tions and social discipline. Europe kindles the enthusiasm, Central America excites the speculative hardihood, and the Arctic regions inspire the adventurous heroism of our countrymen. What they see they know how to describe, and what they feel they can express with courage and animation; so that, in the memorials of other lands, the native mind often reflects itself with singular force and fervor.* He would miss a great source of knowledge, who, intent upon seizing the true significance of American life and character, or even the influences of nature and government, of trade and travel, should ignore the journalism of the country, wherein the immediate currents of opinion, tendencies of society, and tone of feeling, both radical and conservative, reckless and disciplined, find crude and casual yet authentic utterance.

Freneau's ballads should not be thought beneath the notice of the candid investigator, nor even Barlow's "Hasty Pudding;" nor can the historical student safely neglect the aboriginal eloquence of Red Jacket and Tecumseh, nor the early periodical literature initiated by Dennie. He may consult with benefit the first scientific essays of Catesby, Ramsay, Williamson, Colden, and Mitchell; Espy and Redfield on els," "Walden, or Life in the Woods," "A Week on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers," "The Moravian Settlement at Bethlehem, Pa.," "Carolina Sports," "Hunting Adventures in the Northern Wilds," "Excursions in Field and Forest,' "Life in the Open Air," "At Home and Abroad," "Blackwater Chronicle," "Out-of-Door Papers," "Letters from New York," "Wild Sports of the South," "Rural Hours, ""Letters from the Alleghany Mountains," "The Oregon Trail," Poetry of Travel in New England," "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table," "From Cape Cod to the Tropics, " &c.

* Indirectly, the literature of America illustrates the original enterprise that, with free and bold aspiration, seeks new and laborious fields of research or creation: as instances of which, in the most diverse spheres, may be noted the translation of the great work of Laplace, by Bowditch, Dr. Robinson's "Biblical Researches in Palestine," Kane's "Arctic Expedition," Allibone's "Dictionary of Authors," that picturesque memorial of the Fur Trade, Irving's “Astoria,” and Dr. Rush on the "Human Voice; " while the literature of Travel in our vernacular has been enriched by the contributions of Stephens, Brace, Fletcher, Wise, Melville, Mackenzie, Dana, Mayo, and Taylor.

Climatology; Hitchcock and Rogers on Geology; Barton, Nuttall, and Grey and Torrey on Botany; Davis, Squier, and others on the Mounds; Schoolcraft on the aborigines; Carey on economical subjects; the newspaper and diary literature, familiar letters, and controversial pamphlets, which more than highly finished productions bear the fresh stamp of civil and social life, and have been wisely collected by local and State associations, to facilitate inquiries into the past of America.*

Nor have our institutions and social tendencies lacked the highest native criticism. One of the most consistent, lucid, and able ethical authors in the language-William Ellery Channing-has left, in his writings,f the most eloquent protests and appeals, based on the application of religion and philosophy to American life, character, and politics. No writer has more perfectly demonstrated the absolute wrong and the inevitable consequences of slavery; and, at the same time, no social reformer has more justly appreciated the claims, difficulties, and duties of the slaveholder. We seek in vain among the most renowned foreign critics of our national character for a more unsparing, earnest, yet humane analyst. Channing rebuked emphatically "the bigotry of republicanism;" continually pointed out the inadequacy of government, in itself, to elevate and mould society; he warned his countrymen, in memorable terms, against the tyranny of public opinion, and advocated the rights, responsibilities, and mission of the individual. When slavery extension was sought through the annexation of Texas; when the repudiation of State debts drew obloquy upon the national honor; when popular vengeance burned a Roman

* Among the early pamphleteers were James Otis (1725-'83), Josiah Quincy, Jr. (1744-'75), John Dickinson (1732-1808); Joseph Galloway (1730-1803), a Tory writer; Richard Henry Lee (1732-'94), Arthur Lee (1740-'92), William Livingston (1723-'90), William Henry Drayton (1742'99), John Adams (1735-1826), Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), and Timothy Pickering (1748–1829).

