Mr. Paulding is a popular writer of novels; some of his productions have been recently republished in England.  Miss Sedgwick is also well known among us; her “Hope Leslie” is a beautiful story.  Mr. Washington Irving and Mr. Cooper have so decidedly chosen another field, whereon to reap their laurels, that it is hardly necessary to name them here.

I am not, of course, competent to form any opinion of their scientific works; but some papers which I read almost accidentally, appeared to me to be written with great clearness, and neatness of definition.

It appears extraordinary that a people who loudly declare their respect for science, should be entirely without observatories.  Neither at their seats of learning, nor in their cities, does any thing of the kind exist; nor did I in any direction hear of individuals, given to the study of astronomy.

I had not the pleasure of making any acquaintance with Mr. Bowditch, of Boston, but I know that this gentleman ranks very high as a mathematician in the estimation of the scientific world of Europe.

Jefferson’s posthumous works were very generally circulated whilst I was in America.  They are a mighty mass of mischief.  He wrote with more perspicuity than he thought, and his hot-headed democracy has done a fearful injury to his country.  Hollow and unsound as his doctrines are, they are but too palatable to a people, each individual of whom would rather derive his importance from believing that none are above him, than from the consciousness that in his station he makes part of a noble whole.  The social system of Mr. Jefferson, if carried into effect, would make of mankind an unamalgamated mass of grating atoms, where the darling “I’m as good as you,” would soon take place of the law and the Gospel.  As it is, his principles, though happily not fully put in action, have yet produced most lamentable results.  The assumption of equality, however empty, is sufficient to tincture the manners of the poor with brutal insolence, and subjects the rich to the paltry expediency of sanctioning the falsehood, however deep their conviction that it is such.  It cannot, I think, be denied that the great men of America attain to power and to fame, by eternally uttering what they know to be untrue.  American citizens are not equal.  Did Washington feel them to be so, when his word outweighed (so happily for them) the votes of thousands?  Did Franklin think that all were equal when he shouldered his way from the printing press to the cabinet?  True, he looked back in high good humour, and with his kindest smile told the poor devils whom he left behind, that they were all his equals; but Franklin did not speak the truth, and he knew it.  The great, the immortal Jefferson himself, he who when past the three score years and ten, still taught young females to obey his nod, and so became the father of unnumbered generations of groaning slaves, what was his matin and his vesper hymn?  “All men are born free and equal.”  Did the venerable father of the gang believe it?  Or did he too purchase his immortality by a lie?