Lynchburg Virginian

A Comparison.—In the late London Quarterly there is an article on the Table-Talk of Coleridge which preserves many of his occasional sayings and remarks, all indicative of a profound and brilliant mind, such as the world but rarely sees. The following, relative to the future prospects of America, is a just comparison upon the subject, and places the libellous caricatures of cockney travellers in their proper light.—N. Y. Com. Adv.

Basil Hall.—The possible destiny of the United States of America—as a Nation of a hundred millions of freemen—stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, living under the laws of Alfred, and speaking the language of Shakspeare and Milton—is an august conception. Why should we not wish to see it realized? America would then be England viewed through a solar microscope—Great Britain in a state of glorious magnification! How deeply to be lamented is the spirit of hostility and sneering which some of the popular books of travels have shown in treating of the Americans! They hate us, no doubt, just as brothers hate; but they respect the opinion of an Englishman concerning themselves ten times as much as that of a native of any other country on earth.—A very little humouring of the prejudices, and some courtesy of language on the part of Englishmen, would work wonders, even as it is, with the public mind of the Americans.

Captain Basil Hall's book is certainly very entertaining and instructive; but, in my judgment—his sentiments upon many points, and more especially his mode of expression, are unwise and uncharitable. After all, are not most of the things shown up with so much bitterness by him, mere national foibles, parallels to which every People has, and must of necessity have?