Such is the extent of this practice of smoking tobacco, that at a certain period of the year, during the autumn, when the people of the country have finished gathering in the products of their fields, and their leisure time comes, they commence a smoking festival, in which every man, woman, and child partakes. These festivals last five or six weeks, during which time the atmosphere throughout the whole extent of the country becomes so hazy, and obscure, that they are obliged to burn candles all day, and a perpetual drizzle prevails, owing to the unseemly habit of spitting, which all our English travellers have heretofore noticed among these immaculate republicans. This season is called the Indian summer. It will be seen by the following quotation, that Mr Faux gives a different account of this matter. The season called the Indian Summer, which here commences in October, by a dark blue, hazy atmosphere, is caused by millions of acres, for thousands of miles round, being in a wide-spreading, flaming, blazing, smoky fire, rising up through wood and prairie, hill and dale, to the tops of low shrubs and trees, which are kindled by the coarse, thick, long, prairie grass, and dying leaves at every point of the compass, and far beyond the foot of civilization, darkening the air, heavens and earth, over the whole extent of the northern and part of the southern continent, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and in neighbourhoods contiguous to the all-devouring deflagration, filling the whole horizon with yellow, palpable, tangible smoke, ashes, and vapour, which affect the eyes of man and beast, and obscure the sun, moon, and stars for many days, or until the winter rains descend to quench the fire and purge the thick, ropy air, which is seen, tasted, handled, and felt. Faux's Memorable Days &c. Faucibus ingentem fumum, mirabile dictu, This is worse than tobacco smoke. But to proceed, our author meets again, at Philadelphia, with tne diabolical Ramsbottom, who destroys, as above related, the little Oddys, &c. and at Bristol and Washington the same detestable massacre is perpetrated, in the same manner, and by the same person. It is, however, no very uncommon thing for English travellers to meet with the same circumstance in very different parts of the union, probably on account of the great similarity of manners throughout the United States. These are but a few of the extraordinary details of this eventful tour. But we close our quotations with the following, which is a part of an English emigrant's story of his disasters, as related to the author. "I put my four acres into such order as never had been seen be fore. It was a perfect garden. The rows were as straight as arrows, and there was not a clod of earth above ground as large as an egg to be seen. Every body came to admire, but as yet nobody imitated me, such is the ignorant and insolent obstinacy of the Yankee farmers. "Friend," said my neighbour, the old quaker-" friend Shortridge, what art thou going to put into thy field here?” "Ruta baga." "Ruta baga! what is that, friend John?" "Turnips," replied I. "Well, why didn't thee call them so at first? If thou talkest Latin here, nobody will understand thee, friend John. But what art thou going to do with thy turnips?" "I shall feed my cattle, sheep, and hogs with some, and sell the rest to my neighbours." "But thy neighbours will raise their own turnips, and will not buy." "Then I will send them to market.' "What, sixty miles, over a turnpike? That will be a bad speculation, friend John. Thee had best put in a few acres of wheat and corn, they will pay the expense of taking to market. Thy turnips will cost more than they will come to.' "Not I, indeed, friend Underhill," said I. "Sir Humphrey Davy says there is little or no nourishment in wheat and corn." "No!" quoth the old quaker, with a sly glance at his round portly figure; "I have lived upon them all my life, and I never made the discovery, friend John." “My ruta baga flourished to the admiration of the whole neighbourhood, and when I came to gather my crop in the fall, there was a heap as high as a hay-stack. Some of them measured eighteen inches in diameter. I was as proud as a peacock, for I had now done something for the honour of old England. I determined to give my cattle, sheep, and hogs, a great feast, and invited my good neighbour, the quaker, to see how they would eat ruta baga. A quantity was nicely cut up and thrown to them one morning, but to my astonishment and mortification, not one would touch a morsel. Whether it was that they had become spoiled by a fine season of grass, I cannot tell; but the bull turned up his nose the cows turned their backs, and so did the sheep, while the pigs ran away screaming mightily. Thee should set them to reading Sir Humphrey Davy, friend John,' quoth my neighbour-they hav'n't learning enough to relish thy Latin turnips." " Some of our readers may imagine, that the caricature of eertain modern bocks of travels, which is presented by John Bull in America, is rather too extravagant, but it is not so; the Memorable Days, above alluded to, are very little behind either this, or the original Munchausen, in the marvellous. Indeed we should have taken Faux's work for a burlesque, without the smallest hesitation, if we had not been assured to the contrary by the fifty-eighth number of the Quarterly. We have intimated above, our good wishes for the pecuniary remuneration of the supposed inventor of the adventures, which have been the subject of this article, and we venture, before taking leave of him, to offer a piece of advice, which may conduce to this desirable end, and this is. that he publish an edition in England, omitting the preface, and substituting for the present title-page, some such popular matter as, the "Emigrant's Return from America," "Memorable Days," or the like, by Mr Mac tricket, a farmer, a stocking-weaver, a pinmanufacturer, or whatever other title may best suit his ear. We have not the least doubt that half a dozen editions will be eagerly demanded by Mr Bull, who, among his other good qualities, has that of being one of the most enormous consumers of print and paper on record. We do assure the author, that the "reading public" will swallow his inventions like sack and sugar; and, in all probability, he will have the honour of a puff from the good-natured men of the Quarterly, and perhaps the pleasure to see the great