he like of us.

"So long," says the editor of the _New York Gazette_ and _Times_ "as our
National Legislature refuses to give the Republic an International
Copyright Law, so that American periodicals of a higher class may be
supported among us, the English reviews will do the thinking of our
people upon a great variety of subjects. They make no money, indeed,
directly, by their circulation here; but their conductors cannot but
feel the importance, and value the influence of having the whole
American literary area to themselves. _Blackwood_, whose circulation on
this side of the Atlantic is, on account of its cheapness, double
perhaps that which it can claim in the British islands, is more and more
turning its attention to American subjects, which it handles generally
with its wonted humorous point, and witty spitefulness."

This is very fine; but we can assure our friendly critic, that we feel
no call whatever to undertake the gratuitous direction of the American
conscience. Our ambition to "do the thinking" of our Yankee cousins is
materially damped by the unpleasant necessity which it involves, of
being "done" ourselves. They seem, however, to claim a prescriptive
right to the works of the British press, as well as to the funds of the
British public. They read our books, on the same principle as they
borrow our money, and abuse their benefactors into the bargain with more
than Hibernian asperity. After all, however, we believe that the candour
of Maga has as much to do with their larcenous admiration of her pages,
as the "cheapness" to which our New York editor alludes. To use their
own phrase, "they go in for excitement considerable;" and, to be told of
their faults, is an excitement which they seldom enjoy at the hands of
their own authors. Now, we are accustomed to treat our own public as a
rational, but extremely fallible personage, and to think that we best
deserve his support, by administering to his failings the language of
unpalatable truth. And we greatly mistake the character of Demus, and
even of that conceited monster the American Demus,--

[Greek: agroikos orgen, kuamotrox, akracholos upokophos--]

if this be not the direction in which the interest, as well as the duty,
of the public writer lies. Certain it is, that even in the United States
those books circulate most freely, which lash most vigorously the vices
of the Republic. Honest Von Raumer's dull encomium fell almost
still-born from the pres