ion, which most of the Paris edifices want,
seems deficient in height. But Notre Dame, on the contrary, towers
proudly and gracefully, and I have not seen its general effect surpassed.
It reminded me of Westminster Abbey, though it is less extensive. As a
place of worship it is infinitely superior to the Abbey, which has the
damp air and gloom of a dungeon, in each most unlike Notre Dame. I trust
no American visits Paris without seeing this noble church, and on the
Sabbath if possible.

AMERICAN ART AND INDUSTRY--BRITISH JOURNALISM.

Since I left London, _The Times_ has contained two Editorials on
American contributions to the Great Exhibition, which seem to require
comment. These articles are deprecatory and apologetic in their general
tenor, evincing a consciousness that the previous strictures of the
London Press on American Art had pushed disparagement beyond the bounds
of policy, and might serve to arouse a spirit in the breasts of the
people so invidiously and persistently assailed. So our countryman are
now told, in substance, that they are rather clever fellows on the
whole, who have only made themselves ridiculous by attempting to do and
to be what Nature had forbidden. Nothing but our absurd pretensions
could thus have exposed us to the world's laughter. America might be
America with credit; she has broken down by undertaking to be Europe
also, &c., &c.

"It is the _attempt_, and not the _deed_, confounds me."

But what are the nature and extent of this American audacity? Our
countrymen have undertaken to minister to their own wants by the
production of certain Wares and Fabrics which they had formerly been
content either to do without or to buy from Europe. Being urgently
invited to do so, they have sent over some few of these results of their
art and skill to a grand exposition of the World's Industry. Even if
they were as bad as they are represented, these products should be here;
since the object of the Exhibition is not merely to set forth what is
best but to compare it with the inferior, and so indicate the readiest
mode of improving the latter. Russia, Turkey, Egypt, Barbary, Persia,
have sent hither their wares and fabrics, which hundreds of thousands
have examined with eager and gratified interest--an interest as real as
that excited by the more perfect rival productions of Western Europe,
though of a different kind from that. No one has thought of ridiculing
these products of a more primit