking of the head throughout the assemblage.

It was determined, however, to take the opinion of old Peter Vanderdonk, who was seen slowly advancing up the road. He was a descendant of the historian of that name, who wrote one of the earliest accounts of the province. Peter was the most ancient inhabitant of the village, and well versed in all the wonderful events and traditions of the neighbourhood. He recollected Rip at once, and corroborated

He as

his story in the most satisfactory manner.
sured the company that it was a fact, handed down
from his ancestor the historian, that the Kaatskill
mountains had always been haunted by strange be-
ings. That it was affirmed that the great Hendrick
Hudson, the first discoverer of the river and country,
kept a kind of vigil there every twenty years, with his
crew of the Half-moon, being permitted in this way
to revisit the scenes of his enterprise, and keep a
guardian eye upon the river and the great city called
by his name. That his father had once seen them
in their old Dutch dresses playing at nine-pins in a
hollow of the mountain; and that he himself had
heard, one summer afternoon, the sound of their
balls, like distant peals of thunder.

To make a long story short, the company broke up, and returned to the more important concerns of the election. Rip's daughter took him home to live with her; she had a snug, well-furnished house, and a stout cherry farmer for a husband, whom Rip recollected for one of the urchins that used to climb upon his back. As to Rip's son and heir, who was the ditto of himself, seen leaning against the tree, he was employed to work on the farm; but evinced a hereditary disposition to attend to any thing else but his business.

Rip now resumed his old walks and habits; he soon found many of his former cronies, though all rather the worse for the wear and tear of time; and preferred making friends among the rising generation, with whom he soon grew into great favour.

NOTE.-The foregoing tale, one would suspect, had been suggested to Mr. Knickerbocker by a little German superstition about the Emperor Frederick der Rothbart and the Kypphauser mountain; the subjoined note, however, which he had appended to the tale, shows that it is an absolute fact, narrated with his usual fidelity. "The story of Rip Van Winkle may seem incredible to many. but nevertheless I give it my full belief, for I know the vicinity of our old Dutch settlements to have been very subject to marvellous events and appearances. Indeed, I have heard many stranger stories than this, in the villages along the Hudson; all of which with Rip Van Winkle myself, who, when last I saw him, was a very were too well authenticated to admit of a doubt. I have even talked venerable old man, and so perfectly rational and consistent on every other point, that I think no conscientious person could refuse to take this into the bargain; nay, I have seen a certificate on the subject taken before a country justice, and signed with a cross, in the justice's own handwriting. The story, therefore, is beyond the possibility of doubt."

ENGLISH WRITERS ON AMERICA.

"Methinks I see in my mind a noble puissant nation, rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks; methinks I see her as an eagle, mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her endazzled eyes at the full mid-day beam.'

MILTON ON The Liberty of the PRESS.

IT is with feelings of deep regret that I observe the literary animosity daily growing up between England and America. Great curiosity has been awakened of late with respect to the United States, and the London press has teemed with volumes of travels through the Republic; but they seem intended to diffuse error rather than knowledge; and so successful have they been, that, notwithstanding the constant intercourse between the nations, there is no people concerning whom the great mass of the British public have less pure information, or entertain more numerous prejudices.

Having nothing to do at home, and being arrived at that happy age when a man can do nothing with impunity, he took his place once more on the bench, at the inn door, and was reverenced as one of the patriarchs of the village, and a chronicle of the old times "before the war.' It was some time before he could get intc the regular track of gossip, or could English travellers are the best and the worst in be made to comprehend the strange events that had the world. Where no motives of pride or interest taken place during his torpor. How that there had intervene, none can equal them for profound and been a revolutionary war -that the country had philosophical views of society, or faithful and graphthrown off the yoke of old England-and that, in-ical descriptions of external objects; but when either stead of being a subject of his majesty George the the interest or reputation of their own country comes Third, he was now a free citizen of the United States. in collision with that of another, they go to the op/Rip, in fact, was no politician; the changes of states posite extreme, and forget their usual probity and and empires made but little impression on him; but candour, in the indulgence of splenetic remark, and there was one species of despotism under which he an illiberal spirit of ridicule. had long groaned, and that was-petticoat govern- Hence, their travels are more honest and accurate, ment. Happily, that was at an end; he had got his the more remote the country described. neck out of the yoke of matrimony, and could go in place implicit confidence in an Englishman's descripand out whenever he pleased, without dreading the tion of the regions beyond the cataracts of the Nile; tyranny of Dame Van Winkle. Whenever her name of unknown islands in the Yellow Sea; of the intewas mentioned, however, he shook his head, shrug-rior of India; or of any other tract which other ged his shoulders, and cast up his eyes; which might pass either for an expression of resignation to his fate, or joy at his deliverance.

