descriptive of a most cultivated, intelligent, enterprising,
frugal, and industrious population, who may well challenge
a comparison with the inhabitants of any other country
in the world; but it has only a local application.

"The United States cover an immense extent of territory,
and the inhabitants of different parts of the Union differ
as widely in character, feelings, and even in appearance,
as the people of different countries usually do. These
sections differ also in dialect and in humour, as much
as in other things, and to as great, if not a greater
extent, than the natives of different parts of Great
Britain vary from each other. It is customary in Europe
to call all Americans, Yankees; but it is as much a
misnomer as it would be to call all Europeans Frenchmen.
Throughout these works it will be observed, that Mr.
Slick's pronunciation is that of the Yankee, or an
inhabitant of the _rural districts_ of New England. His
conversation is generally purely so; but in some instances
he uses, as his countrymen frequently do from choice,
phrases which, though Americanisms, are not of Eastern
origin. Wholly to exclude these would be to violate the
usages of American life; to introduce them oftener would
be to confound two dissimilar dialects, and to make an
equal departure from the truth. Every section has its
own characteristic dialect, a very small portion of which
it has imparted to its neighbours. The dry, quaint humour
of New England is occasionally found in the west, and
the rich gasconade and exaggerative language of the west
migrates not unfrequently to the east. This idiomatic