Change for the American Notes: in Letters from London to New York

Preface

. Flanders, an English historian has called the battle-field of Europe, whilst the United States of America seem to be particularly regarded by the English as a chosen land, on which author-errants may vent their humours. Nearly all these travelled writers profess a wish to cultivate and improve the good understanding which should prevail between the child and parent countries, and they then, with some honourable exceptions, proceed to shew — strange means to such an end — how rude and perverse is the overgrown baby America, disregardful of parental admonitions, and perseverant with ridiculous obstinacy in thinking, speaking, and acting for herself. It pleases these travellers to declare, on their return to England, that they regard the United States with kindly feelings and gay good-humour.

It may well be so; so much of their evil humour has been packed up, forced into manuscript to appear in print, that it was exhausted in the process : their declarations are as the hum of the insect — their books, its sting.

PREFACE.

. IV However varied the pursuits or vocations of these journeyers — soldiers, sailors, bazaar-keepers, actresses, lecturers, philosophers, gentlemen at large, or authors by profession — very few present one of the attributes of Hamlet, who tells us he "lacked gall;" they write as if only a course of blisters could benefit the consti tution of America — Sangrado's treatment was wiser, for he did not add irritation to nausea. He who runs, we have proverbial authority to believe, may read, whenever the characters are legible enough; some of these gentlemen have shewn that he who runs may write, when the theme is merely the character of America. British travellers perhaps, their transatlantic voyage accomplished, have a foreign, a from-home sort of feeling; and thinking of foreign parts, find the United States like a Greater Britain, and are dissatisfied that it is not as their Britain; the difference in manners, pronunciation, and phraseology, they gravely and sagely censure, precisely as they would provincialisms in their own country, impertinent departures from the London standard, — but America, like France or Germany, is surely entitled to establish a standard of her own.

PREFACE.

. V Were Dutch instead of English the language of the United States, the works of English travellers would be incalculably better — would display more sense and less sneer; for another language would reconcile to these near-sighted observers another state of things, whilst previous study would be necessary — what is necessary now ? Long suffering in sea-sickness sprightily described, considerable railwaying — or, as it is sometimes called, railing — horror of tobacco, awe at Niagara, and lo! an English work upon the United States of North America. It is hoped that the following familiar letters may shew how several of these authors have erred; and that they will, moreover, be found to present a fair, just, and unexaggerated character of the English as they are. That the work will produce any impression upon the English themselves the authoress has not for a moment contemplated; for when it is told of themselves, they are a people singularly unmoved by — the Truth. July, 1843. PAGE 'I 17 28 28 37 45 CONTENTS.

Letter I

Recovery from Illness— Taxes in England— Custom-house — Strangeness a Foreigner seels there — The Thames— General Merits of Mr. Dickens — Particular Exception — American Notes

Letter II

French Fashions in New York and London — Dress of Queen Victoria' — Beauty of English and American Ladies — Well preseved Beauty in England — Opera-Ballets and Red Indian Dances — Regent-street — Rudeness to Ladies — Contrast to American Manners — Solar Notes

Letter VII

A London Stroll — Mr. Dickens's good Fortune in Pigs— London Streets and Peculiarities— St. Paul's — Hardness of Allegory in the Marble Monuments — Religio Loci — Bank of England — Richand Rude— Goldand Opium— The Tower— Harlequinade of Streets — Thames Tunnel — Presumptuous Undertaking ...

Letter VIII

English Ignorance about America — Un-reading but Practical Men — Impartiality of English Ignorance — Disregard of Antiquities or Sacred Places — A Fire — Pastoral Incendiarism

Letter IX

Westminster Abbey — Not safe to admit the Public — Monuments and Tombs — Westminster Hall — Houses of Parliament — Members — Monomania — George III. and Johnson — Bleatings in the House of Commons — Pompey the Negro ...

Letter X

London and American Dirt — Chairs — Dinner Parties — Music- Aristocratic Literature — Young Ladies — Much in Manner — Superficial Knowledge — Clubs — Frolics of Aristocracy — Fire Grates — What a Guy!

Letter XI

Short Speech of the English — Surprising Ignorance in England — Apathy of the Rich — Beau Ideal of an English Traveller in the United States — English have Little Love for their Country. — Made Tussaud s Waxworks — Heroes — Murderers, Wholesale and Retail ...

