There is not the slightest exaggeration in these statements. Their truth any one familiar with the periodical literature of that period will least of all doubt. There was a perfect agreement between those who visited us and described us and those who drew their description from their imaginations. Nothing distinguished the English traveler or the English reviewer so much as his piety, and his profound conviction that religion could not exist where it was not carefully watched over by an established church. Besides this inevitable moral destitution, we (p. 090) were irreclaimably given over to vulgarity. Manners there could not be in a land abandoned to an unbridled democracy. In the most praiseworthy instances even, men lacked that repose, that fine tact, which were found universally in the higher orders in the mother country. The defect was ineradicable, according to most; for it had its baleful origin in popular institutions themselves. In justice it must be added that there were some who, in consequence of the American passion for traveling, entertained a mild hope that in time this rudeness would wear away, and this total ignorance of good breeding would be enlightened by the polish and refinement that would be picked up from the quantity to be found scattered about foreign courts. The published correspondence of that period is delicious in its frankness. The Englishman, writing to his American friend, never descends from his lofty position of censor both of great and petty morals. The inferiority of manners in this country is a point insisted upon by the former with an assiduity and assurance that are sufficient of themselves to make clear how high was the breeding to which he himself had attained. It makes little difference who write the letters. They all express the same sentiments. They all offer advice as to the best method America can take to retrieve the good opinion of Europe which it has lost. They are careful to say that they entertain the kindest of feelings to the United States; that they neglect no occasion of doing justice to the good and wise that had found there a home. Unfortunately these are few in number; and with a lofty sense of justice they never fail to express disapprobation in strong terms of the vast amount to be condemned in a land which had fallen under the sway of a reckless democracy and a godless church. One English (p. 091) gentleman in the British military service, after being some time in this country, writes, after his return, to an American friend, and thus cheerfully records his impressions. "The frightful effects produced by an unrestrained democracy," he says, "the demoralizing effects produced by universal suffrage never appeared to me so odious as they do now by contrast with the good breeding, the order and mutual support which all give to each other in this country, from the highest to the lowest." This letter belongs to the year 1839, and it only continues a line of