in which the middling and lower classes lived. Unlike
Europe, articles that were imported were mere necessaries of life, in
America, such as tea, coffee, sugar, etc. etc., the lowest labourer
usually indulging in them. He left me evidently impressed with new
notions, for there is a desire to learn mingled with all their vanity.

But I will relate a laughable blunder of a translator, by way of giving
you a familiar example of the manner in which the French fall into error
concerning the condition of other nations, and to illustrate my meaning.
In one of the recent American novels that have been circulated here, a
character is made to betray confusion, by tracing lines on the table,
after dinner, with some wine that had been spilt; a sort of idle
occupation sufficiently common to allow the allusion to be understood by
every American. The sentence was faithfully rendered; but, not satisfied
with giving his original, the translator annexes a note, in which he
says, "One sees by this little trait, that the use of table-cloths, at
the time of the American Revolution, was unknown in America!" You will
understand the train of reasoning that led him to this conclusion. In
France the cover is laid, perhaps, on a coarse table of oak, or even of
pine, and the cloth is never drawn; the men leaving the table with the
women. In America, the table is of highly polished mahogany, the cloth
is removed, and the men sit, as in England. Now the French custom was
supposed to be the custom of mankind, and wine could not be traced on
the wood had there been a cloth; America was a young and semi-civilized
nation, and, _ergo_, in 1779, there could have been no table-cloths
known in America!--When men even visit a people of whom they have been
accustomed to think in this way, they use their eyes through the medium
of the imagination. I lately met a French traveller who affirmed that
the use of carpets was hardly known among us.

LETTER XIII.

French Manufactures.--Sevres China.--Tapestry of the Gobelins.--Paper
for Hangings.--The Savonnerie.--French Carpets.--American Carpets.
--Transfer of old Pictures from Wood to Canvass.--Coronation Coach.
--The Arts in France--in America.--American Prejudice.

To JAMES E. DE KAY, ESQUIRE.

In my last, I gave you a few examples of the instances in which the
French have mistaken the relative civilization of their country and
America, and I shall now give you some in which we have fallen into the