in opposition to the extreme Toryism of the “Quarterly.”  Sydney Smith took us, our authors and early enterprises, under his special patronage, and he wrote many favorable articles of that character.  One would have supposed, that, in the necessary preparation for such labors, he would have acquired some geographical, statistical, and other rudimentary knowledge about us, enough to have kept him from gross blunders.  Unluckily, for him and for us, for the sake of getting here on his money double the interest which he could get at home, and not considering that the greater the promised profit the greater the risk, he made investments in some of our stock companies and bonds.  When these investments proved disastrous, he raved and fumed, calling upon our Government—­which had nothing more to do with the matter than had the English Parliament—­to make good his losses.

We are tempted for a moment to drop the graver thread of our theme to relate an anecdote in illustration of our present point.  It happened a few years ago that we had as a household guest for two or three weeks an English gentleman, well-informed, courteous, and excellent, who had been for several years the editor of a London paper.  On the day after his domestication with us, which was within the first week of his arrival at New York, sitting where we are now writing, after breakfast, he announced that “he had a commission to execute for a friend, with a person residing in Springfield.”  Opening his note-book, he handed us a slip of paper bearing the gentleman’s name and address, “Springfield, Ohio.”  Furnishing him with writing-materials, we were about turning to our own occupation, when, suddenly, with a quick exclamation, as if recalling something, he said, “Sure, I have been in Springfield.  I remember a short, a very short time was allowed for dinner, as I came from New York.”  We explained, or tried to explain to him, that the Springfield through which he had passed and the Springfield to which he was writing were in different States widely separated, and that there were also several other “Springfields.”  To this he demurred, protesting that it made matters quite confusing to foreigners to have the same names repeated in different parts of the Country.  In vain did we suggest that all confusion was avoided by adding the abbreviated name of the State.  No!  “It was very confusing.”  Suddenly, a thought occurred to us, and, refreshing our memory by a glance at the Index of our English “Road-Book,” we suggested triumphantly that names were repeated for different localities in England:  thus, there are four Ashfords, two Dorchesters, six Hortons, seven Newports, etc., etc.  Our guest, with an air and vehemence that quite outvied our triumph, exclaimed,—­“Oh! but they are in different shi_rrr_hes, in different shi_rrr_hes!” Sure enough, one of his own shires is a larger thing to an Englishman than one of our States.  He lives on an island which is to him larger than all the rest of the world, though any one starting from the centre of it, on a fast horse, unless he crossed the border into Scotland, could scarcely ride in any direction twenty-four hours without getting overboard.