Letter XII

Mrs. Trollope — What's in a Name? — New Poor Law — Rich English careless about the Poor — Expediency — Steam to Richmond — Banks of the Thames westward — Richmond Hill and Church — Omnibuses — Cheap Discomfort — Snuff

Letter XIII

"Respectable" versus "Smart" — English Domestic Servants — Elisha— Sumptuary Law among Servants — Kathleen O'Reilly —The Tally— " An Old Tale and often told." CONTENTS. IX PAGE 126 136 146 157 169 180

Letter XIV

Dress-makers — Exeter-Hall Oratory — Evils inflicted on Dress-makers unredressed, the Wrong being only in London — Otherwise if a distant City — Lowell Offering — Americans " Know not Seems" — Prevalent Vulgarism — Mr. W. C. ...

Letter XV

Churchyards — Horrors of City Sepulture — Village Churchyards — Flower-garden Cemeteries — Kensal Green — Mr. Morison — Quackery — Abney Park — India House — Treaties of Cession from Hindoos and other Orientals — Worship of Juggernaut and Gates of Somnauth to be conducive to Christianity in the East — London Citizens — Easily distinguishable — Speculation in their Eyes — Quakers — Jews

Letter XVI

Queen's Drawing-room — Procession — Footmen — A Tuft-hunter — The Poor — English and Roman Benevolence — Illuminations — Street Crowds and Badinage — Bridges — Banks of the Thames eastward — Greenwich — Painted-hall — Chapel — Cost of the Embellishments dwelt upon — So very English — Instance of Gallantry ...

Letter XVII

Phrenology — Anecdote — British Museum — Vastness — Erudition of some of the Visitors — National Gallery — Royal Academy — The Exhibition — Portraits — Advertisements — Dulwich — The Polytechnic Exhibition

Letter XVIII

Rain — Advertisements on Wheels — Puffs and Sandwiches — Boz keeps himself very close — Boz an Antagonist of the Pretending — Faultlessness of Money — Omnibuses — Provisions for Christmas Enjoyment — Boxing-day — May Sports — Streets at Night

Letter XIX

London Sights — The Colosseum — Panorama of London — New Squares and Streets — A City of Opulence — " Distance lends Enchantment to the View " — Zoological Gardens — Raising of a Water-rat — Public Gardens ... X CONTENTS.

Letter XX. Page

Mr. W. C— Oysters and Wickedness— Public Statues — There 's Honour for You!— Soot usurping the Divinity that should hedge a King — the Monument — Modern Eastcheap — Goldsmith's Hall— Post Office— Penny-postage Boon — Lion-hunting 192

Letter XXI

Palaces — Twickenham — Pope's Grotto— Among Things that were — Strawberry-hill — Hampton-court Palace — Cartoons and Paintings — Cardinal Wolsey — Mr. Charles Kean — Monmouth -street — Foreigners — Unrazored — Cowper — Bazaars — Much-offending Cincinnati — The English "Impossible" ... 201

Letter XXII

Washington and Jack the Giant Killer — Early Rising — A favourite Precept — The late Duke of Sussex — The Lying-in-state — The Crowd — Their Remarks — The Funeral — Royalty — Chronicle of Royal Drivings and Dinings — Meagre and •Unsatisfactory ... ... ... ... ... 212

Letter XXIII

Slavery — Police Station-house — Officer — Severe and Stern to view — Irish Oratory — Aldermen — Small Legislation — Beggars — Hospitals — Exeter-hall Oratory ... ... ... 221

Letter XXIV

Behaviour in American and English Theatres — London Audiences little Intelligent — Opera — Its Absurdity — Heroine Swan-like in her Death — Injudicious Applause — Improvement in the Drama — The Ballet — A coarse Taste — Singing — Wild Beasts — Private Theatricals ... ... ... ... 232

Letter XXV

Southampton — English Jocularity — The next best Thing Abbeys — Isle of Wight — Charles the First — Pier Dues Smuggling — Portsmouth — The Victory — Nelson — Jersey becoming a London Suburb — American, and English Steamers CONTENTS. XI PACE 257 269 279 29J 303 813 323

Letter XXVI

The Duke — Lablachc — Extremes meet — St. James's Park — Duke of York's Column — Hyde Park — Achilles — Fame and its Moral — Kensington Gardens — Regent's Park — "Dagger of Lath" — Flute-playing — Coleridge — Opium-eating — Mrs. Dwyer

