صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

controlled by Nicholas Vedder, a patriarch of the village, and landlord of the inn, at the door of which he took his seat from morning till night, just moving sufficiently to avoid the sun, and keep in the shade of a large tree; so that the neighbours could tell the hour by his movements as accurately as by a sun-dial. It is true, he was rarely heard to speak, but smoked his pipe incessantly. His ad. herents, however, (for every great man has his adherents,) perfectly understood him, and knew how to gather his opinions. When any thing that was read or related displeased him, he was observed to smoke his pipe vehemently, and send forth short, frequent, and angry puffs ; but when pleased, he would inhale the smoke slowly and tranquilly, and emit it in light and placid clouds, and sometimes, taking the pipe from his mouth, and letting the fragrant vapour curl about his nose, would gravely nod his head in token of perfect approbation.'

What follows is entertaining enough ; but one would have thought that the observant Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. might, with Europe fresh before bim, have found other matter wherewith to fill his Sketch Book.

In the Second Number, however, we find more of what we expect from a traveller, under the titles of Eoglish Writers on • America, and · Rural Life in England.'

In reference to the first of these subjects, the Author says

• It is with feelings of deep regret that I have noticed 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 know. ledge; and so successful have they been, that notwithstanding the constant intercourse between the nations, there is none concerning which the great mass of the British people have less pure information, or more prejudices...... It has been the peculiar lot of our country, to be visited by the worst kind of English travellers. While men of philosophical spirit and cultivated minds, have been envoys from England to ransack the poles, to penetrate the deserts, and to study the manners and customs of barbarous nations, with which she can have no permanent intercourse of profit or pleasure ; it is left to the broken down tradesman, the schening adventurer, the wandering mechanic, the Manchester and Birmingham agent, to be her oracles respecting America to treat of a country in a singular state of moral and physical development; where one of the greatest political experiments in the history of the word is now performing, and which presents the most profound and momentous studies for the statesman and the philosopher.'

The Author goes on to state several causes to wbich may be attributed the unfairness of the reports relative to the States which are current in England, and then adds

• One would suppose, however, that information coming from such

sources, on a subject where the truth is so desirable, would be received with caution by the censors of the press; that the motives of these men, their veracity, their opportunities of inquiry and observation, and their capacities for judging correctly, would be rigorously scrutinized, before their evidence was admitted, in such sweeping extent, against a kindred nation. The very reverse, however, is the case, and it furnishes a striking instance of human inconsistency. Nothing can surpass the vigilance with which English critics will test the credibility of the traveller who publishes an account of somə distant, and comparatively unimportant country. How warily will they compare the measurements of a pyramid or the descriptions of a rúin, and how sternly will they censure any discrepancy in these contributions of merely curious knowledge; while they 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, what is worse, they will make these apocryphal volumes text books, on which to enlarge, with a zeal and an ability worthy of a more generous cause.'

Viewed as an expression of American feeling on a subject doubtless of some importance, we feel disposed to continue our quotations; especially as the publication before us may not itself fall into the hands of our readers. Some of the Author's remarks are well worthy of attention. He proceeds to expostulate with his countrymen.

• 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 disgrace established. For ourselves, therefore, it is comparatively of little importance whether England do us justice or not: it is, perhaps, of far more importance to herself. She is in. stilling anger and resentment into the bosom of a youthful nation, to grow with its growth, and strengthen with its strength. If in America, as some of her writers are labouring to convince her, she is hereafter to find an invidious rival and a gigantic foe, she may thank those very writers for having provoked that rivalship, and irritated that hostility. Every one knows the all-pervading influence of literature at the present day, and how completely the opinions and passions of mankind are under its control. The mere contests of the sword are temporary; their wounds are but in the flesh, and it is the pride of the generous to forgive and forget them: but the slanders of the pen pierce to the heart; they rankle most sorely and permadently in the noblest spirits ; they dwell ever present in the mind, and make it morbidly sensitive so the most trifling collision. It is not so much any one overt act that produces hostilities between two nations ; there exists, most commonly, a previous jealousy and ill will, a pre

[ocr errors]

disposition to take offence. Trace these to their cause, and how often will they be found to originate in the mischievous effusions of writers who, secure in their closets, and for ignominious bread, concoct and circulate the venom that is to inflame the generous and the 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 published in England on the subject of our country, that does not circulate through every part of it. There is not a calumny drops from an English pen, nor an uns worthy sarcasm uttered by an English statesman, that does not go to blight good will, and add to the mass of latent resentment. Possessing, then, as England does, the fountain head from whence the literature of the language flows, how completely is it in her power, and how truly is it her duty, to make it the medium of amiable and magnanimous feeling- stream where the two nations might meet together, and drink in peace and kindness. Should she, however, persist in turning it to waters of bitterness, the time may come when she may repent her folly. The present friendship of America may be of but little moment to her, but the future destinies of that country do not admit of a doubt :-over those of England there lour some shadows of uucertainty. Should, then, a day of gloom arrive, should those reverses overtake her, from which the proudest empires have not been exempt, she may look back with regret at her infatuation, in repulsing from her side a nation she might have grappled to her bosom, and thus destroying her only chance for real friendship beyond the boundaries of her own dominions.'

