In the first place, let me say how delightful it was to discover his cordial interest in our own country.  He expresses a strong hope that England will take no part against us, and do nothing to break the blockade.  He is going to write about America; indeed, his next volume, besides containing a complete view of the German philosophy, will treat of the United States.  But he will visit us before he writes.  Although appreciating the great work of De Tocqueville, he complains of the general inadequacy of European criticism upon America.  Gasparin’s books, by the way, he has not seen.  For his own part, he considers the subject too vast, he says, and the testimony too conflicting, to permit him to write upon it before he has seen the country; and meanwhile he scrupulously refrains from forming any conclusive opinions.

Subject to this reservation of judgment, however, he remarked that he was inclined to think that George III forced us prematurely into democracy, although the natural tendency of things both in America and England was towards it; and he thought that perhaps we had established a political democracy without having yet achieved an intellectual democracy:  the two ought to go hand in hand together.  The common people in England, he said, are by far the most useful class of society.  He had been especially pleased by the numerous letters he had received from working-men who had read his book.  These letters often surprised him by the acuteness and capacity displayed by their writers.  The nobility would perish utterly, if it were not constantly recruited from commoners.  Lord Brougham was the first member of the secular peerage who continued after his elevation to sign his name in full, “H.  Brougham,” which he did to show his continued sympathy with the class from which he sprang.  Buckle remarked that the history of the peasantry of no European country has ever been written, or ever can be written, and without it the record of the doings of kings and nobles is mere chaff.  Surnames were not introduced until the eleventh century, and it is only since that period that genealogy has become possible.

Another very pleasant thing is Mr. Buckle’s cordial appreciation of young men.  He repeated the story, which I believe is in his book, that, when Harvey announced to the world his great discovery of the circulation of the blood, among the physicians who received it was none above the age of forty.  Mr. Thayer described to Buckle some of our friends who have read his book with especial satisfaction.  He evidently took pleasure in this proof of appreciation, and said that this was the class of readers he sought.  “In fact, the young men,” he said, “are the only readers of much value; it is they who shape the future.”  He said that Thackeray and Delane had told him he would find Boston very like England.  He knows but few Bostonians.  He had corresponded with Theodore Parker, whom he considered a remarkable man; he had preserved but one of his letters, which he returned to Mrs. Parker, in answer to her request for materials to aid her in preparing the memoir of her late husband.  Buckle says that he does not generally preserve other than business-letters.