SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.

MAYS IA,

Letters from America. By John Robert Godley. In two volumes. Murray.

Poway, Palm Leaves. By Richard Moncktou MiInes Moan's.

FICTION.

The White Mask. By Mrs. Thomson, Author of " Widows and Widowers," •• Rag- land Castle," &c. Iu three volumes. Bentley. Sztviancs,

A Dictionary. Practical. Theoretical, and Historical, of Commerce and Commercial Navigation. Illustrated with Maps and Plans. By J. R. M•Culloch, Esq., Mem- ber of the Institute of France. A new edition, corrected throughout, enlarged, and

improved. Longman and Co.

MR. GODLEY'S LETTERS FROM AMERICA.

THE author of these able and agreeable letters is a young gentle- man from the North of Ireland, and, we imagine, of rather a rare kind. In religion he is a Protestant-Catholic, in other words a species of Puseyite, but without any trace of religious bigotry or even of enthusiasm in spirit : compared, however, with the rational- istic spirit of the age, his views on religion might be called enthu- siastic enough. His work-day politics do not appear—we suppose he is inclined to Toryism ; but his principles are Conservative in the sense of the more respectable part of " Young England," yet with greater soundness and comprehension in his views. On the one hand, he regrets the manufacturing system, denounces the material and money-making spirit of the age, with its want of earnest faith in any thing that it cannot prove by physical experiment ; while, on the other, he argues in excuse of slavery, that it is an institution necessary and consonant to human nature under certain circumstances, and deriving its greatest evil in America from the accident of colour.

To these individual peculiarities, which give a flavour to his character, and induce an original observation upon many things that numbers of tourists could not observe at all, Mr. GODLEY unites other qualifications for travelling advantageously in America. He appears a man of reading and reflection, who has not made America his first tour of experiment, and whose position, ex- perience, and perhaps his Hibernian nature, have rendered more tolerant of a mere difference in modes than John Bull ever exhibits. He went to America with a judicious frame of mind. However other writers, he says, may differ in other things, they agree in this —that a spirit of satire animates them all, (except, he might have said, STUART, ABDY, and MURRAY,) which naturally renders the Americans sore ; and any thing approaching this it was his object to avoid. He also carried ample letters of introduction ; which are not to an American merely forms, and are now the only manner of getting access to the more respectable part of the community. This advantage, however, is merely shown in general results; Mr. GODLEY scrupulously avoiding private disclosures. The objects of our author's travels do not appear; but, as they are real letters to his father and other relations, merely revised for publication, it is probable that some emigration-objects for the family or their tenants might have mingled with a desire for travelling. His route was chiefly confined to the Northern States and Canada ; but he made a trip towards the South through Philadelphia and Baltimore, as far as Virginia. In the States, the ground he passed over is consequently not at all new. His Canadian tour has more freshness ; for although he followed the usual route, descending the line of water-carriage from Niagara to Quebec, yet he continually struck aside to penetrate remoter dis- tricts, and sometimes made excursions into places where no mere traveller would think of going. Hence, so far as practical infor- mation is concerned, regarding the appearance of the country, the state of society, and the prospects of the emigrant, the letters from Canada form the most valuable part of the book, if they are not indeed the most valuable sketch which has been published of that colony.

In strictness, however, the Letters from America are less a book of travels than of observation upon facts which have been presented to the mind by travelling. There is a good deal of description of external forms • many characters and little incidents of the way are introduced • and the work takes the form of narrative, following the journey of the writer. But a spirit of critical remark pervades this narrative: the mind of the author seems to observe things less for their outward characteristics, however effective they might be in description, than for some quality they contain whose deduction may serve a further purpose. Unless this peculiarity be under- stood, the writer will at first appear to be too disquisitional : and for those who value a book of travels in proportion as its sketches of manners are " spicy " and of scenery brilliant, the Letters from America will be too disquisitional. This characteristic is perhaps less visible in the Canadian part of the tour than in that which re- lates to the United States.