Letter XXX

Wight' v. 'White' Horse — English Journals — Independent — Irish Reporters quick witted — Lord Canterbury — Metaphysics of Dancing — Mad1-' Cerito points a Moral — Opera Uproars — Party Politics — Ireland — A Pauper Funeral — Income-Tax — Cases of peculiar Hardship — Elisha

Letter XXXI

Boundary Question — Advantages of Settlement — A Proof before Letters — Epsom and the Derby-day — Vehicular Chain— The Race-ground — The Race — Race Horses — The Turf — Bays and Greys — Return — Vulgarism — Police — Magazines and Reviews

Letter XXXII

Suicides — Education — Stables and Schools — Bishop of Manchester—Strange Puzzlement— Indians— Ingenuity in Ignorance Mr. Alison — Four Frigates against Two Thousand Ships American Boastfulness — English Inquiries CONTENTS.

Letter XXXIII

tace Funerals — Professors of Tears — A Black Coachman — Irish 'Wakes' — 'The Scream of the Morning' — New England Towns — Newness — Mr. Dickens — New York — ' Uncreditable' Statement — Mr. Guy — Yorkshire — Ruin of England — Ruined Cities of America — Chinese Exhibition — ' Literary Gentlemen in their Summer Costumes' — Penny-a-liners — China — A Fit of ' Abstraction ' ... ... ... ... ... 335

Letter XXXIV

Cries of London — Sound — Aristocracy- — Gluttony — "Repudiation" — Bank of England — Bad Example badly followed — Standing Army — Ireland — United States a Great Barrack — — Military Despotism — Art- Unions — Prince Albert — Sir Robert Peel in Fetters — Houses in America ... ... 346

Letter XXXV

Poverty of Street-Nomenclature — English Climate — Fire-flies and Mosquitoes — Fox-hunting — Playing at Deer-hunts — Animal Magnetism — Slavery — Mrs. Trollope — Ignorance — Precedent — Sandwich Islands — Democracy of the Anglo- Indian Government ... ... ... ... ... 356

Letter XXXVI

Gaming-houses — Personal Character of the Sovereign — Royal Dinner — Table Etiquette — Temperance Societies — Modern Works — Pyramids — A Soiree — A Shadow — Macaulay's "Lays" — Wealth Worship ... ... ... ... 367

Letter XXXVII

Law — Delays — English Characteristics— Charity — Education — Unamiability — Ruin — Foreign Grievances — Refinement — Ladies of England — Conclusion ... ... ...379 AN AMERICAN LADY.

Letter I. Recovery From Illness Taxes In England Custom-house Strangeness

A FOREIGNER FEELS THERE THE THAMES GENERAL MERITS OF MR. DICKENS PARTICULAR EXCEPTION AMERICAN NOTES. MRS. TO MISS , NEW YORK. Dearest Julia, London, 1843. How wearisome is a slow recovery from illness in the heart of a mighty city, and that when you are widowed and alone; how loudly do clattering carriages and countless noises tell of boisterous and unsympa thising health without, and what a petty unit one feels within. Do you not think it is this sensation of un aided loneliness that makes so many of our sex (I may admit it to you) feel or consider spinsterhood and wretchedness inseparable? Better social penury than solitary enjoyment;— better "the poor creature small beer," with the flavour of a family about it, than imperial Tokay sipped from an unmated glass — " selfis love and social" in this sense bear out the poet's axiom, and are, indeed, " the same."

My former letters were so very domestic and personal that they might have been written from Boston as well as from London. I promised when I had leisure — and my illness gave me ample leisure to read as it does now to write — I promised to tell you of London, and how it differed from New York; and of its people, and its ways, and its Boz — the last who has treated of America, though very far from the least. I prescribe to myself a course of letters to you — to home, with its old familiar faces, as better than the hieroglyphic scribblings of my kind and skilful physician Dr. C. Here is dose — I trust not doze — the first. My stay in this country (may all good angels be praised!) must be nearly completed, for so is the business which could not be transacted with less than my personal attendance.

How important I ought to feel. I was transatlantically wanted ! Heigho ! — But I can bear witness to " the law's delay," as well as to its uncertainty. I am now, however, to tell all I have seen and thought. Patiently and perseveringly have my eyes and my memory paid the many taxes imposed upon them : in New York I might claim some little merit for this; but hardly in London, where taxes are too common to claim praise for payment, however punctual or distressing — where heaven's light is apportioned through taxed windows, and earth's dust on taxed roads — the blood royal and the smuggler bold seem the only parties claiming any right of exemption. LAHY. I told you previously how I suffered during that series of storms, our voyage. Thank God, we found " the good ship tight and free." How I survived I know not; deplorably indeed did I " suffer a sea change," but not like Ferdinand's father, " Into something rich and strange;" and when I arrived at the Custom-house, which abuts upon the noble river Thames (to speak after the manner of Englishmen), my sea-sickness was superseded by a nausea and disgust of a perfectly terrestrial nature.

