"To a stranger newly arrived from England, the absence of fresh complexions and of bright and cheerful faces among the male part of the creation is very striking. They are gaunt, sallow, cadaverous looking creatures; their general, far from prepossessing, appearance, in no way improved by the habit of wearing long, straight hair, combed entirely off the face, the bare throat, the never absent 'quid,' and that abominably nasty habit of constant expectoration."
And this trash is from one of the most reputable periodicals published in London—the one of all most especially addressed to gentlemen.
In the next number of his "Reminiscences" the author promises a sketch of the city of New-York, for which his authority will probably be Mrs. Trolloppe, Mr. Joseph Miller, and the last pick-pocket who went home to London.
The "Peace Congress," in which we have most faith—the only one that is likely to exert any very desirable influence, is that to assemble next year in Hyde Park. This will be a display of works rather than one of words; and apropos of its lingual character, which will show very conclusively that as yet "all the nations of the earth" are not "as one people," we find in The Leader this paragraph:
"The Exhibition of 1851, seems to promise a whole literature of its own. Journals are already established for the record of its proceedings. Useful information will be at a premium—unless there should happen to be a "glut;" while in the shape of translations and dialogue-books, every facility will be offered to foreigners. What a Babel it will be! How the English ear will be rasped by Slavonic and Teutonic gutturals, or distended by the breadth of Southern vowels. It will be a marvel if this incursion of barbarians do not very much affect the purity of our own tongue, and damage the tender susceptibility of the London ear, already so delicate that when an actor says—as it sometimes happens—"Donnar Elvirar is coming," the whole audience rises in a mass to protest against the outrages on taste. We are told the Athenians were also merciless critics in such matters. Nay, there is a famous anecdote perpetually cited as an illustration of Athenian delicacy in matters of pronunciation, that Theophrastus was known to be a foreigner even by a herbseller. People who wonder at every thing recorded of the Greeks, will regard us probably as reckless iconoclasts if we break that by a stone flung from common sense; but really, with the daily experience of Scotchmen and Irishmen before us, we must say the most wonderful part of the anecdote is, that it should have been recorded. Theophrastus came from Lesbos—if we remember rightly—and his pronunciation, therefore, naturally preserved some of the Lesbian flavor, as Carlyle's does that of Annandale. Would any critic compliment the cockney on delicacy of ear because it detects the accent of Carlyle, or Sheridan Knowles, to be other than its own true London accent? Yet, this is precisely what critics do with respect to the Athenians."
Milton, Burke, Mazzini, and Daniel Webster, present the most extraordinary examples of the harmonious and effective combination of political and literary genius, that have appeared in modern times. There have been and there are now many politicians who are eminent as authors: but these are preëminently great in both statesmanship and letters. Mazzini is now the chief apostle of republicanism in Europe, as Milton was in the time of the Protector. He devises and executes the schemes which promise advances of liberty and happiness, and he is equal to the defence with the pen of every thing he essays in affairs. "Young Italy," since it was put down by French bayonets, has had as little quarter from parasite writers as from patristic governors; but Mazzini has come to her defence with as vigorous a pen as that with which Milton vindicated the people of England against the hireling Salmasius, under similar circumstances. In another part of this number of the International, we have copied from the London Examiner a reviewal of Mazzini's work on the Italian revolution. We should be glad to see it criticised by Mr. Walsh also, or by Professor Bowen, in his North American Review.
Since Sir Francis Head went home from Canada, and finished the last edition of his "Bubbles" and "Travels," and the funny anathema of poor Mr. William Lyon Mackenzie, in the Times, he has been very quiet, except now and then, when he has given an explosive and amusing paper in the Quarterly. But now he has published a new book, on "The Defenceless State of Great Britain," in which, the Examiner says "he has made up for lost time." Says the critic, "It is calculated to rouse all the old women in the country. Such a fee-fa-fum of a book we never read. The Duke's letter to Sir John Burgoyne was nothing to it, and it beats even Lord Ellesmere hollow." The baronet thinks every thing portends a French invasion, and he advocates the largest "war footing."