Miss Martineau says, and very truly, "The Americans appear to me an eminently imaginative people." Indeed, it is only necessary to read the newspapers to be convinced it is the case. The hyperbole is their principal forte, but what is lying but imagination? and why do you find that a child of promising talent is so prone to lying? because it is the first effort of a strong imagination. Wit requires refinement, which the Americans have not; but they have excessive humour, although it is generally speaking coarse.
An American, talking of an ugly woman with a very large mouth, said to me, "Why, sir, when she yawns, you can see right down to her garters;" and another, speaking of his being very sea-sick, declared, "That he threw every thing up, down to his knee-pans."
If there required any p
