evermore. Now, if these gentlemen would only recollect that impressions,
which are thus hastily collected must of necessity share the
imperfection of all things done in a hurry, they would not record these
hurriedly gleaned facts with such an appearance of infallibility, or,
rather, they might be induced to try a second rush across the Atlantic
before attempting that first rush into print. Let them remember that even
the genius of Dickens was not proof against such error, and that a
subsequent visit to the States caused no small amount of alteration in
his impressions of America. This second visit should be a rule with every
man who wishes to read aright, for his own benefit, or for that of
others, the great book which America holds open to the traveller. Above
all, the English traveller who enters the United States with a portfolio
filled with letters of introduction will generally prove the most
untrustworthy guide to those who follow him for information. He will
travel from city to city, finding everywhere lavish hospitality and
boundless kindness; at every hotel he will be introduced to several of
"our leading citizens;" newspapers will report his progress,
general-superintendents of railroads will pester him with free passes
over half the lines in the Union; and he will take his departure from New
York after a dinner at Delmonico's, the cartes of which will cost a
dollar each. The chances are extremely probable that his book will be
about as fair a representation of American social and political
institutions as his dinner at Delmonico's would justly represent the
ordinary cuisine throughout the Western States.

Having been fêted and free-passed through the Union, he of course comes
away delighted with everything. If he is what is called a Liberal in
politics, his political bias still further strengthens his favourable
impressions of democracy and Delmonico; if he is a rigid Conservative,
democracy loses half its terrors when it is seen across the