The tone of British statesmen towards America, is all that any American could ask or desire. Those who nurse illiberal prejudices and express ungenerous dislike of the New World, have not the apology of the example of their rulers. In Parliament, in the highest courts of law, by the throne itself, the United States are invariably treated with a respect equally honorable to both sides. If all England were as wise, a war between the two nations would be impossible. As it is, there are people in the United States insane enough to long for a war with England, that her people may be chastised for certain contempts. So absurd is national irritability--so irritating is national injustice.

But the American is obliged to look for some nearer and more immediately operative cause of his strangerhood in Britain, and he finds one in the common language, which is at once a source of brotherhood and of disunion. The Englishman can forgive a Frenchman for his nasal and his peculiar accent, because the Frenchman does not pretend to speak English, and may do what he likes with his own outlandish gibberish. But when the Yankee, supposing himself to be enunciating, with no little elegance, the language of Johnson and Burke, strains his words through a shut nostril, and rounds his periods with a drawl, the vexation turns all the milk of human kindness to vinegar in the Briton's bosom. He makes his own speech more abrupt and harsh than ever; gives every word with a cast-iron distinctness, and in striving to impress his transatlantic friend with the elegance of the ore rotundo, mouths his sentences like a third-rate actor, and overwhelms poor Jonathan with the new consciousness that his school and college have betrayed him into the use of a spurious tongue, which in fact has no existence, or right of existence, any where on earth, and which must be forgotten before he can begin to speak English. Not only is his manner of speaking utterly condemned, but his use of words is discovered to be barbarous. To the words which are to be found in the "Spectator," he gives the same meaning with his English brother; but there are some words which have come into use since Addison's time, which the Americans use in a sense wounding to British ears. "I shall take the car in the morning," said an American gentleman, in our hearing, to his Eng

lated into English," said Mr. Bull,"means the railway." Now, had not the Yankee a right to be astounded, to find he had made a blunder in not promising to "take the railway?" He may forbear to " guess," "reckon," or "calculate," refrain absolutely from talking about his "location;" study the "Times" in the morning, and listen to parliamentary speeches at night, he will be sure, after all, to betray himself by some difference of speech, and in England to differ is to err. To his ear the speech of the model land is exceedingly deficient in variety of tone; it seems to have lost all the grace of natural modulation by subjection to the conventional standard; it gives a perfectly arbitrary sound to some of the vowels-a sound unprovided for in any table of pronun

ciation.

The American acknowledges-none more cordially—the authority of English standard writers; he quotes the English Reviewsin support of new words, he hears with appreciative ears the speeches of highlyeducated men, but with regard to the use of certain expressions which have sprung into use simultaneously in England and America, under the mere emergency of the times, and with regard to certain others which have been the fruit of a peculiar state of things in his own country, he is unable to perceive that one authority is better than another. This is the natural mode of formation in all languages the addition or modification of words and expressions as occasion for their use arises. To invent or compile new words, is a liberty constantly taken by the English themselves; they could hardly have described their wonderful inventions and improvements else; and there seems to be no reason why, in the United States, where inventions and improvements are equally frequent, and where the people are far more generally educated than in England, the same liberty shall not be enjoyed, without subjecting the new-found words or expressions to the charge of barbarism or vulgarity, because they lack the sanction of usage in the mother country. These changes are, to be sure, of consequence only as they affect the friendliness which ought to reign between people so nearly allied. Little things are of consequence where the affections are in question, and abstract considerations do not fortify us against their influence. Both countries are losers by the bitterness that springs up from trifling causes. It is impossible to disunite them; the pride of the

