tic facts illustrative of this peculiar feature in Western civilization, of which he calls railways "the soul." The conditions of success for new communities he regards as, first, an energetic population; second, fertile soil; third, favorable climate; and, fourth, easy means of communication; and he explains the prosperity and the failure of such experiments by these conditions. He is opposed to protection and to universal suffrage, and finds ample evidence to sustain these opinions in his observations in the United States. The subject, however, which mainly occupies his attention, is the actual influence and effects of slavery, the difficulties in the way of its abolition, and the probable consequence of its existence upon the destiny and development of the nation. His economical argument is strong. He indicates the comparative stagnation and degradation of the Slave States with detail, describes the status of the poor whites, notes the historical facts, and seems to anticipate the climax which three years later involved the country in civil war. "The South," he writes, 66 seems to me in that mood of mind which foreruns destruction;" and elsewhere observes that "the accident of cotton has been the ruin of the negro." He recog nizes a "moral disunion" in the opposition of parties and social instincts in regard to slavery. "Like most foreigners," he observes, "I find it very difficult to appreciate the construction of American parties. There is a party called the Southern party, which is distinctly in favor of separation. It will carry along with it, notwithstanding its most insane policy, a great proportion of the low white population. Opposed to it is the conservative intelligence of the South." Mr. Stirling justly regards the "want of concentration the characteristic defect of American civilization; and re

as

gards the " aristocracy of the South" as almost identical

with "the parvenu society of the mushroom cities" in Britain; and observes significantly that it is "on the impor tance of cotton to England that the philosophers of the South delight to dwell." Indeed, throughout his observations on the Slave States, there is a complete recognition of

the facts and principles which the North has vainly striven for months past to impress upon English statesmen; and this testimony is the more valuable inasmuch as it is disinterested, and was recorded before any overt act of rebellion had complicated our foreign relations. Although this writer's experience in Alabama is more favorable to the social condition of that State than what fell under the observation of Mr. Olmsted, yet the latter's economical statistics of the Slave States are amply confirmed by Mr. Stirling. He is equally struck with the contrast between the two parts of the country in regard to providence and comfort. He agrees with other travellers in his estimate of popular defects, and is especially severe upon the evils of hotel life in the United States, and the superficial and showy workmanship which compares so unfavorably with substantial English manufactures. Many of these criticisms have only a local application, yet they are none the less true. Duelling, lynching, "hatred of authority," "passion for territory," inadequate police, and reckless travelling, are traits which are censured with emphasis. But the charm of these letters consists in the broad and benign temper of the writer, when from specific he turns to general inferences, and treats of the country as a whole, and of its relations to the Old World and to humanity. It is refreshing to find united in a foreign critic such a clear perception of the drawbacks to our national prosperity and incongruous elements in our national development, with an equally true insight and recognition of the individual and domestic rectitude, and the noble and high tendencies of life and character. A few random extracts will indicate these qualities of the man and merits of the writer :

“་

'We have experienced, even from utter strangers, an officious kindness and sympathy that can only arise from hearts nurtured in the daily practice of domestic virtues."

"I have no fears but that the follies and crudities of the present effervescent state of American society will pass away, and leave behind a large residuum of solid worth."

"I cannot overlook that latent force of virtue and wisdom, which makes itself, as yet, too little felt in public affairs, but which assuredly is there, and will come forth, I am convinced, when the hour of trial comes to save the country."

"The American nation will wrestle victoriously with these social and political hydras."

Mr. Stirling gives a most true analysis of an American popular speaker in his estimate of Beecher. He discriminates well the local traits of the country, calling Florida the "Alsatia of the Union," because it is such a paradise for sportsmen and squatters; and explaining the superiority in race of the Kentuckians by their hunting habits and progenitors. "The little step," he writes, "from the South to the North, is a stride from barbarism to civilization-a step from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century."

Of the physiognomy of the people he says: "You read upon the nation's brow the extent of its enterprise and the intensity of its desires. The deepest-rooted cause of American disease is the overworking of the brain and the overexcitement of the nervous system."

Equally clear and earnest, humane and noble, is his view of the relation of this country to Great Britain: "Never were two nations," he writes, "so eminently fitted to aid and comfort each other in the vast work of civilization, than England and America." He reproaches Great Britain with her indifference, as manifest in sending second-class ambassadors to the United States; and invokes "the spiritual ruler, the press," to do its part, "by speaking more generously and wisely." If the prescience of this writer is remarkable in estimating aright the temper and tendencies of Southern treason while yet latent, and of Northern integrity and patriotism before events had elicited their active development, no less prophetic is his appeal to English magnanimity :

"Why, in God's name, should we not give them every assurance of respect and affection? Are they not our children, blood of our blood and bone of our bone? Are they not progressive, and fond of power, like ourselves? Are they not our best customers? Have .

they not the same old English, manly virtues? What is more befitting for us Englishmen, than to watch with intense study and deepest sympathy the momentous strivings of this noble people? It is the same fight we ourselves are fighting-the true and absolute supremacy of Right. Surely nothing can more beseem two great and kindred nations, than to aid and comfort one another in that career of self-ennoblement, which is the end of all national as well as individual existence."*

"The stupendous greatness of England is factitious, and will only be come natural when that empire shall have found its real centre: that centre is the United States."-"The New Rome; or, The United States of the World" (New York, 1843).

A remarkably bold and comprehensive theory of American progress, unity, and empire, by Theodore Porsche and Charles Goepp-one an Americanized German, the other a Teutonic philosopher. In this little treatise the geography, politics, races, and social organization of the United States are analyzed, and shown to be "at work upon the fusion of all nations-not of this continent alone, but of all continents-into one people."

CHAPTER VII.

ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMERICA.

Ir has often been remarked, that there is a fashion in bookcraft, as in every other phase and element of human society; and the caprices thereof are often as inexplicable and fantastic as in manners, costume, and other less intellectual phenomena. The history of modern literature indicates extreme fluctuations of popular taste. Waller and Cowley introduced the concetti of the Italians into English verse, which, in Elizabeth's reign, was so preeminent for robust affluence; in Pope's day we had satire and sense predominant; Byron initiated the misanthropic and impassioned style; while Steele and Addison inaugurated social criticism, the lake poets a recurrence to the simplicity of nature, and the Scotch reviewers bold analysis and liberal reform. But the uniform tone of books and criticism in England for so many years, in relation to America, is one of those literary phenomena the cause of which must be sought elsewhere than among the whims and oddities of popular taste or the caprice of authors. A French writer, at one period, declared it was the direct result of official bribery, to stop emigration; but its motives were various, and its origin far from casual or temporary; and the attitude and animus of England during the war for the Union, give to these systematic attacks and continuous detraction a formidable significance. The Ameri can abroad may have grown indifferent to the derogatory