There is a good deal of striking and valuable information in the

volumes upon the subject of society in the States ; but if we are asked whether there is any thing absolutely new, we must answer, only upon two subjects,—the state of the religious mind in America ; and the proceedings of the American Anti-Slavery party. This last topic is very curious ; and the remarks of Mr. GODLEY suggest an explanation of what without them appears so paradoxi- cal—the seeming ferocity of the South. In slang phrase, the Abolitionists of. the Northern States are " going it." Without much respect to their own municipal law, they have set up a line of posts from the frontiers of Virginia to Canada, where runaway slaves are received and their escape facilitated. One gentleman told Mr. GODLEY that he " has had thirty in his house at New York at once." Acting upon their own dogma that slavery is an institution against nature and forbidden by God, they have esta- blished societies to advocate the principle that a slave may right- fully use force to obtain his freedom. According to Mr. GODLEY, the American Abolitionists " express themselves much more strongly upon the subject than people are accustomed to do in England." The style of argument and discourse may therefore be imagined ; but if it were as measured as it is the reverse, the Southerns, in their position, cannot look upon it as a mere political speculation. To the planters, and to the slaves if they reach them, these diatribes are neither more nor less than a declara- tion of war—a hortative to incendiarism and murder on the part of individual slaves, and to revolt for the mass. Putting aside the questionable basis of the principle, it is clear that any partial acting upon it could only produce cruel atrocities ending in the destruction of all concerned, and the still greater slavery of the others ; whilst a general insurrection, unaccompanied by a foreign war, could only produce a general massacre. Though all this may be phi- lanthropy, its virtue, wisdom, and humanity, are not so clear. But be it what it may, it is evident that the planters (whom Mr. GOD- LEY, contrary to his expectation, found tormented by a dread of a servile insurrection even in Virginia) must look upon the Anti- Slavery party as the common enemy of their race, and proceed accordingly.

The existence of these opposing parties is curious in another and a political point of view. Mr. GODLEY seems to consider that there is no visible prospect of a dissolution of the Union, although the more zealous Abolitionists are fully prepared for that. But, look- ing at the unscrupulous zeal of the party—at the broad claptrap senti- ment which they can present to the popular mind, the practical ignorance of the question, the comprehension and knowledge which it requires to be understood by study, and the certainty that most political leaders will always flatter a powerful sect that will aid their views, no matter how mischievous to the country,—we suspect that there is more danger than our author allows, espe- cially as the Anti-Slavery people have no private interests at stake, and the Northern States have no direct and immediate injury to apprehend from their philanthropic zeal. However, here is the picture of opinion in Massachusetts and the adjacent provinces.

ANTI-SLAVERY FEELING IN THE NORTHERN STATES.

The mobs in the Northern States are very much divided upon this subject ; but the majority, including all the Irish, are in most places Anti-Abolitionist, entirely from hatred to the Blacks, and fear lest abolition in the South might be followed by a large immigration of Negroes to the North, and a correspond- ing reduction of wages. Even at a meeting in Boston, (where abolition is stronger than anywhere else,) which was held last Sunday, such a tremendous uproar of indignation and hostility was raised when a Negro was brought for- ward to address the assembly, that they were compelled to break up in con- fusion. Still, the number of Abolitionists increases ; and each year a larger proportion of votes is recorded for the "Abolition " candidate who is invariably set up. At the election of representatives for Massachusetts, now going on, there is a Black ticket-distributor, (an electioneering agent, such as with ES brings up tallies to the poll,) a thing unknown hitherto; and it is hardly pos- sible even now for a master to arrest his runaway slave when be gets into one of the New England States, though the constitution enjoins the authorities to assist in his capture. An instance happened here only the other day, when so much indignation was excited by the fact of a master carrying off a slave in handcuffs, that it was on the point of producing a serious diaturbauce and a rescue in the streets: it was only prevented by some philanthropic people who raised a subscription and purchased the slave from the owner ; who, I dare say, was content with a low price. The ill feeling which this subject engenders in the North is very great, and increasing, (though I have no idea, as some have, that it is likely to lead to an early dissolution of the Union,) not only among those fanatics who cry " Go out from among slavebolders and be separate, that ye be not partakers of their plagues," but also among the Whig politicians, led by Mr. Adams. They perceive that the North has less than her just share of influence in the adminis- tration of affairs, and they attribute it to the bond of union which slavery con- stitutes among the Slavebolding States. The latter make a compromise with the Ultra-Democratic party in the North, who, to secure the Southern support in their Radicalism, are in return generally content to advocate slavery mad other Southern interests. An Anti-Slavery minority, on the other hand, in the South is unknown ; they present an unbroken front, cemented by the feeling of strong personal interest, and thus are almost always enabled to carry their point when the two sections come into collision. All that the North can do on such occasions is to hold out in terrorsm (what very few would like to see realized) the threat of a dissolution of tite Union in case slaveholding influence be increased. Such an event, injurious as it would be to both parties, would be infinitely more so to the South for many reasons: the conviction alone that it would be impossible for them to maintain slavery against the open and unchecked countenance and support which would then be given by the Northerns to the slaves, is sufficient to make them dread the idea. Passion, however, not reason, sways them very much (and very naturally, considering the utterly unjustifiable proceedings of English and American Abolitionists) upon this subject ; and there is no knowing to what lengths some violent provocation might not induce them to go.