Republicomastix himself cackling with huge exultation over his little volume, and to admire with Bartoline Saddletree, "the great muckle bird that he'll cleck out of this wee egg.' MISCELLANY. THE LAY MONASTERY. The Literary Spirit of our Country. The spirit of that day is still awake, And spreads itself, and shall not sleep again. Bryant. I NEVER think of my native land without a feeling of pride in my national ancestry. Our government has passed the ordeal of time, and we have among us, neither the practical atheism of a papal hierarchy, nor that dangerous system of politics, which, in the days of Cardinal Richelieu, made France the terror of Europe. The same spirit that animated our fathers in their great struggle for freedom, still directs the popular mind to honourable enterprise, and whilst "Westward the star of empire takes its way," the star of mental light still looks cheerfully upon New England. / There is throughout our territories a spirit of activity, that will insure success in every honourable undertaking; and this spirit has already directed itself to literature, with an energy that increases with the exercise. What will be done, may be predicted from what has already been done; and as national talent is grad ually developed in the walks of literature, and unfolds itself in greater vigor and richness day after day, a national literature will be formed. Revolutions in letters are, indeed, the most gradual of all revolutions. A single day may decide the fate of an empire, the event of an hour sweep a throne from the earth, but years must elapse, ere any sensible changes can be introduced in literature. And yet in this the mind can proceed surely with its reasonings, whilst in the science of politics it will be led into constant error, by the uncertainty of political innovations ;-for it is a principle well founded in nature, that those reasonings are most sure, whose subjects are not influenced by individual caprice, but move only with the motion of the popular mind. Perhaps there never was a better field for the exercise of talent than our own country exhibits at the present pay. Whilst there are here but few great minds wholly devoted to letters, the exertions of genius will be far more conspicuous and effectual, than when a larger multitude has gathered around our literary altars. It is not when many have come forth into the ripened harvest, that we are to look for great individual preeminence. But it is when competition is limited to the few gifted minds, that are willing to toil in difficult and untrodden paths. Then, if ever, must appear those men, who, like Homer and Shakspeare, will have no imitators; and who, like them, will never become models, that others would think of excelling, or hope to equal. I do not say, that this would advance to any great extent our national literature, nor even so far as it would be advanced by a more moderate, but a more universal excellence in our literary men;-for high excellence in one individual brings with it a hopelessness of success to others, and damps for a season the ardour of competition. But I venture nothing in the assertion, that the opportunity for eminent literary success, which our country now holds out to her sons, is such as can never be given them again. The rapid changes, which are every where going on in our occupations and circumstances as a nation, render this impossible. And when we observe how boldly our country is pressing on in the march of intellect, it is not too much to prophesy.-nay, the conclusion seems almost irresistible, that the nation, whose commerce is overshadowing every ocean with its sails, will ere long enlighten with its own literature, at least, the most distant places of its own territory. If climate and natural scenery have a powerful influence in forming the intellectual character of a nation, our country has certainly much to hope from them. And that these influences are powerful, the known principles, which regulate the phenomena of mind, render sufficiently obvious. It cannot be, that the eye should always rest upon sublime and beautiful scenery, and thought be always familiar with the grand features of nature, and that we should not receive from such intercourse one deep and long continued impression. So mind takes colour from the cloud, the storm, Sounds with the surging waves, that proudly rise It is upon the poetic mind, where sensibility to natural beauty is more exquiste than elsewhere, that the influence of natural scenery is most evident; since it is through the medium of fancy and feeling, that this influence is exerted and felt. Poetry has been correctly defined the language of the imagination and the passions; and perhaps there is nothing which more awakens the former than the sublime in nature,—and nothing which more influences the latter, than the beautiful. And hence, whenever national peculiarities, and the civil and religious institutions of a people have introduced peculiar and appropriate modes of thought, and given an individual character to their poetry, the influence of climate and natural scenery become eminently obvious. Thus the sunny hills and purple vineyards of Italy and South France have given a character of delicate beauty to their poetry, and the wild scenery and severer climate of Scotland have breathed a tone of high sublimity into the writings of its bards. In our own country nature has exhibited her works upon the most beautiful and magnificent scale. And this vast theatre, where she has so finely mingled and varied her scenery, is the school in which the genius of our country is to be trained. As the eye scans the open volume of nature, the lessons that it reads there, pass into the mind; and thus we receive those gradual impressions, which go so far to form the mental character. The sentiments with which nature inspires us-those hallowed and associated feelingswe cherish and revere through life. And it is by this intercourse and long familiarity, that our native scenery comes to exert so strong an influence upon the mind, and that the features of intellect are moulded after those of nature. It has been often urged against the advancement of a national literature in our country, that America is not classic ground; and that we are not rich in those fine classic allusions, which mould the poetic mind to its most perfect beauty, and give to genius the materials for superior exertion. But this is an objection, to, |