Mr. Dickens extols the arrangements of the Custom house at Boston, and points it out as an example to his own country. Well he may! My earliest impres sion upon touching land was that civility and the customs of England were incompatible. Such system in their surliness; it must have cost great pains to have forced it to its present perfection, and severe drilling to maintain it there, — to prevent its degenerating into ordinary humanity. I complained, truly enough I am sure, that I was suffering from exhaustion, and especially needed one small packet without delay as it contained medicine. I was told to wait. I inquired how long, and the officer paused and told me — to wait! Our republican ears have been somewhat startled to hear of even Dr. Johnson murmuring that he was compelled to wait in the ante-chamber of a lord.

If a foreigner visit England to court the great; to dance untiring attendance upon the wealthy, the Custom house affords him fine probationary practice. I wonder what the gentlemen who sit at the receipt of customs are in their own homes. Do they " wear sweet smiles and look erect on heaven," and break soft bread like other men; or do they stick with official-like pertinacity to crusts? Do they marry out of their own people? What are their amusements, their pursuits, their dreams? More especially, are they humanised o' Sundays? A history of the domestic habits of a customs' officer could not but be curious. Mr. Mortimer told me they meant to be civil — this moroseness was only in their manner — " pretty Fanny's way." Coarseness is a bully's way, and who regards his intentions? Neither are the British very ready to excuse what they call rudeness among us, no matter how it is meant.

If these people really do intend good manners, what a contribution must they daily offer to a pavement which I need not particularise. In very few of the public departments of this country, as far as I have seen, can you find perfect civility— the nearest approach is but an absence of incivility — an avoidance of actual rudeness — individual instances prove nothing. I have not yet got over my feeling of the smallness of the river. I have even seen " old Father Thames advance his reverend head," and flood the streets along his banks, and have smiled to think this was the father of English rivers ! Could these vaunting Cockneys see the Father of American rivers, what a puny offspring would their Thames appear — a mere boy-river — a thing for painted barges and tiny steamers and show-brid°-es having the honours of a tide and a Lord Mayor's conservancy some few miles above London, and widen ing to a respectable wateriness only as it nears the sea.

You have often accused me of a grievous want of nationality. Do I not give you a proper specimen here, how " we Americans" can vaunt — sometimes. Like you, dear Julia, I was all impatience to peruse the work of the most popular of English writers on America. It was not difficult to foretel that the pub licity of his movements — the newspaper proclamations that Mr. Dickens honoured the poor distant republic with his presence — must have prevented his gazing through an unmisted eye-glass. I hope it is not unfair to presume that he may aid his vision by artificial means, for as most of his young countrymen are, or affect to be near-sighted, why not he? "Assume a virtue if you have it not," said the hapless prince who was "wise in vain;" aud to be near-sighted in their views must be esteemed a virtue among Englishmen, or why should so many of the young and the healthy refuse to look at things with their own eyes?

The Americans were prepared for Mr. Dickens, and society was under some restraint; it could not be other wise. What would be the behaviour of any circle in any part of the three kingdoms (why don't they call them queendoms now ? ) if they were avized that a chiel was " amang them takin' notes, And faith, he'd prent it," and notes too for general circulation? Keener optics than even those of Boz would be futile to discern the reality through the haze of make-believe. Do not suppose that I am slow to acknowledge the great merits of Boz — the lion par excellence of his day. I have not to be informed of his originality — of his opening and working a new vein in his land's literature. One feels better after reading his books — better after the humour of his Wellers — the amenity of his Pick wick (how he ripens from an essayist upon tittlebats into the kindly gentleman) — one's heart warms to poor Oliver Twist — one's indignation rises against Ralph Nickleby — one's disgust at the Squeers's, and one's gorge at Pecksniff.