I would

travellers might be apt to picture out with the illusions of their fancies. But I would cautiously receive his account of his immediate neighbours, and of those nations with which he is in habits of most frequent intercourse. However I might be disposed to trust his probity, I dare not trust his prejudices.

He used to tell his story to every stranger that arrived at Mr. Doolittle's hotel. He was observed, at first, to vary on some points cvery time he told it, which was doubtless owing to his having so recently It has also been the peculiar lot of our country to awaked. It at last settled down precisely to the tale be visited by the worst kind of English travellers. I have related, and not a man, woman, or child in While men of philosophical spirit and cultivated the neighbourhood, but knew it by heart. Some al- minds have been sent from England to ransack the ways pretended to doubt the reality of it, and insisted poles, to penetrate the deserts, and to study the manthat Rip had been out of his head, and that this was ners and customs of barbarous nations, with which one point on which he always remained flighty. The she can have no permanent intercourse of profit or old Dutch inhabitants, however, almost universally pleasure; it has been left to the broken-down tradesgave it full credit. Even to this day, they never hear man, the scheming adventurer, the wandering mea thunder-storm of a summer afternoon about the chanic, the Manchester and Birmingham agent, to Kaatskill, but they say Hendrick Hudson and his be her oracles respecting America. From such crew are at their game of nine-pins; and it is a com- sources she is content to receive her information remon wish of all henpecked husbands in the neigh-specting a country in a singular state of moral and bourhood, when life hangs heavy on their hands, that physical developement; a country in which one of they might have a quieting draught out of Rip Van the greatest political experiments in the history of Winkle's flagon. the world is now performing, and which presents the

most profound and momentous studies to the statesman and the philosopher.

will receive, with eagerness and unhesitating faith, the gross misrepresentations of coarse and obscure writers, concerning a country with which their own is placed in the most important and delicate relations. Nay, they will even make these apocryphal volumes text-books, on which to enlarge, with a zeal and an ability worthy of a more generous cause.

That such men should give prejudiced accounts of America, is not a matter of surprise. The themes it offers for contemplation, are too vast and elevated for their capacities. The national character is yet in a state of fermentation: it may have its frothiness and sediment, but its ingredients are sound and I shall not, however, dwell on this irksome and wholesome: it has already given proofs of powerful hackneyed topic; nor should I have adverted to it, and generous qualities; and the whole promises to but for the undue interest apparently taken in it by settle down into something substantially excellent. my countrymen, and certain injurious effects which But the causes which are operating to strengthen I apprehend it might produce upon the national feeland ennoble it, and its daily indications of admirable ing. We attach too much consequence to these atproperties, are all lost upon these purblind observers; tacks. They cannot do us any essential injury. who are only affected by the little asperities incident The tissue of misrepresentations attempted to be to its present situation. They are capable of judging woven round us, are like cobwebs woven round the only of the surface of things; of those matters which | limbs of an infant giant. Our country continually come in contact with their private interests and per- outgrows them. One falsehood after another falls sonal gratifications. They miss some of the snug off of itself. We have but to live on, and every day conveniences and petty comforts which belong to an we live a whole volume of refutation. All the writers old, highly-finished, and over-populous state of so- of England united, if we could for a moment supciety; where the ranks of useful labour are crowded, pose their great minds stooping to so unworthy a and many earn a painful and servile subsistence, by combination, could not conceal our rapidly growing studying the very caprices of appetite and self-indul-importance and matchless prosperity. They could gence. These minor comforts, however, are all-im- not conceal that these are owing, not merely to physportant in the estimation of narrow minds; which ical and local, but also to moral causes;-to the poeither do not perceive, or will not acknowledge, that litical liberty, the general diffusion of knowledge, they are more than counterbalanced among us, by the prevalence of sound, moral, and religious pringreat and generally diffused blessings. ciples, which give force and sustained energy to the character of a people; and which, in fact, have been the acknowledged and wonderful supporters of their own national power and glory.

