AMERICA AND ITS REALITIES.

America, its Realities and Resources: comprising important Details connected with the present Social, Political, Agricultural, Commercial, and Financial State of the Country, its Laws and Customs, together with a Review of the Policy of the United States that led to the War of 1812, and Peace of 1814, the Right of Search, the Texas and Oregon questions, The poet of life and manners who lived many &c. &c. By FRANCIS WYSE, ESQ. "Am- centuries ago—the Crabbe of the court of Auicus Plato, Amicus Socrates, sed magis gustus. who was low of stature, early greyamica veritas." 3 vols. cloth, 8vo. Lon-headed, fond of sunny weather, soon angry and don: Newby. 1846.

a more vivid, but a more accurate delineation of life in the new settlements, and in the slave states, than the reader of the latter will have, of life and its realities in the original states of the union. So much stronger is the habit of depicting from fancy, with a basis of truth and facts, than the power of describing from observation, when the medium is discolored by prejudice.

"Male verum examinat omnis Corruptus Judex."

Now one reason for the unjust and untrue portraitures so often given of America and Americans, is, that their authors are in a condition as prejudiced, and as unfavorable for giving an accurate delineation, as an epicure would be for discussing the virtues of temperance.

easily pleased, and who knew human nature well, after some eight or nine lustra had matured What is the reason that, of all countries in the his judgment, and added to it the discipline of world, the most difficult one of which to get an close and accurate observation, introduces his rusaccurate, a just, and candid account, is America? tic sage as summoning his auditors to listen, and That it is so is unquestionable. Did any one form their opinions of a certain important subever see a book on America, written by a Euro-ject "impransi ;" and he assigns as the reason pean, that came up to the American standard of what a good book on America should be? On the other hand, a large proportion of the British people have no standard at all on the subject; and accordingly, a great number of the works written to meet their taste, bear on the face of them the impress of caricature. It is true there is an incipient improvement in the character of the travellers; and of course in the spirit, and tone, and truthfulness of their observations. Men holding a certain position in society-scientific men, the Lyells and Fetherstonhaughs, who have travelled and reported; and again, those who have encountered, on public occasions scientific or religious, the distinguished Americans who have been wont recently to visit these countries, or who have maintained a correspondence with such men on the other side of the Atlantic - these have done much to disabuse the public mind, and to impart to it correct notions of men and things in America. Still, the impressions produced by preceding writers are far from being erased. This is especially the case with those created by writers of popular works of fiction; a class of authors so habituated to exag-ship with them as degrading to our kind. There gerate for effect, that they often unconsciously overstate, understate, and misstate what they wish their readers to regard as facts. We have no hesitation, for instance, in declaring that "Jonathan Jefferson Whitelaw" gives a much more trustworthy picture of the characters and scenes it professes to delineate, though avowedly a work of fiction, than the "Domestic Manners of the Americans," by the same author; and that the reader of the former will have not only

There is, no doubt, another reason, in the difficulty of the subject itself. America, from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, and from the lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, contains a most heterogeneous assemblage of men and things. It includes a very high degree of civilization and refinement, a large amount of wealth and luxury, a fair proportion of moral and religious excellence, and no ordinary share of scientific and intellectual attainment; - yet embracing a state of society closely bordering on the savage, with habitations, manners, and propensities almost such as are found in a state of nature, leading to exhibitions of ignorance, brutality, and crime, that tempt one to renounce alliance and kindred

are, besides, within the territorial region familiarly and popularly styled America-though, however immense in size, it is yet but a part of it--not only every religious denomination almost, to be met with in books, but many new varieties springing up daily with all the prolific fertility of a soil not under the usual checks of an old country, and the restraints of long-established and settled society; and yet the well-directed visitant will meet with piety the most sincere,