himself in the luxury of a little fibbing, by ascribing to an
Englishman a pompous account of the Thames, constructed entirely upon
American ideas of grandeur, and concluding in something like these
terms:--"And, sir, arriving at London, this mighty father of rivers
attains a breadth of at least two furlongs, having, in its winding
course, traversed the astonishing distance of one hundred and seventy
miles." And this the candid American thinks it fair to contrast with
the scale of the Mississippi. Now, it is hardly worth while to answer a
pure fiction gravely; else one might say that no Englishman out of
Bedlam ever thought of looking in an island for the rivers of a
continent, nor, consequently, could have thought of looking for the
peculiar grandeur of the Thames in the length of its course, or in the
extent of soil which it drains. Yet, if he _had_ been so absurd,
the American might have recollected that a river, not to be compared
with the Thames even as to volume of water--viz., the Tiber--has
contrived to make itself heard of in this world for twenty-five
centuries to an extent not reached as yet by any river, however
corpulent, of his own land. The glory of the Thames is measured by the
destiny of the population to which it ministers, by the commerce which
it supports, by the grandeur of the empire in which, though far from
the largest, it is the most influential stream. Upon some such scale,
and not by a transfer of Columbian standards, is the course of our
English mails to be valued. The American may fancy the effect of his
own valuations to our English ears by supposing the case of a Siberian
glorifying his country in these terms:--"These wretches, sir, in France
and England, cannot march half a mile in any direction without finding
a house where food can be had and lodging; whereas such is the noble
desolation of our magnificent country that in many a direction for a
thousand miles I will engage that a dog shall not find shelter from a
snow-storm, nor a wren find an apology for breakfast."] miles--