tinsel from the coats of its foreign agents, and to send them abroad in the attire they use at home. Even the halfcivilized Turk has too much dignity and self-respect to change his turban for a hat, when he goes to the Tuileries or St. James', and why should we forever bend to the habits of other people? We lose instead of gaining respect by the course, and in losing respect we lose influence. A tailor at Paris once showed the writer, with a sneer, a coat he had been making for an American agent, with a star as big as the Ursa Major on each breast, wrought in gold thread! After all, it was but a pitiful imitation of the Toison d'Or and St. Esprit. Simplicity is as much the characteristic of a gentleman as magnificence-in the name of Heaven let us have one or the other!

It was the original intention of the writer to expose the manner in which the British aristocratic journals, however much opposed to each other on certain points, rally to support their distinctive privileges and national interests. The Quarterly and Edinburgh usually mix like oil and vinegar, but the latter was selected to assail the writer, because it was believed it passed as a more liberal work in this country. In England a tory means an oligarchist; a whig is merely an aristocrat; a liberal is one who wishes rational freedom, founded on the base of the people, and a radical is one who is for overturning every thing and beginning de novo. The Edinburgh Review is strictly whig, and it has been contending for taking away the close boroughs from my Lords A. B. and C., in order to make a new distribution of power among the few---not the few in its sense, for this would be oligarchical; but the few in our sense, which is aristocratical. The writer had selected four or five cases of the exceeding ignorance of the Edinburgh, in order to show with what instruction it discussed American subjects, but his limits have forced the matter out. There is one case, however, to which he could wish to say

a word. Mr. Rush, in his late work on England, observes that men of different parties meet sociably in society, appearing for the moment to forget their political antipathies. In reviewing this book the critic asks, with a sneer, and in reference to this remark of Mr. Rush, if Mr. Cooper remembers his answer when he was told that Pitt and Fox never met in private life. The writer does not remember his answer, nor does he remember ever to have been before told the circumstance in question. As he is told it now, however, he will make an answer, viz. "That the fact contradicts the statement of Mr. Rush, and that the reviewer does not appear to have had sufficient sagacity to see it."

On re-examining the constitution, the writer perceives that the power of each house to keep a separate journal is given rather in the character of an injunction than in that of a concession. Of course he has used the fact improperly as an illustration of his argument, which it does not sustain, while, at the same time, it does not oppose it.

The writer has succeeded in finding the paragraph from the pen of Mr. Hazlett, which is alluded to in page 52. It is given below:

"There are two things I admire in Sir Walter, his capapacity and his simplicity; which indeed I am apt to think are much the same. The more ideas a man has of other

things, the less he is taken up with the idea of himself. Every one gives the same account of the author of Waverly in this respect. When he was in Paris, and went to Galignani's, he sat down in an outer room to look at some book he wanted to see; none of the clerks had the least suspicion who it was. When it was found out, the place was in a commotion. Cooper, the American, was in Paris at the same time: his looks and manners seemed to announce a much greater man. He strutted through the streets with a very consequential air; and in company held

up his head, screwed up his features, and placed himself on a sort of pedestal to be observed and admired, as if he never relaxed in the assumption nor wished it to be forgotten by others, that he was the American Walter Scott."

NOTES.

A.

