main-top-man who still turns his quid with a curse upon "Yankee lubbers." We have no personal or national animosities against Englishmen. We have seen and known from that country some of the most enlightened and polished men it has been our happiness to meet -but the inducements to travel in this country are of so little force with our misrepresented character abroad, that it is rare for any other inducement than gain that we are visited; and we are, of course, overrun by English clerks and factors, men who are distinct from every other class in the world for their entire confinement to their own business and branch of business, and who, lifted, they scarce know how, to a sudden consideration as strangers, assume a rank they never pretended to in their own country, and give our honest citizens sufficiently edifying specimens of high life in England.

We have digressed somewhat from our original subject, but the impatience shewn by many who did not personally know the author, for the book of Captain Hall, and the general falsification of English travellers, have made us somewhat testy whenever the subject approaches us, and we beg indulgence. We have no fear for the effect of the books of ordinary travellers. But the representations of an officer high in the British service, and the author of a previous book, which has obtained some credit, will be believed by all who are not enlightened upon the character of the writer.

To return to our first topic. In a book of travels, it is not enough to have accurate information merely. The measurements of churches and ruins, the population, size, and external features of cities, the extent of libraries and the progress of the Arts are all well in their places, though too great minuteness in these things is a common and wearisome fault. The feeling toward the author of a personal narrative, is somewhat peculiar. Our feelings are interested for himself. We read his book as if we knew him and was listening to a friend's description. We enter at once into his sympathies. We like those who impress him favorably, and dislike those who are rude or disagreeable to him. We are as interested for the favorable conclusion of an adventure as himself, and adopt his partialities and his aversions, both personal and local, with readiness and ardor. These feelings have, or ought to have, a natural bearing on the style of such books. They should be written in such a manner as to engage and interest these kindly sympathies. The author should not confine himself to things about him. He should give us the impressions they make upon himself. We are with him there, by the old ruin or in the mighty cathedral, and we would have him tell us his sensations, and

describe the influences that affect a stranger standing for the first time there. We go out with him among the people of a strange nation, and we wish to know, not what their costume or their features are, so much as how they looked to his eye, and what thoughts were stirred in his heart, by their curious fashion, and dissimilarity to his own. We accompany him to the mountain-top, and descend with him into the valley, and stand with him by the stupendous chasm, or precipice, or fall, and we want to know, not so much the measurement of their heights, or the manner of their form, as the melancholy, or the surprise, or the awe, with which he was affected while gazing on them. The pleasure of reading travels, we take it, is not to store up a mass of foreign localities and dimensions, for, aside from the natural distaste for such dry acquisition, it is extremely difficult of retention; but it is to be so carried into the country described, by the author's vividness of description, and power of familiarizing it to our imagination, that we conceive ourselves there, and experience all the natural sensations of surprise and strangeness. It is only thus that we can realize description with sufficient power to retain it. A book without this quality gives us the same idea of a country that a skeleton does of a human figure, or a chalk outline of a landscape in June. A book with this quality in any perfection is as rare as it is delightful, and such a book, we rejoice to say, is the one before us.

Mr. Dwight went abroad with every advantage. He is the son of the late President Dwight-perhaps the only American theologist who has obtained a wide reputation abroad-and, by the law of all foreign society, was entitled, from this circumstance, to a reception which few distinctions attainable by a young American could have won. He was at an age when the equipoise was just settling between the ardor of youth and the judgment of manhood-and of course open to every fine influence, at the same time that he was not liable to be misled by a false enthusiasm ; and his education, as was natural from the singular good sense and practical character of his father, had been far more constant and well directed than is usual in our country. With these advantages, and personal qualities of the most winning character, he could not fail to travel to manifest advantage, and his book is a sufficient evidence of his improvement of it.

We limit ourselves very unwillingly in our extracts. It is difficult to make them at all. Passing over much that is interesting, we select a passage which shows the vein of freshness and familiarity of which we have been speaking.