They may, perhaps, have been disappointed in some unreasonable expectation of sudden gain. They may have pictured America to themselves an El Dorado, where gold and silver abounded, and the natives were lacking in sagacity; and where they were to become strangely and suddenly rich, in some unforeseen but easy manner. The same weakness of mind that indulges absurd expectations, produces petulance in disappointment. Such persons become embittered against the country on finding that there, as every where else, a man must sow before he can reap; must win wealth by industry and talent; and must contend with the common difficulties of nature, and the shrewdness of an intelligent and enterprising people.

But why are we so exquisitely alive to the aspersions of England? Why do we suffer ourselves to be so affected by the contumely she has endeavoured to cast upon us? It is not in the opinion of England alone that honour lives, and reputation has its being. The world at large is the arbiter of a nation's fame: with its thousand eyes it witnesses a nation's deeds, and from their collective testimony is national glory or national disgrace established.

For ourselves, therefore, it is comparatively of but little importance whether England does us justice or not; it is, perhaps, of far more importance to herPerhaps, through mistaken or ill-directed hospi- self. She is instilling anger and resentment into the tality, or from the prompt disposition to cheer and bosom of a youthful nation, to grow with its growth, countenance the stranger, prevalent among my coun- and strengthen with its strength. If in America, as trymen, they may have been treated with unwonted some of her writers are labouring to convince her, respect in America; and, having been accustomed she is hereafter to find an invidious rival, and a all their lives to consider themselves below the sur-gigantic foe, she may thank those very writers for face of good society, and brought up in a servile having provoked rivalship, and irritated hostility. feeling of inferiority, they become arrogant on the Every one knows the all-pervading influence of literacommon boon of civility; they attribute to the low-ture at the present day, and how much the opinions liness of others their own elevation; and underrate and passions of mankind are under its control. The a society where there are no artificial distinctions, mere contests of the sword are temporary; their and where by any chance, such individuals as them-wounds are but in the flesh, and it is the pride of selves can rise to consequence.

the generous to forgive and forget them; but the One would suppose, however, that information slanders of the pen pierce to the heart; they rankle coming from such sources, on a subject where the longest in the noblest spirits; they dwell ever prestruth is so desirable, would be received with caution ent in the mind, and render it morbidly sensitive to by the censors of the press; that the motives of these the most trifling collision. It is but seldom that any men, their veracity, their opportunities of inquiry and one overt act produces hostilities between two naobservation, and their capacities for judging correctly, tions; there exists, most commonly, a previous jealwould be rigorously scrutinized, before their evidence ousy and ill-will, a predisposition to take offence. was admitted, in such sweeping extent, against a Trace these to their cause, and how often will they kindred nation. The very reverse, however, is the be found to originate in the mischievous effusions of case, and it furnishes a striking instance of human mercenary writers; who, secure in their closets, and inconsistency. Nothing can surpass the vigilance for ignominious bread, concoct and circulate the with which English critics will examine the credibil-venom that is to inflame the generous and the ity of the traveller who publishes an account of some distant, and comparatively unimportant, country. How warily will they compare the measurements of a pyramid, or the description of a ruin; and how sternly will they censure any inaccuracy in these contributions of merely curious knowledge; while they

brave.

I am not laying too much stress upon this point: for it applies most emphatically to our particular case. Over no nation does the press hold a more absolute control than over the people of America; for the universal education of the poorest classes

