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republicans, suggested the epistles,-6-7-8-which are written from the city of Washington and Lake Erie. How far I was right, in thus assuming the tone of a satirist against a people, whom I viewed but as a stranger and a visitor, is a doubt, which my feelings did not allow me time to investigate. All I presume to answer før, is, the fidelity of the picture, which I have given; and, though prudence might have dictated gentler language, truth, I think, would have justified severer.

"I went to America, with prepossessions, by no means, unfavourable, and, indeed, rather indulged in many of those illusive ideas, with respect to the purity of the government, and the primitive happiness of the people, which I had early imbibed in my native country, where unfortunately, discontent at home, enhances every distant temptation, and the western world has long been looked to, as a retreat from real or imaginary oppression; as the elysian Atlantis, where persecuted patriots might find their visions realized, and be welcomed by kindred spirits to liberty and repose. I was completely disappointed in every flattering expectation, which I had formed, and was inclined to say to America, as Horace says to his mistress,-intentata nites.--Brissot, in the preface to his travels, observes, that--" freedom in that country is carried to so high a degree, as to border upon a state of nature;”—and there certainly is a close approximation to savage life, not only, in the liberty, which they enjoy, but in the violence of party-spirit, and of private animosity, which results from it. This illiberal zeal embitters all social intercourse; and though I scarcely could hesitate in selecting the party, whose views appeared the more pure and rational, yet I was sorry to observe, that, in asserting their opinions, they both assume an equal share of intolerance; the Democrats, consistently with their principles, exhibiting a vulgarity of rancour, which the Federalists, too often, are so forgetful of their cause, as to imitate.

"The rude familiarity of the lower orders, and, indeed, the unpolished state of society, in general, would neither surprize, nor disgust, if they seemed to flow from that simplicity of character, that honest ignorance of the gloss of refinement, which might be looked for in a new and unexperienced people. But, when we find them arrived at maturity in most of the vices, and all the pride of civilization, while they are still so remote from its elegant characteristics, it is impossible not to feel, that this youthful decay, this crude anticipation of the natural period of corruption, represses every sanguine hope of the future energy and greatness of America."

The opinion of such a writer, as Mr. Moore, who, scarcely ever pens a single line, without shewing, that he is not only

ignorant of all the sources of national strength and national honour, but that he is, also, an open, and avowed enemy to all the principles of social order and decency, can never be a matter of any importance to those who are capable of sound reasoning and comprehensive reflection.-But as Mr. Moore's book, probably, will be read by many people in Britain, in consequence of its being dedicated to the Earl of Moira, and as the British people are most deplorably ignorant of the real state of this country, and of the American national character, we feel it to be a duty incumbent upon us, to examine these remarks, which, otherwise, as far as relates to their own intrinsic worth, we should content ourselves with passing by, in secret derision, and in silent scorn.

It seems, according to Mr. Moore's opinion, that the Americans are" arrived at maturity in most of the vices of civilization."-If this be so, Sir, how comes it to pass, that, while in your country, in Britain, the gibbets every where groan under the number and the weight of the wretched victims, which are continually immolated upon the shrine of your penal code, which, like the laws of Draco, are written in blood;-while your citizens are alarmed, by day and by night, with the depredations and incursions of robbers, housebreakers, foot-pads, and highway-men ;-while swindling, forgery, and every species of fraud, is carried on, to the most daring extent, and with the most consummate ingenuity ;and while your numerous dungeons are all crowded with debtors and felons ;-here, in this country, we, seldom, have occasion to take away the life of a human being, as a forfeit to the laws of the Union;-we have very few plunderers by night, or robbers by day; we need not, neither have we so much as an armed police, even in our most populous cities; and the crime of forgery is rarely committed-and our prisons are for the most part nearly empty; containing chiefly, not Americans, but the scum of your own country, even Britain.

The "rude familiarity of the lower orders," which so much offended the fine feelings, and the exquisite sensibility of Mr. Moore, is a necessary consequence of our popular

form of government, which allows every man to know and to feel his own independance; and teaches him to scorn that servile posture, that bated breath, and whispering humbleness, that lowly bending, and that bondman's key, with which the vassal in the old, and worn-out dominations of Europe, approaches his feudal lord.

That philosopher must, indeed, be squeamish, who will not compound with a little rudeness to himself for the solid acquisition of much substantial comfort and happiness to myriads of his fellow-men.-The fair statement of the question is this,— whether or not the mass of the people here, in America, be able by the exertions of their own industry, to provide plentifully for themselves, their wives, and their little ones?