But (these buts!) if he be creative as a novelist, he is most meagre as a traveller; our country was beyond his powers, and indeed is beyond the four months' power of any man. " In America," says Dr. Johnson — truly I doubt not for it was in 1762— "there is little to be observed except natural curiosities." Very opposite seems to be Mr. Dickens's conclusion, for of the great face of nature he says hardly anything. The noblest rivers in the world rolled for him unregarded by, or at least unparagraphed. In the Missis sippi he beholds but a muddy stream flo*wing through a woody wilderness; his mind's eye catches no prescient glimpse of the cities that in the fulness of time will adorn its banks; he alludes not to the "all hail, here after ! " He is diffuse upon prisons and madhouses for they were immediately within his ken; brief when he tells of senates, laws, religions, literature, or science • things that have prospective influences, and are not merely of the moment.

He is at home among the vulgarisms and provincialisms we have derived, almost entirely, from the old country — he is not at home in our colleges and schools. He says little upon great things, and much upon little things; looks not through parts to the whole, but regards trifling parts for their own trifling sake. He notices the small rust-spots on the bright steel, but says little of the excellence — the temper of the blade. So completely is this the case, that one might apply to him a similitude of Goldsmith, and instead of " an eagle," speak of a lion " catching flies" — some of them may prove mosquitoes. He ought most assuredly to have published his work as by Samuel Weller, jun., it would then have been admirably in keeping. But enough of Mr. Dickens for the present. I really must methodise the plan of my letters, and let you see I write of London as well as from it.

Some one has applied a line of Pope to an ingenious piece of vegetable intricacy at Hampton Court — " a mighty maze, but not without apian." I think the line is very applicable to the Modern Babylon, and I must think of it, and write more "by the card" and the plan, and less after the manner of the maze; but in truth, I know not where to begin, I am distracted just as strangers are at the very-much-omnibused White Horse Cellar (I can see it from my windows in Piccadilly) by the conflicting shouts of the coachmen and conductors and amateurconductors of the host of vehicles — "Richmond, sir?" "Kew, ma'am?" "Hammersmith?" "Brentford?" "Twit'nam?" "Bow?" "Mile-end?" "City, City?" "Bank, Bank, Bank?" Of which of these places or themes shall I epistolise first ? Well, they are all before me where to choose.

Adieu for a while. What un tiring fingers and unsleeping eyes the young lady journalists of Richardson or Miss Burney must have had! I envy them, and wish I could be with you again without being rocked " in cradle of the rude imperious surge " of that great, great sea. Ever dearest Julia, etc. etc.

Letter II. French Fashions In New York And London Dress Of Queen

VICTORIA BEAUTY OF ENGLISH AND AMERICAN LADIES WELL PRESERVED BEAUTY IN ENGLAND OPERA-BALLETS AND RED INDIAN DANCES REGENT-STREET RUDENESS TO LADIES CONTRAST TO AMERICAN MANNERS SOLAR NOTES. My dearest Julia, London, 1843. Madame D. has just sent home my new bonnet — it is perfection. Depend upon it, the French are the only people who thoroughly understand the science of dress, that is ladies' dress, and science as distinguished from quackery; the leaders of the modes in Paris have graduated in a college of good taste. I do not scruple to assert that in the French fashions we are in advance of the ladies of London. I do not know whether this be or be not owing to a certain class here setting or attempting to set a fashion of their own (fair usurpers in the domains of lace, ribbon, and satin), but I am satisfied it is so.

I have heard English ladies, and not unfrequently, pronounce their fair young Queen's shawl or bonnet unfashionable; so you see fashion is not strictly monarchical, nor does she play such fantastic tricks in Queen Victoria's court as elsewhere. I have b2 seen Her Majesty realize the description of a fair lady of old— " And then her dress — what beautiful simplicity Draperied her form with curious felicity:" You inquire if the British ladies are prettier than those in a younger world, and truly Miss Julia, it is a very comprehensive question. Into how many heads ought I to divide it? How much paper, postage, and time, ought to be expended in a due response? It requires no eye-glass to perceive that many, very many, beautiful women brighten the circles of London society; but — but — how shall I tell it?

I will shelter myself, I think, under a noun of number; but — a host of travellers con cur in paying homage to the superiority of the female loveliness of America. Is it for me to gainsay them all? Do you New York ladies feel at all propitiated that Boz (a very handsome man himself) describes you as "singularly beautiful," and so you are. Neither does Boz aver, as others (rude critics that they are!) have done before him, that American beauty soon fades — " If all that's bright must fade, The brightest still the fleetest," you, my love, will look quite old at twenty-five. I do not think any particular style of beauty predominates here more than with us — blondes and brunettes are not unfrequently seen in the same family, just as we had different-tinted roses on the same stem in that dear garden by. the Hudson.