"I never realized, until after my arrival here, the superior enjoyment of an American to that of a European, when visiting these monuments of a distant age. The latter is familiar with castled scenery from his infancy, their images having been impressed upon his eye, long before he knew by whom they were erected. He first views them as walls of stone, but why they were elevated thus he knows and cares not. He never walks or rides, without seeing them crowning the neighboring hills; and from long familiarity, he in time regards them with as much indifference as the rocks that lie beneath them. Even when more advanced in age, and after he has become acquainted with the history of the Barons who attacked and defended them with so much valor, he finds it difficult to behold them with any romantic feeling. Although his mind may be excited when he reads of their prowess, it is still difficult for him to identify his feelings with objects which have been familiar to him from his earliest recollections. The emotions of an American, however, are of a more vivid kind; in the brightest days of his boyhood, he became familiar with the stories of gallant knights, drawing their swords in defence of helpless beauty; he then dwelt with delight and admiration on the valor of the conqueror, and drew, with the colors of imagination, towers and battlements, until every idea associated with these scenes became dear to his mind. With recollections abounding in legend and chivalry he visits Europe, and beholds those objects which he had so long desired to see, and around which his imagination had so long delighted to rove. He views them not as ruins of what they have been, but he is transported back to the period when they were in their glory. His imagination soon restores the towers and walls which time had levelled, peoples the castle with its chieftain and his band, and stores its saloons with helmets, swords, and bucklers, the trophies of their valor. Such were my own feelings nearly two years since, when first viewing one of these ruins, and notwithstanding I have seen more than two hundred since my arrival, I cannot now look at them without feeling a new impulse given to my blood, when stopping to gaze upon their crumbling walls, or standing on their lofty towers." pp. 16, 17.

"I know of no solitude, excepting the pathless forests of the Western States, that is more powerful on the heart, than that felt by an American, ignorant of the languages of the continent, on his first arrival in a European metropolis. Every house, street, face, the costume of the inhabitants, the geography of the city, in one word, everything, is unlike anything he has seen or heard before. He sallies forth, and no eyes but those of the coachman, shoeblack, or beggar, or some one of the legal or illegal class of pickpockets, regard him. He sees endless currents of bodies moving in a thousand different eddies, hears the rattling of a hundred wheels, mingling with the confused sounds of an unknown language, coming from criers of every age, costume, and deformity. He rambles without any definite object, turns corner after corner without knowing why, loses his way, and then finds that he is too ignorant of the language to ask for it. If he is fortunate enough to recollect the name of his hotel, he stops and looks for a long time at the streams of moving bodies that are rapidly passing by him, to select some one of whom to inquire his way. Having discovered an individual moving less rapidly than most of those in view, he puts on a bold face, and touching his hat as an apology for the interruption, he repeats the name of his hotel. He now finds that he has fallen into a new dilemma, for his pronunciation is so different from that of the native, that the latter does not understand the drift of his inquiry. He makes a reply, but the former is equally in the dark; for he mistakes the 'What did you say?" "I do not understand you, sir," of the former, for a direction. Having met with such indifferent success, he concludes to thank him, and again touching his hat, passes on, with the hope of soon meeting some one, to whom his vernacular is familiar. Keeping his eyes fixed on the moving crowd, he at last selects one who has the look of a student, and puts the same question in his own language. The stranger not understanding him, addresses him with parlez vous Francais; the traveller shakes his head: Sprechen Sie Deutsch; another shake of the head: Parla lei Italiano; the head again moves horizontally. He then asks him what language he does speak; whether he is a Pole, Russian, Spaniard, or Englishman.

The last word brings forth a reply; "I speak English." With a bow he answers, Je not puis pas speak la langue Anglaise, and he proceeds on his course. Resolved to make one more effort, he stops a third time, tries again to repeat the name of his hotel, or commences a language of signs, in which he is equally unsuccessful. Then luckily recollecting that he has a pencil in his pocket, he writes down the name of the hotel, as he thinks it is spelt. Here adapting the orthography to that of his own language, the stranger is equally in the dark. Eventually guessing out his dilemma, he repeats the names of different hotels, until he mentions the one he has so long been searching for. An affirmative nod of the traveller informs him that that is the object of his inquiry. He accordingly tells him by signs and words, to turn down one street, up another, cross a third, and then take the first left hand. Should he not mistake the word left for right, he eventually arrives at the place of his destination; wondering how he could ever have thought of travelling in a foreign country, without having first learned the language, and lamenting ab imo pectore, that the idea of the erection of the tower of Babel ever entered the mind of man." pp. 38, 39.

The book abounds in passages of this description, and a delightful feature it is. We pass over many interesting topics, among which are a valuable account of German libraries, an enthusiastic and tasteful chapter on music, and an account of the university "duello," which has been extensively copied in the daily prints, and come to the following observing comparison of German and French character.

