BOZ IN AMERICA.

SINCE the voyages of Columbus in search of the New World, and of Raleigh in quest of El Dorado, no visit to America has excited so much interest and conjecture as that of the author of "Oliver Twist." The enterprise was understood to be a sort of Literary Expedition, for profit as well as pleasure: and many and strange were the speculations of the reading public as to the nature and value of the treasures which would be brought home by Dickens on his return. Some persons expected a philosophical comparison of Washington's Republic with that of Plato; others anticipated a Report on the Banking System and Commercial Statistics of the United States; and some few, perhaps, looked for a Pamphlet on International Copyright. The general notion, however, was that the Transatlantic acquisitions of Boz would transpire in the shape of a Tale of American Life and Manners-and moreover that it would appear by monthly instalments in green covers, and illustrated by some artist with the name of Phiz, or Whiz, or Quiz.

So strong indeed was this impression, that certain blue-stockinged prophetesses even predicted a new Avatar of the celebrated Mr. Pickwick in slippers and loose trousers, a nankeen jacket, and a straw-hat, as large as an umbrella. Sam Weller was to re-appear as his help, instead of a footman, still full of droll sayings, but in a slang more akin to that of his namesake, the Clock-maker: while Weller, senior, was to revive on the box of a Boston long stage,-only calling himself Jonathan, instead of Tony, and spelling it with a G. A Virginian widow Bardell was a matter of course-and some visionaries even foresaw a

slave-owning Mr. Snodgrass, a coon-hunting Mr. Winkle, a wideawake Joe, and a forest-clearing Bob Sawyer.*

The fallacy of these guesses and calculations was first proved by the announcement of "American Notes for General Circulation," a title that at once dissipated every dream of a Clockcase, or a Club, and cut off all chance of a tale. Encouraged by the technical terms which seemingly had some reference to their own speculations, the money-mongers still held on faintly by their former opinions:-but the Romanticists were in despair, and reluctantly abandoned all hopes of a Pennsylvanian Nicholas Nickleby affectionately darning his mother-a new Yorkshire Mr. Squeers flogging creation—a black Smike-a brown Kate, and a Bostonian Newman Noggs, alternately swallowing a cocktail and a cobbler.†

Still there remained enough in the announcement of American Notes, by C. Dickens, to strop the public curiosity to a keen edge. Numerous had been the writers on the land of the stars and stripes-a host of travelled ladies and gentlemen, liberals and illiberals, utilitarians and inutilitarians-human bowls of every bias had trundled over the United States without hitting, or in the opinion of the natives, even coming near the jack. The Royalist, missing the accustomed honors of Kings and Queens, saw nothing but a republican pack of knaves; the High Churchman, finding no established church, declared that there was no religion-the aristocrat swore that all was low and vulgar, because there were no servants in drab turned up with blue, or in green turned down with crimson—the radical was shocked by the caucus, the enthralment of public opinion, and the timidity of the preachers—the metaphysical philosopher was disgusted with the preponderance of the real over the ideal the adventurer took fright at Lynch law, and the saintly abolitionist saw nothing but black angels and white devils. An impartial account of America and the Americans was still to seek, and accordingly the reading public on both sides of the Atlantic looked forward with anxiety

* With the wishes of these admirers of Boz we can in some degree sympathize: for what could be a greater treat in the reading way than the perplexities of a squatting Mr. Pickwick, or a settling Mrs. Nickleby? † Not a horse and shoe-maker, but two sorts of American drink

and eagerness for the opinions of a writer who had proved by a series of wholesome fictions that his heart was in the right place, that his head was not in the wrong one, and that his hand was a good hand at description. One thing at least was certain, that nothing would be set down in malice; for, compared with modern authors in general, Boz is remarkably free from sectarian or antisocial prejudices, and as to politics he seems to have taken the long pledge against party spirit. And doubtless one of the causes of his vast popularity has been the social and genial tone of his works, showing that he feels and acts on the true principle of the "homo sum "" -a sum too generally worked as one in long Division instead of Addition.

In the mean time the book, after long budding in advertisement, has burst into a full leaf, and however disconcerting to those persons who had looked for something quite different, will bring no disappointment to such as can be luxuriously content with good sense, good feeling, good fun, and good writing. In the very first half-dozen of pages the reader will find an example of that cheerful practical philosophy which makes the best of the worst that happy healthy spirit which, instead of morbidly resenting the deception of a too flattering artist, who had lithographed the ship's accommodations, joined with him in converting a floating cup-board into a state-room, and a cabin "like a hearse with windows in it," into a handsome saloon. But we must skip the voyage, though pleasantly and graphically described, and at once land Boz in Boston, where, suffering from that true ground swell which annoys the newly landed, he goes rolling along the pitching passages of the Tremont hotel "with an involuntary imitation of the gait of Mr. T. P. Cooke in a new nautical melodrama."

