the Iron
Duke's nose is in _Punch_! Why should we not laugh like heroes, who are
said to grow hale of good-humour kept up by caricatures?"

"You must allow that Maga is not always good-natured, as some of her
rivals invariably are."

"There's no comparison, sir, between the sometimes irritable merriment
of King Christopher, and the professional tinkling of a jester's
cap-and-bells. I can't argue it,--only I like _Blackwood_ for all its
Toryism; and when Kit North is testy, I reflect that he's long had the
gout! Banish Geordie Buchanan's venerable old pow--did you say? Never,
Sir, never!"

Of course, I allowed the good sense of these replies, and at once
explained to myself the philosophy which gave rise to them. The truth
is, there is in human nature a deep sense of "the eternal fitness of
things," which usually gives tone to the opinions of man, where undue
prejudices do not exercise an overruling control. You know, my dear
Godfrey, how unlikely it is that an American would ever care to pay you
a second visit at the Hall, should he signalise his first by
depreciating the character of Washington, or undervaluing the many
advantages which his country really enjoys. On the same principle which
would certainly betray you into marks of cool aversion towards such a
guest from this side the Atlantic, the intelligent American despises in
his heart the Briton, whose spirit is alien to the time-honoured
institutions of his ancestors, and whose life is one long blasphemy of
all that has contributed most to the glory and greatness of an empire,
whose worst symptom of decay is the fungous existence of a race of such
blasphemers, at once the morbid fruit of a free constitution, and its
fatal and cancerous disease. Whiggery is, therefore, at a discount in
the republic; and I have been surprised to hear the confession from
American democrats, that if they were Englishmen, they would be far from
any sympathy with those who call themselves reformers. This, perhaps,
will account for it, that with all the influence of the Edinburgh
Reviewers, they have never gained, in this country, any hold of the
heart, even where they have controlled the head; whilst Maga, on the
contrary, without bending the republican opinions of Americans, has
secured no small degree of their affections, and become enshrined in
their genuine regard. You may see one proof of this in the fact, that if
you contract with Reprint & Co. for their republications, and w