"The Germans are a people of intense feeling; inferior in this respect to no other nation of Europe. But their passion is too profound to be easily agitated by external objects. A high excitement is necessary to affect their hearts, so that the countenance shall become an index of their feelings. This apparent want of susceptibility to all the objects of sense, except music, is visible everywhere. The clergyman, the soldier, the man of fashion, the player, and the mademoiselle, in their manner, motions, mode of utterance and conversation, all remind you that you have passed the Rhine, and have left behind you the land of naïvete. The countenance partakes also of this want of animation. While the face of a Parisian will glow at the description of a new fashion or opera, or of the new carriage of the king, that of a German would be scarcely as animated were he to hear of the revolution of a nation, unless he held a large amount in the public funds. Although the remark may be generally true, that where there is feeling or intellect it will be visible in the countenance, it certainly is not applicable to the Germans. Their faces are the least expressive of any nation in Europe, and even when deeply interested in conversation, their countenances are not indices of their minds or their hearts. A French savant derives many of his thoughts through the medium of external objects. Everything which passes before him is observed; a German lives more in ages which have passed away, or in countries far removed by place and character from his own. The former passes a part of

his time in society, at the theatre, in the public promenades; the latter lives in his closet, in ruminating upon distant ages, or upon the imaginary world which he has created. One, who passes every twelve hours out of twenty-four in tracing ancient and modern languages to their sources, or in studying everything connected with the antiquities, mythology, philosophy, &c. of other nations, will be unfitted to derive much enjoyment from the present, or to add much to the general charms of society. Accordingly, you rarely find the German literati excelling in conversation. In this respect, both themselves and the citizens at large, are inferior to us, and much so to the French. Many of the Parisian bourgeois will converse eloquently on the knot or color of a cravat, will describe in a most graphic manner a lady's dress, or a promenade in the Tuileries or Luxembourg; and while they may not convey one interesting thought, will throw around the description an animation and a sprightliness that will make you listen with pleasure, and with admiration of their colloquial powers. Their countenances in the meantime will display every degree of light and shade, in proportion to the plea

sure or disgust felt in witnessing the objects they describe. To make the picture more distinct, their hands and arms are thrown into a great variety of gestures, of grace and elegance; all of which are like fine accentuation in the mouth of the

orator.

"A German when describing the same objects will often become embarrassed, will place his body in an awkward position, and most of the time will have his eyes on the floor. Before he has finished his description, he will probably make several long pauses in his conversation, and apparently hesitate whether to stop or to proceed. The Parisian is so accustomed to conversation from his childhood, that he does it with the same ease and adroitness as a soldier performs his drill, and so early does he discover that grace is indispensable to his reputation, and indeed to his being endured in society, that it soon becomes a part of his being, and he rarely, if ever, suffers from embarrassment. In truth, awkwardness is almost unknown in France. Even the postillion salutes the peasants and village girls (who stop their labor in the fields or put their heads out of the window, as soon as the crack of his whip announces his approach,) with a touch of his hat a la mode Parissienne, while in the class above him, there is an interchange of as many bows, civilities, and curtesies, as among the highest classes of society in other countries. In France every one is perfectly acquainted with etiquette. In whatever situation a Frenchman is placed, he feels free from embarrassment, and has the full command of all his powers. This perfect self-possession is one of the principal reasons why they excel all other nations in conversation, and why every one of them amuses if he does not interest." pp. 162-164.

We must make a very long extract from Mr. Dwight's account of the professors of the German universities, and the comparison with our own. Humiliating as the comparison is, it is obviously a fair one, and may be useful.

"With us, as in Germany, the professors are chosen for life, but here the resemblance ceases. In the United States we give them a sufficient salary to enable them to live pleasantly; and when once chosen, they realize that their fortune is made, that they have reached the ultimatum of ascent. Here they receive only half a subsistence for themselves and families; and whether they acquire the other half or not depends entirely upon their own efforts. They perfectly understand, that nothing but a reputation for talents and attainments will fill their lecture rooms, and that to acquire this fame the most indefatigable application and industry are necessary. Every department has its four or six professors and teachers, who deliver lectures on subjects so nearly similar that a constant rivalry is produced. For example, to a student pursuing Greek literature, it is of very little importance whether he reads Sophocles or Euripides, but it is very necessary that the professor whose lectures he attends should be thoroughly acquainted with the author he attempts to explain. These gentlemen perfectly understand, as well as the stage and steamboat proprietors of our country, that if they are negligent they will be deserted. This is not a little increased by the division into ordinary and extraordinary professors and teachers. The latter class, who are paid nothing by the government, but are only permitted to deliver lectures, receive a Frederick d'or from each of the pupils, and are almost universally stimulated by necessity. Besides this, they feel all the ardor of youth, and the consequent longing for reputation. To acquire subsistence and fame, they make unwearied exertions. Before them they see the extraordinary professors, whose title in the eyes of the students gives them a prior claim; and to overtake them in the race they strain every nerve. The extraordinary professors see below them a number of young men, putting forth all their energy, while above them they behold the ordinary professors who have reached the highest point of ascent. This class are placed under the influence of two most powerful stimulants, the fear of being overtaken by the teachers, and the desire of surpassing the ordinary professors. The ordinary professors see below them two classes, at different distances, rapidly rising towards them, often almost treading upon their heels, and not unfrequently taking the lead in the number of their auditors, as well as in