The Author refers to the idea prevailing in England, that the people of the United States are inimical to the parent country. It is, he says, one of the errors that bave been diligently propagated by designing writers. Though the illiberality of the English Press may have excited hostile feelings, 'the prepos• sessions of the people are strongly in favour of England.' And he concludes by exhorting American writers to restrain the • spirit of retaliation’; especially as to petty interests can be served by its indulgence—and because

• Our retorts are never republished in England, and fall short, therefore, of their aim; but they foster a querulous and peevish temper among our writers; they sour the sweet flow of our early literature, and sow thorns and brambles among its blossoms.'

It must be granted, that the people of the United States have been represented to us, of late, by travelers of an inferior class, men either of little education or degraded character, or who were raving under the half-insanity of some political infatuation. It is certain also, that these representations, or misrepresentations, have been invited, exaggerated, and promulgated, with more industry than conscience, and that they bave been received, we might say devoured among us, with that sort of indiscriminate readiness which betrays the influence both of sordid fear and malignant agitation in the public mind.

We cannot but thiok, for instance, that in a better and calmer condition of the public judgement, a much less eager and unquestioning hearing would have been given to the reports of a recent traveller in the United States, who, by his owo account of himself

, evidently went out perverted and inflated with theories, and who returned in ill temper with facts. A man who has been puffed across the Atlantic in a balloon, and having had the silken bubble pricked, and the ill flavoured and inflammatory gas exhaled, comes trailing back, battered and rag ged, in the boat, is not the calm observer to whom we shall listen with deep regard. Wild speculations may have been dissipated, absurd anticipations disappointed, the bilious mislikings may bave changed their ohjects, and so far, the individual may deserve to be congratulated by his friends on occasion of his happy restoration to common sense; but in all this the public have little concern. We want not to listen to tales of extraordinary cures in desperate cases, while seeking authentic information relative to important facts. It is not enough that a traveller comes home with a sane mind; lie merits little regard unless it be apparent that he set out with a sane mind. We want neither city declaimers, nor recluse illuminati, to give us their reports of a people's moral and political condition. This very difficult task can be competently performed only by that class of men, who, as the Writer before us justly observes, have hitherto not been tempted to cross the Atlantic, --men, not merely of comprehensive minds, and endowed with the talent of observation, but who, by their superior education, their good taste, their babits, and their rank in society at home, are likely to be free from vulgarities of opinion and the temptations of temper.

We have no doubt whatever of Mr. Fearon's veracity, using the term in its strict sense; but, at the same time, we rely so far upon our own sources of information as to believe, that his reports of some not unimportant matters of fact, are as keedlessly given as is compatible with bis character for veracity. But our business is not now with Mr. Fearon : his book has afforded some valuable information, much entertainment, and much food to party and national prejudice. It will sink, however, upon the well-forgotten heap, towards whicha which every thing gravitates that is not sustained by sound and liberal sentiment, and well instructed and enlarged thinking.

We profess not to have the means of judging competently, how far from sober truth, passion, prejudice, and state policy bave betrayed opinions in tbis country, relative to the character, disposition, and condition of the people of the United States;

but this we may certainly say, that the sources of this opinion, bear upon them almost all the marks that can entitle them to suspicion.

Art. VI. Picturesque Views of the Antiquities of Pola, in Istria. By Thomas Allason, Architect. Royal Folio. pp. 89. Price 31.10s.

1819.

THE

HE portion of Roman antiquities remaining on the western border of the Adriatic, or Gulf of Venice, will now have had, we think, nearly their share of the attention of the travellers in quest of the picturesque. There was Adams's "Views of the Ruins of the Palace of Diocletian," at Spalatro, in Dalmatia; a respectable work for a time when the graphic arts in this country, with the exception of some two or three superior hands, were so very remote from the perfection they have latterly attained. Nearly at the same period, Stuart and Revett, the authors of the work on Athens, made drawings of the antiquities of Pola, in Istria, which, after lying in reserve about two thirds of a century, were published three or four years since, as part of a fourth, and perhaps somewhat superfluous volume of that work.-Towards twenty years since, there was published in Paris, Voyage Pittoresque et Historique de Istrie et de la Dalmatie, for which the numerous drawings were supplied by Cassas, while Lavallée reduced to an authorlike form the Artist's itinerary and observations, and composed a long introductory historical and descriptive account of those regions, in which, as also in the observations and statements introduced into the itinerary, very large use was made of the Abbé Fortis's very authentic and laborious, if not very lively, book of Travels into Dalmatia, And now, last, there are Mr. Allason's views and descriptions of the antiquities of Pola.

In his preface he mentions that, in drawing, on the spot, these splendid remains, he had no intention beyond his own professional improvement, presuming that there must be already in existence such delineations of them as to render any further illustration unnecessary to the admirers of antiquity and fine arts. On his return, however, from visiting the most 'celebrated remains of Italy and Greece,' he was disappointed to find no adequate representations of those of Pola, in any views which had been published; and he trusts it will not be overrating his own performances, to offer them as more worthy of the subjects. The sentence of insufficiency and inaccuracy, is pronounced pointedly on the plates from the drawings by Stuart.

• His views of most of the buildings by no means convey adequate ideas of their taste, simplicity, and elegance. This remark extends, in a great measure, to all the views from the pencil of Stuart, but

« السابقةمتابعة »