In the preface, the conjugial authors enumerate several advantages which they enjoyed for writing a good book on America. Travelling in the suite of Kossuth, as the guest of the nation, they had unusual facilities for becoming acquainted with the policy and society of the New World. They met nearly all the leading men of the country in friendly relations; and in their own capacity as foreign lions of undoubted authenticity, were made sharers of the admiration and confidence which Brother Jonathan is apt to accord in profuse measure to celebrated visitors from beyond the sea. For themselves, they were determined to be clothed with. candor as with a garment in their progress through the United States. Without using rose-colored tints exclusively in finishing their pictures, they throw the Yankee peculiarities into the shade, and never yield to the temptation of painting a popular caricature. Their liberality is so rare, so truly catholic, that they were not even shocked at seeing young America pour his egg into a glass at breakfast. They had not even the laudable curiosity to inquire whether the canonical practice of eating lamb with mint sauce, roast beef with Yorkshire pudding, and rhubarb pie with Devonshire cream, had survived the Declaration of Independence; and as to the universal devotion to the fragrant leaf, they had come from too notoriously a smoking people to receive any injury to their nerves from the practice of its rites. Their first impression of America was gained on their arrival at Staten Island. They were received with open arms by the hospitable family of Dr. Doane. Sofas and rockingchairs, carpets and crackling wood fires, gave them a cheering welcome after their chilly voyage. The baby, with wide open eyes, was kept up till three o'clock in the morning, on occasion of the unusual advent. Even the cook, the nurse, and the housemaid were on hand to express their sympathy. Major Hagedorn and his militia awoke the weary voyagers before sunrise of a winter's morning with a thundering cannonade. Breakfast was dispatched with inconceivable American rapidity, and shouts, drums, and trumpets called the party to the balcony. The militia had come to salute Kossuth; visitors soon began to pour in; among them Kagegahgabow, the great Ojibbeway chief, in "an ungraceful dresscoat of civilization," awakened the most interest. Then the Hungarians were dragged out to a large tent, half a mile off, to a public reception by the citizens of Staten Island. The crowd was terrific, but it was kept in awe by the dignified de portment of Kossuth. The anxiety not to lose one accent or one glimpse, established a silence and order which the valiant Chief Matsell, and his whole posse of police, would have been unable to achieve. Only a little ragged urchin would now and then pop up from a corner and take his stand on the platform with a truly democratic determination. One of them planted himself on Mrs. Pulszky's foot, which no words could make him understand was not a stool, and the only concession which she could obtain from the unwashed barbarian was to transfer him from the right foot to the left. The ceremony was at length brought to an end by the sturdy melody of Yankee Doodle. Again the procession took up the line of march, carrying their guests all round the island. The fair observer was much struck with the architecture. Here was an Italian villa, with an oriental veranda-there a Byzantine façade, with a pointed Gothic steeple, a wooden house, with heavy ornaments, on the hill-in the valley a Swiss cottage, with two lions or tigers, or something between both, a fierce quadruped of the artist's own creation, guarding the door-posts. This motley style, we are told, has been introduced from England; Regent Street and Trafalgar Square, in that respect, being unsurpassed all over the world. The next day was the reception in New York. Providentially carried through its perils, the hospitable Irving House presents the exiles with a grateful asylum. Mrs. Pulszky looks on the black waiters at table with admiring eyes. She noticed with great interest their shining black faces, and their visual orbs rolling with a most jolly expression of self-satisfac tion. One of them especially attracted her attention, with his hair plastered straight up before, and trimmed with as much care as the beard of King Shalmanassar, in the British Museum. On Sunday the party attend St. Bartholomew Church. The sermon was dogmatical, and did not calm the mind or bedew the feelings. They then went to the house of Mayor Kingsland, and enjoyed a quiet Sabbath in his "amiable family circle." Mrs Kingsland, "a mother of nine children, is one of those who, by youthful appearance, deny the prejudice that the bloom of American ladies is but short." The New York ladies appear very extravagant to the sharpeyed visitor. She hardly met one lady in Broadway without light-colored rich silks, such as in Paris are seen only at evening parties. They wear plumed bonnets, with which they would look much better in elegant coaches along the alleys of a park, than among the pedestrians of the dusty pavement in New York. The houses of New York are not so much like bird-cages as in London. The drawing-rooms, library, and