DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS, TO WIT. BE it remembered, That on the thirtieth day of July, in the eighteen hundred and fourth year of our Lord, and in the twenty ninth year of the Independence of the United States of America, WILLIAM PELHAM of the said district, hath deposited in this Office, the title of a book, the right whereof he claims as Proprie. tor, in the words following, to wit: "LETTERS FROM LONDON: written during the years 1802 1803. By WILLIAM AUSTIN." In conformity to the Act of the Congress of the United States, intitled, " An Act for the encouragement of Learning, by securing the Copies of Maps, Charts, and Books, to the Authors and Proprietors of such Copies, during the times therein mentioned:" and also to an Act intitled, An Act supplementary to an Act, intitled, An Act for the encouragement of Learning, by securing the Copies of Maps, Charts, and Books, to the Authors and Proprietors of such Copies, during the times therein mentioned; and extending the benefits thereof to the Arts of Design. ing, Engraving and Etching Historical, and other Prints. A true Copy of Record. Clerk.} N. GOODALE, Clerk of the District of Massachusetts. LETTER I. LONDON, JUNE 19th, 1802. DEAR SIR, I HAVE just arrived in the land of our ances tors, a land not much less strange to me, than were the shores of New England to Standish, Carver, Winslow, and the other adventurers. They were awfully impressed with the grandeur of nature, before she yielded to cultivation : I am apprehensive I shall not be less affected with the excesses to which pride, vanity, and ambition carry those, who, endeavouring to rise above, sink far below the standard of nature. A descendant of those ancestors, arriving here, might naturally ask, "What invincible prejudice, what inveterate bigotry, or what preeminent virtue, induced our forefathers to leave this country for a desert?" Thank God, their posterity know how to answer the question! Three thousand miles and a desert they justly thought a full equivalent for what they left behind-notwithstanding, the maxims of Europe followed them, but which, distance, in some degree, served to cleanse of their leprosy. B You may expect, agreeably to promise, from time to time, a few notices of those things which I may think worthy of presenting. Letters are the recreation of literature, and usually written in the nightgown and slippers: we give our friends our looser thoughts, reserving our abilities for more important occasions. But knowing your taste, feelings, and views, I shall endeavour, as far as I am able, to assume a style rather more elevated than is frequent in this mode of writing, reserving the liberty of disporting at intervals on the surface of things. Men, manners, morals, politics and literature, will always afford a fertile field of observation; but then it demands the hardihood of personal indifference to speak present truth, though afterwards, the same becomes legitimate history: at the same time, it requires the pen of Tacitus to make the proper discrimination between the people of two countries, or even between people of the same; especially in Europe, where in the same country there are many different species of men. It would richly compensate for a voyage across the Atlantic to observe this singular circumstance. Indeed, I know not who can travel with more advantage to himself, or to his country, than a citizen of the United States, born since the revolution: for, the moment he arrives in Europe, the love of his own country becomes his predominant passion: while his mind, at every step he takes, is awakened to reason, compare, pity, approve, or condemn. But that which will more particularly engage his attention, is the comparative operation of the English and American constitutions on general happiness, the only true criterion of the excellency of a govern ment. The few observations which I shall drop on the English character will be rather an incidental, than a definitive drawing. I shall not remain here long enough to catch those nice, and frequently, complex traits which mark national character; though I suspect, a sign painter might hit off John Bull, as well as an artist. But I do not think it honest or gentlemanly, to draw the character of any people, while riding through their country on horseback, or to describe a city, after lodging in it one night. You would not imagine that a certain traveller had passed through Boston, on reading that ridiculous anecdote of the house with wooden rollers. You recollect, he says the people of Boston live in moving houses: so that if they do not like their situation, or neighbourhood, they move to another part of the town. What a strange idea will Europeans have * I found myself not a little mistaken in the sequel. of Boston, after reading such a fabrication! Such a traveller is really unpardonable, for of all the senses, the sight is least liable to mislead. But travellers take great liberties, they lie boldly, and speak the truth by chance:* not so much perhaps, from a disposition to wanton over nature, as from an opinion that mankind are more readily captivated with romance. One of the earliest, and most famous saints does not hesitate to assert that he passed through one country, the people of which were destitute of heads, and through another, the people of which had but one eye. The story of the Amazons had its origin, possibly, from some traveller desirous of attracting attention at home: or perhaps from certain smugglers who appeared at the sea side dressed in women's clothes! The story of American bundling, which is so frequently told in Europe, doubtless originated in hospitality; though the stranger ventured, when he arrived in Europe, to characterise the whole people. Nothing is more likely, than that the author of the bundling anecdote was benighted, and some kind cottage received him, which having no spare bed, he was obliged to sleep with the farmer's daughters. * A mentir hardiment, et à dire la verité par hazard-Bonaventure D'Argonne, under the name of Vigneul Marville. ( |