The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1853-07-28

| 10 saw about IL but when we nau goe W pii'
Forwards door on our way home, and had
fairly recovered self possession, we turned very
quietly to him. and asked" What do you
think of it," His manner had ten times the
force of his words, for he chose only to say
"That, sir, is the highest style of Virginia elo-
quence and, TO say the least, the very pest
example of it." Mr.. Forward bad been In
Congress every now and then for twenty years,
and was himself the finest public speaker IN
Pennsylvania. That's all.
Our own notion of the man keeps trying to
run out at our fingers ends but as we are no
authority at all in such matter, 1t is with
held We take leave to say however, that the
/ Southern men who talk contemptuously OF
Fred. Douglass" have some excuse, and we
do not even wish that the best of them should
ever suffer the consequences of an encounter
with him-that were more than they probably
deserve; but the Northern snobs, that know
better are perfectly aware that they are talk
ing such blasphemy as mediocrity can commit
against genius when they speak contemptu-
ousy Of him.
By the bye it is point which little expe-
rience with reasonable capacity puts beyond
a question, that these niggers, as class, beat
US all hollow in oratory in every case where
the parties are anywhere nearly equal in what
we call intellect and attainment That is
their advantage as race ; and any white man
of Anglo-Saxon bleod that does not know it.
will catch a defeat when he ventures on
trial.
This proposition, or the idea of it. was the
thing we aimed at when we commenced this
article and we make it the conclusion of our
remarks, as it is of our judgment in the prem
ises. r.
These authors have the art to make vice pleasing,
and damnation shne.-.JohH WSshy.
Some of the London correspondents Of the
New York papers, and that class of American
journals for which we are in no way RESPONSE
BILE, are zealously engaged in keeping Mr..
Thackeray's place warm among us. He is re-
ported as very enthusiastic in bis praises OF
Mrs. Stowe in giving less revolving view of
Slavery, and thinks that the Americans them
selves will not need the Duchess of Sutherland
TO teach them what is due to human nature,
black or white" He is about to give lecture
in London, descriptive of our country and its
institutions; and we conclude that he is coming
back again. He seems to have a mission" to
America, and we would not wonder much if
he should finally take "a location here. He
really has eminent advantages for such call
ing as be has chosen He is thoroughly versed
in that literature of the English humorists"
which no tolerabIy decent man or woman in
the United States is likely to know much about,
or to acknowledge if they do; and as it is gen.
orally at once obscene and obsolete, it affords
him rich and rare resources in the raw mate
rial of intellectual entertainments" 1t takes
some gypsum, charcoal, and other defeating
and anti-septic agents, to reduce it to mer-
charitable poudrette, and he has just the genius
for the manufacture. The morals of the lit
erature hitherto current in America reluctated |
the beastly coarseness of the purely English |
wits of the eighteenth century, and scarcely
anything could be fresher to us, unless Sodom
and Gomorrah were exhumed and thackerayed
Tor the service. This analyst of snobbery and |
wholesale dealer in its decisions has therefore, |
an exhaustless mine of unwrought wealth in the
British classics to work for his proper profit.
If there is any use in the thing, he is a most
useful man who rakes the novels and plays of
Fielding and brothers. for the jokes afoat in
hem, like cold victuals in a sewer. By no
manner of means let anything good be lost;
rent through our houses for the purpose Of fish
ng our food from such tide of feoulence with |
,ur own hands. We would entertain very se-
.ious doubts of ever getting nice clean place |
n the regard of any woman who could read |
Joseph Andrews" for instance, with the i'm
preston that it held the mirror up to nature
We read some of those things before we were
I'D enough to understand them, with, perhaps
heaven knows-but little injury. They were
hen about upon the level of our little wits in
plot, power, and all qualities of execution.
Since we have been capable of book with
any brains in it, we have been able to find
nothing in them to repay perusal, except their
unmitigated blackguardism. If that tribe Of
authors daguerreotyped current English char
acter and manners we have abundant reason
to be glad that our blood is Irish. II their
books were pitched below the truth OF tho life
around them, and they employed themselves in
distilling drenches to make drunk the lowest
instincts of human animslism, the censure they
deserve is dismslly deepened. The fact would
be enough the falsehood, if false, heaps up the
measure.
We had an eccentric uncle once who had
habit Of presenting toothbrush and New
Testament to the young men OF his acquaint-
ance. He never explained the hint and we
will not undertake 10 say exactly what he
meant by it; but, it strikes us they would be
the very things to convey the moral and mean
ing of our resolutions of thanks to a lecturer
on the English humorists Of the 18th century,
after he had done, finished, and quit the endeav-
or to introduce them to good society in America
P.S. We are glad there is nothing partc-
ularly revolving to Mr.. Thackeray in American
Slavery His operations down South will be
the more agreeable to him when he returns
f.
EXPECTATION OF LiFE.'-It is well for the
babies in the city of New York that they don't
entertain any. or 564 deaths in that city last
week, $40 were under one year old. 1t is usual
enough for half the deaths to be under five
years; but two-thirds under year is shocking
Steamboat and railroad accidents are nothing