indications of impatience so common in our House of Commons. This may reasonably be accounted for by supposing, that their average speeches are in themselves better; or more agreeably, by conjecturing that the American idea of excellence is put at a lower standard than our own. Both the talents, however, and behaviour of the members, seem worthy of the government, and of what America is, and may be. Their forms of business and debate nearly resemble those of our parliament; always excepting wigs and gowns, a piece of grave absurdity well omitted: for it is surely an odd conceit, to fancy the dignity of the first officers of states attached to, or supported by, large conglomerations of artificial hair. MOUNT VERNON. Crossing the Patowmac by a wooden bridge, a mile and a quarter in length, the toll of which is a dollar, I proceeded through Alexandria to Mount Vernon. Whatever is worth describing in the house or situation, has been many times described: having walked through the gardens, I requested the old German gardener, who acted as a Cicerone, to conduct me to the tomb of Washington: "Dere, go by dat path, and you will come to it," said he: I followed the path across the lawn, to the brow that overlooks the Patowmac, and passing a kind of cellar in the bank, which seemed to be an icehouse, continued my search, but to no effect:-I had already found it: this cellar-like hole in the bank, closed by an old wooden door, which had never been even painted, was the tomb of Washington, with not a rail, a stone, or even a laurel, "to flourish o'er his grave." I stood for a moment overpowered with astonishment and indignation:-Behold, says prejudice, the gratitude of republics! Behold, says reason, the gratitude of mankind! Had Washington served a czar of Russia, he might have shared, with Suwaroff, a Siberian exile; he lived and died honoured by the country he had saved; he is forgotten in the grave, because man is feebly excited by any but selfish motives; the enlightened selfishness of republicanism honoured its defender; but what form of polity has been discovered, in which gratitude survives the hope of future benefits? Party zeal raises monuments over its victims, to stimulate the survivors: vanity has not unfrequently urged the living to unite by such means, their perishable names with those of the immortal dead; but the mausoleum rises slowly to which neither interest nor vanity contributes. It is said that the federal city will finally receive the remains of its designer; but the dead can wait, and in the interim the matter was nearly cut short, by an attempt to steal the bones from their present receptacle, to carry them about for a show. The old door has since been kept padlocked. town, stately mansions, surrounded from top to bottom with broad verandas, and standing within little gardens full of orange-trees, palmettoes, and magnolias, are features which give Charleston an expression belonging rather to the South of Europe than to the Teutonic cities of the North. Perhaps taking into view its large black population and glowing temperature in January, it is not very unlike some of the cities on the Mediterranean coast of Africa. In other respects it is a noble monument of what human avarice can effect: its soil is a barren burning sand, with a river on either side overflowing into pestilential marshes, which exhale a contagion so pernicious as to render sleeping a single night within its influence, during the summer months, an experiment of the utmost hazard. Even the town is no place of refuge during the hottest part of the season: all the inhabitants who can afford it, then fly to a barren sand-bank in the harbour, called Sullivan's Island, containing one well and a few Palmettoes: here they dwell in miserable wooden tenements, trembling in every storm, lest (as very frequently happens) their hiding-places should be blown from over their heads, or deluged by an inundation of the sea. But what will not men do, and bear, for money? These pestilential marshes are found to produce good rice, and the adjacent alluvions cotton; true it is, no European frame could support the labour of cultivation, but Africa can furnish slaves, and thus, amid contagion and suffering, both of oppressors and oppressed, has Charleston become a wealthy city nay, a religious one too; to judge by the number of churches built, building, and to be built. I inquired the cause of what seemed to me an anomaly in the history of planters, and was informed, that this devotional access came on about the period of the French Revolution, in consequence of very severe alarm at the danger to which religion and social order were exposed. The Carolinians proceeded in consequence to amend their lives, not as a mere moralist might have imagined, by amending their slave code, by providing for the instruction, and paving the way for the total emancipation of the many thousands of their fellowcreatures, whom they held in stripes and bondage: this indeed would have been, to a certain extent, imitating the revolutionists themselves; they therefore took, not only an easier course, but one they had reason to think much more acceptable, because a more personal compliment, to the Deity whom they professed to serve; they built and frequented many churches, heard and read many sermons, and bought and sold their brethren as before. Charleston has a great reputation for hospitality, a virtue very generally conceded to the Ame.. ricans, even by those who are willing to deny them every other: in my judgment, their fame, in this respect, as much exceeds their deserving, as in most other cases it falls below it. Hospitality, in the true sense of the word, 2 M 2 means means that liberal entertainment which spreads a couch and table for the stranger, merely because he is a stranger: this was the hospitality of the ancients, and is still that of the Arabs, Tartars, and uncorrupted Indian tribes; it was also that of the Americans themselves in a less advanced state of society: Mr. Jefferson told me, that in his father's time it was no uncommon thing for gentlemen to post their servants on the main road, for the purpose of amicably waylaying and bring ing to their houses any travellers who might chance to pass: of such violence, not a particle is now to be apprehended, at least in the old States. While I was in the North, I was constantly told of the hospitality of the South: at Philadelphia I found it icebound; at Baltimore there was indeed a thaw, but at Washington the frost, probably from the congealing influence of politics, was harder than ever; the thermometer rose but little at Richmond, and, when I arrived at Charleston, I was entertained, not with its own hospitality, but with an eulogium upon that of Boston.I did not retrace my steps to put the matter to proof-The experience of an individual would not be very conclusive, were hospitality a discriminating virtue; but its essence is prodigality, and the name of stranger the only requisite passport to its favour. Of such hospitality the traveller will find nothing, except indeed his rank or character should be such as to give an eclat to his entertainers. The ordinary pilgrim must be content, if his letters of introduction procure him, as they certainly will, a courteous reception and a dinner: he will also find a