YANKEY IN LONDON. LETTER III. Prominent traits in the English character. My dear Chum, LONDON. ACCEPT my warmest thanks for the letters of introduction you presented me at parting, and for those transmitted me by the ship Union; and suffer me, through you, to make my grateful acknowledgments to Mr. G. for his very friendly proffer of making me known to some "excellent English friends."—I do assure you, very few of our countrymen have left in London such favourable impressions of the American character as that A gentleman. Indeed, all our United States' agents have done honour to our national diplomacy: among them Mr. K. and Mr. G. will be long distinguished; the former for the classical elegance of his bureau address, the latter for his commercial science and both for that dignified, polished demeanour which European gentlemen will hardly admit can be attained without the tour of that continent. I ought, in justice, to observe, that our present envoy is a gentleman highly esteemed for the suavity of his manners, and respected for his adherence to the commercial rights of his nation. I have not yet delivered Judge C.'s letter to him it is under a flying seal, and merely recommendatory. A man of letters, whose notice I am solicitous to retain, mentioned my name to him yesterday, and was surprised to find he did not know me; and, as this gentleman lives within the purlieus of court and etiquette, I shall suffer in his opinion if, as an American, I am not known to our minister. I must therefore deliver my letter, although, I assure you, with reluctance.Of forty-three letters of introduction, I have as yet delivered but three, and two of them related to pecuniary arrangements. I crossed the Atlantic to obtain health, and, now I am in London, I wish to form a correct opinion of this people. If I had delivered my letters and been introduced to people of rank, my observations would have been confined to them; for there is a wonderful and striking similarity in people of the same condition. By the aid of letters I might probably have gone the rounds of diplomatic dinners, or, possibly, been in company with ladies and lords, but it was not ladies and lords I wished to see. A man would form a very erroneous opinion of English diet, should he feast entirely on ortolans; no-he should eat the roast-beef, the mutton from the Downs, and the rump-steak. I wished to see Englishmen, and to form some correct estimate of their manners, habits, and character, and this can be better attained by mingling, unnoticed in the crowd. I wish to be considered, and to consider myself, as Addison humorously describes himself in his spectatorial character, "as the dumb gen"tleman whom nobody minds." O, that I possessed the inky cloak of Fortunatus, that I might pass invisibly through this vast metropolis, and note, unobserved, this immense crowd, as various in character as in their motleyed ancestry. Besides, I had another reason for omitting to deliver my letters, which, perhaps, you will say is a weak, and I am sure you may say is a vain one. I found I could acquire, if not friends, very valuable acquaintance, without them, and an acquaintance acquired by accidental converse with persons of merit, flatters our self-love. We think we cannot be greatly mistaken, in estimating our own worth, when we break over all those outworks of etiquette with |