AMERICAN MANNERS.

WE proceed with our specimens of the Yankee, Portland journal. In our last notice we showed the Editors strange opinion that persons livino. in London had the choice of walking in star-lit labyrinths, shady lanes, or wildernesses, if their contemplative turns of mind led them to prefer such promenades to Hyde Park or Kensington Gardens. In a paper before us we find him making a representation, in our judgment, about as accurate; but it is rather to be numbered among the vulgar errors than with the ori- ginal hallucinations, such as the rural promenades of Westminster.

"The fact is, that the nobility of England, we might say of nearly all Europe, do degenerate every year, in consequence of that pride of birth which keeps them from refreshing their stock by intermarriage with newer shape and braver blood. Unlike the nobility of the East—of Persia for example, where the nobles are distinguished from the great body of the people, by the better characteristics of their Georgian or Circassian mothers, and where the king himself is almost always of the stranger blood by the female side—such persons having the power to pick and choose from the beauty and glory of whole empires for intermarriage ; un- like the nobility of the barbarian hordes of the desert, where they breed their chiefs with but a little less care than they do their horses, or the head men of the Sandwich Isles, who appear to be distinguished by their superior form and superior worth, from the great mass of themultitude : —Unlike these, the nobility of the British empire appear to be altogether of one family. They have bred together and coupled together so long and so lazily, that, instead of being characterized by a loftier look, a prouder stature, a superior intellect, or a handsomer shape, they are de- cidedly inferior to the average of the common people." The nobility of England, taken in a body, and considered merely in an animal point of view, is the finest class of men in this coun- try ; and it would be odd indeed if it were not so, for they possess every physical advantage. As for the theory of intermarriages, it is sound in itself, but inapplicable to our aristocracy, whose breed is frequently crossed through the causation of mortgages. The spendthrift fells the oaks, and covers IM land with parchment ; but he improves the flesh of his race with a plebeian alliance, carrying with it the convenience of a plain. Setting reasoning on the mat- ter aside, look at the House of Lords, and remark the longevity of its members. There must be some cause for their attaining such years, independent of the paternal desire to vex their heirs by keeping them out of their titles and estates. The later the ge- nerations generally, the finer the men. For mere animal perfec- tion, nothing indeed can he better than the mode of life of the young men of fashion of the present day. Hunting, shooting, all sorts of out-of-door exercise, and moderation in wine. They all, too, have heard of PARIS on Diet, and have some idea of how a man should administer the affairs of the stomach department. In- deed, it is the custom of many of our noble youngsters to carry their care of themselves to an absurd degree of nicety, and they live almost on the system of men in training for a boxing-match. The bodies, however, thrive on this plan ; and the reproach of EPAMINONDAS to a large army, is often alone applicable to the individuals, " A fine beast, but wanting a head !"

So much for the alleged degeneracy of the English nobility. We shall now present to the English reader a feature of Ameri- can journalism which must strike him as not a little extraordi- nary. We prefer taking the examples from the paper of Mr. NEAL, because that gentleman's residence in England, and ob- servation of better manners in the conduct of the press, may rea- sonably be supposed to have softened down in some degree the asperities which the custom of his craft would licence in him.

Mr. NEAL had been attacked, certainly very absurdly and un- justly, for disparaging his country. He thus first exalts himself in his defence, which we particularly recommend to the attention of Mr. BLACKWOOD ; and then proceeds to belabour his adversary, in a fashion which, to an English eye, looks strange indeed in print: "While we were in England, where we were doing all that we possibly could for the encouragement of our native Literature, and more than any other American ever did, or could do there; and while we were turning" the batteries of Blackwood on two or three other journals, which had not been very favourable to our country, upon the Quarterly, the Edinburgh, and a multitude more, which had been in the habit of abusing her and her institutions, and every thing American, for years and years—till we had silenced them all—till not (Ten a British newspaper would dare to re- peat a lie, or coin a lie about zlinerica—at this very time we could hardly open a paper from this side of the water, without finding some foolish or wicked story about ourselves in it. And (referring to a brother editor) what did this friend of ours do ?—He suffered these very slanders to be re- peated every day in the year, and almost every hour in the day, without speaking a word in our behalf, when he had the means of refutation lying by him in his desk. Nor did he ever depart from this friendly course till the current of public opinion had begun to set the other way —till there was no longer any risk in telling the truth—and he had a boy to consign to us over the water. 'Who can blame us if we feel these things—and who is there to wonder if we speak of them with severity. We know well what we have done for our country, and we believe that there is not another man alive, who either could or would have done what we did, or persevered as we did, under so much bitter and cruel misrepresentation."