To any one curious upon the state of religious feeling in Ame- rica, or who feels any interest in Canada, we should strongly re- commend a careful perusal of this book. We cannot afford room for these subjects, and must confine ourselves to an extract or two upon miscellaneous matters.

AMERICAN SCENERY.

The country between Saratoga and Lake George is undulating and covered with forest ; very pretty at first, but after a little time monotonous in the ex- treme. Tameness is the great fault of American scenery. It is the last thing one expects. A traveller comes from the Old World filled with ideas of the sublimity and majesty which the boundless forests and vast lakes and mighty rivers of the American continent must possess and display. Nothing can be more unfounded. In imagination, indeed, he may revel in the thought of the immense solitudes that stretch on all sides around him, and may moralize upon the littleness of man in the presence of his Creator's works, and the trifling part be plays upon the mighty scene; but as far as regards the direct effect of landscape upon the eye, all this, of course, does not apply. Vision has buts limited range; and if all within that range be tame and monotonous, it is but a poor consolation to reflect upon the geographical extent of country similarly characterized. Now, in the Northern part of America there are few striking features ; you hardly ever see a bold rugged outline of mountain, or a naked precipitous rock. The hills are generally round and low, and covered with vegetation to the top; the colouring, too, is monotonous, except for a brief season in autumn: you have not the variety produced either by sterility or by cultivation ; for the purple heather and the cold grey stone of European moun- tain-scenery are wanting, (heath, I believe, being absolutely unknown ;) and so, of course, is the smiling richness of a fully-peopled country.

"DISTRESS" IN THE NEW WORLD.

We came by stage to La Chine, to avoid the rapids : there is also a canal, which serves the same purpose for the small steamers which ply on the Rideau, and carry on the principal part of the provision-trade between the Upper Pro- vince and Montreal; a trade of the extent of which I had no idea before. The town itself is rich and flourishing, though at the present moment suffering under a temporary depression, similar to and partly consequent upon that which prevails at home. Commercial distress, however, here, as in the States, exhibits a very different aspect from that which is presented by a similar state of things in Europe. Capitalists fail, and incomes are reduced perhaps one- half; but what we call destitution, that is starvation, is unknown. There is still a sufficient disproportion between the demand for and the supply of labour to leave a wide margin round the minimum rate of wages,—that, namely, which enables the labourer to purchase the necessary articles of subsistence for himself and his family. A traveller would observe no difference in the ap- parent occupation of the people: their wages fall, indeed, though not in pro- portion to the fall of profits ; but they are still high as compared to our rates, and no individual is ever thrown on the community for support. There are neither beggars nor poor-laws in Canada; and though both must eventually come, I trust that time is yet distant.