ent of their character or conduct. Their goodness was a pure gratuity; their evil behavior a visitation to be borne in silenceto be eluded-perhaps to be put down by violence when it went too far-but not to be openly discussed and commented upon. Now, the English organ of reverence has some strange depressions upon its surface. Respect for hereditary rank is an article of the national code of morals; yet the representatives of the idea are handled without mittens whenever they become, from any cause, obnoxious to any portion of the people. No nation in the world enjoys a more complete and manly practical independence, a more entire freedom from the domination of rank in all matters of importance; yet no people have so submissive and self-prostrating an air in actual presence of their hereditary rulers. This is all very well, and perhaps honorable, as showing the ability to receive and be influenced by an idea, which bespeaks the predominance of intellect and the power of self-government. But it is impossible for the American to partake this feeling; he can hardly understand it, and without taking the trouble to understand it, he is in danger of despising it, and of showing that he does so, which is very little to his credit. But he should be pardoned for the sincere astonishment with which he regards the outward manifestations of rank, the outward signs of deference, and the habitual forms of ceremonial observance, which meet his observation in England. He is accused of being fond of titles; but as the only titles in his own country are military ones, and the use of these is not attended by the slightest personal deference, he is as little prepared for the pompous designations of English rank, as if he had never seen a militia major or colonel. He has been accustomed to hear his chief ruler -a potentate who wields a power possessed by few sovereigns-addressed in conversation as plain Mr. and to see him addressed by letter without even this unmeaning prefix; and it seems odd to him to see a long string of surnames and titles of honor appended to the name of a man whom he has met in the dress of a plain farmer riding about his fields, or seen betting on a race at Newmarket. He observes in general a peculiar disposition to seclusion and exclusion on the part of the privileged classes-a drawing down of blinds and a drawing up of glasses-walls, and veils, and plain clothes, and an evident desire to move in an inner circle, into whose secret glories no

vulgar eye shall penetrate. Yet on certain occasions what glare-what tinsel-what travestying of God's image found in servile station-what tricks to astonish these same groundlings, without whose gaping wonder the show would have no soul. Can he help being set musing by these apparent incongruities ?

The terms master and servant being unknown in the United States, except where slavery prevails, are, of course, very offensive to the North American newly arrived in England. It is only after he has had time and opportunity to observe that the relation is none the less a benignant one, equally well understood by both parties, that he becomes reconciled to the names which have necessarily an unhappy association in his mind. To be a master is considered by the citizen of the North as only one degree less unfortunate than to be a slave, and the terms will probably never be naturalized in the United States as applicable to any relations between freemen. Domestic service is a sort of unrecognized thing there-a thing carried into daily practice before its philosophy is sufficiently understood to show its harmony with the leading idea of a republic-equality. While political equality is held to include social equality, domestic service must continue to be an anomaly in a republic of the nineteenth century; and there are some excellent people in America who attempt, in the midst of most discordant elements, to carry out the patriarchal plan, considering their servants only as the sharers of the household labors, and making them their constant associates. This can, of course, never become general, unless universal culture should produce a real equality among men-a result only to be dreamed of. Meanwhile, the wiser way would certainly be to settle the terms of a relation confessedly indispensable; and as far as some little opportunity for observation has enabled us to judge, we should think the American who desires to do the best possible thing for the class of persons accustomed to find a resource in domestic service, could not do better than study the relation of master and servant as it exists in England, where the servant's rights are ascertained quite as decidedly as the master's, and where the master, feeling that they are so, and sensible, besides, that his own comfort must depend very much upon the relation between himself and his domestics, accords to them all the respect and consideration which their good conduct and faithfulness may deserve. There is even

One of the things which strike most forcibly the American visitor in Great Britain, is the immense amount of spirits and beer offered for sale. From the time he sets foot in Liverpool, until he returns thither for embarkation after travelling all over the Continent, the pre-eminence of Britain in the consumption of strong drink is astounding, and leads him almost to wonder whether there are any sober people in a country where alcohol occupies such a place among articles of merchandise. During a somewhat extended tour on the Continent, we could not but notice that the only people we saw drinking spirits were Britons-even in Germany and Holland, supposed to be drinking countries. The difference in this respect between Britain and other countries is more striking than any one could believe without actual observation, and the fact is certainly one which demands serious consideration. The number of persons one meets in England bearing evident marks of intemperate habits shows that it is quite time the subject attracted the attention not only of the philanthropist but the statesman.

