The American Reviews are,many of them,I believe,well known in England;I need not,therefore,quote them here,but I sometimes wondered that they,none of them,ever thought of translating Obadiah's curse into classic American;if they had done so,on placing (he,Basil Hall)between brackets,instead of (he,Obadiah)it would have saved them a world of trouble.
I can hardly describe the curiosity with which I sat down at length to peruse these tremendous volumes;still less can I do justice to my surprise at their contents.To say that I found not one exaggerated statement throughout the work is by no means saying enough.
It is impossible for any one who knows the country not to see that Captain Hall earnestly sought out things to admire and commend.
When he praises,it is with evident pleasure;and when he finds fault,it is with evident reluctance and restraint,excepting where motives purely patriotic urge him to state roundly what it is for the benefit of his country should be known.
In fact,Captain Hall saw the country to the greatest possible advantage.
Furnished,of course,with letters of introduction to the most distinguished individuals,and with the still more influential recommendation of his own reputation,he was received in full drawing-room style and state from one end of the Union to the other.
He saw the country in full dress,and had little or no opportunity of judging of it unhouselled,unanointed,unannealed,with all its imperfections on its head,as I and my family too often had.
Captain Hall had certainly excellent opportunities of making himself acquainted with the form of the government and the laws;and of receiving,moreover,the best oral commentary upon them,in conversation with the most distinguished citizens.
Of these opportunities he made excellent use;nothing important met his eye which did not receive that sort of analytical attention which an experienced and philosophical traveler alone can give.
This has made his volumes highly interesting and valuable;but I am deeply persuaded,that were a man of equal penetration to visit the United States with no other means of becoming acquainted with the national character than the ordinary working-day intercourse of life,he would conceive an infinitely lower idea of the moral atmosphere of the country than Captain Hall appears to have done;and the internal conviction on my mind is strong,that if Captain Hall had not placed a firm restraint on himself,he must have given expression to far deeper indignation than any he has uttered against many points in the American character,with which he shows from other circumstances that he was well acquainted.
His rule appears to have been to state just so much of the truth as would leave on the mind of his readers a correct impression,at the least cost of pain to the sensitive folks he was writing about.
He states his own opinions and feelings,and leaves it to be inferred that he has good grounds for adopting them;but he spares the Americans the bitterness which a detail of the circumstances would have produced.
If any one chooses to say that some wicked antipathy to twelve millions of strangers is the origin of my opinion,I must bear it;and were the question one of mere idle speculation,I certainly would not court the abuse I must meet for stating it.
But it is not so.
.......
The candor which he expresses,and evidently feels,they mistake for irony,or totally distrust;his unwillingness to give pain to persons from whom he has received kindness,they scornfully reject as affectation,and although they must know right well,in their own secret hearts,how infinitely more they lay at his mercy than he has chosen to betray;they pretend,even to themselves,that he has exaggerated the bad points of their character and institutions;whereas,the truth is,that he has let them off with a degree of tenderness which may be quite suitable for him to exercise,however little merited;while,at the same time,he has most industriously magnified their merits,whenever he could possibly find anything favorable.