dining-rooms, though spacious, are often on the same floor, whilst the bedrooms and nurseries alone occupy the upper stories. But the children are not confined to the nurseries. They rome through the house, "up stairs and down stairs, and in my lady's chamber." They circulate freely like little birds, not confined in cages, fluttering all over an ample hot-house. Thus the mother has them constantly under her eye, though not under her control. They have their. own way-they run in and out— climb up and down just as they please-and play the mischief with books, and cushions, and chairs. Mrs. Pulszky is by no means troubled with an excess of secretiveness. She gives her impressions of persons as well as things with the most edifying frankness. On meeting with Washington Irving, at a pleasant dinner party, she was surprised to see a "gentleman on whose lofty brow years have impressed their traces," and to hear that he was the man whom her "imagination had endowed with the unwithering vigor of youth, like Goethe, whose Jupiter frame was not bent by age." She had fancied that the author of the "SketchBook," and "of the radiant pictures of the Alhambra, must remain always young." But when she came to listen to his full flow of cheerful talk, she found that she had not been mistaken in her early impressions. "Washington Irving can as little grow old as his works-their covers may be worn out, but never their contents." She was especially struck with the expression of energy in the speaking of Henry Ward Beecher, as well as in his countenance, "which bears the stamp of the superiority acknowledged to distinguish the members of his family." Mr. Gordon Bennett conducts a paper with "surprising tact," but has an "instinctive aversion against every body whose motives are not those of money-making." Horace Greeley is armed with a club that knocks down his adversaries with rough blows." Mr. William H. Raymond, editor of the New York Daily Times, is "an amiable young man of prepossessing manners," and is probably "destined to serve his State and his country in many high positions." Mrs. Lucretia Mott has a face "artistically beautiful," and looks like "an antique cameo." Gov. Seward "fascinates even his political opponents, " 50 Contemporary Literature Portment of Kossuth. The anxiety not to lose ou Again the procession took up the line of me The next day was the reception in New Yo On Sunday the party attend St. Bartholome The New York ladies appear very extravag eyed visitor. She hardly met one lady in 1 light-colored rich silks, such as in Paris are s ing parties. They wear plumed bonnets, visit on which this volume is founded took place in 1849. Still it keeps pace with the intermediate progress of Spanish affairs, and may be regarded as an authentic contemporary view of the subject. The chapter devoted to the Spanish press is full of curious details. It is provided by the present Constitution, that the press shall suffer no restrictions, except those established by law. In spite of this guaranty, a succession of decrees has been issued by the Executive, without the shadow of legitimate authority, regulating the rights of the citizen, and the powers of the Government, in regard to the freedom of the press. Hence, when the author was in Madrid, it was not an infrequent occurrence for the whole edition of an opposition paper to be seized by the police, and in some instances, four or five different Journals in a single day. Nobody seemed to regard this process with surprise; nor did it diminish the boldness of the suffering parties in the promulgation of their opinions. The press of Madrid is not more remarkable than its English or French contemporaries, for its knowledge of American affairs. Its blunders, however, are generally more laughable than serious. In announcing, for instance, the result of the protracted ballot for Speaker, in the House of Representatives, in 1849, one of the leading journals informs its docile readers, to the great amusement of the American residents, that, "in the United States, the Presidency of the Chamber of Deputies was in dispute, between Messrs. Wintrop, Vhig; Mr. Crobbe, Radical; and Mr. Scaltering of the third party." The same paper shortly after proclaimed the astounding intelligence, that, "there was such a frightful degree of misery prevailing in California, that the crews of American ships of war were deserting daily, throwing their officers overboard, before they left." Still such grotesque errors of penny-a-liners probably occupies less space in the journals of Madrid, than in those of most other countries. The political department is usually served with signal ability. The prominent articles are often written by men of eminent position for literature, learning, and statesmanship. Great improvement has taken place in journalism within the last thirty years. When Slidell Mackenzie was in Madrid, in 1826, to write his "Year in Spain," he found but two papers-a daily, containing all the commercial intelligenee of the Spanish capital, to wit, the names of the saints of the day, with those of the churches where there would be masses, advertisements of Bayonne hams and Flanders butter, with the names and residences of wet-nurses, fresh from the Asturias; and a |