And it requires but a very slight acquaintance with this country to be well assured, that here, every poor man, if he be industrious, can provide abundantly for his family, by any kind of labour, manual, or mechanical;—for here, the lower orders of the people are free from those imposts and burdens, that exorbitant price of all the necessaries of life, and those scanty wages of productive toil, which, so often, sends the European labourer supperless to bed, and moistens his pillow with the sweat of his brow, and bedews his couch with the tears of unavailing anguish, while his children cry unto him. for bread, and he has none, where-with to still their wailing, and to appease their hunger.

And, pray, sir, is it, because the natural resistance of things, the various mutations of time, and ten thousand other circumstances, not now to be enumerated, have rendered the British government only an approximation towards that which is right, that you envy us our form of government ;—do you malignantly carp at us, for having cast off that slough of feudal slavery, which still disgraces, and weakens the better parts of the English constitution, even amended, and settled as it was in that ever-memorable revolution of 1668?

At the close of this review, we shall examine more fully Mr. Moore's attacks upon the American character; which attacks we shall show to be founded on the grossest ignorance, and the most vulgar illiberality of the writer.

As for his censure upon the scurrility of our public prints,

it is, to our shame be it spoken, but too true;-for, with some very few exceptions, the American newspapers, and partypamphlets, are so replete with low, dirty abuse, despicable personality, ignorance, misrepresentation, impudence, and falsehood, that they are a disgrace to humanity.

Mr. Moore concludes his preface in these words, with an assurance, at least, equal to his other powers.

"With respect to the poems, in general, which occupy the following pages, I know not in what manner to apologize to the public, for intruding upon their notice such a mass of unconnected trifles, such a world of epicurean atoms, as I have here brought in conflict together. To say, that I have been tempted by the liberal offers of my bookseller, is an excuse, which can hope for but little indulgence from the critic; yet, I own, that, without this seasonable induce. ment, these poems, very possibly, would never have been submitted to the world. The glare of publication is too strong for such imperfect productions; they should be shown but to the eye of friendship, in that dim light of privacy, which is as favourble to poetical, as to female beauty, and serves as a veil for faults, while it enhances every charm which it displays. Besides, this is not a

period for the idle occupations of poetry, and times, like the present, require talents more active, and more useful. Few have, now, the leisure to read such trifles, and I sincerely regret, that I have had the leisure to write them."

Those, who know London, and who are well aware how all its streets and all its corners swarm with pimps, and bawds, of every description, cannot wonder, that it should produce a mercenary bookseller, sufficiently mean and base, to be the pander to Mr. Moore's licentiousness, and to act as the midwife, which brought to the birth this misshapen lump of conceived iniquity, this miserable abortion, which the incubation of heated ignorance upon profligacy, could alone engender.

To the obstetrical efforts of that laudable accoucheur of the muses, Mr. James Carpenter, Old Bond street, London, Book-seller to their Royal Highnesses the Prince of Wales and Duke of York, is the British public indebted for the safe delivery of Mr. Moore's base-born brat;—and we, in this country, owe to the presiding care of Mr. John Watts, of Philadelphia, that indefatigable mid-wife to all virtuous publications, the introduction of this illegitimate bantling to the notice of the American community.

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Mr. Moore regrets, that he had-" the leisure,”—to write these poems;-that he, or any other being in a human shape, had the inclination, thus to poison the living waters of social existence, in their springs and in their sources, must be matter of deep regret to every one, who wishes well to the best interests of his species, at all which interests, these poems, so far as in them lies, stab, and endeavour to destroy. But that Mr. Moore had leisure to write them, can, surely, never be an object of regret to the British people, who, at this awful, and trying hour;-this hour, big with the destruction of nations, and labouring in the convulsive throes of menaced and impending ruin to all the inhabitants of the civilized world, must look for their defenders, their statesmen and their warriors ;—not from among those, who can indite a filthy song, and troll a drunken catch;-but from the midst of those, whose comprehensive mind can explore the situation, temper, soil, and clime, of a country, and can bind the various powers and the various orders of a nation, in one sublime form of policy, that shall lift its head aloft amid the wrecks of time, shall repress all transgressions, foreign or domestic, against the estalished institutions; and shall cause religion, and morality, and public faith, and public love, and industry, and impartial laws, to watch the unbending guardians of the state. (To be Continued.)

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