The friend, it seems, received that current monosyllable the lie- " And how did be behave on hearing the lie given thus publicly to his editorial asseveration. How !—why just as Mr. Noah, of the Advocate has now done (though with Mr. Noah we did not go so far—he never made it necessary ; to the best of our knowledge and belief, he has always behaved like a gentleman in the matter, though we must say rather too much like a newspaper gentleman—repeating tough stories, without in- quiring into their truth). He came out in the same Literary Gazette, and the paragraph was either made by Mr. Theophilus Parsons alone, or by him with the help of one Mr. Carter—a greater blockhead if possible, though not perhaps a greater boy—and said what ?—Why even what Mr. Noah says—that since Mr. Neal had denied the charge, he would believe him. The puppy—why had he not the manhood to confess the truth ? At the very time we speak of, while we were engaged literally in fighting the battles of our country abroad, not by flattery nor puffery, but by the plain truth, forced into every" channel of literature in Great Britain, we met with papers continually from this side of the water, which were intended or at least calculated, if anything could be, to defeat our usefulness there, and to make us indeed the enemy of our country. Take one example. Our friend. Mr. John Miller, then of Bridge street, Blackfriars, put into our hands one dav a paper, published at Boston, in which the editor himself (Mr. Theophilus Parsons, a son of the late re- spectable Judge Parsons) had the vulgar audacity to say in a silly review of Randolph, that we had denied the authorship of that work, and that he ' understood we had been much beaten at Baltimore.' He lied, and we toll hire so therefore in Blackwood. We had never denied the authorship —we had even avowed the offensive opinions that procured the challenge from Mr. P.— in our correspondence with him. We knew moreover, as to what he said of the beating, that he had never understood any such thing, and that he knew us much too well ever to credit such a story if it were told him ; and so we gore him the lie there,—also, in Blackwood. But what could induce him, the editor of a respectable paper, and the son of a respectable man, to utter such a deliberate and sneaking fidsehood? We suffered it all to pass, however, without a word of remark—without giving ourselves the trouble to reply, except in one particular case ; and then we did so in a letter to our friend Buckingham, of the Galaxy, wherein we gave him a particular account of our whole proceedings with regard to this country, of how we had got possession of Blackwood—the cleverest and boldest paper of the age—though sometimes unprincipled, and sometimes puppyish—a paper though, in which we were allowed to say more in favour of America, than would have been permitted by any other journal of Europe."

In another number, Mr, NE AL has a regular set-to with a whole

" NEWBURYPORT HERALD.

He thinks he's thinking.'

" This little gentleman, whom we never heard of before, is at us, like a cock at a gooseberry ; and if we had nothing better to do, and a pair of old gloves lying by us, we should probably take him across our editorial knee, and spank him into good manners ; but having other fish to fry just now, we mean to let him off with a fillip or two, which it is to be hoped may not spatter his brains about over the walls of a baby-house, or the dirt-pie of some playfellow.

"Fillip I. The little wretch we speak of had been exchanging, as he called it, with our Yankee (robbing us, therefore, in the teeth of the old saw) till one day, he thought proper to put forth a very murderous para- graph about ourself,—which, lest it might come to our knowledge and get him a cuff or two in sport, led him to forget to send that particular paper."

He has a still more animated engagement with the Editor of a New York journal :-

" We should leave Mr. Seth Paine for ever ; but for one remark of his, for which he deserves to be soundly horsewhipped, and for which if he had been here at the time we read it, we should have pulled his no.o, without ceremony, though we might have found it soaped for the interview, or too sore to be touched. He says that he has reason to think that we have many times received the castigation of a cowskin.'

"'1'o which, we reply, in a way that we hope may not be misunderstood. —Thus—You lie Mr. Seth Paine. You are a deliberate, sneaking., d.as- fanny liar—we hope that is plain English enough to be understood by you. Neither you nor any other man that walks the earth ever had or ever shall have reason to believe any such thing. We are now thirty-four, and since we were fourteen, we have never been insulted by word, or look, or ges- ture, without flogging the offender on the spot. We have horse-whipped others and may have to horse-whip more ; but we were never touched by a whip, or a cane, or a cowskin, since we were a child."