Since my arrival from Switzerland, I have taken no particular pains to investigate the affair of the critique on the Bravo, that appeared in the NewYork American, though one or two circumstances have occurred to corroborate what I never doubted, that it was a translation of one of the attacks of the Juste Milieu, a little altered to adapt it to the American reader, for, as you may remember, it professes to come from an American. The Journal des Debats, the oracle of the party of the Doctrinaires, published, some time before, the original, allowing for the translation and the necessary alterations, as I understand. This fact alone would put the question of its origin at rest, were there not sufficient internal evidence to prove it, without referring to the stupid blunder of quoting the Paris edition of the work! I take the report you mention, of this critique having been written by "an obscure clerk in a counting-house," to be a subterfuge. [The following are the words of Mr. Morse :-"I gave you the name of the writer (of the critique) in Paris, on the authority of ·; since I have been at home, it has been declared to me that the review was written here by an obscure clerk in a counting-house, and was cited to me as having assured my informant of the fact." It will be seen that this attributing of the article to an obscure person did not come from either Mr. Morse or myself, neither of whom believed the story, but actually from the other side. the person alluded to by Mr. Morse, is a personal and political friend of the editor of the American, and if Cassio dislikes this description of his employments, he must reserve his spleen for those who originated it.] It might have been forwarded to the American through such a channel, or it might have been translated by such a pen, for the work is done in so bungling a manner, that, as you will recollect, I detected its French origin before twenty lines were read. I am not disposed to deny the obscurity of the translator. When work of this description is done, it is usually committed to understrappers. Depend on it, however, that it was translated at Paris, clerk or no clerk. The Bravo is certainly no very flattering picture for the upstart aristocrats of the new regimes, and nothing is more natural than their desire to undervalue the book; but the facility betrayed by our own journals, in an affair of this nature, is a source of deep mortification to every American of right feeling. I ought to have said, there is a gentleman now at Paris, who (I am told) says he was present when one of the editors of the American wrote the article. You may take this statement as the companion to the report of the agency of the "obscure

clerk;" both stories cannot be true, since they contradict each other. I have no doubt that Mr. discovered the truth, and that is the true author of the article, with, perhaps, the exception of the alterations which exist in the translation. This is a common hack writer-was then

in the employment of the Journal des Debats, and would have written an eulogium on the Bravo, or any thing else, the next day, for a hundred francs. It is unnecessary to say any thing to you touching the venality of the French and English reviews. As a general rule, nothing appears in either without favor or malice.

You have not alluded to the attack on me, contained in the Commercial Advertiser of Feb. 1st last. I consider this article much more worthy of attention than the pitiful affair of the translation of Mr.

's criticism

on the Bravo. I think, were the truth known, that, with the exception of the article on the Heidenmauer, translated from the Revue Encyclopedique, and which has looseness enough to contain its own refutation, this is purely of American origin. "We clearly perceive," says the reviewer, "that Cooper has long ceased to dwell in America. It awakens no more recollections in his soul." Here is the 'ercles vein with a vengeance! Now, just twenty-three lines lower down, in the column of the Commercial, this grinder of ideas adds" Cooper does not speak of a site, &c. without stopping to say, 'Oh, this is much better in America,' &c. &c. It is easy to see that he must think of his own country to excite himself, and to arrive at the end of his book." All this stuff is well enough for the ordinary French reader, who is not usually a very great stickler for facts, or consistency. But why is it translated for the Commercial? I think I can tell you.

1

The Commercial avows that the review is sent by a "correspondent." It even gives some of the opinions, and, luckily, some of the language too, of this correspondent. Here is what he says of me: "He has constiluted himself the literary antagonist of the monarchy, aristocracy and feudality of all Europe, and particularly of England, to, at, and for which last country he especially writes." I have italicised the cloven feet. "To, at, and for!" I know but one potentate capable of parading these prepositions. Had he been as skilful in enumerating the cost of government, in the finance discussion, these innocent little parts of speech would never have been dragged forth so unmercifully. Let us look at him again. Lower down he says, "He is an American (not a French) Voltaire, at Paris, (not Fernay)." Here is pith for you! By these few words we learn that Voltaire was a Frenchman, and that I am a Yankee, that once lived at Fernay, and the other at Paris. We had at Cooperstown, some thirty or forty years ago, a political writer who put his parentheses into one another, like spare pill-boxes, but he wanted altogether the lucid arrangement of the correspondent of the Commercial !

The jesuitism of this digested attack in the Commercial is worthy of notice. First I am shown up by the Theban of the French review; then comes an