is quite enlivening. The ladies are often in their best dresses, generally in white, and seem to take pleasure in showing the utmost good humour and hilarity to the gentlemen who stop to chat with them. This custom has in it something of a patriarchal or oriental character, especially in Virginia, where a stranger who receives entertainment has to wait while the cakes are made and baked. Perhaps in no part of the domestic life of the Americans, is there any thing in which their sociability and amiability are more apparent than in their summer evening parties. How delightful it is to witness the general cheerfulness! To an Englishman it is very amusing to listen to the conversation of a party sitting outside of the door, and at the same time watch the motions of the fire-flies, whose phosphoric scintillations give the air a curious appearance.

CHAPTER VII.

SPIRIT OF CONVERSATION.

A STRANGER in America may soon perceive that conversation has not been much studied as an art. The Americans converse sensibly and rationally; but they appear to have no ambition to attract attention by clever, smart, or witty sayings, like the French, or by throwing a fictitious interest over common matters by sentimental refinement, like the Germans. Like a gently-flowing limpid brook, their conversation has no turbulence, but shows every thing at the bottom at a glance. That it is deficient in energy and animation, will from this at once be conceived. It produces a feeling akin to that experienced by every one who sits down to enjoy rest after fatigue. Now I am one of those, who admire in preference, a more spirit-stirring sensation. The vehemence of the Irish is more to my taste than the calmness of the Americans. During my stay amongst them, I met not with a single individual whose colloquial talents were such as I should denominate first-rate; though there were several whom I greatly admired for one or another good quality. A lawyer at Norfolk in Vir

ginia, to whom I had an introductory letter, showed an aptness of illustration very pleasing, and from a minute acquaintance with polite literature, was qualified to excel if he had been placed in the midst of a society of kindred minds. A clergyman in Philadelphia to whom also I had a letter, was more animated than most. He could keep the ball moving when once struck by another hand. A judge whom I met at Harrisburg was a good punster, and knew how to cause a smile by curious illustrations. He was attached to poetry, and could press allusions to it into his service so as to enliven discourse agreeably. But of all whom it was my fortune to hear, I give the first place to a man whom I met at a tavern at Providence in Rhode Island. He was neither learned nor witty, but had so great a share of pleasantry joined to so much ingenuity in argument, that he kept the whole company listening as if afraid to lose a syllable. I grappled with him once or twice, but he slipped from my grasp like an eel, instantly making two or three involutions in his own sophisms, before I could tell where he had escaped to. He was a Connecticut man, a circumstance which I mention, as the people of that state are regarded by the Virginians as deficient in fancy, and probably with considerable truth as compar

ed with themselves.

If conversation be better

practised in one State than another, I am inclined to think that that State is Virginia.

The colloquial topics introduced into American circles are too few. Politics engross too much attention: polite literature too little. The merits of the last new poem may be discussed; the beauties of a novel may be expatiated on; but if a person ventures to introduce higher subjects, he subjects himself to be branded for a pedant. In mixed companies, it is indeed proper and almost necessary, to exclude abstruse subjects; but when a select party of educated persons takes place, a wide and nearly boundless range may be suitably allowed. The question as to the next governor or president, how important soever to the community, is not the one best adapted for mental improvement or social delight. The ephemeral productions of the press, are commonly less interesting than those of permanent reputation. It may therefore be advantageous to society in America, when the fear of the imputation of pedantry, will no longer prevail to the exclusion of topics of more importance, requiring some intellectual exertion. Of course it must not be supposed, that such matters are now proscribed entirely. All that I wish to convey is, that it seems to be regarded as treason to

good behaviour, to descant on subjects in company, which may chance to be tedious or disagreeable to some of those present, and that this fastidiousness is injurious to the spirit of conversation, and tends to damp the ardour of the youthful mind. In a circle exclusively literary, the shackles are broken, and the spirit roams at large.

If

Of the scrupulosity used in promiscuous company, let me mention an instance or two, illustrative of what I have stated. We were on one occasion conversing in a desultory manner, when the French Revolution was alluded to. A A gentleman who sat next to me, whispered something about the Pursuits of Literature, as if fearful the ladies should condemn him for rudeness, for making reference to a book, which they might reasonably be supposed never to have seen. he had wished to call my attention to any doctrine in Helvetius or Malebranche, I should have approved his discretion; but I confess it seems scarcely consonant to proper respect for our company, to suppose that the mention of a work like the Pursuits of Literature, a work containing no elaborate disquisitions, should be regarded as displeasing. On another occasion, I was in a company consisting of more than a