More of the same sort :-

" We have said nothing about the allusion (in the New England Galaxy) to our boldness and valour, under an idea that whoever may have written the rest of the article, the proprietor of the Galaxy had nothing to do with that paragraph. He has not forgotten, we hope—if he has, he ought to be reminded of the day, when we protected him in his own office, from being soundly cuffed by a fourth rate English actor, who had come for the avowed purpose."

"BOSTON COURIER,

" The Editor of this paper, who won't hold still to have his head combed, even with a small-tooth comb* ; and who, though hardly free, has had the courage to undertake a wife and a daily paper at the same time, is already above borrowing advice, or accepting favours. He will insist on blowing his own nose with his own finger and thumb ; and we like him the better or it."

* "Were it his father now, with his head in our lap, and we combing it with a three-legged stool, we should not be astonished at his kicking and squalling."

Good Lord! these he manners. Again, of

"Ma. EDWARD C. PINKNFY, `of Baltimore'

" Really we are afraid this interesting young gentleman will come to the gallows, or to some other untimely end, before long—he would in our community, before a twelve-month is over."

If there is an amusing outrageousness in what we have quoted (all lying within the space of five numbers), there is also an equally amusing self-complacency in what we now cite :—

" While we were in England, a fellow in Boston, a Mr. Frost, had the impudence to send us out a hook, entitled ` The First Class Book,' if we remember rightly, published by himself, and purporting to be made up for the use of schools from our American writers. We opened it of course with a flutter at the heart, fully expecting to find—at least every other page, alive and glowing with the gathered vivacity, beauty, and strength of our immortal works—fragrant with the very otto of our brain. And yet, after all—would you believe it ! not a word, not a single word, either in prose or poetry was there in the whole book which we had either a right to—or a disposition to lay claim to ;—not a single word to show that such a writer as ourself had lived (another might say flourished) in America— or any where else.

" Again, a youth of our country, who happened to be in England while we were there, and who 1018 left in pawn one night, by a particular friend of his for a glass of brandy, which both of them together had not cash enough to pay for, nor credit enough to get on tick—wrote a paper for the London Magazine—in which paper, the said gentleman, who was left in pawn at the tap of a public house, gave a full and particular account of every dramatic attempt ; every smothered farce and still-born tragedy, that was ever thought of in this country—except our own, our dear, dear, Otho. We'll never forgive him—by gosh !—never.

"But the half is not told yet. We have a particular friend in America, a great admirer of ours, who, not many years ago, published a school- book (another First Class Book, for aughttve know) and gave in it two or three pretty fair specimens of our Poetry (a line or two of which he altered and improved—which is saying a good deal.) But, having to publish a work the other day, under the title of the National Reader, his heart failed him ; wewere under the ban of the literary brotherhood of America, and he published the work without borrowing a paragraph, not so much as a single paragraph out of all our works ; though he had borrowed largely from the talk of a score of boys who had never thought an original thought in their lives, and must have caught their breaths when thby saw their names in the National Reader. But we'll be revenged; for we have an ideathat leaving us out of a work of this kind is a good deal like that of leaving out the part of Hamlet—by particular desire—from the tragedy of the Prince of Denmark.

" TO OUR SUBSCRTEERS.

" We advise our subscribers to buy a portfolio for the Yankee, or to make something of the sort for themselves, out of two pieces of paste board, or thin board, with straps over the back, or a bit of cloth, nailed so as to secure the two covers. Our Yankees are worth it, and they will find it so, as we pursue our way. There is no knowing how long we may choose to be a slave ; and if we stop, they will wish they had taken our advice, for they'll never get such another paper. We don't say this to make them buy two copies a piece ; for we have no interest in the matter, and our pub- lisher has but few to spare now ; and the few that he has, he will not have long."

We now take leave of the Editor of the Yankee, regretting that he has not endeavoured to introduce into the management of the American press, those courtesies and forbearances of modesty and decency which he must have observed to prevail generally in our own.

ring of journals ; and he conducts his controversy in the following pleasing manner :—