190 LIFE OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 



ficulty, and labor will not command bread. This period 

 appears however to be far off in this country, and should 

 any of your children or friends choose it for their home, I 

 think they have fair prospects of peace, competency, and 

 security. Mr. Stewart's view of. this country is generally 

 candid, manly, and correct ; his errors are not often im 

 portant, and are always, I believe, unintended. Mrs. Trol- 

 lope hit us in many points, where we do indeed deserve to 

 be lashed, and I think that she has done us some good ; 

 but she was after all much more of a satire upon the re 

 spectable gentlewomanhood of Britain, than her book was 

 upon this country. I mean that she would be still further 

 from being a fair representative of the highly estimable and 

 most respectable character of English women. I have often 

 thought that there might be serious advantage to English 

 families of moderate but still comfortable means by remov 

 ing to this country in which subsistence (fashion and folly 

 aside) is not dear, and the comforts of life are obtained 

 at a cheap rate, and even elegant and refined enjoyments 

 without a vast expense. 



FROM DR. MANTELL. 



LEWES, ENGLAND, October 3, 1833. 



LET me then thank you for your most valued communica 

 tion, which I shall place among my most precious treasures, 

 with the letters of my distinguished friends, now, alas, no 

 more ! with those of Davy, Cuvier, Clark, Parkinson, 

 Wollaston, Canning, &c. Long ere this, my book must 

 have reached you, for it was sent on the 24th of May, (and 

 as I am rather romantic,) I have often indulged in the sup 

 position that you were looking it over, and amused myself 

 with a guess at your opinion on my new creature, and on 

 the other osteological wonders there first described. I 

 candidly told you the volume was full of faults, and you 

 will have found it so. The only parts I am satisfied with are 

 the introductory remarks, the chapter on the Hylaeosauros, 



