CHAPTER II. PAGE SEC. I.-Infancy and Future of America-Age and Despair of Superabundant Population of Europe-Emigration SEC. II.-Popular Movement in France and England-Education of the Masses, 94 101 SEC. III.-Poetry of Vengeance and of Popular Wrath in Europe, 109 CHAPTER III. SEC. I.-Herman Melville and his Real Voyages, SEC. II.-Are Mr. Melville's Voyages Apocryphal ? SEC. III.-New Voyages of Melville-Of how, not having been CHAPTER IV. SEC. I.-Anglo-American Travellers, SEC. II.-English Travellers in America, . 127 147 153 SEC. III.-Judgment of English Travellers in America-Woman- SEC. IV. Politeness of the Democracy-" Yes, Sir"-Conversa- SEC. V.--English Exaggeration-Dialect-New Cities, . SEC. VI. Superstitious Regard for Public Opinion-The American CHAPTER V. SEC. I.-Joel Barlow, Dwight, Colton-Washington, a Heroic Poem 166 · 169 . 176 and Pierrepont-Women-Poets-Street and Halleck, 181 SEC. 1.-Comic Romance-Tom Stapleton-Puffer Hopkins-Re ply to Charles Dickens, 210 SEC. II.—Journals and Voyages-Workmen Poets-Archæologists, 214 CHAPTER VIII. SEC. I.-Private Manners of North America, 222 SEC. II.-History of Ahab Meldrum, the Korkonite, 236 249 250 SEC. II.-The Bee-Formation of an American Village, SEC. V. The Political System born of Tradition and Custom-Fe- SEC. VI.-Mechanism and Strategics of Parties, SEC. VII.-The Lowell Factory Girls-Boston-The Blacks . 269 274 282 SEC. VIII.—Activity of the Country-Conquest of Soil-Rapidity SEC. IX.-Scenes of Violence and Murder-Aunt Beck and her SEC. X.-The Questioner-Scene in a Stage-Coach-The English man, SEC. XI.-Women-Education of Children-Literary Progress, PAGE 293 296 304 € 306 IN 1630 there was seen in the harbor of Delft, in Holland, a little vessel of poor appearance and meanly equipped. It was called the May Flower. It was anchored in the harbor, waiting for its cargo and its passengers, the former very trifling, the latter a knot of poor enough fellows. The May-Flower sailed, carrying with her a dozen English Puritans, for the most part old, weary, mournful, in threadbare black coats, and fortified with their Calvinist Bibles, a provision of biscuit, and more or less ham. When they had crossed the Atlantic, these worthy people, who were seeking a peaceable spot where they might worship God in their own fashion, set to work to found colonies, which became Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. They had, as you know, to fight against much hardship. When their dust was mingled with the soil of America, there issued from it a magnificent Empire. They had brought with them something more powerful than credit, riches, or armies, they possessed Moral Force; they were depositories of that sacred spark from which empires are created; they had sincerity, belief, perseverance, courage. There is nothing to show that they were very clever or even well instructed; they certainly expected no great fortune, but their souls were strong. Suppose in their place, brave gentlemen of France or Spain, the most courtly lords of the Court of Charles I. or of Charles II.; they would not have held up three years against the savages, the bears and the ennui of the solitude. American society would not have been founded. Our Puritans believed; they knew how to wait, fight, suffer, and these are great qualities. Half a century later, Bayle sought an asylum in another city of that same Holland, refuge and workshop of revolutionary intellects during two hundred years. Bayle was certainly one of the rarest minds that can be cited, and if we were in search of a man to oppose to our Puritans, we could not find a better one. He lodged near the statue of Erasmus, and when, at night, he illumed his lamp, its sceptic light fell upon the bronze robe of his sceptic precursor. He was, throughout the whole of his laborious life, more brilliant, more active, more influential, than Erasmus himself. Yet after all, in what did he succeed? in furnishing Voltaire and Diderot with excellent epigrams. The Puritans had done better; they had deposed in the soil of America, the germ of a colossal empire. The power of faith and courage, even with genius, is in fecundity and grandeur, singularly greater than cleverness. Bayle, the charming thinker, " the |