The stranger naturally enumerates the things that strike him unpleasantly in Great Britain, because it is impossible to take the opposite course, and recount and remark upon the points that claim his admiration. He sees so much to approve-so little, comparatively, to condemn. If a certain coarseness and want of taste strike him painfully, he is none the less impressed with the substantial greatness and excellence which everywhere abound. Perhaps it is because he sees such excellence that he longs to see the outward grace added. He would not exchange the worth of England for the

It is singular that with such an assured sense of superiority over all other nations as is apparent in the English, they should at the same time be so sensitive with regard to the smallest derogation. They call the Americans sensitive, and so they are; but their sensitiveness has at least the apology of youth-of conscious deficiency—and of the most unsparing and contemptuous criticism on the part of their British neighbors. If, on the other hand, they see anything, however unimportant, which may call for animadversion in England, what wrath-what indignation-what severe recrimination falls on their defenseless heads! Speak of the Spitalfields weavers-of the starving thousands that everywhere set off the wealth of England, and how quickly will your remark be rebutted with slavery! Mention the abuses of the Church Establishment, slavery! Game-laws, slavery! and so on through the whole catalogue of ills under which Englishmen growl and grumble enough when Americans are not by. They pay us at least the compliment of implying that we have but one great evil to contend with, and we are quite willing to acknowledge that one to be a host; but we do not fancy that it ought to blind our eyes or shut our mouths. No nation in the world understands better than the English the application for its own benefit of the parable of the wheat and the tares; and the Americans, though of hastier nature, are learning the lesson too. They will have got rid of slavery at least as soon as England has reformed "the family of plagues that waste her vitals" as one even of her own poets hath said. Meanwhile let each endeavor to bear, now and then, a grain of truth from the other, without bristling, or snapping, or darting out forked venomous lightnings in return. English remarks upon America too often lack the basis of kind intention which takes the offense from severity; American remarks upon England have been too generally recriminative rather than judicious. To find fault without a good motive is mere contemptible venting of spleen and envy; to make careful and discriminating strictures is the proper office of sincere and unselfish friendship. When the English respect us, or are willing to own that they respect us, they will be able to do us good; and when we cease to be made angry by their sneers, we may perhaps do them good in return.

THIS Volume is very unlike the majority of | those records of astronomical observations which form an annually increasing load upon the quarto shelves of our scientific libraries. These may be, and for the most part are, of the greatest value, as containing the data upon which the future progress of one large department of astronomy is to be founded, but Sir John Herschel's work is a record of that progress itself.

Practical astronomy is naturally divided into two branches: 1st, that which depends mainly or solely upon the perfection of the Telescope as an instrument of research-in which the highest resources of optical art are expended in the examination of the heavenly bodies considered singly, or in such small groups as may be discerned at one time in the field of a telescope; 2d, that which depends more directly upon our power of measuring and subdividing time and space, whereby the relative places of the heavenly bodies are determined, the laws of their motions and the forms of their orbits: the divided circle and the clock are the characteristic implements of this branch of astronomy; telescopes of enormous power are, generally speaking, inapplicable to it. Now the bulk of the publications issuing from our national observatories belong to the latter class of inquiries; whilst the former has, with some exceptions, been left chiefly in the hands of amateurs, or at least of private individuals. The labors of Sir William Herschel, to which his son has in the present and in former works so largely added, belong in a peculiar manner to the first class. The telescope is almost the sole apparatus: fine telescopes, and the much rarer qualification of using them to the best advantage, are the requisites for success.

It will readily be apprehended that telescopic astronomy, and the records of telescopic observations, are of far more general interest than the reading of altitude and azimuth circles, the counting of pendulum beats, and the determination of a few seconds of error in the tabular places of a planet. And though, as we shall see, there is a vast amount of numerical work in Sir John Herschel's pages, yet the results are so numerous and varied, so striking by reason of their novelty, and so picturesque in their details, that they are fitted to interest every one who is even moderately acquainted with the general facts of astronomy, and render the work eminently readable, which is precisely what (it may be stated without any disparagement to our regular observatory publications) the others are not. The difference may be illustrated by two descriptions of a distant country which we can never hope to visit. The one is a statistical report of its extent and resources, the number of acres of arable, pasture, or wood, the latitude and longitude of its cities, the altitude of mountains, the number of inhabitants, and the sum of revenue. The other is a graphic description of its natural features and political condition; the road-book of a traveller who has explored its recesses with the eye of a naturalist and a painter, whose sketches live in our remembrance, and by an appeal to universal associations, enable us to realize scenes and manners which we shall never see for ourselves, but which we learn to compare with what has been all our life long familiar. Thus does the astronomy of the telescope lead us to understand in some degree the economy of other systems; it brings to its aid every branch of physical science in order to obtain results regarding the nature and