I know two sisters who both wear the hair a la reine, but with this difference; that the fair brow of one is shaded with auburn, the other with raven, both of the softest, silkiest texture. The English ladies certainly resemble some kinds of old lace — they wear well — passing well. Very beautiful are very many ladies of now imagine any envious term of years you think should, or rather will, fling beauty into the sere and yellow leaf, into the grey and falling hair. We need not inquire what sums are paid to the ingenious artists (really «r/-ists) who supply the complexional roses of both York and Lancaster; we need not more than allude to closetings with modistes, and as to a perruquier — 0, name not his name. Let us rest satisfied with the pleasing effect, nor pry too closely into the cause — "T'were to consider too curiously to consider thus."

The most remarkable display of beauty is perhaps to be seen at the Opera-house — Her Majesty's Theatre — it is really tiered with loveliness, with unadorned as well as jewelled beauty. The Queen, who is said to be a proficient in music as well as to be very fond of it, frequently attends. I may tell you afterwards of operas and theatres, but I must make one remark here; that my first beholding a ballet convinced me how extremes meet. The dances of our red Indians, the delight of savage man, saving that their dances are always modest, are not far removed from the wild graces, the flexibility of limb and gesture of the EUslers and the Ceritos — and gentlemen and old gentlemen, quoted as among the most civilised, nay polished, of Europe s sons, regard these agile danseuses as creatures of rare merit.

It may be that grace is in all their steps; but commend me to the untaught motion of the child of the forest. Some one said of some great orator, (Demosthenes, was it not?) that his speeches smelt of the lamp; and so, literally and figuratively, do the movements of these tolerably well paid operatic pro fessors. The Opera-house occupies the corner of the Hay market and Pall Mall: it is a very large handsome structure, and shopped in its colonnades and arcades. A little beyond the top of the Haymarket (where every thing is sold but hay) is Regent-street ; a long, spacious and rather winding street, the architectural boast of Western London; very fine in parts, and very startling too, but all stucco, stucco, stucco ! What a city would London have been, had it been neighboured by quarries of freestone and marble.

A little higher than the part where Piccadilly intersects it, commences the Quadrant of Regent-street — this is a covered colonnade — "from storms a shelter, and from heat a shade;" the support ing pillars are placed at regular intervals at the edge of a wide trottoir; the effect is the same as that produced by the successive awnings in Broadway; the appearance much finer. The architecture of Regent-street is not illiberally confined to any style or sect. Mr. Nash, the architect, was no professional bigot, his ideal of excel lence was the taste of George the Fourth, and he mi°-ht have had a far worse guide. " Never once," says Mr. Dickens of America, " did I see a woman exposed to the slightest act of rudeness, in civility, or even inattention." I cannot echo this praise of England. Some one has said that half the mistakes in the world arise from " taking for granted."

I made the mistake of taking for granted that forbearance, to say the least, where ladies were concerned, would be as common in the streets of London as in any American city. I was soon undeceived; for when I first walked along Regent-street, and some of the streets adjoin ing it, I was annoyed beyond a pen's telling, by glance after glance poked under my bonnet. I felt wearied, worried, and afraid; that vague kind of fear so wretch edly depressing; — a lady does not know what it is exactly she has to apprehend, and so dreads every thing. When afterwards I complained, Mr. Mortimer accounted for the persecution I suffered by saying these inquisi tive persons were not gentlemen — gentlemen must be scarce in those parts then. This happened too when I was new to London and its rudeness, and when my principal feeling in the mighty maze was bewilderment — a dependence upon others, and even upon strangers, sufficiently galling.

It was long before I liked to venture abroad, even a street or two off, unescorted, and when I had hired by the month a plain two-horse chariot and coachman (plain also), which here they call, and not inaptly, a job, and was conveyed any distance, I felt an ignorance of my whereabout that would have done honour LETTERS FROiM to an infant; "east or west, where'er I turned," were the endless streets, and squares, and places, and rows, and terraces! I did at last obtain a tolerable know ledge of localities ; but really my ignorance for a month or two was as dense as that of Mr. Dickens of the Western States he was about to visit. " He looked" (unsophisticated Boz) " for two evenings at the setting sun," but apparently derived no ray of intelligence from the gorgeous luminary; for he — and I fear he is ungallant enough to include Mrs. Dickens — he, or rather " we, had as well defined an idea of the country before us as if we had been going to travel into the very centre of that planet."