ready and polite admission into general society; and this ought to satisfy him: as long as there are taverns open he has no claim, and every civility is a matter of grace. The human mind is, however, slow to discard an opinion it has once cherished: hospitality is still talked of, both by Americans and strangers, as if it were still alive. The free reciprocation of civilities betwixt citizens of different states, when connected by commercial or other ties, fosters the delusion: the New York merchant is liberally entertained at Charleston, and he of Charleston receives an adequate return of civilities at New York. This is not hospitality, but a mutual exchange, founded on mutual convenience. Let not, however, a change of customs be considered a reproach. Society has, in all countries, moved through the same gradations, and each stage of its progress has been marked by its appropriate virtues, crimes, and follies. Hospitality belongs to that period, which, in a certain point of view, is to be styled barbarous; and would become a super-human virtue, were it to survive the moment when it ceases to be as pleasing to the entertainer as ne cessary to his guest. It probably still lingers on the banks of the Mississippi; it will accompany the advanced guard of settlers down the shores of the Missouri; be driven from thence to the neighbourhood of the Columbia, and finally drowned in the Pacific. PERSIAN PERSIAN AMBASSADOR IN LONDON. (Morier's Persia.) As the Persian ambassador at tracted much interest in England, it may be gratifying to his friends, and not unacceptable to others, to receive some account of his residence in this country. His first surprise on reaching England, was at the caravanserais, for so, though no contrast can be greater, he called our hotels. We were lodged in a gay apartment at Plymouth, richly ornamented with looking-glasses, which are so esteemed in Persia, that they are held to be fitting for royal apartments only: and our dinners were served up with such quantities of plate, and of glass ware, as brought forth repeated expressions of surprise every time he was told that they were the common appendages of our caravanserais. The good folks of the inn, who like most people in England, look upon it as a matter of course that nothing can be too hot for Asiatics, so loaded the ambassador's bed with warm covering, that he had scarcely been in bed an hour, before he was obliged to get out of it; for having during all his life slept on nothing but a mattrass on the bare ground, he found the heat insupportable, and in this state he walked about the greatest part of the night, with all the people of the inn following him in procession, and unable to divine what could be his wishes. One of the public coaches was hired to convey his servants to London; and when four of them had got inside, having seated themselves cross-legged, they would not allow that there could be room for more, although the coach was calculated to take six. They armed themselves from head to foot with pistols, swords, and each a musket in his hand, as if they were about to make a journey in their own country; and thus encumbered, notwithstanding every assurance that nothing could happen to them, they got into the coach. His excellency himself greatly enjoyed the novelty of a carriage, and was delighted at the speed with which we travelled, particularly at night, when he perceived no diminution of it, although he was surprised that all this was done without a guide. We were met at two posts from London by two gentlemen of the foreign office, who greeted him on his arrival; but he grew very anxious as we proceeded, and seemed to be looking out for an Istakball, or a deputation headed by some man of distinction, which, after the manner of his own country, he expected would be sent to meet him. In vain we assured him that no disrespect was intended, and that our modes of doing honour to ambassadors were different from those of Persia: our excuses seemed only to grieve him the more; and although to a foreigner the interest of the road greatly increased as we approached the city, yet he requested to have both the glasses of the carriage drawn up, for he said that he did not understand the nature of such an entry, which appeared to him more like smuggling a bale of goods into a town, town, than the reception of a public envoy. As for three of his servants who followed us in a chaise behind, they had nearly suffocated themselves; for, by way of experiment, they had put up all the glasses, and then when they wished it could not put them down, so that they were quite exhausted for want of fresh air. He who had witnessed the manner in which our ambassadors had been received in Persia, particularly the levée en masse of the inhabitants who were sent out to meet him at every place where he stopt, was surprised to see the little notice that he himself in the same situation in England had attracted, and the total independence of all ranks of people. Although he found a fine house and a splendid establishment, ready to receive him in London, and although a fine collation was laid out upon the morning of his arrival, nothing could revive his spirits; so much had he been disappointed at the mode of his reception. His first object was to deliver his credentials to the king as soon as possible, because in Persia it is esteemed a slight if that ceremony be delayed. In this also he was disappointed, for on the first Wednesday, the usual levee day, his Majesty happened to be unwell, and consequently there was a delay of more than ten days before he could be presented. He bitterly lamented his fate, and daily affirmed, that for this he should lose his head on his return to Persia. When the day came, he was naturally anxious about the reception which he was to find he had formed : his ideas of our court from what he recollected of his own, where the king's person is held so sacred, that few have the privilege of approaching it. He had a private audience at the queen's house, and from the manner in which he expressed himself after it was over, it appeared that the respect which he had hitherto felt towards our monarch was diminished. There are many ceremonies exacted upon approaching the Shah of Persia. He is first seen at a great distance, he is approached with great caution, and with many profound inclinations of the body. In his immediate vicinity, the shoes are taken off, and none enters the room in which he himself is seated, without a special command from him. Here the Persian entered at once into the same room where his Majesty was standing. He made no inclination of the body, he did not even take his shoes off; and, what is more, he put his credentials into his majesty's own hands. He said, that he had expected to have seen our king seated on a throne at a distance, and that he could not have approached within many paces of him: his surprise then may be conceived, when, on entering a small room, he was taken to a person whom he took to be a capijee or porter, and was informed that this was the king of England. He said, that if any blame was imputed to him for not having delivered his credentials immediately on arrival, that all would be pardoned him, when he should assure the shah, that he was not desired to take off his shoes as he approached our |