One work which I got hold of, called Northwood, amused me much:  I there found the Englishman living under a belief that the Americans were little better than savages and Pagans, and quite overcome at the extraordinary scene of a household meeting together for domestic worship, which of course was never heard of in England.  This little scene affords a charming opportunity for “buttering up” New England piety at the cheap expense of a libel upon the old country.  He then is taken to hear a sermon, where for his special benefit, I suppose, the preacher expatiates on the glorious field of Bunker’s Hill, foretells England’s decline, and generously promises our countrymen a home in America when they are quite “used up.”  The Englishman is quite overcome with the eloquence and sympathy of the Church militant preacher, whose discourse being composed by the authoress, I may fairly conclude is given as a model of New England oratory in her estimation.  Justice requires I should add, that the sermons I heard during my stay in those States were on religious topics, and not on revolutionary war.

Perhaps it may be said that Northwood was written some years ago, I will therefore pass from it to what at the present day appears to be considered a chef d’oeuvre among the popular style of works of which I have been speaking.  I ground my opinion of the high estimation in which it is held from the flattering encomiums passed upon it by the Press throughout the whole Republic from Boston to New Orleans.  Boston styles it a “vigorous volume;" Philadelphia, a “delightful treat;" New York, “interesting and instructive;" Albany admires the Author’s “keen discriminating powers;" Detroit, “a lively and racy style;” The Christian Advocate styles it “a skinning operation" and then adds, it is a “retort courteous" to Uncle Tommyism; Rochester honours the author with the appellation of “the most chivalrous American that ever crossed the Atlantic." New Orleans winds up a long paragraph with the following magnificent burst of editorial eloquence:—­“The work is essentially American.  It is the type, the representative, THE AGGREGATE OUTBURST OF THE GREAT AMERICAN HEART, so well expressed, so admirably revealing the sentiment of our whole people—­with the exception of some puling lovers he speaks of-—­that it will find sympathy in the mind of every true son of the soil." The work thus heralded over the Republic with such perfect e pluribus unum concord is entitled English Items; and the embodiment of the “aggregate outburst of the great American heart" is a Mr. Matthew F. Ward, whose work is sent forth to the public from one of the most respectable publishers in New York—­D.  Appleton and Co., Broadway.