"A CARD.-Dr. Irving, encouraged by the flattering attention bestowed upon his first lecture, respectfully announces his intention to deliver, on Thursday evening, August 2, in the Saloon of Congress Hall, commencing at half-past eight, a satirical review of the nursery ballad of 'Little Cock Robin;' considered as a great modern Epic, after the most approved mode of reviewing works in general, and poems in particular.

'All the birds fell

To sighing and sobbing,

When they heard tell

Of the death of Cock Robin.'

"Admittance 50 cents. Tickets may be procured at the principal hotels and at the reading rooms.”

I attended this, to see what would be the character of the audience, what the reception of the speaker, and what the impression made by his discourse, hardly expecting there would be many present, as I thought the native Americans would rather be disposed to resent such an affront to their taste and understanding than to patronize it by a very large attendance. In this, however, I was mistaken, for there were certainly not less than 500 persons present; and those of the first style of fashion, from the two principal hotels, including old and young; and about an equal number of both sexes, including grave and venerable gentlemen of 70, and matronly ladies of 60, with all the beaux and belles between 15 and 20.

The speaker was received in silence, as it is not usual for an audience to applaud, except at the theatres and political meetings. As he proceeded to develope his subject, which was a tissue of the most absurd and puerile conceits, and abortive attempts at wit and humour, that I ever remember to have witnessed, there was a great variety in the

POPULAR LECTURES.

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Some

expressions of the auditors' countenances. endeavoured to force a smile, as if to show that they had sagacity enough to perceive the wit intended: some looked more ashamed for themselves at being present, than for the speaker as an orator of their own country; but the great majority were evidently uncomfortable at their present position, sorry that they had got into it, but wanting courage enough to rise and go out, though some did this before the discourse was half over.

As the former narrative, of the loves of a young physician and his patient's daughter, was thickly interspersed with pictures bordering on the lascivious-at which I do not think a female audience would have sat still for many minutes in England; so this second discourse was interlarded with the most fulsome appeals to the beauty and tenderness of the young ladies, as the "loves of society," and the gallantry and devotedness of the young men as the "cock-robins and sparrows of the community," in a strain that was at once insulting to the understanding, as it was offensive to all minds of delicacy or good taste. Nevertheless, by a large number of the audience, the speaker was applauded to the echo, at which the old looked abashed, and the middleaged embarrassed: yet for a long hour and half was this most insufferable tediousness bestowed upon the audience, and their indulgent forbearance coolly taken by the speaker as a proof of their very flattering approbation of his critical and oratorical labours.

On retiring to the drawing-room, I had an opportunity of hearing directly, and overhearing indirectly, in the crowded promenade, in which all

joined, a number of opinions delivered on this literary performance. Some expressed their unqualified disgust, and thought this feeling ought to have been evinced in some public manner; but these were very few; the greater number admitted that it was the most arrant nonsense they had ever heard; but thought that it was not patriotic to run it down, since, after all, it was the performance of a native American; and some who had noticed my being present, and who supposed it probable that I should give to the world some account of my travels in America, expressed a hope that I should not mention anything so discreditable to the taste of an American audience, in my Journal.

CHAP. XXIV.

Sensitiveness of Americans to foreign censure-Opinion of Mr. Latrobe on American character-Evil effects produced by hotel and boarding house life-Too early introduction of the young to public society-Effects on the taste and manners of the more advanced-Disadvantages to married and elderly persons -- No return for this in improved health or vigour-Equal applicability of this to English watering-places-Suggestion of a better mode of making summer excursions Beneficial effects which would flow from its adoption-Deaths of two inmates of the house at Saratoga-Impressive solemnity of a Quaker funeral-Address of an elder or patriarch of the society-Affecting prayer of the mother of the deceased-Effect produced on the whole assembly

Contrast with more gorgeous funerals Quakers universally friendly to abolition- Many of the American clergy apologists for slavery - Prejudices on republicanism and on monarchy-Opinion of Mr. Cooper, the American, on slavery-Fallacies of the arguments used on this subject-Public meeting at Saratoga on education-Public meeting at Ballston on temperance— -Comparison between English and American farmers - Differences in the appearance of the females.

ONE of the most striking features of the American character, is the extreme sensitiveness of all classes to the opinions of foreigners; and it is only to the fact of their being the opinions of foreigners, that they object; for the same censures, coming from one of their own nation, are scarcely heeded. The North, for instance, will abuse the South in unmeasured terms, both in their public journals and at public meetings, as a set of unprincipled, licentious, reckless slaveholders, sharpers, and gamblers, combined. The South will return the compliment, by calling the

men of the North a set of cold, selfish, calculating, canting hypocrites, desiring to pursue their schemes of pretended philanthropy at the expense of their fellow-citizens, committing acts of fraud and overreaching during the week, and wiping it off with sanctimonious faces and long prayers on Sundays. The democratic party will accuse its political opponents of being tyrants, oppressors, and bloodsuckers, preying on the vitals of the nation, holding the power of the banks, to make themselves a monied aristocracy, and traitors to the liberties of the people. The aristocratic party, here called the Whigs, will denounce the democrats as agrarians, levellers, incendiaries, and plunderers, who desire to seize the property of the rich, and divide it among themselves ; and whose designs are fraught with the utmost danger to property, morality, and religion.

It may be doubted, whether either of these parties themselves believe what they say of their opponents. It is hardly possible that they should not know that it is not true. But it serves, or is supposed to serve, the interests of the respective parties so to denounce and vilify each other, that if a collection could be made of all that the American speakers and writers say of all parts and sections of their own country in turn, it might be pronounced, upon their own respective authorities, to be worse than Sodom and Gomorrah in the very height of their wickedness. While this warfare against each other still goes on, however, let but an English traveller venture to express an opinion of the inferiority of the American people to his own countrymen, in any the most trifling particular, whether in beauty or