Martinsburg Gazette And Public Advertiser

[From the London New Monthly Magazine.]

CHARACTER OF THE REAL YANKEES.

They are the Scotch of America—

Like the Scotch, they are outwardly cold, severe and selfish; inwardly, true, steady, and about as warm as people who are brought up to be "just before they are generous," ever are. Like the Scotch, too, they are shrewd, sensible, inquisitive; sincere, frugal and hard working. Like the Scotch, too, they are an educated people—educated as a people, in the substantial parts of education, to such a degree as to fit them for all the common duties of life. And like the Scotch, they are grave, moral and religious, to a proverb.

As a people, they have more political knowledge, (because they have more need of it, having so much political power,) and more newspaper knowledge, than perhaps any people on earth, not excepting the English themselves who have more than the Scotch. As a people, too, they speak better English, odd as it may appear, and laughed at as they are for saying so, than any other body of people existing on our earth. Still however, as a people, they are neither statesmen, scholars, speakers or writers and their every day language is so altered here by a puritanical tone, there by the rapidity and vivacity of their articulation which is like that of one who is about to be overbid or overreached in a bargain, as to appear like bad English. There is not a man of their whole number so ignorant, as the multitude of Europe: hardly a man, you would be willing to put among the boors, the rustics the peasantry, or the provincial of three-fourths of Europe; but, then, they do not abound in very superior men—they have but here and there one who would be qualified for companion-ship with the first men of Europe. More they will have; but just now their chief men are but solitary stars in the great sky of their country.

They have all the Scotch hardihood, the Scotch probity, and a good share of the Scotch forbearance, or submissiveness, which they call resignation up to the point where submission is no longer profitable, but nothing of the Sir Archy or the Macsycophant—sketches, by the way, which we hold to be a caricature of individuals, not of a nation—a caricature, not of the Scotch people, but of Scotch men. The Yankees are, to a proverb, a "moral and religious people."

They are obstinate, persevering, and old fashioned in all their ways of thinking and acting; frugal, yet prone to a sort of old English hospitality. They are capable of any thing, if prepared early; but in general are deficient in warmth, refinement, enthusiasm, delicacy and fine peculiarity of temper. They are chiefly remarkable abroad for their great good sense, their industry, their plain dealing, their equitable temper, their perseverance, their sound practical morality, cool courage, and variety of resource after the overthrow of any hope whatever. The true Yankee is never discouraged.

Of him, as of the Scotchman, if caught young, much may be made; any thing, indeed, but a very fashionable man, or that which is indeed a gentleman, just now. The native New Englander, or the genuine Yankee, is unteachable so far the art, in a word, of trifling gracefully, every where, at all times, in all places, with an air which nothing can discompose, and a look which it were in vain to describe.

The New Englander is not sufficiently tall, or, when tall enough, is too broad over the shoulders, too stiff, and much too sturdy, ever to acquire the proper undulation for a ball-room or a drawing-room. His carriage every where is that of one who would be out of place in the world of high fashion, who could not breathe freely in the atmosphere of courts: and if he should happen to get there, he is apt to become too wise and much too thoughtful for the occasion; sure to behave like one who, at the same time is too awkward and too conscientious for the people about him, too grave and too absurd for the elegant hypocrisies of high life.—He cannot look people in the face, bow, smile, squeeze their hands, and swear that he is glad to see them, while, in his heart, he is wishing them at the bottom of the red sea; nor, if you were to talk with him forever, such is the stupidity of the animal, would you be able to make him perceive that such behaviour is either expedient, or wise, or manly.

To give the character a decided shape, if you are on the look-out for a friend—a friend that will stick by you through good report and through evil report, so long as you are able to satisfy him whatever the world may say—a friend of few words, and of plain words, who will prove his friendship, whenever there is need of moral proof, as few other men would, though, to prove his impartiality, he would be sure to abuse you behind your back for that which he would forgive in another, and before your face, for that which he would approve were he not your friend: if you are on the look-out for friendship like this, and are willing to wait a year or two, or an age or two, as the case may be, until you deserve it: or if you have occasion for a hearty steadfast foe, one who will be sure to keep you at work, night and day, for the rest of your life, the genuine Yankee, the cold, upright, square-looking native New Englander is your man. So, too, if you are in search of a deep theologian, a severe critic, a profound lawyer, a general (for defending you,) a statesman, a mathematician, a husband, who, however much he may respect and love you in a serious way, will be sure to forget you are a woman every day in the week and every hour in the day, if you behave like a fool—nay, though you are not half his age, though you married for love, and are the mother of his one child: or, if you are in search of a wife, who will have her own way, however dear you may be to her, whenever she believes it her duty to have her own way—go to New England.