In another chapter he informs his countrymen that the four hundred and thirty nobles in England speak and act for the nation; his knowledge of history, or his love of truth, ignoring that little community called the House of Commons. Bankers and wealthy men come under the ban of his condemnation, as having no time for “enlightened amusements;” he then, with that truthfulness which makes him so safe a guide to his readers, adds that “they were never known to manifest a friendship, except for the warehouse cat; they have no time to talk, and never write except on business; all hours are office-hours to them, except those they devote to dinner and sleep; they know nothing, they love nothing, and hope for nothing beyond the four walls of their counting-room; nobody knows them, nobody loves them; they are too mean to make friends, and too silent to make acquaintances,” &c. What very interesting information this must be for Messrs. Baring and their co-fraternity!
In another part of this volume, the author becomes suddenly impressed with deep reverence for the holy localities of the East, and he falls foul of Dr. Clarke for his scepticism on these points, winding up his remarks in the following beautiful Kentucky vein:—“A monster so atrocious could only have been a Goth or an Englishman.” How fortunate for his countryman, Dr. Robinson, that he had never heard of his three learned tomes on the same subject! though, perhaps, scepticism in an American, in his discriminating mind, would have been deep erudition correcting the upstart islanders. The great interest which he evinces for holy localities—accompanied as it is by an expression of horror at some English traveller, who, he asserts, thought that David picked up his pebbles in a brook between Jordan and the Dead Sea, whereas he knew it was in an opposite direction—doubtless earned for him the patronage of The Christian Advocate; and the pious indignation he expresses at an Englishman telling him he would get a good dinner at Mount Carmel, is a beautiful illustration of his religious feelings.
The curious part of this portion of Mr. Ward’s book is, that having previously informed his countrymen, in every variety of American phraseology, that the English are composed of every abominable compound which can exist in human nature, he selects them as his companions, and courts their friendship to enjoy the pleasure of betraying it. Of course, if one is to judge by former statements made in the volume, which are so palpably and ridiculously false, one may reasonably conclude that truth is equally disregarded here; but it looks to me rather as if my countrymen had discovered his cloven hoof, as well as his overweening vanity and pretensions, and, when he got pompously classical, in his trip through Greece, they amused themselves at his expense by suggesting that the Acropolis “was a capital place for lunch;” Parnassus, “a regular sell;” Thermopylae, “great for water-cresses.” Passing on from his