Now, Boston is the modern Athens of America. Its inhabitants, many of them educated in the neighboring university of Cambridge, are decidedly of a literary turn, and of course were not indifferent to the arrival of so distinguished an author in their city. Modesty, however, prevents him from recording in print the popular effervescence-the only fact which transpires is, that the first day being Sunday he was offered pews and sittings in churches and chapels, "enough for a score or two of

grown up families." These courtesies, one and all, the traveller is obliged to decline for want of a change of dress,-a fortunate circumstance so far, that whilst the curious but serious Bostonians were congregated elsewhere, he was enabled, accompanied by only a score or so of little boys and girls of no particular persuasion, to take a survey and a clever sketch (p. 59) of the city. On Monday, the case was evidently altered; for, after a visit to the State-House (p. 61), he was compelled to take refuge from the mob, in a place where he could not be made a sight or a show of the Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind. Here he saw the interesting Laura Bridgman, a poor little girl, blind, deaf, dumb, destitute of the sense of smell, and almost of that of taste, yet, thanks to a judicious and humane education, not altogether dark within, nor hapless without. The following picture is deeply touching; a mist comes over the clear eye in reading it.

Like other inmates of the house she had a green ribbon bound over her eyelids. A doll she had dressed lay near upon the ground. I took it up and saw that she had made a green fillet such as she wore herself, and fastened it about its mimic eyes."

But the mob has dispersed; at least the bulk of it, for not counting the children, there remain but fourteen autographhunters, six phrenologists, four portrait-painters, seven booksellers, five editors, and nineteen ladies, with handsomely-bound books in their hands or under their arms, on the steps and about the door of the Blind Asylum. And there they may be still, for somehow Boz has given them the slip, and in the turning of a leaf is at South Boston, in the state hospital for the insane-not however as a patient-for he was once deranged by proxy in some other person's intellects, but witnessing and admiring the rational and humane mode of treatment which, as at our own Hanwell Asylum, has replaced the brutal, brainless practice of the good old times when insanity was treated as a criminal offence, the tortures abolished for felons were retained for lunatics, and their poor over-heated brains had as much chance of cooling as under the Plombières of the Inquisition. Let the reader who has a mother turn to page 176 for a peep at a whim.

sical old lady, in the Hartford establishment, and then let him think that some fifty years ago the poor dear old soul would have been fettered, perhaps scourged, for only fancying herself an antediluvian! But to lighten a sad subject, let us smile at a characteristic interview between Boz and an Ophelia, in the same house.

"As we were passing through a gallery on our way out, a well-dressed lady, of quiet and composed manners, came up, and proffering a slip of paper and a pen, begged that I would oblige her with an autograph. I complied, and we parted. I hope she is not mad (quoth the visitor) for I think I remember having had a few interviews like that with ladies out of doors."

Huzza! whoo-oop! A mob has gathered again, and before he has gone a page, Boz is obliged to get into the Boston House of Industry, thence into the adjoining Orphan Institution, and from that, but not mortally crushed, into the Hospital, all highly creditable establishments, except in one iron feature, "the eternal, accursed, suffocating, redhot demon of a stove, whose breath would blight the purest air under heaven:" and so it doesparching the lungs with baked air. We have had some experience of the nuisance in Germany; and never saw it lighted without wishing for a washerwoman, exorbitant in her charges, to blow it up. But we must push on, or the observed of all observers will be divided from us by a square mile of the Lowell Factory Millicents, "all dressed out with parasols and silkstockings," not white or flesh-color, but blue, for these young women are decidedly literary, and besides subscribing to the circulating libraries, actually get up a periodical of their own!

"The large class of readers, startled by these facts, will exclaim with one voice, 'How very preposterous !' On my deferentially inquiring why, they will answer, These things are above their station.' In reply to that observation I would beg leave to ask what that station is."

What?-why, according to some of our moral stationers, the proper station for such people is the station-house, to which actors, singers, and dancers have so often been consigned in this country for acting, singing, and dancing upon too moderate terms. But better times seem to dawn-the licensing Justices begin to out