+ "Complete Works," with an Introduction, 6 vols. 12mo., Boston, 1849. "Memoirs of, by W. H. Channing," 3 vols. 12mo., Boston, 1843, London,

1848.

Catholic convent, and sought to suppress journals that promulgated obnoxious views in religion and politics-this eloquent friend of humanity seized the opportunity to show how essential is the dependence of government, order, social progress, and peace upon Christianity; and how, in the last analysis, the individual citizen alone could sustain and conserve the freedom and the faith upon which human society rests. He referred great public questions to first principles; solved political problems by spiritual truths; recognized human rights as the foundation of civic rule; justice as the one vital element of government; and made his hearers and readers feel that the "forms of liberty do not constitute its essence." Were we to select a single illustration of the divine possibilities incident to free institutions,-liberty of conscience and of the press, the presence of nature in her most grand aspects of ocean, forest, and heavens, and an equal scope for social and personal development,-considering these national privileges in their influence upon intellectual development and religious aspirations, we should point to the example, the influence, and the written thought of Channing; for therein we find the most unfettered expression of private conviction united to the deepest sense of God and humanity; the freshest expansion of freedom combined with the most profound consciousness of individual responsibility.

For many years after the earlier records of travel in America, the local and social traits therein described lingered; so that those who look back half a century, find many familiar and endeared associations revived by these casual memorials of an antecedent period. Two principal agencies have caused the rapid transition in outward aspect and social conditions which make the present and the past offer so great a contrast even within the space of an average American life-immigration, and locomotive facilities. The first has, in a brief space, quadrupled the population of cities, and modified its character by a foreign element; and the second, by bringing the suburban and interior residents constantly to the seaboard, has gradually won them to traffic and city life. What was individual and characteristic, exclusive and local therein, becomes thus either changed or superseded. There is no longer the reign of coteries; individualities are lost in the crowd; natives of old descent are jostled aside in the thoroughfare; the few no longer form public opinion; distinctions are generalized; the days of the one great statesman, preacher, actor, doctor, merchant, social oracle, and paramount belle, when opinion, intercourse, and character were concentrated, localized, and absolute, have passed away; and the repose, the moderation, the economy, the geniality and dignity of the past are often lost in gregarious progress

and prosperity. A venerable reminiscent may lead the curious stranger to some obscure gable-roofed house, a solitary and decayed tree, or border relic strangely conserved in the heart of a thriving metropolis, and descant on the time when these represented isolated centres of civilization. Standing in a busy mart, he may recall there the wilderness of his youth, and, before an old, dignified portrait by Copley, lament the fusion of social life and the bustle of modern pretension; or, dwelling on the details of an ancestral letter, argue that, if our fathers moved slower, they felt and thought more and realized life better than their descendants, however superior in general knowledge. Except for the purpose of literary art and historical study, however, the past is rarely appreciated and little known; hence the curious interest and value, as local illustrations, of some of these forgotten memorials of how places looked and people lived before the days of steam, telegraphs, and penny papers.

Sir Henry Holland, writes Lockhart to Prescott, “on his return from his rapid expedition, declares, except friends, he found everything so changed, that your country seemed to call for a visit once in five years." The truth is, that, owing to the transition process which has been going on here from the day that the first conflict occurred between European colonists and the savage inhabitants, to the departure of the last emigrant train from the civilized border to the passes of the Rocky Mountains; and owing, also, to the incessant influx of a foreign element in the older communities, to the results of popular education and of political excitements and vicissitudes, there is no country in the world in regard to which it is so difficult to generalize. Exceptions to every rule, modifications of every special feature and fact, oblige the candid philosopher to reconsider and qualify at every step.

One vast change alone in the conditions and prospectspolitical, social, and economical-of this continent, since the records of the early travellers, would require a volume to describe and discuss-the increase of territory and of immi