og" himself, and making me go it too.
Now, if I receive such abuse for my first three volumes, in which I went
into little or no analysis, what am I to expect for those which are
about to appear? To the editor of the Baltimore Chronicle I feel
indebted: but I suspect that the _respectable_ portion of the American
community will be very much annoyed at my thus giving his remarks more
extensive circulation than he anticipated.

VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER SEVEN.

AUTHORS, ETC.

The best specimens of American writing are to be found in their
political articles, which are, generally speaking, clear, argumentative,
and well arranged. The President's annual message is always masterly in
composition, although disgraced by its servile adulation of the
majority. If we were to judge of the degrees of enlightenment of the
two countries, America and England, by the President's message and the
King's speech, we should be left immeasurably in the back-ground--the
message, generally speaking, being a model of composition, while the
speech is but too often a farrago of bad English. This is very strange,
as those who concoct the speech are of usually much higher classical
attainments than those who write the message. The only way to account
for it, is, that in the attempt to condense the speech, they pare and
pare away till the sense of it is almost gone; his Majesty's ministers
perfectly understanding what they mean themselves, but forgetting that
it is necessary that others should do the same. But in almost all
branches of literature the Americans have no cause to be displeased with
the labours of their writers, considering that they have the
disadvantage of America looking almost entirely to the teeming press of
England for their regular supply, and nowhere in that country can be
said at present to be men of leisure and able to devote themselves to
the pursuit. An author by profession would gain but a sorry livelihood
in the United States, unless he happened to be as deservedly successful
as Washington Irving or Cooper. He not only has to compete against the
best English authors, but as almost all the English works are published
without any sum being paid for the copyright, it is evident that he must
sell his work at a higher price if he is to obtain any profit. An
English work of fiction, for instance, is sold at a dollar and a
quarter, while an American one costs two dollars.

This circumstance would alone break down the A