makes every individual a reader. There is nothing of her slanderers-but I allude to a disposition to published in England on the subject of our coun- retaliate in kind, to retort sarcasm and inspire pretry, that does not circulate through every part of it. judice, which seems to be spreading widely among There is not a calumny dropt from an English pen, our writers. Let us guard particularly against such nor an unworthy sarcasm uttered by an English a temper; for it would double the evil, instead of statesman, that does not go to blight good-will, and redressing the wrong. Nothing is so easy and inadd to the mass of latent resentment. Possessing, viting as the retort of abuse and sarcasm; but it is then, as England does, the fountain-head from a paltry and unprofitable contest. It is the alternawhence the literature of the language flows, how tive of a morbid mind, fretted into petulance, rather completely is it in her power, and how truly is it her than warmed into indignation. If England is willduty, to make it the medium of amiable and mag-ing to permit the mean jealousies of trade, or the nanimous feeling-a stream where the two nations rancorous animosities of politics, to deprave the inmight meet together, and drink in peace and kind- tegrity of her press, and poison the fountain of ness. Should she, however, persist in turning it to public opinion, let us beware of her example. She waters of bitterness, the time may come when she may deem it her interest to diffuse error, and enmay repent her folly. The present friendship of gender antipathy, for the purpose of checking emiAmerica may be of but little moment to her; but gration; we have no purpose of the kind to serve. the future destinies of that country do not admit of Neither have we any spirit of national jealousy to a doubt: over those of England, there lower some gratify; for as yet, in all our rivalships with England, shadows of uncertainty. Should, then, a day of we are the rising and the gaining party. There can gloom arrive should those reverses overtake her, be no end to answer, therefore, but the gratification from which the proudest empires have not been ex- of resentment-a mere spirit of retaliation; and empt-she may look back with regret at her infatu- even that is impotent. Our retorts are never repubation, in repulsing from her side a nation she might lished in England; they fall short, therefore, of their have grappled to her bosom, and thus destroying aim; but they foster a querulous and peevish temper her only chance for real friendship beyond the among our writers; they sour the sweet flow of our boundaries of her own dominions. early literature, and sow thorns and brambles among its blossoms. What is still worse, they circulate through our own country, and, as far as they have effect, excite virulent national prejudices. is the evil most especially to be deprecated. Governed, as we are, entirely by public opinion, the utmost care should be taken to preserve the purity of the public mind. Knowledge is power, and truth is knowledge; whoever, therefore, knowingly propagates a prejudice, wilfully saps the foundation of his country's strength.

There is a general impression in England, that the people of the United States are inimical to the parent country. It is one of the errors which has been diligently propagated by designing writers. There is, doubtless, considerable political hostility, and a general soreness at the illiberality of the English press; but, collectively speaking, the prepos sessions of the people are strongly in favour of England. Indeed, at one time they amounted, in many parts of the Union, to an absurd degree of bigotry. The bare name of Englishman was a passport to the confidence and hospitality of every family, and too often gave a transient currency to the worthless and the ungrateful. Throughout the country, there was something of enthusiasm connected with the idea of England. We looked to it with a hallowed feeling of tenderness and veneration, as the land of our forefathers—the august repository of the monuments and antiquities of our race-the birth-place and mausoleum of the sages and heroes of our paternal history. After our own country, there was none in whose glory we more delighted-none whose good opinion we were more anxious to possess--none toward which our hearts yearned with such throbbings of warm consanguinity. Even during the late war, whenever there was the least opportunity for kind feelings to spring forth, it was the delight of the generous spirits of our country to show, that in the midst of hostilities, they still kept alive the sparks of future friendship.

This last

The members of a republic, above all other men, should be candid and dispassionate. They are, individually, portions of the sovereign mind and so7ereign will, and should be enabled to come to all questions of national concern with calm and unbiassed judgments. From the peculiar nature of our relations with England, we must have more frequent questions of a difficult and delicate character with her, than with any other nation; questions that affect the most acute and excitable feelings: and as, in the adjusting of these, our national measures must ultimately be determined by popular sentiment, we cannot be too anxiously attentive to purify it from all latent passion or prepossession.

Opening too, as we do, an asylum for strangers from every portion of the earth, we should receive all with impartiality. It should be our pride to exhibit an example of one nation, at least, destitute of national antipathies, and exercising, not merely the overt acts of hospitality, but those more rare and noble courtesies which spring from liberality of opinion.

Is all this to be at an end? Is this golden band of kindred sympathies, so rare between nations, to be broken forever?-Perhaps it is for the best-it What have we to do with national prejudices? may dispel an allusion which might have kept us in They are the inveterate diseases of old countries, mental vassalage; which might have interfered oc- contracted in rude and ignorant ages, when nations casionally with our true interests, and prevented the knew but little of each other, and looked beyond growth of proper national pride. But it is hard to their own boundaries with distrust and hostility. give up the kindred tie !—and there are feelings We, on the contrary, have sprung into national exdearer than interest-closer to the heart than pride-istence in an enlightened and philosophic age, when that will still make us cast back a look of regret as we wander farther and farther from the paternal roof, and lament the waywardness of the parent that would repel the affections of the child.

Short-sighted and injudicious, however, as the conduct of England may be in this system of aspersion, recrimination on our part would be equally illjudged. I speak not of a prompt and spirited vindication of our country, or the keenest castigation

the different parts of the habitable world, and the various branches of the human family, have been indefatigably studied and made known to each other; and we forego the advantages of our birth, if we do not shake off the national prejudices, as we would the local superstitions, of the old world.

But above all, let us not be influenced by any angry feelings, so far as to shut our eyes to the perception of what is really excellent and amiable in