The sketch book of Geoffrey Crayon esq Author:Washington Irving Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ENGLISH WRITERS AMERICA. "Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation , rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible... more » locks; methinks I see her as an eagle, mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her en- dazzled eyes at the fulfmid-day beam." Milton On The Liberty Op Ths Press. It is with feelings of deep regret that I observe the literary animosity daily growing up between England and America. Great curiosity has been awakened of late with respect to the United States, and the London press has teemed with volumes of travels through the Republic; but they seem intended to diffuse error rather than knowledge; and so successful have they been, that, notwithstanding the constant intercourse between the nations, there is no people concerning whom the great mass of the British public have less pure information, or entertain more numerous prejudices. English travellers are the best and the worst in the world. Where no motives of pride or interest intervene, uone can equal them for profound and philosophical views of society, or faithful and graphical descriptions of external objects; but when either the interest or reputation of their own country comes in collision with that of another, they go to the opposite extreme, and forget their usual probity and candour, in the indulgence of spleen, and an illiberal spirit of ridicule. Hence, their travels are more honest and accurate, the more remote the country described. I would place implicit confidence in an Englishman's description of the regions beyond the cataracts of the Nile: of unknown islands in the Yellow Sea; of the interior of India; or of any other tract which other travellers might be apt to picture out with the illusions of their fancies; but I would cautiously receive his ...« less